What is local search marketing you ask?

Have you ever done a Google search and seen that map in the middle of the results? You know what I’m talking about… it looks something like this:

Want to know how to get to the top of that list?

Read on to learn more about Local Search Engine Optimization techniques, and why it’s important to ‘localize’ your business.

First off, let’s quickly discuss what we mean by local search marketing.

What Exactly Is This Local Search Marketing

The picture above somewhat says it all, no?

If you’re a small business that can only serve customers in a certain geographical area, I’m talking directly to you:

• Any brick and mortar (restaurant, sports shop, etc…)
• Service companies that go to the client location
• Insurance companies

Wouldn’t it feel wonderful to see your business show up at the top of that map list when someone searches for your product or service?

When users of the search engines are looking for something that is near to them geographically, they are likely to add a geography to the end (or beginning) of their search query.

Example: “restaurants in Dallas, TX” or “Baltimore hvac training school”

As a matter of fact, even if the search does not contain a specific geography, Google (and the other search engines) are smart enough to know where you’re searching from, and thus deliver you results relevant to your location.

Don’t believe me? Click here to do a search for “restaurant” – this is what my results look like:

Not the same as yours are they? Nope – because you’re (most likely) not in Ellicott City, MD, like me!

So what is local search marketing then? It’s the art and science of getting your business to come up higher on that list.

The benefit is pretty obvious right? – If you show up on that list, users of the search engines are likely to click on your website, and thus visit your shop (instead of your competitor’s).

Okay, so now you know what local search marketing is, so let’s jump into some tips on how to do it!

1. Claim Your Google Places (and other) Listing(s)

The first thing you want to do is claim your online listings.

Sites such as Google, CitySearch.com, and Yelp.com allow business owners to edit the information associated with their listing – after your prove that you’re the business owner of course.

Claiming you listing is very easy. Just navigate to your businesses specific listing on any of the sites listed above, and then find the link that says “Edit this place” or “Claim your listing” or something along those lines. They each have their own way of verifying that you’re actually the business owner – just follow their protocol to prove that and then you will have access to make edits to your listing.

You might be thinking “Why do I want to edit my listing, it’s already there and looks pretty good”.

The answer is because a) your listing can look better and b) by editing it and adding a relevant description, pictures, videos, and other information the sites ask for – they are more likely to serve your business listing when someone searches for your product or service.

Google Places is probably the most important one you will want to claim. Go find your business and click “Business Owner” to update and verify your listing.

2. Get Positive Reviews from Happy Customers

One of the factors Google uses to rank your listing is the quantity and quality of the reviews your business has.

We highly recommend putting together a campaign where you solicit your best customers and ask them to leave a review for you on Google, Citysearch.com, or Yelp.com.

The details of the campaign are up to you, but getting those reviews is definitely important for search engines, AND even more important for users. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chosen one restaurant over another solely based on reviews.

Even if you have to offer your happy customers an incentive to go an review your business, it’s worth it (just give them a $25 gift card, or better yet, a 10% discount next time they buy from you)!

One thing to note: Google Places will aggregate reviews from other sites on the web into your Google Places listing.

* Recent update: Google now allows you to respond to reviews users have left on your Google Places listing *

3. Use Other Websites for Listing Your Business

Perfect example: Craigslist

If you clean homes, don’t rely on PPC and word of mouth to get your new business, take the time to list your services on Craigslist.

If you rent apartments, there are several sites that let you list your openings for free (and there are paid ones as well, which are also great).

If you do computer repair, definitely do Craigslist postings!

Admittedly, Craigslist isn’t for every business, but there are surely some websites out there that will let you list your services for free.

Quick tip: Do a Google search for your business product or service. See who comes up on the first page. Can you partner with them? Can they link to you? Pick up the phone and introduce yourself!

Don’t Just Sit There!

Get out there and claim your listings, get reviews, and list your services in as many places as possible. As times goes on, more and more people are starting to use the internet to find businesses and make decisions.

