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The gang at Search and Social have launched what I think will be annual awards for the best blogs/sites in the online marketing industry. And I’m quite honored to be one of a handful of nominees in the Best Local Search Blog category. Frankly, if I were you, I’d vote for Mike Blumenthal’s blog — no one devotes more time and energy to local blogging than Mike. You can vote here in the Local Search category (and a couple dozen others). This is similar to the annual awards that Search Engine Journal used to run. They’re different from the SEMMYS (which I created) because the Search & Social Awards are for blogs/sites, while the SEMMYS are for individual articles/pieces of content. They complement each other well, I think. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Nominated for a Search & Social Award Related posts: “It’s an honor just to be nominated…” Introducing: The SEMMYS SEMMYS: Last Day to Vote

Google’s Local Business Center is undergoing a round of changes tonight, including a name change. Forget the “Local Business Center” name; it’s now called Google Places and can be accessed at google.com/places . (Actually, the old URLs you’ve used before will still work.) But that’s just the most basic of all the changes Google has just announced. Here’s a look at what else is new under the hood at Google’s Local Business Center Places: Services Areas/Locations: The tool I wrote about last month is now official. It lets local businesses without a storefront or office use Google Places by defining a local coverage area while not revealing a physical address. Flat-rate Ads – “Tags”: I think Google has been calling these “enhanced listings” for the last couple months. They’re now called Tags . For $25/month, local businesses can add a link to photos, videos, their web site or other content and it shows up right in the business listings. They’ve been available in Houston and San Jose, and now they’re also available in Austin, Atlanta, and Washington, DC. Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, and San Francisco will be added soon. A Google spokesperson tells me they don’t know yet about larger rollouts beyond those cities. Interior Business Photos: This sounds similar to what Search Engine Land covered a couple months ago. Basically, Google is going to contract with local photographers to take photos of the interior of businesses and add those photos to Google Places. This will be free for the business owner. Local businesses can put in a request here . Will the business be able to pick and choose which photos get used? The FAQ says yes: “Google will use a representative sample of photos from different locations within your business, including a picture of your business from the outside. However, if you’re not happy with them, you can upload different photos of your own through Google Places.” A Google spokesperson wouldn’t say how much the local photographers are being paid. This service is only available now in select cities in the U.S., Australia, and Japan. QR Codes for All: All businesses registered with Google Places can access a unique QR code and use it as they see fit. More Favorite Places: Another 50,000 or so local businesses in the US will be getting those Favorite Places decals . Local Dashboard in More Countries: The Google Places dashboard is now available in the following countries: Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Thailand, and China. Interesting Local Stats Google has also shared some interesting local stats as part of this announcement: 20% of searches on Google are “related to location” There are 50 million place pages More than four million business listings have been claimed on Google, and almost two million of those are in the U.S. On that 20% number above, Google tells me that it includes searches with local intent that don’t have a geographic modifier, like “dry cleaners,” for example. Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us ! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . New Features, New Name for Google’s Local Business Center Related posts: Yahoo Local Adds New Features Google Allows Bulk Uploads for Local Business Listings Google Local Business Referrals is Shutting Down

If you do a lot of keyword research — especially for PPC — you might want to check out a new tool called BulkWords . It combines a keyword suggestion tool and a keyword list generator into one interface that’s easy to use, not to mention easy on the eyes. There are three parts that make up the tool: Keyword suggestions from Google . This functions pretty similarly to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool . It shows search volume numbers from the Google tool (although some of the “last month” numbers were different in my testing from what Google shows). List builder . This is where you start building keyword lists either by drag-and-drop from the suggestions above, or by typing in your own keywords. Keyword lists . After you’re done building keywords, the green button compiles them into lists that can be exported for use on Google, Bing, or Yahoo. BulkWords is free to use. You don’t need an account unless you want to save your lists for future use. It’s been created by a Dutch company called RevenApps. They’ve also made this short video that shows how it works. BulkWords, a webapp by RevenApps from revenapps on Vimeo . Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . BulkWords: Keyword Suggestion & List Generator Tool Related posts: Andy: Yahoo Keyword Tool “on Life Support” Keywordfinder: New & Different Keyword Research Tool Yahoo Buzzlog: The Most Underrated Keyword Tool

