The document provides information on using groups to better understand local and competitor data to improve marketing strategies. It discusses how to create groups to compare campaigns, products, features, audiences, locations, and competitors. Creating relevant groups allows marketers to discover new keywords, find content gaps, understand search behavior by location, and identify new competitors. The document outlines how to set up groups with content and keywords, add locations and competitors, and use the groups to learn more about performance and opportunities.

1. THE SHIPYARD
JOEL ACHESON
LOCAL S.E.O.

2. Where should we focus our optimization efforts?
Why is this site underperforming?
How do I know if a change in performance was caused by a
change I made?
QUESTIONS ABOUT LOCAL SEO
A MORE SYSTEMATIC TO ANSWER

3. TO ORGANIC SEARCH STRATEGY
AVOIDING A CANNED APPROACH

4. SITUATIONAL DIFFERENCES
UNDERSTANDING
MOZ Local Rank Factors Shipyard Local Rank Factors
MyBusiness Signals Local Networking
NAP / Citations Domain Age
On-Page Signals Cross-Linking Between Site & Social Profiles
Link Signals Competing Site Online
Behavioral Signals Online Reviews

5. VALIDATING CLAIMS
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

6. EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION
VALIDATING CLAIMS

7. STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
VALIDATING CLAIMS
Top
5%
Bottom
5%

8. STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
VALIDATING CLAIMS

9. STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
VALIDATING CLAIMS

10. STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE
VALIDATING CLAIMS

11. STATISTICAL VALIDATION
VALIDATING CLAIMS
Domain
Top 10
Appearances
Domain
Authority
Facebook
Shares
Facebook
Likes "+1s"
Pinterest
Shares
Root Domain
MozTrust
External
Links
Linking Root
Domains
Linking C
Blocks
cargurus.com 752 61 3,875 1,340 145,000 614 6.8 35665 1169 951
autotrader.com 506 81 13,163 22,484 317,000 110 6.6 2625110 5574 2885
cars.com 451 84 5,439 15,167 2,300,000 416 6.8 2299291 8059 4680
edmunds.com 374 87 16,918 4,650 2,200,000 285 7.1 271562 15515 6682
columbus-
oh.auto.com 273 56 0 0 0 30 5.6 71993 393 319
thecarconnection.com 242 74 323 490 378 6.3 3604348 3345 2051
kbb.com 202 88 17,857 9,695 1,800,000 240 7 257559 12070 55137
carfax.com 197 86 3,224 11,242 27 6.8 12048529 11082 2519
truecar.com 185 68 0 0 0 28 6.2 50245 1376 817

12. STATISTICAL VALIDATION
VALIDATING CLAIMS
Coefficients P-value
Domain Authority -9.274 11%
Home Page Authority -0.635 60%
Root Domain Links -0.016 40%
Total Links 0.000 35%
Facebook Shares 0.000 79%
Facebook Likes 0.038 7%
"+1s" 0.000 84%
Facebook Shares 0.000 16%
LinkedIn Shares 0.061 2%
Twitter Shares 0.007 9%
Pinterest Shares -0.085 6%
Google + Shares -0.011 4%
Root Domain Authority 4.127 5%
Root Domain MozRank -132.796 10%
Root Domain MozTrust 270.993 0%
Followed External Links 0.000 28%

13. STATISTICAL EXPERIMENTS
VALIDATING CLAIMS

14. STATISTICAL EXPERIMENTS
VALIDATING CLAIMS

15. STATISTICAL EXPERIMENTS
VALIDATING CLAIMS

16. DEVELOPING A PROCESS
1. Break down questions about performance drivers into testable hypotheses
2. Gather Data
a. Consider Independent, Intervening, and Dependent Variables
b. Find Data Sources (Ginza, Search Console, Analytics, BuzzSumo, Server Logs...)
c. Interrogate the validity of your data
3. Develop an experimental design (Keeping in mind issues with intervening variables,
invalid causal inferences, and comparison validity issues)
4. Track Results Systematically
5. Run statistical tests (Pearson, Spearman, T Tests, Multiple Linear Regression) to test for
relationships in the data using programs like Excel, R, Stata, SAS…

17. QUESTIONS?

18. LOCAL COMPETITOR
TARGETED
marketing
STRATEGY

19. First, a few
assumptions

20. You probably deal with
online content

21. You know that people finding it is important
- it basically doesn’t exist otherwise…

22. You probably have
more than one campaign, location, etc.
to deal with

23. You need to make good decisions quickly
preferably based on real information

24. So you can
SAY SMART THINGS
like
“We should create a video about our trail running shoe responsivey cushioning and
place it in targeted ads and email campaigns for our Seattle audience.”
“But in Asheville we should create images that highlight the durability of our shoes
and leverage social media, forums, and search using keywords: ‘most durable
shoes for trail,’ ‘long-lasting trail shoes,’ and ‘Appalachain trail shoes for men.’”