Taking control of your online reputation and getting listed in as many places as possible will ensure your future success!

This is a guest post by Arsham Mirshah of WebMechanix, a Baltimore, MD based internet marketing firm specializing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you have any questions, contact the friendly folks at WebMechanix (let them know you found them through this website)!

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Good friend, colleague and local search engine marketing pioneer Frank Barnett recently allowed me to guest post on his site. I ranted about how I’m at my wits end on search engine trickery. You may remember Frank from a recent guest post here on MiP about ignoring Emerson.

If you want to know the link between Lost and Google, you’ll just have to read it on Frank’s site.

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“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes, yes – this famous saying is apparently a misquotation of Emerson, but the message is still (unfortunately) the same: if you build it, they will come.  If your product is good enough, it will sell, and sell in large quantities.  And many a would-be entrepreneur has wasted all their time and money assuming this to be true.  Of course, as any marketer worth their salt knows, this is ridiculous.  It doesn’t matter how good your product is if nobody knows about it.

Taking the Better Mousetrap to the World

I know a marketer who took a job at this great startup several years back.  They had this awesome new way to purify water.  It was cheaper, didn’t use chemicals, and could basically offer clean, safe water to a village or small town anywhere in the world so long as it had reliable access to electricity and salt.  But here’s the problem: the entire company was made up of engineers with the Emersonian mindset that if the product was good enough, you wouldn’t have to sell it.  The world would beat a path to your door.

Unfortunately, the world didn’t beat a path to their door, and their primary investor was understandably beginning to get antsy.  Being the only one in the company who truly understood that their awesome product would never leave the warehouse if buyers never knew it was there, the marketer hit the road.  She visited every continent and met with local politicians and municipal leaders in countries from Japan and the UAE to Honduras, getting the word out.  She took the product to the world.  And, slowly, the world learned about this awesome product, and slowly they began to moved towards the company’s door.

What This Means Online

While most organizations get the fatal flaw in Emerson’s quote, the online space seems to be the one stubborn holdout.  Part of this is the result of snake-oil “SEO’s” who think Search Engine Optimization is all about gaming the system, tricking Google, etc.  In response, Google and the other major search engines (who have gotten quite good) respond with the generic advice, “don’t worry about SEO, just build great content,” and the rankings will take care of themselves.”  This is better advice than listening to the “black hat” guys, but it falls short because it assumes that the major search engines will rank your site highly simply because you have great content.  As the old question goes: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If only a few people know about your content (the tree falling), then the answer – online, anyway – is no, it doesn’t make a sound.

This isn’t the place to go into what makes a site rank online, but suffice to say it looks a lot closer to this:

than this oversimplified Emersonian equation:

At SMX-West a couple weeks ago, a panel of some of the best SEOs in the country were asked how often a writer should post in order to rank well.  The consensus?  It doesn’t matter how often you post if nobody’s reading it.  The bottom line is this: by all means, make sure your site has something unique to say, that you’ve got a product that’s more than just a commodity.  But just having something good to say or offer is only part of the equation.  It will take some good old-fashioned marketing (of the AIDAS sort) AND some basic SEO to get your site to rank, particularly if you’re in a competitive market.

——————

This guest post is courtesy of a good friend and true search marketing wiz Frank Barnett. Frank Barnett is an internet marketer with an unhealthy obsession with conversion rate, one of many ticks he’s developed doing PPC and SEO for almost 10 years.  You can find out more about Frank on his blog at frankcbarnett.com, or follow him at twitter at @fbarnett.

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The great Jen Fong recently approached me with a question: how can direct sellers best leverage search engine optimization without breaking even the most conservative corporate policies?

It’s a good question, and one I get asked a lot, in some form or another. And while I’m no SEO expert, I do have some hot opinions on what network marketers can and should be doing specifically.

All this to say Jen just posted a guest post by yours truly titled 10 Surefire SEO Tips for Direct Sellers. I’d love you to add your ideas and comments on her site. Also, if you’re in the direct selling industry, here’s a no-brainer: subscribe to her blog. It’s excellent.

