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5 Ways to Improve Local Search Results for Business
Nov 17th
5 Ways to Improve Local Search Results for Business
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
“This article originally appeared on the OPEN App Center. Visit www.theopenappcenter.com for more information and resources for streamlining and growing your business.”
Increasingly, when folks turn to a search engine, they aren’t looking for something around the world, they’re looking for something around the block. The good news for local businesses is they aren’t just looking; they’re jumping in the car, going out and buying what they find when they search.
Make it a priority to improve search results for your business, because this new way of finding and buying locally means that your business better show up in the top results when people turn to a search engine to shop locally.
Below are five local search engine optimization and search engine marketing plays that you can do today to improve your chances of coming up big in the local search game.
Be Geographically Complete.
Search engines want to return the best local search results, so make sure you have lots of local markers on your pages and pointing to your pages. Things like addresses, city names, suburb names, neighborhood names, zip codes, area codes, maps and directions are all markers that say your business is local. Sprinkle this kind of data liberally throughout your site and make sure you use city names in high priority text such as internal links and headlines.
You should also have geographic links pointing to your business. You can do this by adding local links and descriptions that point to your site in social media profiles and exchanging links with other local businesses and strategic partners.
Lastly, make sure the location data in the primary directory and data service providers is accurate and complete. Two of the best ways to accomplish this little technical piece is to visit GetListed.org or use the annual listing service of UBL.org
Be a Community Resource.
Another powerful way to improve local search results and amplify your local search opportunities is to create content that is related to your community, regardless of whether it directly relates to your products or services.
A great example of this might include coverage of local sporting events or festivals. A B2B example might include maintaining a calendar of networking events or business related seminars.
Using a little RSS magic and a bookmarking tool like Delicious, you could even automate the aggregation of news and other related content for neighborhoods with very little work.
The net effect is that you’ll improve local search results by creating content that offers value to local readers and this is just the kind of information the search engines value the most.
Create Neighborhood Pages.
If you serve a number of communities in a large metropolitan area, it’s probably a good idea to add suburb- or neighborhood-specific pages with extra information personalized to that part of town.
Some of your information on these pages might be identical, but try to make them as unique as you can so that the search engines see them as different pages or you won’t get them seen. You should add unique images with local descriptions, unique geographic terms and neighborhood descriptions or news.
You can also use these pages as landing pages for offline ads as well. If you want to promote your business in a suburban newspaper, for example, you can send readers to the unique page you’ve created for that suburb and create a more personalized experience.
Encourage Ratings and Reviews.
The local search directories created by Google, Bing and Yahoo play a large role in the local search results. If Google, for example, is convinced someone has a local intent in their search, either based on physical location or a geographic term in the actual search, they will return results of local Google Places pages.
It’s critical that your business claims and enhances its Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local pages, but you must also start to proactively build reviews from happy customers on these pages as these reviews are a key contributor to a business showing up high in the local results.
Simply asking for reviews and pointing people to your Google Places page is a good way to start the review ball rolling
Take Advantage of Local Real Estate.
The final local search suggestion involves placing videos, images, and slides in a number of sharing sites such as YouTube, Picasa, Slideshare or Flickr. These free sites allow you upload videos and other assets. You can use these sites to host and stream your videos on your own site, but you can also use the fact that many people search these sites to draw local search traffic.
When you upload your files to these sites make sure you give the file local names, tag them with local terms and describe the content of the file with rich local descriptions. Most of these sites also allow you to geotag where the video or image was shot.
The various tactics to improve search results described above may seem like little things taken individually, but collectively they can add up to big results in the increasingly competitive local search engine game.
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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Nov 9th
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Why My Search Engine Use Is Dwindling and Why Yours Will Too
Oct 31st
Why My Search Engine Use Is Dwindling and Why Yours Will Too
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Some days I pretty much live online. When I have a question, need a phone number, am bored, I go online to find what I need. Online behavior has supplanted many things that simply used to be.
I no longer have a use for phone directories, or for that matter phones, and my online content consumption has done away with my need for a newspaper and television.
Recently, however, I’ve noticed a shift in one very specific aspect of my online behavior, one that will have growing significance for marketers, and that’s in the area of search. Was a time when I would conduct dozens, sometimes hundreds, of searches using my search engine of choice. (I’ve been at this a while so for now it’s Google, but there was a time when a tool called AltaVista rocked the house.)
My use of search engine technology is slowly being replaced by the use of apps that provide me with answers relevant to my personal needs. My guess is that while you may not have taken note, you’re doing less and less in search engines and more and more in answer engines.
This trend highlights the marketers need to go beyond SEO and PPC and move even deeper into the worlds of social networks, mobile marketing and app based local marketplaces.
Apps inside social networks are providing answers. Apps inside social bookmark sites are providing interesting reading. Apps in content curation tools like Storify are providing relevant context for content. Apps on mobile devices, such as Yelp’s, are helping you find bars and restaurants. Apps using QR readers are helping you find deeper information on companies and products. Apps are providing you with sports scores, movie times, videos and images.
