increasing revenue through local seo & google places

Formic Media Seminar Series:Increasing Revenue through Local SEO

Presented by:

Formic Media, Inc.

www.formicmedia.com/seminars

503-517-9059 x122| johnm@formicmedia.com

Agenda

� Why is Local Search Important?

� What is Local Search?

� Local Search Eco System

� Local Search Components � Local Search Components

� Local Paid Search

Why is Local Search Important?

Local Search Volume by Month

� Why is Local SEO so important?

� Roughly 20% of all searches have local intent

� June 2010

� Google = 10.1 billion searches

Yahoo = 2.9 billion

Google = 10.1 billion searches

� Yahoo = 2.9 billion

� Bing = 1.9 billion

� Total of Big 3 = 14.9 billion searches

2,980,000,000 searches had local intent!

Local Search User Stats

� 97% of American internet users shop online, of

which 57% say they purchase offline (NPD Group)

� 90% of online commercial searches result in offline

brick and mortar purchases (comScore)brick and mortar purchases (comScore)

� 82% of local searchers follow up offline by an in-store

visit or phone call (comScore)

� 80% of all budgets are spent within 50 miles of the

home (DMA)

Local Search Business Stats

� Roughly 25 million SMBs in the US

� Approximately 2 million Place pages have been

claimed

� 8% of SMBs have claimed their Google Place page� 8% of SMBs have claimed their Google Place page

Huge Potential and Opportunity!

Local Search Definition

� Local search is the use of specialized Internet search

engines that allow users to submit geographically

constrained searches against a structured database

of local business listings.

� - Wikipedia

Difference Between Local & Organic

� Location, location, location

� Organic/Paid search = “the what”

� Nike running shoes, Sony DSLR camera

� Local Search = “the what” & “the where”� Local Search = “the what” & “the where”

� Nike shoe store Portland, Camera World Portland

What is Local Search?

Evolution of Local Search

Online Yellow Pages

� Iconic yellow-pages books, but online:

Business Listings in Search

� Google joins local with 10-pack:

Google 7-Pack

Google O-Pack

Google O-Pack

Google O-Pack

Local Gets Social

� Yelp

Local Gets Mobile

Local Gets Mobile

Local Gets Mobile

Local Gets Social & Mobile

Local Search Eco System

The Major Players in Local Search

Google Place Pages

Bing Local Listing

Yahoo! Local Listing

Yelp Business Listing

Top Ranking Factors

1. Business address must be in the city that is being searched

2. Manually owner-verified Place Page

3. Choose the most appropriate categories for your business

4. Volume of traditional structured citations (IYPs & data

aggregators)

5. Crawlable address on-site matching Place Page address

6. PageRank, authority of website homepage and highest 6. PageRank, authority of website homepage and highest

ranked page

7. Quality of inbound links to the website

8. Crawlable phone number on-site matching Place Page

phone number

9. Local area code phone number on Place Page

10. City and State in Places landing page title

Source: David Mihm, Local Search Ranking Factors:

http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

Business Address in the City Being Searched

Proximity:

�Having an address in the city

and close to the city center

helps with local ranking.

�Importance is determined by

competition.

Manually Owner-Verified Place Page

� Trust is a huge signal for Google

� Only 2MM claimed in U.S. so far

� http://www.google.com/places

� No duplicate listings!

� Do the same at Yahoo (listings.local.yahoo.com)� Do the same at Yahoo (listings.local.yahoo.com)

� And the same at Bing

(ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx)

Manually Owner-Verified Place Page

Claiming:

�Enter business info.

�Verify your listing.

Choose the Most Appropriate Categories for

Your Business

Add

Relevancy

Factors:

�Search Engines use

categories to help

define your business

accurately.

