Discover: Social Media Local Search

admin    Google     Discover, Local, Media, Search, Social

How do customers find your company locally?  How does your market know where to find you?  How do you gain visibility online?  What is social media and what does it have to do with your business?  How do you use it to increase visibility?

There is a new site that answers all of these questions.

FourWhere.com combines Google Maps with FourSquare.com, showing users exactly where the businesses and places they check in are located. This site visually shows locations of checked in establishments.  In a sense it is the new Google local search, mapping out busines locations and including descriptions, tips, reviews, and recommedations.

This is the new local search, the way that people will be able to find your business socially.  It is the new word of mouth mixed with visual enhancements.

Say you are a own a Los Angeles acupuncture clinic, or you have give ACLS classes locally, people can check-in and site your business through FourSquare.com and it will show up visually on a map.  Users can then tell others that they highly recommend your business, that they visit it frequently, or use you location to builld points in their game which ultimately gives you more and visibility and exposure online.

Social media has become the way people get information instantaneously.  From the Cisco router announcement on blogs, to Tweets on Jeff Bridges and his new Tron re-make, social media is how people are getting news.   You can use it effectively to market you business in real-time, generate a buzz, and increase visibility.

Learning More About Google’s Enhanced Local Listings

admin    Google     About, Enhanced, Googles, Learning, Listings, Local, more

Depending on who’s doing the talking, Google’s new Enhanced Local Listings (currently available only in Houston, Texas and San Jose, California) are either a boon to small businesses with small advertising budgets or the end of organic search as we know it. Here is what all the heated discussion is about.

The Google Lat Long Blog describes it as “a new ads feature in local search that allows business owners to enhance their listings.” Apparently, it is not a matter of “buying position” on the SERP: “When the listing shows up in your Google.com or Google Maps search results, the enhancement also appears alongside it.”

The “enhancement” as you can see in the screen shot is a little yellow flag. Your listing will also have “sponsored” next to it. The enhancement is something you can click on to go to the business’s website, pictures, menu, or coupon. On the screen shot you can see that the flag will take you to the company’s website.There are plenty of people, though, who see this as a slippery slope to paid rankings. Some of them believe that as the program grows, it will become competitive (like AdWords), and the position will be determined by the highest bids. Others think that if the program is nationwide, everyone will pay $25 per month and the enhanced listings will no longer stand out in a sea of little yellow flags.

Then there are those who believe that now Google has its big toe in the door, eventually there will be a more complex structure for price and what it gets you and after people get used to it, paying for real estate on page 1 of the SERPs will have worked its way into the mix without anyone thinking its any big deal. Boom: the end of Google’s organic search results. With AdWords already putting a price on 10 to 20% of the space on each SERP, Google will eventually want the other 80 to 90% to be monetized too. Other conjecture for Google’s nefarious plan include offering something like number one placement with purchase of a “premium” package.

The most likely scenario is that the program will roll out nationwide, everyone will pay $25 for a flag, and therefore nobody’s listing will stand out (except, ironically, maybe the oddball who ranks and doesn’t buy the enhanced listing). Pay for rank? I don’t know. It seems as if Google has an awful lot to lose by doing that. I suppose it is possible that Google thinks it’s so big and dominates search engines so thoroughly that they could pretty much do what they want and get away with it.

But if that were the case, it would make the time ripe for a new or open-source search engine to bust out due to its simple interface and truly organic listings. Or else Google could separate their search into something like “New Coke” (where businesses can buy rank) and “Classic Coke” (where the results are pure and ads are either gone or could be turned off). That would allow those who actually care about relevance and quality to do their thing while the ones that were OK with buying ranking could have their own search universe too.

Local SEM Is it a business booster

admin    SEM     booster, business, Local

Local Search Engine Marketing aims at targeting an audience in the vicinity alone and not globally. Local SEM yields a greater success rate that that of the traditional SEM but only with certain tough challenges. A SEM campaign can help you achieve extraordinary success globally; but if you want your business popularity to be area specific, you must opt for local SEM tactics.

