Posted 24 Aug 2010 / Written by Richard Lyne / Make a Comment
Google Business Listings, now known as Google Places, offers a great opportunity for less optimised sites to get themselves high up the rankings for relevant search results. Whilst this has previously not been a threat to localised SEO Strategies, there is evidence that Google is moving away from domain authority and content variables, moving towards an enhanced local listing featuire.
Compare the 2 pictures below. The first shows how a localised search currently displays in the UK – the Google places listed alongside the map, with organic results listed just underneath.

Now compare it to this test result page taken from a search recently in the US. As you can see, the map has now been moved to the top right, with enhanced Google Places listings taking up the entire first page – organic results do not feature at all on page 1.

So how can this affect your business? The truth is, it can have both negative and positive results on your localised SEO. Firstly, if you traditionally gain a lot of traffic through good localised SEO, your site may not perform as well for searches related to areas where you do not have a physical presence. Secondly (and this is where it becomes useful for Google), your business may be required to spend aggressively via PPC to gain highly targeted traffic.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. This is just a test and Google carries out thousands of these every year without implementing everything. It may not come into fruition. Even if it does, it can be seen as a way to break back into localised search, especially if you do have a presence in the target area.
So, is your business listed? It could be the turning point of localised search.
Posted 6 Aug 2010 / Written by Cat Woods / Make a Comment
The Social Media World back in 2007, courtesy of xkcd, is barely recongisable from the popular platforms that are used today.
Flowtown has recreated the map to illustrate how quickly the landscape has changed in the short time frame. Does this set the presedent for the end of the Facebook and Twitter bubble? We'll see come 2013!
Advertising (3)
Alterian Immediacy CMS (2)
Application Development (5)
Awards (4)
Email Marketing (2)
Fun Stuff (17)
Hosting (2)
Mobile (1)
News (19)
Pay Per Click (1)
People (12)
Project Management (2)
Rich Media (2)
SEO (4)
Social Media (5)
Usability (1)
Web Design (13)
Web Services (1)
WickedWeb CMS (11)
August 2010 (2)
July 2010 (6)
June 2010 (3)
May 2010 (5)
April 2010 (18)
March 2010 (17)
February 2010 (2)
January 2010 (1)
December 2009 (1)
November 2009 (3)
October 2009 (1)
September 2009 (1)
August 2009 (2)
July 2009 (1)
June 2009 (1)
May 2009 (2)
February 2009 (3)
January 2009 (2)
December 2008 (4)
November 2008 (1)
October 2008 (1)
September 2008 (2)
August 2008 (2)
July 2008 (2)
May 2008 (1)
Sign up to our Newsletter to receive news of our web launches, our digital marketing activity and general useful information about the web.
Fields marked * are mandatory