Last month we highlighted how Local Search has become SEO for many businesses and industries where the search engines have deemed specific keyphrases used by the person conducting an online search as having “local intent”. In this blog post we will highlight some of the more effective strategies that influence users to contact a business because of the Local Search conversion optimization that the business has done in Google, Yahoo or Bing.

How People are Using Search Engines to Search for Local Businesses

Most people use a search engine to research local providers of a product or service even if the transaction will be done in the store or local place of business.

Local accounts in Google, Yahoo and Bing typically have the correct business name address and telephone number listed if the account listing has been verified by the business owner. I am always amazed however at the number of business listings that are still not claimed or verified by the business owners.  While it is now well known how poorly Google has been keeping up with business owners’ requests to correct their business information, many business owners are simply unaware that they have a Local listing online in the search engines.

While it is critically important that the basic information in the Local listing is correct, there are other optional informational components that should be added to your Local listing that have a significant influence on the searcher to encourage them to contact your business. Even if this additional information is on your company website, it still needs to be placed on the Local listing as well because the searcher may not go to your company website to get key information on your company. They will simply look at your Local listing in the search results as well as the Local listings of all your competitors in the same search results. A lot of information can be contained within the Local listing. 

How US Marketers are Optimizing Their Local Listing

A MarketingSherpa survey in April 2011 found the following tactics used by U.S. Marketers in their Local listing:

 

As you can see, more than half of all businesses are missing opportunities to add more information to their Local listing. Some of the key “missed opportunities” that may prevent your target market from contacting you from your Local listing include not using images and coupons. Images can have a significant impact on conversion rates (percentage of people contacting you or coming into your place of business).

According to BrightLocal, 37% of U.S. Google searchers looking for a local business reportedly give companies more attention or consideration when their search listings contain business images or a company logo. It was determined that 23% were more likely to contact a business when presented with such images.

 

Coupons and other incentives also have a significant impact on conversion rates. While not every local business offers incentives, it is expected in certain markets such as restaurants, retailers, hospitality and entertainment.

 

All businesses should set up and optimize their Local listing account. The search engines are dominating the market that people are using to find who they want to do business with in the near future. Those who move quickly to optimize their Local search engine accounts will generate the most qualified leads and sales.

Contact Xcellimark for help in getting your Local listing account optimized for conversions.

I remember speaking several years back to a group of business owners about the growing importance of initiating a Local Search campaign for their businesses. Google had launched MAPS. Yahoo had their own version of Yahoo Local and both made no secret they wanted to take over the Yellow Pages market. At the time, Google had reportedly determined that 30% of all online searches were of “local intent,” meaning people were using search engines to find a local provider of products and services by using a location-related phrase in their search string.

Fast Forward to 2010

Google, Yahoo and Bing significantly enhanced their local search offering. Google MAPS evolved into Google Places with the ability to add a significant amount of information in your Places page. Google was also importing reviews throughout the web to the Places page.

In addition, Google announced that 70% of all searches have “local intent".  They even implemented an algorithm change that incorporated local Places pages into the top portion of the organic search results.

This has had a huge impact on search rankings, website traffic results and the resulting business growth for those businesses who have implemented an effective Local Search campaign.

2011 Brings Even More Changes

Now in 2011 Local Account Listings are dominating the organic SEO search results throughout almost all industries. You can add images, videos, and coupons in addition to a significant amount of textual content.

comScore and the Local Search Association released a study that clearly demonstrates how online search portals such as Google, Yahoo and Bing are now used by U.S. Internet users 74% of the time when looking for a local business. Internet Yellow Pages are used 7% of the time. It appears that the game is over for the Yellow Pages companies.

 

 

What About Traditional SEO?

What I find surprising is that so many businesses are still trying to do traditional SEO without incorporating an effective Local Search strategy. Let me be clear – SEO has become Local Search for many industries and businesses. Of course it is dependent upon the keyphrases being used so you may find that the search engines have predetermined that some of the keyphrases that are relevant to your business are being dominated by Local Search listings while others are not.

What I find even more surprising is the volume of so-called SEO service providers who offer services without an effective Local Search campaign for their clients. MarketingSherpa found in April 2011 that only 37% of total U.S. marketers have a local business listing in the search engines.  Wow! What a missed opportunity.

