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In this interview with Darren Shaw we take a deep dive into the Local Search Ranking Factors. We look at the key take aways, the strengths and weaknesses of the survey and areas that Local SEO’s should focus on.

In this interview with Darren Shaw we take a deep dive look at the results of the recently released Local Search Ranking Factor survey and explore the key takeaways to good ranking and conversions.  We discuss: 

• what a citation means in 2021 
• the growing impact of images on local search
• the top myths of local search and 
• the things that Darren (and most of us) think are a waste of time.

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Ep 44 Near Memo

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After the release of iOS 15 it has become clear that Apple is not just a wannabe in the mapping space. As they move towards AR, Maps has become a discovery platform and a fully functional travel tool. Mike, attempting to eat his own dog food, takes it on his cross country journey as his sole mapping and discovery tool. 

Twitter, despite its outsized role in our news focused culture, has long underperformed financially. Whether Dorsey left willingly or was forced out, there is an opportunity to redefine how it can survive and thrive. Is that a subscription or is a better API model?

Greg Sterling highlights how the maturation of Google has led to inevitable ethical conflicts. Is this unique to Google or part and parcel of a larger pattern? Is it an inevitable outcome as the fair haired offspring of 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 43 12-03-21

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In this recent Uberal study conducted by Greg Sterling consumers confirm the importance of local search with over 50% of their searches being local and that they trust local businesses more than they do internet only brands. 

Apple, with their consistent and regular builds for Apple Maps has increasingly included new features on Maps to both aid business discovery and to provide a transaction layer that is fast and easy for the consumer. Apple Maps has increasingly become an important source for new customers and these developments are likely to continue as Maps takes its place in the real world. 

Apple’s long term development of Apple Maps when viewed together with the many other cross product developments point to an Apple AR future which looks quite different than Facebook’s metaverse. In that future it is likely that local businesses will have increasing opportunities for consumer discovery as Maps will likely play a critical role in 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 42

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VistaPrint in creating its new brand, Vista showed how to elegantly rebrand a legacy company that has become digital. It created a new umbrella brand for its many acquisitions and space for future brand building. Vista is another company that demonstrates the possibilities in the very small business market. 

With some notable funding You.com released its new search engine. Can any of these new search engines make progress against Google? Why are so many coming to the fore now? What exactly is the future of search? Is privacy enough of a differentiator?

Google has pulled out all the stops in its propaganda crusade to convince small business owners that SMB interests in fighting possible Google ant-trust regulation align with Google’s… in doing so Google has expanded their campaign from Google My Business to now include Adwords clients and domain registrants. Is Google running scared?

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
EP 41 Near Memo

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This week we discuss but one topic, the rebranding of the Google My Business tools to the Business Profile. With enhanced in-search and in Maps editing, Google is trying (once again) to lure small businesses to edit their listings via new features. The GMB API will become the Business Profile API and they claim that the GMB dashboard will become the Business Profile Dashboard in 2022. But they also announced the sunsetting of their GMB app. Join us this week as David and Mike bet on the outcome. 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 40

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Largely uncovered in the news, Amazon has announced a new program, Local Selling, that allows local merchants selling on Amazon to apply for the ability to take an order on Amazon and deliver curbside from their location or to deliver via their own delivery process. Clearly this is a response to Google’s successful push of Product Merchant center into local and might lead to additional local relationships for Amazon. 

Google is understanding more and more about the content of images using their Cloud Vision AI and this understanding of entities, labels, logos, sentiment and text is being leveraged to use images to answer searcher intent in ads, local and the mobile web results. This is part of a long arc where Google will now start using images to not just answer queries but to ask them as well using their new MUM AI/ML and is likely part of their AR future. 

 Google Local has been “stealing” local conversions for years. Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky recently reported that Google local leads are both the dominant source for leads as well as the fastest growing source for leads for most of the verticals that she works in. What does this mean for local businesses? 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 39

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The consolidation of internet, cable, voice, content, distribution, smart devices, advertising, and analytics exemplified by these large vertically-integrated ISPs—which represent approximately 98.8% of the mobile internet market—has increased the volume of information they are capable of collecting about consumers, improved their insight into consumers’ behaviors, and strengthened the persistence of identifiers capable of tracking users across platforms and assets.

Snap blamed Apple for their shorfall this quarter but the real question is whether that is reality or just part of the “privacy theater”?

 In 2020, AirBnB cut $542 million of performance advertising spend and saw no measurable falloff in attributable sales. They continued this ad-slashing practice in 2021, with similarly eye-popping numbers. Could it be that all those ads did nothing?

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 38

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The FTC sent out a letter to many of America’s largest  businesses (Apple, Alphabet, Comcast, Yelp among others) detailing unlawful practices relating to the use of endorsements and testimonials. At first glance it might seem like these companies are doing something wrong, and possibly, some are. But for the most part the FTC, still smarting from their failure to extract fines in the Sunday Riley case, is making sure that they will in fact be able to extract fines if any of these companies violate the testimonial guidelines.

Several of us received a folksy looking toy catalog in the mail the other day. Upon closer inspection it was from Amazon. This heavily curated catalog was appealing to the eye but a surprise that it was so lightly branded. Catalogs are expensive to produce, print and mail but it also provides consumers with a handy guide to the best Christmas toys without having to navigate through Amazon’s search engine. Each page contained a QR code that took the buyer directly to the right page to buy just the right toy. 

Google has long been refining the use of AI to pick which photos to show in search results. Now they are refining how photos can be used to actually search for things you are looking for. Claire Carlisle details her currently unpublished research on how Google Lens is leveraging local AND photo awareness to produce shopping results. This is likely a precursor to the full image + query searches that Google has announced to allow users to “point and ask” by sharing both a photo and a question to surface related results. 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 37

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Squarespace’s “Everything to Sell Anything,” Google vs. Lowe, and Has the Local Pack Outlived Its Usefulness?

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 36

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Google Lens was first introduced at Google I/O in 2017 and it has become a showcase for Google’s image recognition. Now when paired with MUM, Google’s new language processing, Lens is being enhanced with commerce capability to provide more than just a simple “this is that” answer to uploaded images. One more benchmark as search becomes ever more visual. 

Yelp is making a strategic pivot from an ad seller to a SAAS company. This is a pivot that is critical for them but will they be trusted in a crowded SMB marketplace?

Consumers and the presse, while not wanting to give up the comforts offered by Amazon or Facebook, seem to be increasingly skeptical of new  hardware from either firm. 

The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.
Near Memo Ep 35

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