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doomarchives · 4 years ago

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David Annandale’s The Harrowing Of Doom: An In-Depth Review

So, I was kindly offered an advance reviewer’s copy of The Harrowing of Doom by David Annandale for the Marvel Untold series, a new prose line revolving around Marvel’s villains. Although I’m not personally familiar, the author’s prior written work and academic scholarship indicated a strong background in fantasy, science fiction, as well as horror film and literature - all essential elements of Doom himself honestly, whether in his character, design, or formative influences. A promising start from the outset!

To no one’s surprise, I was especially excited for this one. Doctor Doom is both my favorite Marvel character and area of nerdy comics expertise, and Annandale sounded like the perfect candidate to tackle him.

The Harrowing of Doom centers around a conflict familiar to those who know the character. Taking place fifteen years after his ascension to the throne, Victor von Doom is still hellbent on rescuing the soul of his mother, Cynthia, trapped in hell by the demon Mephisto. His yearly attempts to save her have been fruitless thus far, but he believes he can really do it this time, enlisting the help of a new character, Maria von Helm, and some of his lesser known subjects (also new characters) to accomplish the task, by building a machine called The Harrower. The noble scheme is further complicated by the reappearance of Prince Rudolfo Fortunov, son of the monarch deposed and murdered by Doom years prior, who is equally determined to take back what he believes is his birthright by any means necessary. The novel is a relatively dense and detailed one, and as a true blue Doom enthusiast, I have a dense and detailed review to match.

The first thing that I personally take note of in any material involving Doom is the author’s perspective on the truth of Latveria’s “benevolent dictatorship.” It immediately speaks volumes about a writer’s perception of Doom’s accountability and sense of morality; it kind of ends up coloring his entire characterization. That being said, I was really pleased by the evenhandedness with which Annandale treats Doom’s Latveria and his influence upon his subjects. It slots in neatly with some of the greats, Lee & Kirby, Jonathan Hickman, Roger Stern, etc with the acknowledgement that Doom is indeed a despot with an iron fist and a will absolute, but one who cares for the wellbeing of his country. Through dialogue from his subjects like the skittish Father Grigori Zargo and diehard loyal Captain Kariana Verlak, the reader gets the sense that Doom’s rule may be the best leadership Latveria has ever known. (A brief aside: another great strength of The Harrowing of Doom that has to be mentioned is the fleshing out of these different original characters. Maria von Helm was a particularly welcome addition, as a close friend of Doom’s mother and a far more empathetic magic user compared to him.)

Verlak is openly married to Dr. Elsa Orloff, a trans woman and neurosurgeon of international renown. Both of them had experienced the Fortunov rule that predated Doom’s, with Orloff even having fled Fortunov’s Latveria when she first come out as transgender, in fear of his tyrannical rule and the dangerously transphobic legislature he enforced called “The Laws of the Person.” It is apparent that Doom exists in obvious juxtaposition to the prior ruler’s bigotry. Beyond the total erasure of all previous discrimination and state-enforced bigotry, he has Verlak appointed in a role of great prominence, gave Orloff the tools she needed to succeed in her field, and even shares an exchange with her where he remarks that he knows her from her publications in the Lancet Neurology and that he appreciates them for their “speculative” approach. In an excellent exchange between Father Zargo and the rebel Prince Fortunov, the priest, who is by far Doom’s number one fan, explains Doom’s mesmerizing hold on the populace and the benefits they reap from his rule, despite it being a despotic one:

“I’ll be explicit, all the same,” said Zargo. “Doom is a sun king, even more fully than Louis XIV ever was. Latveria is a world power. How? Because of Doom and only because of Doom. Latveria’s strength and its wealth come from his inventions. And the beams of his sun touch every citizen. Universal basic income, free healthcare, free schooling, free universities, free training to the highest level of your calling - all of these things flow from Doom.”

“Free?” Fortunov snarled.

“The price is obedience, yes,” said Zargo, “And yes, Doom is feared.” Zargo stopped himself from saying Vladimir was feared and hated. [...] “Even though Doom is feared, he also is Latveria in every sense that matters.”

What I really appreciated was the author’s ability to walk the tightrope of acknowledging how beneficial Doom is for the country and his protectiveness over his domain, whilst also acknowledging Doom’s intense paternalism that ultimately favors his own goals. Doom, as well-read comic fans would know, is heralded as one of Marvel’s master manipulators. It’s a great strength of this novel to see him exerting his willpower and the strength of his personality to manipulate and sometimes, fully overpower that of his subjects. Father Zargo is definitely the most profound victim of this, a man with ties to both the church and the occult. Through the novel, Doom insistently pushes him towards the latter, his priorities made clear in one sentence: “The work was what mattered. Zargo’s soul was not Doom’s concern.” An especially interesting scene occurs later in the novel. Without too much elaboration, Doom performs an experiment where he uses the old Latverian nobility as guinea pigs. This was something I immensely liked, corroborating one of my own personal perceptions of Doom. It’s always made sense to me that Doom would continue to hold a certain amount of disdain for Latverian high society, even after he went from low class Romani boy to monarch himself.

