Recent content by Ian Hammond

Hi Caroline, Agreed, it seems a little bordering on old school spammy SEO where a ton of keywords are hidden on a page. I don't know a ton about class="visually-hidden" but my understanding is this not the intended use. This said.. It could be tested to see if Google would still probably see...

Seeing this same thing for accounts I am checking. On mobile using a browser. When I click the truck or text it does show me all geos listed, not just a few. Maybe this is because I am way out of the service area of the clients I am checking on? To that, for the listing that we used zip codes...

Agency Automators made a pretty cool tool for bulk management of Q & A through a google sheet add-on: Agency Automators - Q + A - Google Sheets add-on

Hi! Anyone else had this issue with a GMB account? With a listing that was verified in early September and we are still getting these notices in the GMB account: Unfortunately, this had made the listing less visible than when it was unverified. That is, not visible at all. I have poked...

@Colan Nielsen, we have had calls with GMB Support about this topic that were pretty fruitless. Is there a particular route or channel you suggest for this category-switch bug? thanks!

@gill I Would agree with Colan here. It seems like the only real lesson is that keyword stuffing your GMB listing name works. A secondary one would be that proximity to searcher still matters a ton--even if it shouldn't for the given client (say a lawyer or HVAC co). ...

Is that other business in their building in the same GMB Category? One thing I picked up from @JoyHawkins et al at Local U was Google will only show one business per category within, was it 300 feet? I would also check to see if they are getting pushed down by spam listings. It seems pretty...

Thanks, all! Appreciate the insight.

Hi! We have a client who has recently gotten into trouble with a local utility company for listing information about the utility's rebate and weatherization programs. The utility thinks the pages in question on our client's site somehow gives the appearance of favoring the contractor over...

Seeing it today for Contactor and Insulation Contractor in a new GMB profile. Haven't seen it in any of our other clients yet (sector is hvac, insulation contractors, solar installers) but we also filled in the Services section where we could to pre-empt single.platform from auto-filling with...

Thank you for the responses @JoyHawkins and @Phil Rozek. They do have a Yelp listing. "Organic"; not paid. It is fairly well fleshed out with company details but unfortunately, Apple is not pulling in the company business categories. The listing in Apple currently just has them as "Home...

Hi All! I have read through some of the voice search threads on here but does anyone have any insight into the best way to approach Siri/Apple for service area businesses? I had an insulation company client sitting in his parking lot asking Siri to tell him "insulation companies near me" but he...

I believe Moz Local pushes data to Acxiom so that may temporarily be part of a solution. I know Moz's pricing structure has changed recently but I have to think the level it pushes info to aggregators is lower than that $449 price tag.

My guess would be that they don't want a "flat" logo that includes a rating as that may not be accurate for that company at the time. We work with a lot of service companies so we actually use the dynamic logos pretty often. Sure, we don't love that they are an outbound link but we also...

Has anyone else had their new service area rejected by Google? It was a combination of counties and townships that encompassed the Chicago Southland and NW Indiana. Legitimately their service area. Not much mention of the specific towns or counties on their website but plenty of mention of their...