Review Tactics for Local Rankings - SearchFest 2013

1. Review Tactics for Local Rankings SEMpdxSearchFest 2013 Darren Shaw @EdmontonSEO http://www.whitespark.ca

2. Summary Tracking Offline Conversions Google+ Local Reviews 1. Why I’m Focusing on Reviews 2. Review Acquisition Tactics 3. Business to Business Reviews 4. Finding Top Reviewers 5. Review Filtering Factors 6. Review Tips Yelp 1. Why It’s Awesome 2. How To Improve Your Yelp Rankings

3. Tracking Offline Conversions Call tracking is expensive and problematic for local SEO MUST use your actual number on your website for NAP consistency solution is to put the call tracking number in as an image then put your actual number in the footer in schema.org

4. Tracking Offline Conversions NEVER use call tracking on citation sites Using a call tracking number in your citations will massively mess up your NAP consistency There is no automated solution for tracking these calls (unless the site is implementing an image or some kind of cloaking)

5. Tracking Offline Conversions Solution: build a form on your site that pushes conversions to Google Analytics. Ask callers how they heard about you.

6. Tracking Offline Conversions On submit, fire a conversion over to Google Analytics. This is going to take a bit of technical expertise that many SMBs won’t want to bother with though.

7. Offline Conversion Tracker (free tool) http://www.whitespark.ca/offline-conversion-tracker

8. Tracking Form Opens the search in a new window with the “near=“ parameter set to the location entered on the add/edit business page so you can visually check if you rank organically or locally (Google only)

9. Google Analytics Tracks a breakdown of each source, keywords, caller, notes

10. Tracking Offline Conversions Google+ Local Reviews 1. Why I’m Focusing on Reviews 2. Review Acquisition Tactics 3. Business to Business Reviews 4. Finding Top Reviewers 5. Review Filtering Factors 6. Review Tips Yelp 1. Why It’s Awesome 2. How To Improve Your Yelp Rankings

11. Why am I focusing on reviews? Recently worked on research for a businesswith thousands of locations Gathered ranking factor data for 100 locations Rank, Location age, Competition, # Citations, # Reviews, Keywords in reviews, Categories, Links

12. Reviews were the key factor between locations that ranked and locations that didn’t.

13. Listings with reviews provide a better user experience VS

14. Google is all about user experience

16. Review Acquisition Tactics PERSONALIZED Email Follow Up

17. Review Acquisition Tactics Follow Up on your follow up

18. Review Acquisition Tactics Third time’s the charm

19. Review Acquisition Tactics Sales receipt, email signature, back of business card … leave us a review

20. Review Acquisition Tactics Put a sign on the counter

21. Review Acquisition Tactics Put a sign on the counter That shit don’t work

22. Review Acquisition Tactics Create a page on your site

23. Review Acquisition Tactics Matthew Hunt’s Review Funnel http://www.smallbusinessonlinecoach.com/blog/

24. Review Acquisition Tactics If they select “Excellent” send to this page

25. Review Acquisition Tactics Click Yahoo, get page with video and iFramed review page

26. Review Acquisition Tactics Click Google, go to page with video (can’t iFrame it)

27. Review Acquisition Tactics How to review us handout Developed by Phil Rozek “The Reviews Guy”

28. Review Acquisition Tactics How to review us hand-out Follow him Read his blog Get on his mailing list WTF?

29. Review Handout Generator - FREE! http://www.whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator

30. Review Handout Generator - FREE! http://www.whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator

31. Review Handout Generator Printable PDF

33. Business to Business Reviews http://www.davidmihm.com/blog/google/plus-review-as-business/

34. Business to Business Reviews Call your clients and make a list of who they work with. Ask them to think about the invoices they pay.

35. B2B Review Exchanges - How To Sign into G+ using your personal account

36. B2B Review Exchanges - How To Scroll down and click More > Pages on the left

37. B2B Review Exchanges - How To Click “Switch to this page”

38. B2B Review Exchanges - How To You’ll see a status bar appear at the top that Says “You are now using Google+ as a page”

39. B2B Review Exchanges - How To You can now click the Local icon on the left side, find the business you want to review, and leave them a nice keyword rich review.

41. Finding Authority Reviewers Click “Local” in G+, enter a non-restaurant keyword and city, and click search. Scan through the results. This pro tip is courtesy of Mike Ramsey.

42. Engaging Authority Reviewers Check out their profiles, learn about what they like, circle them, follow them on twitter, leave comments on their posts. ENGAGE with them in a positive, non- promotional, manner. After a relationship is established, you could maybe say something like "I'd love for you to come by the shop sometime." Keep it simple.

44. Review Filtering Factors Review Velocity Keep it natural, which will depend on your industry and past history. No spikes. No mass "please review us" mailouts to your mailing list.

45. Review Filtering Factors Reviews from the same IP No review stations. Don’t take customer comment cards and post them as reviews from your office computer.

46. Review Filtering Factors Reviews that come from the same referrer Google likely tracks the referring source on each review created. If you always send people to your “please review us” page on your site and all your reviews come through links on this page, it can indicate that the reviews were solicited.

