Archive for local search marketing
Creating a Powerful Local Business Search Listing
Posted by: | CommentsThis is the second in a series of five articles on success factors for local search. In the first article we focused on your companion web site. As we mentioned it generates about 15% of the success in a local search. Again, drawing from David Mihm’s research, we find that 40% of the success of a well ranked local search comes from the completeness and optimization of your local business listing. This hardly comes as a surprise!
Carefully crafting your local business listing should be done only after spending time on some basic keyword research. If you don’t know what you potential clients and customers are searching on to find you you could waste your efforts. Be sure to understand the following:
- What cities you wish to primarily rank for.
- What product or service description you wish to primarily rank for.
Once this is complete perform some basic keyword research to see if your assumptions were accurate. On the home page of this site are a number of keyword research tools. Spend a little time and see how you did. Once this is done use your product and service names and your location names to craft your local business listing.
The following are some key factors in the success of your local business listing and how well it will rank for your selected keywords. It should be noted that some of these suggestions will not always be attainable. I’ll note that as we proceed through each one.
- Claiming Your Local Business Listing- Frankly, this is the most important action to take of all. If you don;t own your listing then you can not do any of the other actions recommended here. Worse, you are vulnerable to having your listing hijacked. Claim your listing today!
- Local Business Listing Address in City Searched- This is one area where you can not always have control. It’s a big benefit to be in the city where you want to be found. However, that’s not always possible. See my post on location related issues for more detail.
- Use of Effective Local Business Listing Categories- Google offers the greatest flexibility here. Use your main and secondary product, service and location keywords here. Categories seem to be a powerful tool in the search opportunities. You can create up to five in Google, just don’t keyword spam. In Yahoo and Bing you have to use their categories and my observation is they are pretty minimal in effectiveness and variety.
- Product or Service Local Business Listing Title- This is a key element to creating your local business listing. Use your business name, one or two product or service keywords and one or two location keywords to create a smooth sounding business title. This is a key element of search success.
- Nearness to City Center- Much like having your address in the city where you want to be found there is not much you can do here in many instances. Review my post on location for more information.
- Product or Service in Local Business Listing Custom Fields- Custom fields are different from categories. They offer wealth of opportunity. Add the following:
- Specialties- Another recitation of your product and keyword specialties.
- When founded
- Certifications
- Brands carried
- Special equipment used
- Other keywords people may search on (very applicable in niche industries)
- Local Business Listing with Local Area Code- In most large cities this is not a big deal. In the greater Seattle area we have three area codes. Seattle is 206, Bellevue 425 and Tacoma 253. It’s not a big deal if they don’t “match up”. However, if you are in Seattle and your listing uses a Jacksonville area code that is likely a bit of an issue. If you don’t have a local phone number get a Skype number and forward it to your phone.
- Local Business Listing Images and Videos- Images and videos add a great element of appeal and information to your listing. Until recently every listing for a “Bellevue art gallery” did not have an image. That’s crazy, they sell art! Yet, carpet cleaners did have pictures. Use you logo, pictures of your building or product. In Google you can have up to ten, and three videos. Keep your videos short, maybe 30 seconds. Post them to YouTube and link them to your local business listing.
- Offering a Coupon- In Google you can add a coupon. They appear to help slightly in boosting your search ranking. A new feature has added a link to your coupon, which will show up when someone searches on “location and product keyword coupon”. It’s an added bonus for search and potential customer’s love a deal. See more in our post on coupons.
Each element of your listing adds to the overall performance of your listing in a local search. Hit all the bases and you’ll be sure to have a home run.
Stay tuned for more in this five part series.
Enhance Your Website for Local Search Success
Posted by: | CommentsWhile you don’t need a website to have a local search listing it sure helps. Nothing fancy mind you, a short WordPress blog or a couple page “brochure” site. Potential customers expect it now and the cost of entry and maintenance is so low it’s absurd to say no. Your web site will also help your local business listing ranking. Not by a lot, but as always when it comes to optimization on the web every little bit helps. According to David Mihm, an expert on local search in Portland OR about 15% of the success of a local search listing can be credited to your own website. So while you can get ranked well without a site that extra 15% will be very helpful. If your niche is fairly competitive then you’ll definitely want to consider the tweaks to your site (or having one).
Some areas to consider improving on your site listed below. You will notice right off the bat the nearly common sense nature of these suggestions. Use the product or service and city name you want to rank for frequently. As Homer Simpson might say, Doh!
As an added bonus the work you do on your website to help strengthen your local search listing will help your site rank well in organic search. In fact, in smaller niches it is quite possible to rank at the top of local search as well as in organic search. A double bonus to be sure.
- Full Address and Phone Number on a Contact Page- Every site should have a contact page. On the contact page be sure your contact information matches your local business listing.
