“Local search ranking refers to the placement and order of local information on a Google or Google Maps organic search results page. There are a variety of factors we take into account to provide you with results that match your local search, and three of the primary signals are relevance, prominence and distance. ..”

 

My good friend Ben Saren of CitySquares, sent me an email the other day about the deal. You can read the official press release over at the CitySquares Blog, We’ve been acquired!

You can also read Greg Sterling’s comments on his blog, New Site Backyard Buys CitySquares

I checked and Backyard is currently only available in a few markets and you can connect with it via Facebook. I am very curious to see what it is all about and how it will do in the local-social market. Good luck to Steve Espinosa, the world’s biggest White Sox fan and the man behind Backyard!

 

Matt McGee wrote  5 Quick Impacts of Google’s New Local Search Results.  The five points he  discusses are:

1) AdWords becomes more important.
2) AdWords gets more competitive.
3) Reviews and citations become more important/visible.
4) Building out your Google Place Page becomes more important.
5) SEO becomes more important

Ross Dunn wrote  Google’s New Local Results – How to Adapt . Some of the points he makes are:

1) Reputation management is at a whole new high now that review ratings are exposed so readily to searchers.
2) Business description used in local search results is being sourced from the meta description tag on the associated business page.
3) Links from relevant sites that prove your locality can dramatically help with improving your local search rankings.

Miriam Ellis wrote New Integrated Google Local A Game Changer. Miriam does go through and discuss the different components of a listing and provides her early thoughts on the new changes. Miriam said:

“To me, the greatest negative potential of this integrated approach is its ability to put Google’s bad local business data in the limelight, mixing it up with the correct data provided by business owners via their self-regulated websites.

Businesses that didn’t rate an A-G ranking in the former 7 pack are now being brought to sudden prominence, ostensibly on the strength of their organic/local combined efforts. As a web designer, I actually like this change because it appears to be set to reward the big investment of time and money that goes into developing useful, helpful websites.”

The last two articles are great summary articles. First there is David Mihm’s  A New Kind of Local Search Result: The “O-Pack”? David breaks up his post into:

1) Impact on Business Owners and SEOs
2) Impact on MapSpam
3) Impact on Adwords
4) Impact on IYPs and Directory Publishers

He goes through and pulls together thoughts other search marketers have had on the recent changes but also gives his 2 cents. “By and large, small business owners who have pursued long-term, best-practice SEO strategies across ALL fronts (organic, local, social, etc.) rather than chased Google’s algorithm, should be relatively unaffected by the change.”

Finally, there is Andrew Shotland’s Google Place Search Winners, Losers & WhoKnowsers The main point’s of Andrew’s piece are:

1) SMB Websites Now Must Focus on Both Local and Organic SEO for Place SERP Rankings
2) But Ranking Outside of Your Physical Location Just Got Even Trickier
3)  You’d Better Be Nice To Your Customers
4) Place SERPs = IYP Toast? Or Maybe the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?

In conclusion he says: “For local businesses that focus on both organic and local SEO, at first blush, this change appears to offer even more opportunity to acquire qualified traffic. If I were a business focused on local customers, I would be truly excited about the possibilities.”

From what I have read and seen so far, I would agree with Andrew.  There is a lot to digest, right now these are the articles I would recommend you read. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Let me know your thoughts or what you have seen. If you have any questions, post them below.

 

Q. So Tim, lets start with the basics, what is YouGottaCall?

A. YouGottaCall.com is a free, web-based word-of-mouth referral service that benefits consumers, the local businesses they trust and the community. Our unique process has pending patent protection.

Q. When and why develop the site?

A. We incorporated in 2007 and launched in 2008.  I started YouGottaCall.com because I saw the potential for consumers and local, trusted businesses to use social media as a superior form of advertising. At the time other web sites were not addressing the $100B annual local advertising market with a social media solution that harnessed the powerful factor of consumers’ trusted, real-world relationships.

