photos

Are Google Business Photos a Trust Factor for Your Local Rankings?

December 16, 2013 by Phil 20 Comments

I’ve never known much about Google’s Business Photos program. But it’s always sounded cool: If you have a bricks-and-mortar business location, you can pay a Google Trusted Photographer to come in and take photos that allow customers to take a virtual tour, right from your Google+ Local page.

Jeff Finkelstein’s great recent post on Moz stirred up a couple questions for me. Jeff offers Google-approved photography to businesses in the Boulder, CO area.

Yesterday I emailed him a question:

I’m wondering how the process of your sending in the photos to Google ties in with their effort to verify a business’s info.

For instance, does Google make you fill out a form with the name, address, phone, etc. of a business, when you send in the photos you took of it? Do they ask you to report any inconsistencies you see (like if a business is using a fictitious DBA on its local listing, but another for its front sign)?

…Just to follow up on the question of whether Google might give a slight bump to businesses that hire a Google Trusted Photographer, to me it makes sense that a GTP would help verify the accuracy of a business’s listing info – which could help its rankings.

-Phil

Jeff kindly took the time to write back, and to give me a little peek behind the scenes:

Due to some of the huge amounts of paperwork that I did have to sign, I can’t verify a lot of the methods publicly.

But I can answer the question as it might pertain to me photographing a business location for you.

So, if you wanted to hire me (or another trusted Google Business Photographer), we would require the following in order to be able to create the panoramic (street view) photos:

1. You need to have a physical location for the business, where customers can go in and interact with your organization. Home-based businesses are not able to be included in Google Business Photos. We do make sure that the business address listed matches the Google + / local listing. Especially so that we can go to the correct place to make the photographs!

2. We do need to get a written signature from the business owner, giving permission to Google to publish photographs of their business. This does require the physical location of the business to be listed on the printed contract.

3. We are required to make sure that the photographs are positioned correctly in the world, so that maps and directions work properly.

-Jeff

My takeaway: you can’t really put fake business info on your local listing if a Google-approved photographer crawls around in the guts of your business and sends the endoscopy photos to Google.

My other takeaway: I wouldn’t rule out Google Business Photos as a factor that might help your rankings a little. Jeff took a good swing at the question in his post, but we’ll probably never know for certain. What we do know is the photography program is another “checkpoint” at which Google can make sure your online business info is accurate. And as we’ve seen in areas like citations, the “trustworthiness” of your info matters probably more than anything.

Doesn’t really matter, though: getting professional photos taken of your business might be a nice way to appeal more to customers, and to get more calls out of whatever rankings you do already have. My advice: contact a Trusted Photographer like Jeff and see what he/she can do.

10 Observations on Google’s Local Carousel

July 22, 2013 by Phil 4 Comments

It’s no secret that I don’t like Google’s “local carousel.” It’s ugly, inconvenient, and counterintuitive.

Much ink has been spilled on the carousel. Many excellent points have been made.

We local-search geeks (not to mention business owners) have questions about the carousel: how will it evolve, to what extent will it roll out to the search results for all local businesses, and – above all – is there another shoe that has yet to fall.

While we’re all scratching our heads about those questions and many more, I’d like to make a few observations on the carousel. (I don’t think anyone else has brought these up, but please let me know me if someone has.)

My thoughts (in no particular order):

1. The carousel is not fully formed. Google will iterate. It already has: It’s replaced the “Zagat” ratings in the carousel and elsewhere with the review stars. Also, the carousel seems to be a missed opportunity to push Google Plus on users (a la “new” Maps) – which is another reason I think Google will change the carousel around – so as to ram Plus down more users’ throats.

2. All the search terms that trigger the carousel are for “fun” or non-essential businesses. Carousels are fun (unless you puke afterwards). Fitting, no?

3. I’m guessing Google will never roll out the carousel more broadly, to search results beyond those for “fun” businesses. Google is not simply showing results for businesses that people want to find very locally (e.g. restaurants). If it did, we’d be seeing the carousel for “auto repair,” “gas station,” and other necessary-but-not-fun types of businesses. No, Google will continue to show the carousel only for the “fun,” non-essential businesses. (If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my hat.)

4. The photos (or tiny maps) are an absolute waste of space. Searchers would benefit much more from seeing the phone numbers, addresses, and URLs of the businesses up there. The photos might be somewhat helpful if they consistently were of storefronts or Street View shots. But that’s not the case. They photos are either of food that looks like it’s sitting under a school cafeteria heat-lamp, or they’re of unintelligibly tiny squares of a zoomed-in map. They do not help or inform the user.

