Local Marketing Online: Part 1: Intro

Posted on April 26, 2011

Local marketing has become one of the most powerful ways to reach and convert customers online. With more than 2.5 billion local searches a month on Google alone, Google has taken notice of this fact and recently initiated a direct marketing campaign in targeted regions throughout the US to promote its local marketing opportunities. The company sent, by FEDEX, to select businesses a white box containing brochures and offers about the benefits of Google Places and the company’s online advertising programs.

Google is smart. They’re taking advantage of the trend and so should you. Why? Because local searches are easier and less costly to convert as prospects are typically further along in the buying cycle. The key is making sure:

You can be easily found by your targeted audience groups
They can trust you because others have said so
You deliver the right message at the right time
They can easily contact you or visit your location
You’re easily identified online as an ‘authority’ for what you offer
You follow up in an appropriate manner with the appropriate communications
You deliver on what you promise, and maybe a little extra!

In this eight part series I will explain the multiple facets of local marketing online and how its various components are now cross-referenced by the search engines to determine an ‘authority score’ which affects web page rankings. This multi-part series will cover:

Web & Map Listings
Google Places
Search & Social Media
City Sites, Reviews & Recommendations
Share Your Content
Email Marketing
Pay Per Click Integration
Mobile Marketing
Optimized Web Design
Tracking & Reporting

Look for Part 2: Web & Map Listings, where you will learn about Google Places, web directories, maps, and the importance of claiming your online listings.

Read the Series:

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.

Social Media Counts Towards SEO

Posted on December 14, 2010

The rapid growth in popularity of social media has caught the attention of the major search engines like Google and Bing. In October 2009, Google Social Search was launched, which delivers results for the terms you searched from within your online social circle. By October, Bing implemented a new feature that delivers ‘Liked by Your Friends’ in Facebook information along with the search results. Many website owners interested in achieving page one rankings in the major search engines for the terms important to them wondered if their popularity on the social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others could or would influence their rankings.

Well as it turns out, it does to some degree. In a recent interview with search engine guru Danny Sullivan, quoted here at seomoz.org, a Bing representative stated the search engine does “look at the Social Authority of a user.

Tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.” Google uses what it terms ‘Author Authority’ for both organic and news rankings. Google also looks to see how many people share a news article, much the same way Twitter ranks the top re-tweeted Tweets and Tweet topics. Google’s Author Authority and Bing’s Social Authority rank content according to their proprietary ‘authority’ scores. Google points out, however, that Author Authority differs from and is separate from PageRank, which impacts where on the search results pages a web page may be listed.

I highly recommend you read the post at seomoz.org for the ideas the author presents. Concerning search engine optimizing the social media content you produce, as always you want to include the keywords around which you are building your authority. You’ll want to keep your titles brief, containing only one or two keywords, so that the search engines can easily find your content.

Build your Followers by providing important content that is interesting to them. Reach out to new Followers both online and offline. Build a community among other “authoritative authors” who also write about the same subjects as you. And by all means, keep your social media sites, as well as your website, updated regularly with fresh, relevant and interesting content that makes readers want to share it with others.

Preparing for the Future of Google Search

Posted on September 14, 2010

In its never-ending quest to provide value to its end-users, Google is always looking for new and improved ways to evaluate relevance. Much has been said about the importance of website content, usability and backlinking. Where will Google turn its attentions to next and how could your search engine optimization initiatives prepare you for that new direction?

Google has resolved the issue of relevance by supplementing it to a degree with what is referred to as “popularity,” but what could also be called ‘authority.’

The great importance Google has placed on quality inbound links, its foray into social networking, and the changes it has made to the newly named local business search tool Google Places, provide insight into the direction the search engine is likely to take in the near future.

In a nutshell, it could be described in the phrase “power to the people.” Using online reviews acquired from various social media and online marketing and advertising sites where consumers are able to post them, such as Google Places, Google may add an element to it ranking algorithm that factors in such reviews. This seems to me like the logical next step. Establishing your website’s authority ( and reputation) in the eyes of the buying public through online reviews and publications needs to be a consideration in organic SEO planning.

The first order of business, especially if you have a “local” brick & Mortar, is to set up a Google Places account and encourage every single one of your customers to submit a review to establish your rating score. Next, use your social media accounts to engage customers in a conversation about your company and what you offer. Open a YouTube channel (yes, Google owns them too) and start placing fun and informative videos there that encourage users to rate them. Pitch a story to an online journalist and try to get them to write about you.

The point is to get others to start talking about you and rating you in a public forum. Consider it a new form of off-page search engine optimization designed to support other off-site and on-site initiatives that increase your popularity and authority in the eyes of Google. By quantifying consumer experiences in this way, Google is able to enhance user satisfaction by delivering relevant results based on input from its users.

I’m really interested in the new directions search is taking. It has made me think hard about how to approach search engine optimization so that given the ever-changing environment there is long-term value that can be counted on, providing on-going return-on-investment and the ability to build on a well-established foundation.