Q. So do you provide a similar service to Angie’s List?

A. We are aiming for the same goal – to connect consumers with trustworthy businesses. But our means of achieving this are as opposite as can be.  YouGottaCall.com is more similar to other word-of-mouth social networks like GigPark and LikeList. But we are unique in our voluntary intrinsic monetization and our cause affiliation.

Here’s how we stack up with Angie’s List -
Fees:
Angie’s  List collects fees from consumers. This is their primary revenue source.
YouGottaCall.com is free to join and free to use for consumers and businesses.

Trusted relationships:
Angie’s List features written testimonials about the businesses. But the testimonials are written by strangers.

The starting point for YouGottaCall is our members’ trusted relationships. Recommendations are filtered by the members’ social connections so they personally know the people recommending the business. Because we are integrated with Facebook our members can log-in using their Facebook ID. We plan to expand the integration with Facebook to achieve more referral and search utilization within Facebook.

Effectiveness:
Angie’ s List does not guarantee consumer satisfaction for the subscription fee. In our model consumers are not charged a fee. Our revenue comes from our business members who select the amount they want to pay. For businesses, this is performance based. They choose whether they want to pay for either ‘referrals’ or for ‘new sales’.

Cause related:
YouGottaCall.com enables members to select a not-for-profit organization their referrals will benefit. Eighty percent of all fees go to these charities.

Q.  You are currently only in Connecticut. Are there plans to expand to other market areas?

A. Connecticut is our first market and is where we are proving our concept. Our 200 “Trusted Service Providers” and 400 members are distributed across Connecticut. We plan to scale to other metro areas.

Q. Do business add themselves or do the consumers?

A. Consumers can add themselves and their trusted businesses. Also, business members can invite and connect with consumers who give them referrals (customers, neighbors, associates, etc.).  YouGottaCall.com business members also get a free, powerful, CRM tool box to manage communications with connected members, and stay in touch via promotions and email updates.

Q.  Can you provide an example listing?

A. Here is a popular business that provides home and office PC support. They epitomize ‘word-of-mouth’ with strong business networking and loyal customers. http://bit.ly/YGCWeCare We Care has leveraged their YouGottaCall membership by incorporating it into their social marketing mix.

Q. Looking over the site, I see that a business can claim a listing…

A. Yes – businesses can claim their listing or request that a listing be created. No charge.

Q.  Are your pages/listings, search engine friendly? Do they get indexed by Google, Yahoo, etc?

A. Confession: I initially requested that our developers not optimize our site for search. That’s when I was convinced the viral nature of our community would create overnight, meteoric growth. Now we are planning to optimize. One way will be by adding pages displaying results for commonly searched for terms (ex. ‘plumber’).

Q.  How are businesses added to network? Do you use a service such as Localeze to populate your database?

A. Each member or business owner can request to add a business listing. We add them and notify the owners of their new, free referral page. That is how we reached our 200 active “Trusted Service Provider” accounts. Our 4,000 business listings were acquired locally. As we expand into other markets we will initiate a relationship with a national service.

Q. What sort of traffic and interest are you getting?

A. Traffic is light with unique visitors in the hundreds each month. The metric we most closely watch is utilization – member referrals and invitations. As a social community, growth in utilization will drive traffic. The small size of our network presents a utilization challenge as networks become exponentially more effective as they grow numerically. (http://yougottacall.blogspot.com/2008/10/its-law.html)

Another challenge to building traffic is related to the frequency with which people share word-of-mouth referrals. The average member gives/gets 6.5 referrals annually. This low frequency creates an infrequent need for using the site, and consequently an unfamiliarity with it.

Contrast this with Facebook whose users go there several times per day, creating strong familiarity and increased utility. This is why we are exploring deeper integration with Facebook – to remain “front-of-mind”. Network size will grow toward a critical mass where we experience cross-pollination and self-perpetuating buzz.

Q. How do you feel a service like this would do in smaller towns or larger cities?

A. YouGottaCall’s model will do well in any area, large or small, that can support 2,000 users. This is our estimate for the number of members for achieving a sustainable buzz that leads to cross-pollination. Our strategy for approaching not-for-profits may be effective for uncovering veins of loyal and motivated members who want their valuable referrals to benefit their charity.

