Asheville Local SEO Expert: getting more and better quality online reviews

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Customer reviews are at the forefront of the news again, so it’s a good time to start thinking about how garnering more online reviews fits into your business.As an Asheville SEO Pro I find this is one of the most important parts of internet marketing.

In my experience, when it comes to reviews there are four types of businesses:

• Businesses that get most of their business from referrals, don’t get any online reviews and could care less about them (perhaps the biggest chunk of businesses).

• Businesses that get most of their business from referrals, get online reviews and think that nobody reads them or cares.

• Businesses that think reviews are hugely important and work hard to get a lot of them.

• Businesses that think reviews are hugely important and work hard to get them, but don’t get many, if any.

What the types that rely heavily on referrals and ignore reviews don’t realize is that some time in the next year or two someone is going to write something about them online and there’s a good chance it’s going to be negative.

If it gets around, which it usually does thanks to Google, their referrals are at risk of drying up. If the first thing that shows up in Google for your brand is a negative, you are potentially screwed.

For those that work hard at getting a lot of reviews, I would wager that most of them are leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

While positive reviews are great, the real power is in the reviewer. A customer willing to spend the time to review you is a brand ambassador. Instead of just asking them for reviews, you should be thinking about how you can harness your relationship with these valuable people to help spread the word, both online and off.

Those that try but can’t seem to get traction with reviews should consider the following on how to build review generation into their business processes.

There are basically four ways to get an online customer review:

• Via phone
• Via email
• Via a Website
• Via transcription from a hand-written review

Which method is right for you depends on how you conduct your business.

Do you collect customer email addresses? Most of the businesses I work with know they should but rarely do, or rarely do it with any rigor.

Do you have more than 50% of your customers’ up-to-date email addresses? If so, then you can use email solicitations where you can ask them to provide a review via email or you can direct them to a website where they can leave a review.

If email doesn’t work for you, then you’ll need to consider how you typically interact with your customers. If most of your business is done in person then give them a comment card. If it’s over the phone, you may have to do it via mail. Try stapling a comment card with return postage to your invoice.

When figuring out your review acquisition strategy, take a good look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what your staff can realistically do every day.

Some tips for asking customer reviews:

• Don’t offer incentives. A percentage of your customers will do it for free. If you offer to pay your top brand ambassadors, it’s possible they will get turned off, which could hurt your business by dampening the enthusiasm of these mavens.
• Make it easy for customers. Don’t send them a link to review you on Google unless they have a Gmail address.
• Don’t ask people for Yelp reviews. This almost always backfires. You may get a few positive reviews in the short term, but if your customers are not active Yelpers, Yelp’s SPAM filters will eventually toast their reviews. You’ll end up with no reviews and potentially some angry customers who wonder why their work of review art disappeared.
• Do it promptly. Don’t wait. People are most likely to give you feedback right away.  The longer you go from the time of service to the time of request, the likelihood of getting reviews drops precipitously. According to Ted Paff, CEO of CustomerLobby, a review service, “Comment card reviews solicited at the time of service can see completion rates of 80-90%” vs. much lower rates for other forms of review solicitation.
• If you have the customer’s email address, follow up your initial request three days later with a reminder email containing links of where to for review submissions. Reminder emails can account for a huge percentage of review conversions.

Bonus Tip: always underpromise and over deliver. I have often heard that business owners can feel embarrassed when asking customers for reviews. If that sounds like you, my advice is to be totally candid with your customers.

Chuck Taft, Asheville Local SEO Pro

Tags: asheville SEO expert, chuck taft asheville, Internet Marketing, local SEO, local SEO expert, online reviews, search engine marketing

Posted in Internet Marketing, Local SEO | No Comments »

Basic local SEO strategies for small businesses

Monday, March 28th, 2011

Many commercial websites engage in SEO strategies to further expand their website’s visibility. These techniques can help them to rank high in search results and thus provide better chances to attract customers and generate higher sales of their products.

However, before achieving a global popularity, it is better to first concentrate on how you can optimize your site’s visibility in the local section. This means that you must give importance on how your site will be known to potential customers who are located near your business actual address. This can be achieved by utilizing local SEO strategies.

