Archive for July, 2011

SBSM Flashback: July 2010

Filed in Link Roundups by Matt McGee on July 18, 2011 0 Comments
SBSM Flashback: July 2010

For those of you who are new SBSM readers & subscribers, here’s a list of noteworthy posts you probably missed from one year ago. I try to put together a post like this each month to introduce new readers to old content that might be worth reading.

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As I Was Saying About Google Incentivizing Reviews…

Filed in Google, Local Search by Matt McGee on July 14, 2011 5 Comments
As I Was Saying About Google Incentivizing Reviews…

Following up on last week’s article … if you live in San Diego and write at least five reviews in Google Places, Google will give you free tacos or free frozen yogurt, and one person also gets a $25 gift certificate. Google is doing this every week in San Diego. #justsayin

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A Simple Sample Editorial Calendar to Keep Your Blogging on Schedule

Filed in Blogging, Featured, MY BEST POSTS by Matt McGee on July 13, 2011 12 Comments
A Simple Sample Editorial Calendar to Keep Your Blogging on Schedule

Blogging’s hard. I know that very well. It’s why I recently wrote that series, 5 Ways To Find New Blog Content. But finding content is only part of the challenge of blogging. Another part is scheduling — more specifically, being a consistent blogger. That’s where an editorial calendar comes in.

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Google Offers Expands … in “Limited Quantities”

Filed in Featured, Google, Local Search by Matt McGee on July 12, 2011 1 Comment
Google Offers Expands … in “Limited Quantities”

Smart move by Google here. The Google Offers program has expanded to New York City and the San Francisco/Oakland areas — see Greg Sterling’s Search Engine Land article for full details. But a couple weeks ago, Google changed how it presents the offers — and that presentation is carrying through to the new cities.

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Bing Local Business Portal Goes Into Maintenance Mode

Filed in Bing, Featured, Local Search by Matt McGee on July 8, 2011 1 Comment
Bing Local Business Portal Goes Into Maintenance Mode

Good luck trying to add or update a local listing at the Bing Business Portal. It’s not working, and won’t be for another 10 days. As both Daniel Hollerung and David Wallace noticed on Twitter this morning, there’s a new “Scheduled Maintenance Alert” on the dashboard when you login:

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Google, Yelp and Why Review Counts are Meaningless

Filed in Featured, Google, Local Search, MY BEST POSTS by Matt McGee on July 5, 2011 16 Comments
Google, Yelp and Why Review Counts are Meaningless

Google has been copying Yelp’s approach to “social local” for some time now, with things like its Hotpot ratings/reviews service, the creation of “community managers” that work on the ground in several cities to increase awareness and usage of Google Places and several other things that I detailed on Search Engine Land a little while […]

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