Good companies will do the following:   some keyword research, a little competitor analysis, analytics for consistency, and a PPC test or two for flavor and whip up a nice little campaign for a local SEO campaign. Especially if one is allowed to attach a blog to get the content flowing.

And, unless there’s an extreme situation, the site should be ready to compete in the local market.

But here’s where the fun starts.

My logic will get me into trouble, but the argument is necessary:

I put three principles into play:

1) SEO results is attained by traffic, content, and backlinks. Good SEO is measured in traffic; great SEO is measured in conversions.
2) Directories are evil. Once a favored trick, directories have since lost favor due to algorithm changes.
3) Pending on the market, local search and site traffic have few traffic watering holes that offer for great conversions. For example, a local orthodontist who is only licensed in one state and whose office resides on the state line is going to have a limited geographical area. Pending travel.

When it comes down to this point, sometimes you have to consider places that sometimes feels below an SEO’s dignity.

Sites like the local Yellow Pages online directory. Or Dex Knows.

Yep, I said it. I think I even contradict a post on here from late 2009. But I have to hold to it.

While we’re at it….

• Banner ads on the local newspaper site.
• Local community sites that are well-received.

Why? Oh WHY would you do that to a site?

The reason is twofold

1) Because, pending on the site, even if the backlink isn’t the best place on earth, the traffic more than makes up for it. Especially when you are dealing with small and medium businesses. If they are getting the traffic and conversions at a good (brace for it) ROI, allowing for the business to grow a rate they can handle it. Then searching and working for the best backlink might not be the best way to spend your time.
2) Pending on results, many searchers use Yellow Book online, or Dex Knows, to look for local businesses. The heavy TV push on their behalf seems to have had a positive effect. At least with he last couple clients I’ve seen.

Believe it or not, not everybody uses Google to look for local businesses. It’s frightening, but it’s true. And while we’re at it, they don’t always use Yahoo and Bing, either.

I didn’t want to believe it either. But as much as I would like to tell the client that they rank #1 for everything and get great traffic for the market, I don’t do my job if I’m not getting them traffic that converts. Even if the search engine isn’t one of the big three.

Who knew SEO could be so…dirty.

(photo taken by Grow Wear via Flickr)

I hate 3rd party directories. I always have. The directory is only as good as the people who use it (for reviews) or update (through aggregators). It’s a pile of information that they hope to sell, resell and sell again in the form of advertising on the site, or worse, placement.

Here are several ways how it works:

3rd party directory contacts a local business and tries to convince them to be listed in their directory by:
a. Telling them how many visitors they get in a vague timeline
b. Showing them their competition in the directory
c. Showing features of how to use their site
d. .. and then show them how they get priority listing in the directory by how much they pay either through a package or points or frequent
flier miles or … scout badges…

The model is to try to have have the most people listed and update along with traffic to actually get people to the site, whether it’s human or not. Simply alphabetizing the companies isn’t good enough so putting and advertising model in for Zigfried Zandale’s A/C Repair has a chance.

There’s a main problem with online directories. It’s the same reason you come home and you find a stack of phonebooks at your door. I once left an increasing stack of phone books on my porch to prove a point. It was lost on the delivery guys. Information of businesses is widely available and it can be sorted in many different ways, but it’s still the same information.

Luckily, one of my clients changed addresses last year and I was able to see which one actually noticed – Google.

With so many directories, how do we know which one is doing what it can to rank above another directory?
What are they doing to draw users to leave reviews?
Where do those reviews go?

I was approached by a local directory to list with them by buying advertising. They had already gathered reviews through, what I assumed, was a big marketing push for people to leave reviews. There were 8 of them. Now, for this client, that was good enough. The salesman said that some of the reviews were OK, most were good, there were a couple negative ones and that I should check it out. I went to the directory by URL because it wasn’t coming up in my SERPS for my keywords (red flag) and I read the reviews. I wondered if these reviews would be aggregated by google like insiderpages and citysearch does on occasion. They weren’t. Around mid-2009, phone calls from the salesman stopped. Out of curiosity, I looked at the site again. We were still there with reviews, but the negative ones were gone. No updates since 2008.

Hmmm.

Take that example and multiply it by “a whole hecka bunch” and you see the problem that 3rd Party Directories pose.

Google Places is making plans to some weeding in the garden.