Local SEO strategies can surely help you to efficiently compete with your local business rivals. Internet users who are searching for websites which are offering the products that they would like to purchase would definitely search for it locally.

For sure, they would prefer to buy those products in websites which physical address is near their place. To be able to get indexed by popular search engines, it is a wise idea to incorporate your business’ physical address to your website, web page titles, headings or contents. In this way, your website will have greater chances to appear in the local search results.

Another brilliant local SEO technique is to register your site in the Google map. This is free of charge and can definitely help your site to be more visible in local search and thus give your potential customers the exact location of your shop and making it easier for them to get to know your site better.

It is a practice to a lot of SEO experts to first research on the best keywords that you can incorporate to your site to make them more optimized for local search. You must determine the most popular keywords being used by internet users when searching the products your website is also catering.

You must also try to use those keywords and search for them using the popular search engines and take note of the websites that will rank high in the search results. Get to know your competitors and determine the strategies that helped them to achieve high ranking in search results. All these can give you clearer ideas on what strategies will be most appropriate for you to use.

A good local SEO strategy is to also include local keywords in your website. This is to gain better chances for your site to appear in search results when a potential customer is using more specific keywords like a product with a corresponding location. Internet users who are interested in buying a particular product will use keywords pertaining to a product in a specific local area.

When using Local SEO techniques, it is good to take note that the customers are the one looking for you therefore you must put yourself into their shoes and try to imagine how these people think. If you are the customer, what keywords would you probably use to search for a particular product or website? Local search optimization strategies are beneficial to use especially if your business targets customers who are near your vicinity.

Tags: local search engine optimization, local SEO, search engine marketing, SEO tips

Posted in Local SEO | 2 Comments »

Estimating what you gain or lose in SEO ranking

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

To understand the importance of SEO work it is necessary for you to understand how much you stand to gain or lose through search ranking. To help you estimate how much traffic you may stand to gain or lose by moving up or down in the search engine rankings, the first thing you’ll need to review would be the concept of Click Distribution by SERP Ranking. This basically refers to how user’s clicks are distributed throughout the Top 10 SERP rankings.

If you recall, there are limited data sets available within the search industry regarding the distribution of clicks. I’ve taken the liberty of averaging all of the known data sets together in an effort to consolidate the percentages into one percentage. Here’s what I came up with for the click distribution percentages in SERP results.

• Position #1: 45.46% of all clicks
• Position #2: 15.69% of all clicks
• Position #3: 10.09% of all clicks
• Position #4: 5.49% of all clicks
• Position #5: 5.00% of all clicks
• Position #6: 3.94% of all clicks
• Position #7: 2.51% of all clicks
• Position #8: 2.94% of all clicks
• Position #9: 1.97% of all clicks
• Position #10: 2.71% of all clicks

Total: 95.91% of all clicks occur on Page #1 of SERPs

SERP Rankings, Search Volume, and Click Distribution

Lets follow this logic…by monitoring your search rankings, examining search volume, and applying the distribution percentages you can begin to get an idea of how much traffic you’re likely to receive based on where you rank within the search engines.

Lets work on an example. In our example, we’ll say that you’re a nationally prominent seller of dog supplies. Over the past few years you’ve worked really hard and are now ranking #10 for the term “dog supplies.”

By using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, you’ll see that the key term “dog supplies” receives 74,000 Global Monthly Searches.

This is the first place where it gets a little tricky. Which search volume number do you use? This depends on your business type and how realistic you wish to be about the quality of your traffic.

If you’re a global brand like Petco or Petsmart then its safe to say you should use the Global Search Volume number. However, if you’re brand is more local within your country, you should go with the Local Monthly Search Volume (Note: Your Local Monthly Search Volume constitues the search volume generated by your country, in my case the United States).

Now, lets apply our initial logic.

“Dog supplies” generates 74,000 global monthly searches and we’re currently (fictionally) ranking #10. Based on our original click distribution percentages, we should receive 2.71% of all clicks. If that’s the case, we should currently be getting approximately (carry the one, minus the blah blah) 2,005 visits. That’s 74,000 x 0.0271. Make sense?

