How to master "Local Search" to promote your business

Local search is the flavor of the day. But what is it? What is the buzz all about?

At its core, local search is simply understanding today’s consumer, their behavior and their needs, and providing a product or service where and when they want it. It’s exciting because local search works equally well for small- to medium-size businesses trying to get found, as well as big regional and national brands.

First, understand that in a search driven world there are two types of user searches: 1) consumers who are looking for your brand and 2) consumers who are looking for your type of services. For consumers, it’s all about being in control and having choices.


Brand Seekers

If users are looking for your brand, they will most likely look for you on your corporate website. But the trend is moving towards consumers entering in your brand name and a local qualifier (city or zip code) directly into a major search engine to find the nearest location: for example, “Red Lobster locations in NJ” or “Coupons for Red Lobster in Illinois.” The worst-case scenario is if it doesn’t show up at all. The second worst case is that it shows up, but takes them to your corporate website home page, meaning they have to do the search all over again. That’s not very user friendly.


Service Seekers

If consumers are looking for your type of services (a restaurant, office supply, grocery store, sporting goods) then they will most likely start their search on a major search engine. The trend is going towards consumers entering in your generic services and a local qualifier directly into a major search engine to find products and services: for example, “Crab legs Lewisville TX,” or “Seafood Luzerne PA.” Worst case is that you don’t show up at all but your competitors do.

Traditional marketing methods include print yellow pages, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, email marketing and referrals. But to ensure success in today’s highly competitive market, advertisers must embrace not only the major search engines, but increasingly an array of other relevant and effective new media platforms such as local directories, corporate websites, mobile devices and even portable navigation devices. Casting a wide net will ensure customers find you anytime or anywhere they are ready to buy.


Major Search Engines

There are three distinct areas on a search engine results page (SERP.) It’s very important to show up in at least one of them if not all three, called the Search Trifecta.

By now most of you have heard of Search Engine Marketing or SEM. It refers to the paid search or sponsored listings that show up on the top and right side of most search results. Most of the ads are Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or Pay-Per-Acquisition (PPA.) The top search engines that businesses set up campaigns with are Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. You can try to manage it in-house but there are third party companies that can manage it for you.

Local search is a widely-used term, but when referring to search engine results it’s the section that’s associated with a map when a local qualifier is used.

Organic listings, (SEO, also referred to as free listings) show up after the paid and local results. If someone searches your brand, then you will most likely appear. But if they use a local qualifier then you might not. There are many companies jumping into the SEO/SEM bandwagon who want to help. Make sure to do your homework before hiring anyone who wants to convince you that it’s too complicated to explain what they will be doing for you. Local landing pages or micro-sites are key in helping out businesses with multiple locations.

For businesses with multiple locations it’s important to have local landing pages to drive this online search traffic. If a consumer searches for a local location, they won’t want to be directed to your corporate website home page. They will want location specifics. These landing pages can be used for paid search, local submission and organic search. Reporting should be set up in order to track where your traffic is coming from (what search engine and what area of the page) and call tracking to evaluate ROI.

It’s important to get listed in local directories that include Citysearch, Yellowpages, and Superpages as well as Google Local, Yahoo! Local and MSN Live since they attract significant amounts of traffic.


Corporate Websites

In this day and age every business has a corporate website. But you may not know of all the different ways to increase your foot traffic or online sales.

For retailers, it’s important that users can quickly and easily find your locations and the specific details of each. Interactive maps and driving directions (preferably without the user needing to leave your site) is a must-have these days. With Web 2.0 capabilities it’s the user experience that counts. Content such as store hours, menus or flyers, credit cards accepted, brands carried and reviews can help consumers with their search and items such as coupons or local events can add a call to action. You can also engage visitors with registration for e-newsletters or club discounts. Send to Phone/Email is a good way to track location traffic as well as provide driving directions. Remember that locator functionality is the top decision-making tool consumers use when visiting a retailer’s website. A customer who uses a locator is most likely going to walk into your local business.

