#plus it dials any affection he shows to 100

[ladywynne]

Unpopular opinion probably, but I hope they don't sissify Jake in future appearances. I want ruthless, please.

[kpop---scenarios]

Dr. Hug

Commissioned by: @panelepele 

Warning: Fluff 

Word Count: 1.5k 

A/N: I hope you enjoy!! 

As you sat on the park bench and watched people stroll by hand in hand with the ones they loved, you wondered how you ended up like this? You used to be a very physically affectionate person but in the last few years, all the failed attempts at relationships, the falling out with your parents you sort of retracted in a way and became reclusive. You stopped hanging out with your friends, at work you didn't speak or really see anyone. You sat in your office alone for 8 hours a day, and went home and spent the rest of your time alone. This wasn't how your life was supposed to be. At this point in your life, you should be happy with a boyfriend, going out with your friends and not holed up like a hermit, but now that you were at this point, you had absolutely no idea how to get out of it, or if you even could. You let out a heavy sigh as the snow began falling. You watched the people pass you happily, kids playing and laughing. You wanted that. "Pretty great sound isn't it?"A voice asks from beside you after you let out another small sigh without realizing it. "People laughing, children playing, the sound of just happiness." "Sure is." You say in a monotone voice. "You okay?" The kind stranger asks. "Yeah. No. I don't know" you say, not looking at whoever was speaking to you. Honestly, it felt nice to speak with another human being. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asks. "I probably should talk to a professional." You admit. Great, it had been so long since you had a conversation with anyone other than your cat, you were just blurting out anything. "Well, good thing I am then. Listen, take my card. Call me if you want to talk, or anything." he says. You turn your head to look at him before he leaves, pulling the card from his hand. He was extremely handsome, dark hair, kind eyes, cute glasses and a smile that could melt anyone. Looking down at the card, it read: "Dr. Kim Junmyeon; Hug specialist/therapist Hug specialist? You weren't entirely sure what that was, but you also weren't entirely sure you'd call him anyways. Not wanting to be rude you smile at him and tuck the card into your jacket pocket before he walks away. You mutter a small "thanks" before getting up and heading in the opposite direction. You probably weren't going to call. A few weeks later, you were feeling especially down. You hadn't spoken to anyone really and you could feel now the major toll the lack of human interaction was taking on you. You let out a long, drawn out groan as you rummaged through your junk drawer looking for one specific thing. Dr. Kim's card. You dialed the number on the phone, and stared at the call button, fighting with yourself internally. Did you really need to talk to someone? Yes. But did you really? Yes. You knew if you didn't press that call button now, you probably wouldn't ever and you knew that going on like this wasn't a possibility for much longer. Your hand shook as you placed the phone against your ear, your stomach twisting and turning as it rang. "Hello?" A familiar voice answered. "Uh, hi. You uh, gave me this card a few weeks ago. I was sitting on a bench in the park.." you say. "Ah yes! Good, I'm glad you called. I was hoping you would." He says. "You were?" You ask, surprised. "Of course. What can I do for you?" "I guess I'd like to book an appointment" you say, shrugging your shoulders as if he could see you. "Excellent. I have an opening in 20 minutes if you'd like to come now?" He asks. Shit. You weren't expecting it to be so soon, and you were never good at saying no to people in person or on the phone. "Sure. I'll be right there." You say, mentally cursing yourself. "Perfect. See you soon." ** As you sit in the waiting room, your fingers are fidgeting again. You weren't sure what you were going to tell him, if you were even going to say anything at all. Did you really want to tell a stranger your entire life story? "Come on in" you hear as the office door opens. You smile at Dr. Kim as you walk passed him, sitting in a chair across from his desk. He sits down, giving you a gentle smile as you look around the room. "How are you?" He asks. You take a few minutes to answer. "Good. Lonely I guess.. " you pause. "Tell me about it." He smiles. ".. so I keep to myself 100% of the time now. If my own parents can't love me, and show me any physical affection and could treat me how they did then why should anyone else." You finish. In the last 2.5 hours you had spilled everything that had ever happened to you in your life that has led you to this exact moment. "Sounds like you've had a very scarring life." He says. You nod your head. "There comes a point in your life where you need to decide what you want for yourself. Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life? Or do you want to be happy, surrounded by people who love you?" He asks. "Obviously people who love me. But how do I know if they truly do? Or if they're just using me?" You ask. "You don't. And that's okay. The truth always comes out eventually and you learn from mistakes. Not everyone is out to harm you in some way. You need to give people chances. You can't go through your life scared to do anything, or you'll never live." He tells you. And with those words, it was like something clicked inside you. He was absolutely right. All this time you were terrified of being let down or used by people but you never gave anyone the time of day to prove to you that they wouldn't. "I never thought of it that way." You admit. "See, talking to people can be beneficial." He chuckles. "Now, the last few minutes you have the option of a hug. Many people find it therapeutic and stress relieving but it's completely up to you." "So you're like a hug doctor?" You question. "I guess." He chuckles. "would you like one?" "I'm not sure. I've never been able to really initiate much physical contact." you say. Dr. Kim stood up and walked around his desk with his arms out. You stand from your chair, staring at him for a few seconds, contemplating whether or not you were ready. However, you slowly walked towards him while he slowly wrapped his arms around you. He quietly reassured you that everything would be okay as his hug tightened just a little. The contact felt so nice, something you had been needing and craving. You felt so relaxed in his arms. It felt like something you could definitely get used to. You waved goodbye after your session, promising to come back next week at the same time. After a few weeks of sessions, you felt like you had finally conquered most of your insecurities, the major one being the one to initiate any kind of contact. Finally you felt comfortable with it, but now was the hard part. Meeting people and becoming friends. That still terrified you. "Look, I don't do this but I'm going to meet some friends in a bit. Would you like to come? I think it would be good for you, and I could help you." He suggests. "Thank you Dr. Kim, but I'm not sure.." you say before he cuts you off. "I told you to call me Junmyeon, please." He laughs. "And we're friends. It's just friends going out to meet new friends." "We're friends? Can I be friends with my therapist?" You ask, cocking an eyebrow. "I wouldn't even consider you my patient. I don't even charge you, plus you can't be attracted to your patients." He says before looking completely shocked that he admitted the last part. "Attracted.. to me?" You ask. "This is so unprofessional. I'm so sorry." He says, a slight panic in his voice. "It's not unprofessional if you're not my therapist." You say shrugging your shoulders. He looks at you with eyes wide, but a smile on his face. "You've come so far." "Well, it's all thanks to you." You say smiling back. "So, will you come tonight?" He asks again. "Yes." You smile. "But you know now you can't be coming in here like a patient anymore, right?" He laughs getting up from behind his desk and walking towards the door. "Yes doctor." You chuckle, getting up. Junmyeon extends his hand, and you happily slip yours into his. You can feel the last little piece of the old you leaving your body, as you walk out with Junmyeon. You're a brand new person, thanks to Dr. Hug.

[foulsouls]

Do you have any headcannons of Claude pining on a male reader :O

Ooh! My first Fe3h request! I hope you like!! 

Claude is incredibly suave as it is but once he becomes romantically interested in someone he dials it up to 100! 

Of course the lucky man who becomes the target for his affections will no doubt figure it out immediately because.....well....as much as Claude likes to act like he has it all together, unfortunately in your presence that kinda goes out the window. He can’t help but make heart eyes at  you whenever you pass by and his bright personality is tripled as soon as he spots you! 

Claude finds it much easier to flirt with men than women, people don’t tend to ask as many questions when he slings an arm over your shoulders. Also the fact that you’re probably as tall as him puts him at ease! He doesn’t have to worry about accidentally smothering you in hugs, plus he can play fight with you too! Hell yeah for physical contact! 

Oh and that’s another thing, once Claude figures out he likes you he will never turn down a chance to touch you! Holding your hand to lead you someplace ( probably to show you something ‘cool’ ), gently placing a hand on your lower back to usher you around, fixing your hair/ picking leaves and sticks out for you after battles and such. Truly he cannot get enough of it! If you were to smile at him and blush? He’d for once be at a loss for words! 

He’s super not shy at all so you won’t have to worry about not knowing how he feels! He might actually pass out if you decide to confess to him first tho so keep that in mind!!

[riichardwilson]

65 Free Tools to Help You Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are more than 10,000 coronavirus cases and more than 150 deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC. The stock market has taken a hit. Businesses are losing customers, and workers are losing jobs. It has become frightening, frustrating and even maddening. 

In response to the pandemic, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently reminded us that we can all help each other in our own ways. He has provided K-12 educators with free access to the videoconferencing platform so students can continue learning.

Inspired, I shared an idea with Jason Feifer, editor in chief at Entrepreneur: a simple, organized list of free product and service offerings from all types of companies. Access to these powerful tools can help organizations, teams and families.

He responded quickly. “I like that. Maybe it starts as a post on Entrepreneur.com?”

Boom. Here we go:

Zoom: Free videoconferencing tools for K-through-12 schools.

Slack: Free upgrades to paid plans for teams working on coronavirus pandemic research, response or mitigation. Interested teams can email a special address to get this set up, and a consultation on how best to get started with remote collaboration.

