The objective of this survey is to gain greater understanding about the health and nature of the local SEO Industry. Through this survey, we aim to find out what life is like “on the ground” for those in the local SEO industry and share those findings publicly to help improve the knowledge and insight within our industry.

This is the 2nd wave of the survey. The 1st wave was conducted in 2011 and looked ahead to 2012.  Wave 1 survey results can be viewed here.

About The BrightLocal Local SEO Industry Survey 2013

The survey was conducted between 20th January and 20th February, 2013. We contacted thousands of freelancers, agency SEOs and Web designers.

1,409 respondents completed the survey (up from 1,150 in 2011). The majority of respondents are freelance SEOs or small SEO agencies.

The survey consists of 17 questions covering 5 areas of SEO/agency business:

1. Future Outlook
2. Size & Turnover
3. Clients & Industries
4. Marketing & Sales
5. Services & Tasks

The following five charts show the key findings of the survey. Full survey results are available on BrightLocal.com.

Chart 1: 93% of Local SEOs Expect To Grow Their Business In 2013

Confidence is running high in the SEO industry. Our data show that 93% of SEOs say they expect their business to grow in the next year — up from 82% in our 2012 survey.

Additionally, 82% of respondents said that they will recruit more staff in the next 12 months – to help drive and fulfill their expected growth.

There can’t be many industries in the current economy that can boast such a positive outlook!

Chart 2: 34% Of SEOs Made Less Than $30,000 In The Last 12 Months

The range of turnover for local SEOs is very broad. Some SEOs earn a worryingly low amount, while others are ticking along at a good rate. The size of the agency and the number of clients under management obviously play a big role in turnover level.

The most telling figure is that 34% of SEOs are turning over less than $30,000/year (3% more than those that earned at this level in the 2012 survey). For a modern and skilled profession which is in great demand, this figure is both surprising and a concern. It begs a number of questions:

• Are SEOs pricing their services too low?
• Do SMBs not value or understand the value provided by their SEO/agency?
• Is excessive competition in the industry forcing SEOs to price themselves low to win clients?
• Can SEOs really provide a good quality service while earning $30,000 or less?
• How many SEOs will still be in business next year if they can’t raise this level?

Chart 3: Average Monthly Income Per Customer Is $500-$1,000

The amount which SEOs earn per customer can vary greatly. Some, apparently, earn less than $100/month per customer, while some earn $5,000 or more.

Of course, the nature and depth of the service provided is reflected in the price, as is the scale of customers. The budget and requirements of a single location mom & pop business, for example, are much smaller than those of a multi-location franchise business.

Chart 4: 91% Of SEOs Say “Word Of Mouth’ Is The Best Route To New Customers

This speaks volumes about the nature of the work SEOs do and how much reputation and relationships matter when selling SEO services. Local business owners are far more likely to commit their precious (even scarce) marketing budget to someone they know, like and trust; and, a big portion of this trust comes through recommendation by others.

Chart 5: 42% Is The Average Success Rate For Converting New Leads To Customers

With an average lead:sale conversion of 42%, it appears that SEOs are very effective at selling their services. However, 17% say they convert less than 10% of their pitches.

The data here only paint part of the picture. Conversion figures are a product of a number of factors, including method of approach, quantity of leads contacted, sales structure and ability, business reputation, local market competition, etc. I would expect agencies that take a more considered and tailored approach to pitching would convert more than those with a high-volume, sales-focused model.

Full survey results and charts can be viewed and downloaded on BrightLocal.com.

Dashboard images: Local Search Forum

Whatever the opinion, the truth is that these changes signify a big development in the way Google handles ‘Local.’ Google has been talking up the importance of local for an age, and the increased real estate given to local results in SERPs backs this up. They have also updated and iterated their local product almost more than their main search product in the last 12 months.

But, despite this rhetoric and commitment, Google has given scant attention to how SMBs use and manage their data within maps/Google+ Local.

Tuesday’s announcement changes this. The new ‘Places for Business’ dashboard is all about making life easier and clearer for SMBs to manage their data and promotion within Google’s local products (Maps/Mobile/+Local), and they have really put some thought into solving the backend issues and providing a helpful, consolidated interface.

