Be a Real Local Marketing Hero

Why spend money on a human directional dressed as a chicken or a giant submarine sandwich? If you're a business with a local trading area, your best bet to get seen by your potential customers  is through local search. It's really just a matter swimming with the current (or dropping your line where the fish are swimming or whatever aquatic metaphor that you prefer) because that's how most people begin to search when looking for a place to go or something to buy. And with Google looking to return localized results with every search and mobile searches growing exponentially (where local results are most prominent) needing to succeed with local search is as essential as paying the electric bill to keep the lights on. In fact, it may just be the most effective way to keep the lights on!

So you may ask: "Larry, can I really get free visibility through local search instead of paying someone to stand all day in an uncomfortable costume in the stifling heat?" Not only will I say yes, but I'll tell you a few simple steps to get you started. So here goes:

• If you haven't yet claimed your Google Places listing (the one associated with the map, search for yourself (aren't we all searching for ourselves?) and click the Manage This Listing box in the right hand column. (If you've already have claimed your listing you can skip to the third bullet point.)
• Sign in with your Google account (if you don't have one create one; it's free) and the first thing you will see is a dialogue that will ask you to verify that you own the business. Chose phone verification (instant) or mail (takes about 5 days to get the PIN) and then return and read the rest of this post after you've verified.
• Make sure you complete all of the business information that Google asks you for (they give you a handy progress bar to let you know how you're doing. This includes choosing the category(ies) that most closely match your business, writing an about description using words that people use when looking for what you do or sell, adding hours and contact information (including your website). 
• Google has finally merged the Places listing management tools with the full Google+ Local panel with social functions. Using this dialogue you can upload a cover photo, other photos, add people to circles and post like you do on Facebook. You should post often.
• Encourage people to review you on your Places/Google+ Local page. Reviews count for a lot.
• Get your business listed in as many directories and local listings that you can. This not only gives you additional avenues of exposure but is a factor in how Google ranks your Google listing. This handy tool at getlisted.org can help you make that happen. 
• Make sure there are local markers on your website if you have one. This means having location words in the page title and main headlines but especially having location (including phone number) and directions on the home page if possible. If you want to take it a step further, you can put schema, or html markup language on your page for locations. There are a few tools out there, but here's one -- http://www.microdatagenerator.com/local-business-schema/ -- that's easy to use.
• Strengthen your website by sourcing quality in-links from other strong websites, preferably local ones.

So that's it. Give it a try and hang up that chicken suit for a while. If you have any questions, enter them here or call me at 904-744-8877. If you prefer to let us drive, click here to learn about our local marketing services. 

                                          

In Praise of Videos of Videos That Don’t Go Viral

This article in the New York Times gives helpful and practical tips for creating watchable, informative videos that may or may not get rapidly shared. But the hope of going viral is kind of like the hope of winning the lottery -- no matter how strategically you play the numbers it’s probably not going to happen.

That doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t have videos -- in particular YouTube videos -- as part of their marketing mix. Of far more practical value is the opportunity to get a stronger presence in the search engines. A video, strategically targeted to search terms that reflect what you do, can:

• Give you another way to appear on the search-engine results page as Google blends video or YouTube items with the other results from the search query
• Strengthen the content on your website, helping to optimize it for search
• When uploaded to your Google Places/Google+ Local listing, optimize your business for local search (learn why local search is now so important)
• Gives you another avenue to build links to your site.

This article gives some useful tips on how to use video as a search engine tool. Some of the highlights:

• Open a YouTube channel and include in the title keywords that are relevant to what you do
• Add descriptions and video transcriptions
• Strategically use tags
• Embed your videos on your website, including text that describes the video and even include a video transcription
• Create a video sitemap.

Email me or call me at 904-744-8877 if you have any questions on how YouTube can benefit your business or simply post a comment here.

Why Paid Search Advertising Still Rules

I have many clients, in fact all of my clients who have tried it, that have been very successful with paid search advertising, which, let’s face it, has become synonymous with Google Adwords. Still they can't help from wondering if a really cool rich media ad with a racing car that runs across the screen or a banner ad with a dancing leprechaun will somehow be more effective. I tell them, based on both click-through rates and conversion rates that this kind of online display advertising is unlikely to be more effective and now there’s research on user preferences that also supports this point of view.

A new study from Adobe indicates that the overwhelming majority of people prefer television ads and other forms of off-line advertising to ads in online media such as banners ads, social media ads and online apps. Over half (54%) said banner ads don't work, just 3% said they prefer to view ads in social media and literally 0% said they like ads in mobile apps. Whew!