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Search Engine Optimization is a buzz phrase that we marketers love to wax poetic about. But the chasm between the goods and the greats of SEO is a huge one. At one time, I thought becoming a search engine marketing expert was just the path for me. Then I realized that all most of us need to do is understand the basics, and then focus the majority of our efforts on developing great content for a specific community. So that’s what I’m in the very early stages of doing right now.

With that said, two key transitions have occurred over the past three or four years. One, the gateway to true SEO expertise has become a tough line to cross. And that’s a good thing for all of us. The people at sites like SEOMoz.org and SEObook.com immediately smack us in the face with just one quick read as to what expertise in this field really looks like.

Second, as it’s becoming evident that marketing is simply done online now, and is not a segmented expertise for just some people to grasp, understanding SEO basics is now a prerequisite for pretty much anyone wanting to make a dent at all in today’s markets. That includes you. Regardless of what you’re creating and producing, you must consider how it can be leverage online and how almighty Google will look at your creation.

Search Engine Optimization Basics – 5 Great Links

So, for those of us who need constant reminders as to what matter, or for those who don’t have a clue but know they need to get one, I offer these five excellent posts to get you pretty much all you need to know without bogging you down with hours and hours of reading, studying, etc.

1. SEO Basics for Blogs – Problogger.net, Darren Rowse: If you blog, you need to read Problogger.net. Darren touches on the topic of SEO often, but this article is an excellent first step into understanding what’s really important and what you can really control.
2. Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009 – SEOMoz.org: Every couple years, SEOmoz surveys the top search engine marketers and finds out what’s really moving the needle in terms of how pages rank. The real takeaway here? You have less and less direct control over most of these factors.
3. Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet – SEOmoz.org: SEOmoz is loaded with tons of extremely useful resources like this one. This one is a bit on the technical side, but they have other cheat sheets for those who can’t speak code.
4. SEO Tools – SEOmoz.org: OK, last time I mention SEOmoz. The simple fact is they are pretty much the authority on SEO, and the reason is they give away so much extremely valuable content. Many of these tools are free. Use them.
5. SEO Tools – SEOBook.com: Aaron Wall was probably the first search expert I stumbled upon online a few years ago. Like SEOmoz, this site is chock-full of free tools and great advice.

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I guess the Ad Guru knows a thing or two.

Reading the findings of a recent study on MarketingCharts.com, I was surprised to see just how successful YellowBook advertising still is in a world supposedly driven by the almighty web.

Some other morsels from the study:

• 82% of online local searchers follow up offline, via an in-store visit, phone call, or purchase; of these searchers, 61% went on to make purchases.
• Traditional advertising triggers branded online searches:
  • Between 60% and 90% of searches for heavily advertised categories such as pizza, insurance, banks and financial institutions were branded
  • 30-50% of keyword searches were general in nature for low-branded categories, including Auto Service and Home Services.
• A majority of local searchers – 60% – first go online for conducting a local search:
  • 30% of searchers use general search engines, such as Yahoo or Google.
  • 17% use internet yellow pages (IYPs)
  • 13% use local search sites, such as Citysearch.

What does it mean? There are all kinds of takes. For one, it only fortifies the popular belief that it’s small, local business that can actually grow the most due to “New” Marketing. Secondly, it gives new value to traditional advertising. If an ad leads to a branded search, and 60% of the time that leads to a purchase, then that’s saying something.

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I’ve recently had a bit of a spike in my blog traffic lately, and much of it has to do with the images I’ve used in recent posts.

As you can see, I was at first confused as to why I was all of a sudden receiving so many searches for the keyword “geek.” Many thought it had somethng to do with the TV Show “Beauty and the Geek,” but as the Geek Google Searchee posted in the comments, it was just a matter of Google ranking me highly for geek images.

The trend with other images has continued, as you can see below. I’m on the first page of Google Images search results for the bolded keywords.