For those of you who are new SBSM readers & subscribers, here’s a list of noteworthy posts you probably missed from one year ago. I try to put together a post like this each month to introduce new readers to old content that might be worth reading. It’s Official: Phone books should be recycled More Local Results = Google Maps FTW Google Autofills Photos & Videos in Local Business Profiles Creative Small Business Marketing, Episode 3 Free Tips for Merchant Circle about Customer Service Insider Pages Takes a Stab at Stopping Hijacking Previous Flashbacks SBS Flashback: March 2009 SBS Flashback: February 2009 SBS Flashback: January 2009 SBS Flashback: December 2008 SBS Flashback: November 2008 SBS Flashback: October 2008 SBS Flashback: September 2008 SBS Flashback: August 2008 SBS Flashback: July 2008 SBS Flashback: June 2008 SBS Flashback: May 2008 SBS Flashback: April 2008 SBS Flashback: March 2008 SBS Flashback: February 2008 SBS Flashback: January 2008 SBS Flashback: December 2007 SBS Flashback: November 2007 SBS Flashback: October 2007 SBS Flashback: September 2007 SBS Flashback: August 2007 SBS Flashback: July 2007 SBS Flashback: June 2007 SBS Flashback: May 2007 SBS Flashback: April 2007 SBS Flashback: March 2007 SBS Flashback: February 2007 SBS Flashback: January 2007 SBS Flashback: December 2006 SBS Flashback: November 2006 SBS Flashback: October 2006 SBS Flashback: September 2006 SBS Flashback: August 2006 SBS Flashback: July 2006 SBS Flashback: June 2006 SBS Flashback: May 2006 Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . SBS Flashback: April 2009 Related posts: SBS Flashback: February 2009 SBS Flashback: January 2009 SBS Flashback: March 2009

Yelp is sending out emails inviting small business owners to apply for a spot on its new, Yelp Small Business Advisory Council (YSBAC) — the group that Yelp announced last week in the small print of its bigger announcement about the end of Featured Reviews as an advertising feature. A small business owner forwarded me the email today, and it reveals more about what the advisory council is and how it’ll work. This was presumably one of hundreds or thousands of similar emails sent out to small business owners with Yelp accounts. Here’s the text of the email: Yelp was founded in 2004 to help people connect with great local businesses. Just over 5 years later, we are thrilled that millions of people use the site every month to do just that. We also recognize that there is always room for improvement. Last week, we announced the creation of the Yelp Small Business Advisory Council (YSBAC), a formalized organization of business owners who will provide Yelp management with guidance and perspective regarding the concerns of small business owners. YSBAC will be composed of 10 members representing diverse geographies and industries. The group will serve for an annual term. In addition to regular correspondence with Yelp’s executive team, the council will be relied upon to provide valuable input on changes to Yelp. We hope you’re as excited about this development as we are, and if you have some ideas for how Yelp can better serve the business community, we hope you’ll consider applying. Interesting in being a member of the council? Click here to submit an application . I’ve added the bolding there that explains how the council will work. And I’ve left the link in at the end, but only because it was tweeted earlier today by a well-known small business consultant/blogger. And yes, I submitted the application. Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us ! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Yelp Reveals Details of Small Business Advisory Council Related posts: Yelp Lets Me Add New Business Data

