Walt Goshert » local seo

Expand Your Google Local Business Listing Service Area

Walt Goshert — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:31:22 +0000

Now Google gives “Location Independent” local businesses the ability to list their Service Areas in the Google Local Business Listing.

Let’s say you’re a contractor serving multiple towns and communities…

You can handle this two ways in your Google Local Business Listing.

Log-into your Google Local Business Listing Dashboard

You’ll now find a “Service Area and Location Settings” section.

1. Radius Distance from a fixed Location Point.

2. Specify a List of Towns/Zip Codes of your Service Area.

(Click image to Enlarge)

If you’re looking to target specific zip codes, towns, or neighborhoods, you’ll want to pick the second option.

Here’s one more location “tip” on Google Local Business Listings:

Google allows you to list Five Category Listings. Choose your Main Category Listing. On your additional four Category Listings, you can use your Category, with a Geo-Location description.

For example, your Main Category Listing is “Kitchen Remodeling”.

On your additional four Category Listings, you use:

“Kitchen Remodeling- Scottsdale,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling- Phoenix,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling-Glendale,AZ”

“Kitchen Remodeling-Cave Creek,AZ”

One tip on this approach: Use towns/zip codes in the four Category Listings other than your Main Location.

Here’s an article to give your more information on this approach and additional Google Local Business Listing Tips:

5 Ways to Improve Local Search Rankings

Google Image Search – Its Importance For Your SEO (mt-soft.com.ar)
Searching Locally: Recap from O’Reilly Where 2.0 (ysearchblog.com)
How to Create a Great Local Search Business Listing (ferreemoney.com)
Google Helps You Find Things Nearby (marketingpilgrim.com)

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7 Winning Local Business Traffic Tactics

Walt Goshert — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:03:08 +0000

Without traffic to your local website, your website is simply another expense rather than a sales-generating asset.

Just as there are ways to drive traffic- visits, phone calls, inquiries- to your local business in the offline world, there are endless tactics to increase traffic to your local website.

Now with “Inbound Marketing”, you can have customers coming to you via your website to do business with you rather than interrupting them with paid ads. It’s not that paid ads don’t work; (in fact, paid Online Ads DO work to jump start traffic to your local website) they simply don’t work as well. Inbound marketing positions you with respect and credibility.

The Online World of Inbound Marketing is relatively new, and constantly and rapidly changing. Every day a new twist or angle seems to emerge. However, just because it’s new, doesn’t mean you should dismiss the possibilities of how it can work for your local business.

7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Local Website:

1. SEO- Search Engine Optimization. Most websites realize at least 50% or more of their traffic coming from Search Engines. Google isn’t going away. Yet, SEO has changed from the early days… a mere 10 years ago. If anything, SEO has become more simple, yet more difficult to achieve top search rankings and results. It’s more simple because automated website tools take care of the techie website coding part. Yet, SEO is a tougher battle to achieve rankings because creating fresh, relevant, consistent keyword targeted content is more important than ever.

2. Social Media- Facebook and Twitter got lots of buzz last year. Both offer local businesses free tools to engage prospects and customers, build relationships, spread word-of-mouth, and bring “warmed-up” visitors to your website.

3. Pay per click(PPC)- Buying keyword placement in the search engines is a quick way to get found online and drive traffic to your local website immediately… for a price. If your website is up to snuff (able to convert visitors into sales) PPC is a proven way to get a traffic bump right away.

4. Local Search- Local SEO requires a bit of a different approach than regular SEO. Winning the Local SEO battle requires careful geographic and keyword targeting along with listing your business consistently in multiple business directory sites. Many of these business directory sites offer both free and enhanced paid listings to increase your local website exposure and your website traffic. As more Mobile Phone applications and use emerges, look for Local SEO is more important than ever.

5. Video Marketing- Video marketing is largely an untapped avenue for local businesses. With an inexpensive “instant” video camera, it’s simple and easy to record videos and upload them to YouTube and other video sharing sites. Many local businesses shy away from video thinking it’s too complex and that it requires professional quality. Not so. Make your videos real and authentic and you’ll be surprised how your prospects and customers will share them online.

6. Blogging- It’s never been easier to get a blog set up and going. With a blog, you’re in control of your updates and adding information to your website- you’re no longer held hostage to your web designer charging you for every little update. A local business blog is great for your SEO effort, and along with Social Media promotion, is the tool to position you as the “go-to” business in your community.

