Downloaded 741 times
Uploaded byHubSpot
Become an Expert in Local Marketing
The document discusses strategies for small businesses to succeed in local marketing, highlighting that traditional methods are failing while inbound marketing is thriving. Key points include customer acquisition, loyalty rewards, community building, and integrating online with offline marketing, with actionable steps like optimizing for keywords and utilizing social media platforms such as Google Places, Facebook, Yelp, and Foursquare. The importance of managing online reviews and leveraging free advertising opportunities is also emphasized.
More Related Content
Similar to Become an Expert in Local Marketing
Become an Expert in Local Marketing
- 1. How to Becomean Expert in Local Marketing March 15, 2011 Maggie Georgieva Eric Vreeland HubSpot HubSpot @mgieva @vreeland
- 2. Traditional Local Marketingis NOT Working … Traditional Local Advertising
- 3. Inbound Marketing isthriving … Blog SEO Social Media
- 4. Inbound Marketing isthriving … Blog SEO Social Media How does this change if your just a small local business?
- 5. 4 Keys toLocal Marketing Success 1. Customer Acquisition: Incentives & Tactics 2. Rewarding Loyalty 3. Community Building 4. Bridging Online & Offline Marketing 5
- 6. Google Places Places.Google.com 6
- 7.
- 8. Why Is ItImportant? You Get on the 1 st Page of Search Engine Results! 8
- 9. Benefits 1. Gain More Visibility 2. Attract More Traffic 3. Level the Playfield 4. It’s Free! 9
- 10. Next Steps forMy Business 1. Optimize for Keywords, Image & Video 2. Number of Customer Reviews 3. Quality of Business Reviews 10
- 11. Next Steps forMy Business Consider Adding Tags: places.google.com/tags 11
- 12. How HubSpot CanHelp Identify the Right Keywords 12
- 13. Yahoo Local! http://listings.local.yahoo.com 13
- 14. Why Is ItImportant? Paid Ads # of Reviews 14
- 15. Benefits 1. Map Emphasizes Location 2. Monitor Reviews 3. It’s Free! 4. Potential to Upgrade to Enhanced Listing and Sponsored Listings 15
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19. How HubSpot CanHelp Identify Who Is Linking To You 19
- 20.
- 21.
- 22. Why Is ItImportant? Expand Your Reach! (Facebook users have 130 friends on average.) 22
- 23. Benefits 1. Gain Access to a Bigger Network 2. Reach Out Through Mobile 3. Spread Deals 4. Advertise for Free 23
- 24. Next Steps Build Your Facebook Place Page! 24
- 25. How HubSpot CanHelp Monitor Your Facebook Reach 25
- 26.
- 27. Why Is ItImportant? Which Restaurant Do You Think Is Better? Wisdom of the Crowds 27
- 28. Benefits 1. Manage Reviews 2.Encourage Word of Mouth Marketing 3. Ability to Create Special Offers and Events 28
- 29. Deal with NegativeReviews Story courtesy of blogs.phoenixne wtimes.com In retrospect, I should have known better than to step foot into Amy's Baking Company Accusing the unhappy customer of working for the competition, and then labeling him "ugly," “a loser," and “a moron." 29
- 30. Next Steps Get More Reviews! 30
- 31. How HubSpot CanHelp 31
- 32. Foursquare • 6 Million Users • 380,000 Checkins • Even a Checkin from Space www.foursquare.com/businesses/ 32
- 33. Why Are TheyImportant? Brand Loyalty 33
- 34. Benefits 1. Reach MobileAudience 2. Make Visiting Your Business Fun! 3. Encourage Loyalty 34
- 35. Next Steps Come up with a deal that you think is relevant to your business and type it in the chat pane! 35
- 36. The Power ofCollecting Buying 36
- 37.
- 38. On-Going SEO forLocal Marketing Have you really optimized your site for local traffic? 38
- 39.
- 40. See If YouHave These Essentials! Lessons from 3,674,029 websites www.WebsiteGrader.com 40
- 41.
- 42. See How HubSpot’sEntire Software Can Help! Schedule a Live Custom Demonstration: www.hubspot.com/demo 42
Editor's Notes
- #4 During the webinar, you can hear us but we can’t hear you. BUT we still want this to be a dialog.At any time, if you don’t understand something or you have a question, you can post your message in the chat pane in webinar platform. We will try to respond here and save some questions for the end.So to get us to practice with this chat pane here, let’s do a little exercise. This is all about location, so we were wondering whatthe weather is like where you are located. So post it away here!