Read this from an observer who noticed some unique changes happening in different locations. This is a test for now. But this is what it means.

1. Google Places is going to be THE standard of local search importance. A lot of weight will be given to it.

2. Directories are going to be pushed in favor of websites

3. Reviews are more prominent

4. It’s in your face

This is going to cause a lot of 3rd directories to shrivel. Google WILL be the directory. While these aren’t in place yet, it’s coming.

So what do you do?

1. Look at your business listing on Google Places THROUGHLY
If you don’t have every bell and whistle used, figure out a way to now.

2. Look at why you aren’t listed high in Google Places.
Check the companies above you and do it better

3. Work on your customer service.
Your business with customers will be everybody’s business now

4. Encourage reviews from clients and customers who love you.
This is to help when #3 isn’t in place yet.

In my mind, it’s a game changer – and it’s a good one.

I think there’s a fear about Online Reputation Management. It consists of  people opinionated enough to post something good or bad about your    business. We love positive reviews. We feel the pat on the back and get a spring in the step to continue on. Woo!

But what about a negative review? I have come across the following emotions:

1. “It might be a competitor!”

One nasty technique in Local SEO is to bomb competitors with false negative reviews. Not only does this lower your own standards, it creates havoc on “best practices” that the SEO industry is trying to establish. So, anyway, you think it’s a competitor? Oh those tricky devils! Who is it? You can’t tell! Also, the people searching for you will read the review and they have no idea who wrote it.

2. “It might be a former employee!”

Again, like #1, it doesn’t matter to the general public. 

3. “No one reads those things…”

The power of the review rests in the how much the average searcher relies on reviews of local businesses. Do people believe these semi-anonymous posts? Yeah, they do!

Now that we’ve explored the three forms of denial concerning negative reviews, let’s take the steps needed to deal with them.

Step 1. Accept the fact that someone somewhere screwed up.

We’re all human, but businesses are expected to be flawless and fair even though these business are run by flawed and unfair humans. No one can give the same amount of perfect effort of providing customer satisfaction every single time. It’s not possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fake review, it’s there for the world to see.

Step 2. Realize that this will only increase exponentially.

This isn’t a fad, this is how people shop will continue to shop. Unfortunately, the later a business owner is to the game they miss more opportunities to gain business or prevent people being turned away.

Step 3. Appoint qualified people to manage online review management.

Online Reputation Management should be done by someone in your company that has tact, empathy, compassion, and a strong will. Don’t leave it to your webmaster, don’t give it to the IT department. This needs to be handled by your sales or marketing team.

Step 4. Know what your options are.

For a Yahoo review, you can respond to them by making a comment to the review. You have 2 objectives in this comment field. First you need to neutralize the review. You are not going to comment a negative review into a positive review. You are going to neutralize the review by being empathetic, understanding, apologizing that they had a bad experience. People want to be HEARD most of all. Read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and you will gain tremendous insight into people. Second, you NEED TO GET THE CONVERSATION OFFLINE ASAP! I can’t overstate that enough. If I was able to blow up the font to 800 dpi and flash in gaudy colors I would. You do not want a back and forth recorded conversation. Read this to see how it can spiral out of control. It’s one thing to get a negative review, but it’s another when your interactions wind up on countless blogs and news aggregator sites.  You are not there to defend your business by somehow communicating that the customer was wrong. It makes your business look like a jerk – if a business can be personified. Invite the person to call a specific number to resolve the issue such as the sales manager, customer rep, whoever. Chances are they won’t call, but everyone will see that you put forth the effort.

For Google Reviews, you can’t respond to them. There is not comment field. It’s just going to sit there, like a wart. Your only option is to get more positive reviews. Real Positive reviews. Find customers who love you. Really love you. Adamant fans of your service and ask them, if they  wouldn’t mind, to write a review on Google. If you can’t find such a customer, you might want to think about how to cultivate a loving customer base.

Keep an eye on your company’s reputation online. It will carry weight into your overall sales strategy, customer retention and business practices.

I’m a low key guy. I like to surf and research before I buy. However, I noticed a few instances recently that forced this introverted mulling geek to dial a phone number quickly.

1. Emergencies – So the A/C goes out. I’m left with a hot house, a hot spouse and no relief in site. And yes, I turn to the Internet and do a search, but do I submit an online form? Good Heavens, NO! I look for the number and dial it post haste!

