25. 2) Citations: the new links Google likes links, its algorithm is weighted toward them as they infer relevance Local is relevant. Get your business listed on Hotfrog, Yell.com, BizWiki, Qype, Freeindex, Thomson Local, Yelp, Bview, UpMyStreet, Trusted Places, Scoot, Tipped, Infoserve, City Visitor, TouchLocal, UFindus and Smile Local. Match up the business details: Address Website Phone number Quick Tip: There are services that’ll add these on-mass for you, but manual submission is always better.
27. 3) It’s who you know You’ve done local via national listings sites, now go truly local: Your town: Chamber of commerce, business networking sites, professional bodies, business listings specific to your town / area Your ‘friends’: What organisations does your business partner with or support locally? Local school, local charities. Your industry: Suppliers’ websites as a ‘Distributor’ Quick Tip: Scan your invoices for companies with websites who might link to you, often gems can be unearthed in the unlikeliest of places.
28. 4) Customers count Quick Tip: Don’t fear negative reviews. Promote this to your best customers, negatives will quickly be drowned out.
29. Customers count So, you have proximity to a searched-for location & you have citations. Seek out customer reviews for your Places page or to complement citations on Qype or Yelp. Respond to positive e-mails thanking them and asking them to post their review or comments on the above sites. Send e-mails a couple of weeks post-transaction asking for feedback.
31. 5) Learn and do it better! Look at your competitors. One of them may be ticking a lot of the digital boxes and doing it well. Learn from it: where are they listed / mentioned. Is there sentiment attached? Crucially, wherever they are, it’s likely to be relevant to your business. Learn from this, do it better than them. Intelligent search marketing is ‘informed search marketing’ Quick Tip: In Google search using: ‘competitor.com -site: competitor.com’ This will return pages mentioning their website from around the web.
37. Mention local reviews to long-standing customers The results are cumulative. Quick Tip: Expect regular change in your rankings, they are dynamic and you won’t always be #1 even when you’re up there.