Hang on… before I go too far with the praise, let me make one thing very clear. This update is also designed to make it easy for SMBs to purchase Adwords Express. Google has struggled to monetize ‘Local,’ and this update puts AdWords Express front and center on the dashboard in the hope that SMBs will start to spend more with them. ‘Google the Benevolent?’ (Yeah, right…)

Listed below are ten things SEOs and SMBs should know about the new dashboard.

1.  Phased Rollout – Many Changes Still To Come

This update has addressed a number of issues which have confused and frustrated SEOs and SMBs for years; but it has not improved all issues and niggles. This is very much a v1.0 for the new dashboard, and there are many more improvements to come over the coming months.

2.  Only Available To New Profiles Or Newly Verified Profiles

The new dashboard is only available for new listings (newly created or newly verified) and not for existing, verified listings. As soon as a listing is verified, they will get access to the new dashboard. However, those of us with existing verified listings will have to wait until the rollout reaches us.

Also, the dashboard is only currently available in the US. Once rollout is complete in the US, then it will jump across to other territories. There’s no clear timeline on this; so, it’s a case of carry on doing what you’re doing and wait till Christmas arrives!

3.  Easier, Faster, Clearer Update Route For Google+ Local Page

This change is a huge improvement – and a big thumbs-up to Google for sorting this out!

The current/old dashboard had a slow and tenuous link to the Google+ Local page with changes made in the old dashboard taking a long time to show up on the visible Google+ listing.

The new dashboard feeds data directly into Google’s updated ‘knowledge graph’ data structure. This enhanced structure makes management of data within Google better, and Google puts more trust in this data.

The upshot for SMBs is that any changes made via the dashboard have greater trust and should go live on their Google+ Local page faster – within 48 hours, according to various sources.

4.  Verification Process Still The Same

Thumbs down on this one, I’m afraid!

The verification process for listings is still the same. Businesses still need to get a PIN via mail, SMS or phone call and enter this into their listings so they can take control of their listing.

But, there is a clearer process for disputed listings. If you want to take control of a listing which is currently claimed into a different Google account. there is a clear, stepped appeal process. Listings can no longer be claimed into multiple accounts, which will greatly reduce confusion over listing ownership and administration.

It also appears (fingers firmly crossed) as if this process is going to be overseen by a dedicated customer support team, which would be a hugely welcome change.

Image courtesy of Mike Blumenthal

5.  Helpful Interface Guides Users To Make Right Choices

The new interface incorporates contextual, inline tips and advice on how best to complete the various fields. There are actually less fields to complete, which means less customization options (a real bugbear for many SEOs), but at least Google makes it clearer how best to complete the fields so SMBs don’t contravene the rules and suffer the consequences!

6.  Don’t Merge Your Google Local Listing With Your Google+ Local Page Yet

Google advises that if a business is considering merging their old Google Local Listing with their Google+ Local page, they should wait. This process is still riddled with issues, but there is light breaking on the horizon.

In due course, the new dashboard will incorporate an ‘Upgrade’ button which will make this process smoother. So, unless you have a burning need to tackle this merge now, you should hold fire for the time being.

7.  SMBs Need A Google+ Profile To Update Video & Social Elements

All core business info can be updated from the new dashboard. Updates should go live within 48hours, except for photos. Photos will take longer, and it’s still faster to add photos as a user rather than a business owner. Google has acknowledged this issue and will improve the process and speed in due course.

However, if a business owner wants to add video to their listing or manage their social stream, they need to have a personal Google+ profile. Given that lack of personalization options within Google+ Local, having some videos about your business and publishing tips/updates/ideas in Google+ can really strengthen the appeal of your business to a potential customer who visits your Google+ Local listing.

Google is not going to give up on its Google+ play, so it’s time for SMBs to embrace it!