One of the elements of the new iPhone 4S that is getting a great deal of buzz is the Siri app. This app, billed as your personal assistant, is a potential game changer. A great deal of the buzz is still over the coolness factor and all the things it can do for you, but I think the real issue is what it doesn’t do for you – it doesn’t give you search engine results.
Think about how the world of search changes if Siri and the third party tools that one hopes Apple and other innovators create becomes habit. Right now the Siri app gives you answers that are personalized for you without giving you thousands of search results. If Siri gets very good at this kind of thing, people may ditch search engines for all but pure and competitive research.
Since Google’s primary revenue engine feeds on advertising in search, the trend of moving to apps that bypass Google altogether is a tremendous threat and I think it’s safe to say you can look for this kind of answer engine technology on a host of Android phones in the near future.
So, what about you, think about it a minute, are you moving your search behavior to apps? What does this mean for your business? What does this trend suggest for you in 2012?
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
Interview: Mike Blumenthal Talks Search, Local University
Sep 29th
Whether we’re talking about the SoLoMo revolution, how consumers find local information or how to avoid bad reviews, one thing is clear – it’s getting more difficult to be a small business owner. Luckily, there are resources out there to help. In my opinion, among the greatest opportunities for SMBs are the Local University events that take place around the country and provide tactical, sales-free advice.
To learn a little bit more about the events, I recently conducted a short email interview with local search expert Mike Blumenthal to talk to him about why SMBs need to develop a Web presence, how they can compete in local search, and why an event like Local University may be just their ticket to attracting new customers.
You’ll find my interview with Mike below.
Mike, can you tell SmallBizTrends readers a little bit about the Local University events that are held throughout the country? What is the goal of these shows and what does a typical agenda look like?
A number of folks in the local search space (David Mihm, Mary Bowling, Matt McGee and I) wanted to create a training session that would travel to cities not typically served by the current search conference circuit. We wanted to provide training that was readily affordable for small businesses and to offer them a comprehensive view of local search marketing that wasn’t predicated on selling them something.
Most big search marketing events are either too far away or too expensive and do not attract small business owners. We felt that SMBs were the ones that most needed to hear about the online opportunities in local search, so we are taking the event to them.
The course provides an overview of the full gamut of local online marketing options. We will be covering the basics of website optimization, social marketing, local search and analytics. We offer tactical advice as to what to do and how to do it. There is information as to how to do it yourself or hire a professional. We provide SMBs with a framework for when to take each step and we show them free or very cheap tools that will make their jobs easier.
That’s awesome! One of the next Local University events will be held in Western New York, where Google has stepped in to not only make an appearance, but to offer 25 free seminar tickets to local college students. Do you think their presence is a testament to how important it is for SMBs to educate themselves about local search?
We are really excited to have Google both presenting and helping to sponsor the event. Google clearly recognizes the need for small business education and they are actively starting to reach out to small businesses with their own seminar series. Getlisted targets a slightly different audience and content, and having Google’s help in reaching these SMBs is a real asset. It really demonstrates Google’s commitment to the market segment and the need for education.
Their sponsorship has allowed us to provide other “scholarships” to area college students in related fields. This is the first time we are able to do so and we are hoping that exposing students to these ideas earlier in their education will change how they look at the online opportunities and online marketing.
There’s so much for a small business owner to be concerned with these days – from best practices in SEO to social media to mobile. How does attending an event like Local University help them stay on top of everything and compete? Is it possible for a SMB to do everything they need to in order to be competitive?
Clearly there are many elements to online marketing and it is not possible for an SMB to do “everything” in that arena. But our goal at Getlisted is to help them understand the context of online marketing, help them assess where they stand in that matrix of choices, and help them understand which ones are a good fit for their business.
Most significantly we help them understand that what is important is taking the next step in marketing their business online, not trying to take every step. If they have a website, then perhaps they need to look at SEO and local search. If they have their local search elements in place, perhaps they need to look at a review management process. If that is under control, perhaps they are ready to move onto blogging or social media.
Getlisted tries to provide an overview of best practices so that the SMB can decide what has to be done to get to the next level in this brave new world of online marketing. Our goal is to educate, inform and provide an understandable framework for each business to develop their own plan for success.
What would you say to a small business owner who thinks he or she doesn’t need the Web or that it’s not worth their time to develop a presence online?
If small business doesn’t need new customers and they are currently doing no marketing then maybe a website isn’t needed. To all the rest I would say: Get over it.
Besides your business name and phone number, your website is a key building block of trust and prominence in local online marketing. If a small business wants to be found by new customers and if they want to convey their message in a controlled and long-term way, then it is past time for them to build a website.
For SMBs just now beginning to develop their online presence – what’s most important? Where should they start to help market their business online?
You have to walk before you can run. From a strategic viewpoint, understanding what your business does and who your customer is is the first step. You need to make sure you have consistency in your presence: one name, one phone number and a consistent image.
