Mike Blumenthal needs no introduction to anyone who pays close attention to Google Places and the rest of the crazy world of local search.
If you’re reading this, either you’re already a fan of Professor Maps (as he’s known) and his blog, or you’re becoming one.
I’ve read his posts throughout my local-search career so far. I’m not alone when I say they’ve been a huge influence on my thinking, to say the least.
The only trouble is: of the 2400+ posts Mike has done so far, it’s hard to know where to start, or which posts are the most evergreen.
That’s why I asked some of the longest-time / hardest-core readers of Mike’s blog what their all-time favorite posts are. They also added some great commentary.
Even this list of favorites probably has the shelf life of sushi, given how much Mike publishes (see the July 2014 storm of posts). But it’s still worth a try.
Here are the top picks of some long-time readers:
Miriam Ellis
1) In the Trenches: The Reality of Smb Marketing – Bruce’s Sew Handy Interview
This is an oldie from 2008. I’ve always remembered this post for the picture it painted of how marketing looks and feels to a small business owner. The story told in this interview should help any marketer to act with empathy and great respect when supporting hard-working SMBs. I admire Mike’s ability to surface interesting man-on-the-street stories like this one.
2) What Should You Tell a Client When Google Loses Their Reviews – a 4 Part Plan
Remember the great Google review loss fiasco of 2012? Mike not only wrote great posts like the above helping marketers to support clients who had lost reviews, but he also came up with the idea of consolidating as many complaints as possible onto a Google And Your Business Forum help thread. I would bet I’m not alone in saying that Mike’s work has made me feel less alone during many Local crises!
3) What Does My Business Tell Us about the Future of Google Plus?
Years of experience in Local and Mike’s one-of-a-kind insight are beautifully showcased in this piece. This is what we’ve all come to rely on Mike for, over the years. Just fantastic! Hats off to you, Mike – it’s been a privilege learning from you for the better part of a decade!
David Mihm
No one, and I mean no one, has chronicled the evolution of Google’s local and mapping products more closely than Mike Blumenthal. The man probably knows more about legacy systems and rationale for why things are built the way they are than all but a few product managers at Google.
Small business owners and the search community — possibly even the world of local searchers — owe Mike a debt of gratitude for helping make local search at Google what it is today. He has been a positive thorn in Mountain View’s side, exhorting Google to improve their products to a level where they are actually usable by small business owners and searchers — a task that continues even today in the aftermath of the “crappy” Pigeon update.
The fact that business owners finally have a usable interface from which to manage their listings, the option of phone support, and countless other amenities is due in no small part to Mike’s direct and indirect feedback to Google (and the tireless efforts of internal SMB advocates like Joel Headley and Jade Wang).
I’m proud to call Mike a friend for almost seven years (!) since first discovering his blog.
Here are some of my favorite Blumenthal articles:
Yelp: Real People. Real Reviews. Deceptive Sales Tactics.
29prime – Would You Buy A Used Car from These Guys Let Alone SEO?
Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction
Which Review Sites Should You Use?
10 Likely Ranking Factors of Google’s Local Search Algorithm
Ranking Factors in Google Maps – Cracking The Code SMX Local
Dave Oremland
(aka Earlpearl)
Favorites:
1. Early articles about the Google local patent. Bill Slawski might have initially written about them but Mike studied them and drilled down into them with greater degree and specificity.
My experience is that in the early years after a new patent one often sees the most dramatic impact of those patents. Before Google makes algo changes. They are crucial to follow. Mike has done a great job on those issues.
2. The annual Loci articles. Very thoughtful pieces from guest authors. A worthwhile element of his blog.
3. In a general context Mike jumped on the review issues early on. He’s covered it and dissected it with clarity. Of the many many articles referencing reviews the one that stuck with me were the two articles about the dentist in Washington State. Those stories added an astonishing human element to the overall review saga, in particular, if one believes the dentist’s side of the story it revealed a “fatal attraction” kind of element to reviews. Really amazing human drama connected to the business function of trying to respond to reviews. That was fascinating.