Needless to say this should give businesses and their marketing providers pause. Just like banner ads when they were first introduced back in the day (and they have yet to live up to the hype) ads on social media and mobile apps have failed in delivering on the heavily-promoted promise.

But with online space occupying more and more of people's time and attention, what's the best way to reach that very large and responsive audience? I would say search marketing, particularly paid search -- yes, those stodgy, boring text ads on search results pages. They may not be as interesting as the dancing leprechaun or the race car that flies across your screen obscuring the the text you're trying to read, but they consistently perform better with both click-though rates and conversion rates.

Paid search combined with a strong local search presence on Google+ Local will get you seen by the critical audience of mobile users whose searches are expected to dominate activity within the next two years. Click here and here to learn how we can help you succeed with search marketing and if you really want a dancing leprechaun, we can give you one of those too.

Google+ Local Update

This is both an update to my latest post on local search and a post about an update to Google+ Local so that we're all, well, up-to-date.

As promised when Google rolled out Google+ Local in uncharacteristically clumsy fashion back in March, there is now at least some integration available for those small business early-adopters who opened up a Google+ Business page for a local business or place and then found themselves blindsided and befuddled when  their Google Places page suddenly became a Google+ Local page. The result was that they now had two Google+ business pages: one with full functionality but couldn't be found that easily in local search and another that was basically a Places page skinned to look like a Google+ page, but with very limited functionality.

But the sun does rise, the cloud cover breaks, and now you can merge the two. What these means for you  is that you now have the best of both worlds -- a page that customers can find easily on the map and where they can post reviews plua a true social media page for you where you can post regularly, gain followers, create circles and so on. To merge the two, just follow these simple steps:

• When you visit your Google+ Business page you'll see a radial that says Verify Now in the right column. Click on it and follow the instructions
• You will, unfortunately, have to go through the postcard verification process again
• Once that's completed, Google will merge the local data from Places with your Google+ Business listing.

If you've claimed and populated your Google Places (+ Local) page but have not created a Google+ Business page, I recommend you do so to get more utility to connect and sell along with a better experience for the user. Then you can go ahead and merge the two but make sure you open your Google+ Business page as a local business or place.

If you haven't yet claimed your Places listing (see my last post) then it appears you'll still have to go through the Places interface, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Local Search: Location, Location, Location

It's not just about real estate anymore (then again, even real estate is not just about real estate anymore but more on that in a future post.) If you're a business that trades in a defined local market area, your location is becoming the critical factor in customers finding you in the search engines, particularly Google, who over the last several years has been elevating local results displayed on the map.

And now, with Google+ Local (formerly Places) that emphasis is even greater. If those reasons aren't enough, more than half of Americans now own smartphones (a percentage that's expected to grow rapidly) and some projections say that in a couple of years nearly 75% of all searches will be conducted on smartphones. Local search results dominate the returns on these devices.

Now that I have your attention (or have at least inundated you into submission with facts) here are a few simple things you can do to improve your performance in local search:

• Claim your Google Places/Google+ Local listing here if you haven't already done so. Don't let the changing terminology confuse you, everything you will see still says Places when you work with your listing, even though Google has "transitioned" these listings to Google+ Local. It's free, but you'll have to open up a free Google account if you don't already have one. Google will also take you through some steps to verify that you're the business owner. 
• Whether you're just claiming your listing or are updating an existing one, fill out the listing as completely as possible, even though some fields, such as the additional information fields, for now don't appear on the Google+ Local listing. 
• Choose the categories that most closely relate to your business. Although you can enter a custom category, you're better off going with the existing Google categories. 
• When describing your business, use the words that you want your business to be found for, the words that people search on. And that's not to be confused with your business name. It's what you do, not who you are that counts here. 
• Upload several photos if you have them and also video if you have any into those sections. Get your customers to review you on Google+ Local, ideally they should be positive ones. 
• Update your listing from time to time; adding new photos is a great way to do this. There's also a "share an update box" you can use but currently that does not appear on the Google+ Local page either. 
• On your website, it's best to have your address and phone number in text on your home page. Having variations of the city you're in combined with your keyword variations won't necessarily get you there. 

Or you can have us do it. We'll set up and optimize your Google+ Local/Places page for just $149 or we can optimize for local search both your Google+ Local/Places page and your website for just $399. Click here to learn more about our local marketing special.