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It helps a bit to have a custom map with your location pinned on it.  Though there are a lot of other factors considered more important right now.  Have a look at the 2012 local ranking factors report: http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

I'll probably do the API. I know that Yelp doesnt want business owners to solicit reviews.  However, it's extremely difficult to get reviews unless you do.  I send out follow up emails to clients after each job and ask for a review (positive or negative), but I've still only received about 13 reviews in a year.  I'm even thinking about creating a giveaway drawing for those that review each month.

By a blog do you mean on your site or an external one? If it were me I would make sure this content resides on my website but would not care so much about the delivery system as long as it is indexable. Your username makes me want to go download Labcabincalifornia

Hi Mark, I took a look at 2 of my competitors who have professional looking websites and who also use www.smugmug.com to host their online galleries. This is what I found.  Are either one of them doing this correctly? Company 1:  http://companyname.smugmug.com/SF Company 2:  http://photos.companyname.com/San-Francisco

I have always had mixed feelings about FAQ pages. On one hand I do sometimes try to find them to use when I'm searching although I feel that if I need a FAQ page I haven't adequately provided what my user is looking for on the other pages. I like the idea of using landing pages and just distributing out the content in logical areas of the site verses putting all this somewhat valuable content on one page. As far as helping other pages, if you are getting links to the page it will help but otherwise not so much.

I read in the article that Google takes into consideration, the popularity of your page.  This meaning that your website has a very low bounce rate. I run a photo booth rental business for weddings and other social events.  One of the features that comes standard with every package is that all of the photos from the event are hosted on an online photo gallery.  We currently give the guests a business card at the event with our website address and on the website they can click a link that takes them to their online gallery, which is hosted on www.smugmug.com. I wanted to see if there is a way that we could keep the traffic/visitors on our website longer vs. sending them to www.smugmug.com.  I also would like to see if there is a way that they can incorporate social media sharing, such as Google+ to share our website with their friend and family. It seems that with the online gallery it's a great way to drive traffic to our website and also take advantage of social media platforms.  However, I just can't put finger on how to best go about this.

Hi Pharcydeabc, This is a good question, indeed! I'd suggest you start a new Q&A for this under a new category so that our experts can help you with this new topic. We really enjoy your participation in Q&A! Miriam