Nyagoslav Zhekov
Chances are I have missed A LOT of extremely important posts, but I tried very hard to keep the number under 20
Principles for a Review Plan: Considerations in Encouraging Customer Reviews
Google Places and Their New Rejection Algo – It Is Like 7th Grade All over Again!
Graphic: How an SMB Solves a Problem in Google Places
Review Management: 7 Tips on Avoiding Bad Reviews
An Imagined Conversation with Google about Reviews, 29Prime & Sock Puppets
The Untold Story of 2011: Google’s Significant Investments in a Google Places Support Structure
Will Citations Stop Being Effective for Local Optimization in the Future?
9 Questions to Assess Your Review Management Stress Levels
Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction
What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Results? (Part 1)
What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Results? (Part 2)
Video Snippets vs. Author Images – Which Have Higher Click Through Rates?
10 Reasons That the Google Knowledge Graph Sucks More Than the Local Graph
Yahoo and the “Everybody But Google” Realities of Local Search
Mike Blumenthal is rightfully the top authority in local search in the last 5+ years. His infinite energy and will to look for answers, to share thoughts, to inform the community, and to urge development where improvement is needed are hardly matched by anyone in the Internet marketing world. Mike’s articles on local search, Google Maps, Google Places, review strategies, small business marketing, and Google-related issues have been the first ones I started reading while I was still “learning how to walk” in the industry. As I joined the game a little later (early 2011), the majority of my favorite articles of Mike are naturally from the period after that.
Mike’s articles are both informational and raising questions and topics for discussion. His word is so influential that he has frequently provoked revisions of strategies in the SEO world, as well as urgent processual or technical changes within companies such as Google, for instance. I believe our industry is happy to have him, and I hope he will stick around for many more years.
Andrew Shotland
I have to start with one of Mike’s very first posts – The Basics of Listings Success. As he put it back then:
“Unlike optimization for organic search, optimization for local search at the major engines is in a much less developed state. It seems to have many fewer people poking, prodding and testing the hypothesis of local search and coming up with a definitive set of best practices. This is list is an attempt to create that model that we can all test. Have a go and let me know.”
Every couple of years a new wild west emerges via the Web. This post documents a time when Local still had room in it for wide-eyed optimism and Mike’s eyes proved to be both the widest and the narrowest at the same time. Getting a bit misty…
Of course I loved when he first started acknowledging how screwed up this Local stuff was for small businesses, in his own inimitable style. From the classic “Local Data Accuracy – a Veritable Beehive“:
“The group is a regular beehive of activity with a surprising amount of input from small business owners. But it is a beehive in which the keeper just stuck his hand into the hive and stirred things up by sticking the bees in the wrong place and the bees are mad!”
I think Mike’s post about the difference between ValPak’s coupons and everyone else’s in Google Maps was when I first started to be in awe of Mike’s obsession with the minutiae of Local. I mean who else was writing about the pixel size of fucking coupons at that point?
If I had to pick a favorite, it probably has to be Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction. Mike seems to be pretty tight with the Google Local team, or at least as tight as they can be with anybody. And still Mike cannot stop speaking truth to power as it were. While there have been plenty of SEO bloggers bitching and moaning about Google Local’s shortcomings, this post solidified his rep as perhaps its finest critic.
And of course any post mentioning Barbara Oliver, one of Buffalo’s finest jewelers, is always a winner.
Andy Kuiper
(late addition)
Mike Blumenthal’s blog is the go-to place to find out what’s what when it comes to Local search & Google. Every day I look forward to seeing what Mike and his followers (several of whom are the top Local SEO ‘gurus’ in North America) have to say. Mike’s blog, and his follower’s comments have helped so many SEOs and SMBs understand what’s going on in Local… and there is always something strange going on in Local 😉
Here are three posts that may be of help to SMBs:
How Does Google Choose a Profile Photo? It’s the Algo Dummie!
Google+ Custom URLs – Facts, Tidbits and Concerns
Google+ Local Quality Guideline Update Allows for Multiple Departments
(Note: I asked Andy at the same time I asked everyone else for top picks. He just took a while :))
Me
This is too tough. But I’ll channel my inner monk-like ascetic powers and name only 7 posts (in no particular order):
Principles for a Review Plan: Considerations in Encouraging Customer Reviews
Infographic: Citations – Time to Live – a joint research project / post with Mr. David Mihm
Asking For Reviews (Post Google Apocalypse)
Which Review Sites Should You Use?
