ionadas local LLC

Local SEO – 2009 Year in Review

It’s no surprise that all the interesting developments in Local SEO in 2009 happened at Google. Yahoo and Bing continued to mostly sit on their hands this year.

10. Google Favorite Places poster
To promote their “Favorite Places” campaign, sent out window decals to 100,000 businesses late this year. There appears to be a bias towards businesses for whom driving directions have been requested, but there are reports of at least some businesses with PO Boxes receiving the decals.

Google Maps Spam Being Reduced

The locksmith industry has traditionally been one of the most spammy spaces on Google Maps. Google has been trying to crack down on this space for some time, but in September 2009, I performed an analysis that showed that the listings were still of extremely poor quality.

I performed the same analysis today, and the results have improved greatly.

Free SEO 101 Workshop, December 15, Austin, Texas

ionadas local is sponsoring MarketMyBizOnline.com’s December Lunch & Learn, titled SEO 101: Search Engine Optimization Basics for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs. It will be held on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 from 11am to 1pm at Dave & Busters in northwest Austin.

Jane Dueease of MarketMyBizOnline.com will discuss:

• What is SEO and Why should it matter to you?
• Organic vs Paid Search
• Keyword Research 101: How to find the killer keywords for your site
• 15 Simple things you can do

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PubCon Interview

Vanessa Zamora of PubCon interviewed Brian Combs on optimization for Google Local last month in Las Vegas, NV.

Google Places Local Listing Ads on Pause

Today, Google announced that they were suspending their trial of Local Listing Ads. No new signups are being accepted, and the current ads will cease running sometime in mid-December. My understanding is that advertisers are not being charged, even if their campaign ran beyond the thirty-day trial period.

Google plans to use the lessons they learned to:

make further improvements to our online marketing offerings for small businesses, and plan to release an enhanced version more widely in the near

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