Local SEM can boost your search engine visibility in local audience and thus help you earn a greater return on investment faster. Before analysing its benefits, let’s learn the ways for local optimization:-

First step in local SEM technique includes listing yourself in Google maps and yahoo local. The listing in google map requires an application and its verification via mail or phone. After successful verification you will be added in local listings within 4 to 6 weeks. However listing in yahoo local is a much simpler and less time consuming process. All you need to do is apply and you will get listed in a few days time.
Apart from this, get your website listed in the regional DMOZ, yellow pages, super pages, yelp, citysearch, BOTW regional and other such directories.
Create local classified listings on free classified websites such as Craigslist, USFreeAds and DomesticSale.
Perform on-page optimization including title tag creation with details of city and state in addition to keywords, local address representation on each page and mention the areas where you serve.
Target your PPC campaign and mobile ad listings locally.

The benefits of using local search engine optimisation are:

Quicker rankings in search results. Greater conversions. Larger local customers which ensures greater reliability and longer business relations Higher earnings

Keeping in mind the above benefits it is easily concluded that a local SEM is definitely a business booster.

Learn How Can You Get More Local Customers For Your Business by Using Google

admin    Google     business, customers, Google, Learn, Local, more, Using

It is vital that every business owner and I mean anyone ranging from electrician to hair stylist to restaurant owner to landscaper knows the importance of having a website for your business. Statistics show that more people search the internet for information on local businesses before they ever consider going to the yellow pages phone book. Why? Convenience, convenience, convenience.

But there’s more to it than that. To be truly successful in getting more people to call you or walk through your doors requires more than just a quick, easy-to-do website. In order to get more customers now, you need to rank relatively high on the search engines.

Now unless you are an expert at optimization or getting your website ranked high on Google, Yahoo or MSN, you are fighting a losing battle. Which means you are losing your potential customers to your competition. Worse yet, if you do not have a TV like professional video on your website, you are losing more money than you realize.

But I do have to warn you that although there are thousands of people who can build a beautiful website for you on the Internet with all the fancy bells and whistles, that will NOT get your website to rank high on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

I know… perhaps everything you’ve been told or thought about building a good website probably just went out the window. But don’t worry. You simply must ask yourself what do you have to do to get these massive search engines to rank you in the first place and then move you up the e-ladder so to say?

First you have to understand what Google doesn’t want. Why? Because Google does not rank sites by how snazzy or fancy they are. Google does not care which site has the coolest rotating jpegs, the most innovative use of audio files, the most creative use of Flash software, or the prettiest pictures.

In fact, not only does that stuff not help your ranking in Google, much of it can have an extremely negative effect on your ranking. It is the last thing you want to do if you are looking for customers for your local business on the Internet.

So what does Google look for in a good website? Relevancy. Websites that Google’s software judges to be highly relevant to the search term gets priority. When people search for “St. Louis antique store” Google wants to show them information they will find useful. They will direct these buyers to sites that Google’s software thinks are the best matches for “St. Louis antique store”, not the ones with the cutest animated cartoons or pictures.

Now, in order to have high relevance, you must do what is called “optimizing”. For example, when we build your website, we optimize both the underlying code, and the contents of your website to rank high in Google’s search results. We are talking very high in search results.

And guess what? The higher up your website is in Google’s ranking, the easier it to stay there, because more people will be clicking on your site. And this in itself will tell Google’s “spiders” that your site is even more relevant than your competitors. That is why when we build you a Top Ranked Website, you go straight to the top, and you stay there.

And there’s even better news. What will ultimately set you apart from 99.9 percent of all websites on the Internet is by putting online video on your site. That’s right. Online video will not only get the attention of your customer over your competitor, but you will also rank higher on the search engines thanks to YouTube which of course is owned by Google.

