Hot off the press! Today Google announced a fundamental change in the way they display local listings. Called Google Place Search, it’s set to dramatically increase the importance of small businesses having a well-optimized Google Places listing.
Here’s how the new service works:
When you type in a general search like ‘IT support’, Google will continue to [...]

In a study released today, Forrester Research recommends marketers should stay away from location-based services like Foursquare.
The reason? As reported by Ad Age, after finding that only 4% of U.S. Adults have ever used location-based services, Forrester’s study also revealed that:
Almost 80% of location-based service users are male. Close to 70% of them are between [...]

On Thursday, Robert Scoble posted a blog about two new services that illustrate the direction the local internet marketing world is headed.
Dealmap and Goby are both taking the social out of local internet marketing. In its place, they’re providing something of much more tangible value to the user.
Goby helps its users find things to do [...]

When you think about it, social media is just an organized extension of the way the web has worked since the beginning. You would see something you liked, then copy and paste it into an email and send it to your friends. Services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. just automate the process for you.
It’s really [...]

One of the things I stress with local businesses I am working with is that online marketing isn’t the only way to generate leads, as many search marketing consultants would have them believe.  In many cases, direct mail will work better than online campaigns, and in all cases where it is affordable, I recommend an [...]

We’ve mentioned David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors article before – it’s a crucial guide to the ins and outs of how Google (in particular) determines where in the Google Places results a local listing will show up.
Each year David Mihm surveys a number of top SEO practitioners regarding the local listing results they’ve seen, [...]

We’ve spoken a lot about how Twitter is a great medium to build relationships with your customers and prospects…but Twitter can also be an effective tool for generating local leads.
As Jonathan Volk points out, you can even automate the process. By feeding various articles to a locally-targeted Twitter feed, you can direct prospects to a [...]

If you’re in any way social media-savvy, you’ve probably encountered Yelp before. (If you haven’t, it’s one of the leading review sites on the web. Users can post reviews of various businesses and interact with people who post other reviews. If you’re working with a B2C company and they’re not on Yelp, drop what you’re [...]

You may not have really noticed it – or at least didn’t recognize it’s impact from a marketing perspective, but some changes rolled out in the last week by Facebook will have a big impact on the local online marketing universe.
Facebook is essentially becoming “the internet” for a lot of users, similar (and yet totally [...]

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Today, Google announced a rebranding of one of its key features: the former Local Business Center is now known simply as Google Places.
One out of every 5 searches is location-based, so naturally Google wants to find ways to improve their local search results and make money off of the space, too. For that reason, along with [...]

According to a recent study by digital marketing company Network Solutions and the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, small business are adopting social media at a rapid pace.
The study reported that social media usage amongst businesses of fewer than 100 employees increased to 24%, up from 12% a year earlier.
I see [...]