For manufacturers, embracing the new shopping trends of “Buy Online” and “Buy Local” will give you a business edge. Compared with customers who shop only at stores, multichannel shoppers buy 12 percent more often, and spend 32 percent more every year. That’s good news, if you ride the trend. Product locators, for example, will help you tap into multiple sales channels, increasing opportunities for additional sales and expanding your brand recognition. For buy online, you need the ability to show multiple online retailers (etailers) complete with inventory and pricing, as well as the ability to take the consumer directly from your product page to an etailer product page so that the user doesn’t have to do the search all over again. For buy local, you need the same features mentioned above for retailers.

Regardless if you are a retailer or manufacturer, your corporate website needs to be SEO-friendly in order for the search engines to crawl and find the data in order to have the links show up in the organic listings.


Mobile Devices

There are now over 255 million mobile devices in the US with more than 69 million people using mobile browsing and 125 million people using text messaging.
Users are going to be searching for your products and services, so it’s imperative that you enter into this arena soon. Around 80 percent of phones are WAP enabled (versus smart phones with full internet access), so they will need reduced text for their smaller screens for finding a location. SMS text can be sent to a phone from a PC (1-way SMS) or text (for example a zip code) can be sent to a common short code CSC (mysbux) to get locations text-messaged back. Interactive Voice Response can also be used to reduce overhead costs. For example, call an 800 number, enter in your zip code to hear an automated response of the locations near you.


What are Consumers Searching For?

From Retailers

• Where is the closest location?
• Can I find locations along the way?
• What hours are they open?
• What credit cards are accepted?
• Do they offer any discounts or coupons?
• Do they have wi-fi?
• Do they have RV parking?
• Can I send the driving directions to my mobile device?

From Manufacturers

• What products are offered?
• Can I buy it online?
• How does the price compare between retailers?
• Is it in stock?
• Can I buy it locally?
• Where is the closest retail location?
• How do I get there?

Remember, today’s consumer likes to research online, demands choices and wants to control the buying process. It doesn’t matter if you’re Seiko, Darden or John’s Catering, every business must understand who they are and the needs they fill. Mastering local search is not rocket science but it’s an ever-increasing skill set required for marketers in today’s search driven world.

Write a Keyword-Rich Article to Increase Site Traffic

Want to increase traffic, build credibility, improve your search engine rankings and get people talking about your business--at no cost? Then open up your word processor, and start writing. By determining your best search keywords, writing an article that includes those keywords and getting it distributed online, you'll be putting yourself on the radar of people looking for what you provide.

Step 1: Set up your site for maximum "searchability."
Your site has to feature the keywords your potential customers use to search for your product if you want them to find you. To determine your keywords, type a word or term you think people in your market might search for into Yahoo! Search Marketing's Keyword Selector Tool to find out how many people searched for that particular term over the past month. It'll also show you a list of related words and phrases and how often they were searched over the last month, too.

Once you’ve generated a list of useful keyword ideas, you can do some more serious research. Wordtracker goes into more depth to show you not only what people are searching for online but also how many other sites are competing for the same audience. You're looking for search terms that are popular but don't have too many sites competing for them. Wordtracker is a paid service, but you can sign up for a day for less than $8 and for a week for less than $27.

Now that you have some great keywords for your market, find as many places as you can to plug them into your site. Use them in your title tags, source code, page copy, headers and subheads, and your opt-in.

Step 2: Create a keyword-rich article.
Write a keyword-rich article that relates to what you sell, then give it away to other sites--for free. Believe it or not, this is one of the best ways to drive a steady stream of eager customers to your site.

Why does it work? Well, people basically come online for one of two reasons: to check their e-mail or to look for information. Sure, some of them end up making purchases, but this isn't generally the reason they log on. They want the answer to a question or the solution to a problem--and you can provide that in a short article.

Make sure that each article you write contains rare, valuable or hard-to-find information. Not only will this increase the chances that other site owners or managers will post your article, it'll also increase the number of visitors who click through to your site after reading it.