5. Doesn’t the carousel seem a lot like Google’s Hotpot flop? Hotpot was also centered on reviews, and had the same side-to-side pane layout. Now it’s worm food in the Google graveyard. I hope that the carousel as a whole – or at least the current incarnation of it – will meet the same fate.

6. It’s only a matter of time before Google carves out the left-most search result for AdWords. Can you imagine the bidding war that would create between business owners? It would be lucrative enough to make Mr. Wonderful drool:

7. I’m guessing one main reason Google resumed showing the golden “review stars” was to take eyeball-share away from Yelp (and other IYPs). What happens when you click on a carousel search result and then see a “branded” search for a business? Right: Yelp’s search results are right near the top of the page. If Google weren’t showing the golden review stars we all know and love, then Yelp would be the brightest peacock.

8. The carousel is much taller than it needs to be. There’s a lot of blackspace above and below the panes for each business. I think that’s another attempt to squeeze Yelp.

9. Businesses will probably never be able to control which images show up on their carousel panes. If they did, there would be too many opportunities to upload eye-catching but irrelevant photos – not to mention photos that have the caption “I’m with stupid,” with little arrows pointing to the left and right. Then Google would have to add a “report a problem” mechanism to the carousel, sort out problems, and generally deal with other dirty work that Mountain View typically avoids touching for as long as possible.

10. Why doesn’t the carousel truly live up to its name and let the users scroll full-circle through the search results – in such a way that if they keep clicking on the right-hand arrow they eventually return to seeing the first batch of local search results?

—

What are your observations on the carousel?

Andrew Shotland Talks Apple Maps Marketing

March 25, 2013 by Phil 5 Comments

Andrew Shotland talks Apple Maps How should Apple Maps fit into your plan to get visible to more customers in local search?

Read on and you’ll get some answers from Andrew Shotland – the guy behind Local SEO Guide and the Apple Maps marketing expert.

I had a great talk with Andrew about aMaps earlier this month at SMX West, where he did a great presentation on our “Local” panel.

I’d had some aMaps-related questions floating in my head for some time.

So naturally, I informed him that 10 unicorns would die unless he answered all of my questions in a full-blown interview.

He said, “Let the unicorns go. It’s my knowledge of Apple Maps you want.”

—

Phil: Apple Maps has kind of sucked so far. Why should anyone use it now – as opposed to using it only once it’s improved and matured?

Andrew: I have heard a lot of horror stories, but lately I haven’t found it to be too bad. I find myself switching between it and the Google Maps app all of the time. They both have their pluses and minuses. The case for using Apple Maps now is that if you are on iOS 6.0 or above, you are going to use them whether you think they suck or not. Apple Maps is the default mapping application for pretty much any location-based iOS app. I think there are a few hundred thousand of those. And there are a few hundred million people who have access to them.

Phil: Eventually Apple will get good and more-complete local maps data. Then what happens?

Andrew: Any maps service will never be complete, but you’re right. Maps are too important to the mobile/digital world for Apple to not get them at least 75% right. I think it’s inevitable that at some point Apple launches its own version of a dashboard where businesses can claim and manage their listings. That said, Apple’s top priority seems to be consumers – remember, Apple’s primary business model is to sell things to you, not to sell you to advertisers – so I think they are going to spend most of their effort making Apple Maps as useful as possible and will likely skimp on the b2b features. Sounds familiar right? So as for what happens – expect plenty of bitching and moaning by guys like me about how Apple doesn’t care about small businesses. And expect a lot of glitches like we are seeing with Google+ Local. So expect a lot of opportunity for guys like me and you to help those poor souls who rely on these mapping systems to get found by potential customers.

Phil: What promise or potential do you think Apple Maps holds that Google+Local doesn’t?

Andrew: The big difference I am anticipating is that Google+ Local will be a more closed system in that it will be designed to promote use of Google+ Local. When I think about what Apple Maps could become, the first thing that comes to mind is that it’s in Apple’s interest to promote using of iOS not Ping (remember that turkey?). This means that Apple Maps could become “app aware,” meaning that the map app would know what other apps you use and when using the map, could pull in info from Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Instagram, etc. That would be kind of cool. And Apple Maps is a much better name than Google+ Local, don’t you think?

[Umm, yeah. The name “Google+Local” is up there with the jump to conclusions mat.]

Phil: Do you think Apple will force Google to get its “local” act together over time – out of competitive pressure?

