The Latest on Local Search Optimisation

Twitter Places: What Purpose Does It Serve?

by Mark on July 5th, 2010 in E-Commerce, Local Search Optimisation, Online Retail

If you’ve been following the tech-news reel in recent weeks, you probably would have heard of Twitter’s new endeavour into geo-targeted search. It’s new, it’s fresh and it’s exciting – but what purpose does it serve?

Read More 1 Comment – Join the discussion

Google Continues With Its Personalised Push

by juan on June 10th, 2010 in Local Search Optimisation, Newsletter, Search Engine Optimisation

In monitoring Google’s activity over the 2009-2010 periods, we’re beginning to see a stronger push towards the personalisation of all search results. Google has deployed a multitude of tactics in order to make the user’s experience more ‘personable’ and much more wholesome. Conventional search engine ranking methods have undertaken another metamorphosis in the past two years in conjunction with the search engine’s people-friendly evolution…

Read More 2 Comments – Join the discussion

Customer Reviews: Why They Matter

by juan on June 10th, 2010 in Local Search Optimisation, Newsletter, Online Retail

Customer reviews are powerful sellers, so it’s understandable that they would be one of the most sought after strategies to online retailers and business owners. Trust is an issue on the web, and customer reviews are a way of filling that void with reassurance – bridging this gap could very well mean the difference in achieving an online conversion, a customer enquiry or a transaction.

Read More Start the discussion

Local Search: Upping the Quality Score

by Mark on April 27th, 2010 in E-Commerce, Local Search Optimisation, Online Retail

I picked up a nice little piece of information online, taken from the primary source of SMX West 2010. This information was derived directly from the seminar entitled “ranking factors for local search” and has been collated in a very well written piece by author Chris Silver Smith. In short, during the conference there were 10 elements outlined that can attribute to good quality scores and local search rankings.

Read More 3 Comments – Join the discussion

Google Places: Bye-Bye Google LBC

by Mark on April 20th, 2010 in Local Search Optimisation

Now here’s an interesting development, Google Local Business Center has undergone a bit of a re-branding, now marketing itself as “Google Places”. I’ve gotta say, the name definitely rolls off the tongue a lot better. It would be interesting to [...]

Read More Start the discussion

The Death of the Online Directory?

by Mark on March 18th, 2010 in Local Search Optimisation

Google expands its reach as it announced this week that they plan to monetize their local business center with maps search results to include branded corporate logos. I’ve already covered this topic in a bit more detail here, but what I’m pointing out is that we’re beginning to see trends emerging as Google shifts towards favouring local search. Google has always been stringent on keeping web content relevant, but their advance on local search is now so sophisticated that it could potentially wipe out the good ‘ol fashioned web directory.

Read More 2 Comments – Join the discussion