In addition to organic tactics, almost 80% of local marketers are purchasing ads on Google. According to a recent survey of 1,300 local marketing agencies, small businesses (SMBs) and multi-location enterprises from Moz, this is 10% more than last year. A wide range of questions were asked in the survey, including the impact of COVID-19 on […]

A new feature has been launched for Google My Business, giving local businesses more flexibility with their business hours that reflects ways they are adapting for social distancing as they begin reopening. It’s now possible to set up “more hours” in Google My Business with special time for different things, such as seniors, pick up, […]

One area that Google can dangle over Amazon is Local retail. Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, Google has been giving local businesses more messaging options, including: Special store hours Pickup and delivery options More in Google My Business.  Google has now enabled “Curbside pickup” badges for Local Inventory Ads. The “Curbside pickup” features has been piloted […]

In an announcement made on April 20, Bing and GoFundMe have partnered up in order to facilitate donations made to local businesses that are impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The owners of Bing Places for Business accounts can set up fundraisers through GoFundMe and Bing will display a donation button within its local listing page. There […]

Google has been in the process of rolling out COVID-19 updates and advice to local businesses regularly. Specifically in an update for health and medical professionals, the ompany introduced some new links in the Google My Business (GMB) dashboard. These two links were first discovered by Erica Paige and picked up by Mike Blumenthal. GMB instructions have been dedicated by […]

It seems Google has disabled local reviews functionality for both consumers AND business owners. SterlingSky’s Jason Brown first flagged this issue on Friday. Joy Hawkins, also of SterlingSky, added, “Any review responses posted right now aren’t publishing live. Same thing with leaving new reviews. None of the reviews I left 5 min ago are publishing.” When asked […]

In an announcement, Bing said that they are supporting the SpecialAnnouncement data type for coronavirus-related business, travel, government health agency and testing center updates. If you apply the markup, it can produce a label that shows your special announcement that has a link to your site, in web, and local search results. Businesses and agencies can use […]

For a while now, Google My Business and Google Maps have been growing larger and more robust, and has steadily been pushing itself into Yelp’s core value proposition – local business search and reviews. In order to fight back, Yelp added new capabilities to Yelp Waitlist, allowing diners to join a restaurant waitlist before getting to the […]

On February 20, Google posted hot it is continuing to build up Maps with community content. According to the company, the myriad contributions made its over 120 million Local Guides. Google also spoke up about spam, which the company said is representing less than 1% of the 20 million daily contributions it receives on Maps. […]

It seems that when Apple Maps had a botched launch in 2012, it has spent “billions” trying to catch up with Google Maps. This week, it celebrates its 15 year anniversary next week. Last week, Apple announced that its rebuilt its Maps application and has rolled it out in general availability across the US. It will soon […]