- #5 So to check if we are all on the same page, we also have a few more questions for you! First, let’s see if you guys know what inbound marketing is. If you have heard this term before and have an idea of what it means, please share it with us!
- #6 Great! So moving on to our next question—we were curious to see what tools are you currently using for online marketing. So if you could again post your answers, that would be fantastic.
- #7 And lastly, we are going to talk about some of these tools, but we wanted to see how familiar you are with them. Have you heard of Google Places & Facebook Places? What about Yelp and Foursquare. There is also the really new coupon-based service Groupon. Let us know which ones you have tried out and how familiar you are with them!
- #8 So the first and broadest question we want to ask is Why Inbound Marketing?
- #9 If you haven’t noticed local marketing activities have gotten stale and ineffective. Newspapers and magazines are losing readers, direct mail is getting put right into the trash, the Yellow Pages are more commonly used as a booster seat than a place to find local businesses.Not only are traditional marketing techniques becoming more ineffective, but it is incredibly difficult to measure their Return On Investment (ROI). Most traditional media will actually discourage measurement because they realize how obsolete this kind of marketing is becoming.
- #10 The good news is that Inbound Marketing takes advantage of the way people want to communicate and discover solutions today. In fact, people are searching for your products and services everyday, but are they finding your website or your competitions?People use search engines – to the tune of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF SEARCHES PER DAY, read blogs and tap their social networks to find answers to questions, solutions and even product recommendations.Inbound Marketing is about making it really easy for people to find your site and what you offer online.Explain Inbound Link…
- #11 The question we are going to address today is how does this change if your just a small local business.
- #12 Thanks, Eric!This was a great illustration of what our vision is for this webinar and I am sure it got us all on the same page. So, moving on, we have identified 4 keys to local marketing success. They include some tactics and incentives to leverage for customer acquisition; we are also going to tell a story about rewarding loyalty among your regular customers and talk about ways in which you can build a community using different local marketing channels online. Last but not least, we will touch upon the notion of bridging your offline marketing efforts with your online presence. These keys are going to be present in every platform that we talk about. So let’s get to the meat of the presentation!
- #13 You have probably already heard about Google Places—one of the leading platforms for local marketing online. This is a tool you shout get familiar with if you want to rank high in Google. If you go to Places.Google.com, you will be able to create your free Google Places listing. Let’s see how this might look like!
- #14 Here, on slide 13, we are showing you a screenshot of a search results page when we typed in “moving company.” And that is all we typed in. BUT because search engines are getting smarter and smarter, they were able to identify that I was searching for this keyword combination from Cambridge, MA. That is why, the results they gave me were local. This how your business is going to look like when you list it with Google Places. The search engine will look at what service I was trying to find and match it to the Google listing businesses have submitted.
- #15 Why is this important? Well, I am sure you are seeing the clear value of listing your business with Google Places. Your listing is going to get you on the first page of search engine results, among 7 other listings being featured. Let’s talk about what other benefits this is going to bring you.
- #16 You will gain more visibility by being listen on the first page of Google; that, in turn, will result in more traffic for your business website. So that is all great. But here is something else—you will also be able to level the playfield and beat the competition for companies that might have been around online for a long time. If you check out that screenshot on slide 13 again, you will see that the local results appeared BEFORE 123movers.com which is a primary site moving resource. And this is all free—so definitely a cost-effective way to bring about more customers to your business.
- #17 After this presentation, I want you all to go to places.google.com and create your listing. It is a pretty straightforward process. But here are some things to consider when you are doing that—make sure that you have optimized for keywords, images and video in your listing. Collect as many customer reviews as possible—and this is something we will talk about later as well. And make sure those reviews are positive!If you already have a listed your site with Google Places and are ready to try out something more advanced, then we have a suggestion for you!
- #18 As part of Google Places, businesses have access to a new ad platform that allows you to highlight info that you want your customers to see. It highlights your company with a special symbol and message on Google Maps—and that costs $25/month. For example, your tag can highlight a coupon for new customers, a video about your store, or even a link to your menu.Wondering how it looks like? Again, if you go to slide number 13, you will see a small yellow tag by the second Google Places result. That indicates that this business is using Google tags in an effort to stand out from the other business listed.Actually, Small Business Shift reported that tags increased the percentage of people taking action on Google Maps by 84%. So we recommend you try out Tags soon, and take advantage of them before they become too common. Note that participating in the Tags program will not affect your rankings. It is nice to have but you should focus 99% of your marketing efforts on developing long-term solutions, such as optimizing for the right keywords.
