Tag Archives: local seo services

Bing Local Search Pages to Be “Powered By Yelp”

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Search Engine News, , , , , , ,

Bing localAccording to an article on TechCrunch.com, Bing and Yelp announced a partnership that will bring Yelp’s local business content to Bing’s local search pages. The pages will now say “Powered by Yelp,” and will integrate Yelp’s reviews, photos and business information with Bing’s local search pages.

The partnership with Yelp is not the only agreement Bing has made lately. It has also partnered with Qwiki, a video startup that translates text content into video and integrated with Facebook. These partnerships aim to increase the quality of Bing’s search results in an attempt to take on the search giant, Google.Yelp

In late 2009, Google was considering buying Yelp for half a billion dollars. However, tensions grew between the two companies after Google crawled Yelp’s content and used it for its Places application without forming a partnership. Google then decided to buy Zagat instead and get rid of all of Yelp’s information. Zagat is now a chief component in Google’s newest local search application, Google+ Local.

Although Bing’s new partnerships look promising for the search engine, getting people to switch from Google to Bing is a tough job. Which search engine do you use? Do Bing’s recent attempts to better its service entice you to switch from Google to Bing?

Google Shopping Will Soon Charge Merchants for Listings

Organic SEO, Search Engine News, , , , , , ,

Google shoppingSoon, online retailers will have to pay in order to have their products displayed on Google Shopping. Currently, retailers can provide information to Google about their products and have them displayed on the site for free. However, Google has made the decision to begin charging for its product listings.

The listings will also be displayed differently after Google begins charging for the service. Currently, when someone searches for a certain product, such as “vacuum cleaner,” the top five most popular vacuum cleaners from the shopping page are displayed under a few organic listings on the results page. After the change, those links will begin to appear above the main search results with images of what Google thinks are the most relevant products on the Google Shopping site.

While some marketers are happy about the new Google Shopping site, others fear that it could be the beginning of the end of Google’s free business listings. Small retailers also worry that paid Google Shopping listings will make it difficult for them to compete with the large advertising budget of big online retailers.

What do you think about paid product listings in Google Shopping; is good thing or a bad thing?

Google’s New Approach to Local Search: Google+ Local

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Local SEO, , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, Google rolled out Google+ Local, Google’s integration of Google+ and Google Places. According to the Google and Your Business Blog, Google+ Local’s aim is to “improve the way people discover new businesses, rediscover places they love and share them with their friends across the Web.”

Google Places pages will soon be replaced by Google+ business pages with a new design and layout (see photo). In the new design, all of the basic business information is still present, however there is more emphasis put on photos and reviews. On many business listings, the user will be able to go a step further using the “street view” option on Google Maps and even venture inside the actual business location.

Googlepluslocal

Now local businesses will be found across Google search, Maps, mobile and Google+ with just one listing. Customers will be able to share their experience with others through reviews and recommend businesses to friends. Google+ Local has integrated Zagat reviews in order to allow users to share exactly what makes a particular business stand out.

“This is a major upgrade in user interface and there are new features and capabilities as well there may be some lost or modified facets such as Google Posts and maybe Offers,” said Local Splash Founder and CTO, David Rodecker. “More details will be determined as Google evolves Google+ and adapts to user social patterns.”

Right now, business owners can still manage their business information in Google Places for Business. If your Places page is already ranked high in the search results the best way to ensure your rankings stay intact is to stay on top of the changes being made to your listing and create a Google+ page for your business if you haven’t already.

Local Splash clients have nothing to fear. Local Splash has the resources it takes to understand the impact of a change like this and determine what adaptations need to be taken to keep clients ranking well.

“We have anticipated a move like this for some time and we have positioned our clients quite well for the transition,” said Rodecker. “Currently, search results on the typical Google Everything search are unchanged and the Google Places algorithm runs strong in this user interface; something we already optimize for.”

Want more information on the Google+ Local release? Check out this round-up of articles on Google+ Local on Screenwerk.com.