Jumping in to talk Local SEO, Google My Business and specifically Images and their impact on Google My Business & Local SEO is Mike "Professor Maps” Blumenthal.

Local SEO Topics Covered

Zero ClicksImmersive SearchTransnational SearchKnowledge GraphGoogle My BusinessReviewsLocal GuidesOptimizing Photos that Show up in LocalImages & Impact on Local in 2020

Best Practices for Images

Along with a number of topics touched on during the episode one big one was the role of images now and what a business can do (or should) to leverage images more in Local SEO. A few tips from Mike that came out of the talking include:

Quality. Phone images can be good but really work to make the images you upload high quality.Google Image GuidelinesGoogle Business Specific Guidelines for PhotosGoogle AI is getting better in understanding what is in photos and the quality of those photos.Images are getting better placement in Local results. Search by Photos - Read more at NEW GOOGLE LOCAL DISCOVERY: SEARCH BY PHOTOSGoogle Image AI can understand the semantics in a photo. Mike gave the example of Google knowing that the background in a photo for a lawyer was a court room.Report images that are poorly done or out dated and some may be taken down.Keep your own images fresh.Google Post images will flow into your GMB so stay active!

Google's Ongoing Battles

Photos of local businesses are part of what Google is trying to do to battle the Yelps but also Instagram. The Search by Photos feature that was rolled out in late 2019 is Google trying to stay relevant for the different types of searching and results that people are looking for.

Tips for Dealing with Locations with History

Mike states that NAP confusion doesn't exist anymore thanks to entity search. In the past the required need for NAP consistency was mostly due to Google and other engine's inability to really understand entities.

Thanks to knowledge graph Google has become much better and faster in terms of understanding what is what, what is old and what is new.

Mike dives into a recent case study where he worked with a restaurant that was the 4th business in the past 5 years. By just doing Google My Business, Google Posts and a few other things was able to overcome the fact that there was likely lots of NAP issues. In fact the business achieved success despite not even trying to clean up/update NAP.

Solving Street View Issues

A quick note is that there are many agencies and even individuals now that can update street view photos. So if you update your business sign, take over a new location or just want your photos updated in Google there are people that can help speed it up.

4 Basics of Ranking in Google per Mike

Great websiteGoogle My BusinessReviews, Links & Great PhotosListen for the 4th!

Full Transcript

Matt Siltala: Welcome

to another exciting episode of the business of digital podcast, featuring your

host, Matt  and Dave roar. Hey guys,

excited to have you on another one of these business of digital podcast

episodes today. We got a special treat for you. But for before I jump into

that, let's make sure we got Dave over there.

Hey Dave, I'm going to catch him off guard cause I like

doing that to him when he's on mute.

Um, but we actually have a treat for you guys today. We

would like to welcome, uh, Mike Blumenthal. Professor maps. Thanks for joining

us, Mike.

Mike Blumenthal: It's

my pleasure. As always, man.

Matt Siltala: You

know, we were talking about how long has it been since, uh, since you and I

have been in the same place hanging out and, and it's crazy how like time just,

uh, flies in this industry and, and, and it seems like it's been so long.

So, uh, I'm excited to, to have you on, to chat about some

of this stuff. But, uh, before we get into that, I just want to let everybody

know that Mike is the co [00:01:00] founder. And as he puts it, chief

delegation officer at gather up, uh, which recently