(“The Fantastic Origin of Doctor Doom,” Fantastic Four Annual #2.)

Afterwards his partner, Maria von Helm, muses aloud that she always wondered why Doom let vestiges of the old regime remain, to which Doom responds: “Now you know. The aristocracy has its uses, and the advantages of being disposable.” It’s maybe my favorite example in the book of the exceptions to Doom’s purported benevolence. He does want the country to flourish and for his subjects to prosper, but this intent can be superseded by his innately ambitious nature and his own personal biases. It’s clear at several points in the book that Annandale is obviously well-read on Doom himself, but it was especially in the capturing of this nuance that it really stuck out to me in a big way. (As well as the fun reference to Doom’s brief jaunt in the French Riviera in Supervillain Team-Up!)

Outside of this core aspect of his characterization, I really enjoyed how the novel not only built up Doom’s cult of personality, but emphasized the sheer magnetism of Doom himself, in person. Constantly, characters find themselves buffeted by strength of his will, craving his approval or cowering and scrambling to avoid his displeasure. It’s a great true-to-character depiction of interactions between Doom and Latverian citizens, dynamics that were only touched upon briefly in the periphery of most comics involving Doom. I think, ironically, this is also perhaps the source of one of the novel’s few weaknesses. By keeping the book very Latveria-focused, Annandale does an excellent job of adding world-building on every level, from expounding on Latverian national holidays to the layouts of Doomstadt to the country’s storied history with witches predating Doom and his mother. But the fact that Doom mostly interacts with those beneath him or those who work for him gives the reader a bit of a myopic, overtly flattering perspective of him as almost too certain, too powerful, too unfeeling. I suppose it serves the scope of the novel for Doom to be more an obelisk of a man than fully well-rounded, but I contest that one of the best things about his character is that his indomitable exterior hides a deep well of pain and uncertainty.

(“In The Clutches of Doctor Doom,” Fantastic Four #17.)

(“Oath of Fealty,” Doctor Doom #7.)

The novel obviously perceives Doom as Byronic, there’s even excerpts from Manfred interspersed between chapters that I greatly enjoyed, but I did find the heart of the Byronic character a little lacking here. Where Manfred bares his soul alone in monologue or to others, Doom, for the most part, does not. There are definitely brief allusions to the trials he’s faced, but he seems rarely prone to doubt or vulnerability until the very end. (For example, the central task is the attempt to rescue Cynthia von Doom’s soul, but little time is spent dwelling on this very human connection between mother and son.) Or even self-admitted imperfection! Interestingly, I only ever caught one mention of his scars in the entire novel.

The Harrowing of Doom seems to prescribe to the line of thought that the mask is the only true face of Doom’s that matters, but I think with that philosophy, it stays firmly within the character’s own comfort zone. And his psyche never feels truly challenged, because there’s no worthy challenger. Doom knows without a doubt that he is Fortunov’s superior, so there’s no real interpersonal friction there. It left me keenly interested in seeing how the author would write Doom in the presence of someone like Reed Richards, an opponent who has historically brought out Doom’s baser instincts and invoked his self-doubt, drawing out his flaws and humanity in the process. Hopefully Marvel approves a sequel!

Doubtlessly, it’s still a strong entry into Marvel’s Doom canon and an excellent read for anyone who enjoys the character and is familiar with his history. The novel gives a sprawling, detailed look at Latveria and fleshes out both country and countrymen with aplomb. I took real delight at the indirect peeks at Doom’s personality through other characters’s observations or simple exposition. Some notable examples include Doom’s occult librarian wondering if he had been appointed out of spite of his witch-hunter ancestry, Zargo noting the west wing of Werner Academy was dedicated to clinical research in a nod to Werner von Doom’s work as a healer, and my favorite: the paintings within Castle Doom being impressionistic depictions of Doom’s ancestors, “people long buried, long forgotten, and in their lifetimes ignored or worse.”

The conflict also moves at an engaging, brisk pace and smartly takes advantage of the widely known fact that Doom is preoccupied every Midsummer Night and turns that into an opening to be exploited by Fortunov, who also is well characterized throughout the novel and even experiences his own personal growth.

