What’s Up With SEO in 2020

It has been known for quite some time now, but now, it is a sure thing – SEO and algorithm changes rolled out by search engines can spell a huge difference among companies and their performance. With more marketing efforts now being implemented online, digital is not just an afterthought or a value-added service, but a crucial factor that has separated more successful companies from the struggling ones.

This was proven true in 2019 when ASOS went from being one of the most profitable online fashion websites to experiencing close to a 90% drop in profits after launching a rousingly wrong move in digital marketing. The company in April 2019 launched 200 versions of its website to suit the shopper’s location. While this move was seen by the company as positive as it was supposed to make the visitor’s experience more customized, it clashed with Google’s efforts to combine its display results. Users did not also appreciate their time in their localized sites, causing them to spend only a short amount of time in them, which in turn, also made Google rank ASOS sites lower in their results. This should serve as a lesson to websites to be keen in the direction Google takes.

For 2020, here are some developments digital marketers should pay close attention to:

Mobile pages need to speed it up

Searches done on mobile devices have reached peaks of popularity. Most internet users do more searches with smartphones and tablets compared to laptops and desktops. This shift in popularity may also be attributed to Google’s push to improve the load speed of mobile sites.  Thus, it is expected that page load speed’s significance as a ranking factor will continuously rise in 2020.

Page load speed is a Google ranking factor – and since it’s using a mobile-first algorithm, we know that mobile load speed is what matters.

It’s important, but note that your page load speed is really only going to affect your rankings if you’re in the bottom range.

(Via: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/semrush-guide-to-mobile-seo/344365/)

 

Do you know BERT?

Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, otherwise known by its acronym BERT, uses machine learning to improve Google’s comprehension of the what the user thinks of when he or she does ambiguous or complex queries to the search engine. BERT went live in October 2019 in the US and will be rolled out to other areas and in other languages in 2020 and is expected to have an effect on page ranking and other items such as the quality of snippets, excerpts, and other information that is displayed on Google’s SERP.  BERT is set to benefits websites with high quality, detail-rich content of their products and services.

Currently, BERT only analyzes search queries, not websites. However, the update may have a major impact on how your site ranks for certain keywords. Because the algorithm is better able to understand the specific meaning of each word in a search, the top results will be closely related to the intent behind the search.

(Via: https://www.business2community.com/seo/how-does-googles-bert-algorithm-update-affect-your-websites-seo-02284305)

 

SERPs to be more important

All companies in the know have been trying to beef up “dwell time,” or the time visitors spend on a particular platform. With so much content offerings and diversification, some of the internet’s biggest names such as Google and Facebook have made drastic moves to ensure that their users can get whatever it is they look for on their sites and never leave. But then, Google is at an advantage in the sense that since everyone wants to rank on their site, it can dictate and implement its whims to the sites that do not have much of a choice but follow.

Since 2019, Google has tried to integrate more third-party content directly in their search engine results pages (SERPs). While it used to be that simple links appear in the results pages, there are now maps, snippets, graphs, videos, and images as well. This has resulted in users not having to click on through a website of a brand, as they may have already seen what they’re looking for in Google’s SERP.

The SERPs determines how your site appears on Google’s first page.

For example, let’s say you rank your site on the first page of Google for the keyword “how to start a website”.

That’s great… until you see that SERP features push the #1 result to well below the fold.

(Via: https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/serps)

 

Does your website EAT?

Finally, E-A-T, which stands for Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness is also expected to play a bigger role in search engine ranking. With the ongoing evolution of Google’s core algorithm, websites that involve content from experts with the greatest authority will surely be highlighted by Google as those that will satisfy the needs of the user the best.

Google uses a variety of signals as a proxy to match what humans are looking for, and in that regard, E-A-T is a ranking factor, Slegg said. However, Google does not assign pages an E-A-T score — it is simply a term Google created to teach quality raters what to look for

(Via: https://searchengineland.com/a-quick-guide-to-understanding-googles-quality-rater-guidelines-329501)

 

If your company needs support in rolling put effective SEO strategies, All Systems Go Marketing provides solutions to all your digital marketing challenges. Get in touch with us about your digital marketing strategy today.

