Konnected

If you are a small business or a business focused on your local market then you are already well aware of the importance of your position in Google Places (used to be Google Local).  After covering the basics like claiming your profile, completing your profile completely, and obtaining reviews (good or bad) then you need to start looking at the other factors that affect the rankings in Google Places.

Today researching and analyzing the top competition for your local keyword got a lot easier.  In a joint effort from Darren Shaw of Whitespark and Garrett French and Ben Wills from Ontolo the Local Citation Finder is now available.

Why are citations important?

In the Local Search Ranking Factors report published by David Mihm, volume of citations is #4 on the list of ranking factors.  After the process of claiming your profile, completing it, and having in the correct categories is volume of citations. Citations basically back up and validate your listing.  In algorithm’s eyes the more sources that support that that your local profile is your business and that the information is correct the more likely they are to rank your business higher.

How does the tool work?

There is a great break down on the methodology of the local citation finder tool on the Ontolo blog phone number co-citation analysis local link builders and I highly recommend reading it so that you have a full understanding of what the tool is automating for you.  Basically what is happening is the by analyzing the top listing of your local keyword you can look for the citations that Google is recognizing and is using in ranking those businesses.  The unique piece of the listing used is the phone number, this is because you need a unique identifier for each of the top listings.

The Local Citation Finder works by simply entering the keyword you want to analyze the citations for and choosing the search engine you want to use (Google.com ; Google.ca; Google.co.uk).  As the tool points outs you also want to do regular search first to make sure that the keyword returns local results.

After you input your keyword you will receive an email in a few minutes that gives you the top listings for the keyword and a list of citations.   In addition to the top listings the report gives you all of the unique domain’s that are being used as citations and a complete list of all the URL’s that were found.

How did I use it?

The Local Citation Finder gave me a list of over 230 unique domains that were potentially great citation sources but you still need to use the data.  I took each of the citation sources in the unique domain sections and did some basic research on the domain.  If the site only offered a basic listing with the company information including phone number and no link I usually submitted to the site.  If the site did offer a more featured profile where I could also include a link to the site I did some research into the authority and rank of the domain.  I did not want to get a citation in exchange for listing the company in a low quality directory which could have an affect on regular organic rankings.  Most would agree that getting citations from domains that are in your specific vertical or for your specific area will have a greater impact on your local rankings.  I could definitely see a better process for filtering the citation sources that are returned (future post) but I thought doing some manual work would help understand the entire process.

There really is no common method for how to submit to these sites, a lot offer a submit listing feature but others don’t, so I sent an email through what they gave as a contact email and crossed my fingers.

If you are search strategy involves local I would highly recommend using the Local Citation Finder, it will give you hours worth results in minutes and give you some insight into how your competitors got to the top.

Google Analytics is a free web analytics package which allows you to track activity on your website, blog, email campaign, social network activity, and more.  Using Google Analytics is the key to making the most of your online marketing campaign.  The ability to implement, track, and adjust is the main differentiator between marketing online and using traditional offline channels.  Using web analytics you can see if you have increased traffic from your latest email campaign, found new leads from your Google PPC campaign, or have increased revenue from your latest SEO initiative.  Google Analytics is free and can be installed in just a few minutes on simple sites but for more complicated sites or sites that have an ever increasing number of pages ensuring that you have the Google Analytics tracking code properly installed on each page is vital.

If you do not have the tracking code properly installed on every page on your website you will have inaccurate visitor data and not have the correct traffic sources for your visitors.  The Google Analytics tracking code looks like this

Google recommends that the code is installed on every page of your site immediately before the closing </head> tag.  To make sure that you have the code properly installed you can use the free service from EpikOne, found here sitescanga.com.  You simply enter your domain and email address and you receive a report in your inbox.  The report will give you a summary of how many pages are being tracked and if there are any problems with your tracking code.  By using the CSV detailed report you can find exactly what pages have problems so that you can make the needed changes.

Creating new content for your corporate blog can be a challenging task, especially in a small business where the blog is not your first priority.  However by viewing your blog as a lead generation source you will be able to get in the routine of creating content for your blog on a regular basis.  So how do you find topics to write about and keep your funnel full of leads?

1. Read other blogs – Learn about what other blogs write about and find potential gaps in their content.  Duplicating what they already have won’t help in gaining subscribers or in ranking in the search engines.  Instead look at their general theme and look for potential topics they haven’t blogged on or write something only you can speak on because of your unique experiences or knowledge.

2. Use your web analytics – Perform some research on your web analytics data and look for trends in what visitors are reading when they are on your site.  If you see that there is a lot of interest in a specific topic, product, or service then you may want to write a blog post on how to use that product/service or how you have implemented that product or service for a customer.

3.Google Insights – You can use Google Insights to find historical data about potential blog posts.  By looking at trends you can find the best time to write about specific topics, products, or services.  For example when you search “boats” in Google Inisghts you would be shown the below image,

The chart for search traffic around “boats” looks very much like a text book business cycle chart, but what it tells you in your search for blog topics is that there is a month over month increase in traffic from the beginning of January through the beginning of August.  This would mean that you would be best served by starting to write posts in January and continuing on until August.  The “boats” example is pretty obvious but using Google Insights you can find micro-trends that you can take advantage of by writing posts when they are most popular. Google Insights

4.  Twitter Trends – You can analyze Twitter similarly to analyzing Google search trends.  By looking at when the interest in specific topics peak you can write and release new blog posts to capture the largest share of that traffic.  You can also look at topics and predict which topics are about to become more popular.  Look for topics that have gained interest over a short period of time and that you think are likely to grow more popular as the laggards begin to get involved.  Write blog posts about those topics and wait for the spike in traffic, having your blog post already posted and indexed by the search engines will help you in capturing the increased search volume on the social networks.  Trendistic , Twitter Search, Hash Tags

5. Email Data – When you send out your newsletter to your list monitor what topics or posts get the most traffic.  You can analyze which links receive the most clicks and write content around similar topic areas.  In contrast if no one is clicking to read more about a specific topic then you would be better served by allocating your writing time to topics your audience finds interesting.

In the last few months Google has released the “tag” advertising option in Google Places.  Tags give you way to make your business stand out against the other listings and specific actions related to the tag can be tracked.  Below is an example of  how tags are displayed in universal search and in Google Maps.

While Tags are still new and there isn’t much data yet available on how using tags will impact the click through rate on your listing the price is only $25/month.  At that price it is worth signing up for the service and using your Google Places account dashboard to monitor the performance.  When signing up for your Tag you have three options on what you would like the tag to highlight.  Your options are:

1. Highlight photos of your business.
2.  Highlight videos of your business.
3. Highlight your website.

After you activate your tag you will also have access to separate tracking of the tags performance compared to your organic performance in Google Places.  Until July 23rd Google is offering a free 30 day trial of tags, so it is a no risk trial which may drive some traffic to your site.

The number of social networks is staggering and the list is growing almost daily, if you don’t believe me check out some tech blogs and look at all the sites receiving funding for their startup.  With all of these networks available how do you know if you should participate. You can decide quickly by answering the question does participating in this network work with our current social media strategy and more importantly does it help in achieving long term business objectives?  Obviously to answer this question you need to have a social media strategy, if you don’t have one stop reading this and do some research on social media strategies.

The Process

If you do have a social media strategy you can then begin to answer the question.  To evaluate the social network first describe to yourself and some co-workers what exactly is the social network.  How does the social network operate?  What features are available? Who does it target?

Next look at who is currently on the network.  What are the demographics of the user base? Are your competitors using it? How engaged are the users on the network?

After defining the network users look at if you will be ale to measure the success of using the network using the metrics you defined in your social media strategy.  Can you measure your efforts? Will it be possibly to attribute leads and revenues to the network?  Can you estimate what your target metrics will be for the new network?

If you can see the metrics you next need to look at what stage the network is in.  Are the users mostly early adopters? Has the network begun to attract the mainstream? How long has the network been active?  What is the long term viability of the network, do they have funding?

After answering all of these questions you finally have to determine if you have the resources for participating on the network.  Do you have the time to engage at the level necessary to meet your metrics?