(“Though Some Call It Magic!”, Astonishing Tales #8)

Essentially, the product is a great novel about Doctor Doom influenced by strong comic lore knowledge, Gothic and Romance literature, horror cinema (According to the author, Doom’s lab is modeled after the lab from The Bride of Frankenstein!), and fantasy. If that sounds like something up your alley, definitely check it out. It gets a wholehearted recommendation from me.

About Marvel Entertainment

Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, built on a proven library of more than 8,000 characters featured in a variety of media for over eighty years. Marvel utilizes its character franchises in entertainment, licensing, publishing, games, and digital media.

#victor von doom #doctor doom #media type: book #Marvel #MarvelEnt #aconyte books #review

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 5 years ago

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President Trump reveals himself as woefully uninformed about the basics of geography, incorrectly telling Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” He toys with awarding himself the Medal of Freedom.

And, according to a new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig, Trump does not seem to grasp the fundamental history surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asks his then-Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, as the men prepare to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which commemorates the December 1941 Japanese surprise attack in the Pacific that pulled the United States into World War II.

“Trump had heard the phrase ‘Pearl Harbor’ and appeared to understand that he was visiting the scene of a historic battle, but he did not seem to know much else,” write the authors, later quoting a former senior White House adviser who concludes: “He was at times dangerously uninformed.”

“A Very Stable Genius” — a 417-page book named after Trump’s own declaration of his superior knowledge — is full of similarly vivid details from Trump’s tumultuous first three years as president, from his chaotic transition before taking office to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and final report.

The story the authors unfurl, as they explain in the prologue, “is intended to reveal Trump at his most unvarnished and expose how decision-making in his administration has been driven by one man’s self-centered and unthinking logic — but a logic nonetheless.”

The book by the two longtime Post reporters — who were part of the team that won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on Trump and Russia — was obtained ahead of its scheduled release Tuesday.

Many of the key moments reported in the book are rife with foreign policy implications, portraying a novice commander in chief plowing through normal protocols and alarming many both inside the administration and in other governments.

Early in his administration, for instance, Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — so much so, the authors write, “that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates” to inquire about his pressing desire: “When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?” he asks.

After the two leaders meet face-to-face for the first time — 168 days into his presidency at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg — Trump promptly declares himself a Russia expert, dismissing the expertise of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had worked closely with Putin since the 1990s, when Tillerson was working his way up the ExxonMobil corporate ladder and doing business with Russia.

“Tillerson’s years of negotiating with Putin and studying his moves on the chessboard were suddenly irrelevant,” the duo writes. “ ‘I have had a two-hour meeting with Putin,’ Trump told Tillerson. ‘That’s all I need to know. . . . I’ve sized it all up. I’ve got it.’ ”

In spring 2017, Trump also clashed with Tillerson when he told him he wanted his help getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that prevents U.S. firms and individuals from bribing foreign officials for business deals.

“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump says, according to the book. “We’re going to change that.”

The president, they go on to explain, was frustrated with the law “ostensibly because it restricted his industry buddies or his own company’s executives from paying off foreign governments in faraway lands.”

The book, the duo writes in an author’s note, is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with more than 200 sources, corroborated, when possible, by calendars, diary entries, internal memos and even private video recordings. (Trump himself had initially committed to an interview for the book, the authors write, but ultimately declined, amid an escalating war with the media).

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

One government aide tells the authors that Trump has destroyed the gravity and allure that used to surround the presidency, regardless of the Oval Office occupant.

“ ‘He’s ruined that magic,’ this aide said of Trump,” Rucker and Leonnig write. “ ‘The disdain he shows for our country’s foundation and its principles. The disregard he has for right and wrong. Your fist clenches. Your teeth grate.’ ”

Anthony Scaramucci, who served as Trump’s communications director for just 11 days, recounts the president’s response when he asks him, “Are you an act?”

“I’m a total act and I don’t understand why people don’t get it,” Trump replies, according to Scaramucci.

Yet the people in Trump’s administration and orbit don’t behave as if the president is simply playing a part or acting a role. At the Justice Department, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and other senior officials run through private fire drills in case Trump triggers a “Saturday night massacre” — an allusion to the series of resignations under President Richard M. Nixon following his order to his attorney general to fire the Watergate independent special prosecutor.

“They prepared for several scenarios: If Trump fired [then-Attorney General Jeff] Sessions, if Trump fired Rosenstein, and if Trump ordered the firing of Mueller,” the authors write.

The officials have reason to be concerned, according to the authors, who report that Trump muses about using a memo by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) as the justification for firing Rosenstein and reining in Mueller’s investigation. He also rails against his own Justice Department, furious that the agency isn’t being sufficiently loyal to him personally.

