The following presentation entitled "Good Things Come in Small (Business) Packages:Beat Competition Using Local Search Marketing" was given at the Small Business Expo in Los Angeles, CA on November 8th. The presentation includes some general information about local search, statistics and a 6 step blueprint to beat your competition.
12. What is local search marketing?
It’s mobile:
9 out of 10 users take action as a result of mobile internet
search!
77% contact a business when searching
59% will visit a store
58% use phone to look up a business for driving directions
54% will visit your website from local searches
88% will take action within 1 day
Source: Google
13. What is local search marketing?
Over 53% of ALL local searches
are performed on a
mobile device.
Source: Google
21. What is local search marketing?
My definition:
“Any online means of generating more website traffic,
walk-ins, phone calls or other actions to your website or
physical store.”
22. Your 6 Step Blueprint
to beating the competition using local search marketing
23.
24. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Website Tracking
Google Analytics
google.com/analytics
25. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Website Tracking
– Contact Form Goal
26. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Dashboards
Google Places
Bing/Yahoo Local
Directories
Social
Rankings
PPC
Webmaster Tools
27. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Call Tracking – Not Advised
28. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Old School Tracking
29. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
“Half of my [online]
advertising budget is
wasted. The problem
is that I don’t know
which half”
30. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Keyword Research
– Cities (Provo Dentist)
– Zips (Dentist 84065)
– Local Lingo (Utah Valley Dentist)
– Landmarks (Dentist near BYU)
– Free Tool: adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
Create Content!
32. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Companies that blog receive
55% more
website traffic.
Source: Hubspot
33. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Data Publishers
Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)
34.
35. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Claim & Verify Yourself
• Google+ Local • YellowPages
• Bing • Citysearch
• Yahoo! Local • Superpages
• Best of the Web • Foursquare
• Yelp • Yellowbook
Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)
36. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Utilize ALL 5 categories
37. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Publish Your Address
Beware of the Google
Phone Call!
38. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Local Search Ranking Factors – DavidMihm.com
39. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips – What Not To Do
41. Step 3 – Your Website
Make it easy:
60% of SMB’s don’t have a phone number on the
homepage
75% of SMB’s have no email address on their site
66% of SMB’s don’t have a contact form on their site
43. Step 3 – Your Website
Specific to Local Search:
Venice Update – Local Content
“Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch
codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the
triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the
ranking of our main search results as a signal.
"Improved local results. We launched a new system to find
results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able
to detect when both queries and documents are local to the
user."
46. Step 3 – Your Website
Local Landing Pages
http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/firm/Divorce/Las-Vegas/Nevada
47. Step 3 – Your Website
Local Schema
Structured Markup, Crawlable N.A.P.
Free tools:
Schema-Creator.org
Microformats.org
48. Step 3 – Your Website
KML File / GEO Sitemap
Tells search engines exact address of your company
Free tool:
http://www.geositemapgenerator.com/
49. Step 4 – Business Citations
Name
Address
Phone #
50.
51.
52. Step 4 – Business Citations
Industry/GEO Specific
• Avvo – Legal/Health
• FindLaw - Legal
• Health Grades – Health
• Directories for every
industry
• Local directories / media
Also drives traffic, calls, customers.
53. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Whitespark Local Citation Finder
https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/
54. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Best Citation Sources by City
http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx
55. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Best Citation Sources by Category
http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx
56. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Unstructured Citations
– Blogs
– Forums
– Partners Sites / Related
Businesses
– Look for Link Building +
Citation Opportunities
57. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Create a Review Strategy: Strategy Tactics
“Ask for reviews” alone isn’t a strategy Planning Doing
Fake reviews DEFINITELY isn’t a strategy
Set review outreach goals Large Scale Smaller Scale
Why How
Difficult to Copy Easy to Copy
Long Time Frame Short Time Frame
58. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Strategy Tactics Goal
•Contact known raving fans via phone
Get reviews •Research Facebook fans and reach out 10 reviews per
from our raving fans •Look through existing reviews and reach out to happy month
customers and ask for a review on another site.
•Install in-store kiosk for customer use
Get reviews from in-store 5 reviews per
•Add “review us” verbiage to receipts
visits month
•Start collecting emails in-store for email blasts
Address all bad
•Prioritize list of most harmful reviews
Manage reputation issues reviews within 1
•Respond to each negative review personally
of current reviews week of being
•Contact bad reviews within 2 business days
posted.
•Prioritize list of vendors/partners by relationship
2 reviews per
Vendor & Partner Reviews •Provide detail on how to review us on various portals
month
•Reciprocate reviews within 5 business days
59. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Reviews Help You Rank & Convert
70% of online users trust consumer opinions posted online
Consumer recommendations and opinions are the most trusted source of
product info
61% of people rely on user reviews for product information before a buying
decision is made.
63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it
has ratings and reviews
2 Parts to “getting your site right”First – conversion Second – search engine optimization
MIT/Inside Sales study – 100x less likely to get in contact w/ a lead between 5 minutes and 30. Especially true for many industries of SMB – emergency services, taxis, etc.43% of businesses in the study never even responded.Study showed that for web submitted inquires, 78% of sales go to the first company to respond.SMB’s need to have a solution for immediate response – web or phone – call center service, web form to phone app, etc.
Beyond conversion – site optimization options specific to local search
Location in URL, heading tags, unique content, title & meta tags, backlinks
What is a citation?
Users now have to login to Google+ to leave reviews SpamPower Users/Author Rank