2. Mobile purchasing – Through a series of life events, I wound up in scenario to order a pizza to pick up on my way home. Major pizza chains allow you to submit your order online without talking to anyone. But I’m in a car, driving in 4 lane traffic. There’s many other people driving and stopping and swerving along with me. I don’t want to become pizza. So I searched for the pizza place and found the number in the google local results and called it. I hadn’t done that in years, but mobile local search opened the option back up to me.

3. Frustration – In home repairs, I found out that I have no idea what I’m doing. I can field strip a desktop down to the motherboard and reassemble it while being timed. But when it comes to fixing a leaking shower faucet, I have more questions than a content network can provide. My problem was beyond the Internet. So I called a plumber that I found off the search results page.

These are three instances you might find yourself in someday. If you feel that SEO is the answer to your lead generation, keep in mind that your phone number is still essential in your local search marketing.

Quick tips:

Have your number in the top right of every page of your website, not just in the footer. Always promote a local number rather than a toll-free number. Don’t translate your phone number to letters. While it’s easy to memorize, it’s harder for people who own certain types of smart phones.

We may be in an age where the yellow pages are dying, but the strength of the phone number is still going strong.

1. Quicker searching
2. Catch a mistakes in spelling by providing common spellings
3. Provide relevant pages quickly and
4. Repeat your previous favorite searches

A fifth one would be to provide entertainment, but it’s all about making search faster. When you start typing common searched terms start popping up. Bing and Yahoo also join in by providing their own RTS ideas. All three use their own algorithm to provide suggestions, but one thing they all pay attention to is what people are searching for.

Real Time Search for Popular Keywords

Real Time Search can also be a resource for popular terms to optimize for in your city. What are people looking for? Houses? computers? Puppies? Burritos? Add your city to generic terms that your business would be associated with and see if it pops up as a phrase in the suggested search terms.

If it does, it means people are looking for it. If people are looking for it, it’s time to consider how you can harness that for your SEO strategy. If it doesn’t, don’t worry, you have discovered a niche to call your own.

Real Time Search to Measure Branding

I had the opportunity to be on the ground floor of a marketing campaign for a local plumbing company. The initial SEO brought the website to page 5 and they opted to put money into radio and print. At this time, the company name did not come up in Real Time Searches at all. That was understandable. No one knew the company existed. After a week of radio and print advertising, the real time search result of its name appeared. People were searching for it, the analytics proved it as well. Put your own business name and see if people are searching for you or if they are talking about you.

The SEO possibility

Real Time Search can help you spot what people are looking for. Play around with your keywords in Google Suggest and see what pops up.  You might spot some missing opportunities that an adjustment to your website can benefit from.

But rather than do a “this is what they did and this is how they lie” type of thing, I will post some guidelines. It very easy to rebuttal a wrong sales tactic by saying “well, that rep is no longer with us and we do this and this and this now to ensure…” It doesn’t really help anyone to just take someones complaint and use that as a guide.

When pursing your own online campaign or looking for some additional help, this list of guidelines should alleviate the worry.

1. Read reviews of the service/company
This is easier for national services, there are many sites for reviews but to narrow down the search, google the following terms (replace “company” with the name of the service you are researching: “company reviews”, “company complaints”, “company isn’t”, “company didn’t”, “company wasn’t”, and “company wouldn’t.” Take note of the date of the review too. Older negative reviews might be outdated and changes to the company may have been implemented since then.  Always look for the most recent reviews.

2. Do nothing until you fully understand what you are paying for
High pressure sales rely on emotion, agitation, fear and intimidation. Repeated phone calls for your business happen to wear you down. You should never decide to do business with someone until you see it completley spelled out, drawn out, layed out and set in stone. Do you feel like you would annoy the salesperson by doing that? Good! It’s their job to explain things. If it doesn’t make sense to you, then your money should be harder to let go. I’m not going to say “if it’s too good to be true, it must be a scam” because online marketing can bring some amazing results over traditional media. Ask the right questions!
“What am I paying for?”
“What is the competition in my area paying for?”
“What are you going to do to my site?”
“What are you going to do with a mirrored site?”
“How much more per click do you charge rather than me going to google myself?”
“How do you treat my competitors if they sign up for the same thing?”
“What happens to my site if I cancel?”
“What can I expect as far as communication with a rep?”
“If my rep doesn’t call me back or contact me through email, what do I do then?”
“What kind of response do you guarantee?”
“If I’m not satisfied with the amount I paid for my leads, what recourse do I have?”
You get the point. Grill them. Grill them hard. Make them work for your money. If they are not satisfying you on why you should give up your money, they shouldn’t be satisified with closing a sale.

