The Near Memo

Send us a textLeadferno: a better tools to capture website leads - Leadferno is a conversion platform designed to transform website visitors into leads through seamless communication tools. Unlike traditional chatbots, Leadferno leverages SMS to facilitate human conversations, which studies show is the preferred communication channel for most people. It’s floating CTAs (Call-to-Actions) on websites encourage visitors to start conversations via text messaging. This approach helps businesses engage more effectively with potential customers by providing a more responsive and preferred communication method.Leadferno offers various tools, including an embeddable contact form that initiates SMS conversations, request call-back options, and links to other lead forms and scheduling tools. It attempts to make businesses easier to work with by enhancing their ability to convert website visitors into valuable leads through better communication options. Google nuking GBP & Business Messaging costs small developers: Google's recent decision to axe its business messaging tools—Google Business Profile Chat and Business Messenger— hits particularly hard for niche players like Leadferno, a company that had heavily invested in integrating these tools. The discontinuation forces smaller firms to reconsider future integrations with Google, given the considerable time and financial resources wasted—six months and approximately $100K, in Leadferno's case.While it looks like Google will potentially integrate with WhatsApp or SMS, which could partially mitigate the blow for some businesses. However, for many, the sudden shift means lost opportunities and the need to reallocate development efforts. The most affected were businesses with significant Google Business Profile visibility and multi-location operations, which benefited from centralized messaging and automated replies. These features allowed for quicker customer interactions, a critical factor in Google's ranking algorithms.Google’s decision, like so many similar ones it has made in the past, leaves smaller, innovative companies grappling with the fallout, forcing them to navigate the challenging landscape of constantly shifting tech ecosystems.Leadferno Research: Small Business Contact Form Failures - Leadferno documented the startling inefficiencies of small businesses in responding to online contact forms, a crucial channel for new customer acquisition. The research, encompassing 225 businesses across home services, professional services, and medical sectors, highlights a significant gap between customer inquiries and business responses.Leadferno's Aaron Weiche and his team "mystery shopped" these businesses, submitting highly detailed and strong buying inquiries via their contact forms. The findings are staggering: almost 5% of forms were broken, failing to deliver customer messages entirely. More shockingly, only 15.6% of forms sent an auto-reply, a basic feature that acknowledges receipt and sets customer expectations.The average response time to these contact form submissions was a lethargic 17 hours and 49 minutes, with professional services responding slightly faster than average, and healthcare lagging behind at over 19 hours. Yet, the most alarming statistic was that 42% of these forms received no response at all.While small businesses consistently rank new customer acquisition as their top challenge, they are neglecting warm, ready-to-buy leads that land directly in their inboxes. This neglect is even more baffling given the simplicity of the solution: prompt and efficient responses to online inquiries.Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGoogle Expanding Local Results in the SERPS to the Exclusion of Organic:  While many SEOs have been focused on AI answers and how they are disrupting search, the story in Local search is different. AI Answers have yet to have any impact in Local but Google, over the past several years has dramatically increased their control & domination of the Local SERPS with Local Entity data and in doing so seem to be in the process of banishing organic results…. this is particularly true in Near Me searches and the EU results, which should be treated as the canary in the coal mine. Agencies and businesses need to double down on real world activities that get reflected on line to succeed in these increasingly entity driven search results. Cluttered Google Results Decrease Traditional Organic Traffic - How to Cope?We have often mentioned the increasingly cluttered nature of Google's search engine results pages (SERPs). There has been a significant rise in various elements such as product listing ads (PLAs), image carousels, and video results, which diminish the visibility of organic search results. In a recent client analysis, David found that cluttered SERPs for that client, filled with multiple search features and reduced organic presence, were identified as a likely cause for their declining organic traffic. In a world where Google's shift towards a more modular, AI-driven organization of search results leads to a disjointed user experience, prompting multiple searches to find relevant information, businesses need to adopt a multimodal approach, optimizing their digital assets across various SERP features. This includes using high-quality