I get two or three emails per month like the one that came in this week from a small business owner named Akbar. His business is listed on a certain local search/directory site and, for reasons he didn’t explain in the email, he doesn’t want to be listed there. Could you please inform me on how to remove my business listing from a website called Citysearch. I do not pay Citysearch for advertising my small business and do not wish my listing and its associated reviews to be on their website. Akbar – the direct answer to your question is to check Citysearch’s web site to see if or how to get a listing removed, but there’s a chance you can’t. Why? Because the bigger issue here is that there’s an industry built around databases of business listings, and once you’ve created a business and registered a name, address, and phone number … it’s somewhat out of your control where that information shows up. To explain how local business listings work in more detail, I did a Q&A this week with Gib Olander, Director of Business Development for the business listing identity management company , Localeze. It’s brief and to the point, covering how and where local business listings spread across the web. Q&A with Gib Olander Matt: There are countless web sites that provide business listings, and in most cases, the business owner probably never even submitted their information to these sites. Where does the information come from? Gib: There’s a lot of fragmentation in the local search space. Just think about all the local search platforms, IYP sites, vertical sites, social sites, social games, mobile apps, navigation devices, etc., working to help people find local information — and each has to be able to answer every “recovery” search, so they need a complete index of business names. Today, most reports say that between 40% and 60% of businesses don’t have a web site, so companies like Localeze have to organize, normalize, validate and govern content collected from offline sources. Online local search business listings are generated by web site crawls, local advertisements, compiled by topical specialists, phone books, government filings, trade affiliations and organizations, telephony sources, VOIP, and possibly marketing lists , to name a few. The list is really endless. [emphasis is mine - Matt] What happens after a new business registers for a business license in its hometown and/or county/state? Data is registered with the state department, which makes it public for review. Companies with various business objectives have access to the data and a business listing can be born. For various reasons, SMBs sometimes don’t want to be listed on so many sites. Is there anything they can do in the beginning to limit where their business data spreads? Or is it a case of, once they’ve registered for a business license, the cat’s out of the bag and not coming back? Removing a listing entirely is rarely a good solution and isn’t necessarily the answer a local search application wants to offer, as they serve the needs of their users. Successfully answering recovery searches is table stakes for these applications to be able to attract, satisfy and grow their user base. Every time they suppress a valid and accurate local business listing they run the risk of not being able to answer a question asked of them by their user base. The better option is for the business owner to actively manage the content they want to share and be found. All business owners should take the time to create and manage a standard, accurate Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) that will act as an anchor for the rest of the content that gets created regarding their business across the web. With the idea of citations and a highly fragmented local search landscape, I can’t imagine why a business owner would not want their NAP to be available for their customers to find wherever those customers want to look. We always talk about where to get listed, but what about getting removed? Does Localeze support that, and do you know if others do? We do support removing business data, but cannot speak for other companies. There are many reasons to delete business listings for legitimate reasons, e.g., business closes, moves locations, changes ownership, has inaccurate information. All of these things can bring about the need to suppress an identity or let a new identity evolve. As a closing thought, we strongly believe the NAP is a business’s online identity — think of it as a fingerprint that holds the key to how a business is found and how people make buying decisions it’s as important to have right as the sign on the front of the building or name painted on the side of truck. By continually managing your NAP, the positive consequence is pervasive accuracy across the local search platform ecosystem. Final Thoughts To me, the key points here are: Local/mobile/social sites get business data from a lot of sources that are largely out of the business owner’s control. Trying to control what sites can and can’t list your business is very difficult, if not impossible. If you’re an active business and start removing business listings from various sites, you likely remove the ability for some customers to find you. Akbar, I realize this doesn’t exactly answer your question. But keep in mind that Citysearch (and other sites) can get your business data from a variety of sources and, if they remove your business listing, it negatively impacts their ability to serve their own users. That’s why removing business listings is often as difficult as it is. (photo courtesy of batega via Creative Commons ) Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . SBS Mailbag: How Do I Remove My Local Business Listing? Related posts: It’s 10:00 pm. Do you know who just changed your business listing? SMN Webcast Recap: Local Business Listings SBS Mailbag: Adding Your Business to Citysearch

It’s been exactly a month since I last posted a roundup of what’s been happening over on my other blog, Hyperlocal Blogger. Trust me, that’s pure coincidence. I’m not that organized about these roundups! But, there are a few posts over there you may want to check out if you’re not already reading the blog regularly. Here you go… 4 Tips for Small Businesses with Hyperlocal Blogs Manage Your Hyperlocal Blog with RustyBudget Defining Your Audience (a guest post from John Hawbaker) Boston-area Blogger Threatened by Town Officials Citizen Journalists Not Ready to Replace Traditional Media: Pew Report You’ll also find some good discussions in the comments on some of those posts, and please feel free to join in. Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Been to Hyperlocal Blogger Lately? Related posts: Recently on Hyperlocal Blogger Hyperlocal Blogger Roundup Meanwhile, over at Hyperlocal Blogger…

The dust has settled on the NCAA college basketball championship and that means our 4th annual SEO Madness pool is finished, too. Congrats goes out to this year’s winner: George Bounacos of Silver Beacon Marketing! As you can see from the final standings below, George was one of only two people to correctly pick Duke to win the title. You can also see that I somehow finished in the top five, but nobody remembers the losers, so I’ll pipe down now. This is George’s “shining moment.” Well done, George – we’ll see you back next year, I hope, trying to defend your title. Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us ! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Congrats to the 2010 SEO Madness winner Related posts: SEO Madness 2010 update College Hoops: SEO Madness 2010 is Here! Game On: March Madness contest for SEO/PPC folks

