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Friday, March 31, 2017

Hibu Website Review - Is It Really Worth The Money?

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Hibu Website Review - Is It Really Worth The Money? daily-golden-nugget-1550-19
It seems like once every year I come across another website using the Hibu service. Their corporate website says they are a leading provider of digital marketing to local businesses across the US, UK, and Spain. They say that they provide one-on-one service to unify digital marketing, website development, and SEO.

It all sounds good to the small business owner who is looking for an all-in-one online solution and doesn't have the time to learn or the money to hire the right people to do it. Hibu has...
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AT: 03/31/2017 12:31:54 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 06, 2017

SERP Review for Sandy Springs, GA

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SERP Review for Sandy Springs, GA  daily-golden-nugget-1538-32
Time and time again, jewelers tell me they want to come up first in Google search for phrases like "engagement rings" or anything related to bridal jewelry. Those are tough keyword phrases to compete for since large ecommerce jewelry website spend a lot of time, money, and optimization efforts to maintain top ranking. Independent jewelers have a better chance competing in their local markets using the popular phrases that people search for.

Popular local phrases include the words jeweler, jewelry, or jewelry store, followed by either ...
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AT: 01/06/2017 08:20:53 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 02, 2016

Van Atkins Jewelers #FridayFlopFix Website Review

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Van Atkins Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1520-30
Can you learn from someone else's mistakes? That's exactly what I hope you'll get out of this Friday Flop Fix. This week, I'm venturing over to Tupelo, MS in search of a retail jeweler that might be making a mistake with their online presence.

This is the result I saw when searching for "jewelers tupelo ms" in Google:

Van Atkins Jewelers FridayFlopFix Website Review 1520-jewelers-tupelo-ms-serp-30VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 09/02/2016 06:56:26 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 22, 2016

Cairo GA SERP Review

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Cairo GA SERP Review daily-golden-nugget-1514-80
Welcome to a somewhat unusual Friday review. Every Friday, I usually look for a website that's a bit of a fixer-upper and I suggest how to make it better. This week, as usual, I opened my Google Chrome browser in incognito mode and ran a search for "jewelry stores in Cairo GA."

There are certain search phrases that trigger specific search results formats, and normally when you search for a "jewelers in _____" or "jewelry stores in ____" Google activates the local results version of the SERP, but today it didn't.

Instead, this is what I saw:

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AT: 07/22/2016 12:28:14 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Hellberg's Jewelers Website Review

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Hellbergs Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1498-2
Every week, usually on Friday, I write a website review. This week, I'm publishing my review a couple days early because I have something special planned for Friday. The goal of my website reviews is to dissect the online efforts for a random local retail jeweler. I don't bother reviewing the websites for chain stores because I want to illustrate how a local jeweler can improve a similar site like their own.

I find my website candidates by searching Google using the Chrome browser set to incognito mode. Incognito mode is good to use whe...
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AT: 04/20/2016 12:16:41 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, April 07, 2016

How To Rank Your Website When Someone Searches For Your Offline Ad #TBT

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How To Rank Your Website When Someone Searches For Your Offline Ad TBT daily-golden-nugget-1489-85
The axiom of search engine optimization is that your website will only rank for words that search engines can find on your website. If you learn nothing else about search engine optimization you must learn that one point. If you have learned that already; good, you don't have to read today, but before you go consider that many people aware of that axiom are still not applying.

Back in December 2014, I explained VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 04/07/2016 06:35:11 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 01, 2016

New Google SERP Format Does Not Show AdWords On Right Side Of Desktop Results

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New Google SERP Format Does Not Show AdWords On Right Side Of Desktop Results daily-golden-nugget-1462-94
Since the beginning of Google time, their search results page has been formatted as a two column layout. The wider left column showed the organic results and the thinner right column had the paid AdWords ads. Eventually, Google started including paid ads above and below the right column organic results.

Google established their own set of website quality guidelines to ...
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AT: 03/01/2016 12:37:08 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, August 31, 2015

Implications of Google Local 3-Pack replacing the Google+ Local 7-Pack

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Implications of Google Local 3-Pack replacing the Google+ Local 7-Pack daily-golden-nugget-1331-59
Back on July 10, 2015, I reported seeing a very different looking version of the Google Local search results in my Friday website review here. I was a little disturbed by the appearance of that mobile design and I'm now saddened to report that...
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AT: 08/31/2015 09:31:29 AM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Use of Ellipses ... in Meta Descriptions

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The Use of Ellipses ... in Meta Descriptions daily-golden-nugget-1212-33
The ellipses are a set of three periods that has different functions depending on how that punctuation is used.

