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Love it. I suppose our social media coordinator can't be the author for all branches? In addition to feasibility issues, there are security reasons for not highlighting each respective manager, as well as the turnaround issue among branch managers. Not to mention that person wouldn't be publishing the content.

I'm intrigued by the on-site local SEO recommendation. It's been in my periphery, but I'm wondering how to pull it off with a financial institutional website with 70 locations. They are broken in down in regions. Would a viable solution be setting up regional pages? I don't know about our CMS capability, but it seems like it would be beneficial to treat is like an SM feed, posting our press releases local to those areas and including local announcements such as paper shred days. Thoughts? I'm going to carry this over to another Q&A.

Bob, It looks like you are doing a good job on link building.  Here are some other things you might consider: Use Spyfu recon files to find out what content is getting clicks for your competitors.  Adjust your content plan to reflect this. Up to 40% of your ranking can be reviews. Get at least 10 reviews on Yelp, Google and Bing Do a case study on successes and give some sort of incentive if the blog gets 25 or more comments. For example a wedding photographer I know gives a $100 discount if the featured wedding party blog gets 25 comments. Have owners and staff set up Yelp, G+ accounts with their workplace set up and get them to review other local businesses (the search engines are using these reviews as minor citations; strange I know ). Set up google authorship. Hope this helps, Ron

Hi Adam, Thanks for following up, and I will mark this question as answered. I hope you see your business continue to appear well, and that you'll take note of those couple of issues I pointed out. I think we all need to be a bit patient with the carousel right now, because Google is clearly trying out different things with it.

We run on wordpress. The WP Smush.it plugin sounds like just the thing we need. Thanks!

I would be amazed if it were. On my website (and many others) authors will often have a picture of themselves on articles they write, and these go on many, many pages. One image is such a small part of the content of the page, in and of itself it would not cause a duplicate content issue.

You want to use a unique phone number for each location and if you can use unique numbers for the Pasco/Pinellas offices you'd be better off.

This is a very useful resource indeed: http://moz.com/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos - there are a few gems here too, inc useful pointers from Google: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/business/smallbusiness/newark-nut-company-buys-a-perfect-domain-name-yet-sales-suffer.html and http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/debating-the-right-way-to-change-a-domain-name-and-brand-a-nut-retailer/?_r=0

Thanks Miriam!

You know one thing you may consider if you have not already is using Google voice so you can track calls for lead generation stats.

Hi Laurie, Your concerns are on target. The Google Places Quality Guidelines are very clear on this: Rental or for-sale properties, such as vacation homes or vacant apartments, are not eligible to be listed on Google Maps and should not be verified. Instead, verify the listing for your sales or leasing office or offices. If you have a property with an on-site office, you may verify that office location. If you list a business in Google Places for Business, it means that it is a staffed location to which customers come to have a transaction during listed business hours. A rental property does not meet this definition. The exception to this would be an SAB (service area business like a plumber) that goes to clients to serve during listed business hours, but this is also not your client's business model. Unfortunately, what your client (and her competitors) are doing is a violation of the guidelines. I know it can be really tempting to break rules when you see so many competitors getting away with it, but it's very risky to consider this a justification for violation. If Google wakes up to what's going on (and they probably eventually will) they may not only suspend all her rental listings, but her legit listing, too, leaving her with no local presence. Getting back into Google's good graces after something like this can be next-to-impossible. So my advice - and I'm positive that this is what a Google staffer would tell you, too - would be to get rid of those ineligible listings before they cause a breakdown in trust between the business and Google. If she takes the high road when Google cracks down, she will likely thrive while less rule-abiding competitors fall by the wayside.

Hi - the category has been defunct I've been told (by someone in the Adwords team). There was an update expanding categories but some where dropped and this is why this is no longer present. Thanks for all of your help Cheers gareth

Actually they are one in the same, just different names and there are several different products and updates, so G makes it really confusing. The business owner side is still branded Places. In fact all the NEW branding for business owners to sign up and the brand new dashboard that is still rolling out is all called "Places for Business". It's the consumer facing page, where a customer would leave a review that was rebranded as Google+ Local. Then there is the Local Google+ page which is a totally different animal and it does not show up in search unless merged with the Place page/AKA G+ Local page - once it's merged there is no name for that one. I did a long post explaining all this with a funny "WTF do you call these pages again?" image. So convoluted! Google is sort of redoing branding or should I say doing away with all the past branding though for local and it appears she's heading toward one page name. Everything will just be called a Google+ page. Then it's just a matter of whether you verify or merge to add the social features. But then again she's getting rid of most of the links so consumers can't even get to the G+ L whatever you call it page now anyway, so...

I'm not aware of the actual effect of allowing link juice for banner ad links, but I assume Google is figuring out ways to devalue those links if they haven't already! If it's paid..I'd just add the nofollow to be safe!

AllieMcA A funeral home is not a service area business. So, the question then is are you set up as AC_Pro suggested in Places for business? Here is the link to Google Places for Business. You should be able to sign in with the same account info as your G+. Do all there that is needed and when you get your postcard you know what to do. I hope this helps; if we have missed something in this group of answers, please let us know and we will assist you. Also, we have a great Local person here (not me, she is smart) who is happy to help out others with short lessons, etc. Best to you and your clients, Robert

From a design perspective, It was mentioned before to remove the water. Moving backgrounds very rarely help a website. Particularly if they repeat like this one does. Replacing that with just a light blue background or some light transparent water will make your website a lot more aesthetically pleasing to visitors. The repeated image of the flooded house is not required either. Either remove it from the bottom half of the page, or from the changing 6 images from the top. You also have a fair amount of information on your home page. It makes it quite cluttered and often an overwhelming overload of information to your customers. Change it to smaller links with more information and remove the unnecessary extras. For example, Certifications can be moved down to a link next to Contact and Private Policy down the bottom. It doesn't need to be on every page. While the home page is very busy, there is a contrast of a lot of white space on others. Best of luck with your business!

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Hi AllieMc, This issue is common and complicated. I'm going to link you to a couple of Google And Your Business Forum Threads to see if you see your exact scenario resolved in them. Read these: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/lost$20account|sort:date/business/seRAeWevjq8/jCxrMZ2J8LsJ http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/lost$20account|sort:date/business/1QxO_JoFttE/XbhaTJ9SFm4J If these don't help, please return with further details.

Hi Ocelet, Miriam provided you with some excellent advice. Did it answer your questions?

Hi Jason, you've received a number of excellent responses. Did any of them help?