At one point, after the department blocks the release of what the president believes was a pro-Trump memo, he calls Kelly ranting. “ ‘This is my Justice Department. They are supposed to be my people,’ Trump told Kelly,” the authors write. “ ‘This is the ‘Deep State.’ . . . Mueller’s all over it.’ ”

Some details are more harmless than disconcerting. Early in his presidency, Trump agrees to participate in an HBO documentary that features judges and lawmakers — as well as all the living presidents — reading aloud from the Constitution. But Trump struggles and stumbles over the text, blaming others in the room for his mistakes and griping, “It’s like a foreign language.”

In another scene, Axios reported in December 2018 that former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Trump met privately to discuss Christie possibly becoming his next chief of staff. After Christie respectfully turns down the job, he asks Trump how the details of their meeting leaked out, since it was just the two of them and first lady Melania Trump in the room.

“Oh, I did it,” said Trump, who has long vented about leakers, revealing himself to be among them.

Other moments have a darker tinge. Rucker and Leonnig write that during the early days of the Mueller investigation, both Donald McGahn, then the White House counsel, and Stephen K. Bannon, then a senior White House adviser, try to persuade Ty Cobb — the lawyer tasked, at the time, with overseeing the White House’s involvement in the probe — to remove Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both senior advisers, from the White House staff, to protect the president during the ongoing investigation.

“ ‘You need to shoot them in the [expletive] head,’ Bannon jokingly told Cobb,” the authors write.

Trump was “verbally and emotionally abusive” toward then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the book reports, and routinely complained she was not doing enough about illegal immigration and the border.

According to the book, “He made fun of her stature and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating. ‘She’s so short,’ Trump would tell others about Nielsen. She and Kelly would try to make light of it. Kelly would rib her and say, ‘But you’ve got those little fists of fury!’ ”

When Nielsen — who had received threats against her life as the public face of the administration’s hard-line immigration policy — eventually left the government, she did so without any prearranged continuing security detail, which must be requested by the chief of staff and authorized by the president.

“When some of her international counterparts visited Washington, they offered to hire personal security for Nielsen to protect her, but she declined,” write the authors. “ ‘That would look horrible,’ Nielsen told them. ‘Can you imagine the story? Foreign governments provide security because the U.S. won’t?’ ”

The duo opens one chapter with the case of Rob Porter — the former White House staff secretary who was ultimately pushed out of his job amid allegations of domestic abuse from his two ex-wives. After a photo surfaces on the Internet of Colbie Holderness, one of his ex-wives, sporting a black eye that she alleges Porter gave her, Trump offers a competing theory.

“Maybe, Trump said, Holderness purposefully ran into a refrigerator to give herself bruises and try to get money out of Porter?” they write.

Near the end of the book, Rucker and Leonnig delve into tensions between Mueller and Attorney General William P. Barr. Mueller and his team are frustrated when Barr releases an initial, four-page letter summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s 448-page report, which they do not think sufficiently captures the context, nature and substance of Mueller’s full investigation.

“Inside the bunker of Mueller’s lawyers, Barr’s letter stung,” write the authors. “Members of the special counsel team would later describe Mueller’s reaction: He looked as if he’d been slapped.”

After Mueller writes a letter to Barr expressing his frustrations, the authors report that Barr calls Mueller, resulting in a testy phone conversation.

“ ‘What the hell, Bob?’ Barr asked,” they write. “ ‘What’s up with this letter? Why didn’t you pick up the phone and call me?’ ”

Barr complains that his team offered Mueller’s team an opportunity to review his letter before it went out and they declined — “We’re flabbergasted here,” Barr says, according to the book — but the call ultimately ends on “an uplifting note.”

Some of the modest details in the book end up having larger consequences. After Trump bungles his India-China geography and seems to dismiss the threat China poses to India, for instance, the authors write that “Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise.”

“Modi’s expression gradually shifted, from shock and concern to resignation,” they continue, adding that one Trump aide concludes Modi probably “left that meeting and said, ‘This is not a serious man. I cannot count on this man as a partner.’ ”

After the meeting, the aide explains to them, “ ‘the Indians took a step back’ in their diplomatic relations with the United States.”

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luongthuyvy · 5 years ago

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2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google

Posted by MiriamEllis

Image credit: Migaspinto

If you own or market a business location that makes a real-world community more serviceable, diverse, and strong, I’m on your side.

I love interesting towns and cities, with a wide array of useful goods and services. Nothing in my career satisfies me more than advising any brand that’s determined to improve life quality in some spot on the map. It does my heart good to see it, but here’s my completely unsentimental take on the challenges you face:

The Internet, and Google’s local platforms in particular, are a complete mess.