What Does My Business Tell Us about the Future of Google Plus?
What Does a Link Campaign Look Like for Local?
To sum up all thoughts on Mike’s posts:
What are your favorites so far?
Leave a comment!
Another brilliant post idea Phil!
Thanks for the invite. I was sorry I didn’t have time to participate. But the reason, more than time constraints was that this was just TOO hard of an exercise!
Picking Mike’s best posts? There are just too many to choose from! The wealth of local knowledge that comes from that man is just mind blowing!
This post does a great job of surfacing some of the best to the top, and serves as a great refresher about some of “Mike’s greatest and timeless hits” we may have forgotten about, with the flurry of constant Google changes.
Thanks, Linda. Well said!
Now that I think about it, it’s clear what has been really going on with “Mike Blumenthal”:
1. Set up blog where you present “Mike Blumenthal” as some “expert” local search blogger
2. Write “high-quality content” non-stop for years
3. Get a lot of links
4. Every so often link to http://www.barbaraoliverandco.com
5. Use Barbara Oliver as an example so often that other bloggers start citing her and linking to her
It’s pretty clear that the whole “Mike Blumenthal” persona was just an elaborate SEO scheme orchestrated by Barbara Oliver.
Mike Blumenthal, my dear Watson, is in fact…Barbara Oliver.
It’s all a front!
OMG Andrew. You have just cracked this case wide open. I’ve seen Mike in person before, but after reading this, I’m pretty sure his real name is BARBARA OLIVER. I’ll expect him to peel off a mask next time I see him.
I think it’s quite possible that when Mike’s not blogging or teaching at Local U seminars, he’s behind the counter with his “Barbara” name badge on, helping folks in Buffalo choose engagement rings 😉
Funny enough, the one I reference the most in forums didn’t make the cut! Just shows you there are too many good ones to pick from 🙂
https://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/03/16/responding-to-negative-reviews-the-real-audience-is-your-prospects/
Derrrp. That’s one of my favorites, too, Joy. Can’t believe I forgot it!
Actually my real name is Moriarity Oliver.
Dastardly!
I heartily endorse all, of the comments abobe about Mike. he is one of the most thoughtful and generous Google scholars out there and is an example to all in this sharing economy. Thanks Phil, ,Andrew,Miriam, David M , Nyagoslav and Dave for your thoughts
That is why this community is grteat to be in
Thanks, Rob! I feel the same way about the community.
Mike,
Your best post. Aren’t they all?
Thank You!
Thanks for including me in your list Phil. I’ve been reading Mike’s posts since its earliest days and had been working on Local sites before then. Mike started out with a laser like focus on many things local and then over time moved his focus to Google. It made sense for him and it made sense for readers. Google became dominant among search engines.
Its interesting to note that several of the commentators chose the TrainWork Story from late 2012. That was an excellent article. If one recalls about 1 year earlier Mike noted Spectacular improvements in Google Local from a December 2011 article: https://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/12/21/the-untold-story-of-2011-googles-significant-investments-in-google-places-support-structure/
Things had improved markedly in late 2011. What had been a venue of issues, problems, and clusterf#cks for smb’s over several years had finally seen some dramatic improvement. Mike noted the changes in the late 2011 article.
As of late 2012 the Trainwreck article appeared. Too many things had gone wrong in the ensuing year. But it turns out that it was all a function of what we can appreciate has been a long long term effort to upgrade local. Its complex. Conditions improved in 2013 and 2014.
Mike has been an excellent reporter of conditions inside Google Local for a long time.
Thanks, Dave. If you didn’t want to pitch in or thought the idea was dumb, I probably would have scrapped it.
As you say, nobody keeps on top of the changes – or breathes down Google’s neck – as well as Mike does.
I have to add my own fav of Mike’s blog posts here –
https://blumenthals.com/blog/2010/11/19/a-reason-not-to-move-to-canada/
– as you’ll note, Mike looks truly like an “honorary Canuck” in same, eh!
🙂
Jim
Good call, Jim 🙂