Andrew: Per my general skepticism of businesses being a high priority for Apple Maps, I don’t see Apple forcing Google to get its act together any time soon. Apple will force Google to continually iterate on the consumer side of things which will be great, but again businesses will probably be pushed to the back of the bus.

Phil: How do you think Apple will try to monetize Maps (other than indirectly, by maybe giving people fewer reasons to get Android phones)?

Andrew: If we take the “What would Steve Do?” approach, ads suck. The last thing the Apple Maps guys want is an ad on their beautiful creation. And I think for now there’s enough profit in the iOS ecosystem to treat Apple Maps as a cost-center that supports everything else. Offers/coupons seems like it could be a user-benefit thing that could pop-up in the Maps, but if I were an Apple engineer, I probably would make it a very obvious opt-in feature. Though it would be cool if Siri could tell you when you’re driving by a Jack in The Box that she has a deal on a Big Mess.

Phil: The business listings in Apple Maps are really sparse; not much on the page. Do you think it will stay that way?

Andrew: At some point businesses will get to control what goes into these listings and they will contain more data like offers, videos, etc, but I expect the design to remain very Jony Ivesian, whatever that means.

A "Jony Ivesian" Apple Maps local business listing

Phil: Yelp reviews are a huge factor in Apple’s local rankings, as you know. What strategy (if any) should business owners follow for scaring up Yelp reviews?

Andrew: You are the master of that one Phil. Just add a link to your how to get reviews infographic 🙂 The important thing to keep in mind is that your Apple Maps profile shows the most recent three Yelp reviews, so make sure the last three customers left with a smile.

Phil: To what extent does Apple Maps dovetail with the enterprise SEO work you do?

Andrew: Since I launched AppleMapsMarketing.com, I have received a lot of requests for help from all over the world to fix bad/missing data issues for multi-location businesses as well as single-locations. A lot of agencies have contacted me because they are starting to see demand from their clients and they don’t know what to do. I recently got contacted by a big Dunkin Donuts chain in South America. Unfortunately I couldn’t help them, because Apple Maps doesn’t show business listings in the countries they are in. I am keeping a list of those countries at Countries Where Apple Maps is Closed For Business – it’s pretty sparse now, but I add to it as I have time to research.

Phil: How has your opinion of Apple Maps changed since it was released?

Andrew: It hasn’t really. Ultimately it’s irrelevant how good the service is in the short term. In the long term, I expect Apple Maps to be either the #1 or #2 most important service in local search. That’s why I am spending time figuring it out now.

Phil: What should the “little guy” be doing now, in terms of paying attention to Apple Maps? How about bigger businesses?

Andrew: These posts contain most of what you need to know at the moment. I update them as I figure out new stuff, but if readers figure out anything new, I invite them to share it in the comments and we’ll throw you a nice fat juicy link as a thank-you:

How to Add Your Business Listing To Apple Maps

Apple Maps Business Listings Data Suppliers by Country

The Unofficial Apple Maps FAQ for Businesses

Phil: Do you think Apple Maps has – or should have – any bearing on what a business owner’s overall local SEO strategy should be? In other words, is it a game-changer, or simply a big piece in the local-visibility puzzle?

Andrew: The puzzle thing. I wouldn’t spend much time thinking about Apple Maps SEO at the moment. The fact that the primary interface is a mobile map that presents listings based on your precise location means that traditional rankings are not as relevant. You need to think about categorization and make sure your data is correct, but at the moment there’s not a lot you can do to get to #1 for whatever search besides have a lot of 5-star Yelp reviews.

Phil: Aside from the fact that it’s Apple, why do you like writing about Apple Maps? For that matter, what do you like about Apple Maps itself so far?

Andrew: As you can tell from my other blog, Local SEO Guide, I got pretty bored writing about Google. There are plenty of other smart people getting into the minutiae of Google+ Local – Mike Blumenthal, Linda Buquet, Mike Ramsey, Nyagoslav Zhekov, to name but a few. The reason I started Local SEO Guide was because at the time, nobody was talking about local SEO and I thought I had some things of interest to talk about. I started Apple Maps Marketing for the same reason.

As far as what I like about Apple Maps so far – it has helped me illustrate to clients how investing a little bit of effort into writing quality content and promoting it can get you ranked on page one of Google for what is likely one of the most competitive keywords on the planet. I doubt many people are actively optimizing to rank for “Apple Maps”, but given how many news stories there are from major and minor media, I am still amazed that about half the time my blog with my stinking avatar shows up on page one.