In these Daily Golden Nuggets, I often use this symbol to represent a long pause or a trailing off thought. In text messages, I use them to represent long pauses, or sometimes I even send them alone in a single text message to illustrate a perplexed reaction when I don't know what to say. A stunned silence, perhaps.

The ellipses has turned into one of the most commonly u...
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AT: 03/17/2015 07:24:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, February 27, 2015

Google+ Local Now Shows Shopping Mall Information

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Google+ Local Now Shows Shopping Mall Information daily-golden-nugget-1200-63
If you're jewelry store is located in a strip mall or a shopping mall, Google will probably be changing your address, if they haven't already.

In honor of my 1200th Daily Golden Nugget I'm bringing you some updated information about Google+ Local today. Way back 1200 post ago I began these Nuggets with a a post about Google Maps, since then I've carried the tradition or reviewing Google business related changes every 100th Nugget. So here we are again.

During the course of ...
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AT: 02/27/2015 12:49:53 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 26, 2015

Holland Jewelers Website Review

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Holland Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1199-20
Welcome to the weekly website review. Normally this is published every Friday, but it got pulled up one day to make room for a special Nugget scheduled for tomorrow.

The goal of this weekly website review is to shed light on how many retail jewelers out there are still using old website techniques, old SEO methods, and old designs. I search a random city in the USA every week for a jeweler and usually select from the top of the organic listing.

In my experience, given the choice between an older looking and n...
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AT: 02/26/2015 09:49:21 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, January 23, 2015

Gold City Jewelers Website Review

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Gold City Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1175-46
Welcome to the Friday jewelry website review where I randomly select and review the website of a retail jeweler. The goal is to dissect their online accounts to see how they might be ranking highly, and what they might be doing right, or wrong, with their online identity.

I use Google's Chrome browser in incognito mode when searching; otherwise the search results will be skewed based on my personalized search results and the top ranked sto...
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AT: 01/23/2015 10:45:59 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, January 22, 2015

How Can I Get Number 1 Ranking on Google?

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How Can I Get Number 1 Ranking on Google? daily-golden-nugget-1174-76
It astounds me that people still offer first place Google ranking service. Every day I still receive at least one spam email which offers me to get first place ranking on Google if I hire them to improve the SEO of any of the domain names I manage.

I started writing these Daily Golden Nuggets more than four years ago and even before then, Google posted warnings saying how first place ranking could not be achieved by simply hiring someone. Their warning is VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 01/22/2015 01:09:10 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, January 21, 2015

How Jewelers Should Mitigate Security Risks from Google Business View

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How Jewelers Should Mitigate Security Risks from Google Business View daily-golden-nugget-1173-65
A few years ago, Google undertook an extremely ambitious project to extend its Street Mapping technology inside buildings. Specifically, they created a way that Google Maps Street View could reach inside individual retail stores to create virtual walk throughs of those businesses. These virtual tours are called Google Business View, and the businesses taking advantage of this technology are reporting more engaged customers and higher sales.

The Business View virtua...
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AT: 01/21/2015 12:29:52 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, October 17, 2014

Fabri Fine Jewelry Website Review

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Fabri Fine Jewelry Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1105-71
Welcome to the Friday website review, where every week I randomly review the website of a local retail jewelry business somewhere in the US. The goal is to find something good, or bad, that we can all learn from and apply to our own business.

For this week's review, I'm heading over to Washington state and searching for "fine jewelry stores bellevue wa." When doing these searches, I always use the Google Chrome browser in incognito mode. This allows me to see non-personalized search results.

In case you don't know, Google trac...
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AT: 10/17/2014 11:32:58 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, September 26, 2014

Roth Jewelers & LR Jewelers Website Review

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Roth Jewelers & LR Jewelers Website Review daily-golden-nugget-1090-72
Welcome to the Friday retail jewelry website review. Every week, I select a random location around the United States in search of a review candidate. The object of this review is to learn something that might be able to help you with your own website.

I always try to write the review with an unbiased point of view, and I especially hope that the jewelers reading this will use these reviews to better their online presence.

For this week, I'm using the search phrase "jewelry stores Waterlo...
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AT: 09/26/2014 06:11:23 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, August 29, 2014

Review of 3 Hayward Jewelers

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Review of 3 Hayward Jewelers 4913-daily-golden-nugget-1070
My journey today began with a search for "jewelry stores Hayward CA." You see, I'm pretending to be a real customer searching for a local jeweler in Hayward. My goal is to examine how the local jewelers in that town stack up in Google search, take a look at their websites, and see what can be learned by the experience.

This is my weekly retail jeweler website review, but this week I'm changing up the format a little bit.