- Inclusion of City and State in Title Tags- The meta title tags on a web page still remain an important element of on page optimization factors for the page. Having your city and state name match that of what you want to rank well for in local search can help. If you want to rank for “chicago CPA” then have Chicago in your title tags. I use these city and state contact tags on all of my pages, at the minimum have them on your contact page.
- Product Service Keywords in Titles- That same “Chicago CPA” ought to have the term CPA in his titles (and other meta tags such as description and keyword) to ensure strengthening his own site’s SEO value.
- Location Keywords in URL- If you are are creating a new domain name (URL) for a business then be sure to utilize your product or service and your location. A domain such as www.chicagocpa.com is very helpful in both site SEO and your local search listing. If you already have a domain name then add folder names with your information. As an example www.hastingsaccounting.com could have a contact page call www.hastingsaccounting.com/contactchicagocpa.html.
This is one of five articles covering the key factors in creating an effective local business listing for Google, Yahoo and Bing. Stay tuned for all of them.
Local Search Strategies That Pay Off
Posted by: | CommentsAre you a mom and pop business whose customers are local? Are you a Seattle-based or Peoria-based restaurant or florist or trinket shoppe who offers online ordering that only ships within the US? Then it does not make sense for you to pay for pay-per-click (PPC) ad that are seen on the other side of the globe! So don’t get taken in by the smooth SEO firms that tell you that you “must be number one in natural search results for “online trinket store.” If your target market is locally focused, then you need to use local search strategies and natural search engine optimization. Don’t waste your marketing dollars on expensive ad campaigns that won’t work best for your small to mid-sized local business.
Should you totally ignore PPC for local marketing? Yes, and No…a PPC campaign, if hyper-focused can reach a highly targeted audience. You can create PPC ads that appear only in searches for specific zip codes, cities or gegraphically targeted areas. This is done by using highly targeted geographic keywords or phrases and parameters in the AdWords campaign setup. The best part of using these geo-specific keyword phrases is that they are lower priced and have less competition.
Using geo-specific keyword keeps you ads super focused on a particular region or area. It restricts your ads to specific consumers who can visit you on and off line (in your brick and mortar location).
When you use a geo-targeted keyword in a search on Google ( for example “ship fresh salmon seattle”), Google returns either a display of either a listing of results first in a pink box (paid listing) with a second column on the far right of additional paid listings:
or a map of often 3-10 local results for a local search. If you optimize your listing for local search you can often gain one of those top positions for your business and never have to spend a dime on pay per click campaigns:
Paid Positions
Using inexpensive local search techniques one can appear at the top of the map and not pay for the more expensive pay per click ads. It is easy and inexpensive (as in FREE) to implement.
Free Positions
First you must create a Google Gmail account and then add your Local Business Listing. These local listings are incredibly powerful as they appear at the top of the Google search results for most keyword searches with a geo-targeted keyword. If you optimize your site for keywords that are highly targeted and geographically oriented, you can rank highly and beat out your competitors inexpensively on search engines.
If you have questions on how to get started with your local search business listing, Get Found Now -Local Search Secrets Exposed is an easy to use valuable resource to help you step by step with the process.
Do’s and Don’ts of An Effective Local Search Listing
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s tempting to create a keyword laden local business listing stuffed with product names, locations and other juicy search terms. However, just like on your website the search engines frown on this sort of spamming and will penalize your listing.
Check out these suggestions and guidelines to ensure you both maximize your local business listing while keep in it nice and clean for the search engines.
- Represent your business exactly as it appears in the off-line world. The name on Google Maps (or the other search engines) should match the business name, as should the address, phone number and website URL.
- Use the description and custom attribute fields to provide more information about your company or business listing. This descriptive content should not appear in your business title, address or category fields.
- Provide information that best identifies your individual locations and provides users with the most direct path to your business. For example, you should provide individual location phone numbers in place of central phone lines and the precise address for the business in place of broad city names or cross-streets. Trying to game the system by dragging your map pin around will not work either.
- Only enter listings for businesses that you own or are explicitly authorized to represent. Hijacking is becoming more prevalent so please keep your hands off the competition’s listing!
- Create only a single for each physical location of your business. Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts. Service area businesses, for example, should not create a listing for every town they service. Likewise, law firms or doctors should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties. However, if you do have multiple physical locations be sure to put the effort into customizing each location. Don’t just repeat each listing, make it unique for the location and speciality represented.
- Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords into the title field, and do not include phone numbers or URLs in the title along with your proper business name.
- When entering categories, use only those that directly describe your business. Do not submit related categories that do not define your business. For example, a limo company might properly categorize itself as “Airport Transportation”, but it would be not be appropriate to also use the category “Airport” by itself. Use each category field to enter a single category. Do not list multiple categories or keywords in one field. Categories are to place your business in the right bucket, not a keyword list field.
