Newsletter #35

Expand Your Reach With Local Pack Ads & Best Practices For Practitioner Listings

February 21, 2018

Whitespark's Monthly Local Search Newsletter

Local InsiderFebruary 2018

 Join All the Cool Kids In Paradise at SearchLove San DiegoTake your digital marketing knowledge to new levels in 2018 at Distilled's SearchLove conference in the beautiful San Diego. Stay in paradise, leave with all the knowledge, and hangout with some of the best in the industry. Get 10% off your ticket using Whitespark's special discount URL (you have until February 23 to take advantage of this special rate). 

SearchLove San Diego is March 26 & 27. Be sure to say hi to Darren and don't miss his talk covering "Local Search Hacks You Probably Haven't Seen Before." Cheers,Team Whitespark

Whitespark Weekly Episodes

Local pack ads are a great way to get the most of your Ad Words budget, expand your local reach, and ultimately drive more business. In this instalment of the Whitespark Weekly, guest Joy Hawkins schools Darren on the nuances of these ads and gives you the info you need on how to get started.

Creating a Google My Business listing and citations for practitioners can get hairy if you aren’t aware of the recommended practices and guidelines for practitioner listings.

In this episode of the Whitespark Weekly, Darren goes into details of the ideal situations these listings work best, what business information must be different, and a list of sites that accept practitioners.

When it comes to optimizing a GMB listing, many people wonder what link they should add in the website field; should the link be to the homepage or a location landing page? In this episode of the Whitespark Weekly, Darren discusses what link to use depending on how many locations you have, and shares an interesting discovery about how Google crawls the page that you link to in GMB.

Around The Web

If your business has a practice and practitioner listings in GMB, then you may have encountered a ‘Duplicate Address” label in your dashboard. In this post, Colan Nielsen shows you how to resolve this issue, and return to listing status to ‘Published.” 

Most of our readers are already well versed in the issues that plague Google reviews and ultimately drive business owners crazy. In case you need a refresher or are a newcomer to the Google review party, check out these hard truths from Phil Rozek. 

Have your rankings dropped and you're at a loss? Then this Whiteboard Friday may be your solution. In this episode Rand Fishkin provides you with a detailed process to determined what went wrong, why it happened, and how to get the recovery process started. Be sure to read Marie Haynes comments too - she contributes additional tips and helpful information.   

If you still find structured data for local SEO confusing, then check out this interview Dani Owens did with David Deering; it addresses common confusions and questions about why this markup is a requirement. 

Negative reviews are unavoidable, but businesses who actively respond to reviews can potentially raise their firm’s ratings and gain a sense of control when it comes to their online reputation. Read this case study from Davide Proserpio and Giorgos Zervas to learn more about their findings.

Upcoming Conferences 

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING WORLDFebruary 28 - March 2, 2018San Diego, CA

SMX - WESTMarch 13 - 15, 2018San Jose, CA

SEARCHLOVE SAN DIEGOMarch 26 - 27, 2018San Diego, CA

LOCAL UNIVERSITY SMB & LOCALU ADVANCEDApril 11 & 12, 2018Austin, TX