LinkNow Media Blog Category: Local Marketing

Google Maps Fraud: How False Business Listings Hurt Your Business

This article by CNBC is a good primer on an increasing phenomenon: businesses using Google Maps in a fraudulent fashion to increase calls to their business. The article details the example of a telemedicine business that posed as an urgent care walk-in clinic to improve the SEO for their website. We’re sure you know how important a tool Google My Business is when it comes to improving your website ranking in local searches. But it’s easy to see how this can lead to abuses that can have serious consequences. In this case, a parent took a sick child to the fake clinic believing it to be a late-night alternative to a local emergency room. That’s not only bad for business but in cases like this, it’s negligent and dangerous! Google Maps Fake Listings: How Widespread Is the Problem? The CNBC article goes into detail about volunteers who track down fake […]

You Can Now Add ‘Services’ to Your Google My Business Page

If you’re not a search engine optimization geek then you may not have noticed, but Google now allows businesses to add lists of services to their Google My Business (GMB) pages. The rollout appears to be happening quietly but also pretty quickly. We’ve tested a few GMB listings for our clients and it seems like about half of them have the option to add service menus. If this change sticks around, expect it to reach most of the North American GMB community in a few days. The change was reported on by various search engine marketing industry blogs over the last week. At LinkNow Media we’re always trying to find new ways to improve our clients’ local search rankings and we expect this will be a great tool moving into the future. What’s Changed? Have you ever performed a search for a laundromat near you? Go ahead and do it […]

White-Hat SEO: How Playing by the Rules Can Help You Win

If you want to make sure that your website ranks well on Google without facing any potential penalties that could end up hurting your brand, then you need to look take a close look at white-hat SEO. If you are unsure about what white-hat SEO really is and want more information about how this approach can help take your business to the next level, then don’t worry because we at LinkNow Media are here to help explain everything you need to know. The first thing that you need to understand about white-hat SEO techniques is that they are the most legitimate means of increasing your business’s visibility, and any dividend that you obtain from this endeavour will enhance your site’s online ranking capabilities without the risk of any penalties being incurred. One of the biggest concerns that many business owners have about adopting white-hat SEO techniques is that if they […]

Waze Launches Waze Local Advertising

Waze Local: A Powerful New Weapon for Your Arsenal At 6:30 a.m. this morning, I was packing lunch for my two daughters when my phone started buzzing like a hive. SearchEngineLand broke the news that Waze Local had finally launched and the blogosphere took notice. I was so distracted, I almost added my keys to my morning blender smoothie. Readers—this is a big deal. I Don’t Get It. What’s So Exciting About Waze Local? Waze Local is an advertising tool platform that small businesses can use to transmit their locations to users of the Waze app. At LinkNow Media, we’re always trying to stay on top of the latest developments in search engine optimization and search engine marketing. When we hear about a new ad platform, we get excited. Waze Local was in beta for most of the last year, but now it’s open to anybody who wants to promote […]