This is a smart move: Yelp announced tonight that advertisers will no longer be able to promote positive reviews to the “featured/favorite” status on their business pages. That should put an end to business owners who equate “advertise and you can promote a positive review” with “pay us and we’ll remove the negative reviews.” I suggested last month that Yelp had to do this in order to end SMB confusion and reduce the likelihood of lawsuits. Another change Yelp is making is to show all reviews it has for a business — including reviews that its algorithm filters from appearing on the business page. Another nice idea, but you have to be Inspector Clouseau to find the link on a business page that lets you see all the reviews. (Hint: It’s at the bottom of the page, below the reviews, in a small text link on the left side.) Sheesh, Yelp. What the …? I’ve written more on this over on Search Engine Land , and you might also check out the discussion on Techmeme . Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Yelp Kills ‘Featured Reviews’ Related posts: AT&T: Good Luck with Your Yelp Competitor Are Yahoo and Yelp Dating? Yelp is Growing Like Gangbusters

Marketing success is all about numbers. We measure what we do in terms of revenue (i.e., numbers) profit (more numbers) visits/pageviews (again, numbers) fans, followers, subscribers (more numbers) etc. But different numbers matter to different businesses. The key is to know which numbers matter to your business in your situation . One of my clients is building a wonderful, authoritative blog in her industry – full of great advice about the products and services she offers. We keep an eye on a lot of numbers related to the blog, but I pay almost zero attention to RSS subscribers . Why? Because the target audience is your “average consumer,” and those folks just aren’t using RSS. RSS Adoption Rates In late 2008, Forrester Research issued a report called What’s Holding RSS Back? , and the numbers were pretty grim: consumer RSS adoption was only 11% of the other 89% who don’t use RSS, only 17% were interested in starting to use RSS In response to that, Steve Rubel said : “Feeds are way way too geeky for most and the benefit does not outweigh the learning curve. So I think RSS has peaked.” I love RSS, but I agree. More recently, Michael Gray echoed the sentiment that RSS is something the tech crowd uses, and not many others. “…you need to have realistic goals. If your subject matter doesn’t heavily intersect or overlap with things techno-weenie’s are interested in, your RSS subscribers will be low.” Lisa Barone wrote a great article yesterday on Small Business Trends with tips for increasing blog subscribers, but for some small biz bloggers it’s just not gonna happen. I have a “Shopping Mall Test” that I like to use: Picture yourself standing outside the entrance to your local shopping mall. If you asked the first 100 people that walked in the mall on any given day, how many would know what RSS is? (or insert any technology) For me, the answer is “not many.” If Not RSS Subscribers, Then What? 1.) Email — While RSS is a mystery to so many Internet users, email isn’t. Be sure to offer email-based subscription options, too, and then promote the heck out of it on your blog . You need to almost constantly remind people that they can get email alert whenever you write a new post. (If you use Feedburner for your RSS feeds, it also offers an easy email subscription service; use that.) (Slight tangent: I wrote more about the need for mailing lists and email subscriptions on Hyperlocal Blogger: Four Reasons Why Your Local Blog Needs a Mailing List .) 2.) Other social media — For my client, her target audience may not use RSS, but they most certainly use Facebook and, to a lesser degree, Twitter. Those are more important tools to us than RSS subscriptions. 3.) Money — Ultimately, the only numbers that really matter are revenue and profit. If your web site is making 3x or 5x more money now than it was a year ago, that’s what counts. Your turn: Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on RSS subscriptions and the numbers that really matter? Comments are open. (photo courtesy lrargerich via Creative Commons) Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Sometimes, RSS Subscriber Counts Don’t Matter Related posts: RSS: Full feeds or partial feeds? Still Not Sure Consumer Reviews Matter?