What’s Up With SEO in 2020 is republished from www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/hvac-seo/whats-up-with-seo-in-2020

Instagram is the Current Hotbed of Influencer Marketing

Do your online marketing efforts include Instagram? If not, then you sure are missing a lot of action.  That’s because the popular photo and now, video-sharing social media platform has become the haven of a niche marketing sector – that of influencers. Influencer marketing is most effective on Instagram than on any other platform, and so far, influencers have proven their effectiveness as they have played active roles in increasing brand awareness with the businesses they have engaged with.

The year 2019 saw the start of these influencers reaching out to various brands, peddling their “influence,” to which brands readily agreed to because they are more relatable to their followers compared to celebrities. There have been challenges encountered by some companies, as they had difficulty looking for influencers who would be the right endorsers of their products or services.   Despite these challenges, continued growth in this marketing segment is seen, with estimates saying that influencer marketing will be valued at $15 billion in the next two years.

Still not convinced of how legitimate influencer marketing on Instagram is? Here are some proof points that might just do the trick and get you in the influencer marketing bandwagon.

Instagram’s reign as the Top Influencer Marketing Platform

With over 1 billion active accounts every month, Instagram already boasts of a huge user base. When we consider that 90% of those Instagram accountholders users follow at least one business, digital marketers should already have dollar signs flashing in their eyes. Companies definitely have a sizable audience on IG once they roll out their marketing campaigns. When these businesses engage with a group that big, we can only expect great results.

One of the leading causes is the photo-sharing application’s kickass engagement rates.

A report by Sprout Social revealed interesting details: On seeing a product or service on Instagram, 79% of those surveyed searched for more details, 31% followed the account, and 29% talked to someone about it.

(Via: https://www.business2community.com/infographics/why-is-instagram-influencer-marketing-so-effective-in-2020-infographic-02284591)

 

Nano-Influencers on the Rise

Influencers on Instagram come in various forms, serving various market segments and business sizes. With the flurry of activity in this front, small brands are left to wonder how they can be part of the action if they can have any part of it at all. That’s where nano-influencers step in. These influencers have fewer followers, which means they can be very hands-on and personal with their engagement. This results in better engagement rates for the business compared to hiring more popular influencers with larger fanbases. As they have fewer followers, they also charge less, making them a great choice for small businesses that want to join the influencer bandwagon but don’t have huge marketing budgets.

Nano-influencers — are Instagram users who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers.

Their accounts are neither glamorous nor polished, photos are neither posed nor retouched with dozens of filters. They give the feeling of being a “guy next door.”

Leading brands have learned the value of this new trend and have already included nano-influencers into their marketing strategy. Among them are Remington, Always, and Gillette Venus.

(Via: https://mention.com/en/blog/nano-influencers/)

 

The Power of Visual Storytelling

Several businesses have attested to how effective visual storytelling on Instagram is as a tool to reach out to consumers. As visuals are easily understood by audiences, influencers and businesses have used Instagram Stories and TV as effectively outreach and engagement tools. Moreover, visual storytelling is also effective in driving emotional engagement, which usually causes more converted customers.

On Instagram, the best brand storytelling involves telling snackable, micro-stories that tie into the brand’s values, mission, and purpose. Whether you are using Instagram for a personal account or a business account, you want to develop a strong brand presence that represents what you are passionate about in life.

(Via: https://www.diygenius.com/brilliant-examples-of-visual-storytelling-on-instagram/)

 

The Instagram Stories Effect

Speaking of Instagram Stories, brands and influencers have taken note of its potential. More than 500 million out of the billion IG account holders use this feature already, which accounts for half of the total Instagram-using population. What’s great about Instagram Stories is that videos and photos can be posted, with the stories expiring in 24 hours, though there is an option to save the more important stories as Highlights.  The use of Instagram Stories has also resulted in a rise in brand awareness and visibility for a number of businesses.

In particular, Instagram Stories makes easy for marketers to engage with users, humanize their brands, create leads, and generate customers on the platform.

