I’m bummed. I had a client who probably spent an hour writing a glowing review at Yelp about what I did for his business with my KickStart consultation program. It was a full page filled with all the details of how I helped him and the embarrassing results he got – embarrassing because he commanded 8 positions on the first page of Google. He was aglow and went on and on and on. It was the kind of review that every business wants to get.

Sadly, I’m guessing that Yelp considered it too good to be true, so they removed it. That’s not all that uncommon. They do it in an attempt to keep out spam, but too often they are over zealous.

Don’t let the Yelp filter get you.

I don’t want that to happen to you, so I want to share two pieces of advice with you and give you a REVIEW TOOL for FREE that might help you get and keep the great reviews you deserve.

Google or yellow page sites? Where should you be? On one or in the others? In 1? 2? 3? Oh my.

Just when I thought I was done, Myles Anderson posted this absolutely great research over at Searchengineland.com on how the Google Panda updates have impacted the traffic on yellow page sites, and I can’t keep silent about it.

(Notice I have not capitalized “yellow page” there. If you read Part 2 of this series, you’ll know why.)

I hope you read that post in its entirety, but I also know most people aren’t as nerdy as I am to even care for that many numbers and that much explanation, nor do they have the time, so I’ll summarize here for you with some important takeaways on what it means for your local business.

I just got this on my Facebook wall:

“Hi Kathy, you are my resident expert…I am trying to increase the audience of my new blog, Stepford Husband, do you have any tips or suggestions?”

David’s post came with this picture on his blog:

Now tell me, if you saw that wouldn’t you follow it?

Or would hiring an SEO and a #1 position be worth the investment?

If you haven’t already, read the prologue to this post. If you don’t want to bother, then here’s a bit of info to set the stage.

In that post I showed how chiropractors in Scotts Valley were just about rendered invisible because Google bestowed a “Site Links” blessing on another chiropractor in town for the query “Scotts Valley chiropractic.” Dr. Hinde, though in position 2, looked like a mere mortal, while Dr. Thibodeau apparently achieved sainthood. On other queries, though, all chiropractors appeared to be on an equal playing ground, yet Dr. Thibodeau still reigned supreme.

This post answers the question, should Dr. Hinde in position 2 for the more popular and lucrative keyword “chiropractor” try for position 1? He also commands the first THREE positions for “Scotts Valley chiropractic office.” Is that enough?

And what about the other chiropractors further down the page and on other pages? Is it worth their time and investment in SEO to try to improve their rank in Google?

This time we look at where on the SERP (search result page) commands the most attention

One of my favorite sources for SEO information, SEOmoz, recently posted their results of an eye-tracking study they did to show how consumers are trying to find local businesses. I could just point a link to their post, which I’ll do here anyway, but I wanted to bring over their study and images because I have some additional points I wanted to make. Here’s their post. And here’s the Kat & Mouse take.

Online or off? Google? Local directories? Facebook? Where?

Last week I showed you some data that revealed where people were looking online to find local businesses. That was part 1 of this series on where people are looking for local businesses.

That report was published in October, 2011. The same research firm released some other numbers back in March. I’m not sure what they say is much different, but I think the chart is clearer, so I wanted to share this with you as well.

ONLINE sources people check BEFORE visiting a local business or restaurant