During some of my recent speaking appearances (like at GetListed Local University ), I’ve bemoaned the fact that it’s tough for small business owners to manage their online reviews. Wouldn’t it be great, for example, if Google’s Local Business Center offered email alerts of any changes to your list of reviews? Well, that’s not exactly what MyReviewsPage.com does, but it does offer a pretty simple dashboard to help SMBs keep an eye on reviews across four sites (Google, Yahoo Local, Yelp, and Citysearch), as well as check-ins on Foursquare and Gowalla. It also offers a tool that SMBs can use to email customers with a request to leave reviews. And it’s free. The site is in beta and accepting requests for new accounts. There are also several videos available to show more about how the site works. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Manage your Online Reviews with MyReviewsPage.com Related posts: Restaurant Reviews: It’s a West Coast Thing

Here’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during March. If you’re new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the Link Roundups category archive. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps. Local Search Dev Basu/Powered by Search: The 20 Best Local SEO Citation Sources for The United States Mike Blumenthal: Principles for a Review Plan: Considerations in encouraging customer reviews Pamela Seiple/HubSpot: 10 Easy Ways to Supercharge Your Small Business’ Yelp Presence SEO Lee Odden/Online Marketing Blog: Common B2B SEO Mistakes and How to Solve Them Bill Slawski/SEO by the Sea: Good SEO Edward Lewis/SEOConsultants.com: SEO for PDFs – Optimizing PDF for Search Eric Enge/Stone Temple: Matt Cutts Interviewed by Eric Enge Rand Fishkin/SEOmoz: Pagination: Best Practices for SEO & User Experience PPC Dave Davis/RedFly: What Every Google AdWords Advertiser Should Know About Quality Score – The Ultimate QS Improvement Guide Blogs & Blogging Samir Balwani/Training Social: 10 Blog Ideas For Every Business Jonathan Fields: 7 Sneaky Ways to Write Irresistible Headlines Jim Cronin/Real Estate Tomato: How To Approach Real Estate Blogging And Ensure Your Success, Guaranteed Mark Hayward/Problogger: 9 Tips for Creating More Small Business Blogging Ideas Social Media Amber Naslund/Radian6: 10 Key Sales Metrics to Track Tamar Weinberg/Techipedia: How to Get an Influencer’s Attention Jared O’Toole/TwiTip: How to Get Ignored on Twitter Lee Odden/Online Marketing Blog: 11 Free Tools for Social Media Optimization Pamela Seiple/HubSpot: Restaurant Owner Increases Sales by 110% with Foursquare Swarm Badge Party Wordstream: The Experts’ Guide to Keyword Research for Social Media Jeremiah Owyang/Web Strategy: Roadmap: Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating Facebook, Google, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twitter Online Marketing/General Pat Sexton/SEOish: An In Depth Guide to Creating Small Websites That Rank Well Amanda Barth/Search Influence: E-mail Marketing for Small Business: 9 Things Not to Do Tim Ash/ClickZ: How Your Graphic Designer Is Killing Your Conversion Rate Tamar Weinberg/Techipedia: Advice for a New Internet Marketer (or How to Spot Internet Marketing Snake Oil) Rob Smith/Smashing Magazine: Handy Tools and Tips for E-Commerce Websites Rants Kim Krause-Berg/Cre8pc: My Response to an UnSolicited Letter from Yet Another SEO Rip-Off This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . March ‘10: Best Search/Marketing Posts Related posts: March ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts February ‘10: Best Search/Marketing Posts March ‘07: Best Search/Marketing Posts

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging to share a small announcement: I’m now offering consulting services in one- and two-hour blocks of time. I hope this is helpful for the business owner who doesn’t need (or can’t afford) a larger, more traditional marketing campaign. Here’s how it works: One-hour Consulting: This is a phone call in which we can look at your web site together, or you can ask me any questions you may have about SEO, local search, blogging, social media — pretty much anything but PPC/Adwords. While on the phone, I’ll do my best to give you specific, actionable recommendations to help you reach customers online. Cost: $250 (my regular hourly rate). Two-hour Consulting: This is the one I recommend because it includes me spending an hour reviewing your web site in advance and making a list of ideas, recommendations, questions, etc., prior to us spending the second hour on the phone. Cost: $450. Note: I’m on the west coast of the U.S. and won’t do calls prior to 8:00 am Pacific time. To learn more about these shorter consulting opportunities — and to purchase, too — please visit the Hire Me page Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Personal Note: 1- and 2-Hour Consulting Blocks Now Available No related posts.