They’re a great tool for showing potential customers (and existing ones) why your brand is relatable or interesting.

(Via: https://neilpatel.com/blog/marketers-guide-to-instagram-stories/)

 

Planning to venture into Instagram marketing? All Systems Go Marketing offers a wide range of digital marketing solutions. Get in touch with us about your digital marketing strategy today.

Instagram is the Current Hotbed of Influencer Marketing is courtesy of ASGM

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/hvac-seo/instagram-is-the-current-hotbed-of-influencer-marketing

Recognizing Basic SEO Mistakes

These days, it is most important for websites for their owners to run a comprehensive and complete SEO campaign to rank. The competition is already fierce in almost any arena, particularly HVAC, so if you still haven’t put the effort into optimizing your website and being updated with SEO trends, it is highly likely that your competitors who are ranking in search engines have already left you in the dust.

SEO in today’s parlance would mean the consolidation of the best practices that search engines recognize that in turn make them reward the websites that adhere to these practices a high ranking. On the flip side, websites that do not follow these best practices are most likely to suffer from ruined rankings. Thus, it is important to recognize what mistakes borne out of not following SEO best practices are so that we can all fix and avoid them.

You aren’t indexing your pages properly

Of course, everyone with a website wants to have a high Google ranking. Unfortunately, this goal will never be met if Google’s bots cannot see the website in the first place. The biggest reason for this that your site’s pages are not properly indexed. Most problems connected to indexation are traced internally, with developers not allowing the page in your robots.txt file, or it may be that a page has a NOINDEX tag added to it.

There are also cases wherein websites are crawlable, but Google only publishes a portion of what is expected, which may be a result of a manual action. In these cases, an audit for the entire website is needed. Through an audit tool, you will see the overall SEO health of your website, which pages aren’t indexed, which are in violation of Google's best practices, and which contain wrong tagging instructions.  An audit is recommended regularly, possibly once a month.

Indexing is really the first step in any SEO audit. Why?

If your site is not being indexed, it is essentially unread by Google and Bing. And if the search engines can’t find and “read” it, no amount of magic or search engine optimization (SEO) will improve the ranking of your web pages.

In order to be ranked, a site must first be indexed.

(Via: https://searchengineland.com/the-first-steps-of-your-seo-audit-indexing-issues-296853)

 

Is your site a keyword cannibal?

Another bad practice in the world of SEO is that most websites, especially marketing ones, have overly saturated some topics, causing sites to publish similar materials that contain more or less the same keywords. This makes all sites involved compete with the same keywords, and everyone ends up being victims because all rankings suffer.

As complex as the issue may be because it involves other competing websites, there are also simple solutions, one being using a keyword mapping tool.

This might sound as a strange term but actually has a lot of potential, in regard to fixing keyword cannibalization. You can start by de-optimizing the web page that is silently killing off your authority by featuring as an unwanted entity at the top. However, de-optimization might take multiple forms as one can de-optimize the entire content steam by precisely removing the relevant keyword references.

(Via: https://www.business2community.com/seo/in-depth-keyword-cannibalization-analysis-for-2020-and-beyond-do-you-have-an-immediate-way-out-02278304)

 

Are your site’s pages structured properly? 

You may wonder why your site is ranked lower than your competitors despite yours having more backlinks. These days, Google has become smarter about quid pro quo linking strategies; thus, having the largest backlink catalog does not guarantee high rankings anymore. Form and structure have become more important now more than ever. Thus, for example, even if you have the best 2,000-word article on the best clubs to go in your area if Google decides that the best format for that particular topic is an image gallery, the sites that have pictures of the nightspots would rank higher than yours.

To prioritize and build up a logical hierarchy of these elements, you need to collect a semantic core. Based on your keyword research, you are outlining your future sections and their subordination. It is not necessary to create all the pages at once — you only need to understand the approximate number of pages and their order of priority.

(Via: https://www.business2community.com/seo/what-is-seo-friendly-site-structure-and-how-to-create-it-02207298)

 

Are your links coherent and well-distributed?