Google is the biggest house on the local block; you can’t ignore it. Yet, the entries into the platform are poorly lit, the open-source concept is cluttered with spam, and growing litigation makes one wonder if there are bats in the belfry.

Google comprises both risk and tremendous opportunity for local businesses and their marketers. Succeeding in 2020 means becoming a clear-eyed surveyor of any structural issues as well as seeing the "good bones" potential, so that you can flip dilapidation into dollars. And something beyond dollar, too: civic satisfaction.

Grab your tools and get your teammates and clients together to build local success in the new year by sharing my 3-level plan and 4-quarter strategy.

Level 1: Feed Google

Image credit: Mcapdevila

Information about your business is going to exist on the Internet whether you put it there or not.

Google’s house may be structurally unsound, but it’s also huge, with a 90% search engine market share globally and over 2 trillion searches per year, 46% of which are for something local.

Residents, new neighbors, and travelers seeking what you offer will almost certainly find something about your company online, whether it’s a stray mention on social media, an unclaimed local business listing generated by a platform or the public, or a full set of website pages and claimed listings you’ve actively published.

Right now, running the most successful local business possible means acquiring the largest share you can of those estimated 1 trillion annual local searches. How do you do this?

By feeding Google:

Website content about your business location, products, services, and attributes

Corroborating info about your company on other websites

Local business listing content

Image content

Video content

Social media content

Remember, without your content and the content of others, Google does not exist. Local business owners can often feel uncomfortably dependent on Google, but it’s really Google who is dependent on them.

Whether the business you’re marketing is small or large, declare 2020 the year you go to the drafting board to render a clear blueprint for a content architecture that spans your entire neighborhood of the Internet, including your website and relevant third-party sites, platforms, and apps. Your plans might look something like this:

I recommend organizing your plan like this, making use of the links I’m including:

Begin with a rock-solid foundation of business information on your website. Tell customers everything they could want to know to choose and transact with your business. Cover every location, service, product, and desirable attribute of your company. There’s no chance you won’t have enough to write about when you take into account everything your customers ask you on a daily basis + everything you believe makes your company the best choice in the local market. Be sure the site loads fast, is mobile-friendly, and as technically error-free as possible.

Create a fully complete, accurate, guideline-abiding Google My Business listing for each location of your business.

Build out your listings (aka structured citations) on the major platforms. Automate the work of both developing and monitoring them for sentiment and change via a product like Moz Local.

Monitor and respond to all reviews as quickly as possible on all platforms. These equal your online reputation and are, perhaps, the most important content about your business on the Internet. Know that reviews are a two-way conversation and learn to inspire customers to edit negative reviews. Moz Local automates review monitoring and facilitates easy responses. If you need help earning reviews, check out Alpine Software Group’s two good products: GatherUp and Grade.Us.

Audit your competition. In competitive markets, come check out our beta of Local Market Analytics for a multi-sampled understanding of who your competitors actually are for each location of your business, depending on searcher locale.

Once you’ve found your competitors, audit them to understand the:

quality, authority and rate of ongoing publication you need to surpass

strength and number of linked unstructured citations you need to build

number and quality of Google posts, videos, products, and other content you need to publish

social engagement you need to create.

As to the substance of your content, focus directly on your customers’ needs. Local Market Analytics is breaking ground in delivering actual local keyword volumes, and the end point of all of your research, whether via keyword tools, consumer surveys, or years of business experience, should be content that acts as customer service, turning seekers into shoppers.

Use any leftover time to sketch in the finer details. For example, I’m less excited about schema for 2020 than I was in 2019 because of Google removing some of the benefits of review schema. Local business schema is still a good idea, though, if you have time for it. Meanwhile, pursuing relevant featured snippets could certainly be smart in the new year. I’d go strong on video this year, particularly YouTube, if there’s applicability and demand in your market.

The customer is the focus of everything you publish. Google is simply the conduit. Your content efforts may need to be modest or major to win the greatest possible share of the searches that matter to you. It depends entirely on the level of competition in your markets. Find that level, know your customers, and commit to feeding Google a steady, balanced diet of what they say they want so that it can be conveyed to the people you want to serve.

Level 2: Fight Google

Image credit: Scott Lewis

Let’s keep it real: ethical local companies which pride themselves on playing fair have good reason to be dubious about doing business with Google. Once you’ve put in the effort to feed Google all the right info to begin competing for rankings, you may well find yourself having to do online battle on an ongoing basis.

There are two fronts on which many people end up grappling with Google:

Problematic aspects within products

Litigation and protests against the brand.

Let’s break these down to prepare you:

Product issues

Google has taken on the scale of a public utility — one that’s replaced most of North America’s former reliance on telephone directories and directory assistance numbers.