Phil: What are some tests you’re currently running?

Andrew: Right now I am trying to determine the fastest way to get an update into Apple Maps.

Phil: If Steve Jobs could descend from the misty ether and answer any 3 questions you had about Maps, what would you ask him?

Andrew:

– Did you really die or did you actually upload your consciousness into iCloud?
– Do you now agree that Walter Isaacson was the wrong guy?
– What did you think of the tap dancing kid at the Samsung Galaxy 4 extravaganza?

Did you really think I was going to use my precious time with afterlife Steve talking about mapping?

Phil: Apple Maps in 2018. What it’s like?

Andrew: Chip…in…Head…Full on LTE to the brain with turn-by-turn navigation voices in your head. Updates may cause headaches, eye strain and leakage of clear fluid from the nostrils. If SIRI keeps telling you to “turn in 500 feet” for more than four hours straight, consult your technician.

—

Thanks, Andrew!

Any questions or thoughts? Go ahead…leave a comment.

Best Local Search Tools – 2012

March 15, 2012 by Phil 14 Comments

It’s possible to get a business visible in Google Places and other local search engines without using any tools…but why would you want to?

Sure, you can drive a nail with a brick (or that poundcake your in-laws sent for Christmas), but it’s much more effective, quicker, and easier if you’ve got the right tool.

I’ve rounded up a list of the best tools that I, other local-searchers, and wise business owners use on a daily basis. Others exist, but I consider these the cream of the crop.

There were some great lists of local-search tools last year—including an excellent one by Mike Ramsey—but none so far for 2012 (that I’m aware of). Another year, a new lineup.

I’ve categorized the tools with 3 little symbols:

= Extremely user-friendly tool.

= A tool that’s good to use repeatedly—both before you’re visible and after, as part of a maintenance routine.

= Paid tool, but a heck of a good investment. (Any tool that doesn’t have this symbol next to it is free.)

Near the bottom of the list are some tools that aren’t specific to local search, but that can indirectly help your local rankings anyway.

The list: best tools for local search optimization

GetListed.org
In the world of local search, GetListed is handier than duct tape and a Swiss Army Knife put together. It instantly analyzes how locally visible your business is and gives you specific recommendations for how to get more visible. Plus, the rest of the site contains some superb resources that show you the ropes of local search.

(Once you’ve done a basic scan of your business and maybe browsed GetListed’s resources, check out my advanced tips for GetListed scans.)

Local Citation Finder
Before Whitespark came out with this tool, getting citations was like getting your teeth pulled. Now it’s just like a routine tooth cleaning 🙂

The Local Citation Finder will tell you all the business directories your top-ranked local competitors are listed on – which allows you to go out and list your business on those sites and turn the tables on your competitors. Very user-friendly. Absolutely essential if you’re serious about growing your local visibility.

Google Places Category Tool
Beautifully simple, yet powerful: a giant list of all the business categories you can choose for your Google Places page. Use it to make sure you’ve picked out all the categories that may apply to your business. It also includes synonyms corresponding to each category, which help if you’re unsure about which categories to pick. Created by none other than Mike Blumenthal.

Link Prospector
Getting good-old-fashioned links to your website can help your Google Places rankings. In a nutshell, this is the best link-finding tool I’ve used. It’s made by Citation Labs. The demo video can explain the details better than I can. Also, I really dig their “Pay as You Go” option.

Local Search Toolkit
You can learn a lot about how to rank well in your specific local market if you spend enough time poking around on your competitors’ Places pages to find out what categories they use, which citations they have, and so forth. Local Search ToolKit lets you gather that competitive intel instantly.

BrightLocal’s ReviewBiz
I had a brilliant idea: little buttons you could put on your website that customers simply could click to write reviews for you…but then I learned the chaps at BrightLocal had already thought of it and made it. An awesome tool for getting an extra stream of reviews from your customers without even having to ask them.

MyReviewsPage
A great way to keep quick tabs on your reviews (how many and what ratings) on the most important review sites, with a really handy “dashboard” feature. MyReviewsPage also has a number of other features for monitoring and gathering customer reviews.

Microformats.org
Google’s bots like it if you add your business name, address, and phone number to the bottom of every page of your website. But the bots are tickled pink if you can format your name, address, and phone number with a few specific lines of code before doing so. This format is called hCard. You can prepare the code you need at microformats.org/code/hcard/creator. (Chris Silver Smith has a great article to help you do this.)