- #19 And this is actually something you can do within one of HubSpot’s tools. It is called Keyword Grader and it lets you enter certain keywords, see what the monthly searches are for these, evaluate the difficulty to rank for them and much more. Once you do your keyword research, you can go back to your Google Places listing and optimize for these right terms—so that is super powerful because it takes into consideration what your target audience is looking for, not what you want them to be looking for.
- #20 Another great way to get inbound links is to add your business to online business directories. One of the most popular business directories is Yahoo Local.Adding your business to Yahoo’s local listings is pretty straight forward as well. The first thing you’ll need to do is go to the url I have up on the screen http://listings.local.yahoo.com. You’ll need to have a yahoo account to create your listing. There are two different kinds of listings Basic and Enhanced.The Basic listing is Free. Filling out the business information is pretty straight forward. A couple options worth mentioning. You can have reviews of your business sent to you automatically. You can fill out your hours of operations on the website. I would recommend putting your hours of operation as well as filling out the payment methods you accept. It takes about 3-5 business days for your submission to be reviewed. For just $9.95 a month the enhanced listing allows use of a company logo, up to 10 photos, and a more detailed business description. All of these options help to highlight your listing and make it more attractive to searchers. I would recommend starting with the basic listing. If you’re not getting the results your after and have a little marketing budget to spend you might want to try upgrading to the enhanced listing. It’s important to measure the amount of traffic your getting from the basic listing and from the enhanced listing so that you can actually measure the effectiveness of each and determine if the enhanced is really worth it.
- #21 Why is it important? Well it’s important because your listing is going to determine whether people find you when they search on Yahoo Local!Yahoo also offers a local sponsored listing which appears on the search results page as a highlighted listing when your keywords match a search initiated within 25-100 miles of your location. You’re only charged when someone clicks on your listing’s link. You might be saying to yourself. Well Eric on a previous HubSpot webinar you guys said that over 75% of the clicks are on the organic ads. Why would I want to pay for a sponsored listing? Well to address the first question, a lot of people will click on the organic results first, but if they are unable to find what they are looking for within a few clicks they often will resort to clicking on a paid link. Another good thing about the sponsored listings is that you only pay when someone actually clicks on your listing, so if you do a good job with your title and description and don’t misrepresent your company or what you have to offer the majority of your click-throughs should be high quality leads. Again I want to point out the importance of getting reviews for your business. In the example search here for locksmith the first result has 804 reviews whereas the second one only has 2. Even though the second listing has a 5 Star Rating and the first one has a 4-star rating I’m very inclined to choose the first after I read a number of their glowing reviews. The fact that the company was able to attract so many reviews definitely speaks to the quality of their business. Why people click on ads at all when you have organic results right beneath them? Research has actually shown that if the organic results people are getting are not targeted enough, users will go back and click on the ads.Lots of reviews shows that a company has been around for awhile. If they are mostly positive reviews, it shows that their service or product was remarkable enough so that someone would go back and write a review, and that is a compelling reason to want to use that product/service.I would recommend that you try out the free options first, and if after using them for a little while you feel like you would benefit from the added functionality of the paid options it is very easy to upgrade.
- #22 Another benefit of Yahoo Local is that you get to see all of the reviews that are written about your business.Again I want to point out the importance of getting reviews for your business. In the example search here for locksmith the first result has 804 reviews whereas the second one only has 2. Even though the second listing has a 5 Star Rating and the first one has a 4-star rating I’m very inclined to choose the first after I read a number of their glowing reviews. The fact that the company was able to attract so many reviews definitely speaks to the quality of their business. Lots of reviews shows that a company has been around for awhile. If they are mostly positive reviews, it shows that their service or product was remarkable enough so that someone would go back and write a review, and that is a compelling reason to want to use that product/service.
- #23 Now I want to talk about the importance of listing in more than just the major online directories out there. Yahoo Local and Google Places are a couple of the more popular local directories, but there not the only ones and it is very important that you submit your site to as many of the local directories out there as possible. I like to use the analogy that submitting your website to a local directory is like putting your website into a big sack of marbles. When someone goes to yahoo local and searches for one of your keywords there’s the chance they might pick your marble from the sack. If you optimize your site correctly and include a good description that might make your marble a little bigger.Now, we know that there isn’t just one sack out there that people can pick marbles from.