I cannot begin to tell you the money you are losing to your competition by not having a professionally done online video that professionally explains to your customers why they should do business with you and only you in the first place.

Furthermore, there’s no need to spend five grand or more on a website. You can have everything mentioned here for less than $2 per day. Forget the fancy items that slow your website down and gets no ranking. That’s not what a local business website is for, anyway. It’s to get you more customers without breaking the bank so you can make more money.

Natural Search Seen As A “Growth Area” As Local Search And Mobile Search Gain Traction In UK Markets

admin    Google     Area, Gain, GROWTH, Local, Markets, Mobile, Natural, Search, Seen, Traction

British online marketing consultants recently released their “Online Lead Generation 2008″, detailing business attitudes regarding the effectiveness of natural search, paid advertising (pay-per-click) and e-mail marketing in generating consumer leads. A whopping 94% of the businesses polled indicated that generating online consumer leads through online marketing and Internet advertising was seen as a “growth area”.

The size of this number indicates just how bullish the business community has become about the rise of e-commerce and the efficiencies and effectiveness of online marketing to consumers who are evermore comfortable making purchases and purchase decisions online. Despite, or perhaps because of stalling economic growth across much of North America and Europe, there has been a significant shift to near unanimity in seeing online marketing as an advertising/marketing strategy that is here to stay. Last year, only 84% of respondents indicated that they viewed online marketing as a growth area.

Natural search, the process by which search engine optimization specialists configure web pages, page content and the Internet’s web domain to ensure that a web page is ranked and displayed prominently in the search results on Google, Yahoo! and other search engines was seen as the top means of generating online customer leads, followed closely by sponsored advertising (the pay-per-click advertisements that appear as “sponsored results” on Google) and e-mail marketing. Interestingly, although natural search was seen as outperforming pay-per-click, businesses still spent more of their resources on pay-per-click Internet advertising,

How to proceed with online marketing is becoming perhaps the business-critical for small businesses as consumers switch to their laptops and mobile phones for information about local products and services and the effectiveness of advertising in traditional print, TV and radio diminishes. Recent polling results released by Nielsen/NetSurvey in conjunction with WebVisible show that 86% of internet users search for local products and services online – up from the 70% of internet users who were looking for local products and services over the Internet in 2007.

And looking is turning to buying – not only online, but offline as well. The Nielsen/NetSurvey/WebVisible results show that 90% of the consumer transactions that were initiated through online local searches were completed offline. Evermore technologically proficient consumers and search engine programs that are increasing the ability of consumers to find local products online quickly and easily – be it a local movie listing, restaurant or apparel shop – either from home or from a new generation of mobile phones with GPS technology that pinpoints the consumers geographic location in real time is changing the way people shop.

Consumer research released this month by JupiterResearch supports the view that more and more consumers are turning to the Internet as a preferred method for finding the goods and services they wish to purchase. Polling results from JupiterResearch indicate that there is a 1:6 ratio between purchases made online and offline purchases that are initiated by consumers researching the product or service purchased online.

Given these trends, it is no wonder that businesses large and small are turning their attention to online marketing as an area with potentially huge growth. That companies are still spending more on their pay-per-click advertising rather than focusing their efforts and resources on natural search and search engine optimization is likely an indication of a lag in response to changing consumer behaviour.

The most popular categories of products and services that consumers are currently searching for online tend to be larger ticket items, according to survey results released by Opinion Research Corporation. Over eighty percent of persons searching for goods online reported searching for travel, recreation and leisure goods as well as electronic goods, while fifty-five per cent reported researching clothing and automotive products, while only 24 per cent reported searching for food products. However, with the rising predominance of local search and burgeoning mobile search by consumers tapping into the trend towards smart phones with Internet search capability, online marketing seems destined to become a top marketing tool, if not the top marketing tool, for companies large and small as the responses of businesses to the E-consultancy/Media-Clash online lead generation survey indicate.