Another smart move is to add a few lines of a similar kind of code to any customer testimonials you have on your website. This format is called hReview. If you mark up your customer testimonials with this code, Google will (essentially) treat those testimonials as reviews. This means you’ll not only get “review stars” for those testimonials, but those review stars will show up next to wherever your business is ranked in Google’s search results. Be sure to read this excellent piece by Linda Buquet before preparing your testimonials in hReview.

GeoSitemapGenerator
The more information Google has about the location of your business, the more likely it is you’ll rank well locally. Whereas a regular sitemap file is a way to tell search engines where the pages of your website are located, a geositemap file tells search engines where your business itself is located. The easy-to-use GeoSitemap Generator lets you create the two files you’ll need to upload to your site.

David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors
Even the best compass isn’t much use without an accurate map. This comprehensive, definitive study will help you at any and every stage of your push to get visible to local customers. If you ever find yourself wondering “Gee, what do I need all these tools for?” look no farther than this document.

Honorable mention: Definitive Citations List
An ongoing project of mine: to list every citation source I’ve found. The Definitive List of Local Search Citations List isn’t in the same league of awesomeness as the above tools, but it’s a resource I’ve been working on for a while, which I’ll keep trying to develop and improve. Please take a look and let me know if there are any citations you’d suggest I add to the list.

Tools that indirectly help local search visibility

CrazyEgg
A simple plugin-like tool that shows you a really sexy heatmap of where your website visitors click, the traffic sources those clicks come from, how far down the page they scroll, and other crucial intel.

Whereas Google Analytics will tell you which links on your site people click on, it won’t tell you things like how many people are clicking on your giant logo at the top of the page, even though it doesn’t link to anywhere, or whether only about 2% of the visitors who came from Facebook actually click on your “Services” page.

CrazyEgg, on the other hand, will tell you all that and more. You’ll discover that areas of your website potential customers take interest in, and which areas they don’t. If you tweak your website according to what you learn about your customers’ worries and wants, you can better gear your site toward the specific services they’re most interested in, which will also help your chances of turning those visitors into customers.

SnagIt
A screenshot tool and photo-editor wrapped up into one very handy bundle. You need good photos if you want to make your Places attractive enough that visitors are compelled to click through to your site rather than to hit the “Back” button. Some people swear by Photoshop, but SnagIt is my weapon of choice. It will also help with some of the fairly wild things I suggest you do with your photos in order to maximize your local visibility. It has a great free trial, by the way.

Google Alerts
Want to know where your competitors are getting publicity (and citations and links)? Need to know if they’re talking smack about your business? Set up some Google Alerts and you’ll receive emails from Google that let you know what’s been published on the web about you or your competitors.

—

It’s still very early in 2012; there’s a ton of year left for innovation. If a new tool comes out that brings something new to the local-search table, let me know and I’ll take a look.

Got any tools to recommend that aren’t on my list—or anything you’d like to say about the tools I’ve already got? Leave a comment!

Sabotage Methods in Google Places

November 19, 2011 by Phil 15 Comments

Maybe you didn’t “do anything” to your competitor. Maybe your competitor is struggling and simply wants more customers. Maybe your competitor thinks your success online means less profit for him or her.

I don’t know what your competitors think—and you probably don’t know, either.

But I do know one thing: you don’t want your business, livelihood, and your family’s finances to depend on whether or not your competitors are ethical people.

Just as people can hurt each other in real life, they can hurt each other where it really counts online: Google Places.

Your competitors are probably honest people. But there are always the bad apples. Even the bad ones most likely can’t hurt you intentionally in Google Places right now—unless they’ve been studying up on it. Some people are clever and knowledgeable but also dishonest and unethical.

There are specific tactics they can use to deprive you of local customers in Google Places and take a chunk out of your business and profits. For any competitors to use any of these against you, they’d have to fall somewhere between savvy and ingeniously cunning.

Some of these tactics I’ve seen used, whereas others I haven’t seen anyone use. But each one is a vulnerability that you should know about.

Disclaimer: I can’t control who reads this, or what that person does with the info I provide. I’m telling you about these tactics so you can prevent them from being used against your business in the first place, and so you have an idea of how to counteract them in case you do encounter them.

Here are the 9 nastiest ways an unethical competitor could sabotage you—ranked in order of least to most sinister:

9. They upload malicious or unflattering photos to your Places page. They don’t even have to be untrue or libelous; they could just be really ugly or irrelevant photos that turn customers off to you. Sure, you could get them removed, but it will be a real nuisance for you—and some potential customers will inevitably see the photos in the meantime.