Now, lets make another connection. Let’s imagine that you’ve worked really really hard – built your links, ate your spinach, said your prayers – and achieved the #1 ranking for the term “dog supplies!” Good work.

Based on the percentages, we’ll now take 74,000 and multiply it by 0.4546. This SERP position should give us approximately 33,640 visits. That’s a big jump in traffic and clearly shows you how valuable the #1 position can be in terms of gaining additional traffic. But how much did you gain?

Okay, let’s put this last piece together. Take 33,640 visits minus 2,005 visits and you’ll see that you stand to gain 31,635 additional visits by moving from position #10 to #1.

Quickly, let’s apply this logic backwards. Let’s say you’re ranking #3 and slip to #6. At the #3 position you should expect around 7,467 visits. At position #6, you should expect around 2,916 visits. That’s a slip of 4,551 visits! That’s a lot to lose and can be the difference in gaining or losing a lot of web revenue/exposure.

The Flaws in this Logic

Now here’s the disclaimer. The above logic is flawed. It assumes that every search result is absolutely perfect and only includes the 10 organic listings – nothing else. We know that’s false.

The search results of this day and age are what I like to call “muddy.” The reason I call them Muddy SERPs is that there are so many different types of results that are injected right into the natural results that may draw a click away and water down the click percentages (local, news, social, etc).

Here is an example of a Muddy SERP result:

In addition, there are different types of searches. Different search contexts certainly impact the patterns in which people click around the SERPs, which in turn may affect the click distribution percentages.

Different types of search classifications is discussed in detail by Aaron Wall over at SEOBook. These types are Navigational, Transactional, and Informational.

• In general, for navigational searches people click the top result more often than they would on an informational search.
• In general, for informational searches people tend to click throughout the full set of search results at a more even distribution than they would for navigational or transactional searches.
• The only solid recently-shared publicly data on those breakdowns is from Dogpile, a meta search engine. But given how polluted meta search services tend to be (with ads mixed in their search results) those numbers were quite a bit off from what one might expect. And once more, they are aggregate numbers.

Another thing that may affect how the numbers that Google may not show are the number of searches that don’t result in a click. With the new Google Instant Search feature, I know that many of my searches are abandoned quickly without a click if I don’t see what I need right away. This type of behavior may not take place on the other two major search engines, but Google is ahead of the curve in this regard.

The Smartest Thing To Do

The best thing you can do is knock at least 30% off of whatever number you have, and then you may have a more accurate estimate of the real traffic that may come in by being at a certain position.

So with that logic we’ll re-approach our original example. Remember, we were ranking #10 in which we were garnering 2,005 visits. Remember, we moved to the #1 position which represented 33,640 visits.

Let’s slice 30% right off of both of those numbers. The #10 ranking will probably garner closer to 1,404 visits rather than the original estimate of 2,005 visits. Likewise, the #1 ranking will probably pull in something closer to 23,548 visits rather than our original estimate of 33,640 visits.

This means that you ultimately stand to gain around 22,144 visits per month by moving from the #10 SERP result to the #1 SERP for the term “dog supplies.”

There it is! You’ve done it. You can apply this logic – however flawed – going forward to attempt to estimate traffic gains/losses by fluctuations in SERP rank.

Tags: google instant, Internet Marketing, search engine marketing, SEO tips

Posted in Internet Marketing | No Comments »

Essential local SEO tips

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Local search engine optimization can be just as time consuming and competitive as “regular” SEO. The same rules apply — you need to have good content and quality links. However, the tactics are slightly different in specific areas. As always there are some tactics that you can use easily and some that require a dedicated local seo expert who can provide a daily punch to your local ranking efforts.

Local search is essential to small businesses. In 2010, Google revealed that the proportion of Google result pages that show a map is one in 13. A few months later, Google changed from its Local Business Center (LBC) to Google Places, which enables businesses to communicate with customers as well as supplement their Google profile information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons and product offerings. We assume Google is serving maps more than 1 billion times a month.

With all of this in mind, here’s the beginnings of what you need to know to successfully tap into local markets.

