Local Search FAQ’s

 

1. What is Local Search Marketing?

Local Search Marketing is a highly effective way of attracting motivated buying customers and putting them in front of your products and services.

Most people when looking for a product or service want to find a local business to help them solve a problem. Attracting new business here means that we are connecting with the customers who are more likely to spend cash in your business.

Traditional ‘paper directories’ advertising is now defunct with the majority of savvy consumers now searching online from their desktops and with their smart phones. Local SEO companies like Blend Local Search Marketing will employ a wide variety of proven strategies including, Google Places, Videos and Directory listings to ensure it’s your company that gets founds time and time again by local customers.

 

2. What is a Local Search?

There are 2 types of local search queries. The first is conducted by simply adding a geo-targeted location modifier to the search term (a city, town or post/zip code). Lets assume you go to Google and type in the phrase  ‘local search marketing in London’. The results will show local search marketing companies in the London area.

The second type of local search is known as an ‘implicit local search’. The person searching does not use a location modifier in their search but the search engine assumes the search is local in nature and uses information associated with their account, IP address, location or smart phone to return local search results. For example, if you were in the area Gainesville GA. and did a search for ‘Orthodontists’, Google would automatically return results related to your location and not an Orthodontist in Timbuktu.

 

3. How Can My Business Be Found in Local Search

One of the ways to get your business seen by hungry customers in local search is to claim and set-up your business listings on Google Places, Bing, Qype, Wampit, Citysearch, Brownbook, Yelp and up to 50 other online business directories.

Most of these listings are free to claim but most businesses set them up completely wrong, or not at all so that they do not receive the benefits of connecting to their target market.  Once you have claimed them you need to compete each section fully with the same information especially your business name, full address, telephone number, website URL and primary keywords that your ideal customer would use to find you.

 

4. Why is it Important to Claim My Local Business Listings?

It’s very important to claim your local business listings such as Google Places so:

A. No one else hijacks your web presence

B. You will also have full control over your brand, messages and content on the web

C. It ensures the search engines find the correct information about your business and delivers targeted results to your prospects

D. Improve your rank in SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages)

E. People looking for where you are located can easily find you

 

5. How Long Will it Take To Get My Google Place Listing Live?

When we implement a local search marketing strategy for any business, the Google Place listing is actually the last listing we claim and complete. This is because we claim around 50 local business listings and complete them fully with all your company’s information first. We do this to help you connect with your target market 98% of business fail to structure the set up correctly so they get poor results here.

We also produce 5 videos and include more business information in the uploaded description and claim your listing at the two major data aggregators. The search engines to verify your company details online use these 2 data sources.

Once we have completed all these tasks we claim your Google Places page. Once claimed Google needs to verify the listing and currently sends the business owner a postcard with a variforcation code. This can take 2 or 3 weeks to arrive by snail mail. Once we receive the code we can set your Google Place page live.

 

6. What Makes a Great Local Search Listing?

There are three key components that will make your local search-listing stand head and shoulders above the rest.

1. Accuracy of Data: Your business information across all your local search listings has to be accurate and consistent. Particular attention to detail should be applied to your business name, address, post/zip code and website information.

2. A Complete Listing: Every field in your local listing should be fully completed. This includes videos, photos (named with your keywords), opening times and business description. By completing all sections of your listing not only provides more information for the search engines to deliver better results but gives the searcher more information about your business. Once again, most businesses get this wrong because they do not understand the process of creating a targeted listing that matches the customers needs.

3. Keep your listing up to Date: Keep you coupons and ‘special offers’ seasonally fresh to convert searchers in to customers at a higher rate. Also remember to update your opening times and manage and respond to any comments or questions.

 

7. How Do I Get Reviews On My Local Listings?

Reviews matter and will make a big difference that will result in higher rankings for your local listings if you have them. They provide third party information for the search engines and customers alike.

The best place to start to acquire reviews for your local listings is to simply ask for them from your current happy customers who are pleased with the services you provide to them.

With new customers, ask them for favorable reviews of your business towards the end of the buying experience. You can provide them with a Twitter and Facebook in your local search SEO strategy.

If you have claimed your Facebook Page for your business you should be directing your customers to ‘Like’ the page. Ideally you should have a Facebook Custom Fan Page so you can collect your customers emails for further marketing opportunities.

Once someone has given your page a ‘Like’ you should engage with them and provide value and interest around your business and local community. Post on your wall on a regular basis and always include your keywords and location modifiers in your posts. You’ll soon notice these posts in SERP’s.

Twitter is another powerful tool for local search marketing. If you use an external management system to automate your tweets you can target keywords and fellow tweeters in specific areas. This will allow you to build a list of targeted followers on twitter that you can drive to your website many times a day with your tweets.