8.  Service Area Businesses (SABs) Get A Google+ Local Page For 1st Time

At last!! Google is, at last, acknowledging the existence of SABs and now enables them to have a Google+ Local page and to hide their address if they wish. There are additional settings for service area and a neat check-box so a business can positively state if they also serve customers at their location.

Image below courtesy of Mike Blumenthal.

Coupled to this is a wider range of contact options – including email – which will help SABs even more.

9.  Select Up To 10 Categories To List In, But No More Custom Categories

The new dashboard allows SMBs to list themselves in more categories than before. They can select up to 10 categories – chosen from a pre-defined list; but, they can’t create custom categories any more (although older listings with custom cats may remain).

Select 10 categories – Courtesy of Mike Blumenthal

The dashboard incorporates inline guidance on what correct categories are vs. incorrect – it’s almost like Google has thought about what a user might enter and pro-actively given some advice on how to get it right – amazing! 

10.  Analytics Still Sucks!

There is no improvement in the data reported on your Google+ listing. You still get approximate views, clicks and call-to-action. This is a real shame, as Google as the power to supercharge reporting in Places, but continues to de-prioritize this aspect.

The interface for reporting looks like it has improved (although, I’m yet to see a screen shot which actually contains any data on the insights tab, so I can’t be 100% sure); but, the data reported on has not changed.

Postscript: Sources & References

The following sites were used for research and reference in writing this post. Many thanks to their owners and writers for great coverage and for making my life easier!

1. Blumenthals.com – Visual Guide to the new Places for Business Dashboard
2. Blumenthals.com – Google rolling out new update to Google Places for Business
3. Local Search Forum – Major update – new Google Places Dashboard – All-in-one Local Listing Management
4. Google – More details about the improved look and feel of Places for Business Support Pages
5. Blumenthals.com – Categories in new Places for Business Dashboard

It also affects how we find and engage with businesses and services, and no more so than at a local level.

We (BrightLocal) conducted a survey with our consumer panel to find out just how consumers use their mobile devices  to find local businesses and what content was most important to them when using their mobile devices (we specified ‘mobile phones and tablets’).

We asked 6 questions and received 1,065 responses to the survey. The following charts and analysis represent the full findings of the survey.

Survey Questions

1. How many times have you used your mobile / mobile device to find a local business in the last 12 months?
2. Which types of local business have you searched for on your mobile device?
3. Which type of mobile service do you prefer to use when looking/searching for a local business?
4. What information is most important to you when you’re looking at a local business website on your mobile?
5. Which of these statements about accessing local business websites from your mobile applies to you?
6. Are you more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile optimized site?

 Survey Results

• Only 29% of consumers regularly use mobile devices to find local businesses.

Mobile Internet usage is growing hugely; but, only 29% of consumers regularly use their phones/tablets to find local businesses.

Forty percent (40%) of consumers say they have never used their phone/tablet to look for a local business.

This compares to just 15% of consumers who use desktop Internet to find a local business

However regular, repeat usage is relatively high with just 19% of consumers looking for a local business at least once per week, and 29% of them doing this once per month.

• Pubs, Restaurants and Shops are the most commonly searched for business types on a mobile device

Local consumers use their mobile devices to look for all different types of local businesses. The most popular types of business to search for on a mobile are:

• Pub/Bar/Club — 32%
• Restaurant/Cafe — 31%
• General Shop — 31%
• Clothes Shop — 26%

All these business types share some common traits:

1. Businesses have high footfall traffic — so it’s not surprising they come out on top
2. Consumers visit these businesses at their place of businesses — so Physical Address is key piece of data (see chart 4 below)
3. Consumers make quick decisions about these businesses — unlike say, a Dentist or Accountant, which are more of a considered purchase
4. Consumers visit these businesses within a short time frame of finding them on their mobile

Tip For Business Owners

It’s beneficial for owners of all types of local business to make themselves as findable as possible to mobile users. But, it’s especially important for bars, cafes, restaurants, shops, hotels and taxi firms which have the most to gain by ensuring their presence on mobile in prominent and positive.

• 89% of consumers favor using Maps apps & Browsers over Mobile Applications

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of local consumers prefer to use either a maps app or an Internet browser when looking for a local business on their mobile.