Humu: Free nudges to anyone who wants science-backed advice for how to best work remotely, partner with colleagues who are all over the place, show appreciation for those who don’t have the flexibility to work remotely (e.g. cashiers, medical personnel).

Atlassian: Free access to Cloud products for issue-tracking and project-tracking software including Jira and Confluence. Also, free access to Trello Business Class for organizing plans is offered for one year to educators at K through 12 and higher education.

Airtable: Free use of Airtable Pro plan as a modern database for any non-political, humanitarian effort tackling COVID relief. There is no time limit. It is also planning to make the service free for students too.

PandaDoc: Free e-sign plan gives companies unlimited users, unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing.

Wrike: Free licenses of the versatile collaborative work management platform (Professional edition) to new customers for 6 months. Current customers are able to add unlimited collaborators. Webinars and advice on remote work are both on the website.

Calendly: Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software to help remote workers stay connected. These were previously Premium tier features and will be available through June 30. Also Free premium plan access to teams working directly on COVID-19. 

Smartsheet: Free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard, rich with CDC documentation and other resources, and related sheets and forms.

Support.com: Free tech support to anyone working or studying remotely right now.

Bill.com: Free 90-day subscription for new customers impacted by COVID-19. The cloud-based service helps small and mid-sized businesses to automate the processing of bills, generate invoices, send/receive payments and manage their cash flows.

Workable: Free use of the new video interviewing software for all customers, and access to a library of COVID-19 response content for use by HR professionals and business leaders.

Zoho: Free suite of Remotely apps until July 1. There are 11 apps in all, including ones for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and everyday work (in the form of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).

Google: Free, premium version of its workplace video chat tool until July, to help businesses and schools working remotely due to coronavirus. Those features include having up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

Cisco: Free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, and current customers can go above their user limit as their employees increasingly work from home. Same deal for its web security tool Umbrella and its VPN product AnyConnect, which is available until July 1. Cisco is extending services for existing customers of Webex, its video conference platform. The offer includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in.

Comcast: Free Xfinity WiFi for everyone, with hotspots available to all, including non-Xfinity subscribers. To access the service, look for the “xfinitywifi” network name in a list of hotspots.

LogMeIn: Free site-wide licensing for 3 months of its videoconferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).

Loom: Free video recording and sharing service for teachers and students at K-through-12 schools, universities and educational institutions. They have also removed the recording limit on free plans and have cut the price for Loom Pro in half.

Microsoft: Free six-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams.

Slashtop: Free 60-day licenses to its Business Access remote access software.

Discord: Free, enhanced Go Live streaming service so that it can now support 50 simultaneous users rather than 10.

EZTexting: Free emergency text alert services to schools. Receive 100,000 free outgoing text messages for six months, access to a set of coronavirus message templates, and one-on-one consulting.

Yext: Free, new site search product, Yext Answers, for a 90-day period. Eligible businesses will be able to transform their website into a search engine capable of answering consumers’ COVID-19 specific queries in real time.

Linkedin: Free 16 learning courses that provide tips on how to stay productive, build relationships when you’re not face-to-face, use virtual meeting tools and balance family and work dynamics in a healthy way.

Hootsuite: Free access for Hootsuite Professional to small businesses and nonprofits until July 1. Helping to manage social media, and stay connected with your customers and communities.

Amazon: Free online access to sponsored computer science courses in the United States. That’s intended for learners in grades 6 through 12, and teachers who are remotely teaching this age group. Parents can also access this curriculum.

Brit.co: Free DIY classes for the next one to two weeks. Use discount code “selfcare” at checkout.

Zencastr: Free Hobbyist plans will have no recording time limits or limits on the number of people in your recording. Effective through July 1.

Threads: Free access to their collaboration tools and Pro/Team plans for all users through July 1.

Expensify: Reimbursement of up to $50 for essential goods and groceries purchased on your SNAP card.

Wave: Free financial software solutions (accounting, bookkeeping, invoicing) for small businesses to help with cash flow — which becomes increasingly important during economic turmoil. In response to COVID-19, Wave has reduced paid services where possible to active customers, in an effort to provide financial relief during a time of need.

Jamm: Free audio-visual communication tool used by remote and distributed teams. You can quickly record videos or do a live call with your team. Available for 3 months.

Carto: Free visualization software for organizations fighting COVID-19.

Crowdmark: Free access to its online grading and analytics platform until May 31.

Epic: Free remote access of its reading platform to elementary educators and librarians until June 30, with no credit card required. Students may access the company’s digital library, which has 35,000-plus books, read-to-me and audiobooks, videos and quizzes. Teachers and librarians can stay connected to their students by assigning books or collections and monitoring their progress.

ClassTag: Free communication platform available to help districts and schools communicate with their families. The software sends messages through SMS, email, apps and the web and automatically translates them into one of 55 languages. The platform can also be used to post videos, assignments and other resources for students to access at home and allow users to run virtual lessons with a videoconferencing tool.

McGraw-Hill: Free resources for out-of-school learning to help K-12 teachers make the transition to remote instruction.

Scholastic: Free 5 days’ worth of content and 15 additional days is on the way.

Age of Learning: Free at-home access for families at affected schools to ABCmouse, a learning resource for ages 2 to 8.

Listenwise: Free access to the Listenwise platform that supports distance learning by allowing you to roster your students, make online customized written assignments, and assign multiple-choice autos-cored listening quizzes. This will give you and your students the ability to learn through May 31, or until your school reopens. 

Peloton: Free 90-day trial of its subscription workout app as more gyms shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The fitness freebie doesn’t require a Peloton-branded bike or treadmill. Users can choose from classes such as yoga, meditation, strength training and more.

U-Haul: Free self-storage for 30 days to all college students who have been impacted by schedule changes at their universities.

TripIt: Free 6-month licenses to their Tripit Pro flight tracking service.

UrbanSitter: Free parent subscription for two months during the COVID-19 outbreak. Parents can find trusted childcare help to support them as they work from home during this period. Every sitter is background checked and UrbanSitter provides parents with as much information as possible to make informed decisions.

Dialpad: Free two months of its cloud-based phone system, Dialpad Talk Pro. This also includes videoconferences and UberConference Business.

1Password: Free business accounts for the first 6 months. Manage your workforce from anywhere, and safely share logins and other important resources with remote workers.

Vidyard: Free secure video messaging to enhance internal communications for all businesses.

Cloudfare: Free Teams products to small businesses and remote workers to operate securely and easily. This policy will continue for at least the next 6 months.

Panopto: Free three-month access to capture and distribute video content for businesses, universities, colleges and schools will enable employees and students to continue learning and working remotely.

OneLogin: Free access to the Trusted Experience Platform

for educators who are moving to a virtual learning environment in light of health concerns. The free platform, consisting of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and certificate-based authentication, will deliver secure virtual experiences for all educators K through 12, colleges and universities.

SentinelLabs: Free cybersecurity platform SentinelOne Core between Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16. SentinelOne’s cloud-based platform seamlessly scales, making it well suited to protect both businesses and employees rapidly transitioning to a work-from-home environment.

Waterfall Security: Free Remote Screen View product licenses available to customers whose vendor personnel or key employees are no longer able to travel to industrial and critical infrastructure sites. Remote Screen View sends real-time images of industrial workstations to a web server that remote vendors can access.

OneClick: Free remote access Basic Starter Package for the next three months to assist those working remotely.

8×8: Free video meetings to all users. Offers 80+ local dial-in numbers (11 toll-free) from 55+ countries and meetings of up to 50 participants without any time restrictions.

Bloomz: Free premium version of its communication service to all schools through June 30. The software allows users to communicate updates in real-time to parents and students; and share lessons, student work and feedback.

HR Acuity: Free version of its SaaS solution to help businesses manage employee issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The limited edition provides employee documentation and tracking functionality that will equip businesses to monitor the people impact of the crisis. The limited edition will be available through at least July 1 to businesses with more than 100 employees.

Avid: Free, temporary licenses of creative tools to qualified media enterprise and educational customers. Starting March 16 through April 17, users who must work remotely because their facility has been closed may obtain 90-day licenses free of charge for Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. In addition, any student of an institution who uses our products and can no longer attend school and/or access school facilities can receive a 90-day license of the same products.

TechSmith: Free licenses to TechSmith Snagit screen capture software and the TechSmith Video Review software through June 30.

BlueJeans: Free access to videoconference service to first responders and NGOs for 90-days.

Adobe: Free home access to Creative Cloud apps is available by request of students and educators until May 31. Adobe also offers free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for web conferencing until July 1.

DropBox: Free DropBox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19. Organizations working to stop the virus or providing relief to those impacted are encouraged to apply.

Box: Free secure file sharing and collaboration platform for 3 months. The offer is for the Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.

Mailchimp: Free Standard accounts to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID-19 through June 30.

SurveyMonkey: Free questionnaire templates written by survey research experts to gather data/feedback from employees, customers and broader groups impacted by the coronavirus.

Salesforce: Free access to technology for emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus.

Check back soon because we’ll keep this list updated. You can also see all links and submit new free offers here. 

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/613221212725837824

[scpie]

65 Free Tools to Help You Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are more than 10,000 coronavirus cases and more than 150 deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC. The stock market has taken a hit. Businesses are losing customers, and workers are losing jobs. It has become frightening, frustrating and even maddening. 