7. Online Word-of-Mouth- When you’re armed with online free social tools such as Twitter, Facebook Business Page, Google Local Business Listing, a presence in various local business directory sites, your blog, your YouTube video channel… you give your customers a powerful way to spread the word about your local business. Your customers now have a platform to give you real honest feedback and opinions… and spread this message to hundreds or even thousands of local prospects online.

As search engines add more relevance to input from Social Sites, such as how many online reviews your business has received, how many views,how long they view, and did they share your YouTube video, it’s wise to start a proactive campaign to build a postive, powerful online reputation.

So…
How many of these 7 ways are you effectively using to drive traffic to your local website?

Yes, creating a website and online presence that effectively drives traffic can be overwheling for many local business owners. No matter how you decide to drive traffic to your local website, keep in mind that you must first have a local website worth marketing. All the traffic in the world isn’t going to increase your sales one dollar if your website doesn’t encourage visitors to call you, email you, or visit you to do business.

Make getting your website up to speed your first priority… then unleash the traffic.

What do you say?
What questions do you have about “How-To” Drive Traffic to Your Local Website?

Flickr Photo Credit: realSMILEY

Different Tips to Increase Website Traffic (slideshare.net)
How Organic SEO Can Be Used To Catapult A Website Up In The Search Engine Rankings. (ronmedlin.com)
Free or Low-Cost Tools for Marketing Your Business Online (lazerpromotions.com)
Facts About Traffic Generation (mt-soft.com.ar)

Twitter and Facebook? What Does Google Think?

Walt Goshert — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:49:37 +0000

Ok… so in light of Google Buzz and Real-Time Search, where does Twitter and Facebook really fit into the Google mix?

Not from is Twitter and Facebook competition to the Google empire,(another whole conversation that’s been beat to death) but does Facebook and Twitter actually help your Google Search rankings?

And, for discussion here, we’re going to table Real-Time search results for a different conversation.

So, from a pure SEO play…

You’re sitting there wondering…

Do links from Facebook and Twitter increase your Google ranking?

After all, Twitter and Facebook, next to Google and YouTube are the top sites online. You’ve heard that links from top sites into your local website helps boost your Google rankings. Increased Google rankings mean better chances for your website to show up for your key search terms on Page 1 of Google. Showing up on Page 1 of Google translates into more visitors to your website, more phone calls to your local business, and ultimately, more sales and money in your pocket. Yep, that’s how you’d like to see it work for your business.

Since you’ve heard so much about Twitter and Facebook, and they’re both Free Sites, you’ve decided to build Profiles and Pages, and are attracting Friends and Followers. You’re posting to your Facebook Fan Page and Wall, and sending out Tweets with links back to your website.

All this activity… but is it working?

Is it helping to increase your Google ranking and begin the “Happy Cycle” that leads to sales in your local business?

Let’s get the answer straight from Google. Here’s Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer and head of Google’s Webspam team.

Ok, so what is Matt telling us here?

1. Links from Twitter and Facebook are treated the same as any other site. Google does not distinguish them.

2. Lots of Facebook Personal Profiles are set to “Private”. If set to “Private” for Friends viewing only, the Google bots can not crawl your Facebook Profile and pick up the links.

3. Facebook Fan Pages are Public and are DO Follow links vs. NO Follow. As DO Follow, they will help increase your Google rankings if you have links from your Facebook Fan Page pointing back to your website or blog. I’m seeing comments on different sites that question if this is really true. Here’s a tool to check DO Follow/ NO Follow links if you use the Firefox Browser.

4. Twitter links in Tweets are NO Follow, but the link in your Twitter Profile is DO Follow (as are links in your Personal Profile on most all Social Marketing sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz, LinkedIn, etc.) This is a good reason to go out and create Profiles at as many of the Social Marketing sites as possible and include a link back to your website or blog.

5. Links on Tweets to your site are NO Follow, but remember, keywords you use in your Tweets now show up in Google’s Real-Time search results.

(In case you’re wondering DO Follow=Good, passes link juice on to your site. NO Follow= Not necessarily bad, but you get no link juice benefits. NO Follow is used on sites like Twitter to discourage SPAM commenting)

Your Three BIG take-aways here to increase your Google rankings from Twitter and Facebook:

ONE: Turn your Facebook Personal Profile “Public” if you have links to your site and want them to help you.