Where to Begin

List your business in Google Places — it’s free. Watch a number of training videos and explore the features, including tools like tracking of actions (meaning how many times users showed interest in your business listing), clicks for more information on maps, driving directions or direct clicks, as well as impressions (how many times users saw your business listing as a local search result). As you’ll see, it will be important to get ratings and references, too.

While much focus is placed on Google Places, don’t forget to also register at:

• Yahoo! Local
• Bing Local

Verify Your Business

One easy way to find out if your business is listed anyplace online is to search for your brand name. Include the city or locale you are supposed to be listed in.

If you are not listed, take action. For instance, if I’m a tax attorney in Beverly Hills, California, I would search for “tax attorney Beverly Hills.” I’d see the top local results (just below Google’s paid search results) as well as a local map on the right, hovering over more paid listings.

When I click on one particular local result, I notice that it has not been verified, meaning it does not include a “verified business owner” link. An arrow points to “Business owner,” indicating it needs verification.

Google pulls the data on this result (address, phone number) from some of the larger business aggregators like infoUSA, and attempts to match it up correctly. However, that data could be wrong. If that’s the case, it would be important for this particular owner to take corrective measures. This is why it’s important to verify your business information in local search results.

Select Your Categories

When registering, make sure to assign your business to the listed categories that best describe it. You can add up to five categories. Once you start typing, Google Places will display related categories.

Continue to add as much information as possible, including hours, payment types, e-mail address, phone number, URL/web address, photos, videos and coupons. Fill out each field, if appropriate.

When you’re done, make videos, upload them to YouTube and link them back into your local profile on Google Places. If you install and use tools like JingProject.com, it’ll be free and easy to make an informational, useful video. Screen cam your PowerPoint presentations. You can include up to 10 pictures and five videos.

Get Listed in Local Directories

Obtaining citations from local business directories like Yelp and Merchant Circle can be a powerful tool to get exposure and drive traffic. (See the list of directories in the Local SEO resources sections below.) Make sure that all your information is correct, and keep the same formatting across all locations.

Ask for Reviews

Don’t be afraid to ask customers for reviews. Offer special incentives and discounts for return visits to your office. You can also add a postcard or business card into your office invoice mailings asking your customers to review the visit and talk about the experience.

However, don’t unwittingly spam this system by asking all your friends to review you in a week. You should also get references from the Better Business Bureau, your local chamber of commerce and the top local directories.

These tips should start you out. A local seo expert can help you enlarge your campaign and show you many more local seo techniques to bring you Page Rank and customers.

Tags: bing, local SEO, search engine marketing, SEO tips, Yahoo local

Posted in Google Places, Local SEO | No Comments »

Social Media Tips for Real Estate Agents

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

Social media and real estate go hand in hand. Many of my clients are in real estate and I help them to use social media as a dynamic and professional tool. However, there is something of a learning curve. When using social media as a real estate agent keep these tips in mind:

• Always keep personal and real estate profiles separate. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have coworkers on your facebook or friends on Linkedin, but always think carefully about whether you want a potential business relation to see pictures of you with your sister’s baby or celebrating at a Griz game

• Think about each social network you are going to get involved with. Just because everyone has a myspace page, think about is it really relevant to what you want to do and who you are. For a real estate agent, Realtown would be good social network to get on, but Myspace would not be. But don’t just jump on the bandwagon of a social network, think about what having your ‘brand’ on there would mean by association

• Always check your privacy settings for any social profile, regardless of whether it is for real estate or personal. Just because you only use your facebook account for personal friends and acquaintances, remember that others can search for you and possibly see information. Google now allows you to search over social networks for information, so if you have pictures of you doing things you don’t want future home buyers to know about make sure your settings are done right

• Always add value to the social network. This means providing information that users actually want to know about. Now, keep in mind the specific audience of each network when figuring out what value is. On facebook with family and friends, a picture of your dog in a Santa outfit in front of the tree would be added value to your friends. That would not be value added information to your LinkedIn connections (but that market report on an up and coming real estate market would be!) Plus the better the value, the more likely somebody is going to retweet or repost it so you get to increase your audience without you lifting a hand

