Google Places Optimization and Local SEO Blog

Today is the last day for Tags, so Yext’s email was designed to take advantage of Tag’s demise. One of my Google Places clients just sent me the following email and asked for my advice. My answer follows the Yext email – with some cautionary warnings.

It let’s you analyze the top ranking Places – at a glance, with the click of a button. Claimed or not, # or reviews and citations, back links, meta and TONS more. Perfect for prospecting. Tell it to go search the top 100 listings for a market and it will tell you which ones are not claimed and more. Also great for sizing up a market, preparing needs analysis and cost justification reports for prospective clients or figuring out what it will take to boost your client to the top in a competitive market.

All the changes in local search, especially Google Places, can make you dizzy and if you run a business, it can be hard to stay on top of. We keep up with all the changes at Google Places – so you don’t have to!

Happy to announce that there is finally a good solution for tracking Google Places ranking results. Not only that, but this brand new tool also checks Bing Local, Yahoo Local AND your organic rankings PLUS tracks your rankings on 3rd party directors like Yelp & Superpages. I’ve been BETA testing a variety of Google Places tools and the one I’m most excited about just launched.

Due to the reorg at Google last week there have been TONS of changes at Google Places. ESPECIALLY if you are one that has suffered from Google bugs or lack of support – this is a must read summary of the news you need to know.

I’m a big believer in the Google Places model and what it can and SHOULD be… but I’ve been a vocal critic of the buggy beta-like tech problems, faulty data scraping mechanism and total lack of support for small businesses.