In response to the pandemic, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently reminded us that we can all help each other in our own ways. He has provided K-12 educators with free access to the videoconferencing platform so students can continue learning.

Inspired, I shared an idea with Jason Feifer, editor in chief at Entrepreneur: a simple, organized list of free product and service offerings from all types of companies. Access to these powerful tools can help organizations, teams and families.

He responded quickly. “I like that. Maybe it starts as a post on Entrepreneur.com?”

Boom. Here we go:

Zoom: Free videoconferencing tools for K-through-12 schools.

Slack: Free upgrades to paid plans for teams working on coronavirus pandemic research, response or mitigation. Interested teams can email a special address to get this set up, and a consultation on how best to get started with remote collaboration.

Humu: Free nudges to anyone who wants science-backed advice for how to best work remotely, partner with colleagues who are all over the place, show appreciation for those who don’t have the flexibility to work remotely (e.g. cashiers, medical personnel).

Atlassian: Free access to Cloud products for issue-tracking and project-tracking software including Jira and Confluence. Also, free access to Trello Business Class for organizing plans is offered for one year to educators at K through 12 and higher education.

Airtable: Free use of Airtable Pro plan as a modern database for any non-political, humanitarian effort tackling COVID relief. There is no time limit. It is also planning to make the service free for students too.

PandaDoc: Free e-sign plan gives companies unlimited users, unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing.

Wrike: Free licenses of the versatile collaborative work management platform (Professional edition) to new customers for 6 months. Current customers are able to add unlimited collaborators. Webinars and advice on remote work are both on the website.

Calendly: Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software to help remote workers stay connected. These were previously Premium tier features and will be available through June 30. Also Free premium plan access to teams working directly on COVID-19. 

Smartsheet: Free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard, rich with CDC documentation and other resources, and related sheets and forms.

Support.com: Free tech support to anyone working or studying remotely right now.

Bill.com: Free 90-day subscription for new customers impacted by COVID-19. The cloud-based service helps small and mid-sized businesses to automate the processing of bills, generate invoices, send/receive payments and manage their cash flows.

Workable: Free use of the new video interviewing software for all customers, and access to a library of COVID-19 response content for use by HR professionals and business leaders.

Zoho: Free suite of Remotely apps until July 1. There are 11 apps in all, including ones for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and everyday work (in the form of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).

Google: Free, premium version of its workplace video chat tool until July, to help businesses and schools working remotely due to coronavirus. Those features include having up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

Cisco: Free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, and current customers can go above their user limit as their employees increasingly work from home. Same deal for its web security tool Umbrella and its VPN product AnyConnect, which is available until July 1. Cisco is extending services for existing customers of Webex, its video conference platform. The offer includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in.

Comcast: Free Xfinity WiFi for everyone, with hotspots available to all, including non-Xfinity subscribers. To access the service, look for the “xfinitywifi” network name in a list of hotspots.

LogMeIn: Free site-wide licensing for 3 months of its videoconferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).

Loom: Free video recording and sharing service for teachers and students at K-through-12 schools, universities and educational institutions. They have also removed the recording limit on free plans and have cut the price for Loom Pro in half.

Microsoft: Free six-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams.

Slashtop: Free 60-day licenses to its Business Access remote access software.

Discord: Free, enhanced Go Live streaming service so that it can now support 50 simultaneous users rather than 10.

EZTexting: Free emergency text alert services to schools. Receive 100,000 free outgoing text messages for six months, access to a set of coronavirus message templates, and one-on-one consulting.

Yext: Free, new site search product, Yext Answers, for a 90-day period. Eligible businesses will be able to transform their website into a search engine capable of answering consumers’ COVID-19 specific queries in real time.

Linkedin: Free 16 learning courses that provide tips on how to stay productive, build relationships when you’re not face-to-face, use virtual meeting tools and balance family and work dynamics in a healthy way.

Hootsuite: Free access for Hootsuite Professional to small businesses and nonprofits until July 1. Helping to manage social media, and stay connected with your customers and communities.

Amazon: Free online access to sponsored computer science courses in the United States. That’s intended for learners in grades 6 through 12, and teachers who are remotely teaching this age group. Parents can also access this curriculum.

Brit.co: Free DIY classes for the next one to two weeks. Use discount code “selfcare” at checkout.

Zencastr: Free Hobbyist plans will have no recording time limits or limits on the number of people in your recording. Effective through July 1.

Threads: Free access to their collaboration tools and Pro/Team plans for all users through July 1.

Expensify: Reimbursement of up to $50 for essential goods and groceries purchased on your SNAP card.

Wave: Free financial software solutions (accounting, bookkeeping, invoicing) for small businesses to help with cash flow — which becomes increasingly important during economic turmoil. In response to COVID-19, Wave has reduced paid services where possible to active customers, in an effort to provide financial relief during a time of need.

Jamm: Free audio-visual communication tool used by remote and distributed teams. You can quickly record videos or do a live call with your team. Available for 3 months.

Carto: Free visualization software for organizations fighting COVID-19.

Crowdmark: Free access to its online grading and analytics platform until May 31.

Epic: Free remote access of its reading platform to elementary educators and librarians until June 30, with no credit card required. Students may access the company’s digital library, which has 35,000-plus books, read-to-me and audiobooks, videos and quizzes. Teachers and librarians can stay connected to their students by assigning books or collections and monitoring their progress.

ClassTag: Free communication platform available to help districts and schools communicate with their families. The software sends messages through SMS, email, apps and the web and automatically translates them into one of 55 languages. The platform can also be used to post videos, assignments and other resources for students to access at home and allow users to run virtual lessons with a videoconferencing tool.

McGraw-Hill: Free resources for out-of-school learning to help K-12 teachers make the transition to remote instruction.

Scholastic: Free 5 days’ worth of content and 15 additional days is on the way.

Age of Learning: Free at-home access for families at affected schools to ABCmouse, a learning resource for ages 2 to 8.

Listenwise: Free access to the Listenwise platform that supports distance learning by allowing you to roster your students, make online customized written assignments, and assign multiple-choice autos-cored listening quizzes. This will give you and your students the ability to learn through May 31, or until your school reopens. 

Peloton: Free 90-day trial of its subscription workout app as more gyms shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The fitness freebie doesn’t require a Peloton-branded bike or treadmill. Users can choose from classes such as yoga, meditation, strength training and more.

U-Haul: Free self-storage for 30 days to all college students who have been impacted by schedule changes at their universities.

TripIt: Free 6-month licenses to their Tripit Pro flight tracking service.

UrbanSitter: Free parent subscription for two months during the COVID-19 outbreak. Parents can find trusted childcare help to support them as they work from home during this period. Every sitter is background checked and UrbanSitter provides parents with as much information as possible to make informed decisions.

Dialpad: Free two months of its cloud-based phone system, Dialpad Talk Pro. This also includes videoconferences and UberConference Business.

1Password: Free business accounts for the first 6 months. Manage your workforce from anywhere, and safely share logins and other important resources with remote workers.

Vidyard: Free secure video messaging to enhance internal communications for all businesses.

Cloudfare: Free Teams products to small businesses and remote workers to operate securely and easily. This policy will continue for at least the next 6 months.

Panopto: Free three-month access to capture and distribute video content for businesses, universities, colleges and schools will enable employees and students to continue learning and working remotely.

OneLogin: Free access to the Trusted Experience Platform

for educators who are moving to a virtual learning environment in light of health concerns. The free platform, consisting of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and certificate-based authentication, will deliver secure virtual experiences for all educators K through 12, colleges and universities.

SentinelLabs: Free cybersecurity platform SentinelOne Core between Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16. SentinelOne’s cloud-based platform seamlessly scales, making it well suited to protect both businesses and employees rapidly transitioning to a work-from-home environment.

Waterfall Security: Free Remote Screen View product licenses available to customers whose vendor personnel or key employees are no longer able to travel to industrial and critical infrastructure sites. Remote Screen View sends real-time images of industrial workstations to a web server that remote vendors can access.

OneClick: Free remote access Basic Starter Package for the next three months to assist those working remotely.

8×8: Free video meetings to all users. Offers 80+ local dial-in numbers (11 toll-free) from 55+ countries and meetings of up to 50 participants without any time restrictions.

Bloomz: Free premium version of its communication service to all schools through June 30. The software allows users to communicate updates in real-time to parents and students; and share lessons, student work and feedback.

HR Acuity: Free version of its SaaS solution to help businesses manage employee issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The limited edition provides employee documentation and tracking functionality that will equip businesses to monitor the people impact of the crisis. The limited edition will be available through at least July 1 to businesses with more than 100 employees.

Avid: Free, temporary licenses of creative tools to qualified media enterprise and educational customers. Starting March 16 through April 17, users who must work remotely because their facility has been closed may obtain 90-day licenses free of charge for Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. In addition, any student of an institution who uses our products and can no longer attend school and/or access school facilities can receive a 90-day license of the same products.

TechSmith: Free licenses to TechSmith Snagit screen capture software and the TechSmith Video Review software through June 30.