Any visitor to your website should be able to go from a specific page to the homepage with ease, have a general idea of which section he or she is on your website, and be able to go anywhere with just links to guide him or her.  If that’s the case with your website, then it has great internal linking. If visitors get lost, it may be because your developer may have concentrated only on linking pages that bring in more visitors. Ideally, links should be well distributed throughout your site, and not following this would cost your site high rankings.

To get started, first identify what pages of your site have fewer links. There are many tools out there that will help you identify this data, although I prefer to take a manual approach wherever possible, just to make sure the information is correct, reliable, and up-to-date.

(Via: https://www.coastdigital.co.uk/2020/01/22/how-to-build-high-quality-internal-links/)

 

Does your site load fast?

How your page loads have been a major factor in search engine rankings for quite some time. But then, it might be that some have taken this factor for granted and forget to prioritize this factor. Not only will a slower site be ranked lower, but visitors also stay away from slow-loading websites, affecting your visitor stats.  This is especially true for mobile sites. Recent studies reveal that if a mobile site takes more than 3 seconds to load, visitors, abandon it. Moreover, since July 2018, mobile page speed has also been a factor in its rankings.

First thing first: Is there an underlying problem with your site that is causing it to be slow? The easiest way to check is to do benchmark testing. Luckily, there are many free tools online that can be used to do this, and the more tests you’re able to perform on your site the better.

(Via: https://martechseries.com/mts-insights/guest-authors/one-key-to-customer-success-the-speed-of-your-website/)

 

Stay away from these SEO fails. For your online marketing needs, trust All Systems Go Marketing to support you. Get in touch with us about your HVAC digital marketing strategy today.

The following post Recognizing Basic SEO Mistakes See more on: https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/hvac-seo/recognizing-basic-seo-mistakes

All Systems Go Marketing Discusses Effective HVAC SEO

All Systems Go Marketing (ASGM), a digital marketing company based in La Mesa, CA specializing in HVAC SEO and PPC, recently published an article discussing how an HVAC digital marketing campaign could be defined as ‘effective’.

There are various factors that are accounted for in order to pull off a successful SEO campaign, things like competitor analysis, keyword research, local asset optimization, etc. But an effective SEO campaign utilizes these techniques efficiently and powerfully to achieve real marketing goals. In its blog post “Defining Effective SEO For HVAC Owners”, All Systems Go Marketing defines how an HVAC SEO campaign can be hugely beneficial to company owners.

Craig Wright, speaking in place of ASGM, states, “Digital marketing campaigns are most effective if they have defined a clear goal and a clear purpose for reaching that goal. ‘Increase sales’ is a goal, but it’s not a very good one. ‘Reach 3,000 daily traffic in 3 months’ time’ is a good goal. It’s specific, measurable, and realistic. Setting a well-defined, clear goal at the beginning of your campaign helps you better focus your efforts on more important things in the long run.”

In the past, as the article states, SEO campaigns depended on simple techniques such as keyword stuffing and merely paying attention to keyword density. Even black hat tactics were acceptable because of the immaturity of the search engines’ algorithms.

Today, search engines, especially Google, have improved their algorithms to the point that these tactics no longer benefit one’s website at all. In fact, quite the contrary is taking place. Making use of these methods for SEO will likely result in a penalty rather than a bump up in rankings. Because of this, SEOs have to be on constant lookout for trends that may arise. Neglecting to follow current trends and innovations in SEO will take its toll on a company’s digital marketing campaign in the long run.

One foolproof way to achieve your SEO goals is to have a strong content strategy. Publishing unique, educational content is key to building your brand image and authority. It informs customers about your brand’s existence as well as helps them recognize you as an HVAC expert. Both are essential to ensuring a healthy conversion rate for your website.

Wright comments, “The Google SERPs rankings are important, yes. But the main goal for an HVAC company’s digital marketing campaign should be the Google Maps ‘Local 3 Pack’. If you’re a small time HVAC company, you want to dominate the HVAC business in your area. You’ll be able to do that if you focus your efforts into getting a slot in the Local 3 Pack.”