Q. Final question, and one I like to ask at all of my interviews, where do you see local search moving in the future?

A. Good search mimics natural behavior. And the ultimate natural behavior is ‘word-of-mouth’. Mobile-powered social technology will soon make search more seamless with the natural way we find information. This will rapidly obsolete traditional advertising as well as algorithmic search.

The Web revolution is based on better ways for people to connect, find information and benefit the community. YouGottaCall’s model occupies intellectual property at the intersection of these trends.

Thanks again Tim for your time. For those in Connecticut go take a look at YouGottaCall.com. Good luck Tim and let us know how things go.

 

So I am playing around and see there is a new app from Bing.  I like Bing maps on the PC but was curious that a Microsoft service would be on Android (Google) phone. LOL  I noticed Greg Sterling briefly commented on the app at Search Engine Land, Bing Mobile App Comes To Verizon Android Handsets. Right now I am holding off on it, but we will see. 

As I am looking over the app(s), I got an email from my good friend Stacy Williams over at Prominent Placement.  The article,  written by Star Bradshaw, was entitled The Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance Will Affect Your Business. Thought it was interesting that as I was looking at the Bing app, I get an article about Bing. “Got to write about this one” I thought.

Overall I thought it was a great article. Star says, “This impending alliance shouldn’t be ignored – it will produce a significant change in the search landscape. Though Google’s dominance is undisputed, with more than 65% of the market, Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo combined hold a 30% share, which represents a viable alternative to the search behemoth.”

Star comments on how to deal with or protect your organic listing(s) and your PPC visibility with the coming change.  She provides a nice set of links to Bing resources as well as Yahoo and Microsoft transition centers sites.

So if you are actively marketing and listed in Bing and Yahoo, you need to spend the time and see what is in store for you (and us). Thanks for the article Star and Stacy!

 

Q. What is guiaslocal.com?

A.  GuiasLocal.com is a new, non-yellow page, bilingual start-up that connects consumers to major U.S. cities and millions of businesses.  Guias Local translated in English means “Local Guides” (a logical name for Hispanics and search algorithm when searching locally).  The primary language of GuiasLocal.com is Spanish with a secondary language in English.  Currently GuiasLocal.com, is the largest bilingual, non-yellow page in the United States.

Q. What is its mission?

A. Our mission is to change Local search and offer Hispanics a new way to search.  With so many English language local search companies in the mix, we feel we can add value to an emerging market.

Q. You have just gotten beta in El Paso, what is the timeline for other cities?

A.  On Monday, December 7th, we will be launching our second version of Beta for El Paso, based on feedback from consumers and businesses.  This version offers more in regards to search and features.
Our full launch of our 200 major U.S. cities is scheduled for early 2010.  This version will include additional enhancements to GuiasLocal.com including white labels, private labels, and mobile versions.  We will be adding additional cities growing quickly.

Q. Are you looking at producing any iPhone or Blackberry mobile apps or site for the directory?

A. Mobile versions of GuiasLocal.com are currently in development.  As more Hispanics adapt to mobile applications faster than non-Hispanics, mobile apps are a top priority for GuiasLocal.com.  Our mobile versions will offer easy navigation and a fast search.

Q. Are there any other bilingual local search directories out there?

A.  There are no other bilingual, non yellow page, nationwide, local searches in the U.S.  There is a yellow page company named Seccion Amarilla Usa, a Telmex company, which offers results in two languages.  Yellow page companies tend to focus on print and not on the Internet or mobile applications.  Our enhanced version of GuiasLocal.com will offer our consumers an easy to use local search in two languages as well, GuiasLocal.com offers businesses the opportunity to reach consumers with various levels of advertising available at a significantly reduced rate as compared to yellow page companies.

Q. Why should small business be concerned with bilingual listings?

A. Hispanics are the largest growing minority in the United States.  As well, given  that  almost  half  of Hispanics  speak  only Spanish  at  home,  products  that  offer easy  directions  and  a  bilingual  user  interface will  gain  faster  adoption.   What’s more, one-third  of  Hispanics  feel  that  Spanish-language  Web  sites  enhance  their  user experience — a clear message for online retailers and marketers.  Why not offer the consumer the opportunity to search in both languages?  GuiasLocal.com offers Hispanics a choice, their choice of which language to search in.

