Good Things Come in Small (Business) Packages: Beat Competition using

Local Search Marketing

Bryan Phelps

twitter.com/seocomLinkedin.com/company/seo.com

Director of Local and Small Business SEO

About SEO.com

Tweet @SEOcom questions

Getting Started

What is local search marketing?

What is local search marketing?

This is:

What is local search marketing?

This is:

What is local search marketing?

This is:

What is local search marketing?

Some people even use these:

What is local search marketing?

It’s directories:

What is local search marketing?

It’s vertical and geo specific:

What is local search marketing?

It’s mobile:

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 searching59% will visit a store58% use phone to look up a business for driving directions54% will visit your website from local searches88% will take action within 1 daySource: Google

What is local search marketing?

Over 53% of ALL local searches are performed on a

mobile device.

Source: Google

What is local search marketing?

It’s social:

What is local search marketing?

It’s reviews:

What is local search marketing?

It’s reviews:

What is local search marketing?

It’s sometimes even:

What is local search marketing?

Basically, it’s not this:

What is local search marketing?

Or this:

What is local search marketing?

Or this:

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.”

Your 6 Step Blueprintto beating the competition using local search marketing

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Website TrackingGoogle Analyticsgoogle.com/analytics

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Website Tracking– Contact Form Goal

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Dashboards

Google PlacesBing/Yahoo LocalDirectoriesSocial RankingsPPCWebmaster Tools

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Call Tracking – Not Advised

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Old School Tracking

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

“Half of my [online] advertising budget is wasted. The problem is that I don’t know which half”

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!

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

Companies that blog receive 55% more

website traffic.

Source: Hubspot

Step 2 – Your Business DataData Publishers

Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

Step 2 – Your Business Data

• Google+ Local• Bing• Yahoo! Local• Best of the Web• Yelp

• YellowPages• Citysearch• Superpages• Foursquare• Yellowbook

Claim & Verify Yourself

Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

Step 2 – Your Business DataBusiness Listing Optimization Tips

Utilize ALL 5 categories

Step 2 – Your Business DataBusiness Listing Optimization Tips

Publish Your Address

Beware of the Google Phone Call!

Step 2 – Your Business DataBusiness Listing Optimization Tips

Local Search Ranking Factors – DavidMihm.com

Step 2 – Your Business DataBusiness Listing Optimization Tips – What Not To Do

Step 3 – Your Website

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 site66% of SMB’s don’t have a contact form on their site

Step 3 – Your Website

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."

Step 3 – Your Website

Step 3 – Your Website

Step 3 – Your Website

Local Landing Pageshttp://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/firm/Divorce/Las-Vegas/Nevada

Step 3 – Your Website

Local SchemaStructured Markup, Crawlable N.A.P.

Free tools:Schema-Creator.orgMicroformats.org

Step 3 – Your Website

KML File / GEO SitemapTells search engines exact address of your company

Free tool:http://www.geositemapgenerator.com/

Step 4 – Business Citations

Name

Address

Phone #

Step 4 – Business Citations

• Avvo – Legal/Health• FindLaw - Legal• Health Grades – Health• Directories for every

industry• Local directories / media

Industry/GEO Specific

Also drives traffic, calls, customers.

Step 4 – Business Citations

Whitespark Local Citation FinderCitation Tools & Tips

https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/

Step 4 – Business Citations

Best Citation Sources by CityCitation Tools & Tips

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx

Step 4 – Business Citations

Best Citation Sources by CategoryCitation Tools & Tips

http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

Step 4 – Business Citations

Unstructured Citations– Blogs– Forums– Partners Sites / Related

Businesses– Look for Link Building +

Citation Opportunities

Citation Tools & Tips

Step 5 – Review Strategy

Strategy Tactics

Planning Doing

Large Scale Smaller Scale

Why How

Difficult to Copy Easy to Copy

Long Time Frame Short Time Frame

Create a Review Strategy:

“Ask for reviews” alone isn’t a strategy

Fake reviews DEFINITELY isn’t a strategySet review outreach goals

Step 5 – Review Strategy

Strategy Tactics Goal

Get reviews from our raving fans

• Contact known raving fans via phone• Research Facebook fans and reach out

• Look through existing reviews and reach out to happy customers and ask for a review on another site.

10 reviews per month

Get reviews from in-store visits

• Install in-store kiosk for customer use• Add “review us” verbiage to receipts

• Start collecting emails in-store for email blasts5 reviews per

month

Manage reputation issues of current reviews

• Prioritize list of most harmful reviews• Respond to each negative review personally• Contact bad reviews within 2 business days

Address all bad reviews within 1

week of being posted.

Vendor & Partner Reviews• Prioritize list of vendors/partners by relationship

• Provide detail on how to review us on various portals• Reciprocate reviews within 5 business days

2 reviews per month

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

Step 5 – Review Strategy

Social Proof!

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Where do your customers spend their time?

Users: 90mm 900mm 200mm 120mm 10mm

Users: 15mm Millions 14mm 7.5mm 18mm

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

So about Google+…

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Why be on Google+?

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Why be on Google+?

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Why be on Google+?

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Google+ Predictions

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Google+ Predictions

Step 6 – Local Meet Social

Google+ Predictions

Resources

Local Search Resources & Data Sources

•SEO.com•GetListed.org•NiftyMarketing.com•SEOMoz.org•DavidMihm.com•Whitespark.ca•Hubspot.com

Thank you!Bryan Phelps, SEO.com