For small- to mid-sized HVAC companies especially, proximity to the searcher is the #1 Local SEO ranking factor. Gaining traffic for your HVAC website will likely not get you many sales if your searcher is on the other side of the country. This is why focusing on Local SEO is vital to the success of almost any HVAC digital marketing campaign. Focusing on gaining local traffic to your website will earn you more conversions, and this is best done by ranking for the Google Maps Local 3 Pack for ‘HVAC’ in your respective area.

All Systems Go Marketing has been providing clients with expert digital marketing strategies and techniques for 20 years. They place a clear focus on heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) companies with smaller operations. ASGM’s main services include SEO, PPC, and social media marketing.

Interested parties can get a free quote from ASGM via their website, where they publish blogs on their website on a regular basis. You can also reach out through the official ASGM Twitter account.

from Press Releases at https://www.pressadvantage.com/story/34781-all-systems-go-marketing-discusses-effective-hvac-seo

All Systems Go Marketing Discusses Press Releases for HVAC Owners In New Blog Post

All Systems Go Marketing (ASGM), a digital marketing company based in La Mesa, CA, recently published an article discussing the advantages of including press releases in HVAC company’s digital marketing campaign.

It’s not immediately obvious to a number of HVAC contractors, but press releases can influence your website’s traffic and authority in more ways than one. All Systems Go Marketing further expounds on the subject in their blog post, “Should Your HVAC Company’s Digital Marketing Plan Include Press Releases?”.

“Many HVAC company owners fail to recognize the value in publishing press releases for their digital marketing campaigns,” said Craig Wright, owner and spokesperson at the company. “It’s unfortunate since press releases are a quick and simple way to build authority for your HVAC website if done right.”

In the past, press releases had significantly less value than they do now. As a rule, most search engines tended to ignore them, focusing instead on individual site content. But as entity-based identification began to take hold, the releases have been somewhat reborn as a tool.

Press releases can provide a lot of value in ways other than just gaining backlinks. A smart HVAC owner just has to figure out the right reasons to publish press releases and how to utilize them for their digital marketing campaigns.

From the article: "You don’t need a world changing event to publish a press release.” The article notes that some HVAC owners will hesitate to publish press releases for their companies because they underestimate their own company’s story.

In truth, press releases can be published for a number of reasons such as: a notable contribution to the community, winning a major client, sharing a testimonial, or more simple reasons such as a recent blog post or website update.

“A big issue with a lot of HVAC and tradesmen is that they tend to have very little marketing background. As a result, everyday achievements that could be seen as something to celebrate can get lost in the mix of doing everyday business," said Wright. "The fact is, having press releases as one of your HVAC marketing strategies is always going to pay off."

Other than the possibility of being cited by a journalist, press releases also have other benefits. By publishing a press release, a business exposes its website not only to the variety of press release websites on the web, but also to important authority areas like Google News. The traffic from these sites can create customers or notoriety for any company, no matter the industry.

A key additional bonus of a press release is that it builds safe, Google friendly links to a site and the ability to utilize a media site’s authority on one's homepage if they happen to reference the article in their own publications.

Wright comments, “But there has to be a balance. Some SEOs will capitalize on the ability of press releases to build links but fail to put in the effort to understand their readers. Public relations companies, on the other hand, tend to focus on soft brand metrics such as public sentiment and followers but fail to optimize for search due to a lack of technical knowledge. A smart strategy incorporates both factors.“

All Systems Go Marketing has been providing clients with expert digital marketing strategies and techniques for 20 years. The company focuses exclusively on PPC and SEO for HVAC companies. ASGM’s main services include search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, and social media marketing.

Interested parties can get a free quote from ASGM via their website or reach out through their official Twitter profile. They also publish blogs on their website on a regular basis.

from Press Releases at https://www.pressadvantage.com/story/34627-all-systems-go-marketing-discusses-press-releases-for-hvac-owners-in-new-blog-post

How Lead Generation Works

The Internet is a vast wealth of resources that serves different purposes. Whether you browse for leisure or to earn a living, there is so much potential from the web where you can tap different niches for a profit. While social media marketing is a hot topic right now in the business world and being exploited by just about anyone, the first thing that can make or break any marketing efforts online is generating leads.