images with descriptive alt text, leveraging Google Merchant Center feeds for PLAs, and considering broader online channels to build brand visibility.Google’s AI Overviews Make Search Worse - A Lot Worse:  SE Ranking conducted a study of Google’s AI Overview frequency, finding them present in only 8% of searches, a significant drop from earlier & much higher percentages. This decline is attributed to numerous errors and inaccuracies, causing Google to reduce their usage drastically.Jess Peck's article, "How and Why Google Made Its Own Product Worse," critiques Google's implementation of AI, highlighted inherent flaws in large language models (LLMs) and their unsuitability for delivering factual search results. Google's rushed deployment of AI overviews, driven by competitive pressure rather than product improvement, has led to a compromised search experience. Google should either refine the use of AI in a controlled manner or reconsider its placement within search results to mitigate the negative impact on its brand and user trust.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 162Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textIn this week’s podcast we discussed the evolution of zero-click search and Rand’s upcoming study with Spark Toro's clickstream data provider, Datos, to explore the impact of AI overviews and changes in zero-click searches across different regions. Rand argued for more stringent antitrust measures, drawing parallels between Google's practices and historical monopolies that unfairly leveraged their market power to move into new markets. His call for breaking up Google's core services—search, YouTube, and maps—into separate entities could spur innovation and competition.He advised businesses that the best way to succeed at SEO was to adapt by focusing on diverse marketing strategies that go beyond traditional SEO. By creating content that gains traction on social media, earns media attention, and resonates locally, businesses can thrive even in a zero-click dominated landscape.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 161Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textGBP Chat is Dead, Long Live WhatsApp:  Google nuked both Google Business Profile Chat AND Google Business Messaging last week in a typical show of disregard for the product and the businesses supporting it. This decision comes amid concerns over increasing spam within the GBP chat service, which initially launched in 2017 with high hopes. Despite a significant initial investment, Google's inconsistent product strategy led to its downfall.Interestingly, Google is now introducing WhatsApp and SMS messaging integration to GBP profiles, suggesting an attempt to fill the void left by the discontinued services. This move highlights Google's long-standing struggle with a coherent messaging strategy, characterized by the launch and subsequent abandonment of numerous messaging apps over the years.The discussion underscores the broader issue of Google's top-down management style, which often leaves innovative projects without sustained support. Smaller SAAS businesses that invested heavily in integrating with Google's messaging API, like Switchbird and Leadferno, faced significant difficulties in adopting the Business Messaging API and expended considerable resources in doing so. Google's structural inefficiencies hinder its ability to dominate key markets but also damage the greater ecosystem that attempts to integrate with their products.Scorpion Survey Highlights Growing Frustrations with Google Search: In a recent survey by marketing firm Scorpion, consumers have voiced increasing frustrations with Google search results. The survey revealed that users are spending more time sifting through results than five years ago. Top complaints include the need to refine queries repeatedly, excessive scrolling, and visiting multiple websites to find desired information. This aligns with ongoing industry discussions about the declining quality of Google's search experience.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands. 3 Local Takeaways from the Google API Leak: A recently leaked GitHub repository revealed extensive insights into Google's algorithm, highlighting 14,000 attributes and numerous modules that influence search results. This leak, analyzed by Rand Fishkin and Mike King, suggests that Google tracks a wide array of data points from websites, Google Maps features, and YouTube videos to entities.The significance of 'nav boost' and the 'CRaPS' click-through algorithm, which impact page rankings based on user interactions. Additionally, Google tracks location relevance at a page level, encouraging businesses to create localized content silos for better search performance.The leak underscores the importance of linking high-traffic pages to target pages and creating localized versions of national content to improve site architecture. It also suggests that local mentions in reputable publications can boost a business's online presence.Listen in for actionable insights for businesses aiming to optimize their local SEO efforts.A Tribute to John Heaston. R.I.P. to a great human being:John Heaston, founder, publisher, and visionary leader of The Reader and El Perico, died on May 31, 2024. He was a prince among humans and an early advocate for inclusive watchdog journalism and ethical digital marketing.  