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Tag: local university

LocalU Is Coming To Dallas!
Local businesses and small business marketers in the Dallas / Fort Worth area are in for a treat! The traveling road show of local online marketing, LocalU, is making its way to Dallas, TX on Thursday, January 23. I had the opportunity to attend LocalU when they came to New Orleans, and we even invited some of our clients to attend.

Audubon Nature Institute’s Lani McWilliams even provided us her key takeaways from the event – there’s so much info presented at these events that she couldn’t even narrow it down to just 10. These top 14 takeaways are just a small sampling of the info that you will learn at LocalU to help market small businesses online.

What You’ll Learn:

LocalU, my friends, is a must see seminar if you want to learn all things related to local business marketing online, including:
- local search engine optimization
- social media
- review management
- paid online advertising
… and, at $89 with the discount code LocalU, it’s a steal-of-a-deal!

Who You’ll See:

At the half day / four hour event, you will hear from the brightest minds in local online marketing including:
- Search Influence’s own CEO, Will Scott
- Mike Blumenthal
- Mary Bowling
- David Mihm
- Mike Ramsey
- Ed Reese
- Aaron Weiche
When and Where:

LocalU Dallas
Thursday, January 23
Pegasus Ballroom/Magnolia Hotel on Commerce St.
Check-in: 8:00 am
Sessions: 8:30 am – 12:30 pm

The faculty hopes to see you there!

Buy tickets here!
January 17, 2014
Local U New Orleans: 14 Things You’ll Want to Know
About a month ago, my team and I attended Local U –
an online marketing seminar held at Tulane University. It was an extremely valuable, very energizing half-day! Various industry leaders in local SEO have dedicated their time and resources to helping small businesses learn the basics. It was more than worth the price of admission!

Not only did I take away a lot of valuable information, but I’ve already started thinking about how I can apply the topics discussed to help Audubon improve our online presence. I’m excited to put a plan into action and work with my team to make the website even better.

Below are my top takeaways from the day. If Local U is coming to your city, I highly recommend attending.

Takeaways:
1. Does your website answer the top 10 most frequently asked questions that you hear from customers in your physical space/store?
2. Is your NAP (business name, address, phone number) easy to find on every page?
  This tiger needs a nap! Too bad this type of nap won’t help your local presence!
3. Remove all Marketing Speak.
4. Are you consistently blogging? (Tip: Top 10 FAQs make excellent blog post topics.)
5. Are you building links on your site to other reputable sites? Links are gold! Search engines move from link to link.
6. Content is not just text. Content is photos, graphics, video, reviews.
7. Future of online marketing is customer reviews. Do you have a review process built into your sales process – to both encourage reviews and deal with negative reviews?
8. When asked what do you do on Google, 46% say read customer reviews. Reviews are social proof.
9. If you are not talking about something on your site, you cannot rank in search for it! Create pages for what you want to rank for.
  It’s important to add enticing photos and videos. Who wouldn’t love to look at cute pictures of animals all day?
10. There is no single Google search results page. 50-200 different algorithms at work at any given time and results are personalized. We are all seeing slightly different results.
11. Rank for what you are best at, be specific!
12. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. What will users find there about you?
13. You cannot own or control Facebook. You can own and control your website. Your website is most important, at the heart of all your online marketing.
14. Emails must be readable on all devices. 42% of all mails are opened on a mobile device.
Lani McWilliams is the Director of Member Services & Ecommerce at Audubon Nature Institute. Audubon Nature Institute is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the wonders of nature and educating their visitors about the natural world.
June 25, 2013
What Local U can do for Your Business

Local U brings together the brightest minds in Local Search.

With Local U just around the corner, I’m getting really excited about the opportunity it’s bringing to New Orleans. While there are so many things I love about the this city, it’s not necessarily known for its booming tech industry… yet. Local businesses could use a technological boost, and that’s exactly why I’m so eager to have Local U in our city. This informative event brings together some of the top players in local search to give entrepreneurs an introductory training session in Internet marketing.