TWO: Set-Up a Facebook Fan Page for your business. Update it often with links back to your site. Check these links from time to time to make sure they are DO Follow. ( Somehow, I don’t think Facebook will announce this…)

THREE: Include a link in your Twitter Profile and all your Social Marketing Profiles. Get active on Social Marketing sites that fit your business. Build followers. AS you build followers, your Social Marketing Profile page increases in Google rank and passes more link value back to help increase your Google ranking.

Now, is this alone going to rocket you up the rankings for competitive keywords?

No.

But, if Facebook and Twitter are tactics and tools you’re using in your social media marketing strategy to build relationships with prospects and clients, why not get the most leverage out of them?

Because with On-line marketing, like many Off-line marketing tactics it’s not any ONE thing you do, it’s a combination of many things and how they fit into your overall marketing strategy.

So, you see, when you increase your Google ranking…

You start the “Happy Cycle”:

Your site shows up on Page 1 of Google, first for less competitive keywords, and eventually you start “owning” keywords in your sweet-spot.

You begin to see more visitors at your website.

These website visitors call you, fill out a site inquiry/lead form, print out a coupon…

Then these website visitors show up at your business with a coupon in hand, or you’ve set an appointment to see them.

They like what you do, how you do it, and hire you to solve their wants and desires, problems and challenges.

They give you cash, check, or a credit-card. They pay you.

Bottom-Line: More sales and more money in your pocket.

Flickr Photo Credt: Lall

Google News Tries Sharing With Facebook, But Where’s The Buzz Button? (techcrunch.com)
Want to Friend Me on Facebook? Please Use My Public Page or LinkedIn Instead (techipedia.com)
Social Selling (thecustomercollective.com)
Just How Popular Are You? – How To Check Right Now (thenextweb.com)

Free Google Name-Claim

Walt Goshert — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:13:26 +0000

If you’re a local business professional, what’s the first thing your prospects now do before they hire you?

They’re gonna “Google” you… Your Business Name and YOUR Name too.

Your Google Profile is where you begin to “Own Your Name” online.

So the Big Question is:

When your prospects and clients “Google” you, what do they find?

Do you “own” The Google space for your own name?

Here’s how to Claim Your Google Profile Name.

1. Sign into your Google account. Don’t have a Google account? Create one. RIGHT NOW. (click on “Sign In” in the upper right corner of your screen and follow the screen prompts) Before you read one. more. word.

Tip: Use your name as your Gmail address. Your Personal Profile URL Name defaults to this, but you can change it.

(Here’s a BIG TIP: Use your name consistently on all your online profiles. Your name is now your brand. We’re moving from the days of Location, Location, Location for Local Businesses to Content, Content, Content and Community, Community, Community. If you have a common name, like a “John Smith, you’ll need to use your Full Middle Name, or something like John Michael Smith, DDS to distinguish from non-dentist John Smiths)

2. If you haven’t claimed a Personal Profile… Click “Create a Profile”.

3. Add your Personal Information. Complete it all. You never know when an old school friend, past co-worker, or previous neighbor is looking to find you. Make sure you add a Photo Head Shot of yourself. Pick a good one because you’ll want to use this photo as your personal brand at other social sites online.

4. Add “A little personality” Have fun, but if your Personal Profile is for business connections, (yes, if you’re in business it IS for business connections online) be professional and consistent with the brand image you want to create.

5. Add Links This is KEY. Add links to your Website, Website Landing Pages, Company Blog, Personal Blog, Facebook Profile and Pages, Twitter Accounts, Flickr Photo Sharing account, YouTube Channel… all the places where you have information and content online. Remember, Google passes “link-love” from your Personal Profile back to your sites. Take advantage of this “Google Gift” and keep your links up-to-date. I go in and add and update my links monthly.

6. Add Photos- You can tie into any Photos you have on Picasa or Flickr.

7. Add your Contact Information.

And when you finish, Your Google Personal Profile should look something like this:

Walt Goshert: Google Personal Profile

(You’ll find Google Profile screen captures in my Photos. You can click on them and enlarge them)

There you have it… Your Free Google Name-Claim. You’re on your way to On-Line Fame!