47. Review Filtering Factors If you’re paranoid about referrer tracking…

48. Review Filtering Factors Reviews that come from the same user agent There are hundreds of different user agents that identify the browser, browser version, platform, and operating system version. If all your reviews are tagged with the same user agent it could be a spam signal.

49. Review Filtering Factors Reviews that come from the same user agent No iPad out in the field (“10% discount for a review on the spot?”). They might not use user agent as a spam signal now, but they could later.

50. Review Filtering Factors Reviews from inactive users Someone signs up, leaves you a review, then never uses their account again. It’s filter time!

51. Review Filtering Factors Unnatural review content http://reviewskeptic.com/ Pretty sure that those super smart PhDs at Google have methods to identify if reviews are fake based on the content.

53. Review Tips #1 – Get at least *some* reviews

54. Review Tips #2 – Get 10 reviews, get the Zagat rating in SERPs

55. Review Tips #3 – Get keywords in your reviews. They really help. Ask reviewers to mention the service.

56. Review Tips #4 – After you have 10 G+L reviews, diversify

57. “Best” places for third party reviews GetListed/Whitespark Study Best Citation Sources by Category http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

58. “Best” places for third party reviews Adam Steele’s study http://www.leanmarketing.ca/lean-top-50-best-local-citation-sources-in-the-usa/ You have to get on his mailing list to get the data He scraped 3rd party review sources from 45,570 listings and categorized them by city and category. I don’t think it says much about them being the best citation sources, but it’s super valuable for identifying 3rd party review sources.

59. Where to get third party reviews Phil Rozek’s Local Review Ecosystem http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/07/06/the-local-business-reviews-ecosystem/ Some sites feed the reviews to many other sites, so it’s good to know which ones will give you additional distribution and encourage reviews there. Citysearch and Yelp stand out.

61. Yelp It’s one dang awesome site Way more (and better) data on Yelp

62. Yelp It’s all over the local SERPs

63. Yelp It’s all over the local SERPs

64. Yelp It’s all over the local SERPs Yelp often ranks above the local pack

65. Yelp It dominated the GetListed/Whitespark study Not Just Restaurants! http://getlisted.org/resources/local-citations-by-category.aspx

66. Yelp Another reason to spend time on Yelp: Bing

67. Yelp Furniture Outlet in Chicago

68. Yelp Furniture Outlet in Chicago

69. Yelp I called Andy to ask him some questions

70. Yelp “How has Yelp helped your business? How is business?” It has helped a lot. A lot of people say they find me on Yelp. Business is great. NOT ACTUALLY ANDY

71. Yelp “What percentage of your new business comes through Yelp? Just a rough estimate would be great.” I would estimate about 70% NOT ACTUALLY ANDY

72. Yelp “Are you doing other forms of online marketing, or just Yelp?” Nope. Nothing else. Well, we have a website. NOT ACTUALLY ANDY

73. Andy’s Website

74. Yelp “How are you promoting your business on Yelp? Stickers? A sign in the store? On your website?” I don’t do anything. It just happened naturally. NOT ACTUALLY ANDY

75. Yelp “So what do you think is the secret to success on Yelp?” Just take care of your customers and run a good business NOT ACTUALLY ANDY Oh man! If only all our clients were like Andy.

76. Yelp This small business is killing it thanks to Yelp

77. Yelp #1 ranking with review stars and he does no SEO DAYUM!!

78. Yelp Are your SMB clients tweeting and facebooking to no listeners? Try allocating some of that time to Yelp.

80. Yelp Can’t ask for Yelp reviews. *Awareness* not solicitation http://officialblog.yelp.com/2010/08/dont-ask-for-reviews.html

81. Yelp Claim and fully complete your Yelp business page http://biz.yelp.com

82. Yelp Claim and fully complete your Yelp business page http://www.reviewtrackers.com/yelp-help-ultimate-guide-optimizing-yelp-business-page-listing/

83. Yelp Put up your stickers. *if you have them These stickers have to be earned. you can’t request them. The company doles them out 4 times a year to businesses with lots of reviews and and average of 3.5 stars

84. Yelp Add a “Find us on Yelp” badge to your website. Totally sanctioned. They have a Flickr account where you can download images, badges, signs, etc. http://www.flickr.com/photos/yelp/sets/72157623054478330/detail/

85. Yelp Put up a sign in the office/lobby/whatever Totally sanctioned.

86. Yelp Add a link to your Yelp listing in your email signature. Totally sanctioned. http://www.wisestamp.com

87. Yelp Use a badge to show off your Yelp reviews on your website Totally sanctioned. http://www.refmobworks.com/yelp.jsp

88. Yelp Unfiltering reviews

89. Yelp Unfiltering reviews Get them back on Yelp. Respond, friend, compliment, message

90. Yelp Finding people you know that are on Yelp Welp, that was easy!

91. Thanks! Darren Shaw http://www.whitespark.ca @EdmontonSEO

Review Tactics for Local Rankings - SearchFest 2013

You are reading a preview.

Check these out next

Review Tactics for Local Rankings - SearchFest 2013

More Related Content

Slideshows for you (20)

Viewers also liked (8)

Similar to Review Tactics for Local Rankings - SearchFest 2013 (20)

Recently uploaded (20)