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is down to the final four teams, and our “SEO Madness” contest is still up for grabs. Frankly, with all the upsets this year, the contest looks like a wasteland of poor prognostication … but someone has to win, so we march on. As we head towards Final Four weekend, here are the possible winners depending on what happens on the court: If Duke wins the title, George Bounacos wins our contest. If West Virginia wins, Ed Reese wins. If Butler beats West Virginia, Ed Reese wins. If Butler beats Duke, Julie V. wins. If Michigan State beats Duke, Julie V. wins. If Michigan State beats West Virginia, Ed Reese wins. There ya go. I’ll post the winner after next Monday night’s championship game. Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . SEO Madness 2010 update Related posts: March Madness SEO Pool Update March Madness SEO Contest goes Gonzo Game On: March Madness contest for SEO/PPC folks

Pre-edit: Google has contacted me to explain that this problem is NOT related to the new Service Areas feature that’s being tested. Please scroll down for a full explanation. If you’re a small business owner or a marketer with small business clients using Google Maps’ Local Business Center, a warning: Do not use the new tools for service- and home-based businesses yet. These are, in Google’s words, still “in testing” and may cause problems with your local business listing. (Again, this is wrong and an explanation is below.) They did to mine. Read on for pictures and a description of what happened. Shortly after I published this post today about the new LBC options, I tested them out by modifying my wife ’s business listing. She’s a real estate agent who works in a wider region than just the city indicated in her business listing. Within an hour , while checking to see if her listing was showing up for any new queries, I noticed that it had been merged with business info from another real estate agent’s listing : She’s always been in the top spot for “richland wa real estate agent,” but that’s not her web site and phone number. It should be www.carimcgee.com and (509) 430-5342 . Her name now links to someone else’s web site. Ugh. Worse, the data had also spread into Google Maps (as you’d expect). That’s the wrong phone number. And, it’s even worse on her place page , where the other agent’s name, phone numbers, and email address show up — along with some data and a photo from his listing. This is a complete cluster-you-know-what. Less than an hour ago, I changed the listing back to its original form — I undid the new option and re-checked “No, all customers come to the business location.” And now it’s a waiting game to see how soon — if at all — Google fixes this problem. And that’s not all! Via Twitter, I got this message from David Kyle, a search marketer in Charlotte, NC: The moral? Much like new products from Apple, where you never, ever buy the first version , I’ve learned to never, ever use a Google product while it’s still in testing. Don’t you make the same mistake I did today. Updates One: 18 minutes after publishing this post, and about an hour after changing her business listing back to normal, the listing has started to correct itself. (Or Google is fixing it manually?) See below — the URL is correct, but the phone number is still wrong. Two: Having seen this post, Google has looked into what went wrong here and sent me a statement saying it’s not related to the service areas tool : After some investigation, we’ve found that it’s not related to the service areas feature we released today. As you know, Google Maps creates listings by using algorithms to merge data from many sources. And we’re aware that this merging can be over-aggressive at times. It looks like that’s the entire cause of the problem here. In this case, there’s data in Local Business Center about two different real estate agents (one of them your wife) who share an address and have very similar business names. That data has been merged in our index for some time. Today, both of the Local Business Center users updated their data, and that caused some of the displayed information to change. We’re working hard to solve the problems of merged listings, in this case and in general. So to sum up, we have a situation where two real estate agents in the same office both updated their LBC listings on the same day, and that caused Google’s algorithm to cluster some of their data into one listing. Yikes. Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us ! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Warning: Don’t Use Google Maps Service/Home Business Tools Yet Related posts: Google LBC Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses Google: Business Hijacking is Rare in Google Maps SBS Mailbag: Many Service Areas, One Address

We’ve talked before about the failure of Google’s Local Business Center to provide a way for service-based and home-based businesses to use Google Maps without … well, cheating. A couple weeks ago at SMX West , Google’s Carter Maslan was asked about solving this problem and he said … “I don’t want to say ‘hold your breath,’ but ‘almost hold your breath.’” He said something was coming soon. And today it’s here. Have a look: I’ve written this up in more depth and with more screenshots on Search Engine Land: Google Maps Finally Welcome To Home-Based & Service-Based Businesses Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Google LBC Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses Related posts: Google Maps Adds Phone Verification, Upgrades LBC Google Maps adds coupons SBS Mailbag: Many Service Areas, One Address