Many people forget that Youtube is not only the second biggest search engine on the planet but it is also a social network.

You can upload your videos to Youtube and ensure you have a good description, keywords and at least one link back to your website. See our blog post Video Marketing 101 if you want to know how to do this. (If you are a local business, remember to include you company name, address, telephone number and website URL too). Engage with your viewers by leaving comments on their channels and allow them to do the same. Send out friend request and subscribe to similar channels to your own. Here is a cool Youtube Tool that will help you automate the whole process.

You should also post your videos on your website, Facebook Page, Twitter and Google+ and before long you’ll see your videos getting more views and turning up in the Google search listings too. (Google love video and own Youtube!) If you are not using video in your local search marketing strategy, you are leaving out a vitally important part out your online success story.

 

9. Are Blend only a Local Search Marketing Company?

Blend Local Search Marketing specialize in local SEO and Internet marketing but also do so much more. Our unique difference is that we literally hold your hand and ensure that you attract more motivated customers, dominate local listings and more importantly help you convert your increased traffic into more sales success.

We are passionate about helping businesses grow and succeed online and view your success as our success. We have proven Internet marketing strategies that work with all our clients, in fact many of our clients have come from recommendations from existing clients: )

Our results speak for themselves 100% of the time as we have no where to hide. Our customers can simply type their keywords into Google and very often they will see multiply listings for their businesses dominating their local search results. An added benefit is not only do they get a greater share of all the searches, they also push their competitors completely off the page.

It is because of our skills of putting all of the ingredients of Internet marketing together that we also have a lot of experience and success with the following to:

Website Design and Build – We build great websites that not only look great but are also functional and are designed and optimized from the ground up to perform well in search engines and convert more prospects into paying customers.

There’s no point in paying a lot of money out to a regular SEO company to get high rankings if all those people who visit your site soon leave it through bad design and unclear messages.

We build websites with strong ‘on page’ SEO principals, hypnotic copy, optimized layouts and many other tried, tested and proven marketing tactics.

Video Marketing – We have developed a highly successful video marketing strategy that sees our clients’ videos (or our in-house productions) not only getting hundreds and thousands of hits but also dominating the normal search results on Google for all their major keywords.

Social Media Management – You know everybody is talking about twitter and Facebook to name only 2 social media networks but don’t know how to start or have the time to keep them going. Blend Local Search Marketing implements and manages social sites for clients, building up loyal followers and alerting them to your products, services and offers while keeping them engaged with your company or brand so you don’t have to.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – We have dedicated team that optimize your website ‘off the page’. I.E. building links back to your website, this is because building links helps it rank higher in natural searches online. We believe in creating a strong foundation not only for now but also the long term success of your business.

It is by building relevant links consistently across a wide number of sources for our customers websites that ensures that they remain stable during and after Google’s updates.

This includes: Directory Listings, Videos, Blog Comments, Forum Comments, Press Releases, Article Marketing, High PR Links, .Edu and .Gov links, Social Media Platforms, Local Online Community Websites, Blog Swaps and many more

 

10. What is the Future of Local Search Marketing?

We’ve seen a rapid shift from traditional marketing and adverting with TV, radio, newspapers and paper directory market shares all dramatically dropping over a very short period of time.

Now we know customers are online searching for products, services and local businesses so if your business isn’t being found online you can bet your competitor’s is.

Technology has moved at such a lightening pace that even the desktop PC is looking a little jaded as more and more people now use their smart phones and ipads to surf the net. This is great news if you are a local business and have a website and your local search listings set up correctly.

There are now exciting opportunities for local business such as restaurants, sports clubs, and pubs to send out bulk SMS marketing text messages easily to their opt-in customers.

Most people have a mobile device with them at all hours of the day. Image if you could send a ‘special offer’ SMS message to your local customers on a ‘quite night of the week’ and fill never have a quite night again! Well now you can when you join us with text marketing too.

This kind of targeted, local mobile marketing strategy has a high response rate and a high ROI. It is definitely the future of Local Search Marketing, just you see!

By Perry Stevens Novemeber 2011. Perry is the Chief Operations Director of Blend Local Search Marketing. Connect on twitter.

Local Search Marketing is also known as – Local SEO, Local Search Engine Optimization, Local Search Optimization, Local Business Marketing, Local Online Marketing, Local Search Engine Marketing, Local Advertising, Google Local Search Optimization, Google Local SEO, Local Business SEO, Local Search SEO, Local SEO Marketing, to name but a few!

 

Blend Local Search Marketing – Suite 57 7 Rossetti Road, London SE16 3EY

Tel: +442071932825 Skype: BlendLSM Twitter: BlendLSM Or click here to Contact us.

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Local Search