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Been there. Done that. No easy answers. Pursue all available remedies. Resign yourself to the fact that nothing may work, and you may have to start over.

I don't believe it is considered duplicate content. I think Rand might have mentioned this during a recent webinar.

You can start by claiming & completing your listing. Make sure that it is complete, with a good description, images, special offer, relevant categories, etc. Next, start compiling citations. I like Whitespark's Local Citation Finder - http://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/. He's a fellow Mozer too! Make sure to be consistent with how you list your business. I'd recommend reading http://www.davidmihm.com/. David Milhm's site offers some great insight to local search. Also, take a look at the sites that have high visibility. What citations do they have? How many reviews, what does their profile look like? Good luck! LHC

Your point is also valid Yousaf, however it's up to automated algorithms to determine what's valid, what's not, what's acceptable use and what's not.  That's the concern.  If you feel truly confident that your use could in no way be perceived algorithmically as being a problem, then feel free to proceed. Personally I live in the world of best practices and recommend to clients that they avoid such potential pitfalls whenever possible.  Of course, that does limit their ability to make the most out of web technology, but that is sometimes a price that has to be paid when such risks could harm their revenue stream.

Thanks for your input, bozzie. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has an opinion on this.

"How does google decide if a listing from one city shows up in another?" -- It depends on the amount of competition that search term has and how well everyones Google Places pages are optimized for that term.  If there is a lot of competition for that term then it will stick with that city, if there are not a lot of quality matches it will expand it's results. "Any ideas on improving the distance your listings show up for?" -- Optimize you Google Places page for the keywords you want to show up for. Your Places page is going to be centered around your physical address first, then it is going to look at the content you added for title, description, and any other info you add.  If your business covers a wider area like a neighboring town then make sure you include the name of that town in your description or title if it is appropriate. Your success will depend on how competitive the market in that area is and how optimized your page and others pages are for those location you are looking in.

Here is one possible way to handle the situation: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-traffic-from-google-places-in-google-analytics

Google shows keyword volume based on their internal system's evaluation of what phrases are deemed "commercially viable".  It's a severely flawed system, mostly designed to force people to spend more money on perceived higher value keyword phrases in AdWords. As the other answers show, you are wise to include location relevant words in your optimization.  Both because people are looking for these things, and because having them in the page Titles is VITAL to helping someone doing a search get the reassurance that "this search result IS for what I'm looking for in "THIS AREA".  It's a trust-to-click factor. If you want proof that people are searching for such things, go to Yelp and see if there are any results on the combination you are considering - and if there are reviews for any of those. Of course, not ALL phrases are being searched at the local level, yet many are, even if they're not reported in Google's ulterior-motivated system. Another consideration - here in Marin County, California, many people search for "XYZ + town", yet many more do in fact for "XYZ + bay area" or even "XYZ + San Francisco Bay Area"  or "XYZ East Bay" or "XYZ North Bay"...  so if there is such a regional factor in the local areas you're dealing with, consider doing research on those as well, and adding those into the mix with the more refined local wording.

Hi Matt, Thanks for the answer! I don't think it's site links exactly. I added an image to help clarify. It's very similar to site links, but there's a play button next to a video link. And, good luck with the IPad. HxNG1

What benefits do you see for using both as opposed to just one? Regards,

You have two choices. Honor your design sense and drop the transcript. Honor your SEO sense and include it. The most dedicated designers know about SEO and figure out a way to honor both design and SEO.  They are the ones who succeed and make a lot of money. Figure out how to do both or be satisfied with failure or fractional success. ..... but don't hide the text from visitors.  That will get your site killed in the search engines. =========================== FYI.... the transcript is very useful.  Lots of people prefer to read rather than listen.  And lots of people who listen will search the transcript to read and reread the exact words for the most important part of the video.  Lots of people print. Don't assume that you understand the visitor. You probably don't - at least that is my experience.

Externally hosting images will not be a major problem and ALT text will be seen as part of your page content.

Hi Jeff and Mozzers.  The UBL, Universal Business Listing, is the access point to get into the Axciom directory which is a trusted directory.  The UBL also lists your business on mobile applications like OnStar.   Although you will want to manually claim your listings on many of the places that the UBL says they place your business info, the Axciom listing alone is worth it, IMHO.

First thing's first; I found that only Google will validate extended sitemaps. Yahoo/Bing states in SE/WMT that they will parse the valid information in the sitemap regardless, but I'm not perfectly clear on this. You can search within sitemap category on the search engine pages. Remember now that the src attribute is not a link, so if this is how you are adding multimedia to your pages, I'm not sure how you will include them in your sitemap. There are many discussions about iframes passing page rank, and the consensus is that they currently do not. If this is the way it has to be for this project, then of course you should add alternate text for iframe and frameset elements, add a title, and maybe include a link inside the iframe. Really, what else can you do? But some good news can be found here http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml. It's possible Google may change the way pageRank flows through these kinds of links.

Did you check this tool http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/help/video-xml-sitemaps/ ?

Great question Neil!  Google uses optical character recognition (OCR, more specifically OCRopus) to convert visible print into search searchable text; hence, you're able to find terms in Google books via Google search. Link text is also recognizable due to the standard 'http' format, so even though you'd never be able to click it via an old book in the library (who knows what new ones will do!) Google Books is still able to recognize the link and treat it as such in the digital, Internet realm.  Now, a website that is being mentioned in books has a high likelihood of having a robust backlink profile, but that notwithstanding, I'd bet that Google would give an high amount of trust to a link that makes it into its OCR database. As for street view, that is pushing it!  Who knows though, there's merit in giving a website online exposure for the offsite work they do via billboards, store fronts, etc.  I think you and I both would love to know the people that could truly answer that one though, huh?

Not to be overly obvious, but part of the answer to this question is that Google is using the metrics included in the XML feed (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472#4) Things like, video:title, video:description, video:tag, video:category, etc. In addition Google is combining those with the authority and content of your website.  Since your website is an authority on painting vs youtube (videos on anything and everything), there's likely an associated benefit to sending a user to website where they can find a collection of painting related material, not just videos.  That's a benefit to the user. The benefit to you is that you're receiving qualified web traffic that has an interest in painting and has a better chance of becoming a customer in the future.  You may receive the same benefit from a user going to youtube and then being interested in your services, but they will certainly be another step away from that, either figuring out how to contact you via youtube or leaving youtube, going to your site, and then contacting you. For visitors outside of your area you could offer a starter kit or educational material for the DIY crowd.  If they like your style of organization and view you as an authority on how to make painting projects a success they could conceivably become customers of that sort of material. Your link from your home page to your video uses the text, "Recycle Paint" which further contributes towards ranking for that term, and the text around your link lines up semantically: take away, old paint.  All the things Google would expect to see are present in your content and links. Basically, everything is organized and categorized very well on a website that is clearly an authority in regards to painting so it makes sense to be a beneficial ranking for both users and yourself. Well done!

Hi, All of its SEOMOZ metrics would indicate a positive SEO response. It was cached today, which is also a positive sign. It seems to have general value and information (not just a few words about the category in broken english) Very little PPC, it did not appear to have any Paid home page links. The information is accurate. Not sure if it will have that huge of an SEO response, as no anchor text is available and the return query URL string is very overly dynamic and alot of the inner pages were not cached and had low metrics. $300 is a gamble, probably Vegas odds Have Fun!