This years SMX Advanced London brings you a Local Search session, if you are attending- join! Still in doubt? register now because What’s New In Local & Mobile will be the session you willnot want to miss on day 2 of the conference.

David Mihm of getlisted.org (no need for introduction?), Philippe Huysmans (Director, EMEA Product Management, Mobile Local and Commerce, Microsoft) and Darrin Clement (Founder of Maponics) and me will be hosting this show, moderated by Greg Sterling! You get a chance to meet some of the local guys, at this (European) side of the pond!

Also I will be speaking on day 1 in the advanced SEO track on What’s Really Important for Technical SEO? alongside Richard Baxter of SEO Gadget, John Mueller (Google) and Jonathan Hochman. It will be fun!

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Local Search at SMX Advanced London 2011

Just wanted to drop a quick note that I will be speaking at the first Tableau European Customer Conference, held in Amsterdam. I will not be talking Local Search during my presentation, instead I will be focussing on how Web Analytics data needs to be made understandable, at Onetomarket, we use Tableau Software to aid us on our quest to provide great insights and sometimes hard to interpret web analytics data. Unsure whether my deck will be made available afterwards but you can always drop me a note if you are interested in how Tableau Software can help you get better insights from your web analytics data.

In summary my presentation will be about  what it meant for our organisation to start using Tableau Software as well as how we help clients gained better insights by using custom made dashboards, tailored to specific DMU’s within the company.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Speaking at Tableau EU Customer Conference Amsterdam

As a Web Analytics consultant working for various clients like Schiphol Amsterdam Airport, Dutch Government and others I encounter the use of Web Analytics tool Sitestat (Nedstat, now a comScore company) a lot.

Sitestat is a really cool web analytics package which allows you to use un-aggregated data at all times. no need to set up funnels beforehand, etc. Sitestat uses so called CounterNames. These are essential pieces to identify your pages by and you need them at many occassions.

Of course you can use the Sitestat Toolbar for Internet Explorer, but being a mac user and having a large preference of using Chrome or Firefox I decided I needed to built something to show me the counternames without having to dig deep into code and search for it.

I used Yoast his greasemonkey script to detect analytics packages a lot before I started using WASP, so I thought it’s fairly easy to use the same functionality to search for the countername on pages using Sitestat instead. Hence I created the script to do just so!  Head over to the page with some more background information and instructions on how to install the Sitestat Countername Detector and please let me know in the comments what you think about it or how I could improve it!

Read more about Sitestat Countername Detector

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Introducing Sitestat Countername Detector

This year has brought me several occasions where I could speak either about Local Search & Web Analytics, both nationally at the Search Marketing Insights, held in Amsterdam,  as well as the SMX Advanced in London (presentation available here).

This september (28th & 29th) the SMX will also be held in Stockholm. This year I will be joining the conference again as a speaker, but unlike former talks this one will be about Conversion Optimization. One of the clients I work for at Onetomarket is Conrad Electronic. Delivering results for the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the United Kingdom has proven useful insights which we would like to share to those who wish to learn. It will be a Conversion Optimization Case study with examples and workflows.

During this same conference my colleague Theo Lentjes will be speaking as well about Conversion optimization in the Conversion Science panel. Working closely with Theo on clients like KLM continuously trying to deliver the best results possible we’re hoping to deliver some learnings at the SMX Stockholm. Come join us if you are at SMX Stockholm!

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Conversion Optimization at SMX Stockholm 2010

For the third year in a row, David Mihm has published the Local Search Ranking Factors. The LSRF 2010 consists of 32 local search enthusiasts their opinion (including me!) on how to rank well in the search engines. It is a definite must read for everyone interested in Local Search. It is also incredible to see how much has happened in the past year in the Local Search business and how a small community of enthusiastic people (and SEO’s ) are willing to share the ins and outs on the matter.

Top 10 take aways from the Local Search Ranking Factors are (thx Andrew ) :

1. Claiming your Google Place Page/Local Listing
2. Have a Business Address in the City That is Being Searched
3. Associate Your Google Place Page with the Proper Categories
4. Put Your Product/Service Keyword in Your Place Page Business Title
5. Proximity of Your Address to the Searched City’s Centroid
6. Product/Service Keywords in your Google Place Pages Description
7. Associating Photos with your Google Place Page
8. Associating Local Area Code with your Primary Place Page Phone Number
9. Associating Place Page with Marginally Related Categories
10. Location Keyword in Place Pages Business Title

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Local Search Ranking Factors 2010

Historypin is some sort of timetravel device. You can now look up historical imagery inside a Google Maps interface using historypin. I think its cool to see how your town looked like in the old days, maybe before you were even born. See those old horse trams riding down the streets before Prius’ were dominating the road.

Historypin shows how street view can be used in alternate ways. Add your own imagery and share it with the world. Help historypin become the largest database of historical data.
I love to see how this program works out and how soon the netherlands will be mapped with historical images. I bet my parents have some real old pictures kept in a box somewhere. Let’s take the trip down memory lane and start uploading those images.

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• Travel through London’s past with Historypin (google-latlong.blogspot.com)

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Historypin: building largest historical image archive

On May 4th, The State of Search Podcast #09 was all about Local Search.

The podcast is a Local Search 101. I recommend it to all my readers that are quite new to the Local Search space. Together with Roy Huiskes and Arjan Snaterse I discuss Local Search, including service areas, linkbuilding, citation sources and analytics for local search.

You can listen to the podcast on webmasterradio.fm

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Local Search 101 State of Search Podcast

Hi all,
For those of you who weren’t in the opportunity to see my presentation at SMX Advanced London. here it is!

Feel free to embed it on your blog. If you have any questions – just ask them via the comment form and I’ll be more than happy to answer any question you might have.

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

My Presentation on SMX Advanced London

Covent Garden - Inspirational surroundings of SMX Advanced London

Insight in your Local and mobile traffic, that is what the ‘Art of Measuring Local and Mobile Search Results‘ session at the upcoming SMX Advanced London is all about.

I am happy to announce that I will be speaking at this session at SMX Advanced London with the likes of other local search enthusiasts. It is great to have such a nice panel with international speakers. The panel will have 3 presentations followed by extended Q&A for a total of 1,5 hours of brainteasing local/mobile analytics fun. Christine Churchill, president of KeyRelevance and Mike Belasco of SEO Overflow are my partners in crime on this one at the Grand Connaught Rooms in Covent Garden. Be sure to attend our session at day 2 so you won’t miss out on all the fun we’ll be having.

Hope it will be an educational session. Don’t hesitate to say hi or ask some more questions. See you there!

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Insight in your Local Search traffic – Speaking at SMX Advanced London

breaking news via SEL that the Google Local Business Center is now displaying a new tab called “Service Areas and Location Settings.” This means that Google has finally listened and implemented one of the most requested feature for Google Maps. Finally service area’s and workers from home features appear to be a reality after they have been announced back in november 2009 when PO boxes were no longer a legit way to verify your business. Ofcourse – for the time being-  this feature appears to be available only in the US and not in Europe (Google’s largest marketshare) yet.

On of the features also covers the area of workers from home that do not want to show their private address but do want to get listed as a business in a certain service area.
All in all this is definately a great service of which we will hear a lot of in the future – not only positive thoughts – as this is opening up new opportunities and challenges.

PS: challenges are rising, be warned, read more

Post from: Local Search - martijnbeijk.com

Service Area in Google Maps now a reality?