The Near Memo

Why "Position One" Doesn't Exist in Local Anymore (Brighton SEO Recap)

Send us Fan Mail Andrew Shotland (Local SEO Guide) and Mark Kabana (founder of Places Scout, now VP of Data Innovation at Yext) join Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal fr

Fragmented Discovery, Google's €460M DMA Fine, and Apple's Distribution Bet

Send us Fan Mail Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal break down four stories shaping local search and AI discovery. First, a preview of new consumer-journey research Near

The Verification Loop: How People *Really* Find Local Businesses Now (SOCi's Damian Rollison)

Send us Fan Mail The path to a local purchase used to be a straight line. It isn't anymore. Damian Rollison, Senior Director of Market Insights at SOCi, joins Greg

The Path of Enshittification: Apple Ads, Google's Toll Booth, and Meta's $18B Escape Hatch

Send us Fan Mail Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal go guest-free this week to connect three stories that are really one story. Apple has launched ads in Apple Maps — con

The Hidden Advantage: How Brand Awareness Decides the Click in Legal Search

Send us Fan Mail Greg Sterling walks Mike Blumenthal through original Near Media user research — the "Choosing a Lawyer" study of the Atlanta personal-injury market, fir

Tactics for Building a Local Brand in the Age of AI Search — An Agency Panel

Send us Fan Mail Four agency operators join Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal to close out the Near Memo brand-building series: Paula French (Search Influence), Joy Hawk

AI Overviews, Brand Search & Local SEO: Cyrus Shepard on Earning the Click - from the archives

Send us Fan Mail We're on vacation this week, so we're re-running one of our favorite April conversations. It still speaks to our current series on brand in lo

Legal Marketing in the AI Era: LSAs, Reviews, and Manufacturing Brand Demand

Send us Fan Mail Part 3 of the Near Memo brand-building series brings brand down to earth in professional services — specifically legal, where a client hires once in a l

Cyrus Shepard Interview: What "Local Brand" Actually Means to Google and AI

Send us Fan Mail Cyrus Shepard, founder of Zyppy, joins Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal for Part 2 of the Near Memo brand-building series — this time on the technical

The 3-Step Trust Equation: How to Build a Local Brand That Customers (& AI) Trust

Send us Fan Mail  What separates a commodity local provider from a business that easily commands premium pricing? In this kickoff to our four-part brand series, Greg Ste

Ep. 264: Web Authenticity & The Agentic Future of the SMB Website with Raj Singh

Send us Fan Mail Are traditional websites dying, or are they just changing shapes? Hosts Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal catch up with serial entrepreneur and Mozilla

Beyond the Star Rating: Extracting Strategic Content Insights from Customer Feedback

Send us Fan Mail  Local SEO strategy often gets stuck playing a quantitative numbers game with review counts and velocity benchmarks. But what happens when you treat the

Ep. 262: Regulating the Digital Wild West: Inside the FTC’s Battle Against Review Fraud and AI Deception with Michael Atleson

Send us Fan Mail  What happens when federal regulators take on fake reviews and predatory AI applications? This week on NearMemo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal host

Google Maps' AI Shift: Why Brand Building, Reviews & Social Presence Are the New Local SEO

Send us Fan Mail Are your local search frameworks ready for a probabilistic, AI-driven Map interface? This week, Greg, Mike, and local search practitioner Craig Burton m

Goodbye Traffic, Hello Sales: The New Playbook for Local SEO Visibility

Send us Fan Mail  How do you build brand permanence in a local market when web attribution metrics are fading? This week, we dive into Part 2 of our post-Google I/O mast

What Does I/O Mean for Marketers with Cindy Krum, Gregg Gifford & Krystal Tang - Part 1

Send us Fan Mail  The rules of user discovery are undergoing a massive rewrite. This week, the Near Media roundtable features top search minds Cindy Krum, Krystal Taing,

From Keyword Rankings to Brand Reverence: The New Local AI SEO Blueprint

Send us Fan Mail  In this Duda webinar, Darren Shaw and Mike Blumenthal explore the paradigm shift occurring in local search as Google increasingly incorporates generati

Google Already Knows Everything About You — And Their New AI Features Make It Worse

Send us Fan Mail Google just revealed the future of Search at Google I/O and Google Marketing Live — and it’s far more personal, predictive, and invasive than most peopl

The Death of Keywords: How Google’s Personal Intelligence is defining the future of Local Search

Send us Fan Mail In Part 2 of Near Media’s conversation with Garrett Sussman, the discussion shifts from AI personalization theory to the real-world impact on local sear

How Google’s Personal Intelligence is Quietly Revolutionizing Your Search Results

Send us Fan Mail Is Google getting too personal? In this episode of the Near Memo, Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal are joined by Garrett Sussman (iPullRank) to discuss