Q. How can a business get listed in your directory?

A. Businesses can either contact GuiasLocal.com directly to place their business in our search.  Upon launch, we will offer a business submission where the business can add all of their information via GuiasLocal.com as well as manage their listing.  This will be available in early 2010 with our full launch.

Q. Where do you see local search marketing going in the next year or so?

A.  Local search marketing is growing at a rate of 17 percent according to Forrester Research.  GuiasLocal.com knows the true value is in becoming a brand and an information provider not just a local search.  We are currently working on this with: Private label (powered by GuiasLocal.com), Apps, API’s, licensing, desktop, mobile, and business packages.

Q. Anything else you would like to add?

A. We recently added dotcom veteran, Tom Herman, to our board who has been guiding GuiasLocal.com strategically in our money raising efforts. You may remember Tom from the movie, Startup.com. The film followed e-commerce website govWorks.com and its founders, Tom and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, from 1999-2000 as the Internet bubble was bursting. Under their leadership, govWorks raised $60 million in venture financing from firms such as the Mayfield Fund, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, the New York City Investment Fund, Hearst Corporation, Sapient Corporation and Vignette Corporation.  Tom brings over 15 years of start-up experience leading technical strategy, software architecture, fund raising and mergers and acquisitions of technical assets.

Twitter: We are the most followed Hispanic brand on Twitter World Wide.

–Thanks for that info George on Guiaslocal.com.  Look forward to seeing how your site grows and develops.

 

Dominating Local Searches on Google

First you need to do basic search engine optimization on every page of your website.  Next build optimized pages for your major local keywords and include semantically related phrases on those pages.  Talk to Larry about getting this done for your site.

Next, set up a Google Local Business listing so your business can show up in the Google Maps local results box.  Fill it out completely.  Add the videos, pictures and get reviews from your customers.  You should be putting almost as much effort into this one tool as you do for initially optimizing your website–it’s that important.

Your goal is to get your main website (your money site) into the top 3 organic search results before you start on the next steps.  Doing everything at once will dilute your efforts.  I’ll say it again.  Make sure you are ranking in the top 3 of your ten most important keywords before proceeding.

The next step is to get as many double listings as possible.  To get a double listing, optimize two or more pages on your site for the same keyword.  With a double listing for a geo-targeted keyword, Google frequently returns 8 organic search results instead of the normal 10.  That means you need to work to own at least the remaining 7 results.

You’re going to build a content network using Squidoo, Hubpages, Youtube, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous.  There are more, but you’ll start here.  You or your SEO will have used some or all of these sites to create some links to your main website to get it to rank.

Now, we want the sites in our content network to start ranking for our major keywords so we have to do all the same steps we take to rank our main site to get each of these pages to rank.  See the diagram for a simplified outline of what your content network will look like.

In the Content Network Snowflake you’ll see your main website in the middle surrounded by support sites that in turn are supported by auxiliary sites. Each of these sites are content sites that reinforce the relevancy and authority of each other. What you don’t see in this diagram are the inbound links that support each of these sites.  This is nothing new in SEO, but it is new for the purpose of ranking multiple content sites for the same keyword to prevent competitors from ranking.

The reason we are doing all this is to take up as many available organic search results as possible.  Don’t allow weak competitors to show up next to you in the search engines.  This is the only place I know of where some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease will keep your competitor’s ads (search listing) away from your ads.

In all of your content on your content network, you need to have conversion tools in place.  This will include links to free reports, email opt-in boxes where possible, phone numbers, contact forms, your business location and any other way you can think up to get people to leave your content network and connect with your business.

Being better and smarter will pay off in you dominating page one of Google.  Once you have control, visitors will have no choice, but to choose you.

I know this was a lot to throw at you and I left out a lot of details on how to do local search engine optimization, but please feel free to ask questions in the comments and Larry and I would be happy to answer them.