BlueJeans: Free access to videoconference service to first responders and NGOs for 90-days.

Adobe: Free home access to Creative Cloud apps is available by request of students and educators until May 31. Adobe also offers free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for web conferencing until July 1.

DropBox: Free DropBox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19. Organizations working to stop the virus or providing relief to those impacted are encouraged to apply.

Box: Free secure file sharing and collaboration platform for 3 months. The offer is for the Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.

Mailchimp: Free Standard accounts to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID-19 through June 30.

SurveyMonkey: Free questionnaire templates written by survey research experts to gather data/feedback from employees, customers and broader groups impacted by the coronavirus.

Salesforce: Free access to technology for emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus.

Check back soon because we’ll keep this list updated. You can also see all links and submit new free offers here. 

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

[amazonreviews2017-blog]

Kobalt Tools Review | Who Makes Kobalt Instruments?

Who Makes Kobalt Instruments?

 Kobalt Tools Review When he's not transforming a part of his house or playing with the newest energy instrument, Clint enjoys life as a husband, father and avid reader. You must see even higher results with the newly Amazon Reviews announced 4.zero amp hour battery. Most manufacturers provide a slim 1.5Ahr battery and an extended lasting three.0Ahr battery. Kobalt has made these great tools practically upkeep free, which means you may spend extra time doing what you're keen on! Kip explained that the Kobalt group spoke to end-customers on job websites and constructed these new tools with them in thoughts: to be reliable, resilient and lengthy lasting. You'll also never have to fret about working out of juice with out notice, as there is a cost indicator on the battery that lets you understand how a lot battery life is left. So to me seeing Kobalt eager to broaden the road, placing money behind the brand and popping out with more tools, is a reason I can get behind the new Kobalt 24V line of tools. And as you can tell from the video, I'm in love with the battery stage indicators. The Kobalt 40-Volt Max is a solidly designed trimmer with the aptitude to perform as a trimmer or an edger. Kobalt instruments are sold exclusively at Lowe's Shops, Kobalt is so confident in these instruments, that they're providing a 1-yr, 100% threat free guarantee plus a 5-12 months device and 3-yr restricted warranty. Although the instrument has no implements that lock, every piece of it has a snap” once they click on into place, and all tools have their own back-spring, not a typical thing on most tools that will share a common back-spring. I actually have good service from their screwdrivers, locking pliers, I normally carry a Kobalt tape.

While we were in Vegas for the Kobalt product occasion, we additionally went to a NASCAR automobile, the Kobalt 400. I have GearWrench and like them better than Kobalt, however they also value more than Kobalt. It is a cordless trimmer that packs the same punch to that of a fuel trimmer however with convenient features, like its cordless design, that make it easier to use. Koya says that including another internal battery cell to the pack bumps the power to 24 volts. The Kobalt 40V Max Hedge Trimmers proved to be light weight, comfy to carry, and with out the trouble of lugging around an extension energy cord, made trimming up my boxwoods straightforward and convenient! Personally, with the quantity of chopping strength the saw had Kobalt Tools Review, I was impressed with the battery life. If you haven't taken a look at Kobalt recently, I might advocate giving them a re-assessment as they have turned a nook and it seems to be like a vibrant future. It might be good to have two batteries in the 4-instrument package deal, so as to not should consistently swap the lone battery out and in. On the Kobalt Tools 24V brushless circular noticed we saw them take the normal motor design and reduce the length of the brand new brushless motor. If I am fortunate enough to have my husband home whereas I'm doing a project and the battery dies, he will struggle with it to get the battery off of the drill so I can switch to the battery sitting on the charger. You'll have to work at it a bit extra, but you can get your yard edged to your liking with this trimmer. We have even obtained Kobalt truck tool containers for the automobile, so you may take your expertise on the go. Kobalt is the proper alternative for any job, regardless of how easy or sophisticated. Since neither the head nor shaft modify, you need to maintain it upside down to edge, using the facility set off that works each ways on the handle. That being mentioned I am a giant fan of their impression wrench and am fairly stoked to get my arms on a few of their new 24v tools and sit up for no matter else they could launch this yr. To simplify things, all you want to do to make a 24V Max battery is add one other cell. The new Kobalt affect driver boasts three,500 IPMs with 800 in-lbs of torque and options an digital end operate that stops the influence action after 1-second to prevent overturning during fastening. The Kobalt 24V MAX combo kit is in full compliance, with its ½” drill driver and flashlight.

A 24 position clutch permits you to dial in your torque and Kobalt used a Jacobs” steel drill clutch which has a durable, strong metal ratchet action. Identical expertise here, just tried to alternate a screwdriver, they have it in stock, however I used to be instructed they don't honor the warranty and I would have to deal directly with Kobalt. Rounding out the instrument assortment within the box of Kobalt Blue are an influence driver and a reciprocating noticed. The new tools have been rated to perform at temperatures from -four to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. To combat this, Kobalt moved some battery circuitry into the instrument and reconfigured the alignment of the cells. Not once have I needed to cease and exchange either battery during a mowing session. The tool comes with a fantastic insert made from rubber that gives some grip and it actually does give the device somewhat class with the polished steel and the Kobalt blue grip. He spoke just a little about the design methodology, together with product development and analysis, as well as the designed application for which these new tools had been created—the residential development jobsite. The Kobalt 40V Max 20″ mower has twin battery system and comes with a Lithium ion 40V-four-Ah Long Run Battery and a Fast Cost 40V-2-Ah battery as effectively. However, being the same vitality as Bosch, however using 12 cells as a substitute of the Bosch pack at 10 cells signifies that the Kobalt battery must be about 20% heavier and bigger. The noticed spins at 5400 RPMs and is stated to be able to lower 87 linear feet of pine on a four Ah battery.

Mainly Kobalt feels that it's all about the correct steadiness of ergonomics and energy. Offsetting the cells did the remainder (We'll break this down further in a future article on the Kobalt Tools 24V battery pack). To get there, Kobalt invested in closely brushless motor expertise and made vital enhancements in battery capacity, all with the purpose of addressing finish consumer needs. But, I wish to make it clear, this is my yard that I examined these merchandise on, I'm not going to accept using lower than satisfactory tools to deal with my very own landscape. The very first thing I observed is that it's an 18-inch model, which is rare for a cordless chainsaw. If Kobalt did this, they would really have an extended lasting battery with the additional cell(s) they added to go from 20v to 24v. All of the implements besides the noticed are buffed much more rounded than Victorinox tools. Kobalt tools are backed with an unprecedented 1-year, one hundred% money back assure, a 5-12 months limited tool assure, and a three-year restricted battery assure. Lowes completely redesigned all their mechanics instruments about four years in the past so they could maintain the sponsorship. The charger additionally has an LCD show that reveals how much time remains until the battery is absolutely charged, as well as how much battery life is left. To experience the improved energy, performance and reliability of the new Kobalt energy tools, Lowe's sent us a Kobalt four-Instrument 20-Volt Max Lithium-Ion Cordless Combo Kit to check out for ourselves. Kobalt 20V Max instruments are backed with a 5-12 months no-trouble instrument guarantee, and the batteries are backed with a 3-year assure. After he wrapped up, it wasn't long earlier than we received our fingers on the new tools to check them out for ourselves. Kobalt representatives are mum on future pricing but they indicate that it will likely be very competitive. The fact that the battery price is so low units the stage for a hostile takeover if the instruments are capable of compete on the Professional level.

Kobalt Instruments has revamped its cordless instrument lineup and will probably be launching a 24V MAX brushless instrument platform in June 2016. Not an enormous deal, although - further Kobalt 24V MAX batteries are cheap enough that you would be able to afford to refill. On a regular basis pricing for a 2.0Ah battery is a dirt-cheap $20! Looks like with an enormous wooden pile there may be never a shortage of things to do. But a second battery is one thing to consider for those who're actually going to make use of this noticed to the fullest. That might turn some heads, and begin to make people notice that Kobalt really is critical. While these new tools seem compelling, and the promise to be PROFESSIONAL grade actually refreshing, time will only inform how these new instruments carry out on the job web site. And make no bones about it, Kobalt is going right after the skilled contractor and tradesman. The Kobalt 40-Volt Max String Trimmer has plenty of power to trim a yard on a single charge. All my mechanics hand tools are Craftsman, and I do return them once they break, particularly screw drivers and needle nostril pliers. Again, this is a huge plus because not solely do I like recommending high quality instruments kobalt power tools review , I additionally like recommending tools that people can develop into and add to their collection.

The new lineup of Kobalt 24V MAX tools is properly designed and attractively priced. As a file consumer on my tools I understand that the implement is the hardest to manufacture, but they might have simply left this part out. Whereas some corporations say they are listening, it actually felt just like the Kobalt folks had been prepared for anything we threw at them, they have been even taking notes, so that they did not overlook. Transferring on to these closing touches, we reached first for the 12-inch string trimmer ($149) Designed with the appear and feel of a gasoline-powered unit, the load savings of the cordless unit was instantly appreciated. I find Lowes to be greater priced on similar merchandise than HD. Lowes is the only huge box for about 30 miles for us. I've a few if the Husky instruments also and have not gad any issues with them. The Kobalt three/eight″ affect wrench has three speeds (in forward) and the electronic End feature which could be toggled on or off to cease the instrument one second after the influence mechanism kicks in. This instrument has the same torque as the Kobalt 24V brushless influence driver, however it has entirely different speed and impact settings to customise it for use as a 3/8-inch fastening tool.