Lead generation is the act or process of determining and cultivating a possible target market for specific goods or services. A classic example of not making use of lead generation is the annoying cold-calling phone telemarketers who disrupt our day or night with their monotonous pitches. Other times these telemarketers directly call businesses and reach out to a qualifying point of contact, which is very much different from cold calling where you just dial a number and try your luck after speaking with the person. In lead generation, although you are calling people out of the blue, their names and information have been supplied to you after some surveys or such where these people expressed interest in a category where your business fits in.

The ultimate success of any business to business (B2B) marketing strategy or program revolves around lead generation. How many new qualified leads resulted from your marketing efforts? How much did it cost to generate each new qualified lead?

Qualified means the prospect is genuinely interested in your business, wants more information on your solutions and expects to make a purchase soon.

Every B2B marketer continually looks for innovative, lead generation approaches. The challenge comes from finding the right combination of campaigns that produce the greatest number of qualified leads at the lowest cost.

And when you ask the experts what strategy in generating leads works best, these are the answers:

Which Lead Generation Strategies Work Best?

In multiple studies, these inbound strategies consistently rank near the top regarding generating quality B2B leads:

• Email Marketing

• Content Marketing

• Search Marketing

• Social Marketing

(Via: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/06/lead-generation-tips-from-a-pro.html)

So, what are the elements that constitute a great lead generation? After all, you should have some sort of a plan before doing anything else, right?

To understand lead generation, it’s important to first understand the mechanics of the lead generation process. The best lead generation campaigns contain either one or all of the following components. From a tactical perspective, a marketer needs four crucial elements to make inbound lead generation happen.

These components include an offer, a call-to-action, a landing page and a form.

An offer

Firstly, you need something of high value to offer your audience. Your offer needs to be not only informative but of interest to your specific audience; you need them to want to download it.

A call-to-action

A call-to-action (CTA) can be text, an image or a button linking directly to a landing page for people to easily find and download your offer. 

A Landing page

A landing page is different to your other web pages. A landing page is a specialised page that contains information about one particular offer and includes a form for the user to fill in to access the offer itself. 

A form

As we’ve mentioned above, your form will sit on your landing page. The information you’re asking for in your form should reflect the perceived value of the download. Try and keep the form as short as possible.

(Via: https://www.hitsearchlimited.com/news/what-are-the-4-elements-of-lead-generation-id0530)

Now that you have a plan in place, how can you ensure that you’ll be able to generate successful leads that can elevate your business and your profits?

Make a plan. Every lasting change begins with a plan, and a plan is often the result of a vision. When you visualize your success and the life you want to lead, you can outline your plan and set yourself up for success.

Track your activities. Tracking holds you accountable and allows you to stay consistent. When you work to regularly track your activities—whether it’s in your CRM or on your calendar—it’ll eventually become second nature. 

Change takes time, so be patient and keep working toward adopting this successful habit.

(Via: http://rismedia.com/2017/04/06/secret-successful-lead-generation/#close)

Businesses make use of lead generation in various ways and they have all been proven to deliver varying levels of success depending on how well you executed your plan. And the best thing about this is that you need not do the actual generation yourself because many companies offer to do it for you at a set price depending on how much data you want and the extent of lead generation involved. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a try and realize your business’ fullest potential that you won’t be able to achieve if you just rely on your product or service to speak for itself.

The post How Lead Generation Works is available on https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/content-marketing/how-lead-generation-works

Traveling Made Easy With Google Maps

Traveling has never been easier than it is now, with technology to save you from every possible mishap along the ways. From planning to your actual travel and until you get back home, you can do your research online without even requiring the services of a professional travel agent. You can book your plane flight online, or perhaps a cruise ship tour, a train ride, etc., you can do it all from the comfort and convenience of your smart gadget. Even booking your hotel or Airbnb accommodation can be done in a snap. As a result, you get to save lots of money you can spend on something else.

