Search Influence is proud to be taking part in the first ever Foursquare Advertiser Survey with 3 other companies focused on local search and social media.
Over the next 2 weeks, leading up to SMX Advanced, we will be polling businesses using Foursquares promotions tools to get the word out about their businesses.
If you are one of the advertisers we’ve contacted, please be assured we are very interested in your feedback and are excited to share the data we compile.
Foursquare is an exciting new media type bringing together local search, couponing and loyalty / retention programs around a game -based location-centric service.
Our partners in this project are:
Dream Systems Media
Dream Systems Media, “DSM”, is a trend setting, full service Internet marketing firm, with locations in Utah and Arizona, and was born when three successful Internet business entrepreneurs decided to join forces to do for others what they had previously done only for themselves.
Links:
A Nickel’s Worth of Free Online Marketing Advice
Local Business + Yelp App + iPhone = Money
Free Local Marketing Options That Brings Real Traffic
rYnoweb
rYnoweb provides business website services, specializing in WordPress
development and implementation, local search marketing, and on-site
search engine optimization (SEO). rYnoweb serves clients nationwide
and is run by freelance Web Strategist, Chuck Reynolds out of Phoenix,
Arizona.
Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on the Internet’s influence on offline consumer purchase behavior. He also is a Senior Analyst for Internet2Go, an advisory service from Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.
We were surprised to learn, in our investigation, how few in our industry were aware of this great free (for now) advertising medium.
We’re excited to begin collecting data so we may learn better how effectively this medium is being used.
Once done, we will be publishing these data on the rYnoweb blog and presenting our findings at SMX Advanced (sure to be the must see session of the show).
Some related posts from the Search Influence Blog:
I can’t fight this feeling any longer. I need to profess my love of Google Maps. Our relationship was a tumultuous one, but she won me over in the end. Living in New Orleans, where some street signs are still missing from their respective corners, Google maps was a saving grace. They also recently started to include bike routes, which guides bikers through the least traffic-laden areas. Though this feature still needs some work, I think it’ll be a great asset to this ever-expanding program.
Google maps doesn’t just serve to make traveling easier or killing time. It also does wonders for SEOs. Google Places, a new version of its Local Business Center, makes the discoverability of local businesses easy and reliable by having the businesses themselves be able to claim and update their own listings. Now, they’ve extended this into street view. If you’re viewing the map in street view and see a business that catches your attention, you can now click on an icon that has information like hours, reviews, and more. Here is an example:
With this feature, you can browse your neighborhood for local restaurants and stores. From there you can see what bars or dessert joints are down the street from where you’re dining or shopping. It’s a great way to take advantage of your city, or learn about a new one while you’re on vacation.
For now, it will only show the top listings for the area, but they will be expanding to include more businesses and even transit locations. If you’re searching for your business and find the marker is a little off, don’t forget that you can drag it to the proper location.
The weather looks great today, so I think I’m going to take this thing on a test drive and find a spot where I’ve never eaten before. I can’t wait to see what these guys are going to come with next!
SEO experts are almost unanimous in their agreement that customer reviews play a crucial role in boosting visibility and rankings in the local search results. So how can you use this information to leverage local search rankings for your own business?
In a previous post, we discussed how a pro-active approach to customer service and feedback can boost your business reputation online. Positive reviews are a sign of trust, and that carries a great deal of weight in search rankings. Happy customers are an excellent source of positive feedback and reviews.
For businesses trying to boost their visibility in local search, online customer reviews on Google Maps pages and third-party review sites are crucial to higher rankings. Although negative reviews can hurt your overall business reputation, they don’t adversely impact your search rankings.
If you’re worried about negative reviews, take comfort in the knowledge that search engines don’t really differentiate between positive and negative reviews. As local search expert, Matt McGee, points out, “There’s no such thing as a negative rating. There are only degrees of positivity.”
So, how do you go about getting your customers to post reviews on Google? Yes, you could outsource that to a company that handles SEO and reputation-management for its clients. But as local search expert, Mary Bowling notes, “It helps with trust that the review is legitimate and not gamed.”