John, you will be missed. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 160Subscribe to ouSubscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textRand helps us explore the implications of the Google Web Search leak and how it impacts our understanding of how the search ranking aglo actually worksThis week we interviewed Rand Fishkin of SparkToro on the details and importance of the Google Search API leak. In discussing the “biggest leak of the last 25 years” we look at how it provides SEO practitioners with menu of possible experiments to explorethe role of Chrome as a source for click through data and what it means for link buildersHow this click through data seems to be one of the most important ranking factorsWhy links on low performing pages have absolutely no value and thus why many citations no longer do eitherwhether Ad clicks might in fact influence rankHow should we think about “web references” aka mentions vs Links The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 159Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textNew SAB Local Ranking Factor:  Service area businesses have long been a problem on Google Maps. Spam, privacy, suspension AND ranking issues have plagued them since the beginning. Now it appears that there may be hope on the ranking issue. Historically they were ranked around the location from which they were claimed regardless of the service area. Darren Shaw of Whitespark has uncovered some indications that this is starting to change and the ranking signals are more around the service area chosen. Stay tuned. Interpreting Google AI Tea leaves & What it Says About Google’s Product Development: Lots of questions swirled around Google’s AI Overviews: Would their effect be apocalyptic on publishers? What did Pichai mean when he talked about an increase in web visits? Was Google going to surface the data in Search Console?The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 158Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textChatGPT 4o Makes an Impression:  OpenAI, not so subtly, introduced improvements to ChatGPT 4.0 just before I/O Google's event. The presentation was crisp and focused highlighting OpenAI's ChatGPT 4o enhanced speech capabilities and creative functionalities, such as summarizing audio streams shows and organizing the resultant notes into coherent outlines. Despite some features demoed on Monday being API-exclusive, the potential for ChatGPT to rival Google's search, at least on informational queries, is becoming more clear. Speculation about a potential integration with Apple's iOS adds to this potential, as this could significantly boost ChatGPT's reach, access to training data and even possibly local search capabilities.The Chaos that was Google I/O, is Google: The recent Google I/O event,  from the DJ to the presentations, felt chaotic much like the increasing complexity and seemingly disjointed nature of Google's product strategies. The showcase included a range of multimodal search results and demonstrations, such as trip planning and dining recommendations, which, while technically impressive, seemed to add to the cognitive load rather than streamline the user experience.The event highlighted Google's shift from its original, simpler search interface to a more cluttered and multifaceted array of services and features, spreading functionality across various platforms without clear integration. In contrast, competitors like OpenAI are offering more straightforward, user-friendly interfaces, claiming a position Google once held. Discussions also touched on Google's potential in workspace solutions, which could transform into valuable tools for small businesses, though the realization of these potentials remains uncertain amid concerns about which products were real and which were vaporware.  How Will Users & SEOs Adapt to the New Google AI Features:  At Google I/O's announced the launch of AI overviews (SGE) in the U.S., theoretically aiming to improve user engagement by highlighting lesser-known sites. Users are already searching for ways to disable this feature, with over 2,000 downloads for a Chrome extension designed to do just that. Google's introduction of dynamically organized search result pages for categories like restaurants and recipes is another significant change. These pages adapt based on user queries, a move seen as both innovative and potentially disruptive for SEO.Meanwhile, Google's strategic vision appears unclear. As users habituate to the many new AI tools, with users gravitating towards simpler, more effective interfaces like ChatGPT, Google's position as the go-to search engine could be at risk.Note: During the show David exponentially misstated the number of downloads of the chrome extension which hides AI overviews, conflating a completely different post on the number of SGE results in previous AI overview studies. The number of opt-out downloads is currently in the thousands, not 2 million as stated on the show. He regrets the error.