Here's a snapshot of the business listing I saw in the Google SERP for that search:
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AT: 08/29/2014 12:42:15 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Is it Worthwhile to Advertise on a Local Community Website?

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Is it Worthwhile to Advertise on a Local Community Website? 531-daily-golden-nugget-1057
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'm going to explain an often overlooked way to advertise your website locally. It comes at a lower cost, and with a higher return, than most other online advertising methods.

It's very easy to get swept away by the hype of online advertising methods like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, and to buy into the claims of large online advertising agencies. While you can get a lot of good results from agencies, Facebook, ...
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AT: 08/12/2014 09:35:25 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, July 28, 2014

Are Yellow Pages Bad For Your Business?

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Are Yellow Pages Bad For Your Business? 5316-daily-golden-nugget-1046
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting a seminar at the JA show in NYC. The seminar was "Should You Pay For Website Traffic? Understanding How and Why."

During the seminar, I detailed what I know about Yelp, Pandora Radio, Google AdWords, and a few others methods of online advertising that can work for or against you.

One of the online marketing methods that generally works against you is Yellow Pages. Once upon a time, it was common for everyone to "let their fingers do the walki...
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AT: 07/28/2014 09:14:09 AM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, July 25, 2014

SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY

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SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY 8987-daily-golden-nugget-1045
This is the Friday Review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Every week I analyze the online properties of a jewelry store found during a random search in a random city.

For this week's review, I searched for "jewelers near elma ny" to find this search result:

SERP Review of Jewelers Near Elma NY 5356-1045-serpVIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 07/25/2014 09:26:06 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, June 26, 2014

Google's Policy On Mobile Website Redirecting

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Googles Policy On Mobile Website Redirecting 3614-daily-golden-nugget-1024
Google recently implemented new policies regarding mobile websites that could, and will zap you from the search results if you've implemented a particular setting with your mobile website.

They've changed their smartphone guidelines several times since 2010, but this is the first time that their policy change will penalize you for not implementing a mobile website correctly.

Originally they recommended that you create a mobile website that would be maintained side by side with y...
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AT: 06/26/2014 01:07:31 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 30, 2014

Google Places for Business Store Hours Sometimes Get Stuck

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 Google Places for Business Store Hours Sometimes Get Stuck 4218-daily-golden-nugget-1005

Today I'm returning back to my Friday website review format after skipping the last two weeks while presenting the series on Google Places for Business.

Each week I choose a random city then search for one of the most common jewelry store related keywords. I like to choose my review candidates purely based on orga...
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AT: 05/30/2014 10:37:12 AM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 22, 2014

Google Places for Business Settings for Personal Jewelers

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Google Places for Business Settings for Personal Jewelers 3872-daily-golden-nugget-999

The discussion of today's Daily Golden Nugget was requested more than a year ago by a few of my daily readers, but it wasn't until recently that I could provide the correct answer to it.

The topic is how to use Google Places for Business if you are a personal jeweler or a jewelry professional working out of your house. Personal security is usually a bigger factor for these types of jewelers since they will often carry styles with them when visiting clients. ...
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AT: 05/22/2014 10:54:33 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Choosing the Correct Google Places for Business Categories

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Choosing the Correct Google Places for Business Categories 3311-daily-golden-nugget-998

How can Google lead potential customers to you unless they know what type of business you are?

Although Google might spend a ridiculous amount of effort reading and indexing your website to figure out who you are and what you do, they also rely heavily on exactly what you tell them from within your Google Places for Business account.

The screen shot below was taken from a jewelry store's Places for Business account. You can see the list of categories...
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AT: 05/21/2014 03:42:36 PM   0 COMMENTS
Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Business Query Data and Other Valuable Insights Inside Google Places

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Business Query Data and Other Valuable Insights Inside Google Places 2020-daily-golden-nugget-997

Ever since Google started hiding keywords from their Analytics reports, it's been harder and harder for marketing professionals and business owners to figure out what keywords customers search for when they find your website.

Within Google Webmaster Tools, you can find the VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 05/20/2014 11:48:42 AM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 19, 2014

Google Places Business Listing Name Guidelines

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Google Places Business Listing Name Guidelines 65-daily-golden-nugget-996

Google Places can help you get found in local search results, but you'll get into trouble if you disobey the Google Places for Business quality guidelines.

Over the years, I've seen many jewelry stores using a lot of tricks to place higher in Google's ranking results. Perhaps the most common trick is changing your business name to include specific keywords.