Granted, most of this traffic amounts to nothing. The person looking for the image never reads a word on my blog. But it helps boost traffic, all the same.

Are you tagging your images properly? Are you naming them according to a certain keyword on your page? It’s the little things like this that make all the difference.

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Since design has been a popular topic on this blog for the past week or two, it hit me that I’ve had the privilege of working with quite a few great designers myself, and then I know many other great designers that I haven’t worked with. And with the onset of online portfolios and blogs, it makes checking out and admiring someone’s work very accessible.

When you understand how important a piece design is to your job as a marketer, and then you realize your role in it personally, and then you realize you can’t personally design, and then you meet someone who can, then you really, really, really appreciate these guys and what they do. And they appreciate you, if you’re doing your job.

Without further rambling, here are 7 designers you should check out:

1. DennisCheatham.com: I’ve never actually done a project with Dennis, but my wife does on a regular basis. Be sure to check out his blog, too – he’s a great writer on top of being a great artist. I really like his logo design.
2. Frogers.net: Again, I’ve never done a design project with Jeff Rogers, but I think his site speaks for itself. I have, however, played in a band with him – he’s a great drummer on top of being a great designer. And I’ve helped him move, and that’s always endearing, right? I don’t know how to explain his work – you just need to see it for yourself. I just know it’s good. Extremely original, refreshing, sketchy and organic. And good, again. I love this album cover.
   
3. Raesea.com: Raesea aren’t just designers, but cover the whole ‘using the web to help your business’ thing. Design is part of that, but so is navigation, search engine optimization, email marketing, back-end architecture and programming and e-commerce. And they do all of that, and do it well.
4. Brian Larney: I worked with Brian at AdvoCare. His designs are great, and the best thing about Brian is he always wanted to dig deeper, ask questions about the project, and pull information out of you that would help him. Which I loved. So many designers think they should just take the direction that’s given to them make due, but Brian knows when to ask for more. And it made everything easier for both of us. Here’s a product of one such conversation that I feel really hit the nail on the head (scroll down to the Alaskan Adventure pages).
5. Hypnoweb.com: Darren Chorley and I worked on countless web projects. He’s a wonderfully gifted designer, and he knows how to work in a time crunch (and trust me, he was tested on that front more than once). I can’t sing his praises enough, and I can’t be more impressed with the work at this site.
6. DanielPitner.com: Worked with Daniel for a brief time at AdvoCare. I can remember checking out his original work from his resume, and it blew me away. Daniel takes a lot of pride in what he produces, and it is always something you simply can’t simply glance at. It captures you. And his work with animation is unbelievable.
7. BusyNoggin.com: Like Dennis above, I’ve never worked on a project with Ron, but my wife works with him all the time. I have played poker and eaten fondue with the man, so that should count for something. I love how he lays out his approach on his site. If you’re interested in content management, particularly TYPO3, Ron seems to be the local guru.

So, for the other great designers I know that aren’t on the list, like Josh and Benny and many others – Sorry, but I don’t have your portfolio address. Send it along if I worked with you before – just leave it in the comments. That goes for anyone, for that matter.

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Kind of a slow weekend, as far as reading goes. But here are some good ones:

• Even though the Rangers suck, baseball still seems to be on everyone’s mind. Check our Frank’s Blog and his series on future Hall of Famers, and 1Lord and his predictions on how the season is going to end up.
• 10 Ways to get to $1 Million – nice article on simple ways to save some dough around the house.
• SEO Checklist - I know search engine optimization is important, but that’s about as far as my knowledge goes. However, this little checklist seems to be one of the simplest I’ve seen.
• The Measure of One Word - I actually stumbled upon this post twice this weekend, forgetting I’d already read it. Which says a lot about the headline.
• The Consumer is Breaking Up with the Advertiser - very funny, and very telling, video. Ironically, it’s by Microsoft.

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Great post here at S.M.O.G. showing the power of search engines and how it’s evening the playing field for small business.

Search engines are the real estate of this generation. What are you doing about it?

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