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Local Search Prospecting: How to Leverage Data & Hit the ROI Mother Lode
- 1. #SearchCon @NickNeels Local Search Prospecting: How to Leverage Data & Hit the ROI Mother Lode Nick Neels | Head of Local Search
- 2. #SearchCon @NickNeels The Breckenridge Gold Belt
- 3. #SearchCon @NickNeels “Blue River Diggings”
- 4. #SearchCon @NickNeels Gold: Wire, Leaf & Crystalline
- 5. #SearchCon @NickNeels 1,000,000 Troy Ounces
- 6. #SearchCon @NickNeels Troys to Ounces
- 7. #SearchCon @NickNeels Value of 1M Ounces of Gold
- 8. #SearchCon @NickNeels Value of 1 Ounce of Gold
- 9. #SearchCon @NickNeels $1.3B in Gold
- 10. #SearchCon @NickNeels “Blue River Diggings”
- 15. #SearchCon @NickNeels @denverseo @Suzzicks @MattLacuesta @seodenver
- 16. #SearchCon @NickNeels Local Search Prospecting: How to Leverage Data & Hit the ROI Mother Lode Nick Neels | Head of Local Search
- 17. #SearchCon @NickNeels +10% +561% +13% +1,200% The SEO Gold Strike of 2016 +667% +153%
- 18. #SearchCon @NickNeels Gone are the Days
- 19. #SearchCon @NickNeels Competition Has Heated Up
- 20. #SearchCon @NickNeels Competition Has Heated Up
- 21. #SearchCon @NickNeels Brands Need to Dig Deeper
- 23. #SearchCon @NickNeels Keyword Search Volume
- 24. #SearchCon @NickNeels Local Listing Rank
- 26. #SearchCon @NickNeels Google Search Console
- 28. #SearchCon @NickNeels Stick to the script, Nick…
- 29. #SearchCon @NickNeels Layer on Population Density or Competitive Saturation
- 31. #SearchCon @NickNeels Poor Performance, High Population
- 32. #SearchCon @NickNeels Poor Performance, Low Population
- 33. #SearchCon @NickNeels Edge Case: 4th Local Listing
- 34. #SearchCon @NickNeels Edge Case: Page 2
- 35. #SearchCon @NickNeels Console: High Impressions, Poor CTR
- 36. #SearchCon @NickNeels +10% +561% +13% +1,200% The SEO Gold Strike of 2016 +667% +153%
- 39. #SearchCon @NickNeels Local Search Prospecting: How to Leverage Data & Hit the ROI Mother Lode
Editor's Notes
- Thank you to Jim and the entire SearchCon crew for allowing me to speak. I love this conference and hanging out with fellow SEOs. Now before I start, has anyone here actually been gold mining? Can I get a show of hands, raise them high if you have been gold mining? By the end of this presentation I will reveal some gold miners amongst us (who didn’t raise their hands) and I will show you how we leverage internal and external data to hit the ROI motherload in Local Search.
- But first, let’s start by talking about the mining history of this beautiful area we are in right now, Breckenridge – may I point you to my slide background, which is actually a topographical map of Breckenridge’s gold belt.
- In 1859, the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was on, and the discovery of gold in the Breckenridge area brought miners and fortune seekers to the "Blue River Diggings“ near the Blue River.
- They found gold in wire, leaf and crystalline forms. Prospectors followed the gold to its source veins in the surrounding hills.
- Overall the Breckenridge mining district is credited with production of about 1,000,000 troy ounces of gold.
- Gold mine of SEO knowledge
- 600 location client, focuses on 5% of the locations. On-page: 3 months (MONTH 2016 to peak MONTH 2016, page 1 organic visibility, 4 core terms, +10% Google, +561% Bing Off-site: 5 months (May 2016 to peak October 2016), Top 10 listing visibility, 6 core terms, +13% Google, +1200% Bing On-page: 667% lift in traffic compared to all other locations Off-site: +153% lift in traffic compared to all other locations On-page: Hyperlocal KW research, Page Title, H1, Meta description, body copy Off-site: Hyperlocal citation building Now let me lay out the mining plan and set the stage on how we got there.
- First, let me say gone are the days of applying the same strategies and optimizations across all types of businesses and locations and expecting to win in local search. You can just look around and find gold nuggets sitting on the surface. This previously used one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing is dead.
- The competition for local search engine real estate has heated up and there are no signs of it slowing. Both big brands and mom & pop shops continue to increase their investment in digital marketing. According to a recent eMarketer study, digital ad spend is expected to increase 12% over the next year and projected to increase steadily for the next three years as it reaches $23B – that’s in addition to the large digital budgets already in place.
- GetResponse’s study projects 70% of SMBs will increase their digital budgets in 2017, with 30% increasing them “considerably.” The increased competition means brands need to become more focused and more tactical at the local level to win – but I continue to see many brands, especially Fortune 500 brands, losing in almost all areas of local search. They deploy the same tactics across all locations and fall into a set-it-and-forget-it loop.
- The surface mining method worked for digital marketers back in the day, but it no longer works in today’s local search environment. Brands need to dig deeper and leverage more data to hit the local search mother lode.
- First we needed to gather performance data for all locations. This is a gold mining map showing test drilling results – miners drill test holes to learn where to mine next and projects returns. We need to do the same thing by gathering critical metrics so we are able to determine where to focus out time and effort next.
- Assumption here is that you already have a keyword optimization strategy in place based on search volume and your core products/services. If not, Keyword Planner is where to start.
- For the off-page test we drilled into local listing rank as well as Google My Business insights to determine which locations were performing well and which ones were lagging. Non-brand listing rank, impressions, actions, driving directions, phone calls. This helped us to start narrowing down to locations that could benefit from additional optimizations.
- We also looked into GA data for visitor trends to see which locations were trending down versus up YoY and MoM. For our on-page test we did the same thing, by reviewing which locations had entrance traffic trending up or down.
- We also pulled in Google Search Console data to take a look at impressions, clicks and position over time for each location page. This allowed us to have a sense of visbility and click through rates for particular pages.
- At this point we have a considerable amount of internal location-level data gathered and mapped out – which as I spoke about last year can be paired with some external data and prioritized. This is not a picture of me presenting last year, rather a screengrab from the SearchCon promotional video, which I thought turned out great wouldn’t you all agree. However, I did want to highlight why I suspect all of the attendee interviews sounded a little too good.
- Who is this ominous figure in the background who appears to be holding a butter knife? Well it is the conference organizer, Jim. So all I have to say is, I’m interested to see how the attendee interviews go this year….
- Population Density: The census bureau or other third parties provides demographic data that can be leveraged to get a sense of population around each location.
- We’ve now got internal and external performance data and can start prioritizing our work.
- Poor Performance, High Population - highest competition but most potential impressions and conversions
- Poor Performance, Low Population - less effort required to see gains as lower competition. I can verify …low population…a town so small…
- Scrooge McDuck
- £14,000 on a solid gold shirt in the hope it will attract female attention. Took a team of 15 goldsmiths two weeks to make working 16 hours a day creating and weaving the gold threads.