I purchased a big set of Kobalt instruments from Lowe's once they first got here out and had been nonetheless being made by JH Williams(a division of Snap-On). Current energy software leaders are fighting for market share and have a robust following amongst model loyalists. I undoubtedly like Kobalt's new offering (granted, I've never used their energy tools). Kip Pohlman, Kobalt Design Manager, told us that to be able to achieve a 24-volt Kobalt battery they needed so as to add further battery cells and reconfigured them to fit in a compact, newly designed lithium-ion battery pack Kobalt Tools Review.

[douglassmiith]

65 Free Tools to Help You Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are more than 10,000 coronavirus cases and more than 150 deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC. The stock market has taken a hit. Businesses are losing customers, and workers are losing jobs. It has become frightening, frustrating and even maddening. 

In response to the pandemic, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently reminded us that we can all help each other in our own ways. He has provided K-12 educators with free access to the videoconferencing platform so students can continue learning.

Inspired, I shared an idea with Jason Feifer, editor in chief at Entrepreneur: a simple, organized list of free product and service offerings from all types of companies. Access to these powerful tools can help organizations, teams and families.

He responded quickly. “I like that. Maybe it starts as a post on Entrepreneur.com?”

Boom. Here we go:

Zoom: Free videoconferencing tools for K-through-12 schools.

Slack: Free upgrades to paid plans for teams working on coronavirus pandemic research, response or mitigation. Interested teams can email a special address to get this set up, and a consultation on how best to get started with remote collaboration.

Humu: Free nudges to anyone who wants science-backed advice for how to best work remotely, partner with colleagues who are all over the place, show appreciation for those who don’t have the flexibility to work remotely (e.g. cashiers, medical personnel).

Atlassian: Free access to Cloud products for issue-tracking and project-tracking software including Jira and Confluence. Also, free access to Trello Business Class for organizing plans is offered for one year to educators at K through 12 and higher education.

Airtable: Free use of Airtable Pro plan as a modern database for any non-political, humanitarian effort tackling COVID relief. There is no time limit. It is also planning to make the service free for students too.

PandaDoc: Free e-sign plan gives companies unlimited users, unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing.

Wrike: Free licenses of the versatile collaborative work management platform (Professional edition) to new customers for 6 months. Current customers are able to add unlimited collaborators. Webinars and advice on remote work are both on the website.

Calendly: Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software to help remote workers stay connected. These were previously Premium tier features and will be available through June 30. Also Free premium plan access to teams working directly on COVID-19. 

Smartsheet: Free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard, rich with CDC documentation and other resources, and related sheets and forms.

Support.com: Free tech support to anyone working or studying remotely right now.

Bill.com: Free 90-day subscription for new customers impacted by COVID-19. The cloud-based service helps small and mid-sized businesses to automate the processing of bills, generate invoices, send/receive payments and manage their cash flows.

Workable: Free use of the new video interviewing software for all customers, and access to a library of COVID-19 response content for use by HR professionals and business leaders.

Zoho: Free suite of Remotely apps until July 1. There are 11 apps in all, including ones for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and everyday work (in the form of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).

Google: Free, premium version of its workplace video chat tool until July, to help businesses and schools working remotely due to coronavirus. Those features include having up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

Cisco: Free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, and current customers can go above their user limit as their employees increasingly work from home. Same deal for its web security tool Umbrella and its VPN product AnyConnect, which is available until July 1. Cisco is extending services for existing customers of Webex, its video conference platform. The offer includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in.

Comcast: Free Xfinity WiFi for everyone, with hotspots available to all, including non-Xfinity subscribers. To access the service, look for the “xfinitywifi” network name in a list of hotspots.

LogMeIn: Free site-wide licensing for 3 months of its videoconferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).

Loom: Free video recording and sharing service for teachers and students at K-through-12 schools, universities and educational institutions. They have also removed the recording limit on free plans and have cut the price for Loom Pro in half.

Microsoft: Free six-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams.

Slashtop: Free 60-day licenses to its Business Access remote access software.

Discord: Free, enhanced Go Live streaming service so that it can now support 50 simultaneous users rather than 10.

EZTexting: Free emergency text alert services to schools. Receive 100,000 free outgoing text messages for six months, access to a set of coronavirus message templates, and one-on-one consulting.

Yext: Free, new site search product, Yext Answers, for a 90-day period. Eligible businesses will be able to transform their website into a search engine capable of answering consumers’ COVID-19 specific queries in real time.

Linkedin: Free 16 learning courses that provide tips on how to stay productive, build relationships when you’re not face-to-face, use virtual meeting tools and balance family and work dynamics in a healthy way.

Hootsuite: Free access for Hootsuite Professional to small businesses and nonprofits until July 1. Helping to manage social media, and stay connected with your customers and communities.

Amazon: Free online access to sponsored computer science courses in the United States. That’s intended for learners in grades 6 through 12, and teachers who are remotely teaching this age group. Parents can also access this curriculum.

Brit.co: Free DIY classes for the next one to two weeks. Use discount code “selfcare” at checkout.

Zencastr: Free Hobbyist plans will have no recording time limits or limits on the number of people in your recording. Effective through July 1.

Threads: Free access to their collaboration tools and Pro/Team plans for all users through July 1.

Expensify: Reimbursement of up to $50 for essential goods and groceries purchased on your SNAP card.

Wave: Free financial software solutions (accounting, bookkeeping, invoicing) for small businesses to help with cash flow — which becomes increasingly important during economic turmoil. In response to COVID-19, Wave has reduced paid services where possible to active customers, in an effort to provide financial relief during a time of need.

Jamm: Free audio-visual communication tool used by remote and distributed teams. You can quickly record videos or do a live call with your team. Available for 3 months.

Carto: Free visualization software for organizations fighting COVID-19.

Crowdmark: Free access to its online grading and analytics platform until May 31.

Epic: Free remote access of its reading platform to elementary educators and librarians until June 30, with no credit card required. Students may access the company’s digital library, which has 35,000-plus books, read-to-me and audiobooks, videos and quizzes. Teachers and librarians can stay connected to their students by assigning books or collections and monitoring their progress.

ClassTag: Free communication platform available to help districts and schools communicate with their families. The software sends messages through SMS, email, apps and the web and automatically translates them into one of 55 languages. The platform can also be used to post videos, assignments and other resources for students to access at home and allow users to run virtual lessons with a videoconferencing tool.

McGraw-Hill: Free resources for out-of-school learning to help K-12 teachers make the transition to remote instruction.

Scholastic: Free 5 days’ worth of content and 15 additional days is on the way.

Age of Learning: Free at-home access for families at affected schools to ABCmouse, a learning resource for ages 2 to 8.

Listenwise: Free access to the Listenwise platform that supports distance learning by allowing you to roster your students, make online customized written assignments, and assign multiple-choice autos-cored listening quizzes. This will give you and your students the ability to learn through May 31, or until your school reopens. 

Peloton: Free 90-day trial of its subscription workout app as more gyms shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The fitness freebie doesn’t require a Peloton-branded bike or treadmill. Users can choose from classes such as yoga, meditation, strength training and more.

U-Haul: Free self-storage for 30 days to all college students who have been impacted by schedule changes at their universities.

TripIt: Free 6-month licenses to their Tripit Pro flight tracking service.

UrbanSitter: Free parent subscription for two months during the COVID-19 outbreak. Parents can find trusted childcare help to support them as they work from home during this period. Every sitter is background checked and UrbanSitter provides parents with as much information as possible to make informed decisions.

Dialpad: Free two months of its cloud-based phone system, Dialpad Talk Pro. This also includes videoconferences and UberConference Business.

1Password: Free business accounts for the first 6 months. Manage your workforce from anywhere, and safely share logins and other important resources with remote workers.

Vidyard: Free secure video messaging to enhance internal communications for all businesses.

Cloudfare: Free Teams products to small businesses and remote workers to operate securely and easily. This policy will continue for at least the next 6 months.

Panopto: Free three-month access to capture and distribute video content for businesses, universities, colleges and schools will enable employees and students to continue learning and working remotely.

OneLogin: Free access to the Trusted Experience Platform for educators who are moving to a virtual learning environment in light of health concerns. The free platform, consisting of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and certificate-based authentication, will deliver secure virtual experiences for all educators K through 12, colleges and universities.

SentinelLabs: Free cybersecurity platform SentinelOne Core between Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16. SentinelOne’s cloud-based platform seamlessly scales, making it well suited to protect both businesses and employees rapidly transitioning to a work-from-home environment.

Waterfall Security: Free Remote Screen View product licenses available to customers whose vendor personnel or key employees are no longer able to travel to industrial and critical infrastructure sites. Remote Screen View sends real-time images of industrial workstations to a web server that remote vendors can access.

OneClick: Free remote access Basic Starter Package for the next three months to assist those working remotely.

8×8: Free video meetings to all users. Offers 80+ local dial-in numbers (11 toll-free) from 55+ countries and meetings of up to 50 participants without any time restrictions.