- #24 Right here I’ve included 6 but there are actually 50+ local directories and search engines that people might be searching for a product or service on. If you don’t have a marble in every sack you’re really missing a huge opportunity. In a little while we’ll discuss some ways you service you can use to can make your marble a little bigger and make it easy to manage and keep track of all your marbles
- #25 Yext offers a product called Yext Tags. Like Google tags it allows you to highlight your search result in some of the major local directories in order to increase the chances that someone who sees it might click on your result.Another nice feature that Yext offers is the ability to manage a bunch of your listings all in one place. This is their product called Yext Rep. We talked about the importance of listing your business in all the directories possible, but it might be hard to manage all of these different directories Yext allows you to manage a range of local web directories and update them all at once. Once you’ve claimed your local listing on the web directories of your choice you can also include a Tag. Like the Google Places tag the Yext Tag can contain a promotional message up to 50 characters, most likely used to offer deals. The messages can be changed at any time and the messages will take up to 48 hours to “go live”One benefit of Yext Rep is listing uniformity. The directories that Yext has allied itself with are CitySearch, Mapquest, Superpages, Yelp and a number of smaller directories. It also appears that Yahoo Local will be coming soon!
- #26 As we mentioned before, one of the greatest determinants of whether you show up on the search engine results page is the number of inbound links you have. HubSpot’s Link Grader tool allows you to see who is linking to you and the quality of these links.What does quality mean. Well for example a link from a .edu website is going to have a much higher link grade than one from some teenagers blog.
- #27 Facebook is clearly one of the most popular platforms for local marketing. Why is that? Because it is a channel that is not only local, but also social and targeted. And while there are other ones out there, they don’t include as much data about your target audience as you would find on Facebook. Here you already have people’s interests, preferences, demographics and location. That data is much harder to find elsewhere, so you should take advantage of it availability here. So you might have heard about the recent launch of Facebook Places—we wanted to showcase this tools for you and tell you what they benefits of using it are and how you can be successful with it.
- #28 So first of all, on slide 27 we show you what a Facebook Places page looks like. It is pretty much like your regular facebook page but includes check-ins below the profile image. The way people would interact with this page is, they will go to their smart phones and check in that way. So imagine you visited a new town and want to goout for Sunday brunch. Traditionally, you might call your local friends for recommendations. But if they have already checked in to restaurant and liked it, that is pretty much the same type of statement. They are indirectly telling you—I have been there, I put it up on facebook because I had a good time, you should check it out too… In other words, that is like free advertising on facebook!
- #29 So again, why this is important because of the awesome combination Facebook has –targeted, local and social. Facebook users have 130 friends on average, which means that if someone checks in to your business and you’re offering a deal, their friends have the opportunity to hear about it through word of mouth marketing that is generated naturally on Facebook. Lastly, over 200 million people use Facebook on their mobile devices and they are looking to discover what’s happening nearby. By offering a deal, you give these new potential customers great reasons to stop by your business.
- #30 The benefits seem pretty clear but let’s just go over them to really demonstrate the value of Facebook for local marketing. It allows you to gain access to a larger network, to reach people through mobile, to spread deals and really advertise for free.
- #31 So, the next step for you would be to create your Facebook Place page. Just a couple of quick tips to keep in mind:Offer your customers a lot of value - Appealing deals bring in more customers and typically offer a 10% - 50% discount or a gift with purchase that is of equal or greater value than the customer purchase amount.Simple copy is more engaging - Use short, simple language to explain your deal.Be mindful of the number of deals you runBuild your Facebook Place or Page content - When you run a deal, customers may look you up on Facebook to “like” your Facebook Place or your Facebook Page. Add content to your presence on Facebook. Enter in your basic business information, upload photos, post status updates, and engage with your customers. Use your Page insights to learn more about your customers.Market your deal -If you have a Facebook Page or Place, update your status to let people know about the deal. Make sure to monitor if your strategies are working.
- #32 One way in which you can do that type of monitoring is within the Reach tool HubSpot offers as part of our software. You can see which social channels are really moving the needle for you and adjust your approach accordingly. As you can see here, this is HubSpot’s chart, we are doing great on Twitter but we need work more on expanding our Facebook reach. So just a wa for you to evaluate your strategy.