8. They relentlessly use the “Report a problem” feature in Google Places to try to convince Google that you’re doing something wrong.

7. They pepper your Google reviews with flags and reports of being “inappropriate”—and then get their henchmen to do the same. If they succeed, your legitimate reviews might go the way of the dodo bird.

6. They could get several people to write you a bunch of positive reviews. Google may suspect you’re buying positive reviews (which some people do), and may pull your reviews or even suspend your account. Your competitors could take it a step further by making the reviews sound really fake (though still positive), which could cause legitimate people who visit your Places page to flag the reviews as “inappropriate” or “unhelpful” and get you into trouble.

5. They write nasty reviews of you on third-party sites and/or or on sites like PissedConsumer.com. These are especially tough to combat because (1) it’s harder for you to keep tabs on a bunch of different sites, because (2) one person can easily create a bunch of different user accounts on these sites and write you a nasty review on each, and because (3) some third-party sites don’t give you much recourse even if your business is getting slammed unjustly.

4. They write fake negative reviews, get their friends and family to do the same, and pay even more people to do it. They’d get a bunch of people to write not only negative Google reviews, but also nasty reviews on third-party sites. Most customers would know the reviews are cooked-up, but some would be convinced, and your Google Places ranking would most likely still take a hit. You could counteract their efforts if you took enough time away from running your business, but don’t expect Google to step in and do anything.

3. They set up fake Google Places listings for your address, using a different phone number from the one you use. Long story short, Google views your phone number as the unique “ID” of your business. If Google doesn’t have confidence that it knows what your real phone number is, your ranking will take a big hit.

2. Alternatively, they could set up fake Google Places listings using the name of your business but with a different phone number and a different address from the ones you use. Again, this would be an attempt to spread inconsistent info about your business and create “uncertainty” about your business in the eyes of Google. Having duplicate listings in general isn’t good for your Google Places ranking, and it’s far worse if there is a bunch of inconsistent information about your business floating around on the duplicate Places listings. The worst part is if your competitor lists an address that isn’t your real one, he potentially could receive the verification PIN from Google in the mail and actually “owner-verify” the fake listing. Google likely would eventually conclude that it isn’t the right address, but your competitor still will have thrown a wrench into the system.

1. Probably the worst thing a competitor could do to you is to use Tactic #2 against you and go to numerous third-party sites and create a bunch of fake listings for your business, all slightly different from each other. Not only does your Google ranking suffer when you have a ton of duplicate listings floating around cyberspace, but it’s infinitely worse when the info in those listings (phone numbers, addresses, name of business) is inconsistent. It would be extremely tough to manage the information that the most important third-party sites have about you—especially if an unethical competitor keeps peppering them with false info and maybe even claiming some of the listings. Especially if this tactic is used in combination with any of the others, you’ve got a serious problem on your hands.

So how can you avoid or counteract any sabotage? A few suggestions:

Watch your Google Places listing like a hawk. This means not only checking the Place page itself for anything suspicious or malicious, but also logging into the “Dashboard” area to make sure you don’t have any notifications/warnings from Google.

Keep an eye on third-party listings and data providers—including Yelp, SuperPages, CitySearch, and ExpressUpdateUSA. Look out for duplicate listings and see if the info they contain is accurate. If not, get the duplicates removed.

Set up Google Alerts for your business name and website name. Doing the same for your competitors’ names is a good measure, too.

Read all your reviews—first and foremost on your Places page, but also occasionally on major third-party sites, like Yelp and InsiderPages. If you see a suspicious-looking review, click on the username of the person who wrote it. You’ll be able to see what other reviews that person has written. If there’s a scathing 1-star for you but a glowing 5-star for your competitor, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

If prevention doesn’t work, contact the business owner. First just mention what is going on, and ask in a non-accusatory way whether they might know anything about it. If they’re dodgy, explain your reasons for thinking they’re up to something, and then ask them to explain what’s really going on. Obviously, be as polite as possible and don’t lead off with finger-pointing—but also be firm and keep your BS detector cranked up.

Meanwhile (maybe before you even contact the business owner), use Google’s feeble but occasionally handy “Report a problem” feature to let the powers-that-be at Google Places know something’s awry.

(By the way, if you still encounter trouble even after all of that, feel free to contact me; I may be able to give you some suggestions.)

To a peaceful, fair, prosperous local market.

photos

The list: best tools for local search optimization

Tools that indirectly help local search visibility

Footer