Here are six tips on getting more customer reviews than you can handle and leveraging the ones you have to boost your local search rankings.
1. Ask and You Shall Receive
Taking a pro-active stance is the best approach where customer reviews are concerned. When a client or customer offers praise or positive verbal feedback, ask whether they would be willing to be quoted online and email them a link where they can post a review. You’d be surprised how many of them are happy to recommend a product or service they really like.
2. Offer Incentives – Not Bribes
For those customers who get a little lazy with filling out forms online, a little incentive could give them the push they need to get that review posted. Ethically, this must be approached carefully. You can offer coupons, discounts or freebies to those customers who post a review online. It should not be stipulated that it must be a positive review. If worded “leave us a great review, and you can get 20% off your next purchase,” it’s a bribe.
You could even have a monthly draw for customer review/feedback. Mike Blumenthal offers tips on using Leavefeedback.org, a site created by Michael Jensen of SoloSEO that facilitates review creation.
3. Complete The Sentence…
One trick that many companies use to get customers to write a review is to give them a feedback form on the way out. One section of the form is usually devoted to asking for comments. Customers who have trouble filling that section in, are more likely to do it if you use a “complete the sentence” format in that area.
For instance, “I love (Your Business Name) because ____________”. If this form is available on your website, you could email them and ask for feedback anytime while offering incentives for those who do give it. Always ask your customer for permission to post their comments on your website and on review sites online, along with their name (or initials) and location.
4. Use Social Proof
When you first create your local business listing on yellow pages, review sites and business listing sites, a blank review page could keep many potential reviews away. People are more likely to post reviews for a business that already has a number of reviews online.
As long as they’re legitimate and you create a separate profile for each review, you can use customer reviews from your website and feedback forms to populate these sites and provide social proof for the hesitant ones.
5. Cut Down On Negativity
Companies have little control over what is posted about them online, but by engaging directly with your public, you can respond to negative reviews quickly and minimize their impact.
Almost every business creates a couple of dissatisfied customers, and the more malicious ones could post negative reviews that harm your business reputation. The best way to minimize their impact is to get many more positive reviews than negative ones.
6. Engage With Your Audience
Don’t let the conversation online go unanswered. Respond to feedback promptly and appropriately and thank users for positive reviews posted. Contact reviewers who post negative comments with an incentive to change their review. Offer them a coupon for your products or special service that will help them change their opinion about your company.
Feel free to use these tips to get more customer reviews. It’s a great way to improve your visibility and rankings in the local search results.
For online businesses that depend on customer reviews to improve visibility in local search, social media engagement has become even more relevant with companies like Yelp giving reviewers the option to seamlessly broadcast their Yelp reviews to Facebook and Twitter.
According to the official Yelp blog, any photos that reviewers upload to Yelp.com will also be included when sharing reviews for that business via Facebook Connect. Users also have control over which reviews they want shared and which ones they don’t.
So if your local search visibility matters, let your customers know how they can share their feedback of your business with all their Twitter and Facebook friends with a one-time signup at Yelp and watch your rankings rise.
I have most recently become a fan of “ProBlogger”, Darren Rowse. His website problogger.net contains rich insight and useful tips that can be used by both a blogger newbie up to a more seasoned one. I have found that his suggestions transcend to Internet Marketing and are easily applied to one of our favorite topics – increasing site traffic.
We always want our clients to have a steady increase in website traffic, the reality is that there will be occasions when a dip may occur. A recent post published by Rowse offers explanations and suggestions to better understand declines in blog, or in our case, website traffic, 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining [And What to Do About It].
I found this post especially helpful as I am always monitoring my Client’s website traffic and I don’t ever like seeing lulls occur. So instead of fretting when I see a dip I can use this post as a check off list. There will be certain factors that we can take control of and improve to boost traffic and others that will just have to run their course before we can once again increase site traffic.
I have most recently become a fan of “ProBlogger”, Darren Rowse. His website problogger.net contains rich insight and useful tips that can be used by both a blogger newbie up to a more seasoned one. I have found that his suggestions transcend to Internet Marketing and are easily applied to one of our favorite topics – increasing site traffic.