Google has 5 main local interfaces: local packs, local finders, desktop maps, mobile maps and the Google Maps app. It’s been the company’s decision to allow these utilities to become polluted with misinformation in the form of listing and review spam, and irrelevant or harmful user-generated content. Google does remove spam, but not at the scale of the issue, which is so large that global networks of spammers are have sprung up to profit from the lack of quality control and failure to enforce product guidelines.

When you are marketing a local business, there’s a strong chance you will face one or more of the following issues while attempting to compete in Google’s local products:

Being outranked by businesses violating Google’s own guidelines with practices such as keyword-stuffed business titles and creating listings to represent non-existent locations or lead-gen companies. (Example)

Being the target of listing hijacking in which another company overtakes some aspect of your listing to populate it with their own details. (Example)

Being the target of a reputation attack by competitors or members of the public posting fake negative reviews of your business. (Example)

Being the target of negative images uploaded to your listing by competitors or the public. (Example)

Having Google display third-party lead-gen information on your listings, driving business away from you to others. (Example)

Having Google randomly experiment with local features with direct negative impacts on you, such as booking functions that reserve tables for your patrons without informing your business. (Example)

Being unable to access adequately trained Google staff or achieve timely resolution when things go wrong (Example)

These issues have real-world impacts. I’ve seen them misdirect and scam countless consumers including those having medical and mental health emergency needs, kill profits during holiday shopping seasons for companies, cause owners so much loss that they’ve had to lay off staff, and even drive small brands out of business.

Honest local business owners don’t operate this way. They don’t make money off of fooling the public, or maliciously attack neighboring shops, or give the cold shoulder to people in trouble. Only Google’s underregulated monopoly status has allowed them to stay in business while conducting their affairs this way.

Outlook issues

Brilliant people work for Google and some of their innovations are truly visionary. But the Google brand, as a whole, can be troubling to anyone firmly tied to the idea of ethical business practices. I would best describe the future of Google, in its present underregulated state of monopoly, as uncertain.

In their very short history, Google has been:

The subject of thousands of lawsuits by global entities, countries, companies, and individuals

Hit with billions of dollars in fines.

A cause of employee protest over a very long list of employer projects and practices.

I can’t predict where all this is headed. What I do know is that nearly every local business I’ve ever consulted with has been overwhelmingly reliant on Google for profits. Whether you personally favor strong regulation or not, I recommend that every local business owner and marketer keep apprised of the increasing calls by governing bodies, organizations, and even the company’s own staff to break Google up, tax it, end contracts on the basis of human rights, and prosecute it over privacy, antitrust, and a host of other concerns.

Pick your battles

With Google so deeply embedded in your company’s online visibility, traffic, reputation and transactions, concerns with the brand and products don’t exist in some far-off place; they are right on your own doorstep. Here’s how to fight well:

1. Fight the spam

To face off with Google’s local spam, earn/defend the rankings your business needs, and help clean polluted SERPs up for the communities you serve, here are my best links for you:

Simple Spam Fighting: The Easiest Local Rankings You’ll Ever Earn

GMB Spam Fighting 101 – Get The Basics Down, Then Take Out The Trash

[2019] The Ultimate Guide to Fighting Spam on Google Maps

Fighting Review Spam: The Complete Guide for the Local Enterprise

Follow Mike Blumenthal and Joy Hawkins for frequent reporting on local spam, and keep tuning into the Moz blog.

2. Stay informed

If you’re ready to move beyond your local premises to the larger, ongoing ethical debate surrounding Google, here are my best links for you:

ClassAction.org publishes ongoing articles regarding class action litigation against Google.

@EthicalGooglers on Twitter charts employee/employer conflicts specifically at Google.

The Tech Workers Coalition is a labor organization dedicated to organizing in the tech industry, at large.

If you belong to a local business association like the Buy Local movement, consider starting a discussion about how you community can become more active in shaping policy and reach out to groups like the American Independent Business Alliance for resources.

Whether your degree of engagement goes no further than local business listings or extends to your community, state, nation, or the world, I recommend increased awareness of the whole picture of Google in 2020. Education is power.

Level 3: Flip Google

Image credit: Province of British Columbia

You’ve fed Google. You’ve fought Google. Now, I want you to flip this whole scenario to your advantage.

My 2020 local SEO blueprint has you working hard for every customer you win from the Internet. So far, the ball has been almost entirely in Google’s court, but when all of this effort culminates in a face-to-face meeting with another human being, we are finally at your party under your roof, where you have all the control. This is where you turn Internet-driven customers into in-store keepers.

I encourage you to make 2020 the year you draft a strategy for making a larger portion of your sales as Google-independent as possible, flipping their risky edifice into su casa, built of sturdy bricks like community, pride, service, and loyalty.