25. SEATTLE
Top feature: CUSHIONING
Best performing product: WILDHORSE 3
Highest converting campaign: SALLY MCRAE
Top ranking keywords:
RESPONSIVE CUSHIONING SHOES
MOST STABLE TRAIL SHOES FOR WOMEN
COMRFORTABLE TRAIL RUNNING SHOES
ASHEVILLE
Top feature: DURABILITY
Best performing product: TERRA KIGER
Highest converting campaign: SALLY MCRAE
Top ranking keywords:
MOST DURABLE SHOES FOR TRAIL
LONG-LASTING TRAIL SHOES
APPALACHAIN TRAIL SHOES FOR MEN

26. AND BASE THOSE RECOMMENDATIONS ON
‣ Comparing how features, products and campaigns perform
‣ Who your competitors are for each location and how that affects your content
and traffic
‣ Which content and content types perform best for your audience
‣ How your target audience is searching for products, features, services, and
brands in selected locations (how do keywords and search behavior differ)
‣ Are there topics you’re missing creating content for in specific locations

27. So we’re going to talk about:
Using groups to get better insights
and information about local and competitor data
to up your marketing game.
*Best of all, you can do it on a budget.

28. By creating GROUPS,
you can easily compare
‣ Campaigns
‣ Messages
‣ Features
‣ Products
‣ Audiences
across various locations and competitors

29. Creating groups
Why groups? *Besides all the stuff I just said
‣ View your data your way, by what matters and makes sense to you
‣ Easier to handle multiple variables
‣ Quicker reporting

30. Creating groups
What will we be able to do?
‣ Discover new keywords to track based on location and competitor content
‣ Figure out what content to create before you launch new products, services,
campaigns, or messaging strategies
‣ Understand gaps in content both nationally and by location
‣ Find new competitors based on location
‣ Compare performance of keywords, content, and channel performance by
location

31. STEP 1: Choose groups
Examples of what you can create groups for
‣ Campaigns
‣ Messaging
‣ Products
‣ Features
‣ Audience types
‣ Content types
‣ Geographies
‣ Demographics
‣ Targeted accounts
(ABM)

32. Creating groups
What can I group?
‣ Keywords
‣ Content (onsite and offsite)
‣ Competitors
‣ Locations

33. The most crucial part
THE SETUP

34. Campaign Products Features Audiences
Featured athlete: Sally
McRae
Nike Air Zoom Wildhorse Responsive cushioning Trail enthusiasts
All-terrain quicknessd Nike Air Zoom Terra Kiger Traction Ultra marathoners
Durability Casual trail runners
Adaptive fit
An example: Nike trail running shoes
These are all things I might want to be able to track and compare for marketing
Nike trail running shoes, so we’ll create groups for each of them.

35. Campaign Products Features Audiences
Featured athlete: Sally
McRae
Nike Air Zoom Wildhorse Responsive cushioning Trail enthusiasts
All-terrain quicknessd Nike Air Zoom Terra Kiger Traction Ultra marathoners
Durability Casual trail runners
Adaptive fit
Comparing Features
For purposes of showing how to get set up, we’ll talk about trying to look at trail running
shoe features: responsive cushioning and durability

36. Each group needs two core components
CONTENT KEYWORDS+
Building a group
This is content you’ve created
that you believe is relevant to the
topic for the group
The keywords selected reflect
terms, phrases, products, etc.
that are part of how people
would find this content, describe
their wants and needs, or talk
about the situation

37. vsDURABILITY
CONTENT
RESPONSIVE CUSHIONING
KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS
CONTENT
KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS
Comparing Features
LANDING PAGE VIDEO BLOG POST VIDEO INTERVIEW LANDING PAGE

38. ADD CONTENT TO
THE GROUP
‣ Using keyword matching
regex rules you can set up
groups that will
automatically find and add
matching keywords based
on AND, OR, and NOT
specifications.
‣ This will also automatically
add new content that
matches these rules to the
group as well.

39. ADD CONTENT TO
THE GROUP
‣ You can isolate
subdomains, folders, and
other types here as well,
such as /blog or
/trail-shoes/

40. ADD CONTENT TO
THE GROUP
‣ Add content and targeted
keywords manually to
isolate URLs. This works for
onsite and offsite content.

