The Near Memo

Send us Fan Mail Google LSA reviews come, they go but LSA still sucks:   Last week we saw seismic activity in the disappearance of Google Local Service Ads (LSA) reviews and there was hope, however faint, that they were fixing their fake review problem. But like with so much around Google local efforts, that was not the case. Fake reviews in LSA are emblematic of Google’s lost opportunity with the...

Send us Fan Mail When should you ask for reviews? Common wisdom in the world of reputation management is that you ask for reviews immediately following a client transaction. Research from the University of Nevada seems to indicate otherwise. But like many things in marketing, it depends. It depends on your demographic, your product or service and likely on the relationship you have with your custo...

Send us Fan Mail Segment 1: Activist investor suggests Yelp sale Eric Semler of TCS Capital Management  criticizes Yelp for not delivering enough value to its stockholders. He suggests that Yelp should sell itself to Angi, citing Yelp's strong services business and potential for synergy in a merger.  While Yelp has found some success in its services business and transitioned to a SaaS model,...

Send us Fan Mail GBP Image Not Approved, a bug or feature & how to tell:  Google Business Profile image upload has long exhibited a bug that prevents images from being published. The problem is that Google uses the exact same messaging for many conditions that lead to Google not publishing the image. How does a business know if they have broken often unstated rules or if they are experiencing...

Send us Fan Mail Google I/O - How to make the interesting seem mundane:  We discuss the highlights of Google I/O, focusing on search and local search. While the hardware announcements, such as the foldable phone and affordable Pixel, were interesting, the overall event lacked excitement and vitality. The emphasis on AI felt overplayed, and some announcements seemed more suitable for a Wallstreet a...

Send us Fan Mail The integration of AI into the SAAS world has unleashed unprecedented innovation and transformation. Darby Sieben discusses how Unbounce started using AI to improve their core products and to build additional products  to help businesses achieve higher conversions.  Companies that effectively harness AI capabilities can expect  significant drivers of differentiation Subscribe to o...

Send us Fan Mail Understanding and managing the ever expanding Google Local Knowledge Panel:  Google's Knowledge Panel and Business Profile are essential components of a local digital marketing strategy. The Knowledge Panel is a rich search result that appears in response to a user's query and provides relevant information about the queried entity. On the other hand, the Business Profile...

Send us Fan Mail Will AI totally destroy the review economy? What will replace reviews? The appearance of AI-generated reviews on Amazon has significant implications for the future of reviews and will aid in increasing the scale of an already serious problem. While Google has attempted to combat this somewhat with critic reviews,  the decimation of local news will make it challenging to highlight...

Send us Fan Mail Consumer Reports new app,  Permission Slip eases privacy requests but is still a baby step:   Permission Slip from Consumer Reports simplifies the process of making data deletion or "don't sell my data" requests to third-party websites and retailers. It is an elegant first step solution for individuals to navigate privacy exposures in states with stricter criteria....

Send us Fan Mail Unpacking OLAs: The Pros and Cons of Google's New Ad Type for Local Businesses: OLAs, a new ad type that appear on the business profile for local businesses, have been formally released. These ads are independent of the business and can be placed by  allowlisted companies. Google has a whitelist to get into this program, and the ads can be placed by companies such as Groupon,...

Send us Fan Mail Will Google merging Bard into Assistant resurrect assistants from the ashes?  Google Assistant, offered up by Google as the future of search, has never fulfilled its promise. Will the integration of AI finally free these assistants from their constraints? And will this integration of AI & Assistant with search help or hurt Google as the dominant search engine.  Wix integrates...

Send us Fan Mail Local Search Ranking Factors - Big Takeaways and big changes from previous years:   In this segment we take a bird’s eye view of the survey, how it was crafted, its history and the big takeaways.   What has changed the most? What is new? What are the LSA ranking factors? What are the basic must do activities to get started in the ranking arena.  Local Search Ranking Factors - Diff...