For example, if you have a site that sells used golf equipment, you could write an article about three things to look for in a good, pre-owned putter. Or if you sell an e-book about setting up your own home computer network, why not write an article about common problems people have in setting up a wireless router?

Look for article ideas in the questions people ask you all the time or in the things you often see people doing wrong. Share hot new tips on how to use the products you sell, or talk about trends you've spotted in your industry. Your quick piece should:

• Be no longer than 400 words (not even a whole page in Microsoft Word)
• Contain a relevant keyword in the first 90 characters
• Contain the keyword in the first and last paragraphs
• Have a short, credibility-building bio with a link to your site at the end. For instance, "Joe Smith is a recognized authority on the subject of widgets. His site, www.JoesWidgets.com, provides a wealth of informative articles and resources on everything you'll ever need to know about widgets."

Step 3: Get your content headed everywhere on the web.
Once you've taken the time to write one or two articles, head to one of these top online content distribution sites. Upload your keyword-rich content to:

• www.contentdesk.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.freesticky.com
• www.goarticles.com
• www.ideamarketers.com
• www.findsticky.com

These sites carry hundreds (some carry thousands) of articles on a range of topics. If someone's looking for content for their site, they can download or copy an article from the distribution site without paying a dime to use it. They can't change the text of the article, and they must publish it with the author's name and information intact.

Now people plugging your keywords into search engines will be directed to your content at these highly ranked sites, and site owners looking for fresh, search engine-attracting content will download your article--along with your bio and link--and put it up on their pages. And once visitors see that you know what you're talking about, they'll click on the link in your bio and head straight to your site.

Some content distribution sites also offer "send to a friend" links next to articles posted on their sites, so make sure you're uploading your articles to sites with this kind of capability. Every time someone enjoys your article enough to pass it on, your audience grows. And since people don't forward bad content to their friends, they're basically recommending you as a credible source just by passing it on.

The best thing about this strategy is these visitors are quality, targeted traffic--they actually want what you're selling because you're meeting a need or giving them help with the problem they came online to solve.

Convert Customers With a Perfect Landing Page

You put all kinds of work into creating a great pay-per-click ad, filling it with exactly the right keywords to catch the attention of your target market and drive them through to your sales copy. And then what? Well, if they simply go through to your homepage, you risk losing that sale.

Instead, deliver those click-through visitors to a custom-built landing page that focuses on the exact problem your customer is trying to solve when they click through your ad!

If your potential customers arrive at your landing page and see the search phrase they were looking for, they will stay longer on your site, which means a greater chance of becoming a customer, lead or opt-in.

Always remember that your visitors are looking for instant gratification. If they can't answer, "What's in it for me?" within the first eight seconds of their visit, you will likely lose the sale.

And as PPC advertising prices climb higher and higher, you need to make the best use of each click-through to increase your ROI.

So how do you create a landing page that sells?

1. Create keyword groups for each landing page.
The first thing you need to do is some keyword research. You can do this in your PPC search engine of choice, or using a tool like Wordtracker.

Make a list of your best keywords for your subject--the keywords that your target market is searching for.

Then, group your keywords by similarity, making sure that each group solves a particular problem for your audience. You'll want to use each group of keywords to create a separate landing page.

Let's say, for example, that you sell an e-book on dog training. You do your keyword research and come up with a list of dog training keywords.

The next step is to go through this list and organize your keywords into groups that focus on specific dog training problems. For example, you might decide to focus on keyword phrases like this:

How to Train Dog
Leash Training for Show Dogs
Puppy Training
House Train Dog

Then, all you need to do is create one landing page for each keyword phrase. Of course, these keywords should also be the keywords you are bidding on in the PPC search engines.

Always make sure the content of your landing pages reflects exactly what your visitors will be looking for. If they click through an ad about puppy training and arrive at a landing page about training show dogs, they are likely to leave right away.

2. Build your landing page with a specific action in mind.
When you are building your landing page, you want to focus all of your energy on getting your visitor to take one action.

Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? Or buy your product? Or enter a contest? Or give you feedback?