41. ADD KEYWORDS
TO THE GROUP
‣ Add keywords once, and
they are applied to all
content

42. DURABILITY
CONTENT
RESPONSIVE CUSHIONING
KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS
CONTENT
KEYWORDS KEYWORDS KEYWORDS
Repeat process for remaining groups
LANDING PAGE VIDEO BLOG POST VIDEO INTERVIEW LANDING PAGE

43. CHOOSE LOCATIONS

44. CHOOSE
COMPETITORS

45. GROUP COMPETITORS
for easier comparisons and
filtering INDIRECT
DIRECT
ONLINE RETAILERS
ZAPPOS
EBAY
JET
RETAILERS
DICKS
FOOTLOCKER
REI
PUBLICATIONS
RUNNINGSHOESGURU
RUNNERSWORLD
TRAILRUNNERWEEKLY
OTHER BRANDS
REEBOK
BROOKS
ASICS

46. NOW YOU’RE READY TO
LEARN
things&
DO
stuff

47. FIND NEW COMPETITORS

48. FIND NEW COMPETITORS
by your groups

49. NEW COMPETITORS
by group
‣ See exactly who is competing with you
for traffic based on specific features,
products, campaigns, messaging, etc.
‣ Group them by direct and indirect
options so that you can understand
their content and positioning better.

50. FIND COMPETITORS
by individual target keyword

51. NEW COMPETITORS
by keyword
‣ Isolate keywords and phrases
‣ Target by search volume,
competition score, and rank

52. FIND COMPETITORS
by location

53. STALK THEM
Check out their overlapping keywords and what content
they’ve created that’s ranking

54. VIEW COMPETING CONTENT
This example shows the content for RunningShoesGuru.com that matches my group for “Feature - Durability” in “Trail Shoes”

55. VIEW COMPETING KEYWORDS
individually and by group

56. VIEWING COMPETING KEYWORDS
individually and by group
This is a great way to learn:
‣ What’s being created around specific topics before starting a campaign
‣ What types of content seem to be created frequently for certain keywords and
groups - blogs, videos, image, landing page, etc.
‣ Total search volume for a group of terms versus competitors
‣ All content for a group that competitors are creating, which you can segment by
feature, product, campaign, messaging, etc.
‣ What content your competitors are creating that meet target market needs by
location

57. FIND MORE KEYWORDS
by topic
‣ Consider both broad and specific
topics to see what
recommendations are made.
‣ Look for “adjacent topics” to see
if terms related to your product
appear.

58. FIND MORE KEYWORDS
by content
‣ You can use your landing page or
a competitor’s page
‣ Use direct and indirect competitor
landing pages to see what types
of content resonate

59. FINDING NEW KEYWORDS
These are not only great keywords to consider tracking, but also ideas for new content,
emails, social media conversations, forum posts, etc.

60. ERIN’S
tricks

61. ERIN’S TRICKS
CHALLENGE: You’re launching a new trail running shoe that is super durable
You want to know
What content is already out
there
How does durable trail shoe
content rank in different
markets
What content should you
create to rank for durable
trail shoes

62. ERIN’S TRICKS
QUESTION: What content is already out there about durable trail running shoes?
Add locations relevant to
your markets
- Seattle
- Portland
- Asheville
- San Francisco
- Tacoma
Run competitor discovery for
durability + trail running
shoes groups
- Runningshoegurus.com
- SeattleTrailRunnersClub
- BestTrailShoes.com
Expand their list of content
by the durability group
again to get a list of all
relevant content
Add keywords about
durability to a group and
keywords about trail
running shoes to a group
- Keyword discovery
- Your own list

63. ERIN’S TRICKS
QUESTION: How does durable trail shoe content rank in different markets?
Add locations relevant to
your markets
- Seattle
- Portland
- Asheville
- San Francisco
- Tacoma
Run competitor discovery for
durability + trail running
shoes groups
- Runningshoegurus.com
- SeattleTrailRunnersClub
- BestTrailShoes.com
View top performing
keywords by durability
group + trail shoe group
+ location
Add keywords about
durability to a group and
keywords about trail
running shoes to a group
- Keyword discovery
- Your own list

65. ERIN’S TRICKS
QUESTION: What content should you create to rank for durable trail shoes?
View competitor list by
individual keyword or
keyword group + location
Find the competitor content
most relevant to you
Place URL of relevant
competitor content into
keyword discovery tool
Take list of discovered
keywords and sort by
- Search volume
- Competition score
- Location
- Keyword group
Run competitor discovery
for your tracked durability +
trailing running shoe
You get list of keywords that becomes:
- Topics to create new content
- Keywords to track for new campaigns, features, or products

66. THANK
you
ERIN ROBBINS | GINZAMETRICS | @TEXASGIRLERIN