Local University will take place at Tulane’s Lavin-Bernick Center on May 7, from 8:30 am – 1 pm, featuring tons of great speakers and topics. It’s extraordinary to have so many great minds come together to share their wisdom. Experts in the field such as Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling, Ed Reese, Aaron Weiche, and Mike Ramsey will all be there, as well as the lead Consumer Support staffer from Google Places.

I see local U as the perfect way for anyone who is managing their local online marketing, or managing those who do, to learn practical tools they can use for any current or future enterprise. There’s no better way to spread the word about your business in this day and age than online, and this conference gives you the know-how to do just that. I know a lot of people who have no idea how to clean up their reputation online or connect with clients through social media, and they often don’t know where to turn to harness these skills.

With sessions like Getting Social Online and Going Local with Google, individuals who have never previously taken an interest in search engine optimization, local search, or even social media can learn how simple techniques can maximize their online presence. If you’re interested in learning more about marketing your business online, make sure to sign up now!

See you at the conference!

Click Here to Sign up for Local U New Orleans!

May 6, 2013
Local University Is Setting Off on Its Own and Ramping Up For 2013

Local business owners! Interested in learning how to gain sustainable search rankings, better local visibility online, and access to a potential boatload of new customers?

I thought so.

Luckily, Local University and the great team of internet marketers behind it are beginning their 2013 schedule and are ready to spill the beans on their top-notch tips and tricks for seo, local search, and internet marketing success. Search Influence has been involved in Local University and GetListed from the beginning and is proud to be presenting again this year.

Local University is a national series of SEO seminars specifically tailored for the local business owner or marketer. Attendees learn internet marketing best practices and how they can take them back to the office and implement them. While previously operated as part of GetListed, which was recently acquired by SEOmoz, Local University is continuing as an independent organization: its team of top quality search marketers hasn’t gone anywhere.

Local University is the perfect opportunity to break into local search optimization and a must for any locally focused small business that wants to avoid the run around and get real answers, recent real-world examples, and access to experts that understand what it takes to succeed online.

The seminar gives you a chance to drastically improve your online marketing knowledge by getting practical real-world advice from the top minds in local search. Engaging discussions on topics like acquiring reviews, mobile optimization, local paid advertising, Google+ Local, and citation/directory analysis are a mainstay of the seminar and topics are constantly being updated to match the constant changes in local search. In addition, 10% of all ticket sales for Local University will be donated to charities in the areas of the seminars.

The Baltimore edition of Local University will be held at The Hunt Valley Inn, on Saturday, March 9 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. An opening keynote from SEO by the Sea’s Bill Slawski will provide insight into Google Maps and how it functions, as well as analyzing some of Google Maps’ recent patents. David Mihm of SEOmoz will go over some basic local search tactics that will help any small business owner. Mary Bowling of Optimized! will speak on scaling local tactics for enterprise companies and Mike Blumenthal, a.k.a. Professor Maps, will get into the nitty gritty of garnering REAL reviews.

Get up close and personal with Google and learn about Google+ Local from the real experts. (we’re expecting an exciting open Q&A with Joel Headley, one of the leaders of the Google+ Local support team). Aaron Weiche of SpyderTrap will then lay out some basics of the growing amount of mobile opportunities. Our very own Will Scott and Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing will then dispel the myth that it’s all about Google and provide insight into other locally relevant sites and apps like Yelp and Apple Maps. Also, Ed Reese of Sixth Man marketing will reveal some helpful local search reporting and analytics that are easy to implement.

Finally, once your brain is packed with juicy local search tidbits, there will be an opportunity to go into specific site questions with all of the speakers as Local University: Baltimore wraps up and happy hour begins.

The Local University schedule kicks off in Texas with events in Austin and Corpus Christi on the 6th and 7th of February.

With an abundance of local search experts speaking, an engaging format that won’t have you dozing off, and a dynamic array of topics that are practical, useful and current, Local University is a can’t-miss seminar for small business owners. Keep updated when Local University is coming to your town by visiting localu.org.

January 3, 2013