Volume of Traditional Structured Citations

Submit to Free and/or Paid directories

Add & verify business information with local Data Providers

Crawlable address On-Site Matching Place Page

Address

Rich snippets and hcard formatting on your website

<div class="vcard"> <div class="vcard">

<div class="adr">

<h2>Contact</h2>

<div class="street-address">300 NE Failing St.</div>

<span class="locality">Portland</span>,

<abbr class="region" title="Oregon">OR</abbr>&nbsp;

<span class="postal-code">97212</span>

</div>

<div class="tel"> <span class="type">Work</span> +1-503-517-9059 x122 </div>

<div class="tel">

<span class="type">Fax</span> +1-503-517-9068 </div>

<div>Email: <span class="email">info@formicmedia.com</span></div>

</div>

PageRank, authority of website homepage

and highest ranked page

� Building authority to your actual site build the

authority of you Place Page

� Google takes into account both the homepage and

the next highest ranked page on your site

Quality of Inbound Links to the Website

� Having quality links to you site will help build organic � Having quality links to you site will help build organic

ranking and local ranking

� Inbound links also help improve PageRank

Crawlable Phone Number On-Site Matching

Place Page Phone Number

Rich snippets and hcard formatting on your website

<div class="vcard"> <div class="vcard">

<div class="adr">

<h2>Contact</h2>

<div class="street-address">300 NE Failing St.</div>

<span class="locality">Portland</span>,

<abbr class="region" title="Oregon">OR</abbr>&nbsp;

<span class="postal-code">97212</span>

</div>

<div class="tel"> <span class="type">Work</span> +1-503-517-9059 x122 </div>

<div class="tel">

<span class="type">Fax</span> +1-503-517-9068 </div>

<div>Email: <span class="email">info@formicmedia.com</span></div>

</div>

Local Area Code Phone Number on Place

Page

� Goes hand-in-hand with being in the city of the

search

� Adds relevance to your locale

� Avoid toll free numbers

City and State in Places Landing Page Title

Local Search Components

Local Search Components

� Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)

� Off-site Optimization

� On-site Optimization

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

� Claim & verify your Place page

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

� Claim & verify your Place page

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

Address/Phone

Business Title

URL

Categories

Hours of Operation

Business Description

Additional Details

Photos & Video

Local Search Components

� Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)

� On-site Optimization

� Off-site Optimization

On-site Optimization

� Still need to focus on website optimization

� Geo-specific keyword targeting

� Title Tags

� Meta Tags� Meta Tags

� H1 tags

� Body Copy

On-site Optimization

On-site Optimization

� Microformats help parse out business data for

the search engines

� hCard

� hReview� hReview

On-site Optimization

� hCard

On-site Optimization

� hReview

On-site Optimization

� Local phone number = Good

� 800 phone number = Not ideal

� Tracking phone number = Bad

On-site Optimization

� If you have multiple store locations, you

should:

� Create unique pages for each location

On-site Optimization

Local Search Components

� Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)

� On-site Optimization

� Off-site Optimization

Off-site Optimization

� Web citations are to local search, what

inbound links are to organic search

� More citations = more trust + higher rankings

Off-site Optimization

Off-site Optimization

Off-site Optimization

� User reviews also help gain trust from both

the search engines and users

� Quantity is still more powerful than quality

� Engines are working to understand sentiment� Engines are working to understand sentiment

Off-site Optimization

� Get reviews through:

� Email campaigns

� Encourage employees to ask for reviews

� Incentivize your employees if necessary� Incentivize your employees if necessary

� Google window sticker

� Utilize collateral

� Social media

� Use website widget

Local Paid Search

AdWords Express

� Utilizes Google Places Platform

� Ads appear in the ads section on Google.com and

Google Maps

� Advertisers pick categories to advertise under, but

not keywordsnot keywords

� Ideal for small businesses with smaller budgets

AdWords Geotargeting

� Target users by country or all the way down to a 10

mile radius

�You can exclude certain locations much like you

can choose negative keywords to not have your ads

show forshow for

AdWords Location Extensions

� Provides a physical address where users can locate

the product or service they are looking for

AdWords Click-to-Call Extensions

�Extension allows users to simply tap the phone

number in the ad and call

�Quick and easy way for the user to call your company

Facebook

� Over 500 million users Facebook

� Facebook gives you the option to not only target

users by age, gender, interests, but by location as well

�Increase local visibility by targeting users close to

your locationsyour locations

� Good for B2C businesses

Are you a Portland

small business looking

to increase your local

online presence? Learn

how Formic can help.

Formic Media

LinkedIn

� Over 100 million worldwide users

� Target users by age, gender, company, job title and

location

� Good for B2B businesses� Good for B2B businesses

Questions?

Contact:

John McPhee

www.formicmedia.com

503-517-9059 x122| johnm@formicmedia.com