Local-Search Upgrades Affect Traditional Local Businesses

admin    Google     Affect, Businesses., Local, LocalSearch, Traditional, Upgrades

Have you used Yahoo!’s new local-search function? If you
haven’t, you owe it to yourself to check it out. They’ve
upgraded it with fantastic features geared to make searching for
local businesses and services a breeze. Some of these features
include user recommendations and reviews of businesses,
real-time updates on local event information, and the ability to
search for businesses, events, and more within specific
neighborhoods rather than forcing the user to wade through the
search results for an entire city. In addition, the search
engine company has also upgraded its mapping capabilities.

Users also have the option to receive updated search information
via RSS – Rich Site Summary, otherwise known as Really Simple
Syndication – feeds. This particular feature has, arguably,
impacted the scope of the heavy-hitting search engines in
Internet users’ lives the most. The race between Yahoo!, Google,
MSN, and AOL for market share is never-ending, and each has
added its own brand of improvements. The major search engines’
new local-search features are all fantastic for the end user,
but what do they mean for local businesses?

In the history of local search, there has been a lot invested in
the form of user-friendly improvements by search-engine
companies, but these improvements haven’t yielded a noticeable
return-on-investment (ROI) for the companies. You might recall
search trailblazers Citysearch and MSN Sidewalk – these two
engines were an early example of the race to improve search
functionality – then again, you might not remember them at all.
It wasn’t until Google’s explosion onto the search scene in
recent years that the general public really became aware of the
power of search on the web. Now “Googling” is a verb.

Much of the public awareness of Internet search comes from
Google’s innovations in technology, but until recently, local
search wasn’t really a consideration for most Internet users or
the businesses featured in search results. However, the
improvements that the major search engines are adding are
changing that, and if you’re an owner of a traditional local
business, you should be paying attention.

More functionality for users means more accountability for
business owners. Now that patrons can voice their opinions about
the establishments that they frequent, potential customers have
an all-access pass to virtually unlimited information about a
business before they ever step foot inside the door. The days of
businesses relying on a fancy façade and some good ol’ TV ads
are quickly fading. Now businesses have to be accountable for
just about every step they take, no matter how large or small
they are. If a patron of a restaurant or theatre or dentist or
landscaper has a bad experience, they have the ability to tell a
lot of people all about it quickly and easily.

The prospect of being scrutinized at every turn might seem like
a frightening one at best, but there is a definite upside. Just
as negative views can spread like wildfire, so can positive
perspectives. If you’re putting a concerted effort into your
customer service and integrity is integral to the way that you
conduct business, you’re bound to get good feedback. And, now
more than ever, good feedback with go further than it ever has
before.

Perhaps more importantly, though, it’s up to traditional local
businesses to make sure that they have online presences. I live
in a mid-sized community, and I was surprised to find as many
reviews about local eateries, mechanics, and events as I did.
It’s not just businesses located in large cities that need to
take heed. The proliferation of the Internet – and local search
capabilities – is affecting communities far and wide. Since more
and more people are utilizing the web to find the goods and
services that they want, it only stands to reason that you
should ensure your business is in front of them. These folks are
your potential customers, after all.

There are a lot of ways that you can improve your online
presence, but the first step of putting yourself in a position
to grow your traditional local business is being aware that the
Internet will affect your business one way or another,
negatively or positively. It’s up to you to take control of
which way you want things to go. Take some time to surf the web.
Use the new features that the search engines are rolling out.
Pay attention to what customers are saying about traditional
local businesses. Accessing that information now will be
invaluable to your success later.

© 2005 Low-Hanging Fruit

Online Marketing, Local Search and Mobile Search to Drive Six-Fold Increase in Internet Traffic

admin    Google     drive, Increase, internet, Local, Marketing, Mobile, Online, Search, SixFold, Traffic

Recent survey numbers highlight how Internet traffic is growing exponentially and is poised for a 600% increase by 2012. The huge increase in Internet traffic comes at a time when the convergence of mobile search technologies and local search capabilities will drive the growth of online marketing, local search and mobile search to similar heights – while driving foot traffic to businesses large and small that have a “digital footprint” in today’s surging digital economy.

