How to Find a Google My Business/Google business Profile Place ID If you’ve ever worked with Google My Business (GMB) and Local Viking, you’ll know that the Place ID is a crucial piece of information. The Place ID helps you manage, automate, and track your GMB listings through platforms like Local Viking. Whether you’re setting…
Greetings, everybody. We hope you’re staying cool out there. Earth’s hottest day on record was Monday (edging out the previous all-time high that was established on Sunday), but this newsletter isn’t taking some kind of global warming stance. A Belgian tourist in Death Valley made the regrettable decision to flick a flip flop off his…
Greetings, y’all. It’s been a tumultuous week for the internet. Between Microsoft quiet-quitting on the world economy and a data breach that contains close to 100% of AT&T’s 21st century customers (and the people those customers called, emailed, and texted), the fact that Disney got hacked by a group of militant, anti-AI furries is barely…
In today’s digital landscape, scams are not just widespread—they’re evolving, becoming ever more sophisticated. From the everyday spam emails to more intricate scams targeting specific business practices like SEO, no one is safe, including seasoned business owners. At Local Viking, we believe it’s crucial to stay informed about these threats. Here, we delve into the…
What’s up, everybody? If you’re in the United States, we hope you had a great 4th of July last week. If you live anywhere else: sorry. That must be terrible. Solutions do exist though. We want to begin this newsletter by telling you about some GeoGrid features that are not new but may still surprise…
Hi, Vikings and other internet users. Our busy Friday trend continues. We used to have a few hours set aside to research and write this newsletter, but more and more tasks have crept into that time slot over the past year or so. We’ve kicked around the idea of changing the day of the week…
Hello, everybody. Did you see the news story about the Just Stop Oil dumbasses who vandalized Stonehenge with orange paint? It’s true that Britain is the birthplace of the industrial revolution (which many of that island’s natives do not require much prompting to mention), but we very much doubt that Celtic crowds used to gather…
Hey, everyone. There’s lots of news this week. The NWS issued its first ever warning for DVD-sized hail in Texas a few days ago. Grapefruits were used for comparison on rare occasions in the past. We don’t normally feature the weather in this newsletter, but we thought it was worth mentioning the fact that citrus…
Greetings, newsletter readers. Sorry we missed you last week. This email regrettably but necessarily suffers on our busiest days. We mostly planned to complain about the absence of Google Maps and Google Business Profile during the I/O 2024 keynote. It was token-this and token-that from speaker after speaker. Sure– the new Gemini 1.5 model has…
Hey folks. We hope all of you are doing what you can to stay safe while the sun hurls tons of modernity-wrecking space rays toward the earth. One of our European colleagues lost his internet connection for ~10 minutes this morning. We knew we couldn’t take any chances after that, so we spent the following…
In today’s digital era, a strong local online presence can make or break a business. This is where a Google Business Profile (GBP) profile becomes crucial for small businesses looking to enhance their visibility. But how do you ensure that your GMB listing is optimized and stands out among competitors? This is where a comprehensive…
Hey folks. We had to completely rewrite this newsletter because of new information that got published just before we sent it out. The original version focused on Google’s March 2024 core update, mainly discussing the fact that it was still rolling out and therefore the “biggest algorithm update in the history of Google.” We have…
Hello, everyone. We need to speed run today’s newsletter. We got off to a late start. Let us explain We use Online Alarm Clock and Kuku Klok on the days we cannot afford the luxury of hitting snooze a few times before getting out of bed. They’re internet-based alarms that you can set for any…
Hello, everyone. We got to learn how hilariously inadequate cell phone cameras are for eclipse pictures on Monday. We’ll be ready for the next one in two years though (although we may need to travel to see it– you can drag the embedded map on this webpage around if you want to see its path…
Welcome to the bustling world of local search, where every detail counts and businesses vie for the spotlight on Google Business Profiles. Among the myriad of factors that could influence your visibility and attractiveness to potential customers, there’s one seemingly simple yet crucial aspect: your opening hours. But how significant are they? Let’s dive into…
Hey, everybody. Sorry the newsletter’s late. It’s hard to fit into our schedule these days. We’re working on a solution. A surprising number of you asked us for recommendations when we mentioned the fact that we’d gone down a deep rabbit hole in search of a comfortable ergonomic chair. Our obsessive quest to improve the…
Greetings, everyone. We know that most of you are enjoying a relaxing vacation day. We’re working. International Women’s Day is not a holiday in the United States. We’re in good company though: Laos, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Uganda do not officially observe IWD either. The host of Google Search Central’s new How Search Works series…
How’s everyone doing today? Story time. There was a Friday in late 2020 when we had to quickly exit a Taco Bell and drive home after receiving a text message from one of our colleagues. He asked why the blog post hadn’t been published yet. We got lucky in that case because we had an…
Hey folks. We really try not to focus on news about the latest AI models. Despite the fact that these tools are ridiculously useful for marketers (Local Viking’s OpenAI invoice for January was just north of $3,500), the fact that our usage gets periodically slowed down by people and teams working on things like materials…
We’re making a public service announcement. Local search results are all kinds of messed up today. This isn’t a Local Viking or Local Brand Manager issue. Google itself is the cause of everyone’s woes. Something’s going haywire on the mothership. We’re not even sure we know the full extent of the issues, but we aren’t…