Using the jewelry store name Perosi Jewelers, located in Totowa Borough, NJ, here are some examples of what some jewelers ha...
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AT: 05/19/2014 02:04:16 PM   0 COMMENTS
Friday, May 16, 2014

Reviews on Google Maps and Places

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Reviews on Google Maps and Places 539-daily-golden-nugget-995

Google Maps will help people locate your business online, but sometimes those online reviews will chase people away screaming, instead of luring them to your door.

The power of the online review is undeniable now. I've read a few case studies about negative online reviews and the affect on a business, and I've had personal experience helping several businesses deal with the aftermath caused by horrible online reviews.

The legitimacy of online reviews has gone through some controversy over the last 4 ye...
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AT: 05/16/2014 02:10:38 PM   0 COMMENTS
Monday, May 12, 2014

Business listing migration from Google Places into Google Places for Business

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Business listing migration from Google Places into Google Places for Business 2396-daily-golden-nugget-991

"Google Maps will drive visitors directly to your doorstep."

That's how it all began way back on Monday, July 26, 2010 with the first Daily Golden Nugget I wrote. It was only 147 words because, after all, it was only supposed to be a "nugget" of information. Many nuggets are now 10 times tha...
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AT: 05/12/2014 02:20:55 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Differences between Local Results in Google Maps vs. Google Search

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Differences between Local Results in Google Maps vs. Google Search 8277-daily-golden-nugget-798It's happen ending even if you don't realize it, and if you realize I sure hope you are taking steps to accept it and use it for your benefit.

The internet is changing rapidly and it's because of mobile technology. You should be aware of the subtle differences between mobile technologies so you can continue to compete in this new age of business.

It's the evening of Saturday August 10, 2013 as I write this. I'm actually VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET


AT: 08/14/2013 10:03:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, February 02, 2012

This mistake will zap you from Google Local SERP

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Today is Groundhog Day in the USA. Will the groundhog see his shadow? We there be 6 more weeks of winter or will spring come early? It's been a mild winter so far at the jWAG HQ in New Jersey.

This is also the 399th Daily Golden Nugget!

Today we're going to review an SEO tactic that will help rank you locally.

The most common search phrase we see every month is "jewelry stores." But the phrase by itself shows up far less frequently than when used in a sentence, for example, like "jewelry stores in Chicago."

Whenever Google detects a proper town name or city name in the search phrase it will display results in the local format. That usually includes a list of locations pulled from Google Places along with a map showing pointers for each place. Regular search results appear below the local results.

G...
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AT: 02/02/2012 04:58:56 PM   0 COMMENTS
Thursday, May 19, 2011

Front Line SEO: Local Search Results

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Some more explanations from the front line of new SERP results we've seen recently.

Do a search on Google for "engagement rings" and you'll see results including many national brands, products from Google's Merchant Center, and even listings of related searches for engagement rings.

What you don't see in those results are local stores because Google "local" search wasn't triggered. Although you might notice ads from local stores if they target your town.

Google's Local SERP is triggered as soon as you include a town or city name in the search query; let's say "engagement rings Houston." This search request will return some websites and some Google Places results.

What we'd like you to look at are those Places results. They now have a lot more information on the SERP, but unfortunately the information is beco...
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AT: 05/19/2011 01:16:29 PM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Front Line SEO: Meta Description Snips

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The meta description of your web page is supposed to tell your potential visitor what your page is about.

Google and Bing show the meta description on the SERP and it's your job to write a 150 character description that compels people to visit your website.

Did you know that the search engines don't always show your meta description? Even if you spend 20 minutes crafting the perfect description, there is no guarantee that the search engines will even use it. Instead, they might use something more appropriate to match the person's search query.

Google is becoming extremely aggressive with rewriting the descriptions shown in the SERP. Recently, we've analyzed a few sites for the phrase "engagement rings." That's a very tough phrase to rank against if your name is not Zales, BlueNile, James Allen or Jared. The best...
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AT: 05/18/2011 11:00:56 AM   0 COMMENTS
Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Google SERP Geo-Targeting

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Local search results are BIG!

Okay, honestly they aren't anything big; they're not even new. Google started development on local search results way back in 2003. They called it Google Local back then, and they tried to educate owners that they should list their businesses in the system.

When did you sign up with Google Local, Google Maps, Google Business Center or Google Places? Those are all the names they've called the service since 2003. Have you even done it yet?

In this particular case, the jewelry industry is not alone. Even though most jewelers are slow to adopt new technology, Google discovered that only a small percentage of local businesses had registered. So in August 2010, Google loaded a database of about 50 million local businesses.

Literally overnight, every town had at least 1 new jewelry ...
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AT: 02/16/2011 12:09:44 PM   0 COMMENTS
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