Businesses need to aggressively implement a Local Search campaign if they want to grow their business revenues.  But you better move quickly. This train has left the station and frankly a business may not be able to catch up with those who have already implemented an effective SEO/Local Search strategy.

We will talk more in an upcoming post on the most effective conversion strategies for making your Local Search campaign produce qualified leads and customers. Please contact Xcellimark if you have any questions or if you are interested in Local Search for your business.

The extensive online marketing toolbox has recently expanded with the advent of Google Places and Facebook Places.

Google’s system allows users to search local business data while Facebook’s gives members the ability to receive special “deals” and publicly “check-in” to a location, informing their friends via status updates.

These two applications, while similar, provide unique benefits to businesses, including a fantastic return on investment.

Connecting with Local Buyers

The Places programs both allow companies to inform local customers about their location, as well as their overall products or services. Google’s option is geared towards a search function, effectively replacing the need for massive tomes of yellow pages.

Companies can input vital contact data, custom descriptions and images. The built-in review system allows searchers to see reviews from several different websites or to add their own.

Facebook’s application is a network-based social feature that requires a significant amount of time to build sufficient buzz from customers to be cost-effective for businesses. Even so, it does allow businesses to list “deals” which users can claim by checking in at their location.

Cross-Platform Connections

Google offers the ability to move from Places to their online Maps feature, allowing users to see the routes and distances to listed Places. The search function also lists Places data on normal searches when the data is relevant.

Facebook integrates Places information with their status update system, giving users the ability to see where their friends are, effectively providing a recommendation.

International Connections

Businesses with international locations should take advantage of the 93 locations in which Google is available. At the moment, the Facebook application is only accessible in the US.

Location Verification

While both programs require location verification, many companies have found Google’s to be more streamlined. The Facebook system demands verification for each location, significantly increasing the time and resources required for setup. Nonetheless, these constraints protect users from spammers and unethical business practices.

The Google and Facebook applications offer significant benefits to businesses small and large. Google Places is a must-have for both large and small businesses. Facebook Places, while possibly representing a significant time investment, can offer a similar marketing opportunity.

Xcellimark can help you put your business on the map with Google Places and Facebook. Our team consists of Local Search and Social Media professionals that work together to create a listing that gives you prime exposure in the search engines and social networks. Contact Xcellimark to learn more.

Photos Courtesy of Google and Facebook
 

A business’s ability to rank well among online search, in which users are searching for a local business, is becoming more and more important. Instead of the traditional print yellow pages, people are going online to find information about business and purchasing options within their own town.

So, how can a business ensure that local customers can and will find their company online when searching for relevant search terms or keyphrases? The answer is within these 3 Pillars of Local Search Marketing:

1.) Location/Distance

Google and other search engines identify the location of the online searcher by the IP address of your web connection. Mobile searchers’ location is identified by the GPS within their smart phone. So, the search engines provide search results that are near the searcher or near the location being searched.

2.) Relevance

A search engine’s goal is to provide the most relevant search results to the user’s search term or keyphrase. That is why it is important that a business’s Google Place Page and other local listings are as thorough and descriptive as possible. Claim, standardize, and optimize all of your listings within the local business directories, such as Manta, Merchant Circle, SuperPages, and more. Be accurate and consistent, and use targeted keywords or search teams within your company descriptions.

3.) Location Prominence

The newest variable impacting Local Search results is what others are saying about you in the context of your “place” or location. This is done most popularly by online reviews. What is being said about you? Is it good or is it bad? And the keywords used in those mentions will also tell the search engines what your business is about.

If you think that people are not talking about you online, think again. There are review sites for just about every industry. See the short list below:

• Restaurants: Urban Spoon, Zagat, Open Table
•  Wine: Snooth
•  Nearly Everything: Yelp
•  Health Practitioners: Demand Force
•  Contractors: ServiceMagic
•  Real Estate: Trulia, Zillow
•  Shopping: Amazon

So, if you want to rank well within the local search results when local customers are searching for keyphrases about your business or within your area, start with researching how people search for your products and services online. What search terms or keyphrases are they using? From there, you’ll know what keyphrases to target and optimize for.

If you’d like help generating leads for your business through Local Search Marketing, please don’t hesitate to contact Xcellimark .

If you’re a business owner, you should never underestimate the power of good customer service. It can literally make or your break your business online. That’s because of the all mighty online review.