Send us Fan Mail FTC proposes new rules to rein in subscription abuses:  The FTC has  been on a roll fighting the many “dark patterns” of the internet. Last week they added a $245m  fine for Fortnite to pay for consumer restitution of inappropriate charges incurred after a single misleading click. This week they proposed a rule  to eliminate abuses of the “Negative Option rule” which requires cons...

Send us Fan Mail  New Google GPB Bug: Your Business is not visible to customers: There is a new bug where thousands of business profiles are being told by Google that “Your Business is not visible to customers”. This message has meant many things: you have a new listing and we will show it when we trust it, your listing has recently been reinstated, your listing is suspended and now somewhat rando...

Send us Fan Mail Google LSA expands to new categories & faces spam:  Google has added new, high value categories to their Local SErvice Ads program. They continue to target ever more service type businesses. While the pricing for this simpler product has gone up due to the added auction capabilities, in many markets it is still a good value. It is also important for service type businesses to...

Send us Fan Mail Bing isn’t a Google killer but it is important for a number of other reasons:  Bing’s inclusion of ChatGPT has positioned Microsoft to take over the search conversation even if it doesn’t unseat Google. Bing has done a thoughtful job of integrating chat into search but it remains awkwards and still lacks significant value to the search experience. This is particularly true with lo...

Send us Fan Mail Google Business Profile services positively impact rank: In a recent test by Joy Hawkins at Sterlingsky demonstrated that having services identified for your profile influences rank. How does Google generate these categories? How does this fit into the long term trend of Google adding ever more granular detail for businesses?  Will custom services have an equal effect? Will this a...

Send us Fan Mail Microsoft’s transformation of Bing with AI & some smart moves:  There are now millions of people on the BingChat waitlist. And many have noted a positive reaction to the bot. But the compressed hype cycle around the release of ChatGPT and BingChat, a series of stories bemoaning the “nature” of the chatbot.  Will users start shifting their searches to Bing? Has Microsoft pulled...

Send us Fan Mail In this extended episode we explore the role AI in general and ChatGPT is having on the work within digital agencies. What are the opportunities and challenges that agencies face when using it? Are either of you currently using ChatGPT or AI tools in your daily work? If so, what and for what purposes?  How have ChatGPT and related tools changed your work?  What is the biggest oppo...

Send us Fan Mail ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools can write very credible reviews, very quickly and easily. The number of fake reviews could possibly explode in numbers. While multi-location businesses care about reviews they don’t really put any energy into them. Is Google equally unconcerned about reviews? How will this impact the review ecosystem and how will Google respond? It can seem...

Send us Fan Mail Mailchimp launched Campaign Manager, a way for marketers to plan, execute, and track their marketing campaigns across multiple channels—like email, text messaging, social media ads, and direct mail—and view how their campaign is performing in one calendar view.  But Intuit’s ads are positioning this tool for the smaller business with one or two employees but in reality is for more...

Send us Fan Mail  Failings in Apple Business Connect Agency Model: While the Apple Business Connect Dashboard is well designed and the new API is significant, the product really fails smaller businesses that want their smaller agency to manage their listing for them. As the system is designed, a small business has to get an Apple ID, verify their own listing and then share the admin privileges wit...

Send us Fan Mail Why the new Apple Business Connect is so important:  Apple Business Connect is both a small business interface AND an API. The small business interface is very elegant and supports very hi res imagery as well as a Post-like product called Showcases. The bigger news is probably the roll-out of the API. This is the first time Apple has allowed third parties to directly interact with...

Send us Fan Mail Washington AG sues plastic surgeon for review fraud: Allure, a chain of Seattle based plastic surgery centers, has been sued under the federal Consumer Review Fairness Act, HIPPA and state law for significant fraudulent activities in the review space. Requiring NDAs prohibiting negative reviews, bribes to take reviews down, photoshopped before and after consumer images and stealin...

Send us Fan Mail In this 44 minute interview, David, Mike and Greg interrogate Barry Schwartz about algorithm updates, the SERP and the future of Google in an era of AI-generated content. Here are the topics in roughly the order they appear: Google UI changes and Universal Search Why Google makes SERP design changes Major algorithm updates in 2021 and 2022 Helpful content update, spam and product...