One of the most popular travel buddies right now is Google Maps since you can easily travel foreign countries with its help. Wherever you are in the world, you can count on Google Maps to help you get to your destination in the fastest and safest manner. This web-mapping service offered by no other than Google makes way for faster and easier navigation. It features streets maps, satellite imagery, and even 360° panoramic view of streets so you know exactly what to look for when you get to your destination.

Perhaps more than any other innovation-in-your-pocket, Google Maps has changed the way people travel. As long as you're connected to the Internet (and, with a little forethought, even if you aren't) you can't get lost anywhere, and loads of people use the review feature to find bars, restaurants, or shops to explore. But what happens when you zoom out—like waaay out? Well, the feature still works, even on the continental level. That's right, you can review and rate all 17.2 million square miles of Asia, if you please. And plenty of people have. Here are some of the most entertaining reviews of all seven continents.

(Via: http://www.cntraveler.com/story/google-maps-reviews-of-entire-continents-are-bizarre-and-hilarious)

Google maps first came to be as a tool to help people navigate the world especially busy city streets and even the suburbs to rural areas. But today, you can even review oceans and continents with its help.

You can find virtually anything on Google, and it appears that now includes reviews for Earth’s continents and oceans.

Ever wondered what the internet thinks about the entire continent of Europe? North America? What about the Atlantic Ocean?

Well if you look up these locations on Google Maps you can now find some helpful reviews and star ratings. I use the term “helpful” somewhat loosely, because users are having more fun with this bizarre feature than anything.

(Via: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-maps-now-lets-review-continents-oceans/193511/)

However, the threat of coming across fake businesses and get scammed is possible as the discovery was made that Google Maps contain fake listings. Although the number is not that high, there is still a slim possibility that you end up with these fake listings and get hurt or scammed in the process. Why does Google allow this thing to happen, if indeed proven true?

Google announced last week that they had recently conducted a study to research the actors behind fake listings on Google Maps.

The study points out that “geographic proximity is the coin of the emerging localized-search realm,” which matches what I observed with the Possum update in 2016. This major algorithm update was responsible for making proximity to the searcher the #1 ranking factor for local search. This drives up the incentive for companies to create fake listings, since they need more “locations” in order to monopolize the search results and maximize exposure.

There were some things I saw in the study that were very helpful to know:

• Most of the listings that got suspended were in India and the United States (74 percent of all the listings observed in this study).
• 40.3 percent of the listings were in industries that are on-call, like plumbers, locksmiths and electricians.
• 54 percent of the suspensions in the United States were in the following six states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New Jersey, while these states only account for 39.9 percent of the population.

The study also looked at listings that were suspended due to marketing companies abusing the verification process and obtaining ownership of the listing without the consent of the business owner. This happens a lot in the restaurant industry, where marketing companies will create a copy of the business website and put a booking/ordering link on it, then charge the business owner for all orders placed via their system. They then take ownership of the listing via Google My Business, and the business owner is stuck paying for transactions from any customer finding their local listing on Google.

(Via: http://searchengineland.com/google-really-keeping-fake-listings-off-google-maps-272913)

The statistics from this research is somewhat dubious considering Google only looked at suspended listings and haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet. The best thing one can do is exercise extra caution when using Google Maps especially when looking up a particular restaurant since most fake listings concentrated on this industry. But this is a serious concern that Google need to look into deeper along with representatives from the restaurant business who are often the victim here. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and not expose us to unnecessary threats we are not yet ready to deal with. Knowing Google, they will do their best to settle this issue once and for all and bring back the lost trust of the people that were already affected.

Meanwhile, you can still rely on good old Google map to take you places without the fear of every getting lost again. Go to uncharted places and discover new towns and cities you've only heard about in books or seen on TV. Experience life first hand and reward yourself with the gift of travel and all those memorable experiences that will last you a lifetime.

Traveling Made Easy With Google Maps is republished from All Systems Go Marketing

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/social-media/traveling-made-easy-with-google-maps