What we say
Posted in: Adwords, Local Search by admin on January 19, 2010 | 1 Comment
I got a letter from Google today with $100 worth of free advertising. The letter is being sent out to businesses with claimed LBC listings and starts out saying “You already use Google’s Local Business Center to help customers discover your business online when they search locally on Google or Google Maps.” Then goes on to explain the effectiveness of search advertising.
I have included an image of the letter for your enjoyment.
My only question is why would Google be promoting Adwords to LBC users if they are planning to launch local listing ads any time soon? Anyone? Anyone?
Posted in: Small Business Marketing by admin on January 14, 2010 | 3 Comments
It seems that more and more businesses are understanding that they need to have a blog whether they are practicing law, or selling brownies. They have heard that “blogging” is a great way to close the gap between businesses and consumers, so they picked their software of choice and added a blog to their site.
Though this is a step in the right direction, one step doesn’t get you all that far. From what I have seen, my small business blogs sit unused, unnoticed, and unimportant. So, in this post I want to identify a few small businesses who “get” blogging and hopefully help those that don’t take a few more steps in the right direction.
View Great Small Business Bloggers in a larger map
I first ran into GJEL through Kaitlin Janusz who is a frequent visitor of Hyperlocalblogger.com . She handles the blog, and all social media work for the GJEL. Their blog is updated weekly, and ranges on topics from “Legal Humor” to “News for Law Students”. Ultimately, Kaitlin has been able to take this California Personal Injury Firm with 19 locations and give it a personality. Which is (INHO) one of the main focuses for a business blog. When you are able to give a business a personality, people feel more comfortable contacting and dealing with that business. In the words of John Buscall, “Think of your blog as a place where people get a chance to see beneath the sheen of corporate copy that usually covers all your business communications.”
I can’t even remember how I cam across this pizza company, but I am sure glad I did. Avalanche Pizza has won more awards, and has been featured in more places than the snuggie blanket. They do a very good job on keeping up with local news in the pizza arena, and you can see the updates right from their home page. This isn’t the reason I choose them though. The owner of the company recently started a personal pizza blog called PizzaGoon.com and that my fine friends, is the reason they were chosen.
John Gutekanst, the owner of Avalanche Pizza, uses his new blog to share a wide variety of fantastic pizza recipes, “how to” videos, fun experiences in his pizza travels, and much more! The reason I find this respectable is that in most cases, successful business blogs are written by a hired hand or the “company techie”. There is nothing wrong with the mentioned format, but when the owner of the company spends time blogging and does a good job at it, I’m impressed. It shows that the business is still very near and dear to the management… which is always a sign of a solid company. So, business owners, it’s time to step up and start blogging. You are the one who built your company, and you should take the opportunity to talk about it on occasion. If you can’t do so regularly, then squeeze a post in to your blogger when you can.
I first ran across this UK based company on a Mashable’s writeup a few month’s ago. I was intrigued by the fact that this local business made the jump from being a local farm shop to a respectable online community through blogging and pod-casting. In their own words they say, “With thousands of listeners from all around the world, and over fifty 5-star reviews on iTunes, it seems that our audience enjoys listening to the shows as much as we enjoy making them.” That is pretty amazing considering the subjects that they are talking about wouldn’t usually be considered all that news worthy. Wiggly Wigglers makes the list because they took the normal (the category that most businesses fall under) and made it exciting. In doing this, they took a rural business and reached a much larger audience and in turn, can now sell their products online as well as at their farm house.
Blumenthals Web Hosting and Design
Mike Blumenthal is a small business owner who understands one very important thing when it comes to blogging. If you want to build a community, people have to talk and you have to talk back. Mike blogs about Google Local Search and is one of most knowledgeable people on the subject in the world. This is not why he is making the list though. His blog makes the list because he takes the time to write back to pretty much every comment that is left on his posts. This can be extremely time consuming, but encourages great discussion and dedicated followers. It is definitely one of the factors that has lead to the blog’s success as an “authoritative local search site”.
Small businesses have such a wonderful opportunity with a blog. It is a creative door that many people will enter through to find your business if you can use it correctly. So, start taking a few more steps in the right direction, and you might find that blogging for your business is a fun way to talk about your “baby” that you have grown from an idea into your bread and butter.
Posted in: Local Search by admin on December 9, 2009 | 6 Comments
Local Search seems to be taking dramatic steps forward on a weekly basis. Not too long ago, a search for anything local would bring up a 10 pack on Google, and since then, we have seen local listing ads, lucky 7 packs, and even the possible future low 5 pack.
The above all have to do with the User Interface, but what about the ranking factors? Are they evolving?
The answer is definitely Yes! It seems that information provided in the Local Business Center is losing a bit of ranking power, and off-LBC-criteria is gaining momentum.
After viewing Tom Critchlow’s recent research, I took the search phrase “Denver Dentist” on Google, and looked at the following information…
You can download the .xlsx data sheet Denver Dentist By Mike Ramsey @niftymarketing for your own study and application.
Location, Location, Location…unless you have major citations.
In the data sheet, take a look at 7th Ranked Denver Dentistry. They have 68 listed citations, 28 total reviews with 5 star ratings, and pull business details from the business owner (meaning the listing was claimed), HealthProfs.com, SuperPages.com, kudzu.com, and ratemds.com. For a dentist, this is a very solid listing. The only issue is that his address, though only 9 miles from city center, is in the suburb of Lakewood and not Denver. This single factor is keeping him from being ranked higher in the results.