Staggering numbers from worldwide networking leader Cisco Systems predict a six-fold increase in global traffic on the Internet, highlighting the increasingly important role online marketing and internet advertising will play for businesses large and small as consumers increasingly move online to do both shopping and “Windows shopping”. Cisco released its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2007-2012 on June 16th, which predicts that we will see a 600% increase in Internet traffic by 2012. Cisco’s VNI projections predicts that Internet traffic will double roughly every two years as a result of “a combined annual growth rate of 46 p[er cent form 2007 to 2012.

The key component in this surge of Internet traffic will be video streaming. Cisco predicts that by 2012, “video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried over the U.S. portion of the Internet in 2000. Increasingly, marketing agencies and advertisers are moving off traditional media and moving online to exploit the consumer movement to the Internet. Significantly, much of this consumer movement online will result from the increasing tendency of consumers to access the Internet from handheld mobile devices – a trend that will only increase as RIM, Nokia and other cellular phone and mobile device manufacturers move to keep pace with Apple that just recently released its next-generation 3G iPhone.

Cisco is predicting that mobile data will roughly double each year from 2008 to 2012, highlighting the importance that mobile search will play in an emerging digital economy. Jupiter Research, a leader in online research analysis, has projected that annual revenue from mobile search revenues are expected to hit $US4.8 billion dollars annually by 2013.

As technologies converge, the driver behind these anticipated huge jumps in online advertising and mobile search numbers is – not surprisingly for those who have been tracking the emerging technologies of Web 2.0 – local search. Jupiter predicts that in the emerging digital economy, local search will be the most popular service amongst all advertisers and will attract 40% of all mobile search ad spending between 2008 and 2013.

The convergence of technologies that is fostering the growth in mobile search, and particularly local search, was illustrated by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. Sitting down for a much-publicized interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo earlier this spring, the head of the search engine giant touted how improvements in mobile search capabilities on advanced mobile handhelds (such as the BlackBerry or Apple’s iPhone) combined with advances in Google Maps and Google’s local search capabilities are making real time, and precise geopraphic local search a reality.

”(W)henever I fly somewhere,” Schmidt told CNBC, “I open up … my iPhone or my BlackBerry, and, boom, there’s everything in my world as I’ve landed in a country I’ve never been in. It’s a remarkable achievement.” Schmidt notes that Google has been tracking the huge increase in use of Google Maps local search technology. “(T)here’s been a huge increase in maps, Google Maps, hugely successful,” Dr. Schmidt reports. “(W)hen I want to go to the equivalent of a Starbucks, I just type “Starbucks,” it says it’s over there. For me, that’s just a huge–a huge improvement. And that service is available almost everywhere in the world.”

What is common practice for Google’s high-flying and technologically enriched CEO is increasingly becoming commonplace for the digital consumer on the street. The predicted growth in internet traffic, together with the radical shift of advertising dollars to online marketing and the growing tendency of Internet-savvy consumers to take up mobile search, clearly forecast where commerce and e-commerce is headed. While there may still be local niche markets that depend on foot traffic to drive their business, increasingly it is a company’s digital footprint that drives customer traffic to its online site or storefront. And the vehicle driving that electronic traffic is mobile search. As online traffic balloons between now and 2012, the importance on local search, mobile search and online marketing will also balloon.

Search Engine Optimization Tactics: Local Search + How To Use Graphics and Flash

admin    Google     Engine, flash, Graphics, Local, Optimization, Search, Tactics

With the global economy struggling, acquiring new customers is top of mind for most organizations.

Did you know that 50-70% of consumer and business purchasers start with a search engine like Google? If your website doesn’t appear at the top of a search engine results page (sponsored ads or organic search results), you’re losing potential customers to companies that do rank higher.

What can you do? I’ll share with you my top strategies and tactics that can help you acquire new customers via search engine optimization and advertising.

