Siri has become very popular in a short span of time. It has also become important for a local search engine marketing because of how it affects the dynamics of online search. Even Google has admitted that with Siri, users do not need to go to a search engine and that might affect the advertising revenue which makes up a huge chunk of Google’s net earnings. With such huge implications, it was inevitable that a new application would surface to challenge Siri. Well, you have Evi.

Evi is an application that is available for free on Android phones and for $0.99 on iPhones. At such a nominal price, you should not expect the app to deliver what Siri gives you. This app will not be able to reply to messages, schedule reminders, or set up alarms. However, it will help you in finding local restaurants or any other information that you might need. While it fetches information for you, you will find a message saying ‘just a moment’ on screen. Also, the app takes longer than Siri to fetch the information. The app has been developed by True Knowledge, and it is not integrated with other features of the OS like the messaging system or the alarm clock.

Siri is an app that takes a lot less time, and you are likely to face fewer glitches with it. But, if you own an Android phone and do not want to spend money on an iPhone, then there can be nothing better than Evi as of now.

SEO is all about understanding the experience of internet users, which is seen through the algorithms implemented by search engines. Google has always been a search engine that has been concerned with the user experience, which is why it tries to provide the best results. Recently, Google made another change to their algorithm which will lay stress on the ‘above the fold’ content of your site.

The new changes mean that if there is too much irrelevant content above the fold on your website, then it will reflect in the results. This is because a lot of time people click on the result and find it very hard to reach to the content for which the page has been ranked for. The change is not a major one and it will affect not more than 1% of the searches world wide. This might mean that a lot of companies and sites may ignore this change altogether. But Google said the same thing when they made the ‘not provided’ change a few months ago, and now it affects about 10% of the traffic.

It is possible for sites to take care of all these changes and get back up on the ratings but it might take a few weeks. The new algorithm will detect the changes when the pages of the site have been re-crawled. For a general website, this may take a few weeks. That is why, anyone involved in local search engine marketing should pay attention to these changes.

Recently, Google+ announced that kids aged 13 and above would be able to use the social networking site. Along with this, Google+ also introduced a lot of security and privacy changes which will help in protecting the underage users. Young adults and teenagers are known to spend the maximum amount of time on the internet, which is why this particular move by Google was inevitable.

Google+ has launched a safety center that includes a lot of parental control features that can be used for teen accounts. One of these features pops up when a teen is trying to share content, where Google+ will tell them that sharing content should be done responsibly. Also, the default setting ensures that whatever is shared is only amongst the people in their circles. Blocking someone is also quite simple. In case of Hangouts, if someone unknown to the teen joins them during the session, then he/she will be logged out of it immediately. However, they can join the Hangout again if they want to.

TheSafetyCenternot only provides a lot of useful information regarding the safety features for Google+, it also has information regarding online bullying and digital reputation. It can be expected that Google+ will see a sharp rise in the number of registered users after this change. As of now, the site has 90 million registered users. This move will also prove influential for local search engine marketing as there will be a much wider audience and a completely new demographic they can target.

Google offers various services to its users, the most popular ones being Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube, and Calendar. Over the last few months, Google has been attempting to improve these services and package them in such a way that it is easier for the user to access them. Recently, if you have been using any of these Google services, you will have received a mail notifying you about the privacy policy changes.

The notification basically says that Google will consolidate more than 70 privacy policy documents into a single policy document. There will also be some major changes to the privacy policy. For instance, the information users give through one service might be used in or shared with information of another service. A lot of people and lawmakers are slightly confused as to how the new policy will affect the data that is shared by them, but it is clear that it will have a substantial impact on local search engine marketing. It will also be very beneficial for businesses that use Google for advertisement.

The new policy will mean that businesses will have more information about users and they will be able to target their ads in a much better manner. For instance, YouTube is a very good place to do a PPC ad campaign. The quality may not be good but the quantity of the traffic is a lot. If ads will be served based on what people searched for on YouTube, then it will be quite an advantage.

Facebook is by far the biggest social network out there. That is why it is natural for companies planning local search engine marketing to target Facebook. However SEO for Facebook is not as simple as many of you think. You will find a lot of people advising to change the file name of your profile picture and optimize it as per your keywords. This particular advice is of no use because eon loading the picture Facebook renames the file to something like ’10090087364-1020039.jpg’.  You will also find a lot of people telling you to add a link for your main site. That should be done but it does not help in optimizing the fan page in any way.

The three important elements for optimizing your fan page are the title, meta-description and the H1 tag.  The title becomes the name of your page along with | Facebook. The meta-description is the name of your page followed by what you wrote in the ‘About’ section. The H1 is the name of your page. Now this is pretty similar to a normal fan site. For those who have not yet optimized their Fan Page and have less than 100 fans can still make changes.

Also, remember that having the title as the name of a brand is more beneficial than having the title as a phrase with keywords. The appearance is also crucial because if your page title is a bit long with lots of keywords, people will not tag it in their posts.

The goal of local search engine marketing is simple; get the site to the top of the search engine results pages. Now there are various factors that you should keep in mind when planning to reach the top of the results page. But the biggest search engine in the world, Google, is continuously trying to better its ranking algorithm and that means regular changes. In 2010, Google had announced that speed will become an important in determining the rank. About a year has passed since then and it seems as though the time taken for a page to load has indeed become important.