Next, look at the 5th ranked Littleton Orthodontics with a measly 6 citations and 1 review. This is a spammy company name, and the listing is having some major duplicate issues. This listing is also in a town 16 miles away from the city center. So, why in the crazy world of Google maps is this listing even showing up? Let alone in the 5th (and 3rd if you click on maps tab)? The only answer that seems to make any since has to do with the user content for this listing. One of the duplicate listings has the name Ken Caryl in the title and because of this, their are 4 wikipedia pages linking to “littleton Orthodontics”. So, a listing with very little reason to rank gets a boost from wikipedia citations and is ranking in a major city that it is not even in. To view more information on this check the second excel tab on the report entitled “littleton orthodontics “.
These examples definitely support the notion that all citations are not created equal, and user content might play a bit more of a ranking factor than it used to. Location is still very much the king and the closer you are to that coveted city center the more relevant you will always be, but looking at the examples above…location was beat out by quantity in one case, and quality in another. As a matter of fact, 4 of the 16 listings do not have a Denver address. So, location can slow you down, but some find a way around.
Not all citations are created equal
Though this was mentioned above, it deserves much more mention and study, because this is becoming a very important issue for businesses involved in local search. David Mihm stated in his recent SEL Post The Other 20% of Local SEO …
“In local search, a citation from a trusted website like a city or state government or even a commercial site like a Chamber of Commerce or city newspaper can often be the difference between #1 and not appearing in the seven-pack.”
These “Denver Dentist” businesses ranged from having 1-6 local citations. I don’t think this study dives deep enough to weight local citations, but it is notable that all companies ranking did have a mix of local citations. I am also under the impression that some national IYP’s carry a heavier rank as well. For instance, any site that is being used to provide information for the Business details tab is most likely worth more than another given citation. Here is the list of these sites found in this study…
Now I am not saying these are the only heavily weighted citations, but they are authoritative for dentists, or they wouldn’t be used to gather business details like hours, payment type, etc. It seems that there are even more trusted sources such as wikipedia that don’t get the honorable mention by the business details tab.
54% of the citations Google is showing have Name, Address, or Phone Number (NAP) in the title of the page. I do think that citations have a higher change of getting listed if this is the case, this also could be something that gets more points for the algo.
Another important thing to note is that Google is showing very few citations compared to what is really out there. If you run a search for “company name” 000-000-0000 (that is the phone number) then you will see that there are literally hundreds of places throughout the web where the information needed for a citation is listed. Why these aren’t listed is a Google mystery, but many think they might actually pull some weight as well.
Overall, citations are a major player along with location, but this study definitely showed me that quantity was not king. So, start the engines to figure out the secret behind quality.
Reviews are making headway…
Reviews seem to be pulling more and more ranking power. Look at the 1st ranked Comfort Dental for an example… They don’t have a large amount or any special citations. But, they do have 49 Reviews. This seems to be one of their major ranking factors. Most importantly they are receiving reviews from 3 different websites since 2005. Of the top 16 sites, only 16% of the reviews were left on Google. The rest were located on different IYP’s. I do believe this shows the important of reviews, and getting reviews around different sites.
My Maps…
From what I am seeing in this study, User content in the form of my maps is treated as a citation. That became very apparent in the Littleton Ortho listing that was linking UGC to wikipedia. It is the only ranking factor that could even start to get that listing to rank.
Limited Categories
This is currently strictly speculation, but I was surprised to see so many top ranking companies that only had one category being “dentist”. I wonder if you stick to one category, your change at ranking within that category rises. The funny thing about this is the reason those businesses only have one category is because they have not been claimed (no business owner details).
Street View Image
Only two of the top 16 listings didn’t have a street view image associated with their places page. If google is able to load a street view image, your trust rank should increase and ultimately play some effect on rankings.
Ranking in local search results is about spreading your eggs in many different baskets. You have to be close to the centriod, carry lots of citations on the local and IYP level, find some authoritative citations, get reviews on google and other sites that are listing as citations, have some user generated content, and this is only starting on the basic things that need to be done outside of the local business center. The fact of the matter is, you have to be extremely relevant, and established for the search query and hope that the competition isn’t, possibly higher someone that is into local search marketing….or get some citations from wikipedia.
Merry Christmas,
Mike Ramsey
P.S. I used the words Secret and Free in title to just get you here.
Posted in: Adwords, Local Search, SEO by admin on November 6, 2009 | 1 Comment
I just read Aaron Wall’s post Excuse Me Where Did Google’s Organic Search Results Go? that seemed to spark a bit of conversation in the comment section. The article highlights the changes taking place on the SERPS, and gives great advice to organic seo’ers on future steps to take. The best part of the article (IMHO) is where Aaron states…
Posted in: Local Search by admin on October 19, 2009 | 1 Comment
I just wanted to bring up a very interesting thing that has taken place with the switch to local listings displaying 7 instead of 10 results. Now, when the lucky 7 pack shows up, The number of reviews are all in line, and fall at the end of the listing. So, it is easier to shop by the number of reviews. For instance look at the example below.
Sys Storage, which on this search term is positioned at “D” , is the only company with reviews. Since the launch of the 7 pack, this company on this search phraze has seen a much higher Click Through Rate. I am convinced that it is due to the easier to compare reviews. So, start bring them in, Reviews are starting to gain a bit more momentum with every thing Google is doing.
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