Whatever you do, don't complicate your page by attempting to do too much at once. Focus on the desired action, and use everything on the page to drive your visitor to take that action.

Make sure your navigation is not distracting or overpowering. Keep the process simple, and remove all clutter that distracts from your focus.

Imagine that your potential customer is standing behind you, reading your landing page copy over your shoulder and saying, "So what? What's in it for me?"

Every step of your landing page should drive this potential customer toward the desired action. That means including plenty of benefits, and always including a call to action that tells your visitor what to do next.

3. Optimize your landing page for the search engines.
The first thing your customers should see when they get to your landing page is your main keyword phrase as part of the headline. Of course, this is beneficial for search engine optimization, but try to make it as compelling as possible, too.

The key is to couple your keyword phrase with the biggest benefit your site has to offer. For example, if your main keyword phrase is "how to train a dog," your headline could be:

How To Train A Dog to Do Anything
You Want
-- In the Next 48 Hours!

You'll want to focus on your main keyword phrase ("how to train a dog") in your copy, too, but try to work in some of the other keyword phrases in your group. That means you'll want to use "why train your dog" and "how to train your dog" throughout your sales copy as well.

Here are some more tips for optimizing your landing page for the search engines:

• Use your main keyword phrase to name the page location. For example, the page could be uploaded to: www.mysite.com/howtotrainadog.
• Include your keyword phrases in your title tag and your meta description. You'll find these at the top of your HTML code, and the search engines generally use these tags to create the listings that show up in the search results
• Include some fun images, but don't distract your visitors from the desired action. And use your keyword phrases to name your images. Use the same phrase in your alt text as well.
• Use formatting to emphasize your keywords. Use bold, italics, and highlighting to feature your keywords. This will help improve your SEO, but don't forget to emphasize the benefits for your readers, too!
• Use your keyword phrase in your call to action. For example, your call to action could say: Click here now to order "How to Train a Dog to Do Anything You Want"!

So now that you know what you should include in your effective landing pages, let's have a look at what you need to avoid.

There are a few simple mistakes that people often make on their landing pages, and they pay for them dearly. If you can avoid these four mistakes, your landing pages will be far more effective at converting your click-throughs into sales.

Mistake 1: Don't make users have to register to see more information. Google AdWords frowns upon this practice and will usually either disallow your keyword or raise your cost per click on that keyword.

Mistake 2: Don't use duplicate content on your landing pages! Make sure all the information on your landing page is unique--not content given to you from affiliate sites or manufacturer descriptions. Duplicate content can severely damage your search engine rankings.

Mistake 3: Don't forget to have an opt-in offer to collect e-mail addresses on your landing page. Offer your visitors an incentive, like a newsletter, e-book, whitepaper or e-mail course so you can collect their e-mail addresses and market to them again and again after they leave your site!

Mistake 4: Don't forget to test your landing page. Testing is the key to the success of any online endeavor, and with PPC advertising and landing pages, it's absolutely crucial. Test different headlines, keyword groups, sales copy and different offers until you get the desired results.

Make landing pages part of your PPC campaign and watch your conversions fly!

Search Engine Optimization Resources for Small Business

Special focus on local SEO tools and resources tools and resources

Submit to Major Search Engines

Google – http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Yahoo – http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
MSN - http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?

Search Engine/Directory Submission Guides
Google's Advice - http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

MSN's Advice - Here
Ask Jeeves Editorial Guide - http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/policy.html
Yahoo Advice - http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/ranking/ranking-02.html
Open Directory Advice - http://dmoz.org/add.html

Key Onpage Web Design Elements

Title Tags -
Meta Tags
Alt Image Desription
Headline (H1, H2)
Content Placement
Internal Links
External Links

Keyword Research Tools

DigitalPoint Keyword Tracker - http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/
Google Keyword Sandbox - https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox
Google Suggest -http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool - Overture
Overture View Bid Tool -http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/

