In a video interview earlier this week on TechCrunch TV, CEO of Yext, Howard Lerman, showcased their new PowerListings Turbo product and demonstrated live functionality with EZlocal’s robust business listings platform. EZlocal is proud to be among a small handful of platform partners Yext chose to work with including Foursquare, Yahoo! Local and Citysearch.

Boost Google Places Reviews with EZlocal’s New Point-of-Sale QR Code Handout [More]

How to post on your Facebook page as yourself. [More]

A new AdWords feature has appeared in the results today.  A coupon offer and a typical HTML button that reads "View Offer" We have not seen anything inside of AdWords under extenstions or anywhere to include this yet.  It may be a small private test market.  It is possible that the information is being pulled from Google Places, but seems unlikely.  This search did not have any local intent, but with Google, you never know what information they are working off of. Take a look: Offers are still the new hotness, with everyone riding the Groupon wave. Google is no exception.

The Local Search space is filled with a slew of unique terminology most business owners and marketers have little understanding of - catchphrases from “hyperlocal” to “OneBox” to “centroid”. And any ambitious expectations of understanding Local Search itself, as well as the underlying factors affecting how businesses rank in local search results, hinges on becoming versed in the local search lingo itself.

So we suggest you read and bookmark our Glossary of Local Search Terms. [More]

Earlier this month, we found a great video posted on the Google Small Business Blog illustrating the power online search ads can have in driving offline sales. Google uses several controlled studies in this video to show what a dollar in ad spend can typically deliver in return. We like this video in particular because it’s simple and easy for business owners to understand. [More]

Monday of this week, we announced the availability of Google Boost as a new online ad solution to help our small business clients better connect with potential customers in their local area. Boost is a new advertising push from Google -- launched in a limited number of cities just six months ago. The Boost ad is essentially a hybrid product; functioning as a simplified Sponsored Ad with some of the same features we see in a Places listing. Boost ads appear in both the Sponsored Links section as well as on the Google Maps search result pages. We think this is a pretty unique advertising opportunity for businesses looking to get a one-up on their competitors. [More]

According to Google, 20% of all searches are related to location. And since comScore reports that over 14 billion searches were conducted through Google in March, this means nearly 3 billion Google search queries contained local terms. Searches like “Nike shoes in Evansville IL” or “dentists 60181”.

Nearly 2 million listings on Google have been claimed by business owners on Google Places - which still represents only about 15% of small businesses. These Place Pages are viewed millions of times each day.

These statistics only reiterate what we have known for a long time now – local search optimization is a crucial part of every SEO campaign. If 20% of all searches come with local qualifiers, businesses are missing out on at least 20% of their potential traffic by neglecting to optimize for local search terms. [More]

We recently did a search to find out how many other companies in Illinois were Google Certified Partners and could only find 27 other qualified “companies”, of which 21 only had ONE Qualified Individual on staff. We are proud to say that of the 28 total Google Certified Partners in the state of IL, EZlocal ranks in the top three with a total of five Qualified Individuals. As for Google Certified Partners in the Chicago area, there are only 15. The number of Google Certified Partners varies state to state and can be looked up via the Google Partner Search tool.

What really separates EZlocal from our competitors is our unique position in the marketplace as both a search engine and a Local Search marketing firm - we understand search -- and we can leverage our partnerships within the industry to benefit our clients in unique ways that no other traditional SEO firms can. [More]

There’s a multitude of factors Google uses to organize and display results in Local Search - not to mention the rules of the game are constantly changing. For a thorough explanation of some of the more influential factors, see David Mihm’s collaborative piece: Local Search Ranking Factors. And with all of the recent changes in Google’s Integrated SERP, we’re anticipating the 2011 update to Mihm’s Ranking Factors will be packed with even more useful information. For today’s blog, I’m just going to concentrate on a few things you can do right away to boost your Places listing in search results by establishing a few good citations.

Note: You can add an immediate and monumental boost to your local search rankings with the help of EZlocal search marketing - plans as low as $95 per month.

Of all the ranking factors, citations are one of the most influential. [More]

(This photo, “Four Lanes Become Two-Lane Boulevard Overnight” is copyright (c) 2011 tnachtrab and made available under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license) Chicago was a ghost town on Wednesday. Of course, 60 mph winds and 20 inches of snow will do that to any city. The conditions were brutal and most businesses threw in the towel, closing their doors for the day. However, EZlocal isn't most businesses. EZlocal helps small businesses get found all across the country. The streets of Port St. Lucie, Florida and Austin, Texas and Roseville, California did not look like this. The streets in those towns were clear, and full of business owners who depend on EZlocal to drive customers through their doors. That's why our president, Jim Tracy, braved a travel ban in his county and arrived at the office in time to conduct his regular morning webinar. In fact, that's why over 50% of our staff pushed through the impossible weather and put in another hard day of work for America's small bu... [More]

Last week, we saw an article about a new marketing piece Google's AdWords department sent out.  Awesomely enough, we received the letter in the mail today. It reads: "PS: This card was printed on 100% recycled paper embedded with wildflower seeds. Plant it in a sunny spot with a thin layer of soil, add water, and watch it grow" Pretty cool, no?  So we decided to take the rational approach and have a postcard planting party, check it out.

So it was confirmed last week: Google intends to launch Google Offers and directly compete with GroupOn. Did we expect anything less from Big G? And if they were willing to spend $6 billion to buy the company, rest assure they are willing to pool together vast resources to build a noble competitor. This was perhaps an inevitable outcome as Google penetrates deeper and deeper into monetizing Local Search. This kind of friendly, or not so friendly, competition bodes well for business owners, online advertisers as well as shoppers. And EZlocal is excited about any opportunity that allows small businesses to further build their local presence, increase sales, and interact in more meaningful ways with their community. [More]

Have you been looking for a drug dealer in Chicago?  Google maps has you covered! This surprisingly brought up some map results today, even more surprising to see the Chicago Police at the top. Diving into it, you see a lot of high profile articles posted about Chicago Police and drug busts, which leads me to believe that the new places results are using these as citations. More of the same is found under the Nation of Islam, and citations regarding drug dealer reform and cleaning up drug infested communities. My take away here: the new algorithm is becoming much smarter than the old, although still has a few deficiencies. Brand mentions, old fashion links, and other traditional SEO efforts may factor much more in to Google Places results than ever before.

UPDATE: Google officially announces Local Advertising with Google Boost. Places accounts are lighting up with their own advertising system dubbed Google Boost. Google very quietly launched a new form of paid advertising for Google Places and local business listings call "Google Boost". You will notice within your Google Places Account, underneath the "Tags" lionk you there is a new otption for "Boost Ad". Notice that the ad mixes in with the typical paid AdWords ads.  The only distinction is the blue place marker. See one in action: First look at the interface shows a simplified AdWords interface, one step set up of your ads.  No keywords, no cost-per-click settings, simply ad text and monthly budget. One thing that I always thought Google could improve was the hyper-local advertising space.  There is no reason a small business owner should not be able to target someone looking for services in an area without going through the complications of AdWords.  AdWords and local SEO... [More]