1. Local Search Engine Advertising. For businesses that serve specific geographic regions (i.e. Denver, Colorado), you can create search engine ads in Google and Yahoo that only appear to people in your area.

How does this work? A search engine like Google uses a computer’s IP address and other information to discover where someone is searching (including city and state).

Why does Google care where a person is located? Google’s mission is to give their end users the best search results possible. So if I need a someone to walk my dog in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, it does me little good to receive a paid search result from Arizona. This is a real example – my brother has a petsitting business, and I’ve used local Google search engine advertising to drive new clients to his organization.

Thus Google (and the others) tries to match search results to the geographic location of the person searching.

How does Google make money? Google gives businesses and organizations the ability to display paid advertisements (sponsored results) on search results pages. These ads are triggered by keywords you choose (more on this in a different strategy).

You don’t have to pay for your ad to display; you pay Google only when someone clicks on your ad. The technical term is Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising. The more relevant your ad (more on this later), the less you have to pay for specific keywords, and the higher up you will appear in the sponsored advertising results.

Local Search CPC Ads. In Google Adwords, you can create an advertising campaign that will target someone in a specific city or state. You can even specify a 5, 10 or 25 mile radius from a specific location (like your retail showroom or office). Below your local ad, Google will place the name of your local area (i.e. Denver, Colorado)… making it more likely that someone searching in your area will choose your organization vs. an out-of-town competitor.

Local CPC Ads are usually a more cost effective option than a national search engine advertising campaign. As a general rule of thumb, the more geographically targeted and specific you can be, the less money you’ll need to pay to acquire new customers. And make sure you have conversion tracking code placed on your site, so you can measure and track how much you’re paying for each new customer via local search engine advertising.

2. Don’t Confuse The Search Engines With Graphics. Search engines are really good at reading text. But they’ve very easily confused. And if Google gets confused when it crawls through your site, you won’t rank very high in search results.

Search engines, for example, can’t read words that are contained in graphics or flash animation. So if your company’s name is only contained in a graphic on your site, this content is ‘invisible’ to a search engine. Same thing goes for product or service names.

The root of the problem lies with graphic designers. Graphic designers are really good at building graphics. And don’t take this to mean I don’t like graphic designers. (I employ a bunch of them, but they know how to do SEO-friendly design.)

But most websites are designed by graphic designers who are really good at building graphics, and less interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It takes a bit more time to have content placed in text, and use a stylesheet to format it so that a search engine can read it. Especially when it’s just so easy to create a good looking graphic in photoshop.

Here’s an example of a site that uses all flash (and is invisible to search engines):

http://www.gelazzi.com/

While it looks pretty to humans, to Google the content is completely invisible. Here’s how the site appears to Google in it’s cache:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:-qvxrs72gygJ:www.gelazzi.com/+http://www.gelazzi.com/&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

(You can see that there is no text or content that appears)

Even if you’re not worried about organic search positioning, but are doing paid search engine marketing (like Google Adwords), it’s important that the content on your site is easily digested by a search engine.

Why? Google Adwords ranks the pages on your website, and compares it to your keywords and ad copy. The more relevant Google ranks the text on your site, the less you’ll have to pay for a sponsored ad on Google (and the higher your position).

In Summary: Don’t confuse search engines by keeping your content ‘locked up’ in graphics. It’s a small little detail in the web design process, but one that will pay dividends for a long, long time with increased search results.

3. Title Tags & Why They Matter. When you search in Google, the search results on the next page each start with a blue underlined link.

What displays in this blue link is usually what is contained in the title tag of a web page. The keywords you placed in the search box are usually boldfaced in the search results.

So, just what is a title tag, and why does it matter for search engine positioning?

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (w3.org), the Title tag was designed to help people “identify the contents of a document.” When people view individual web pages out of context (often via search), context-rich page titles help tell the visitor a summary of the page.

