The following presentation entitled "Good Things Come in Small (Business) Packages:Beat Competition Using Local Search Marketing" was given at the Small Business Expo in Los Angeles, CA on November 8th. The presentation includes some general information about local search, statistics and a 6 step blueprint to beat your competition.

1. Good Things Come in Small (Business)
Packages: Beat Competition using
Local Search Marketing

2. Bryan Phelps
Director of Local and
Small Business SEO
twitter.com/seocom
Linkedin.com/company/seo.com

3. About SEO.com
Tweet @SEOcom questions

4. Getting Started
What is local search marketing?

5. What is local search marketing?
This is:

6. What is local search marketing?
This is:

7. What is local search marketing?
This is:

8. What is local search marketing?
Some people even use these:

9. What is local search marketing?
It’s directories:

10. What is local search marketing?
It’s vertical and geo specific:

11. What is local search marketing?
It’s mobile:

12. What is local search marketing?
It’s mobile:
9 out of 10 users take action as a result of mobile internet
search!
77% contact a business when searching
59% will visit a store
58% use phone to look up a business for driving directions
54% will visit your website from local searches
88% will take action within 1 day
Source: Google

13. What is local search marketing?
Over 53% of ALL local searches
are performed on a
mobile device.
Source: Google

14. What is local search marketing?
It’s social:

15. What is local search marketing?
It’s reviews:

16. What is local search marketing?
It’s reviews:

17. What is local search marketing?
It’s sometimes even:

18. What is local search marketing?
Basically, it’s not this:

19. What is local search marketing?
Or this:

20. What is local search marketing?
Or this:

21. What is local search marketing?
My definition:
“Any online means of generating more website traffic,
walk-ins, phone calls or other actions to your website or
physical store.”

22. Your 6 Step Blueprint
to beating the competition using local search marketing

24. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Website Tracking
Google Analytics
google.com/analytics

25. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Website Tracking
– Contact Form Goal

26. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Dashboards
Google Places
Bing/Yahoo Local
Directories
Social
Rankings
PPC
Webmaster Tools

27. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Call Tracking – Not Advised

28. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Old School Tracking

29. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
“Half of my [online]
advertising budget is
wasted. The problem
is that I don’t know
which half”

30. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Keyword Research
– Cities (Provo Dentist)
– Zips (Dentist 84065)
– Local Lingo (Utah Valley Dentist)
– Landmarks (Dentist near BYU)
– Free Tool: adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
Create Content!

31. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking

32. Step 1 – Setup, Research & Tracking
Companies that blog receive
55% more
website traffic.
Source: Hubspot

33. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Data Publishers
Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

35. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Claim & Verify Yourself
• Google+ Local • YellowPages
• Bing • Citysearch
• Yahoo! Local • Superpages
• Best of the Web • Foursquare
• Yelp • Yellowbook
Consistent Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

36. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Utilize ALL 5 categories

37. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Publish Your Address
Beware of the Google
Phone Call!

38. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips
Local Search Ranking Factors – DavidMihm.com

39. Step 2 – Your Business Data
Business Listing Optimization Tips – What Not To Do

40. Step 3 – Your Website

41. Step 3 – Your Website
Make it easy:
60% of SMB’s don’t have a phone number on the
homepage
75% of SMB’s have no email address on their site
66% of SMB’s don’t have a contact form on their site

42. Step 3 – Your Website

43. Step 3 – Your Website
Specific to Local Search:
Venice Update – Local Content
“Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch
codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the
triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the
ranking of our main search results as a signal.
"Improved local results. We launched a new system to find
results from a user’s city more reliably. Now we’re better able
to detect when both queries and documents are local to the
user."

44. Step 3 – Your Website

45. Step 3 – Your Website

46. Step 3 – Your Website
Local Landing Pages
http://lawyers.findlaw.com/lawyer/firm/Divorce/Las-Vegas/Nevada

47. Step 3 – Your Website
Local Schema
Structured Markup, Crawlable N.A.P.
Free tools:
Schema-Creator.org
Microformats.org

48. Step 3 – Your Website
KML File / GEO Sitemap
Tells search engines exact address of your company
Free tool:
http://www.geositemapgenerator.com/

49. Step 4 – Business Citations
Name
Address
Phone #

52. Step 4 – Business Citations
Industry/GEO Specific
• Avvo – Legal/Health
• FindLaw - Legal
• Health Grades – Health
• Directories for every
industry
• Local directories / media
Also drives traffic, calls, customers.

53. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Whitespark Local Citation Finder
https://www.whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder/

54. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Best Citation Sources by City
http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-city.aspx

55. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Best Citation Sources by Category
http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

56. Step 4 – Business Citations
Citation Tools & Tips
Unstructured Citations
– Blogs
– Forums
– Partners Sites / Related
Businesses
– Look for Link Building +
Citation Opportunities

57. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Create a Review Strategy: Strategy Tactics
“Ask for reviews” alone isn’t a strategy Planning Doing
Fake reviews DEFINITELY isn’t a strategy
Set review outreach goals Large Scale Smaller Scale
Why How
Difficult to Copy Easy to Copy
Long Time Frame Short Time Frame

58. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Strategy Tactics Goal
•Contact known raving fans via phone
Get reviews •Research Facebook fans and reach out 10 reviews per
from our raving fans •Look through existing reviews and reach out to happy month
customers and ask for a review on another site.
•Install in-store kiosk for customer use
Get reviews from in-store 5 reviews per
•Add “review us” verbiage to receipts
visits month
•Start collecting emails in-store for email blasts
Address all bad
•Prioritize list of most harmful reviews
Manage reputation issues reviews within 1
•Respond to each negative review personally
of current reviews week of being
•Contact bad reviews within 2 business days
posted.
•Prioritize list of vendors/partners by relationship
2 reviews per
Vendor & Partner Reviews •Provide detail on how to review us on various portals
month
•Reciprocate reviews within 5 business days

59. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Reviews Help You Rank & Convert
70% of online users trust consumer opinions posted online
Consumer recommendations and opinions are the most trusted source of
product info
61% of people rely on user reviews for product information before a buying
decision is made.
63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it
has ratings and reviews

60. Step 5 – Review Strategy
Social Proof!

61. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Where do your customers spend their time?
Users: 90mm 900mm 200mm 120mm 10mm
Users: 15mm Millions 14mm 7.5mm 18mm

62. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
So about Google+…

63. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Why be on Google+?

64. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Why be on Google+?

65. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Why be on Google+?

66. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Google+ Predictions

67. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Google+ Predictions

68. Step 6 – Local Meet Social
Google+ Predictions

69. Resources
Local Search Resources & Data Sources
•SEO.com
•GetListed.org
•NiftyMarketing.com
•SEOMoz.org
•DavidMihm.com
•Whitespark.ca
•Hubspot.com

70. Thank you!
Bryan Phelps, SEO.com