How can you do this? Here’s a four-quarter plan you can customize to fit your exact business scenario:

Q1: Listen & learn

Image credit: Chris Kiernan, Small Business Saturday

The foundation of all business success is giving the customer exactly what they want. Hoping and guessing are no substitute for a survey of your actual customers.

If you already have an email database, great. If not, you could start collecting one in Q1 and run your survey at the end of the quarter when you have enough addresses. Alternatively, you could ask each customer if they would kindly take a very short printed survey while you ring up their purchase.

Imagine you’re marketing an independent bookstore. Such a survey might look like this, whittled down to just the data points you most want to gather from customers to make business decisions:

Have pens ready and a drop box for each customer to deposit their card. Make it as convenient and anonymous as possible, for the customer’s comfort.

In this survey and listening phase of the new year, I also recommend that you:

Spend more time as the business owner speaking directly to your customers, really listening to their needs and complaints and then logging them in a spreadsheet. Speak with determination to discover how your business could help each customer more.

Have all phone staff log the questions/requests/complaints they receive.

Have all floor/field staff log the questions/requests/complaints they receive.

Audit your entire online review corpus to identify dominant sentiment, both positive and negative

If the business you’re marketing is large and competitive, now is the time to go in for a full-fledged consumer analysis project with mobile surveys, customer personae, etc.

End of Q1 Goal: Know exactly what customers want so that they’ll come to us for repeat business without any reliance on Google.

Q2: Implement your ready welcome

Image credit: Small Business Week in BC

In this quarter, you’ll implement as many of the requests you’ve gleaned from Q1 as feasible. You’ll have put solutions in place to rectify any complaint themes, and will have upped your game wherever customers have called for it.

In addition to the fine details of your business, large or small, life as a local SEO has taught me that these six elements are basic requirements for local business longevity:

A crystal-clear USP

Consumer-centric policies

Adequate, well-trained, personable staff

An in-demand inventory of products/services

Accessibility for complaint resolution

Cleanliness/orderliness of premises/services

The lack of any of these six essentials results in negative experiences that can either cause the business to shed silent customers in person or erode online reputation to the point that the brand begins to fail.

With the bare minimums of customers’ requirements met, Q2 is where we get to the fun part. This is where you take your basic USP and add your special flourish to it that makes your brand unique, memorable, and desirable within the community you serve.

A short tale of two yarn shops in my neck of the woods: At shop A, the premises are dark and dusty. Customer projects are on display, but aren’t very inspiring. Staff sits at a table knitting, and doesn’t get up when customers enter. At shop B, the lighting and organization are inviting, displayed projects are mouthwatering, and though the staff here also sits at a table knitting, they leap up to meet, guide, and serve. Guess which shop now knows me by name? Guess which shop has staff so friendly that they have lent me their own knitting needles for a tough project? Guess which shop I gave a five-star review to? Guess where I’ve spent more money than I really should?

This quarter, seek vision for what going above-and-beyond would look like to your customers. What would bring them in again and again for years to come? Keep it in mind that computers are machines, but you and your staff are people serving people. Harness human connection.

End of Q2 Goal: Have implemented customers’ basic requests and gone beyond them to provide delightful human experiences Google cannot replicate.

Q3: Participate, educate, appreciate

Now you know your customers, are meeting their specified needs, and doing your best to become one of their favorite businesses. It’s time to walk out your front door into the greater community to see where you can make common cause with a neighborhood, town, or city, as a whole.

2020 is the year you become a joiner. Analyze all of the following sources at a local level:

Print and TV news

School newsletters and papers

Place of worship newsletters and bulletins

Local business organization newsletters

Any form of publication surrounding charity, non-profits, activism, and government

Create a list of the things your community worries about, cares about, and aspires to. For example, a city near me became deeply involved in a battle over putting an industrial plant in a wetland. Another town is fundraising for a no-kill animal shelter and a walk for Alzheimer’s. Another is hosting interfaith dinners between Christians and Muslims.

Pick the efforts that feel best to you and show up, donate, host, speak, sponsor, and support in any way you can. Build real relationships so that the customers coming through your door aren’t just the ones you sell to, but the ones you’ve manned a booth with on the 4th of July, attended a workshop with, or cheered with at their children’s soccer match. This is how community is made.

Once you’re participating in community life, it’s time to educate your customers about how supporting your business makes life better in the place they live (get a bunch of good stats on this here). Take the very best things that you do and promote awareness of them face-to-face with every person you transact with.