Bloomz: Free premium version of its communication service to all schools through June 30. The software allows users to communicate updates in real-time to parents and students; and share lessons, student work and feedback.

HR Acuity: Free version of its SaaS solution to help businesses manage employee issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The limited edition provides employee documentation and tracking functionality that will equip businesses to monitor the people impact of the crisis. The limited edition will be available through at least July 1 to businesses with more than 100 employees.

Avid: Free, temporary licenses of creative tools to qualified media enterprise and educational customers. Starting March 16 through April 17, users who must work remotely because their facility has been closed may obtain 90-day licenses free of charge for Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. In addition, any student of an institution who uses our products and can no longer attend school and/or access school facilities can receive a 90-day license of the same products.

TechSmith: Free licenses to TechSmith Snagit screen capture software and the TechSmith Video Review software through June 30.

BlueJeans: Free access to videoconference service to first responders and NGOs for 90-days.

Adobe: Free home access to Creative Cloud apps is available by request of students and educators until May 31. Adobe also offers free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for web conferencing until July 1.

DropBox: Free DropBox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19. Organizations working to stop the virus or providing relief to those impacted are encouraged to apply.

Box: Free secure file sharing and collaboration platform for 3 months. The offer is for the Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.

Mailchimp: Free Standard accounts to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID-19 through June 30.

SurveyMonkey: Free questionnaire templates written by survey research experts to gather data/feedback from employees, customers and broader groups impacted by the coronavirus.

Salesforce: Free access to technology for emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus.

Check back soon because we’ll keep this list updated. You can also see all links and submit new free offers here. 

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

Via http://www.scpie.org/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

source https://scpie.weebly.com/blog/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through-the-coronavirus-pandemic

[laurelkrugerr]

65 Free Tools to Help You Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are more than 10,000 coronavirus cases and more than 150 deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC. The stock market has taken a hit. Businesses are losing customers, and workers are losing jobs. It has become frightening, frustrating and even maddening. 

In response to the pandemic, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently reminded us that we can all help each other in our own ways. He has provided K-12 educators with free access to the videoconferencing platform so students can continue learning.

Inspired, I shared an idea with Jason Feifer, editor in chief at Entrepreneur: a simple, organized list of free product and service offerings from all types of companies. Access to these powerful tools can help organizations, teams and families.

He responded quickly. “I like that. Maybe it starts as a post on Entrepreneur.com?”

Boom. Here we go:

Zoom: Free videoconferencing tools for K-through-12 schools.

Slack: Free upgrades to paid plans for teams working on coronavirus pandemic research, response or mitigation. Interested teams can email a special address to get this set up, and a consultation on how best to get started with remote collaboration.

Humu: Free nudges to anyone who wants science-backed advice for how to best work remotely, partner with colleagues who are all over the place, show appreciation for those who don’t have the flexibility to work remotely (e.g. cashiers, medical personnel).

Atlassian: Free access to Cloud products for issue-tracking and project-tracking software including Jira and Confluence. Also, free access to Trello Business Class for organizing plans is offered for one year to educators at K through 12 and higher education.

Airtable: Free use of Airtable Pro plan as a modern database for any non-political, humanitarian effort tackling COVID relief. There is no time limit. It is also planning to make the service free for students too.

PandaDoc: Free e-sign plan gives companies unlimited users, unlimited document uploads, unlimited eSignatures, and payment processing.

Wrike: Free licenses of the versatile collaborative work management platform (Professional edition) to new customers for 6 months. Current customers are able to add unlimited collaborators. Webinars and advice on remote work are both on the website.

Calendly: Free Zoom and GoToMeeting integrations for their online appointment scheduling software to help remote workers stay connected. These were previously Premium tier features and will be available through June 30. Also Free premium plan access to teams working directly on COVID-19. 

Smartsheet: Free templates that can be used by other organizations to build their own coronavirus preparedness dashboard, rich with CDC documentation and other resources, and related sheets and forms.

Support.com: Free tech support to anyone working or studying remotely right now.

Bill.com: Free 90-day subscription for new customers impacted by COVID-19. The cloud-based service helps small and mid-sized businesses to automate the processing of bills, generate invoices, send/receive payments and manage their cash flows.

Workable: Free use of the new video interviewing software for all customers, and access to a library of COVID-19 response content for use by HR professionals and business leaders.

Zoho: Free suite of Remotely apps until July 1. There are 11 apps in all, including ones for online meetings, training sessions, storage, project management and everyday work (in the form of word processing, spreadsheets and presentations).

Google: Free, premium version of its workplace video chat tool until July, to help businesses and schools working remotely due to coronavirus. Those features include having up to 250 participants per call, live streaming for up to 100,000 viewers within a domain, and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive.

Cisco: Free license for new customers of Duo Security’s two-factor authentication tool, and current customers can go above their user limit as their employees increasingly work from home. Same deal for its web security tool Umbrella and its VPN product AnyConnect, which is available until July 1. Cisco is extending services for existing customers of Webex, its video conference platform. The offer includes unlimited usage without time restriction, support for fewer than 100 participants, and toll-free dial-in.

Comcast: Free Xfinity WiFi for everyone, with hotspots available to all, including non-Xfinity subscribers. To access the service, look for the “xfinitywifi” network name in a list of hotspots.

LogMeIn: Free site-wide licensing for 3 months of its videoconferencing solution, GoToMeeting, for eligible organizations (health care providers, educational institutions, municipalities and non-profits).

Loom: Free video recording and sharing service for teachers and students at K-through-12 schools, universities and educational institutions. They have also removed the recording limit on free plans and have cut the price for Loom Pro in half.

Microsoft: Free six-month Office 365 E1 Trial, including Microsoft Teams.

Slashtop: Free 60-day licenses to its Business Access remote access software.

Discord: Free, enhanced Go Live streaming service so that it can now support 50 simultaneous users rather than 10.

EZTexting: Free emergency text alert services to schools. Receive 100,000 free outgoing text messages for six months, access to a set of coronavirus message templates, and one-on-one consulting.

Yext: Free, new site search product, Yext Answers, for a 90-day period. Eligible businesses will be able to transform their website into a search engine capable of answering consumers’ COVID-19 specific queries in real time.

Linkedin: Free 16 learning courses that provide tips on how to stay productive, build relationships when you’re not face-to-face, use virtual meeting tools and balance family and work dynamics in a healthy way.

Hootsuite: Free access for Hootsuite Professional to small businesses and nonprofits until July 1. Helping to manage social media, and stay connected with your customers and communities.

Amazon: Free online access to sponsored computer science courses in the United States. That’s intended for learners in grades 6 through 12, and teachers who are remotely teaching this age group. Parents can also access this curriculum.

Brit.co: Free DIY classes for the next one to two weeks. Use discount code “selfcare” at checkout.

Zencastr: Free Hobbyist plans will have no recording time limits or limits on the number of people in your recording. Effective through July 1.

Threads: Free access to their collaboration tools and Pro/Team plans for all users through July 1.

Expensify: Reimbursement of up to $50 for essential goods and groceries purchased on your SNAP card.

Wave: Free financial software solutions (accounting, bookkeeping, invoicing) for small businesses to help with cash flow — which becomes increasingly important during economic turmoil. In response to COVID-19, Wave has reduced paid services where possible to active customers, in an effort to provide financial relief during a time of need.

Jamm: Free audio-visual communication tool used by remote and distributed teams. You can quickly record videos or do a live call with your team. Available for 3 months.

Carto: Free visualization software for organizations fighting COVID-19.

Crowdmark: Free access to its online grading and analytics platform until May 31.

Epic: Free remote access of its reading platform to elementary educators and librarians until June 30, with no credit card required. Students may access the company’s digital library, which has 35,000-plus books, read-to-me and audiobooks, videos and quizzes. Teachers and librarians can stay connected to their students by assigning books or collections and monitoring their progress.

ClassTag: Free communication platform available to help districts and schools communicate with their families. The software sends messages through SMS, email, apps and the web and automatically translates them into one of 55 languages. The platform can also be used to post videos, assignments and other resources for students to access at home and allow users to run virtual lessons with a videoconferencing tool.

McGraw-Hill: Free resources for out-of-school learning to help K-12 teachers make the transition to remote instruction.

Scholastic: Free 5 days’ worth of content and 15 additional days is on the way.

Age of Learning: Free at-home access for families at affected schools to ABCmouse, a learning resource for ages 2 to 8.

Listenwise: Free access to the Listenwise platform that supports distance learning by allowing you to roster your students, make online customized written assignments, and assign multiple-choice autos-cored listening quizzes. This will give you and your students the ability to learn through May 31, or until your school reopens. 

Peloton: Free 90-day trial of its subscription workout app as more gyms shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The fitness freebie doesn’t require a Peloton-branded bike or treadmill. Users can choose from classes such as yoga, meditation, strength training and more.

U-Haul: Free self-storage for 30 days to all college students who have been impacted by schedule changes at their universities.

TripIt: Free 6-month licenses to their Tripit Pro flight tracking service.