You might not pay much attention to this particular facet of your site but studies reveal that you should. AnAberdeenstudy has shown that every extra second that goes into page load time results in a 7% loss in conversions. The industry average availability is 97.8%. This might appear as a very good figure to some, but actually a 2% loss in availability means that the company is not functioning 8 days in a year. If you want to look at that in terms of revenue; if an e-commerce sites has daily revenue of $1000, then this 2% drop in availability results in a loss of $8,000 annually.

There are various tools available today that will tell you the page download time of your site. Use them to find out the download time and then make any changes to your site if necessary.

Google is one of the most powerful companies out there simply because of the command it has over the internet. But recently, Google’s actions and how it handles its services has been questioned by twoUSsenators.

Senator Herb Kohl and Mike Lee have filed a complaint to the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) stating that Google search results have a bias towards the services provided by Google. These two senators have claimed that Google pushes the sites and other services that it owns up the search results and by doing this it is undermining fair competition amongst different e-commerce sites.

The senators have cited various Google services like Google news, Google Finance, Google travel, Google Maps, Google Flight Search and YouTube that are being pushed by Google.  Google is a very important target for local search engine marketing, and has about 65% share of the search market in the US. They also state in a five page letter that since these services are a major source for advertising revenue for Google it can be difficult to be unbiased towards them.

The letter also cites a 2007 sub-committee meeting in which one of Google’s top executives Marissa Meyer said that Google services are indeed given preferences. She said that when Google Finance was introduced the link was put first. The CEO of Yelp also testified in a 2010 hearing that Google now is trying to become a destination site itself and does not send people to best possible sites for information. It should be kept in mind that Google is the primary target for any local search engine marketing campaign.

Facebook has grown exponentially over the past few years and has become an important part for local search engine marketing strategy. Now with over 800 million active users it has also become important for companies to have marketing campaigns targeting specifically this social networking giant. In 2011, most of the brands focused solely on increasing the fan base that they have.

Most of the brand pages required you to like a particular page before you could see the content or take part actively on the wall. Now for 2012, certain questions have cropped up. What is actually the value of a fan on Facebook? How many fans does a page need to have or should have? And most importantly after getting these fans on the page, how should they be utilized.

Usually you had to depend on Facebook Insights to determine how various factors were affecting your campaign. Now, there are various new technologies emerging that can help you. Usually when you use online coupons, you can get data like click, redeeming the coupon and sharing of the link. Depending upon the information required in the form, you can get some idea about the demographic as well.

Now, there are tools that actually ask for your Facebook authorization on a few points before giving you the coupon. This authorization is able allow the tool to identify your likes, friends and other interests. This data can then be combined with conversion data that you get from a tool like Google Analytics. This then allows you to build a model with which you can predict future actions based on distinct traits.

In early November 2011, Google released its Freshness update. While the previous Google Panda or ‘Farmer’ update had an effect on just over 10% of search queries, the new algorithm is projected to impact over a third of all search queries. However, the feedback until now is that most webmasters and local search engine marketing agencies have not felt the heat as yet probably because they have been maintaining fresh, current content on sites and blogs.

The new update is the search engine major’s way of ensuring users have access to new content at any given time. In the modern wired world fresh information is considered prime, especially when it concerns certain topics like celebrity news, current events, hot trends, as well as expert opinions in popular fields of interest.

Just take the upcoming holiday season for example. Google knows when people key in ‘gift ideas Christmas’ they want to know the latest trends, not those from a decade ago. So with the Freshness Update, you don’t need to key in the year 2011 as Google will correctly assume you want this year’s trends.

How will this update affect website owners? If the search queries you wish to rank for are static the update may not affect you at all, but if your site’s search terms target phrases that change often you could encounter problems. Of course, it is better to see it as an opportunity to help you meet your site visitors’ demand for up-to-date information. This Google Freshness update basically serves as a reminder to keep your site or blog content fresh and updated!

A successful blog has a large, loyal readership that returns and recommends it to others. The way to ensure this is through your blog content.  What distinguishes popular blogs from those with short-lived charm?  Durability of content ensures that your posts enjoy lasting appeal. How do you go about creating evergreen content?

Timeless appeal – Your most popular posts are ones that are relevant regardless of when they are read. Aim to write timeless content.  Imagine a visitor reading the post a year from now.  Will the post be relevant at the time? Is the topic a current trend or event that rapidly loses its appeal and relevance?

Become a resource – Turn your blog into a huge knowledge resource that caters to the modern quest for information. Leverage the concept of niche quality content people are looking for and your blog will become invaluable to readers.

The how-to post – Create perpetually relevant instructional content that doesn’t need constant updates in simple to understand terms on topics that users always need to know.  This content is the most popular type and will ensure you have a steady stream of blog visitors.

Use different media – Don’t just stick to writing as it can become bland and boring after a while.  Try instructional videos, infographics and other visual media to enhance the appeal of your blog.

Aim for excellence – Keep in mind that excellent content, besides being durable and of great quality, must be relevant and accurate too. Remember to cite any sources used, check grammar, and watch out for plagiarism. It’s a good idea to get a local search engine marketing agency to edit your posts and offer feedback.