- Provide the one domain name that belongs to your business both in terms of the landing page and the displayed URL. Pages that redirect to another domain, or act as “click through” sites may lead to penalization. If you want to create more focused domain names for a specialty or location use a sub-domain or folder.
Spending time creating an effective local business listing that is accurate and appropriately reflects your business and products will not only please the search engines but create confidence in potential customers or clients.
Seven Steps to Local Search Success
Posted by: | CommentsAs a small business in a lackluster economy, making the most of your marketing dollars is critical to your bottom line. Using a local search engine, you can target customers in a particular region while maximizing your marketing investment. Local search is more targeted and less expensive than other forms of online and offline advertising, which can translate into more leads and customers for less money. In addition to offering inexpensive, relevant advertising dynamics, local search also provides an audit trail to measure results, and other opportunities to increase revenue. As a result, it has enjoyed steady, annual growth and is proving to be a solid marketing tool for growing small businesses. Here’s what you’ll need to know to get started on the road to local search success.
STEP 1: DEFINE YOUR ONLINE GOALS.
Before you begin, determine what you want to accomplish when you go online. Are you looking to garner name or brand recognition for your company? Do you want to grow your business or be found by your customers? Once you’ve defined your online goals, stick to them and keep them as simple as possible.
STEP 2: DEVELOP YOUR PROFILE PAGE.
Think about how you want to describe your business and then use this information to develop your online profile page and advertise your business. What do you want future customers to know about your products and services? How are they better than the competition? Determine the methods of payment, driving directions, maps, product photos and other content. To leverage your efforts, you can also embed your category and keywords into product and service descriptions. Adding this specific information about your business will help you reach potential customers, and improve rankings on the major search engines.
STEP 3: DETERMINE YOUR TARGET CUSTOMERS AND REGIONAL REACH.
Think about who you want to purchase your products or services and what geographical regions you want to serve. Numerous reports cite 80 percent of a person’s income is spent within 20 miles of their home. So there is a good opportunity to reach exactly who you want using the right local search strategy. If possible, consider using market research that supports your industry or have your employees ask their customers how they found your business. Was it an ad or other placement that prompted them to take action?
STEP 4: SELECT THE RIGHT TARGETED CATEGORIES, KEYWORDS AND SEARCH PHRASES.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes when promoting your business. Where would you look for your type of company online? In what category and section of the directories should your business be listed? Think about what keywords you would type into a search engine to find your business. According to The Kelsey Group, 61 million local search inquiries are conducted online every day. This means your business listing needs to be optimized to appear on the first page of results in your region and categories.
STEP 5: BROADCAST YOUR COMPANY’S PROFILE PAGE TO THE WORLD.
With everything in place, it’s time to let the world know about your company using multiple platforms, including top-tier search engines. Not every directory has your business information, so be sure to submit to multiple online directories. Also, keep in mind that, according to a 2007 TMP Directional Media survey, 82 percent of online local searchers contacted a business offline and 61 percent of those people made purchases. Therefore, make sure you have as much relevant information on your profile page as possible. The more unique your content, the more opportunities you will have to both improve your presence online and be found by all of the search engines.
STEP 6: DEVELOP A PROGRAM TO SECURE CUSTOMER REVIEWS.
When a customer finds you, they will also find your competitors. Positive reviews that validate your company will help persuade them to choose your offerings over the competition. According to Jupiter Research, 77 percent of online shoppers use ratings and reviews when making a purchase. Develop a customer review program by reaching out to satisfied customers and asking them to rate your business or write a review. Also consider providing incentives to your employees who solicit reviews from customers and offer discount coupons to potential reviewers. You can also promote your reviews program on customer bills, your website or even your business card.
STEP 7: TRACK YOUR LEADS.
To measure the results of your local search campaign, you’ll need to track your leads. You can do this by using call-tracking phone numbers, which will tell you how many potential customers picked up the phone and contacted you; profile page clicks; page views on your site; or impressions to the SERP page. The goal is to track how many times people clicked on your ad (clickthrough rate) or were able to see it online (impressions). If you have many impressions but few clicks, you will need to make some changes to your strategy.
MULTI-OFFICE ORGANIZATIONS
If you have more than one location, be sure to promote your business in each of these areas. Don’t assume that if you have one location listed they will be able to find all of your locations. They may see a location that isn’t near them and move on to the next business listed, likely your competition.
Local search is an effective way to market your local business, especially if you have limited marketing dollars. The low-cost entry point, tracking capabilities and solid ROI have made it a popular marketing tool for businesses that want to costeffectively target customers in a specific region. There are many opportunities that can help deliver local customers to your website and through your front door.
About the Author: Jennifer Black is vice president of marketing for Local.com, a leading U.S. local search site and network attracting approximately 19 million visitors each month seeking information on local businesses, products and services. For information call 
888-857-6734
or visit local.com.
Posted on Website Magazine. This magazine is a great tool for any webmaster, the articles are not too technical and there are great columnists.