- #33 Yelp is another local directory who’s goal is to connect people with great local businesses. The main way that local businesses are judged on Yelp is through reviews written by it’s users. Setting up a business profile on Yelp allows you to take place in a number of marketing activities. Claim your businessMake sure your business information is correctMaking sure your website url is correct is incredibly crucial because people do click through to see your websiteAdd photos. People enjoy photos and the help you to reach out and communicate with the visitors of your yelp pageAsk patrons, customers, friends, family for reviews (this is the offline converging with the online). If you don’t ask for it you might not necessary get it.Keep track of your reviewKeeping track of your reviews is important because it allows you to see what your customers are saying about you. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? Hopefully all of your reviews will be positive, but if they aren’t then responding to the negative reviews and taking the time to address them will have a positive impact on your business.If you’re business isn’t receiving a lot of reviews feel free to reach out to frequent customers and ask them to write some reviews for you. Often times happy customers are willing to write a friendly review all they need is a little nudge. EXAMPLE (Handling a negative comment very well)2. Announcing special offersYelp, like Foursquare allows you to announce special offers. This again allows you to reward not only frequent visitors but also to attract new ones3. Create eventsAdding events of your own or sponsoring events of others is a great way to build your community and has many of the same positive effects that organizing a swarm on Foursquare has.
- #34 People don’t like to take risk. Which of these restaurants would you rather eat at. Most people will say the one on the left. This same sort of judgment process happens when you’re searching for something online. You don’t need to be completely at the mercy of the crowd to determine whether or not your business is perceived as busy. Most happy customers are willing to write a review or rate a business highly if they are asked nicely. Making sure that you’re engaging with your community is important on all platforms that provide avenues of engagement, but one particular example that I want to hit on today is Yelp.
- #35 Yelp is another local directory who’s goal is to connect people with great local businesses. The main way that local businesses are judged on Yelp is through reviews written by it’s users. Setting up a business profile on Yelp allows you to take place in a number of marketing activities. Claim your businessMake sure your business information is correctMaking sure your website url is correct is incredibly crucial because people do click through to see your websiteAdd photos. People enjoy photos and the help you to reach out and communicate with the visitors of your yelp pageAsk patrons, customers, friends, family for reviews (this is the offline converging with the online). If you don’t ask for it you might not necessary get it.Keep track of your reviewKeeping track of your reviews is important because it allows you to see what your customers are saying about you. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? Hopefully all of your reviews will be positive, but if they aren’t then responding to the negative reviews and taking the time to address them will have a positive impact on your business.If you’re business isn’t receiving a lot of reviews feel free to reach out to frequent customers and ask them to write some reviews for you. Often times happy customers are willing to write a friendly review all they need is a little nudge. EXAMPLE (Handling a negative comment very well)2. Announcing special offersYelp, like Foursquare allows you to announce special offers. This again allows you to reward not only frequent visitors but also to attract new ones3. Create eventsAdding events of your own or sponsoring events of others is a great way to build your community and has many of the same positive effects that organizing a swarm on Foursquare has.
- #36 So it is great to see what people are saying about your brand. It is delightful to receive positive reviews, but sometimes you are going to receive negative feedback. And that is ok—you just need to respond to it. Recently, there was a case in a pizza place in Arizona where a customer was unsatisfied by the pizza and the service he got. He left a negative review on Yelp and explained why he was unhappy. The response he got from the owner and chef of the pizza place was terrible. They accused the unhappy customer of working for the competition, of being a loser and what not. So this is just to illustrate what you should not do!Stay respectful no matter what. Other people are going to read your response and not come near your business if they see such a negative attitude. Our recommendation is to respond to a negative comment in public as opposed to taking the conversation to a private platform. If you leave it in the public domain, you will let people who stumble upon it see that you care and they won’t be necessarily turned off by the initial negativity.
- #37 Eric
- #38 HubSpot can help you do that really well with our Social Media Monitoring tool. It is a tool that goes out looking for conversations relevant to your business and comes back and says, “you might want to jump into this discussion on LinkedIn,” or “there is a blog post you should comment on.” In that way, you can develop an effective strategy for monitoring conversations and stay on top of all social media.
- #39 Foursquare is a very popular social networking tool that allows users to update their friends on where they are. It also incorporates a game where users can get points for checking in and earn badges for certain things. Users can also become the mayor of a location if they are the person who frequents a location more than anyone else. So far Foursquare has over 7.5 million users, 400,000 checkins and it has even had a checkin from space.