Just 11% of consumers prefer to use other applications such as Yelp, Foursquare or TripAdvisor.

The volume of App downloads hit record highs in the final week of December 2012 (1.7 billion apps downloaded in 1 week* — fuelled by consumers receiving new devices for Christmas and activating them in the week after), but the preference to use apps instead of native mapping and browsers installed in devises is still low.

Maps and browsers come pre-loaded onto devices, so they’re ubiquitous and convenient for users to use. They also benefit from familiarity as these brands (e.g., Google Maps, Safari) are household names and have huge user numbers in the PC market.

But, mobile applications shouldn’t be dismissed. User numbers for applications are lower than maps/browsers, but data shows that application users are loyal and do a lot of searches:

• Yelp — 100,000,000 users worldwide but just used on 9.2million mobile devices.** But, 45% of all searches on Yelp are done on their mobile application.***
• AroundMe – 6 million users (April 2012) with 27 million searches per month.****

‘Physical Address’ & ‘Driving Directions’ are most important info for mobile visitors

Mobile users are very action orientated when they look for a local business on a mobile device. They quickly want to qualify whether a business meets their requirements.

They want specific information that enables them to quickly:

1. Determine if your business does what they want — ‘List of services: 33%’
2. Determine if they can afford your services — ‘Price List: 41%’
3. Find out where you’re located — ‘Physical Address: 54%’
4. Find out how to get to you — ‘Driving Directions: 48%’

Softer and less ‘action’ orientated content such as reviews, photos and welcome message are much less important.

Interestingly, only 30% of users considered ‘Contact Details’ to be an important piece of info. Maybe because mobile users are looking for a business to visit, so their address is enough for them to act upon.

Tip For Business Owners

Make life easy and quick for your mobile site visitors. Display the most important data prominently on the homepage of your mobile optimized site. You can still include richer information (reviews, photos, etc.), but put this on other pages and link to it from the homepage.

• 43% of consumers don’t expect a local business to have a mobile optimized site

Consumers are split on their attitudes to whether local businesses should have a mobile optimized site.

Forty-three (43%) say they don’t expect a local business to have a mobile optimized site, while 26% also say that all local businesses should have a site which is built for mobile.

A further 26% of respondents said they are impressed when a local business has a mobile optimized site.

• 38% are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile optimized site.

Thirty-eight (38%) of consumers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile optimized site.

That would represent a significant bump in customers for any business and would surely justify the expense and effort in building a mobile optimized website.

Key Takeaways & Analysis

Mobile users behave differently from normal PC Web users, and this can impact on how they find a local business and which local business they end up contacting/visiting. Mobile users are very action orientated and will act quickly upon the results of their searches.

All types of local business can benefit from improving their mobile presence with 38% of consumers more likely to contact a local business with a mobile optimized site.

• Pubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, shops, hotels and taxi firms have the most to gain from maximizing their mobile presence
• Ensure that your business can be found prominently in relevant mobile search and map results
• List your business on all leading local-social applications, e.g., Yelp, AroundMe, TripAdvisor, Foursquare
• Optimize your website for mobile devices and display the most valuable information in your homepage

*Source: Flurry Blog

**Source: Yelp press release

***Source: Search Engine Land

****Source: AroundMe press release

Image via Shutterstock

But, it’s not just businesses that are wising up to the opportunities which online holds. Hundreds of new SEO agencies and freelancer operators are popping up every week as people leave their old professions behind or are forced to change through redundancy or lack of opportunity.

The barriers to setting yourself up as an SEO or social media specialist are very low. The 2012 Local SEO Industry Survey (conducted by BrightLocal) found that 31% of respondents were new to SEO that year, yet were actively providing SEO and social media services.

Competition within the SEO industry is already intense, and that is only going to increase as the industry gets more saturated with new agencies and operators.

New customers are the lifeblood of small businesses, so how do SEOs and agency bosses identify new prospects and turn them into new customers?