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 157Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a text Is Google Finally fixing LSA reviews?In a significant update for advertisers and businesses in the UK, Google has announced changes to its Local Services Ads (LSA) review system. Effective July 7, the existing LSA customer review URLs will expire and be replaced with URLs from Google Business Profiles (GBP), centralizing review management under GBP. This shift mandates businesses to have an affiliated GBP to run LSAs, integrating reviews on both platforms. While it is unclear when or if this change will come to the US, it is likely given Google’s penchant for scale, to be rolled out worldwide. While the GBP review moderation and appeal process are significantly better than the current, totally lame LSA one, it still leaves a bit to be desired. These changes hint at Google's broader organizational challenges, including siloed product development and a lack of sustained oversight, which often result in suboptimal product evolutions. How Google has Failed to Reward the Best Content:  HouseFresh, a small product review site known for its focus on air purifiers and home environment hygiene, has faced challenges due to recent Google algorithm updates, which have adversely impacted its visibility. Having lost 93% of their site traffic, they have detailed the many effects of recent Google updates on smaller niche sites that Google claimed they were trying to highlight. HouseFresh clearly documents how large publishing houses leverage their strong domain presence and SEO strategies to dominate Google search results in profitable niches. This situation underscores the broader trend of niche sites being overshadowed by major brands, which have learned to effectively utilize SEO to their advantage and the problems present in the Google SERPS. DOJ Slidedeck Detailing Google’s Abusive Monopoly Practices Kills it: In a dramatic culmination to a three-year antitrust case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) presented a robust argument against Google, focusing on its dominant market practices with its advertising strategies. The DOJ accused Google of manipulating auction prices in paid search advertising to artificially boost revenue, a practice that arguably harms both competitors and consumers by stifling fair competition and transparency.The government's presentation, encapsulated in a detailed 143-slide deck, highlighted how Google's practices are designed to meet its quarterly financial targets and cater to Wall Street expectations, often at the expense of genuine market competition. The DOJ argued that Google has a unique hold over the search advertising market, distinguishing it from other forms of digital advertising like social media or display ads, which do not serve as direct substitutes. This market control, according to the DOJ, compels advertisers to maintain their spending with Google, lacking viable alternatives.The deck painted a picture of a company that, while not illegal in holding a monopoly, is allegedly crossing the line into abusing that power through strategies like price manipulation—one of the classic signs of monopolistic abuse. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 156Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a textWe're taking the week off, but here's an episode (#126) from the "vault" that we think you'll enjoy!Do Google searchers enter the Local Finder?Local SEOs wonder whether searchers actually enter the Local Finder from the Pack results. We often think no but our research indicates that not only do searchers enter the Local Finder on a regular basis, they also scroll deep and often pick a business not in the top three.The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.How many links does a local website need to compete in Local Search?Local link building is hard but NearMedia research indicates that even in competitive markets in competitive categories it only takes several great local links to compete.Google's BS around creating great content:  Google has created a world where focusing on search optimizations has rewarded businesses who have invested in SEO. Yet they consistently lecture users about the need for user centric content. The reality is that there is a great deal of hypocrisy on the part of Google in these matters. How should they deal with this reality?The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.Ep 156 From the archives EP 126 Near Memo_BuzzsproutSubscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/

Send us a text Dana DiTomaso brings her practical insights to the often murky waters of Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Dana, who wears multiple hats as the president and co-founder of KickPoint, shares candid thoughts on the challenges of demystifying GA4. She discusses the shortcomings of GA4, emphasizing its strong data collection capabilities but criticizing its reporting features. Dana emphasizes the necessity of understanding what GA4 and other analytics tools can and cannot do. She advocates for a realistic approach to data, encouraging marketers to focus on trends rather than absolute numbers. She discusses the integration of various data sources and the strategic use of analytics tools to provide actionable insightsIf you sign for Dana’s courses with the coupon code: nearmemo you will get 20% off. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.near memo ep 155Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/