Think about the customer comment cards, surveys and follow-up phone calls you send out to your customers, or the ones you have received from other businesses after using their goods or services. It’s all done online now and the power is in the hands of the people writing the reviews. That’s right: the little guys and gals like you and I.

Positive Reviews are Like a Popularity Contest

More and more businesses are being found in the search engines based on local reviews. The logic is simple: if you have a high number of reviews and most of them are positive, you will come up high in the search engines.

But the search engine algorithm is also a doubled-edged sword: If you have a lot of reviews but most of them are negative, you can still rank high but most people won’t pursue doing business with you. Google is also starting to lower a company’s ranking if they have too many negative reviews, so the negative reviews can hurt you in more ways than one.

Ultimately, people still want to do business with the High School Quarterback or Prom Queen: he or she with the most votes wins. If good customer service is the cornerstone of your business, it will inspire your customers to leave awesome reviews that will make others sit up and take notice of you the next time they are in need of your goods or services.

How Online Reviews Helped My Car and My Pockets

I’m partial to online reviews because they played a part in helping me select a body shop for auto repairs. I was involved in a car accident where a driver backed up into my beloved Volkswagen convertible at a red light and totally cracked my front grill.

I knew repairs were imminent so I asked my co-worker who also has a Volkswagen if she could recommend a shop. She gave me the name of her repair guys and the first thing I did was input their name into the search engine.

I trusted my co-worker but I wanted to see what others had to say about the quality and cost of their work. What I found were mainly positive reviews and glowing recommendations:

Of course there was one “negative” review in the bunch but it was not prevelant so I figured I could trust this body shop and I’m sure glad I did. I was so impressed with their customer service and outstanding repair work that I wrote them another positive review and have become a brand evangelist for their company. I have already passed the message on to my best friend who owns a Volkswagen and referenced their work on my Facebook page, Twitter and blog. See the trickle down effects of good customer service? You can’t pay for that kind of advertising!

Good Google reviews begin with you but Xcellimark can help you leverage their power in the search engines. For more information on the importance of Local Search and how it can positively impact your search engine rankings, Contact Xcellimark today.

To those familiar with sports, the name “Secretariat” is synonymous with greatness in horse racing. Secretariat still has the record for the fastest times in the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. To keep a horse focused on the race, blinders are put on either side of their eyes so that they can only see what is in front of them and focus only on the race.

Similar to a horse race, many times businesses owners are focused only on one or two parts of a Search Marketing strategy and have put blinders onto the other elements that are important in order to rank higher in the Search Engines.

The Role of Local Search in the Search Engine Race

In previous articles we have mentioned the importance of optimizing a local search campaign since 1 out of every 5 searches is deemed to be of local intent. Local search campaigns have had a major impact on organic rankings within search engines. Google has now integrated organic listings with local listings when displaying search results. The search engine race is changing daily so what might have worked last year may not necessarily work this year.

New Kids on the Search Engine Block

There are also some new players on the field that have proven themselves to be authoritative in the search engine race. Players such as social media platforms, review sites and a hybrid of the two. These sites/platforms are used not only to communicate your value proposition but they are also used to impact your search rankings.

For example, if a site has too many negative reviews, your site may get penalized in the search results. And a Google penalty is very hard to recover from. In addition, clients and customers are on social media websites sharing information with their friends and family about different business experiences. Business owners must look to these sites and keep content fresh and updated, interact with their customers and synchronize all listings.

While you are at it, you need to throw in some social bookmarking, analytics, testing, and continuous optimization to be competitive in the SEO Race. To find out how competitive your web business is, contact us to set up your consultation.

 

In Part One of this article on Local Search, I talked about what a Local Listing is and how you can get one. Today's article will take that a step further by discussing how you can maximize your Local Listing to generate impressive results in the search engines.

We’ve seen many Place Pages that are doing little to nothing for a company in terms of promotion or getting people interested in buying from that company. Other Place Pages are very good at giving potential customers the information they need to do business with them.

There are also many outside factors that affect your Place page, such as Internet Yellow Pages and reviews. Understanding how those help or hurt your Local Listing is very important. In fact, I’ve seen many Place pages that have a tremendously negative impact on businesses due to the negative reviews that show up on that Place page. It is vital to your business to understand how to attract positive reviews and handle negative reviews.