We put these questions (and more) to three successful local SEOs and agency bosses. Here are some of the tactics they use to find and win new customers which keeps their agencies thriving.

5 Proven Ways To Win New Local Customers

There are many ways to win new customers; the five tips below show several different ways to help you win new local customers.

1.  Local Workshops & Events

Create your own local workshop which provides free insights and training for local businesses about online marketing. This is a great way to establish yourself as a ‘local’ expert, create credibility for your business and impress potential clients with your understanding of the issues they face.

These events are about helping local businesses understand the opportunities available to them and showing yourself as a knowledgeable agency; it’s not about pitching your services. If you can prove your knowledge and be helpful to them, their business will come your way.

2.  Informal ‘Meet-ups’

While workshops are more formal and structured affairs, meet-ups and social occasions and are designed to introduce local business owners to each other and to build your local network. You should invite existing customers, prospects and other local contacts you use, e.g., IT support, PR.

The more people who attend, the more influential you appear and the more benefit business owners get by attending the meet-up. It’s great to have customers and prospects rubbing shoulders and you can provide advice and direction to local business owners on what’s new in SEO/marketing.

 3.  Local Newspapers/Traditional Advertising

Despite it’s dwindling impact and consumption, traditional local media still exists and still carries local advertising. Local businesses that advertise here obviously have marketing budget to spend, and the pages of your local paper represent a great hunting ground for businesses that you can lure over to online.

You’ll need to prove the value you can deliver vs. traditional media, but at least, you know that these businesses have budget to spend, so you’re less likely to waste your time chasing ‘no hope’ prospects.

 4.  Facebook, Twitter & Google+

Actively building up your social networks and using your network to reach a wider group of potential customers is not a ground breaking tactic, but many businesses are not proactive enough in this area.

If you get a follower, then follow them back. If you have some useful content or local event, then share it with your network. Promote your workshops/meet-ups to your network and invite them to bring a colleague, contact, friend or even their mum — you never know where the next lead or introduction will come from!

5.  Referrals

No other channel packs the same punch as getting a direct referral from a happy customer or contact. The personal endorsement carries such weight that you should close almost every lead you get through this channel. You should make the most of this channel by actively creating case studies of successful work and then asking those customers if they would keep you in mind when they speak to other business owners. You could offer existing customers a discount on their account if they can introduce new customers to you — make it worth their while.

It goes without saying that your own SEO performance and site optimization is important. If you can’t get your own site to rank well and your site looks like a dog’s dinner and doesn’t incorporate strong call-to-action points, then it becomes much harder for you to convince others of your skills.

Use Research To Impress Local Business Owners

Below are some resources you can use to educate local business owners and impress them at the same time .

SEO Industry Data & Reports

Most local business owners are aware of SEO, but their knowledge doesn’t run too deep. Using industry data and surveys, such as the ‘Local Search Ranking Factors’ survey, is a great way to introduce them to the key areas which they should focus on and also demonstrates how complicated local SEO can be unless you know what you’re doing.

One of our interviewees (Brian Childers) actually takes a laminated copy of the survey to new client meetings. It’s powerful stuff!

Vertical Industry Data & Insights

Doing some research into a prospect’s industry is a great way to demonstrate that you appreciate that not every industry is the same and that you’ve gone the extra mile in your pre-meeting research. Business owners are always keen to know what’s happening in their industry, what their competitors are up to and how they compare (see benchmarking vs. competitors below).

If you can’t find find useful data online, you can always create your own. Services like Toluna Quick Surveys allow you to create short questionnaires and get answers from 100-2,000 consumers. You can present this data to the customer and also publish as a blog on your site. This is great content and can open the door for other clients in that industry.

Benchmarking Potential Customer Vs. Local Competitors

It goes without saying that you need to analyse a potential customer’s site and SEO before you formally meet or pitch to them. Lots of business owners are aware of their own SEO situation (some more than others), but they often don’t know how they compare to their local competitors. You can play on this natural curiosity and rivalry, showing them how their competitors are gaining an advantage on them and grabbing their customers.

