Local Marketing Benefits of Google Instant on Places

Posted on April 6, 2011

Recently Google announced the addition of Google Instant on Google Places. Google Instant is identified as a ‘search-as-you-type’ feature that delivers results automatically as you type, with no need to hit ‘Enter’ or click the ‘search’ button. As soon as you see what you need predicted in gray text you can stop typing and your search results will be listed below. The purpose of this search feature is to produce relevant search results in faster time. By understanding how the tool works and its goals, business owners can develop a local search engine optimization strategy that takes advantage of the types of search results offered to users.

To access the Places View local search tool, users simply click “Places” in the left-hand panel of Google. Once there, their searches will have place and map results that update as described above (i.e. search-as-you-type). All results are clustered around the location specified, such as New York City. A red pin identifies the location of each business on a map, and is accompanied by relevant information and links from across the web. And results now include 30 or 40 relevant links per page as opposed to the former 10. With all this information conveniently grouped, it is much easier for users to make comparisons as they search.

With this new local search feature, website owners will benefit greatly from a comprehensive local search engine optimization strategy that connects their on-site content with content they present on social media sites, review site, news sites, and other third-party websites. A few things to consider:

Keywords & Phrases: Strategically use your carefully researched and selected keywords and phrases for each type of highly focused content you represent so that more local search results are available. This also helps to develop your online ‘authority score.’
Online Reviews: Provide your customers with links to the various review sites where you are listed and encourage them to share their experiences working with your company.
Press Releases: Compose and post over the wire press releases optimized for the local search terms in your campaign.

The key to benefiting from the local marketing opportunities offered is to look at Google Instant on Places to understanding how it works and what it is trying to achieve. Then do all the things you need to do to help Google fulfill its objective to offer its users a larger selection of qualified, relevant local search results in a faster amount of time. When developing your local optimization strategy, to get the best results take into consideration all of your content, both on-site and off-site, so that you align your efforts across all your indexable local content collateral.

Google Places: Personalization for Local Search

Posted on March 27, 2011

Over the past few months Google announced the addition of several new local and mobile search tools for Google Places that make it easier for users to find local businesses by personalizing their search results. Offering great opportunities for businesses, these features provide tools to customize their Google Places listings to attract their targeted local customers.

The most recent addition is ‘Open Now,’ which allows users to click the link to reveal only the establishments in their vicinity that are open at the hour they are searching. For businesses typically desired outside of the usual 8am to 6pm business hours, such as pizzerias, gas stations, and pharmacies, for example, this feature is particularly helpful. What the new Open Now feature really represents is the move toward making local search personal.

In addition to Open Now, Google Places also allows users to filter local search results by star ratings, a type of online review that indicates how others feel about a particular business, and by distance, indicating how far they are willing to travel to visit the type of business they are searching for. A mobile app already available on Android phones, Hotpot is the latest iPhone app from Google that allows iPhone users to rate a place using their phone to help them remember their experience for future reference.

The point to understand is the general direction local search is moving. The experience for users has to be personal. People want to be able to manage their online experience by specifying items that help to narrow and manage search results.

Get started ASAP in 3 simple steps:

The first thing all business owners need to do is claim their Google Places account.
Next you need understand what is important to your target audience groups as they search.
And lastly, apply what you know about your customers as you use the Google Places tools to provide the right information to attract them.

Don’t underestimate how powerful Local Search has become to-date, or how important it will be to your businesses in the future.

How Google’s Recent Changes Affect Your Business

Posted on March 2, 2011

Google recently announced important updates to its ranking algorithm (nicknamed “Farmer’s Update”) that will likely adversely affect website owners who do not provide users with a high quality and relevant search experience. The company stated:

“Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible.”

Currently released exclusively in the US, the latest Google update impacts 11.8% of user queries. The company stated the update is specifically targeting low-quality sites identified as “low-value add for users, copy content from other websites, or sites that are just not very useful” to reduce their rankings. At the same time, the new algorithm is designed to allow the “cream to rise to the top” as it were, specifically awarding higher rankings to high quality sites with “original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis, and so on.”

As always, if you want to be among the high quality sites rewarded with high rankings, you have to help Google to achieve their goal as stated above as well as support their efforts “to encourage a healthy web ecosystem.” So how do you do that? Here are some considerations:

Conduct comprehensive research to identify the language used by your targeted audience groups to search for what you offer
Conduct market research – send out surveys, study your (Google ;)) Web Analytics, study your inquiry and sales reports, monitor conversations and topics on social media related to your site / industry, monitor the news and trade journals that write about topics of interest to your targeted groups, etc. – to identify the interests of each of your targeted audience groups
Write professional, compelling, search engine optimized webcopy that covers the interests of your targeted audience groups
Include search engine optimized professional images that support your copy and allow users to identify their areas of interest
Create search engine optimized, user-friendly web pages that are designed to accurately represent what you offer as well as your professional image
Create search engine optimized calls-to-action (CTA’s) that guide users seamlessly through the conversion process to complete the action(s) you want them to complete.
Develop a flexible, search engine optimized site architecture that makes it easy for users (and search engine spiders) to visit (and “understand”) every page of your website
Develop search engine optimized off-site content (on websites other than yours such as social media sites or relevant third-party sites like news sites, journals, professional organizations, etc.) that establishes your authority for, and links to, the content represented in your search engine optimized website pages.

Google is working on many more changes that they believe “will substantially improve the quality of the pages” in the engine’s search results.

The key is to optimize for Google and for your targeted audience groups. An intelligent strategy requires the right mix of research, content development, and presentation.

Know who and what you’re targeting and present the highest quality possible to remain competitive. The formula is simple, but is takes discipline and ongoing commitment to be successful.

Danny Sullivan has a great write-up on the topic as well on SearchEngineLand’s site.