Newsletter #45

What does it take to grow a profitable bootstrapped SaaS Company? Find out in The Saas Venture podcast.

January 30, 2019

Whitespark's Monthly Local Search Newsletter

Local InsiderJanuary 2019

 For Your Listening Pleasure - The Saas Venture Calling all podcast fans! If you're interested in learning about the adventures of running a bootstrapped SaaS company, then be sure to check out The SaaS Venture Podcast.

Hosted by our very own Darren Shaw and Aaron Weiche of GatherUp, you'll learn about their experiences, challenges, wins, and losses.  

Data Aggregator Service

Did you know Whitespark has a citation audit and cleanup package dedicated to the 4 Primary Data Aggregators?We’ll find, fix, and enhance your listings on the most influential sites in the U.S. Local Search Ecosystem – InfoGroup, Acxiom, Neustar Localeze, and Factual.

Around The Web

The category you use for your Google My Business listing plays a role in your ability to rank, but it's often overlooked as a tactic by many in the Local Search space. Joy Hawkins shares some tips and information about categories that you may not be familiar with. 

"Adding a bunch of unrelated categories to your GMB listing will definitely have a negative impact on your local rankings. Check out this example. Fortunately, you will recover just fine when [you] remove the categories." Darren did a mini category test with the Whitespark GMB listing, the results were very interesting. 

"It appears that Google is discontinuing Google SMS in the Google My Business dashboard and in doing so leaving large companies in the lurch." If you or your clients have invested time and energy into using the Google SMS feature read this article.

Need a little help enhancing your content this year? Then head on over to this curated list of content marketing tips pulled from Siege Media's 'Content and Conversation' video series. 

Currently in beta, the Products Menu (similar to the Restaurant Menu) will allow businesses that don’t have the ability to integrate product feeds via Google Merchant or Pointy to add their inventory or items manually. Check out Tim Capper’s review and screenshots to get a sense of what you an expect once this feature is rolled out. 

Mobile-first indexing is happening and Matt Baker has everything you need to know about it in this post. He shares tips, facts, frequently asked questions, how it impacts your business, and more. 

Expertise, Authority, and Trust (aka E-A-T) is a concept deeply discussed in Google's Quality Raters' Guidelines, and a widely debated topic amongst SEO's as to whether or not E-A-T is truly a ranking factor. Regardless of the debate, Scott Moon's list of things to consider when trying to improve the E-A-T of your website is a great starting point for anyone looking for help or ideas. 

The team at Jobber reached out to various experts across industries and fields to see what's on their radar this year. While the content is targeted to businesses offering home services, the advice is applicable to any business working towards growth. "Everything ladders up to creating a memorable service experience for customers in a crowded landscape, and it pays to take a holistic approach."

Upcoming Conferences 

February 6, 2019Santa Monica, CA

February 11 - 12, 2019Phoenix, AZ

February 25 - 27, 2019Dana Point, CA

February 26 - 27, 2019Seattle, WA

March 7 - 8, 2019Portland, OR