For an SMB to get found in desktop and mobile search results they must have an optimized digital presence across the web. The includes all citations (mentions) of the business online being 100% consistent. In addition, they must provide locally focused content that consumers are searching for on a regular basis. Learn why you need to be consistent and how to create content that will generate clicks and reads. Bernadette Coleman, #QueenofLocalSEO, presented this talk at the Local, Search and Social Summit powered by Rocks Digital on October 1, 2015.

1. Dominating Local In a
Mobile World
BERNADETTE COLEMAN – ADVICE INTERACTIVE GROUP

3. Importance Of local search
People in the U.S. perform over 6.2 Billion local searches every month
50% of mobile searches are users trying to find a local business
61% of local searches result in a purchase
50% of mobile users visit a store within a day of performing a related

4. But wait, there is more!
68% of smartphone searchers use the get directions or call button on smartphone local listings •
90% of local searchers that take action do so within 24 hours of performing the search

6. So How Do You
Compete in this Very
Mobile Local World?
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY

7. Know your client

16. Welcome to Local Mobile SEO Now
•Research has confirmed that 60 percent of U.S.
daily media consumption now takes place via
mobile,
•48 percent of consumers now say that mobile
has a direct influence on their in-store buying
decisions.
•It means there has never been greater urgency
for companies & brands to ensure they are
fully prepared for the opportunities of mobile
search.

17. Mobile Optimized Sites
•If your web site is not optimized for mobile you
will struggle to achieve or maintain search
visibility.
•Google, Yahoo, and Bing now give priority to
mobile-friendly sites, while sites that aren’t
optimized may experience a negative impact in
their rankings.
•Adopting responsive web design to ensure your
website performs optimally on any device –
including mobile.

18. Optimize For Local & Local Search
Research shows that up to 56 percent of “on the go” or mobile searches have local intent.
Essentially, when people are looking for a businesses or products, they are interested in results
that are local to them. If your business has any local elements, it’s important to leverage these
search habits and optimize your site accordingly.

19. Practical tip 1: start with an audit

20. Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals
1. Solicit your Gmail clients for
reviews a direct link to your
Google My Business Page.
• Get your GMB URL,
simply remove the
/posts and replace it
with:
• /?hl=en&review=1

21. Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals
1. Optimize your local photos on GMB
Don't use generic photos.
Use high quality photos so when the
users hover over your listing they get an
accurate representation of what they're
looking for.
Doing this will increase your click-
through rate.

22. Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals
1. Title tags: optimize them for the user and
engine
• Optimize your meta title tags to increase
click-through rates.
• Each page should have a unique title tag
and should help the viewer with their
query.
• Also, optimize your meta description to
get the user to click on the search result. If
you're not doing this just because Google
may or may not pull it, you're missing
opportunities and clicks.

23. Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals
1. Review Schema markup: add this to appropriate
pages
• Reviewing Schema markup is still a very
overlooked opportunity. Like we talked about
above in the local section, if you don't have
reviews coded in Schema, you could be missing
out on getting the orange stars in organic
results.

24. Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO
In a nutshell, we know that if you're trying to rank on page one of Google you will find others
that you may be able to attach to. If Yelp results come up for a lot of your search terms you
might identify that as an opportunity.

25. Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO
You can try to have the most visible
profile on that third party page
If Yelp is ranking for LA Personal Injury
Attorneys, it would suit you to figure out
how the top users are showing up there.
Maybe your customers are headed there
and then doing some shopping and
making a selection. Or maybe they're
using it for a research platform and then
will visit your website. If your profile looks
great and shows up high on the list, you
just gave yourself a better chance at
getting a conversion.

26. Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO
2. You can try to get your page to rank
If Google is already showing you that they trust a
third party site by ranking it,
use similar organic ranking techniques that you
would use on your own site to make your profile
page stronger.
Over time you might add this to your bio on
interviews or other websites to earn links.
If you increase the visibility of your profile on search
engines and they see your website on the same page
you might increase conversions.

27. Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO
Start by finding a list of potential barnacle SEO partners for your industry. As an example, I did a
search for "Personal Injury Attorneys" in Los Angeles. In addition to the law firms that showed
up in the results on the first page, I also identified four additional places I may be able to show
up on.
Yelp
 Thumbtack
Avvo
Wikipedia
If you were attorney, it would be worth your while to explore these and see if any make sense
for you to contribute to.

28. Practical tip 4: earn some good links
Most people get too carried away with link building. I know because I used to do it. The key with
link building is to change your approach to understand that it's always better to get fewer high
quality links than hundreds or thousands of low quality links.

29. Practical tip 5: have consistent citations and
remove duplicates
Identifying and correcting incorrect or duplicate citations is the #1 most important thing you can
do. Your goal with any citation cleanup program is this:
 Ensure there are no duplicate citations
 Ensure there are no incorrect citations with wrong phone numbers, old addresses, etc.
You can ignore small differences and inconsistencies like St vs. Street. I believe the importance of
citations has been greatly reduced over the past year. At the same time, you still want to be the
least imperfect and provide your customers with accurate information if they're looking on third
party websites.