• Build quality relations. By quality we mean relevant. In other words, don’t spam invite a bunch of people. The days of who’s got more friends on myspace are over, it is better to have 10 relevant real estate specific ‘friends’ then having 400 strangers. In fact, a lot of professionals online will either think you’re a major party animal meeting bunches of people, or you’re a spammer concerned with quantity over quality

• Don’t SPAM! Let me repeat that DON’T SPAM!!! This goes back to value add. But it also means, don’t be constantly sending out requests to help you out with something, or asking people to post comments on blogs or asking for a retweet

• Remember the Golden Rule. Treat other people online like you would want to be treated. If somebody is wrong about something on a forum, politely explain the correct answer. Would you want somebody to attack you for being an idiot (or ‘flaming’ you) if you are wrong or to politely explain (possibly even in a private message) what the correct answer is?

• Try to listen to other people. This means that instead of posting meaningless “oh, that’s a great point” try to add something to the conversation. If someone posts about 10 staging ideas, post another one in a comment. And just like any real conversation, make sure to adjust what you are saying to what other people are saying. If you are on a forum discussing accounting techniques and someone post a different opinion after you posted, listen to what they said, and make sure to reference what they said in your post.

Tags: local SEO, real estate, search engine marketing

Posted in Local SEM | 1 Comment »

3 Misconceptions About Google’s Local Search

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

Countless articles have been written about Google’s recent overhaul of how it displays local search results; and I feel like I’ve read most of them. Along the way, I’ve come across a few of what I’d call misconceptions about Google’s changes and how they impact both the search results and how small/local businesses should adjust their approach to the new search results. Here they are:

1. This change diminishes/phases out organic SEO.

I’ve also seen Google’s new local SERPs described as a change that puts more emphasis on your Google Places address. Neither is accurate.

In the old way of local SEO, you essentially had these options:

• Do local SEO on your business web site, optimizing pages for good, local keywords. The hope was to rank in the organic results that might show up below the old 7-pack, 3-pack, etc.
• Claim and optimize your Google Places listing in order to get visibility inside the 7-pack, 3-pack, etc.
• Both of the above.
• Neither of the above.

I’m simplifying things there, but the point is that you could get visibility via local SEO and/or Google Places listings.

Now, your listing is inextricably tied to local SEO. The change doesn’t diminish one or the other; both are now required elements of any local search marketing effort. Without both an optimized web site and a solid business listing, your chances of great visibility in the new Google Places is low.

2. You can’t rank (or it’s harder to rank) for any city name outside the one where you’re located.

Ranking for cities other than where you have a physical location was always a challenge in the old local SERPs, and was essentially impossible in larger cities and/or competitive industries. A real estate agent in Concord, North Carolina, was just not going to get visibility for “charlotte real estate agent” or even “albemarle real estate agent.”

But, in smaller cities and/or less competitive industries, it was always possible to show up in the 7-pack or 3-pack of local results. That has not changed in the new Google Places. If you do enough searches outside the major cities, I’m certain you will see local businesses ranking for cities where they’re not actually located … just as they did before.

3. Local directories are dead.

The prevailing thought was that the new Google Places search results would pretty much kill internet yellow pages sites and other local directories. Not the case. I see Expedia, Yahoo Travel, and others showing up on a search for atlanta ga hotels. I see HealthGrades.com and SuperPages showing up on page one for nashville dermatologist. I see three directories at the top of page one for charlotte italian restaurants. Look at this screen shot for “child care nashville”:

Again, I have no doubt that you’ve also seen local directories doing just fine in the search results even after the big Google Places change. They’re also getting visibility in the links below some of the business listings, too, when there are reviews available.

Conclusion

• Organic SEO on your web site is more important today than ever for local search visibility.
• Getting visibility in cities where you don’t have an address is no more easy or difficult than it was before.
• You’re still competing against local directories.

If you have any questions about this please let me know and I’ll try to help you examine your local search needs.