Other Free Tools

Xenu (finds broken links and builds a site map) - http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Hub Finder - finds topically relevant links by looking through links pointing at competitors websites - http://www.andyhagans.com/tools/hubfinder/

Paid SEO Tools

Keyword Discovery - http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
Wordtracker - http://www.wordtracker.com
SEO Elite (text link analysis software) - http://www.seoelite.com
Local Keyword Tool - http://www.keywordcombine.com/default.aspx

Local Search Engines

Google Local - http://local.google.com/
Yahoo Local - http://local.yahoo.com
MSN Local - http://local.msn.com/
Ask Jeeves Local - http://local.ask.com
AOL Local - http://localsearch.aol.com/main.adp

Listing Directories

City Search - http://www.citysearch.com
SwithBoard - http://www.switchboard.com
Smart Pages - http://www.smartpages.com/
Super Pages - http://www.superpages.com/
Yellow Pages.com - http://www.yellowpages.com/Index.aspx

Other Notable Directories

Open Directory Project - http://www.dmoz.org
Business.com - http://www.business.com
Uncover the Net - http://www.uncoverthenet.com
GoGuides - http://www.goguides.org
Joe Ant - http://www.joeant.com
Gimpsy - http://www.gimpsy.com
Jayde - http://www.jayde.com
Ruberstamped - http://www.rubberstamped.org

SEO Blogs

TopRank - Lee Odden's Blog
SEO Book - http://www.seobook.com
Thread Watch - http://www.threadwatch.org
Search Engine Blog - http://www.searchengineblog.com
Search Engine Lowdown - http://www.searchenginelowdown.com
SE Roundtable - http://www.seroundtable.com
Traffick - http://www.traffick.com
Battellemedia - http://www.battellemedia.com
Search Engine Watch - http://blog.searchenginewatch.com

SEO Forums

Search Guild - http://www.searchguild.com
Search Engine Watch Forum - http://forums.searchenginewatch.com

SEO Books/Subscrition services

SEO Book - http://www.seobook.com
Planet Ocean - http://www.planetocean.com
High Rankings - http://www.highrankings.com
Search Engine Watch - http://www.searchenginewatch.com

Work the social networking way to get the most out of your online presence.

If you've jumped on the social networking bandwagon and are wondering "Is this all there is?" don't give up just yet. It's not so much about what you can get out of social networks today but what you can gain tomorrow-- when they become personalized. If you've ignored the social networking trend up until now, consider this handy list your set of training wheels.

1. Read 10 blogs. Sign up for a Bloglines account and search for and subscribe to 10 blogs about social networking; you can return to your page on Bloglines to read all the new content. Of course, you can add blogs about your industry and interests here, too.

2. Comment on 10 blogs. Posting relevant comments on blogs you read is a simple form of social networking. It's also a good way to get extra visitors to your site or blog.

3. Join Facebook. You'd be surprised at how many of your existing contacts have Facebook accounts. With its rich set of tools and large community of active users, Facebook is a great place to observe how people interact in social networks. Once you get your feet wet, you can use Facebook to connect with business contacts you don't bump into often.

4. Create a MySpace page. This service is embraced primarily by musicians and the younger set, but it's a great tool for learning how to build a presence outside of your website. It also happens to have a large underbelly contingent, so be warned.

5. Join LinkedIn. This service has been called "the Facebook for business." It's about meeting and connecting with like-minded businesspeople, and it's great for making connections with people who may otherwise be out of reach.

6. Visit Ning. This is the largest custom social networking service that allows you to create your own community using a variety of tools branded to match your current site.

7. Create a Workbench profile. This tip is a little self-serving, as this is my new social business networking site, but it's a good example of the next wave of personalized business communities for entrepreneurs.

8. Create a Twitter account. Twitter is pretty silly on the surface: It gives you up to 160 characters to tell your network what you're doing right now. It feels like a giant waste of time, but a large and active community has formed around this kind of microblogging, and you should understand how people are using it.