30. Citation Audit & Cleanup Service
Incorrect or outdated local business
information is served up to 28.7 percent of
people who search with Google, Bing or Yahoo
and can result in poor customer experiences
(unable to find a business location, inaccurate
store hours resulting in a wasted visit, etc.).

31. Phone Number
Make sure your phone number is a local phone number and not a toll free or 1800 number.
Having a local phone number is a large ranking indicator to Google, showing where you are in
reference to your area code.
If the business has a 1800 or toll free number, that should be included in “additional phone
numbers” if there is that option.

32. The Need to Get Hyper-Local
Add your neighborhood name as a descriptor at the end
of your business name on your Google My Business page
(e.g., “Cabo GrillEast Side”).
Add your neighborhood name to the description on your
Google My Business page.
Add your neighborhood name in text to your website (if
you have one).
Add your neighborhood name to title tags on your
website.

33. Social Media Profile Enhancement
It’s important to claim your business / website username on other major networks besides
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Not only do you want to make sure no one else gets your account
name, but you can often “own” all the results on the first page of a search for your brand if
someone searches for your company. company. Not to mention the inbound links from these
trusted sources.

34. Social Signal Enhancement
Create a like campaign
What is a social signal? Each time you Like, Comment, Share, Retweet, +1,
etc. you are sending a social signal. Simply put, social signals are
produced by an individual’s online actions and activity and are viewed as
an endorsement of your content.
Add your social media links like Linkedin and Facebook link to all your
local profiles & directories. This is a great way to piggy back off of your
local presence and drive more traffic to your social community.
Ad weekly posts and tweets to your social profiles

35. Foursquare Enhancement
Optimize for Foursquare listing by adding important information about your
business. Make sure to include the following:
• What you specialize in (Give tips)
• Daily hours of operation
• Your website and social media links
• Other important services and amenities your customers will appreciate knowing about.
• Create a “Check-in” special
• Offer the Mayor something really special to reward him for his loyalty
Menu link
• Promoting a restaurant? List your Menu! One of the most important aspects of your restaurant is the
genre of the food offerings. What better way to show it off then providing the end user a menu!

36. Yelp (Vertical Relative)
Approximately 71 million unique visitors check out Yelp every
month, and many of these visitors represent the kind of people
your business may be targeting.
Work on ways to help – “Yelpers” – find you.
• Post awesome photos.
• Recent research showed that people searching Yelp for local businesses spend 2.5
times more time on a Yelp listing with photos than on a listing without photos.

37. Tip # 5
START ENGAGING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

38. I have a Mobile Friendly
Site, What Now?
TIPS FOR CONVERTING TRAFFIC TO REVENUE

39. Mobile Coupons
More than 50 million people will be using mobile coupons
this year.
• Everyone enjoys saving money, especially if the coupons are
conveniently located on their smartphone.
• Incorporate mobile coupons or mobile offers into your
advertising campaign
• Use audience segmentation to serve multiple offers to
different parts of your customer base.
• The more targeted your mobile offers are, the more likely
you are to see increased conversions.

40. Use Videos
Want to improve your chances of selling a product by 85 percent?
• Add product videos to your website.
• provide engaging content that allows your customer to see products in action
• Questions about the relative size and function of products are answered through videos, which also cuts
down on the amount of pre-sales questions.

41. Create Local Content
Create content around your local communities. This
provides a more personal and local feel to your content.
This will engage users that are searching for for POIs,
services, events and news in the most intuitive ways
possible and that translates into revenue.

42. Local Content Is King
LOCAL CONTENT IS KING

43. The Fun Part
Let me show you how to create simple engaging local
content that drives traffic, rankings and converts into sales
using the simplest way ever!

44. My Secret Word
LISTS!

45. Lists = Hook + Reward
Your List Title + Intriguing Topic
= Getting People to Care

46. Numbered Lists = Traffic
•Numbered lists posts get more shares + reads
than other forms of content
•Lists offer a contract to the reader. lists give
you an expectation of time to skim

47. LIST = CONSUMABLE CONTENT
•Lists can be good, bad or AWESOME.
•Lists prove were smart (know that!)
•List keep us entertained + provides cool stuff to share

48. LISTS TO LIVE BY
•We love to Collect. We value Peace of Mind to not lose what we find/learn.
•We love to organize ourlives by lists. We love to regroup, sift + categorize
•We love to bring order to all things in our life. No two things are equal

49. LISTS = SELF-SERVICE CONTENT
•People use the INTERNET to answer question and to solve problems they have right now
•The purpose of local content is to be found locally. Your content can solve an immediate need

50. LISTS HELP BUILD BUZZ
•Sexy titles get your content seen & shared. learn from Buzzfeed, but get your community to
help
•Involve your audience as contributors

51. THE A-Z of Local
Content Ideas
JUST FILL IN THE BLANKS

68. WHAT LISTS WILL YOU MAKE TODAY?
WHAT’S YOUR PASSION?
WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?
HOW CAN YOU HELP YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY?

69. Conclusion
A mobile SEO strategy that allows consumers
to find your products or services and provides
a great user-experience, regardless of device,
will always be the best SEO strategy.
It’s all about that data