- #40 The first step towards using Foursquare for your business is claiming your venue. Foursquare now does a great job of differentiating between the two types of business owners that may be using their service. Venue Owners and Brands are going to differ in their marketing objectives and because of this Foursquare gives different tips and recommendations for each. Since most of you are probably venue owners I’ll go into some more detail about how to utilize Foursquare in this way. Your specials should focus on two specific objectivesObtaining new customersKeeping the loyal ones coming backYou can use the data from your campaigns to figure out what’s working and what’s notMayor Special – The foursquare Mayor is the most frequent visitor to your venue over the past 60 days. This is a way to reward your best customer, while incouraging competition for the prize. The goal is to encourage repeat visitors and create a fun game around frequenting your venue. Example – Mayor gets one free drink every day of his reign.Frequency Special – Like a loyalty card or punch card, this is a pecial that customers can redeem every X times they visit (you choose how many visits). The goal is to encourage people to stay loyal to your business and keep coming back. Free side dish every 2nd check-in, with purchase of a dinner entréeCount Special – This is a one-time frequency special. Use it to reward people on their first visit, or give them a special treat after their fifth one. This is great for attracting new customers, with a reward for a first visit or a special one-time offer for coming back. Example – on your fifth time dining with us, meet the chef for the option of a custom meal not on the menu. Custom Special - These specials are available to customers on every check-in, but based on whatever conditions you choose. Great for promoting deals specific to your venue, like a discount on a specific item. Example – If 10 or more people are checked in to a bar , a round of bartender’s choice shots on the house. Venue Regulars Special – This special encourages users to come back in short time spans, for instance it could be three visits in a week. This is good for increasing short-term repeat customers, like trying to get people to come back three times a week. Example – Enjoy March Madness at J. Fury’s and unlock free buffalo wings! Check in 3 times during the NCAA Tournament’s first two weeks and get a free double order of wings!
- #41 Users of Foursquare are notified of your specials in a variety of ways.When users are looking at the nearby “Places” tab on their phone, venues that have active specials are highlighted.If a user checks in close to your business, they’ll see that there is a Special Nearby. By clicking through, users can get more detail on your special.Foursquare is great for customer acquisition as well as customer retention. It makes it really easy to create a number of different types of deals and you can try them out and see which one works best for your business.When a user checks in to your business they’ll see that you’re offering a special
- #42 In addition to specials, claiming your venue allows you to see a full set of real-time data about your customers including:Total daily checkinsYour most recent visitorsYour most frequent visitorsGender breakdown of your customersWhat time of day people check inPortion of your venues foursquare check-ins that are broadcast to Twitter and FacebookMaggie Friends and followers!
- #43 It basically enables people to engage in group buying activities. GroupOn became very popular recently, together with some other sites that send you daily deals featuring different products and services. These sites offer a relatively easy way to sift quickly through the wide range of local deals out there.
- #44 For instance, this is an example of a deal that I received recently. We have seen deals on dance classes, dinners, haircuts and all kinds of things. As a consumer, I do enjoy these types of things, especially because it prompts me to be more social and share that deal with friends. But I don’t really care about any of these places I see advertised. They are unfamiliar names, so I need to search for them and if their sites look unreliable, I am not going to make the purchase. So this is just to illustrate the importance of your business presence online. You cannot simply rely on Groupon to bring you business. This is a short-term solution that is also pretty expensive. Instead, you should focus on developing assets that bring you long-term success, such as your blog, your video channel and so on.
- #45 Do you think you have fully optimized your site to be found by local communities? We can check that now! We will start with some basic but fundamental tips.
- #46 And the first tip we have for you is that you should use long-tail keywords. What is a long-tail keyword you might ask. Well, imagine that you are looking for a bakery in Cambridge, MA. You would go to Google or Bing, or some other major search engine and you would enter, “Bakery Cambridge,” right? So, as you can see from this screenshot, the first search results we got were from Yelp and Yahoo Local (and we going to touch on both these channels soon). But check out the fourth result, Rosie's Bakery. Clearly, they are a local business that have managed to rank really high in search engines, beating the competition. SO again, as mentioned earlier, this is thanks to their Google Places listing. But is also thanks to the specific keywords they included in that listing, in this case “Cambridge” and “bakery.” And that is really something you should have throughout your site –on your page titles, in your image descriptions... Actually. let’s check if you have these essentials in place!
- #47 If you want to see how your site ranks for those different types of elements and more, you should check out HubSpot’s Website Grader. We have ranked over 3 million sites and helped them to improve how they rank in search engines. In fact, everyone, go to WebsiteGrader and tell us what your score is. Post it in the chat pane here.
- #49 So we got a ton of great questions and we couldn’t respond to all of them. We will however follow up with you if you fill out the form above.