9. Create a StumbledUpon profile. This social network is built around discovering and recommending sites you like. Active stumblers can send a lot of traffic your way. 10. Create a Digg account. Keep updated with what's happening in the world of business and join other users by submitting content and voting on what you consider most important.

Also consider Flikr, Mixx and Squidoo as places to find and develop niche communities when you're ready to really get out there. Think of Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace as your labs--get in there and experiment for the future. Then start planning your own personalized social business network.

watch out for more...

PPC & SEO Enhancing Tools

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Ad Watchers - Tired of losing money on PPC? Discover the most profitable AdWords, Yahoo, and MSN PPC campaigns! Plus, you can quickly find out what affiliate programs (or products) are hot and which ones to avoid at all costs!

Ad Word Analyzer - Your ultimate keyword tool to find out *exactly* what people are looking for and to provide you with the ultimate database of researched keywords. Use it to uncover niche markets that you can easily dominate!

Ad Word Strategies - Proven AdWords visionary reveals the next wave of secrets that you can exploit to always turn a huge profit from your campaigns, even while others struggle to stay afloat during the escalating small advertiser bloodbath!

Competition Equalizer - Don't advertise on AdWords blinfolded! Uncover who your competitors are and analyze their Google AdWords advertising with a few easy clicks of a button. This will help you cut ad costs and increase sales.

Search Engine Optimization

RSS Equalizer - A powerful tool when optimizing web pages for search engines. This PHP script inserts fresh content into your web pages (search engines absolutely love this) to increase search engine spidering and improve rankings on all search engines.

SEO Equalizer - If you're not taking link popularity or search engine optimization seriously you're sabotaging your OWN websites - and if you're still trying to get the work done manually you'll NEVER be in a position to compete with the big dogs!

SEO Spider - Quickly and easily analyze your rank in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Reveals Link Popularity, PageRank and Alexa Rank. Plus you can also take a peek at your competition without all of the intense labor of manually doing it yourself.

SiloMatic - Now you can build search engine optimized "silo" websites that are better and more powerful than what you can create manually. In fact, these websites have proven time and time again to rank much higher than regular websites!

Social Media Inspector - Get your website link inside top search engine listings with Google PageRank using an easy-to-use and highly-effective social media marketing tool that taps directly into the incredible power of Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com!

Traffic Equalizer - Create thousands of search engine optimized pages nearly instantly to quickly and easily take advantage of this free traffic source. Use it to drive additional traffic to your primary websites or to promote affiliate programs.

More to come in future articles

PPC advertising resources for small business

Instantly drive targeted traffic to your web site

Books

Google AdWords Handbook: 21 Ways to Maximize Results from Andrew Goodman.

Google Cash - Learn how to make money with Google AdWords by Chris Carpenter

PPC Search Engines

Google Adwords - Sign-up for and manage your Google account

Google AdWords FAQ

Overture - Now owned by Yahoo and delivering ads to Yahoo and MSN

Google AdSense - Place AdWords ads on your web site and receive revenue from clicks

Google AdSense FAQ

Local Advertising Options

CitySearch - Advertising guides for most major cities

Yahoo Local - Free and enhanced listings plus free web site

Google Local Business Center - Directory of local businesses that includes all the fun Google features like satellite maps

Verizon Super Pages - Get a free business profile

Yellow Pages.com - The leading online Yellow Pages, business directory and phone book for local and national searches.

Keyword Tools

Adwords Analyzer - This tool will identify how many campaigns are in place for a keyword with Google or Overture - Great way to find keyword opportunities.

Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool - Free tool to help with your keyword research.

Overture View Bids - Find out what the top bids are on Overture for keywords and phrases

Ad Writing Software

AdWords Generator - Software that automatically creates AdWords ads utilizing proven sales terms from successful campaigns.

Tracking

Conversion Ruler - a subscription based "performance tracking" reporting service that provides detailed information on the effectiveness of your site marketing efforts

Click Tracks - Software and hosted వెర్సిఒన్స్

Further Reading

Search Engine Watch - http://searchenginewatch.com/

John Battelle's Search Blog - http://battellemedia.com/