Your office pool is fun, but how about competing against fellow search marketers far and wide? It’s time for the 4th Annual “SEO Madness” College Hoops Pool , where we all make our March Madness picks, and the winner gets the links. Teams and brackets are being announced today and you can sign-up now . Here’s what you need to know: What’s it cost? Nada. Free. All you need is a Yahoo account. Where do I join? Sign-up here . This link should put you directly into the SEO Madness 2010 group, but if not, you’ll need this info: Group ID: 60624 Group password: seorocks That’s all! Get yourself signed into the SEO Madness group and then tell your friends on Facebook or Twitter — the more, the merrier. May the best man/woman win! Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . College Hoops: SEO Madness 2010 is Here! Related posts: SEO Madness 2009 is here! Game On: March Madness contest for SEO/PPC folks Join the March Madness contest for SEOs/SEMs

ClickZ is running an article today about Yelp’s current legal troubles. I’m quoted in the article (at the end) and I come across as a staunch defender of Yelp. While I do admire the loyalty they’ve built up amongst users, I’m actually more in the middle than the article portrays. I really believe Yelp needs to improve its overall messaging to small business owners if it wants to gain wider adoption and acceptance as a marketing channel. And, as I posited in my earlier post on Yelp this week, I definitely wonder if “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” applies to Yelp. It very well could. But aside from how I feel about Yelp, the bigger issue is the impact of these legal troubles and claims on Yelp’s trust. The ClickZ piece gets into that a bit, but I think this post by Mike Blumenthal today says a lot more about it. Mike interviews a small business owner about reviews, and here’s what the business owner says about Yelp: We avoid them like the black plague. You can find a lot of articles on the subject so I won’t get on a soap box…but we’ve had around 30 satisfied customers post positive reviews on Yelp and none of them posted to our profile. When we asked why we were told that the customer has to be an “active Yelp user” or the reviews will not show up. When we asked what constitutes an “active Yelp user” we were told that formula was proprietary and confidential. Of course, this didn’t stop them from making a sales call and offering us assistance in getting more positive reviews on our account. After doing some research and realizing this was a much bigger problem with other business owners, and that they were involved in a class action lawsuit for similar accusations, we just decided to avoid them all together. I’m guessing that attitude is more widespread than we think. And it speaks to one of Yelp’s fundamental flaws: The mysterious algorithm has a natural bias against first-time reviewers. It’s the old job search catch-22 — you need experience to get a job, but you can’t get experience if no one will hire you. How can Yelp reach its full potential if it regularly punishes new users by not posting their reviews? There’s a trust problem here with small business owners who see real reviews from real people being zapped from the site, and from people who’d like to become regular users, but have a bad experience when their first taste of Yelp is essentially, “We don’t care what you have to say.” Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Yelp’s Trust Problem Related posts: Yelp Lets Me Add New Business Data AT&T: Good Luck with Your Yelp Competitor Inc. Magazine Goes Deep on Yelp

This isn’t exactly news anymore, but it’s worth noting that two more reports this week confirm the idea that consumers tend to do their research online prior to buying offline/locally. The first is a Kelsey Group study that indicates 97% of consumers use the Internet to research products or services in their local area . What specific online research tools do they use? 90% use search engines 48% use Internet Yellow Pages 42% use comparison shopping sites 24% use vertical sites If consumers are starting the local buying process online, this reinforces the value of great local content, local SEO, and local visibility in general. In fact, according to the study, consumers use 7.9 different media sources for research when looking for local products and services. That speaks to the importance of being visible on a number of channels — your own site, your blog, Google Maps, Citysearch, important industry sites, and so forth. Diversity of presence makes a big difference. The second report comes from local product search engine Milo.com in the form of a large infographic that breaks down the percent of online vs. offline buying in a number of industries. The conclusion, based on US Census data, is that less than 5% of retail sales happen online. Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us ! This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . Two More Studies Confirm: People Research Online, Buy Locally Related posts: Search Online, Buy Offline Has a Long Way To Go Stats, stats, and more stats MSN Studies Searcher Behavior

My worlds are colliding. I mean my “U2 world” and my “SEO world.” I try to keep them separate, but this story makes that impossible. Check it out on the Somerset County Gazette web site. Apparently, a local/small business owner recently got a job fixing a broken GRAMMY Award that belongs to U2. The article makes several cheesy references to U2 song titles, but here’s the part that matters: “…one of the band’s management team got in touch after typing in ‘trophy repairs’ into Google.” SEO FTW! Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details. This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing . U2 Validates Benefits of SEO No related posts.