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Hi MVBryanB,

There are a variety of choices available to you in terms of markup. The main benefit of Schema is that Google, Bing and Yahoo have all agreed on it as a standard. I highly recommend that you read Mike Blumenthal's article on this subject from last autumn, as well as all the comments following it:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/10/07/a-free-tool-to-build-geo-sitemap-and-schema-org-compliant-files/

Take special note of the free Schema tool Mike links to. I think this resource is exactly what you are looking for.

Miriam

Hi WebFeatSEO, Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. Can you please link to your Place Page so I can take a look at it? Thanks!

Hi HawkTV1,

Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. Situations like yours can be very confusing for the business owner, so I do empathize. In thinking your question over, I believe that this part of Google Places Quality Guidelines may apply to your resort:

Some businesses may be located within a mall or a container store, which is a store that contains another business. If your business is within a container store or mall, and you'd like to include this information in your listing, specify the container store in parentheses in the business name field. For example, Starbucks (inside Safeway).

If you want the three businesses to be treated as 3 separate entries, and to be eligible for 3 distinct Place Pages when the are all inside the same building, you will need to get:

1. a suite number

2. a unique, non-redirecting local area code phone number

for the other 2 businesses. Then, if desired, you could have the business titles read along the lines of:

Spa Cuts (inside ABC Resort)

This should be a correct way of doing things. However, if you have the restaurant and spa listed in 50 other directories with an address and phone number that doesn't match the new address and phone number you would be assigning to the two businesses, you are likely to run into a serious problem. Google may become 'confused' about the validity of the information you've provided.

This being the case, your task would also include going to each of those listings and adding the new suite # to the addresses and editing the phone number. Big job! But it can be done.

Good luck!

My pleasure, Gary! It's a very interesting topic!

Hi Gary,

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. The little icons you are describing are technically termed 'Place Labels'. See:

https://support.google.com/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&cbrank=3&cbid=-r9iys3bhjpun&ctx=cb&answer=174115&src=cb

Chris Silver Smith wrote a great piece on this back in 2009 regarding achieving landmark status:

http://searchengineland.com/can-your-business-achieve-landmark-status-in-google-maps-31045

But I think this is the post that will be most helpful to you, from 2011:

http://www.iexposure.com/2011/06/16/how-to-get-a-google-places-label

And don't miss the 2nd part of this post:

http://www.iexposure.com/2011/07/26/how-to-get-a-google-places-label-part-2-update

Essentially, there isn't a simple way to do this, but if you read Scott Dodge's two posts on this topic, you'll have the best information out there about how this may be achieved.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Miriam

Hi Don,

Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. Please, check out this post by Mike Blumenthal on exactly this process:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/02/03/basic-places-practices-how-do-you-claim-an-owner-verified-listing/

You are quite right. This happens all the time!
Good luck!

Hi Again,

I'm not sure if you're asking about Yext in the US or something else? If Yext, here is a basic description from TechCruch regarding the paid local listing management service Yext is offering:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/17/yext-powerlistings-30-000/

There has been some significant discussion in the Local SEO community in N. America regarding the value of this. Some business owners are quite willing to pay for the convenience of this service, while others find the price tag rather high.

Is this what you were asking about?

Miriam

Hi Samantha, Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. Google's custom mapping tools are free and are probably going to be among the easiest to use and embed in your website. As an alternative, this might be interesting: http://www.esri.com/mapping-for-everyone/index.html However, I'm not certain what their handling of South Africa might be. I see a lot of US-centric mapping tools. Why don't you check that out and see if it would work for you, or if Google Maps would be a superior application?

Hi Search Guys,

Thanks for giving me a little time to look into this. I am familiar primarily with Local in N. America, so I contacted Ash Nallawalla who is one of the better known Local SEOs in Australia. He replied that, at this point, he isn't aware of a Yext-type service for Australia, unfortunately. He also said that things are really Google Places-centric at this point in OZ. Sorry not to have a solution for you. For now, it looks like manual management is the way to go.

Hi Again Echo1,

I recommend you check out CustomerLobby.com. I think you will find some good review-oriented resources there.

I'll look forward to seeing your other thread!

Hello Echo1,

Thank you for coming to Q&A to ask your question. I have a several helpful resources for you.

Rand recently wrote a great piece on just the subject of citations, including commands you can use:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-research-local-citations-after-google-removed-them-from-places

That's a good place to start. If you are seeking a paid tool, Whitespark's is well thought of:

http://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/

SEOverflow.com also offers some free local tools you might like to check out.

All of the above relate to citations. As for getting reviews, the first step toward understanding a successful campaign is to know what not to do. Begin with a close reading of all sections of Google's guidelines:

http://support.google.com/places/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1656749&parent=1656875&ctx=topic

Your reviews must come directly from your clients (not from staff, marketers or any other third party source). Creating a plan for encouraging reviews in a manner compliant with the guidelines is the work ahead of you.

Hope these resources help!

Hello Search Guys,

I am looking into this for you. I will return to this thread.

Miriam

Your are most welcome, DigiJoltMan! And yes, quite true about the proverbial eggs and basket!

Hi DigiJoltMan,

The most recent information I was able to find on this is from 2010 and I have not heard of an announcement regarding Bing changing their policy on inclusion of UK businesses in their Local index. They made a somewhat odd decision to outsource the process. Here are 3 articles/threads to that effect:

http://blog.ineedhits.com/small-business-news/bing-uk-confirms-new-local-business-listing-service-23547769.html

http://ianlockwood.net/bing-launches-uk-local-listings-but-outsourced/

http://www.bing.com/community/maps/f/12264/t/656644.aspx

Regarding alternatives to Google Places, frankly, lack of inclusion there is problematic because of Places' vast market share and visibility. I would always recommend inclusion in Google Places as step #1 for any Local SEM campaign. However, there are many, many other indexes that you can also get listed in. In case you haven't seen it, check out this awesome article on the top 50 citation sources for the UK:

http://searchengineland.com/top-50-citation-sources-for-uk-us-local-businesses-104938

Hope this helps!

Greetings nvs.nim,

Thanks for coming to Q&A to ask your question. I apologize if my response is run together in a single paragraph. We've been having an issue with that today in the forum.

Google's guidelines state the following:

• Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or “refer” users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business.

Thus, the answer to your question is that you should not use the re-directing URLs.

Hope this helps!