New Local Listings Video with Blumenthal & Darren Shaw

[Linda Buquet]

Just picked up a good video about Local Listings management by Max from Max Impact, featuring Mike Blumenthal and Darren from Whitespark. It's from a live Google Hangout done yesterday. 10/17

You know you can always learn something new listening to these guys!
Timestamps below so you can see what was discussed.

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Very insightful #maximpact with +Mike Blumenthal, +Darren Shaw and other local marketers. Created time stamps to make your viewing experience better. Enjoy!

1:23 - stories: how Mike and Darren started in local
1:27 - local listings are not "yours" - you are just another (slightly more trusted) source in Google database. Your local listing is not your local record
Read more in +Philip Rozek's post here: Top Local SEO Myths | LocalVisibilitySystem.com
8:29 - local business prominence: structured listing (Google+, Yelp, YellowPages,...) and unstructured citations (local newspaper, blog,...). That's about 25% of local ranking factors
10:00 - the engagement of listing is reviews. Encourage reviews across the ecosystem; review diversification
10:58 - expand what is a citation in your thinking : structured listing + branded URL
11:19 - quality always trumps quantity for citations for business prominence
13:35 - trusted resources of data for listings; what should you focus on based on resources you have? Limited on resources? Infogroup & Localeze
Take a look at +David Mihm's local search ecosystem to better understand Mike's answer: The 2013 Local Search Ecosystems (and a GetListed Upgrade) - Moz
17:23 - Types of Google+ pages; updates for Bing local
20:50 - Google's incredible transition in local
23:40 - listings maintenance & changing business info
Mike recommended +Nyagoslav Zhekov (26:07) for claiming and updating 3rd party-listings.

Q & A
27:51 Hashtag - #maximpact
(you can ask questions before, during and after the event; i.e. feel free to ask any additional questions - #maximpact isn't over when broadcast is)

28:05 - question from +Ben Bowen about duplicating descriptions in local listings. Mike made a post about it on +Local University blog too: Is There Any SEO Benefit in Varying Your Company Description Across Listings? - Local University
33:09 - question from +Craig Fifield: NAP consistency effect on organic rankings for nationwide businesses.
35:38 - Darren: using citation-building as a replacement for link-building is a common misconception.
39:14 - citation questions from +Gaz Copeland (about quality vs. quality of citation) and +Tony Dimmock (future for local citations; citation directories)
Quality Citation Sources from Darren: How to Identify Quality Citation Sources | Whitespark
42:32 - question from +Mihai Aperghis: How to analyze an ecosystem in the other country?
48:38 - #maximpact points giveaway explained and question from +Benjamin Beck - most common mistakes business owners make when trying to do local on their own?
50:23 - question from +Jason T. Wiser - name/brand change
52:51 - on businesses with wide range of services
57:00 - another question from +Jason T. Wiser: reviews and offering free Wi-Fi at the location.

Special thank you to all attendees: +Barrie Moran, +Benjamin Beck, +Kevin Knecht, +Craig Fifield, +Adam Steele, +Mihai Aperghis and +Jason T. Wiser. And thanks to everyone watched (watching and will be watching), asked questions, contributed and shared this #maximpact .

Hat tip to our member Mike Wilton for sharing this on Google+.

And here is the post at Max's blog: Local Listings