After you complete your Google Personal Profile and Claim Your Name, go ahead and “Google” yourself.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the first page of results. You should find your Profile Picture and a link back to your Google Personal Profile. Here’s mine.

After you create your Google Personal Profile, don’t stop. You’ll want to Claim Your Name on other relevant social media sites.

Google Citations: Key to 7-Pak Happiness

Walt Goshert — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:06:50 +0000

In the Google Game, citations are a good thing for local businesses looking to rise to the top of their Local Business rankings… and break into the 7-Pak Space of Happiness for your Local Business.

David Mihm, a Local Search expert, defines Google Local Business Citations as:

“Any page that is listed under the “Web Page” tab inside a Google Local Business Listing.”

Citations are “mentions” of your Local Business Name and Address on other websites, even if there is no link back to your website. For instance, your business might be listed at YellowPages.com without a link back to your site. Congrats… you got a citation.

Most Local SEO gurus agree that citations are a key, if not THE key, factor in how Google determines rankings in the 7-Pak of Local Business Listings. Everything else being equal, the business with the most citations, especially citations from recognized Local business sites, wins the ranking game, getting their listing pushed to the top.

Google Local business citations validate that a business is part of a local community. For example, a citation from Acxiom, who lists only Business Land Phone lines, and the Local Chamber of Commerce, confirms that a business is who they claim to be on their Google Local Business Listing.

So, what you want for your Local business is more citations, and citations from the Right Sources.

You’ll want to gather citations from these sources:

1. Local Search Engines-

Make sure your Local business is listed on all the major Local Search Engines.

2. Local Blogs-

Seek out Local or Hyper-Local blogs in your area.

Simply perform a search:
“[your city] blog” or,
“[your neighborhood] blog”

Blogs are typically well-indexed in Search Engines. Businesses listed or linked to in Local Blogs are viewed as trusted, relevant results in Local Search.

3. Local Directories

Check out Best of the Web’s Regional Directory and Yahoo’s Regional Directory.

Also, do a search, same as you did for blogs:

“[your city] directory”

“[your state] directory”

4. Don’t Forget Industry Directories and Blogs

Check out the Membership Directory of your Trade Association, Vendor Listings, and Industry-specific blogs. Even if these websites or directories are not focused on your particular area, they no doubt include topics and keywords related to the products/services you offer. Chances are the Local Search engines will crawl these sites and count it as a citation source when they find your Local business listed on these sites.

Search:

“[your industry] directory”
“[your keyword] directory”

You’ll find sites for potential listings, links, and citations.

5. Check Your Citations for Accuracy

Visit the search engines, directories, blogs, and sites where you’ve submitted your business. Make sure your business name, address, and phone number is listed correctly and consistently the same across all the sites.

Time and effort you spend in these four areas will pay dividends in beefing up your Google Local Business Citations. While it’s important to gather citations for your Google Local Business Listing as soon as you can, make it a point to constantly keep your eyes open for places where you can earn citations. When your business shows at the top of Google’s 7-Pak in your area for the type of product/service you offer, you’re positioned to grab more sales and customers.

The Google 7-PAK is Your Happy Space Online. Your Business Citations help you enter your 7-PAK Happy Space.

Flickr Photo Credit: House of Sims

Understanding Local Listing Sites as Google Changes the Game (marketingvox.com)
Improve Your Online Business With Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (webmanmarketing.com)
Gain the Top Spot In Google (lazerpromotions.com)
Improve Your Web Site Ranking With These 5 tips (ronmedlin.com)
Dealing with multiple phone numbers in Google Local (blogstorm.co.uk)

Walt Goshert » local seo

Expand Your Google Local Business Listing Service Area

Even more Google Local Business Listing and Local Search Tips:

Now… Here’s my FREE Special Gift for YOU…

PLAY TO WIN: The Secret to Building a GREAT Business…

Discover Your Strengths

7 Winning Local Business Traffic Tactics

7 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Local Website:

More on Driving Traffic to Your Local Business Online:

Twitter and Facebook? What Does Google Think?

Do links from Facebook and Twitter increase your Google ranking?

Related Facebook, Twitter, and Social Media Articles:

Free Google Name-Claim

Related articles Google Profiles and Google Buzz:

Google Citations: Key to 7-Pak Happiness

Related articles on Google Local Business Listings: