Local SEO consultant and Portland, OR web designer David Mihm has just published his second annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey and for the second year running, Search Influence has been chosen to participate.
This is the definitive document on Local Search Ranking.
The study asked participants to rate 49 factors on their impact on Google and Yahoo Local’s universal search algorithms, calculating their positive or negative impact on ranking as well as the level of agreement the participants had on each issue. The following are some of the highlights of the survey:
Positive Impact – According to the 27 participants, local business listing address in the city of search currently has the most positive impact on ranking, followed by citations from major data providers, and properly categorizing local business listings.
Negative Impact – Top factors to avoid according to the study include using multiple local business listings with the same address, multiple local business listings (Google) with the same phone number, and including a PO box with no physical address.
Increased Positive Impact since 2008 – Within the past year, participants say LBL with marginal categories has increased its positive impact the most, followed by LBL with videos, and KLM file submission.
Decreased Positive Impact since 2008 – Top factors that have fallen in positive impact since last year include the number of inbound links, the age of the LBL, and using a PO box without a physical address.
Most Controversy – Study participants had the least agreement on the importance of using the same address for multiple LBLs, using the same name on multiple LBLs, and naming products and services in the inbound keyword text.
The study surveyed 27 participants in the local search market field and was designed to help small businesses prioritize their web marketing needs.
I have come to love >delicious.com (formerly del.icio.us which I liked more.
For those of you not already familiar, delicious.com allows you to store all your bookmarks in one place organized by date with tags for secondary management.
I was very fortunate in my reading today, thanks mostly to my friends on twitter .
First things first: this post is a bit of inside baseball – it may be conceptually interesting but it likely won’t help you market your business.
Metcalfe's Law And The Network Effect
What’s interesting to me about the recent Nielsen data regarding “Twitter Quitters” is that it makes a prediction based on current data without looking at how this technology is like others before it. Surely Nielsen
doesn’t have data on adoption of all technologies since the beginning of time, but if they thought a little harder they might find some similarities. Or perhaps they just want the attention of controversy.
states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.
The most common illustration of this is the fax machine. One fax machine = paperweight, two fax machines = dialog, ubiquitous fax machines = global communications in the pre-email era.
So what’s the point?
My contention is this: Twitter (per the Nielsen data) is a 1978 fax machine. If you had one you thought you were really cool, but the reality is you were probably only impressing yourself.
If you’re not aware of the concern, here’s a little background:
I mean think about it. If you’re not one who is naturally tapped into online communication you sign up, cruise around without an instruction manual or map and it’s boring. “Where to now?” you must think. Then the phone rings, the teapot whistles or the dog barks and you’re outta there.
Unless you’re already in the know it’s hard to find the great resources there are out there:
So let’s look at that in context. With around 1 million users worldwide 40% of whom are in the U.S. that means that only about 400,000 U.S. folks are on twitter.
It's Lonely Out There
So… if you’re not one of those 400,000 you’re one of the other 299,600,000, or thereabouts, U.S. folks who aren’t yet on Twitter. That means you’re not one of the 13/100ths of 1 percent who are already hip.
That’s a really small number. I mean really small. You might be lonely.
So, I come back to likening Twitter to a 1978 fax machine. Currently Twitter lacks mass utility — so did a fax machine in 1978. Where’s the fax now?
Editor’s Note: This was written immediately after the feast in February and has been in queue for publication since (in other words, my bad).
New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center Web Site
New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center graciously hosted the Social Innovation Conference called ‘The Feast’ put on by All Day Buffet. Social change entrepreneurs joined together to talk about the social change movement that is about to explode. As the entire nation in quietly experiencing the beginning stages of a business paradigm shift, New Orleans is growing into the next hot spot for the movement. Some refer to it as the next Silicon Valley because of the incredible opportunities that New Orleans has to offer start up companies, for profit and nonprofit alike.
Echoing Green Web Site
The conference started with a presentation from Heather McGrew of Echoing Green, a 501c3 organization that invests in “new leaders who have untested, smart ideas that deserve to be implemented”. They’re looking for great new social change agents or social entrepreneurs worldwide with new ideas. The focus of Heather’s talk was about ‘identity’ and what that means for an organization, company, and the third sector as a whole.
The cycle of identity goes like this: A start up organization realizes it needs credibility to get funding and investors, it begins to create a brand that people recognize, as the organizations grows the brand becomes more and more widely recognized (credibility) due to press releases, logos, website design, ads, completed projects, etc. The building of the brand can begin to dominate goals rather than the mission of the organization. So, the question becomes, how do we get back to the movement? How do we get back to the social change mission we started out seeking to accomplish?
The organization’s leadership must have the same vision, which must be congruent with the mission. Everyone needs to be on par with and seeking to accomplish the mission. In addition to the mission there are long-term goals that social change entrepreneurs are trying to reach. This one project will change a segment of the system in place but the entire system is the long-term goal. Many social entrepreneurs have this global ambition however; as an organization takes on an identity it becomes territorial of its resources and mission. For example, GTECH, Green Coast Enterprises, and SPOUT may all find themselves competing for some of the same grants, investors, land, etc. Competing over resources to accomplish similar missions is not what the organizations are about. Competition in the third sector, unlike the private sector is less likely to produce successful results. Ideally social change organizations would use the limited resources available to them in the most efficient manner. This means collaboration on a large scale, larger than we have seen yet in this sector; collaboration that is about identifying with the movement not the organization’s brand.
Rachel Botsman and Tamara Giltsoff from Social Innovation Sustainability Space presented a similar message regarding a business paradigm shift and the theme of ‘connectedness’. I thought the most illustrative example of the change that we hope to see more of in the business world is the collaboration between Coca Cola and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Coca Cola has the most water efficient manufacturing plants however the WWF was saying, it really doesn’t matter how efficient your water usage is if there isn’t any water left to use. Coca Cola and the WWF spent years spending money lobbying for their positions. Then Coca Cola understood and formed a partnership working to conserve the water we have now. This is an example of private and public sector organizations identifying themselves with the social change mission not their brands. The overall message being that everything is interconnected and people and organizations need to shift a large part of their identity and the reason they do business toward social change.
NOLA 180 Web Site
Speaking of interconnectedness, NOLA faces a hard battle improving its broken education system. John Alford spoke about NOLA 180‘s plans for implementing a school turn-around plan through out individual schools in New Orleans. Currently, the model is being tested on Langston Hughes Academy where students are held high standards and personal accountability. The students serve a 9-hr school day, have homework, and are taught strong moral principals in addition to academic lessons. Langston Hughes will likely serve as an incubation school for new teachers and administrators to be trained for the eventual take over of another school that seeks to be turned around. John’s models are impressive and daunting, there is a lot going on in them, which means an equal amount of work to do. But, they’re visible, the plan is accessible and all we need to do is execute. As he said, the New Orleans we are building now with young, successful talent cannot be sustained if the future generation of New Orleans is not being educated. The students are connected to New Orleans success.
Voodoo Ventures Web Site
Chris Schultz’, Voodoo Ventures, a local business and social entrepreneur gave an incredibly motivating and inspirational speech about start up organizations. He taught all of us how to execute ‘bootstrapping’ perfectly. That is pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and putting your ideas out there and in motion. Fear of failure should never enter your mind; everyone fails at least once and if you fail you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move on to the next idea. Also, entrepreneurs often have the ‘impostor syndrome’ that is the fear of being considered an impostor. This, he says, needs to be shoved off as quickly as possible. Of course someone has thought of your idea before, but have they executed it?
Receivables Exchange Web Site
Nicolas Perkin honed in on this point in his presentation about his company The Receivables Exchange. He told the story of how his current investor had almost invested in someone with the same idea a couple years before but, the Receivables Exchange plan had the kinks worked out and the other didn’t. The investor invested in their company and the company has been and still is incredibly successful. Lesson: It’s all about execution. The idea isn’t what makes the company its how it’s executed. What we all need to remember is, as Chris said, ‘the one renewable resource we can all count on is our ideas’. We’ll always have new ideas and some of them are less than stellar but others are treasures. Now we need to ‘just do it’.
Hello Health Web Site
Jay Parkinson founder of Hello Health was the case in point changemaker. Dr. Parkinson is a doctor that has become fed up with the current way America practices medicine. He brought it to our attention that we’re really stuck in the 1970′ in the way America delivers healthcare. You make an appointment, go to the office, fill out a bunch of paperwork, see the doctor for eight minutes, he writes down what happens, tells you a number of things, you leave, forget 85% of what he told you, and then you have no further communication. Then the paper chart is filed away so you have no reference to that either. Insurance companies and other payment options add to the frustration of doctors and patients. In the most simplified way possible to explain the problem, there is no incentive for a doctor to care for their patients as well as possible. And, quite with the current system there is no way for a doctor to do so.
Dr. Parkinson took the social networking tools we use in this century and created a website that allowed patients in his area to look at his goggle calendar, make an appointment and he would make a house call. Billing would be done through PayPal and there was no need for staff, office, and the practice of paper documentation is now documented on your personal medical profile, available online. Now, the doctor is being paid upfront, quality care is provided to the patient, there is no hassle with waiting rooms, and you can communicate with you doctor and access your medical records with ease, at any time. It is revolutionary and is exactly the type of paradigm change that causes systemic change.
Slow Money Book Cover – Copyright Woody Tasch
Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money, introduced social changemakers that have accomplished systemic changes in their communities though years of persistence. An interesting example was organic farming and various other resource-accountable organizations that are working to sustain resources. The point that I took away from his presentation is that everyone needs to be aware of what impact everything we do has on our resources. Putting this knowledge in numbers that we can actually imagine and visualize is key. Let’s not talk in billions anymore, let’s break it down and talk in the amount we can all comprehend.
The type of ideas that Dr Parkinson and other social change agents have are what organizations like Ashoka, All Day Buffet, and Echoing Green invest in. Ashoka, based out of Washington DC, encourages and invests in social entrepreneurs. They offer them invaluable resources and a network that will allow them to stay sustainable.
New Orleans is a fertile ground for startups, nonprofit and profit alike, the plea I heard today is: as NOLA starts to take off, let’s keep our mission’s identity in mind. Let’s create a mission that changes the world because our entire city is working together to create social change. Let’s set the example of how social change innovation should be done for the rest of the world. Let’s create the social change industry that revolutionizes the way businesses, government, and public organizations operate.
I spent the last 2 days at a fantastic conference — the kind we need more of around here — WordCamp NOLA.
Day 1 was a bit of a Social Media day, more introduction than implementation.
Day 2 was, if I do say so myself, much more full of actionable stuff including my presentation on WordPress SEO.
I drew on our own experience working with clients and borrowed from some of the best in the industry.
For your viewing pleasure, here is the presentation:
I have to say, there’s something a little scary about in-conference twitter feeds but it turns out most of the commentary was complimentary and I want to thank all in attendance for their support and appreciation.
Following are some of the comments from the twitter feed:
I have been meeting a bunch of great local people thanks to my association with our local Net Squared group Net2NO . (update: in town? come out tomorrow night: http://netsquared.meetup.com/27/)
And one of them, David Robinson , who heads the local Adobe Multimedia Users Group asked me to speak to his group all about website promotion . It was a lot of fun, and I met even more great local folks and got to work on a much longer talk than I’m accustomed to.
The talk was an SEO 101 of sorts and was a lot of fun. We ended with a site clinic in which I reviewed and made some recommendations for some of the attendees.
I always say that I’d love to teach. I think there is too little real-world tactical online marketing eduction for the masses.
, introduced social changemakers that have accomplished systemic changes in their communities though years of persistence. An interesting example was organic farming and various other resource-accountable organizations that are working to sustain resources. The point that I took away from his presentation is that everyone needs to be aware of what impact everything we do has on our resources. Putting this knowledge in numbers that we can actually imagine and visualize is key. Let’s not talk in billions anymore, let’s break it down and talk in the amount we can all comprehend.