Conclusion

If going through this process you need to decide if you should have a presnce on the social network.  I would suggest not simply answering yes/no but instead attaching one of the following categories to the social network:

• Join – Passively Follow
• Join – Become an active member
• Join – Make the network a pillar of your social media strategy
• Ignore – Reevaluate in 6 months

If you decide that you believe the network is a good fit but you are unsure of the resource commitment you will need to look at your marketing mix.  Look for other areas that may be under performing and decide if it is worth reallocating resources or splitting your resources between the two.

Going through the process of evaluating a social network will provide you with confidence in either deciding to join a network or to ignore it.  You will know that your decision is based on meeting your long term goals and will be able to avoid a time and resource drain.

Most organizations start their social media campaigns by imitating those who have had success and following the basics of using social media for business.  Usually this includes generating new leads, improved customer service, and growing brand awareness/loyalty.  When doing this you develop your business objectives and  metrics and the begin to measure the effectiveness of your social media campaign.  With all of the time and money that is required to start and monitor a social media campaign you should maximize the return by expanding your goals and use of social media.  You can use your social media initiative to improve your Search Engine Optimization by adding new links which will maximize  the ROI of both your SEO and social media campaign.

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Looking to get out and meet some new people and maybe even learn a thing or two? Here is a list of events for June.

Firestorm Southwest Metro Social – June 16th

Networking at a great restaurant in the Southwest metro. Free for members of MyFirestorm, just $10 for everyone else.  Learn more about the event and sign up today.

TwinWest 4G: Evolution of Commerce – June 23rd

Professional business networking over lunch, hosted by Ladin Ventures and the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce.  Learn more here.

Online Marketing Summit Minneapolis – June 25th

Learn the best practices of online marketing without the headaches of getting pitched all day by sales reps, Event details.  The OMS is hosted by Clickz and is an all day event with speakers:

• Jeanne Hopkins, Director of Marketing, HubSpot
• Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank
• Renee Gellatly, Marketing Program Manager, Corporate Marketing, NetApp, Inc.

Local Search includes services such as Google Places, Yahoo Maps, Bing Maps, Yelp, and many other.  This websites give users the listing information for businesses in a very defined region, such as your neighborhood or city.  Optimizing for local search is becoming more and more important as all of the major search engines begin to adopt “universal search” which brings other content (News, Images, Local Listings) to page one of the search engine results page.

Optimizing for local search is still a very rough science but here are some things that can get you on your way to moving up the local listings:

1.) Register and verify your listing.  By simply verifying that you are the business owner of a location on a map the search engines will put more trust in your listing than the other unverified businesses.  Here are  the links for verifying your business: Google , Bing , and Yahoo.

2.) Fill out your listing as completely as possible.  The more information you are able to place in your listing the better.  Make sure that you list your business in as many different categories as possible (Usually 5-6) because this is an important factor in triggering your business to show in the results.  Also add features such as your logo or a photo of the outside of your building, all of these features make your listing look more complete than the other around you.

3.) Get reviews.  Reviews are key to getting your local listing to move into  the top 5.  Encourage customers to review you on Google, Yahoo, and Bing by putting a reminder on email blasts, putting it on cards, and personally telling them when you see them.  Also don’t get too worried about negative reviews.  Make sure to look for completely false claims and to respond to negative remarks but negative reviews will not hurt your listing, they actually will help.  So handle negative reviews online like you would handle a negative customer anywhere, address their concerns and speak to them directly about the problem.

Many businesses and organization of every size see that social media holds a lot of opportunity and thus must get in as quickly as they can.  Getting a quick start is great idea but careful planning will help  make your Social media initiative a success.  Here are some first step for your organizations dive into social media:

• Determine what social networks your target customer is using – While most people you speak with will say “you need to be on on Twitter” or “you need to be on facebook” the truth is you don’t need to be anywhere that is not going to help improve your business, and if you aren’t reaching customers then you are not improving your bottom line. Readmore…

Link Building is where many companies fail in their SEO.  Link building is a mix of art and science and where many traditional SEOs fail because it requires the type of personality a marketer would typically have, not a web designer/coder.  While difficult, time consuming, and sometimes extremely frustrating link building has become one of, if not the most important piece of SEO. Almost anyone can handle taking care of on site SEO so to differentiate yourself and rank where you want in the Search Engines you need to get high quality links.  LinkedIn while not an actually a source of valuable links because they are no-followed is a valuable and robust platform for finding high quality links.

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