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- Newsletter #17
Newsletter #17
Whitespark Local Insider
Whitespark's Monthly Local Search Newsletter
Local Insider
June 2016
Sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and a new website!!! Awww yeah. We are super pumped to announce that we have upgraded our site and while we've kept our signature pink and Whitespark charm, it's a whole new look.This has been a huge project for us (grueling at times). Moving from a custom CMS to WP is intense business.Be sure to check out our rad new blog, which is more like a content hub and fully equipped with search functionality. We're so fancy now. We also have a super fun About Us page, so if you want to learn more about our awesome team check it out. And don't worry, we preserved our original 404 page because it still makes us laugh.We want to extend some major thanks to:
Orlin, Jeff, and Jessie for their tireless efforts to make this happen.
FocusLab for creating the foundation and base design of the new site and Avenir Creative for taking it to the next level with us.
Joel Klettke for his word wizardry on our home page.
Stay tuned for more fun updates as we are in the process of updating our Local Citation Finder with a new look and more features.
Cheers,Team Whitespark
Recent Blog Posts
A common question we get in Local SEO is how businesses that have practitioner listings should approach Google My Business. There is a lot of confusion around how to deal with these and if they help or hurt the business’ ranking on Google. Find out the top questions practitioners (or practices) have regarding their listings and the best solutions in this awesome guest post by one of our favourite local search experts, Joy Hawkins.
Around The Web
"Columnist Marcus Miller provides a comprehensive look into ranking factors for local search, including negative ranking factors and ways to differentiate yourself from the competition."
"Google invites image spam and pisses off business owners once again. It is now possible for a third party with good web design to leverage a listing’s photos display for their gain (i.e. spam)."
Spam is a major problem in Google Maps, Google MapMaker and local 3-pack for Google search. Arm yourself with the know-how on how to fight spam and improve Google's search results so that they are cleaner.
"Your organic click-through rate is ridiculously important. While it may not be a direct ranking signal that's even part of Google's core algorithm, [Larry Kim] believe[s] CTR is an indirect signal that definitely impacts rank."
"Google is on track to make more than $70bn in revenue in 2016, and the lion’s share of that number will be generated by its insanely successful advertising business."
Approximately 419 million people are blocking ads on mobile devices around the world. In developing countries individuals are doing so to save on data costs; while in developed countries it is more about frustration with ad experience. "Location is probably the most important feature of the mobile user experience and it’s much less widely utilized than it should be."
"You might be doing well on reviews, but can you see your business when you search for the review site?"
"There’s an amazing amount of misinformation about RankBrain. And the truth is there is nothing you can do to optimize for RankBrain."
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