3. Ask for case studies and online examples
The best type information is from real examples of previous customers or current customers. One misstep some people do is not ask for companies in their own industry. Being shown a case study for a vet clinic to promise how the same service will benefit your sandwich shop. If a similar industry is not in their repertoire, I’d negotiate a lower rate due to their lack of experience in your field. If they do show you examples of clients, call and ask to speak with the person they worked with and get feeling of the relationship they have with the online marketing service.

These are just three, but they should put in perspective the research needed to avoid being fleeced. If not watched closely you can mismanage SEO and PPC budgets on your own, but it’s worse when you have a company managing where they don’t have your best interests in mind.

Can you think of any other things you would do or ask before agreeing to a salesperson? Write them in the comments section!

“Show Options”

I’m a creature of habit. That’s not a good thing usually when you are in marketing. You tend to become comfortable to your own way of thinking patterns and stop branching out. It was to my shame when someone suggested what the “show options” link on the SERP page was. “The show what thing… what?” So I did a simple search for “kittens” (why not?) and despite the images that now populate the regular SERP, I was able to see the “show options” link in the upper left. If you click this, you will be treated to a side bar of the options that are on the homepage (images, videos, news, etc), but one thing that is different is the “social” and “nearby” links.

“Social” is … well, not getting me anything on several topics I’m searching for. I even searched for “American Idol” on “Social” and nothing came up. Oh well. I’m more interested in the “Local” option. This one brought “kittens” found on my local craigslist to my view. Awwww.

So here we have another way for local searches to be utilized by another demographic of people who search in a different way.

Hints from Google with the “Wonder Wheel”

As an added bonus on these new search options is the “Wonder Wheel.” This is a tool that takes your search term and adds possible other searches as suggestions. These tend to be populated from the Google Suggest , but still nice to see in a visual setting. I think this would be a valuable tool for other terms or subsets to optimize for. For instance, “kittens” yielded “kitten breeds, kitten names, kitten care, kitten adoption, kitten facts” and of course “kitten pictures.”
These would make excellent sub-pages to your kitten website.

This gives Google a whole new section of data on usability and refinement of SERP pages.  Seeing how the results can be jumbled and laid out for users should pique your interest in how many ways your site could come up with all the options available.  Images, Blogs, Documents … more avenues where your company or brand could be show up.

If you want to invite the scorn of the Search Gods and other business then by all mean perform these unforgiveable sins. There is no giggling, there is no “my bad”, there is no saying “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” These will earn you a swift kick in your IP address.

Unforgiveable Sin of Local SEO #1: False Reviews

Pumping up your review numbers with fake reviews from fake accounts is not only low and sneaky, but misleading and and treacherous to your local community. If, somehow, the fake reviews were suddenly identified to be generated by the business owner, how would people respond? Amazon has information for you on that. Remember the Belkin reviews? Fake reviews will be found out and you will be penalized – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but one day.  Don’t take the chance.

Unforgiveable Sin of Local SEO #2: Claiming someone else’s listing

Local search business centers, like Google’s,  have made great pains for this to be less of an issue. Because of that, the attempt to claim a local listing not your own will incure that much more wrath. If someone owns someone elses listing, that locks out the real owner from fleshing out their profile with descriptions, coupons, keywords and descriptions.  The only thing more heinous would be to optimize a site of your competitor’s and rank it higher than the official one.

Unforgiveable Sin of Local SEO #3: Copying Content

One could argue this is just a business tactic. No, sir! It’s plagerism. Besides the penalties for duplicate content on the web, you come off as unimaginative and … well … lame. It’s also apparant that you did just happen to type the same thing with your brand in its place.

Is this Black hat SEO? No.  Black hat is simply using technology to increase gains artificially.  These techniques are just in bad taste and are beyond cheating.

Do you have any other sins that should be on this list?  What have you seen that you would consider “shady” or “gray?”

