Recent content by Andrew Forster

@ Phil Agreed. It's not so much a philosophical view on SEO / Local SEO as it is a business model.

I definitely agree with that. My point is, how much is a business willing to pay to 'get' those few good links. I liken it to "real marketing and outreach" just done online. If it takes an agency 6 months and they charged the client thousands of dollars, but in the end they get the links which...

I respectfully agree to disagree While 75% of the battle is the setup, and ensuring all information is accurate, the outreach portion (ongoing authority building) is a huge piece of the puzzle, and expecting clients to actually move ahead with this, even after training them (at least in our...

I agree with 100% of what you said .... unfortunately that's not what the client wants to hear. They're paying you, because you're the expert, and if you don't set clear expectations from the beginning, get ready for the poo storm. This is likely why the experts have moved into consulting other...

Lots of legitimate online marketing companies in my area have been using Geo indicators (south, downtown, west, city name) in their title pages anyway, and have had no issues. In regards to the citation effect, who knows. While having 'key' citations is important, I'm finding that they are...

They only have 5 categories listed in places, Map Maker is pulling aggregated data from all over the place. I did however, find a way to respond to the reviews :) You need to be logged into their places account, and navigate to the unclaimed Google+ listing that Google made for them, of which...

I can see why you're confused ... let me try and clarify :( We have a client, who has a claimed Google Places page: roberson body works - Google Search We've created the page (previously) have done citation work etc. The client also has reviews, but we aren't able to respond to the reviews...

Hey Guys & Gals, Quick question about responding to reviews. Say for example, you had a previously claimed Google Places page and are using the places dashboard to manage your account. The reviews that are listed in your account would be placed into a Google+ Page that isn't merged / verified...

Smart cookie you are :) Yes, location #1 is merged into Google+ and the 2nd location (because of all the issues) I just created in the Places Dashboard and am awaiting my PIN. I guess I'll continue to manage location #1 from Google+ and the new listing from the Places dashboard, because afaik...

So this will be some sort of time warp / sync with Google Places / Google+ Local into the new dashboard ... ohhhh baby that's exciting - let's just hope the merge works well and properly imports data points from map maker, Google places and Google+ effectively!

So what happens if you're adding another location? As far as I know, you're supposed to do it at places.google.com even if you have another location being managed from the Google+ dashboard. For example, our company has a new location in South Edmonton, so I added it via Google Places. Up at...

Thanks for your help Linda, and thanks for the approval edit Nick. I'll give it a few days and see if it goes through - if not I'll post it in the Map Maker forum. - Andrew

We have a client who's main category is continually being changed by Google's automated moderators in Map Maker. He is a psychologist in Calgary Alberta, but Google constantly changes it to 'child psychologist' as his main category. I have changed the category about 3 times (over the past 12...

Thanks Colan :)

Anyone in Canada getting the new layout yet? Also - is there any word on what to do if you have a places dashboard, and a merged / verified Google+ Local page - are these all getting merged into this new layout?