UrbanSitter: Free parent subscription for two months during the COVID-19 outbreak. Parents can find trusted childcare help to support them as they work from home during this period. Every sitter is background checked and UrbanSitter provides parents with as much information as possible to make informed decisions.

Dialpad: Free two months of its cloud-based phone system, Dialpad Talk Pro. This also includes videoconferences and UberConference Business.

1Password: Free business accounts for the first 6 months. Manage your workforce from anywhere, and safely share logins and other important resources with remote workers.

Vidyard: Free secure video messaging to enhance internal communications for all businesses.

Cloudfare: Free Teams products to small businesses and remote workers to operate securely and easily. This policy will continue for at least the next 6 months.

Panopto: Free three-month access to capture and distribute video content for businesses, universities, colleges and schools will enable employees and students to continue learning and working remotely.

OneLogin: Free access to the Trusted Experience Platform for educators who are moving to a virtual learning environment in light of health concerns. The free platform, consisting of single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA) and certificate-based authentication, will deliver secure virtual experiences for all educators K through 12, colleges and universities.

SentinelLabs: Free cybersecurity platform SentinelOne Core between Monday, March 16 through Friday, May 16. SentinelOne’s cloud-based platform seamlessly scales, making it well suited to protect both businesses and employees rapidly transitioning to a work-from-home environment.

Waterfall Security: Free Remote Screen View product licenses available to customers whose vendor personnel or key employees are no longer able to travel to industrial and critical infrastructure sites. Remote Screen View sends real-time images of industrial workstations to a web server that remote vendors can access.

OneClick: Free remote access Basic Starter Package for the next three months to assist those working remotely.

8×8: Free video meetings to all users. Offers 80+ local dial-in numbers (11 toll-free) from 55+ countries and meetings of up to 50 participants without any time restrictions.

Bloomz: Free premium version of its communication service to all schools through June 30. The software allows users to communicate updates in real-time to parents and students; and share lessons, student work and feedback.

HR Acuity: Free version of its SaaS solution to help businesses manage employee issues related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The limited edition provides employee documentation and tracking functionality that will equip businesses to monitor the people impact of the crisis. The limited edition will be available through at least July 1 to businesses with more than 100 employees.

Avid: Free, temporary licenses of creative tools to qualified media enterprise and educational customers. Starting March 16 through April 17, users who must work remotely because their facility has been closed may obtain 90-day licenses free of charge for Media Composer | Ultimate, Pro Tools, Pro Tools | Ultimate and Sibelius | Ultimate. In addition, any student of an institution who uses our products and can no longer attend school and/or access school facilities can receive a 90-day license of the same products.

TechSmith: Free licenses to TechSmith Snagit screen capture software and the TechSmith Video Review software through June 30.

BlueJeans: Free access to videoconference service to first responders and NGOs for 90-days.

Adobe: Free home access to Creative Cloud apps is available by request of students and educators until May 31. Adobe also offers free 90-day access to Adobe Connect for web conferencing until July 1.

DropBox: Free DropBox Business and HelloSign Enterprise subscriptions for a three-month period to nonprofits and NGOs that are focused on fighting COVID-19. Organizations working to stop the virus or providing relief to those impacted are encouraged to apply.

Box: Free secure file sharing and collaboration platform for 3 months. The offer is for the Business plan and includes unlimited storage, mobile access, and advanced user and security reporting.

Mailchimp: Free Standard accounts to eligible groups sending critical public health information about COVID-19 through June 30.

SurveyMonkey: Free questionnaire templates written by survey research experts to gather data/feedback from employees, customers and broader groups impacted by the coronavirus.

Salesforce: Free access to technology for emergency response teams, call centers, and care management teams for health systems affected by coronavirus.

Check back soon because we’ll keep this list updated. You can also see all links and submit new free offers here. 

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through-the-coronavirus-pandemic/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/03/65-free-tools-to-help-you-through.html

[tainghekhongdaycomvn]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

xem them tai http://ift.tt/2o9GYfe Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA xem thêm tại: http://ift.tt/2mb4VST để biết thêm về địa chỉ bán tai nghe không dây giá rẻ Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018] http://ift.tt/2qQgxgA Bạn có thể xem thêm địa chỉ mua tai nghe không dây tại đây http://ift.tt/2mb4VST

[christinesumpmg]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[byronheeutgm]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[mercedessharonwo1]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[rodneyevesuarywk]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[dainiaolivahm]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[conniecogeie]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

http://ift.tt/2me2V9i

[ormlacom]

Troubleshooting Local Ranking Failures [Updated for 2018]

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

Posted by MiriamEllis

I love a mystery… especially a local search ranking mystery I can solve for someone.

Now, the truth is, some ranking puzzles are so complex, they can only be solved by a formal competitive audit. But there are many others that can be cleared up by spending 15 minutes or less going through an organized 10-point checklist of the commonest problems that can cause a business to rank lower than the owner thinks it should. By zipping through the following checklist, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find one or more obvious “whodunits” contributing to poor Google local pack visibility for a given search.

Since I wrote the original version of this post in 2014, so much has changed. Branding, tools, tactics — things are really different in 2018. Definitely time for a complete overhaul, with the goal of making you a super sleuth for your forum friends, clients, agency teammates, or executive superiors.

Let’s emulate the Stratemeyer Syndicate, which earned lasting fame by hitting on a simple formula for surfacing and solving mysteries in a most enjoyable way.

Before we break out our magnifying glass, it’s critical to stress one very important thing. The local rankings I see from an office in North Beach, San Francisco are not the rankings you see while roaming around Golden Gate park in the same city. The rankings your client in Des Moines sees for things in his town are not the same rankings you see from your apartment in Albuquerque when you look at Des Moines results. With the user having become the centroid of search for true local searches, it is no mystery at all that we see different results when we are different places, and it is no cause for concern.

And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way and are in the proper detective spirit, let’s dive into how to solve for each item on our checklist!

☑ Google updates/bugs

The first thing to ask if a business experiences a sudden change in rankings is whether Google has done something. Search Engine Land strikes me as the fastest reporter of Google updates, with MozCast offering an ongoing weather report of changes in the SERPs. Also, check out the Moz Google Algo Change history list and the Moz Blog for some of the most in-depth strategic coverage of updates, penalties, and filters.

For local-specific bugs (or even just suspected tests), check out the Local Search Forum, the Google My Business forum, and Mike Blumenthal’s blog. See if the effects being described match the weirdness you are seeing in your local packs. If so, it’s a matter of fixing a problematic practice (like iffy link building) that has been caught in an update, waiting to see how the update plays out, or waiting for Google to fix a bug or turn a dial down to normalize results.

*Pro tip: Don’t make the mistake of thinking organic updates have nothing to do with local SEO. Crack detectives know organic and local are closely connected.

☑ Eligibility to list and rank

When a business owner wants to know why he isn’t ranking well locally, always ask these four questions:

Does the business have a real address? (Not a PO box, virtual office, or a string of employees’ houses!)

Does the business make face-to-face contact with its customers?

What city is the business in?

What is the exact keyword phrase they are hoping to rank for?

If the answer is “no” to either of the first two questions, the business isn’t eligible for a Google My Business listing. And while spam does flow through Google, a lack of eligibility could well be the key to a lack of rankings.

For the third question, you need to know the city the business is in so that you can see if it’s likely to rank for the search phrase cited in the fourth question. For example, a plumber with a street address in Sugar Land, TX should not expect to rank for "plumber Dallas TX." If a business lacks a physical location in a given city, it’s atypical for it to rank for queries that stem from or relate to that locale. It’s amazing just how often this simple fact solves local pack mysteries.

☑ Guideline spam

To be an ace local sleuth, you must commit to memory the guidelines for representing your business on Google so that you can quickly spot violations. Common acts of spam include:

Keyword stuffing the business name field

Improper wording of the business name field

Creating listings for ineligible locations, departments, or people

Category spam

Incorrect phone number implementation

Incorrect website URL implementation

Review guideline violations

If any of the above conundrums are new to you, definitely spend 10 minutes reading the guidelines. Make flash cards, if necessary, to test yourself on your spam awareness until you can instantly detect glaring errors. With this enhanced perception, you’ll be able to see problems that may possibly be leading to lowered rankings, or even… suspensions!

☑ Suspensions

There are two key things to look for here when a local business owner comes to you with a ranking woe:

If the listing was formerly verified, but has mysteriously become unverified, you should suspect a soft suspension. Soft suspensions might occur around something like a report of keyword-stuffing the GMB business name field. Oddly, however, there is little anecdotal evidence to support the idea that soft suspensions cause ranking drops. Nevertheless, it’s important to spot the un-verification clue and tell the owner to stop breaking guidelines. It’s possible that the listing may lose reviews or images during this type of suspension, but in most cases, the owner should be able to re-verify his listing. Just remember: a soft suspension is not a likely cause of low local pack rankings.

If the listing’s rankings totally disappear and you can’t even find the listing via a branded search, it’s time to suspect a hard suspension. Hard suspensions can result from a listing falling afoul of a Google guideline or new update, a Google employee, or just a member of the public who has reported the business for something like an ineligible location. If the hard suspension is deserved, as in the case of creating a listing at a fake address, then there’s nothing you can do about it. But, if a hard suspension results from a mistake, I recommend taking it to the Google My Business forum to plead for help. Be prepared to prove that you are 100% guideline-compliant and eligible in hopes of getting your listing reinstated with its authority and reviews intact.