We always want our clients to have a steady increase in website traffic, the reality is that there will be occasions when a dip may occur. A recent post published by Rowse offers explanations and suggestions to better understand declines in blog, or in our case, website traffic, 6 Reasons Your Blog Traffic Might Be Declining [And What to Do About It] .
I found this post especially helpful as I am always monitoring my Client’s website traffic and I don’t ever like seeing lulls occur. So instead of fretting when I see a dip I can use this post as a check off list. There will be certain factors that we can take control of and improve to boost traffic and others that will just have to run their course before we can once again increase site traffic.
This is the slide deck from my presentation at Local Search Summit “Using Facebook & Twitter to Drive Local Leads” this afternoon.
We had a great crowd and I enjoyed the heck out of putting this slide show together. I was trying to position some real tactics in using Twitter for local business.
I’m hopeful that it was tactical versus theoretical and I look forward to your feedback.
UPDATE: At the suggestion of Terri Troncale I want to invite submissions for non-profits as well. Please, please – fans, recommend your favorites! I’m really happy to have the businesses self-submit but I want to get rid of these iTunes cards 😀
Also, my original limitation on location was because of driving distance to http://socialsouth.org. Please submit anyone, anywhere using Social Media to drive sales, membership, contributions, or any trackable outcome.
—
Twitter Bird – Tweet, Tweet, Tweet
Let’s get one thing straight right here: I’m not above buying your love. (Just ask David)
I’m going to be taking part in a couple presentations at Social South in a few weeks and in preparation I’ve been asking: who’s doing it?
The “who” I’m talking about: Small businessesin the Southeast United States (hopefully within a day’s drive of B-Ham (that’s Birmingham Alabama, you dig) and non-profits?
The “it” is – using Social Media to promote their business or organization.
So in other words, do you know a small business or non-profit in your area who is trying to use Twitter for business (or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Orkut, or YouTube, or Blogging)?
Now, a couple caveats:
I would prefer local businesses/non-profits: plumbers, lawn guys, doctors, spas, hair salons and organizations trying to promote local causes
I may feature home-based businesses but I’d rather they have a product sales or membership action component
Cash Register goes Cha Ching
What’s in it for the small businesses? First, I will do an email interview and a follow-up phone call which will be featured as a blog post on the Search Influence blog. Those which represent the best case studies will also be featured on Local Search News (and may appear on Search Engine Land).
And, I will do a half-hour interview follow-up in which I’ll make recommendations and offer ideas for other promotional opportunities. And hopefully we’ll all learn better how to use Twitter for business (and other social platforms).
And, finally, a select few will get an opportunity to join me on-stage at Social South to talk about their experiences.
What’s in it for you? (I know, I know, it’s all about you) I’ve got a stack of $10.00 iTunes cards burning a hole in my pocket, y’hear. I will give a $10.00 iTunes cards to 10 randomly selected participants – in other words, comment below including a link to the business in question and their Twitter account page (e.g. Nancy’s Corner, New Orleans Gift Baskets, Nancy’s Corner on Twitter).
[Ginsu Style] But wait, there’s more – 1 lucky entry will win a $150.00 gift card / certificate to the business of their choice from the entrants listed (small print – I need a minimum of 20 entries to execute on the $150.00).
So, please, let me buy your love – help me find participants for this great panel at Social South, I’ll help you get a little more enjoyment out of life with the gift of music and we’ll both help a local business get a little more exposure online and learn about how to use Twitter for business.
All you have to do to enter is comment below with a link to the business (home page or online profile page is fine) and a link to their Twitter, Facebook, or other social media profile.
Oh, and you should definitely Tweet about it – here’s a good example: RT @w2scott: Know a small biz or non-profit using Social Media? Promote ’em 2 win great prizes – details: http://bit.ly/vQqTA Please RT
Look, this is serious, I’m trying to help others understand how to use Twitter for business (and Facebook and LinkedIn and the others) and you can help a local small business get a little further down the road with this internet stuff. And, like I said, I am willing to buy your love.