Instead of a title like “Introduction”, which doesn’t provide much contextual background, web designers should supply a title such as “Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping” instead.

Google and other search engines use these rich contextual clues as a way to hone its search results.

On a web page, the title tag is part of the HTML code. Here’s what the code looks like on Customer Paradigm’s site:

Title: Customer Paradigm: Website Design, Development, Email Marketing, Content Management, PHP programming

Most end users won’t see the title tag*. But the title tag is what a subject ine is to an email campaign: It entices the end user to pay attention and open the page to read more.

Top Five Most Common Mistakes for Title Tags:

A. Untitled: When many of the popular programs create a new HTML page, it puts ‘Untitled’ into the title tag. It’s up to the Web designer to change this… and since most users don’t see it, sometimes they forget to change it.

B. No Title Tag: Like the “Untitled” tag, another key mistake is simply leaving out the title tag. If you do a view source (Internet Explorer: Right Click and select View Source), and the title tag doesn’t appear… then you don’t have a title tag.

C. “About” Tag: Another common mistake for title tags is to have the title tag refer to a section of your website. But a title tag that reads, “About” doesn’t tell me much about what the company or website is “About.” Instead, have it read:

Title: Customer Paradigm – About the Company: Website Development & Marketing, Email Deployment and php programming

This is sure to get more keywords into the title tag, and if you’re searching for a company, you instantly know what they do.

D. No Company Name In Title Tag: We recommend putting your company name at the beginning of the title tag, so that people can quickly see your company’s name when they search.

E. Same Title Tag on Multiple Pages: You should have a unique title tag for each page of the site. Why? As each page is unique, you should have a title tag that describes it’s unique content.

* Here’s where they might interact with the title tag:

– The title tag is displayed at the top left of most people’s browser window.

– Page titles are used as the default description for a person’s bookmarks when someone bookmarks a site.

– Visually impaired people use title tags to summarize the contents of a page before they have a text-to-speech reader read the contents of the page.

– These, along with Google’s search results, are the only places end users actually see the title tag.

Importance of your Google local ranking

admin    Google     Google, Importance, Local, Ranking

Any average Googler these days has undoubtedly come across a google local listing when searching for certain queries such as professional medical services. For example, if I am searching for a medical professional in Westchester County NY, Google will return a ‘pack’ of local business listings near Westchester County. Depending on the specific query, Google will display anywhere from 1 to 10 listings directly above the standard organic listings that make up the search engine result page (SERP).

Why is this important? Total first page visibility! When there are 10 local listings adjacent to a map pushing down the standard 10 organic listings, assuming your site is on page 1 of Google, you’re click-through rate has just dropped. Now if you have both first page organic AND local presence, not only does that mathematically increase your click-through rate, it also gives users a sense of reassurance to see your website listed multiple times.  Take a look at a few local search statistics.

So how does one ensure a prominent spot in those local business listings? Well that’s where we come in. We start my claiming and verifying your business listing with Google. Next we optimize using natural, honest tactics in an effort to give Google a slightly better idea of where you’re located, what you do, and why they should return your listing to prospective searchers. From there we utilize various resources on the web, including but not limited to Google-preferred local business directories, to enhance the ‘trust’ that Google lends toward your business name and address.

What we do not do is build links to your local business listing; this is a major misconception among many SEO’s. Unlike organic rankings, Google local rankings are achieved by the local relevance of a user’s search query along with the amount of trust Google has in your business listing. Our unique specialization in medical SEO allows us to maximize the effect of your local business listing to increase your overall visibility on the web, and drive more qualified traffic to your site.

How Are Google Ads/sem/paid Search Words Sold To Local Businesses?

admin    SEM     Ads/sem/paid, Businesses., Google, Local, Search, Sold, Words

I know google has offices in Mountain View and NYC, but how do they sell to local markets? Do they have satellite offices or local sellers that report to CA or NY? If live in Phoenix and want to sell local business google search words or paid SEM how would that work?