About the author:  Tim Conley is a local marketing blogger in Phoenix, AZ and has consulted with over 200 companies from solopreneurs to software companies with 250+ employees.  Go to Tim’s blog to get more local online marketing insights at LocalMarketingMastery.com.

 

What if there was a way for you to get more than the average 50+% of visitors from a number one Google ranking?

I don’t know about you, but I really dislike paying a lot of money to advertise my business (or that of my clients) only to have my direct competitor’s ad show up right next to mine. Every directory that you’re business is listed in also has your direct competitors, too. In most advertising venues that get a lot of “eye balls”, you’re going to pay to show up next to your competitor’s ad. This, frankly, stinks.

But there is a new way to market your company that keeps your competitors at bay. But first let me give you some background knowledge first.

Local Search Engine Optimization

Google and other search engines want to offer searchers relevant results so that the searcher keeps coming back to their search engine. Since you are reading this article on Local Biz Bits, you have probably heard about search engine optimization a time or two. SEO is the process of manipulating content on a website and on other websites to get top search results. I’m not going to go into the mechanics of SEO or I would be cranking out a book and Larry is probably thinking this article is a bit too long already.

As local business owners, we have a window of opportunity in the search engine game. The reason I say we have just a window is that large national companies are just now waking up to the power of local search and only about 50% of small businesses have websites. Of the small businesses who have websites, most have nothing more than an electronic business card that is lost in the wilderness called the Internet.

Right now you can use search engine optimization to out compete big corporations and your local competition on all your local keyword search phrases and your brand phrases. But here is what is so amazing…you can dominate those local phrases to the point where your competition won’t show up on the first page of the search results—you can own the top ten.

There are two exceptions to you owning all of page one of Google and those are Google’s Lucky 10 (or soon to be 7 in all markets) Local Results box at the top of searches that have geographic modifiers and in the sponsored ads at the top and right. To dominate these you have to do some black hat techniques and I don’t recommend you try them because getting delisted by Google won’t help your business any.

At the time this screenshot was taken, this fitness trainer owned the entire page for his city. The only place he didn’t have a listing was in the right hand sponsored links. You can see he even got two double listings.

(part 2 tomorrow)…

 

1. MerchantCircle launches:

Neighbors “Neighbors enables consumers to “follow” local businesses for the latest promotions, coupons and announcements.  Business owners can use the Neighbors “feed” as an easy way to communicate directly with their customer base and share information on new products, events or anything of importance to their customers. Want to receive alerts for deals on things like shoe repair services, landscaping, tax preparation or virtually any service in any industry? MerchantCircle connects you to the deals you are interested in, in your local area.”

and

Answers “Answers gives consumers the opportunity to tap into MerchantCircle’s 910,000 local businesses for expert advice on virtually any topic, all for free. Real business owner experts are glad to give consumers free advice on important questions in order to win their business. MerchantCircle doesn’t moderate the conversation; it just connects consumers to real experts who have the answers. Need to know what kind of oil to put in your truck or how to keep a dog from escaping the backyard?  Car mechanics, veterinarians and professionals in every industry will quickly respond, saving you time and often money.”

Read the full release here

2.  StudioNow Launches Video Asset Management & Syndication Platform (AMS), Delivering End-to-End Video Creation-to-Distribution Service

“providing businesses with rapidly escalating video workflow requirements an efficient, affordable and highly scalable solution for the management and distribution of high-quality video assets to multiple video channels across the Internet.”

There’s a local business case study with Citysearch online at their new site at: http://www.studionow.com/create.

Read the full release here

 

Here are the links to those posts. Thanks Mike!

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 1 of 7: Tracking Traffic From The 10 Pack

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 2 of 7: Tracking ‘local’ Local Traffic

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 3 of 7: A Filter For Local

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 4 of 7: Tracking Outbound Links

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 5 of 7: Conversions By Location

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 6 of 7: Explore Your Geo-modified Keywords

Google Analytics For Local Search Part 7 of 7: Pimp Your Dashboard