Local Search

Remember Google Places with Hotpot? It was recently released in Google Maps for Android, but now there is a Google Places iPhone App! Google Places with Hotpot helps you find places that you love while you're out and about. Not only does it help you find places nearby, it gives you the best places to suit your tastes according to your previous searches. On the iPhone app (similar to...

You don’t need to be working in the online industry to realise that recently Google has been going gangbusters on the little local arm of their corporate empire. Between the merger of the organic search results & Google Places to the planned acquisition of American daily deals giant Groupon for a whopping US$5.3 billion, Google has proven that they’re serious about their recent venture into...

Google’s new algorithm makes a well-optimised Maps listing in Google Places second to none in the category of cost effective marketing, and an absolute necessity to location-based businesses. However, just setting up a free Place page is not enough to guarantee a spot in Google Maps. Now more than ever, with competition between businesses for Maps listings at an all-time high, Google is taking new...

Choices, choices, choices. People are overwhelmed with endless choices when deciding where to go, shop or eat. It is always exciting to discover new places, but where do we go for good advice? Google Places with Hotpot (must be signed into your Google account to access) has been introduced to make these decisions so much easier. According to Google, Hotpot is "a local recommendation engine powered by...

You may have a change in Google today, as the search engine has begun delivering a new kind of result for local businesses. For most popular location-based search terms, Google is now expanding each map listing so that it reveals a more comprehensive description of that particular business. Here is an example of a search result for storage industry in Sydney. [caption id="attachment_2546" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="New Google...

Google is a billion dollar corporation, and basically controls the flow of information on the internet.  They have introduced brilliant ideas such as Google Goggles (if you haven’t seen this, I suggest you check it out!) the Android operating system for smart phones, and many many others! The one aspect of this industry that I love is the ever involving nature of SEO and online marketing. ...