Don’t believe that you can simply get rid of the negative reviews or your Place page. If you have a negative Place page, you may hope that Google stops showing it, but that’s like saying you don’t want your business to ever show up in Google search results. Just plan on shutting your doors at that point.

Instead, you need to be proactive in getting your Place page set up correctly with positive information that promotes your business.

How Important is This Really?

Suffice it to say you have a window of opportunity right now to get your Local Listing or Place Page set up correctly in order to benefit from its power. Just like organic listings, only a limited number of Local Listings will be shown on the first page, and they are the ones who will be getting all the business. Therefore, the first ones to do it right will be the ones who win out in the long run.

Two key words in that last sentence – “First” and “Right”.  Just like getting on the first page of Google search results doesn’t just happen for companies, getting your Place Page listing right doesn’t just happen either. You need to hire a company that truly understands how to do it right from the beginning and how to get the most from the listing.

There is tremendous business to be had for companies who deal with the local market and who act now to get their Local Listing  or Place page correct. Will you be one of those businesses who take the necessary steps to get it right to beat your competitors? Now is the time to act.

Xcellimark employees are specialists in Local Search and Place Pages. If you need the help to do it right, give us a call or email us and we’ll be glad to work with you to “git r done!”

Have you noticed lately how many times a Google map appears on the upper right side of your search results when you do a Google search?

Google is very serious about Local Search and it’s only getting bigger and more prominent.

What used to be (and sometimes still is) a 5 or 7 pack grouping of local listings is now hitting the big time. Many times, Local Search results are now the actual organic listings on the page – not grouped together but dispersed as the actual normal listings on the search results page.

What Are Local Listings You Ask?

Local Listings, or Place Pages as they are now called, are the listings that Google, Bing and Yahoo display on search results with balloons, addresses, phone numbers, ratings, reviews and a spot on a local map indicating where that business is located.

Traditional Local Listing Group – 3 Pack

Google wasn’t satisfied though with simply grouping a small number of local companies within a small 5 or 7 pack on the search results page. More and more, the Local Listing or Place Pages ARE the organic search results.

How can you tell what is a local listing within the organic search results and what is considered a traditional organic listing? The Place Page listing has a balloon to the left of the listing, which corresponds to a balloon on a local map on the right side of the search results. Many times this listing provides much more information about the business than a “normal” organic listing.

New Local Listings Showing as Normal Organic Results

 

So How Do I Get One?

It is important for every business to “claim” their local listing as their own. Google will not simply allow you to say it is your listing though. You will have to be ready to answer your telephone to receive a pin number that will allow you to verify it as your own, or wait for a postcard in the mail with the pin number.

You’ll need to go the postcard route if you use an automated attendant because the phone call is an automated call and it won’t know how to dial an extension through the automated attendant. It will simply try to give your voice recording the pin number, which of course will not work.

Claiming your Place Page is only step one though. Knowing what to do to maximize your Place Page (or Local Listing) is extremely important. But I'll go more into that next Tuesday in Part Two of this article on Local Search.

It’s Friday night and you’re ready for a nice relaxing weekend with only two questions in mind: What do I do? Where do I go?

Maybe you finally want to try that barbeque place you’ve heard your friends talk about or maybe you want to go racing with some serious go-cart action.

But how do you find the places closest to you or the best places to go?

Local Listings Help Searchers Find Local Businesses

The solution is simple - “Local Search listings.” With a local search  listing, you can find restaurants, go-cart tracks, eye doctors, and even where to get your shoes repaired.

A local search listing is a comprehensive business listing that business owners control.

Reviews Help Businesses and Searchers Alike

The local listing also links in reviews from consumer review sites so searchers can read other people’s recommendations or warnings about a business or service.

Reviews are critical to the success of not only the local listing itself but they also determine whether people choose to do business with a company or not. If a business gets lots of positive reviews, then more and more people will want to do business with that company. Therefore it’s important to have a strategy to help build your online reviews.

Professional Help Makes All the Difference

There are many things that businesses need to do correctly to get the most out of your local listing. Simply claiming your listing is not enough.

As more and more businesses realize the importance of their local listing, it will become more difficult to show up in the “local pack”.

And just like SEO was once thought to be a simple thing to accomplish (not so anymore), your local listing is not something that should be left to chance.

If you are not increasing your business success in the local community through local search listings, contact Xcellimark  to find out how our comprehensive Local Search program can help.