In conversation one day, I mentioned to Will that for what we charge some of our clients, I can put a real value on it when I compare it to yellow pages spending. And what I mean by that is for what a plastic surgeon or a dentist or a wedding photographer might pay for a large display ad in their local yellow pages, they could be spending the same or less in search engine optimization (SEO – Organic Search) / search engine marketing (SEM – Paid Search) and getting so much more return on investment for their marketing budget.
Orlando Plastic Surgery Yellow Pages Ads
I worked in the yellow pages industry for just short of 10 years at a CMR, Certified Marketing Representative, where all of my clients were national clients in multiple markets. So I’ve spent a full decade of my life working in the yellow pages industry, which is not a glamorous media, but at one time it was incredibly profitable for clients based on their return on investment (ROI). That ROI in yellow pages is now dropping dramatically with every year because of the overwhelming competition from internet for media dollars.
It is in the yellow pages industry where a lot of tracking techniques were started. I can’t tell you how many tracking phone numbers I have set up and used in a yellow pages ad. And given a client’s number, had to track a very real ROI each month based on the calls made.
I have organized split run comparisons where we run 1 ad in half of the distribution area of a phone book and another ad in the other half of the distribution area, and then sit back and watch the tracking phone numbers data.
When Will first asked me to work with his company, Search Influence, I hesitated – I mean what did I know about search engine optimization?!?
It turns out, it’s a lot of the same stuff. Getting our clients in the right directories, listed under the right categories, tracking incoming calls, proving value …
It is this last, “proving value,” that is the most telling. Knowing what a large display ad costs in the yellow pages which a lot of our clients would have been doing 10 years ago, and comparing it to what Search Influence charges for SEM and SEO, I realize that the value is definitely in the internet.
In yellow pages, a plastic surgeon might buy a full page or a half page ad for a large percentage of their annual advertising budget. In some larger metro markets, this can easily reach up to $100,000.00, over $8,000.00 each month, with a yellow pages industry average of 5% increase each year.
This gets the surgeon an ad that is in print for a year, and that’s what you get. Hope that people pick up the fat book shoved in the back of the cabinet, find the heading, (not under “Doctors,” not under “Physicians & Surgeons-Cosmetic Surgery,” but buried under “Physicians & Surgeons-Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery”) and choose your ad to call.
Most people today are already in front of the computer for work. They just type it in exactly what they want, no digging, “Plastic surgery Houston“. It’s too easy to use the internet.
The internet is a living, breathing medium. For the same amount of money or, amazingly, much less in some big metro markets, SEO actively finds the people searching for your product.
Ringing Phone = Profits
Changes can be made daily or hourly for specials and promotions. Yellow pages ads are in print for 12 months.
Tracking is not limited to phone number tracking – we can find which pages are working and which pages users are most likely to leave the site on, edit some graphics and compare the traffic patterns week to week instead of year to year.
The average yellow pages display ad attracts over 440 calls per year (Source: YPPA Media Impact Study, 2004). Search Influence has many client sites with thousands of visits each month, with hundreds of contacts each month.
Businesses are moving their marketing dollars to the internet from yellow pages more and more every day because it’s smart money spent. I mean I don’t want to glorify SEO for more than it is, but dollar for dollar, internet marketing gives so much more impact for money spent by bringing in real customers.
I did a very informal survey which I think sums up America’s use of their phone books. Here are some responses to “Where is your print phone book?”:
“I may have thrown it away, if I have it, it is in the pantry.”
“I threw out the new ones.”
“I saw it this weekend when I was trying to make room (in the kitchen cabinet)”
“I don’t have one.”
Another, “I don’t have one.”
Of course, my survey of 5 people may not be fair because I did only ask people who sit in front of a computer all day, and so I ask, do you know where your phone book is?
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.
Dream Systems Media, “DSM”, is a trend setting, full service Internet marketing firm, with locations in Utah and Arizona, and was born when three successful Internet business entrepreneurs decided to join forces to do for others what they had previously done only for themselves.
rYnoweb provides business website services, specializing in WordPress
Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on the Internet’s influence on offline consumer purchase behavior. He also is a Senior Analyst for Internet2Go, an advisory service from Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.