Before you get involved with Facebook or Twitter, build a great website based on a simple content management system on your own domain. Be sure that it actually answers your customers’ questions. Realize that Facebook, like MySpace, can go the way of the Edsel in very short order, but your website can stay with you forever.
If your website uses an easy-to-use content management system like WordPress, it will allow you to quickly and easily keep the site up to date and fresh. From there the likely next step before “going social” is doing what is necessary to make your business prominent in Google Places and the blended Google results. There are very few online marketing options that can put more customers in your reach more quickly and inexpensively.
How can readers find out more about the Western New York Local University event or future events that may be happening in their area? Is there a way to request that Local University visit their home town?
They can learn about the Western New York event at Getlisted.org/wny.
For more information about the event in general and other upcoming venues, visit getlisted.org/university. You can also email us with questions at localu@getlisted.org.
We are always looking for towns that want us to come. Everyone should feel free to get in touch with us to express their interest.
We have learned that we are most successful in locales where a strong local marketing firm partners with the local Chambers to promote the event. Because the event is a non-selling event, we have found that the local marketing firms provides the SMBs in attendance access to professional advice once we have left, and partnering with the Chambers clearly communicates the message that the event is purely educational. It’s been a great combination.
Fantastic, Mike! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge with the SmallBizTrends community!
Interview: Mike Blumenthal Talks Search, Local University
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Lousy tomatoes and the rare search for wonder
Sep 17th
My local supermarket stocks waxy, tasteless tomatoes from Chile and Mexico and Florida. They even do this in early September, when local tomatoes are delicious, plentiful and ought to be a bargain.
Are they clueless, evil or incompetent?
Perhaps none of these. This supermarket, like most supermarkets, is a checklist institution, one that is in the business of providing good enough, in quantity, at a price that’s both cheap and profitable. You need a staple, they have it. They have flour and salt and eggs and macaroni and cheese. They’ve trained their customers to see them as an invisible vendor, as an organization that satisfices demand. It’s too much work, too demanding and too risky to do the alternative…
They could program the store instead.
Program it the way a great theater programs the stage. No one goes to the theatre two or three times a week, expecting a good enough show. No, we only go when we hear there’s something magical or terrific happening.
Over time, as institutions create habits and earn subscribers, they often switch, gradually making the move from magical (worth a trip, worth a conversation) to good (there when you need it). Most TV is just good. Magazines, too. When was the last time People magazine did something that made you sit up and say, “wow”? Of course, you could argue that they’re not in the wow business, and you might be right.
One of the disrupting forces of the new media is that it makes harder and harder to succeed without wow. Since you have to earn the conversation regularly, phone it in too often and in fact, attention disappears.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
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Google Plus Starting to Impact Search
Jul 29th
Google Plus Starting to Impact Search
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
The link between Google Plus and the impact it will have on search results is one that many people are watching closely. Google Plus is taking hold and Google’s search product is a big benefactor as millions of motivated folks are +1ing, sharing and commenting on great content they create and find.
The content creation and curation going inside of Google Plus is one of the best reasons to participate, it’s also given Google an army of content consumers to help them hand select content.
The results of some of this work are staring to show up in search. Google Plus users that are logged into their Google account while conducting searches will start to see search results from people they are connected with in Google Plus. Search while logged out and you won’t see the shared by connections link and the search results will be altered somewhat.
Google Plus connections are highlighted and search results altered
This isn’t really news as Google has been trying to bring social search to life for some time and shows what they think are more relevant results when you are logged in.
The difference here though is that while social search results have been around, they’ve been limited to the perhaps few dozen people you were connected with through GMail or GTalk. With Google Plus people are connecting with thousands of people already and this is changing the search experience in more noticeable ways.
So, as a content consumer, your results may differ – for good or bad – I for one don’t like the altered search results, but some may prefer them.
But, the real question is – as a content producer does a high level of participation in Google Plus give your content a better chance of ranking well in Google? For now I think the short answer is sort of. If you have lots of connections in Google Plus and share and +1 lots of content, including your own, then some of that content will start to rise higher for searches done by your connections.
As spammers send bots into Google Plus to create large connection networks this will certainly be something Google will have to evolve.
Having said that here are three recommendations I stand by:
Get into Google Plus and build a following – it’s a better tool for business networking, content discovery and content sharing than any other network currently.
Add the +1 button to your content – the +1 button is integrated into Google Plus, but it’s also a part of the overall content discovery piece in Google search and needs to go along side your Like and InShare buttons on y0ur own blog and web pages. – I wrote a How To Add +1 Tutorial here.
Example of author highlighting in Google search
Add the rel=”author” attribute to your content – Google is attempting to find another, better way to attribute original content to the original author. They have introduced a highlighting feature that will showcase Google Profile of original authors like in the image above. You need to add the rel=author attribute to your content links, point that attribute to an About Us kind of page on the same domain and have a link on that page pointing to your Google Profile page and a link on your Google Profile page should point back to your About Us page. Yoast does a great job explaining this with this tutorial for WordPress folks here
View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
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