Free Local SEO is Better Than Not Free

One aspect that makes both of these easily possible is if the marketing options are free. Assuming “free” fits within your small business advertising budget, making no investment greatly increases your chances of providing positive ROI (considering people hours spent on managing the free marketing options) and thus also qualifying for operating efficiently. One could also make the argument that free tools sometimes require a lot more effort to run correctly than paid tools, but for the sake of this article we will assume they are easy enough.

Google Local Business Center listings have been mentioned time and time again in our Local SEO category and yet it seems like many small businesses are still not utilizing them. What’s not to like about them? Local Business Center listings (LBCs) are free and provide necessary information to users. Searching for your services, in your area, a user should easily be able to see your listing and consider your services as an option. Otherwise, they may not think Google’s standard listing of your business (with no reviews and other info) is trustful enough and not consider your business at all. Even though you are marking your business location on a map, include your city and state in your LBC. This helps designate your business in the standard Google search engine results, as well.

Twitter is also another great free option. Google has been indexing twitters and delivering them in search results, after signing an agreement with Twitter last October. If you were among the crowd that thought Twitter had no real purpose, you should change your mind soon. Competitors in your area will soon be including their services and locations in their tweets, letting anyone searching for “reinforced armadillo cages in Abilene” find exactly what they are looking for before you do. As with the LBC, being proactive in Twitter will let you get ahead of your competition by making it known that your services are available in a location in the online world.

Measuring Local SEO Efficiency

As I mentioned above, time spent on both LBC and Twitter may be an investment to a small business owner, even if they are free. Statistics are provided within Google’s Local Business Center, showing data that help you adjust your local business listing so it is performing efficiently. Twitter also has many free analytical programs and services that can show how well your local optimization is working.

Local SEO Differences

A few things to keep in mind with all this talk of similarities. LBCs are mostly informational and static. You won’t be changing them often or much on them. They will be slight tweaks to your calls to action and messaging, or anything else you might see in the data. Twitter is more of a promotional tool, letting users know of specials or sales rather than where your business is located. This stems from its dynamic nature and the fact that you are reaching out to the user rather than waiting for the user to come to you. Thus, be proactive and use your calls to action appropriately.

Enjoy your local success!

The Social Aspect of SEO

There has always been a social aspect of SEO, and that was link building. Reciprocating links with web masters involved a two people to communicate and agree on an mutual beneficial action. To a degree this could be manipulated and exploited until one was caught in suspicious behavior where 1500 links were suddenly added overnight.

The social aspect has been increased with user generated content such as reviews, blogs, wikipedia pages, and anything else that can carry your brand name or URL without your direct influence. This brings a wild card element to the game that can add to the mix.

The Thoroughness of SEO

There are many tools to promote your business and there are ones that are looked at closely with Search Engines. Online directories, maps, content-rich articles and multimedia. What seems to be changing is that how well each avenue is utilized will have an impact on your business as well. Have a YouTube account? Are you uploading a new video once in a while? Are you tagging it correctly? Are you participating in the comments? Same thing with maps and directory accounts. The more content there is of your business using the most popular keywords, the more importance you be given. Don’t get too excited, however. The popularity of other people rating you, engaging in discussion and writing about you is a key part of this thoroughness. You’re not going to fill a forum just with your comments. Don’t even think of creating different user accounts.

The Cleanliness of SEO

With a lot of hub-bub over caffeine’s changes and other algorithm upgrades, for those who are doing what you are suppose to do (keep your page simple, add real relevant content periodically, work with peers in your industry for promotion) you don’t have to worry too much. You have a great relevant site and Google wants to reward you for doing what you are suppose to be doing. However, I know a couple “gray-hatters” that are pouring over online documents and forums to see if their sites are going to lose their standing because of the “gray” techniques they implement. My reaction to that
is if they poured that much energy into just increasing the business and customer service, they wouldn’t have to run around in the first place.

The Owner of SEO

It should be said that Google owns SEO. It’s their search engine that everyone wants to rank high on. It’s their algorithm that black hatters have tried to exploit which forced them to continually tweak it. It’s reaching a point that you won’t be able to “trick” or “falsify” your page to rank high because those who are abiding by Google’s “suggestions” will sky rocket.

In short: The people who play fair and are thorough will rise to the top.