☑ Duplicates

Notorious for their ability to divide ranking strength, duplicate listings are at their worst when there is more than one verified listing representing a single entity. If you encounter a business that seems like it should be ranking better than it is for a given search, always check for duplicates.

The quickest way to do this is to get all present and past NAP (name, address, phone) from the business and plug it into the free Moz Check Listing tool. Pay particular attention to any GMB duplicates the tool surfaces. Then:

If the entity is a brick-and-mortar business or service area business, and the NAP exactly matches between the duplicates, contact Google to ask them to merge the listings. If the NAP doesn’t match and represents a typo or error on the duplicate, use the “suggest an edit” link in Google Maps to toggle the “yes/no” toggle to “yes,” and then select the radio button for “never existed.”

If the duplicates represent partners in a multi-practitioner business, Google won’t simply delete them. Things get quite complicated in this scenario, and if you discover practitioner duplicates, tread carefully. There are half a dozen nuances here, including whether you’re dealing with actual duplicates, whether they represent current or past staffers, whether they are claimed or unclaimed, and even whether a past partner is deceased. There isn’t perfect industry agreement on the handling of all of the ins-and-outs of practitioner listings. Given this, I would advise an affected business to read all of the following before making a move in any direction:

How to Delete a Google My Business Listing: A Common Question with a Complex Answer

Why You Cannot Ignore Practitioner Listings on Google My Business

Practitioner Listings: To Claim or Not to Claim

☑ Missing/inaccurate listings

While you’ve got Moz Check Listing fired up, pay attention to anything it tells you about missing or inaccurate listings. The tool will show you how accurate and complete your listings on are on the major local business data aggregators, plus other important platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, Factual, Yelp, and more. Why does this matter?

Google can pull information from anywhere on the web and plunk it into your Google My Business listing.

While no one can quantify the exact degree to which citation/listing consistency directly impacts Google local rankings for every possible search query, it has been a top 5 ranking factor in the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey as far back as I can remember. Recently, I’ve seen some industry discussion as to whether citations still matter, with some practitioners claiming they can’t see the difference they make. I believe that conclusion may stem from working mainly in ultra-competitive markets where everyone has already got their citations in near-perfect order, forcing practitioners to look for differentiation tactics beyond the basics. But without those basics, you’re missing table stakes in the game.

Indirectly, listing absence or inconsistency impacts local rankings in that it undermines the quest for good local KPIs as well as organic authority. Every lost or misdirected consumer represents a failure to have someone click-for-directions, click-to-call, click-to-your website, or find your website at all. Online and offline traffic, conversions, reputation, and even organic authority all hang in the balance of active citation management.

☑ Lack of organic authority

Full website or competitive audits are not the work of a minute. They really take time, and deep delving. But, at a glance, you can access some quick metrics to let you know whether a business’ lack of achievement on the organic side of things could be holding them back in the local packs. Get yourself the free MozBar SEO toolbar and try this:

Turn the MozBar on by clicking the little “M” at the top of your browser so that it is blue.

Perform your search and look at the first few pages of the organic results, ignoring anything from major directory sites like Yelp (they aren’t competing with you for local pack rankings, eh?).

Note down the Page Authority, Domain Authority, and link counts for each of the businesses coming up on the first 3 pages of the organic results.

Finally, bring up the website of the business you’re investigating. If you see that the top competitors have Domain Authorities of 50 and links numbering in the hundreds or thousands, whereas your target site is well below in these metrics, chances are good that organic authority is playing a strong role in lack of local search visibility. How do we know this is true? Do some local searches and note just how often the businesses that make it into the 3-pack or the top of the local finder view have correlating high organic rankings.

Where organic authority is poor, a business has a big job of work ahead. They need to focus on content dev + link building + social outreach to begin building up their brand in the minds of consumers and the “RankBrain” of Google.

One other element needs to be mentioned here, and that’s the concept of how time affects authority. When you’re talking to a business with a ranking problem, it’s very important to ascertain whether they just launched their website or just built their local business listings last week, or even just a few months ago. Typically, if they have, the fruits of their efforts have yet to fully materialize. That being said, it’s not a given that a new business will have little authority. Large brands have marketing departments which exist solely to build tremendous awareness of new assets before they even launch. It’s important to keep that in mind, while also realizing that if the business is smaller, building authority will likely represent a longer haul.

☑ Possum effect

Where local rankings are absent, always ask:

“Are there any other businesses in your building or even on your street that share your Google category?”

If the answer is “yes,” search for the business’ desired keyword phase and look at the local finder view in Google Maps. Note which companies are ranking. Then begin to zoom in on the map, level by level, noting changes in the local finder as you go. If, a few levels in, the business you’re advising suddenly appears on the map and in the local finder, chances are good it’s the Possum filter that’s causing their apparent invisibility at the automatic zoom level.

Google Possum rolled out in September 2016, and its observable effects included a geographic diversification of the local results, filtering out many listings that share a category and are in close proximity to one another. Then, about one year later, Google initiated the Hawk update, which appears to have tightened the radius of Possum, with the result that while many businesses in the same building are still being filtered out, a number of nearby neighbors have reappeared at the automatic zoom level of the results.

If your sleuthing turns up a brand that is being impacted by Possum/Hawk, the only surefire way to beat the filter is to put in the necessary work to become the most authoritative answer for the desired search phrase. It’s important to remember that filters are the norm in Google’s local results, and have long been observed impacting listings that share an address, share a phone number, etc. If it’s vital for a particular listing to outrank all others that possess shared characteristics, then authority must be built around it in every possible way to make it one of the most dominant results.

☑ Local Service Ads effect

The question you ask here is:

“Is yours a service-area business?”

And if the answer is “yes,” then brace yourself for ongoing results disruption in the coming year.

Google’s Local Service Ads (formerly Home Service Ads) make Google the middleman between consumers and service providers, and in the 2+ years since first early testing, they’ve caused some pretty startling things to happen to local search results. These have included:

An episode in which Google’s requirement for Advanced Verification resulted in something like 90% of listings being kicked out of the results in San Diego

SABs who haven’t signed up for LSA being removed from 3-packs and relegated to no-man’s land at the bottom of ad units.

Mass removal of home-based businesses from the local results, due their lack of a visible address … and then Google saying this was a bug

Spam listings disappearing and then reappearing

Suffice it to say, rollout to an ever-increasing number of cities and categories hasn’t been for the faint of heart, and I would hazard a guess that Google’s recent re-brand of this program signifies their intention to move beyond the traditional SAB market. One possible benefit of Google getting into this type of lead gen is that it could decrease spam, but I’m not sold on this, given that fake locations have ended up qualifying for LSA inclusion. While I honor Google’s need to be profitable, I share some of the qualms business owners have expressed about the potential impacts of this venture.

Since I can’t offer a solid prediction of what precise form these impacts will take in the coming months, the best I can do here is to recommend that if an SAB experiences a ranking change/loss, the first thing to look for is whether LSA has come to town. If so, alteration of the SERPs may be unavoidable, and the only strategy left for overcoming vanished visibility may be to pay for it... by qualifying for the program.

☑ GMB neglect

Sometimes, a lack of competitive rankings can simply be chalked up to a lack of effort. If a business wonders why they’re not doing better in the local packs, pull up their GMB listing and do a quick evaluation of:

Verification status – While you can rank without verifying, lack of verification is a hallmark of listing neglect.

Basic accuracy – If NAP or map markers are incorrect, it’s a sure sign of neglect.

Category choices – Wrong categories make right rankings impossible.

Image optimization – Every business needs a good set of the most professional, persuasive photos it can acquire, and should even consider periodic new photo shoots for seasonal freshness; imagery impacts KPIs, which are believed to impact rank.

Review count, sentiment and management – Too few reviews, low ratings, and lack of responses = utter neglect of this core rank/reputation-driver.

Hours of operation – If they’re blank or incorrect, conversions are being missed.

Main URL choice – Does the GMB listing point to a strong, authoritative website page or a weak one?

Additional URL choices – If menus, bookings, reservations, or placing orders is part of the business model, a variety of optional URLs are supported by Google and should be explored.

Google Posts – Early-days testing indicates that regular posting may impact rank.

Google Questions and Answers – Pre-populate with best FAQs and actively manage incoming questions.

There is literally no business, large or small, with a local footprint that can afford to neglect its Google My Business listing. And while some fixes and practices move the ranking needle more than others, the increasing number of consumer actions that take place within Google is reason enough to put active GMB management at the top of your list.

Closing the case

The Hardy Boys never went anywhere without their handy kit of detection tools. Their father was so confident in their utter preparedness that he even let them chase down gangs in Hong Kong and dictators in the Guyanas (which, on second thought, doesn’t seem terribly wise.) But I have that kind of confidence in you. I hope my troubleshooting checklist is one you’ll bookmark and share to be prepared for the local ranking mysteries awaiting you and your digital marketing colleagues in 2018. Happy sleuthing!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Reverse Phone - People Search - Email Search - Public Records - Criminal Records. Best Data, Conversions, And Customer Suppor