Tags: google maps, google places, local search, local search engine optimization, local SEO, search engine marketing

Posted in Local SEM | 1 Comment »

2011 Local SEO Search Predictions

Friday, December 10th, 2010

The predictions season is here . . . Telmetrics is one of the first out of the gate with its “Top Local Search Trends for 2011.” Here they are for you pleasure and consumption with comments by me:

1) SEM Churn Levels Off: We expect churn to decrease in 2011 as SEM agencies have aggressively adopted key measurement tools to help prove the value of their services. Transparent performance and positive customer/advertiser satisfaction go hand in hand.

2) Quality of Leads Trumps Volume: Advertisers have realized that call or click volume doesn’t necessarily translate to a quality body of leads. Local advertisers have become more savvy and will demand tangible lead quality measurement in 2011.

3) Call Tracking Gets Social: In 2011, we expect more advertisers to monetize their social media initiatives and with that, demand performance reporting on social media campaigns. Call tracking within social campaigns will help validate the model as consumers are still picking up the phone for the last leg of a transaction. Additionally, reputation management platforms that embed call measurement will bridge the gap between online and offline customer feedback.

4) Speech-to-Text Adoption Takes Hold: Caller intelligence from consumer- advertiser dialogue—available through speech-to-text technologies—will be widely adopted and advertisers will be able to more effectively optimize ad spend and creative to drive more leads. Lead quality details such as customer sentiment and keywords spoken will quickly become must-haves.

5) Value of Traffic from Online Sources Revealed: As the ROI of online platforms becomes more transparent, traditional ad channels that generate quality call volume will have an opportunity to recoup lost ground by demonstrating their value on a level playing field.

At a general level I agree with all of these.

Tags: local search engine optimization, local SEO, local seo 2011, search engine marketing

Posted in Local SEM, Local SEO | 2 Comments »

Google Instant Preview adds visuals to SEO

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Tags: google instant, google previews, search engine marketing, SEO tips

Posted in Google Instant, Google Previews | 1 Comment »

Twitter Analytics to give users insight into the world of tweets

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

Tags: search engine marketing, twitter

Posted in Twitter Analytics | No Comments »

Search engine optimization: not inventing the wheel but rolling it

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

Local search engine optimization is not a huge mystery but it does take some time and energy. If you are already familiar with SEO you don’t need to unlearn everything you have learned, but just to add new knowledge to your online strategies.

If you are aiming to get a high ranking in local Google searches you have to be aware of the criteria Goggle use to rank your website. One thing you can obviously take into consideration is distance. However, the power of the internet makes sure the competition is healthy. This means that a store that’s only a few miles from your store and is nearer to a major city doesn’t mean that it will be ranking higher than you. The only way this has any of affect at all is when your store is at a large distance, over 20 miles. In that case, the distance becomes a factor but otherwise it will be local search engine optimization that determines your rank.

The crucial aspects such as on page and off page SEO will still play a major role in the ranking of your website. If your locally targeted website contains content that’s SEO optimized with the right keyword density, then it will definitely be ranking higher than the others.

As with any regular search engine optimization, when you use the right keywords on your site, your rankings will dramatically improve in Google’s local searches. Just make sure your address appears at various places on your website, so that it can be crawled. Also have your city name inserted in important places such as the headings and of course, the title tags. When you do this, the chances of your site coming up when someone searches using your local keywords get strong.

If you’ve tried Google SEO for a while now, you know how much value Google gives to anchor text, so it’s important to have your related local keywords in your anchor text when linking to any external site that’s relevant (Example: SEO Pro Asheville). Keep in mind that Google gives high emphasis to the position of the text appearing on the page. If all your targeted keywords are brought together and aren’t spaced out, it may affect your local ranking.

You also have to keep in mind what kind of rating your business has in the real world. For instance, if you own a 5 star hotel, it will automatically be ranked higher than a 3 star hotel. That’s how Google works. All those sites that have a good reputation and a well-known business are going to get a higher rank in Google local searches.

Apart from this, manually adding your site to Google by going to their site is a good idea. This can give you a faster ranking. Remember, the longer your business stays on their listing, the higher it will be ranked. Businesses that aren’t long term and don’t stay around for long don’t get to rank well.

Tags: local search engine optimization, local SEO, local SEO expert, search engine marketing, SEO tips

Posted in Local SEO | No Comments »