Local Business Blog

Major Offender #1 of Google Business Name Spam: Theravive In 2017, two major stories in Local SEO are Mike Blumenthal’s research into Fake Review networks and Spammy Business Names. While Google is apparently working on these issues, changes are too slow to arrive. It still pays to cheat on Google and that’s not a good thing for anyone. […]

The Truth About Search Engines Today The above image shows website traffic from one of our clients for this past week. When I work with small business owners, I often politely use the phrase “Search Engines” when talking about website rankings and potential visitors “from search”. This is politically correct, of course, because there are […]

The Latest News for Local SEO in 2017 Last month Jack Jostes attended the MOZCON Local conference where all the latest Local SEO information was shared and discussed. Oh how I wanted to be there too! Jack took over 40 pages of notes which he distilled down to a 40 minute video for the team at […]

Adding Photos to Your Google Business Listing Google LOVES images. Our experience is that Google My Business listings with more photos perform better (conversions) and may in fact achieve better rankings than those with few photos. These conclusions seem be supported by Google’s new enthusiasm for photos. Yet, for small business owners, this can be a […]

A Negative Review Can Be Good for Your Business! Did you just get a negative review? Don’t Fret! Here are 3 reasons why: #1 Research has shown that people don’t trust businesses with only 5-Star reviews.  Having an average of 4.5 – 4.7 out of 5.0 stars is the sweet spot. This is more reflective of […]

5 Reasons Why You Should Love Yelp I talk to many business owners who are flat-out afraid of Yelp. They don’t even want their business listed on Yelp. Is that you? This blog post is for you! Forget all the horror stories and fear mongering of Yelp’s past. Yelp has grown up and plays a […]