For my fictitious bookseller client, just 10 minutes spent on Canva (you have to try Canva!) helped me whip together this free flyer I could give to every customer, highlighting stats about how supporting independent businesses improve communities:

If you’re marketing a larger enterprise, a flyer like this could focus on green practices you’re implementing at scale, philanthropic endeavors, and positive community involvement.

Finally, with the holiday season fast approaching in the coming quarter, this is the time to let customers know how much you appreciate their business. Recently, I wrote about businesses turning kindness into a form of local currency. Brands are out there delivering surprise flowers and birthday cakes to customers, picking them up when they’re stranded on roadsides, washing town signage, and replacing “you will be towed” plaques with ones that read “you’re welcome to park here.” Loyalty programs, coupons, discounts, sales, free events, parties, freebies, and fun are all at your disposal to say “Thank you, please come again!” to your customers.

End of Q3 Goal: Have integrated more deeply into community life, motivated customers to choose our business for aspirational reasons beyond sales, and have offered memorable acts of gratitude for their business, completely independent of Google.

Q4: Share customers and sell

Every year, local consumer surveys indicate that 80–90% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family. But I’ve yet to see a survey poll how much people trust recommendations they receive from trustworthy business owners.

You spent all of Q3 becoming a true ally to your community, getting personally involved in the struggles and dreams of the people you serve. At this point, if you’ve done a good job, the people who make up your brand have come closer to deserving the word “friend” from customers. As we move into Q4, it’s time to deepen alliances — this time with related local businesses.

In the classic movie Miracle on 34th Street, the owners of Macy’s and Gimbel’s begin sending shoppers to one another when either business lacks what the customer wants. They even create catalogues of their competitors’ inventory to assist with these referrals. In Q3, I’m hoping you joined a local business alliance that’s begun to acquaint you with other brands that feature goods/service that relate to yours so that you can begin dedicated outreach.

Q4, with Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, is traditionally the quarter in which local businesses expect to get out of the red, but how many more wedding cakes would you sell if all the caterers in town were referring to you, how many more tires would you vend if the muffler shops sent all their customers your way, how many more therapeutic massages might you book if every holistic medical center in your city confidently gave out your name?

Formalize B2B customer referrals in this quarter in seven easy steps:

Create a spreadsheet headed with your contact information and an itemized list of the main goods, services, and brands you sell. Include specialties of your business. Create additional rows to be filled out with the information of other businesses.

Create a list of every local business that could tie in with yours in any way for a customer’s needs.

Invite the owners or qualified reps of each business on your list to a meeting at a neutral location, like a community center or restaurant.

Bring your spreadsheet to the meeting.

Discuss with your guests how a commitment to sharing customers will benefit all of you

If others commit, have them fill out their column of the spreadsheet. Share print and digital copies with all participants.

Whenever a customer asks for something you don’t offer, refer to the spreadsheet to make a recommendation. Encourage your colleagues to do likewise, and to train staff to use the spreadsheet to increase customer sharing and satisfaction.

Make a copy of my free Local Business Allies spreadsheet!

Q4 Goal: Make this the best final quarter yet by sharing customers with local business allies, decreasing dependence on Google for referrals.

Embrace truth and dare to draw the line

Image credit: TCDavis

House flipping is a runaway phenomenon in the US that has remodeled communities and sparked dozens of hit TV shows. Unfortunately, there’s a downside to the activity, as it can create negative gentrification, making life less good for residents.

You need have no fear of this when you flip Google, because turning their house into yours actually strengthens your real-world neighborhood, town, or city. It gives the residents who already live there more stable resources, more positive human contact, and a more closely knit community.

Truth: Google will remain dominant in the discovery-related phases of your consumers’ journeys for the foreseeable future. For new neighbors and travelers, Google will remain a valuable source of your business being found in the first place. Even if governing bodies break the company up at some point, the truth is that most local businesses need to utilize Google a search utility for discovery.

Dare: Draw a line on the pavement outside your front door this year, with transactional experiences on your side of the line. Google wants to own the transaction phase of your customers’ journey. Bookings, lead gen, local ads, and related features show where they are headed with this. If Google could, I’m sure they’d be glad to take a cut of every sale you make, and you’ll likely have to participate in their transactional aspirations to some degree. But...

In 2020, dare yourself to turn every customer you serve into a keeper, cutting out Google as the middleman wherever you can and building a truly local, regenerative base of loyalty, referrals, and community.

Wishing you a local 2020 of daring vision and self-made success!

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2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google Theo dõi các thông tin khác tại: https://foogleseo.blogspot.com 2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google posted first on https://foogleseo.blogspot.com/ #FoogleSEO #luongthuyvy Nguồn: http://bit.ly/2QOVswR #luongthuyvy

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chauhuongtran · 5 years ago