Case Studies & Results From Other Customers

Creating case studies from your existing customers which includes a quote or comment gives potential clients confidence in your abilities. But even more powerful than that is actually sharing real performance statistics with them — ideally, from Google Analytics, ranking reports, call tracking software, etc.

This gives clear evidence of your ability, and the growth in site visits/calls is very tangible for local business owners. Obviously, you should get permission from existing customers to share this data and never publish these results publicly.

5 Positive Ways To Follow Up & Close A Customer

Closing is a skill most marketers need to work on; below are some activities that can help you develop this skill.

 1.  Call Customer To Answer Follow Up Questions

Prompt follow up after the meeting is essential for establishing an on-going relationship. Email them the data/presentation you gave within 24hours and then call them within 48 hours to see if they have any more questions. If they don’t bite yet, then tell them you will add them to your ‘closed’ mailing list so they can receive any new information and insights which are usually reserved for paying customers.

2.  Add Them To Your Mailing List

Keep that connection going by adding them to your mailing list and sending through regular, insightful information. This keeps your name ‘front of mind’ and establishes you as a knowledgeable person with their finger on the pulse of the latest online marketing trends.

3.  Post-Meeting Research

Most effort is spent pre-meeting, and not much is done afterwards. If you have your ears open during your initial meeting you should come away with a few questions and ideas which you can investigate the answers to.

Research these and send your findings through to the customer to show them that you’ve listened and invested even more time in getting to understand their situation. Other SEOs may not do this, so this will set you apart from the crowd.

4.  Invite Them To Local Workshop Or Meet-Up

We’ve talked about the objective and value of these sessions, so make sure you invite everyone you pitch to attend.

5.  Invite Them To Talk With An Existing, Happy Customer

The power of referrals is huge, so don’t just rely on your customers to bring referrals to you. If you can persuade existing happy) customers to advocate your services, then you can introduce potential customers to them so they can hear from them about the work you do. This is a great way to get converts ‘on the fence’ leads as long as your existing customers do truly like you!

I would also like to thank the SEOs and Agencies that contributed to this series of interviews on BrightLocal:

• Brian Childers – Foxxr.com
• Gary Donlan – Destiny Group
• Laura Betterly – YadaYada Marketing

• What should I focus on more – citations or links?
• Are reviews an important factor for local ranking?
• How many citations should I build for my client?
• How do I know the best categories for my client to be listed in?

But, they are all asking the same basic question: What do I need to focus on to improve my client’s rankings?

Unfortunately, I don’t have a silver-bullet answer because there isn’t one. Every client, every location, every industry and every competitor set is different. And because of this, the right solution is also different.

What I do say to them is that all successful and efficient SEO campaigns start with detailed Research and Benchmarking.

Research and benchmarking gives you a clear understanding of each client’s SEO situation and how they compare to their competitors. Once you have this data, it becomes clear what areas you need to prioritize and how much work is needed.

If you skip over this research/benchmark phase and don’t establish a starting point to track changes against, then you’re working in the dark.

Building Your Local SEO Roadmap

SEO is a journey. And all good journeys need planning. Planning creates a roadmap for you to follow which tells you where you are and keeps you on the right path to success.

If you tackle the research and benchmarking phase correctly, then you should be able to answer the following 3 questions:

1. Where is my client now and how does their SEO compare to their competitors?
2. What SEO tasks do I need to focus on as a priority, and what can I put aside for now?
3. How much work is needed to get my client into top x search results for their key terms?

This is your SEO roadmap. It tells you where you’re starting from, where you’re heading to and what’s the best route to get you there. If you know these three things, then your chances of success are massively improved, and you will run your campaigns with much greater efficiency and productivity.

So, What Research Do You Need To Do?

This is a ‘Local’ column, so I’m going to focus on a typical Local SEO campaign here.

1.  Identify The Most Lucrative Search Terms For Your Clients

You need to identify which search terms will provide the most benefit to your client. This benefit comes in the form of more traffic, customers and revenue. So, you need to work out which search terms will deliver most traffic and which are easiest to rank for.

Because your keywords/phrases will be local in nature, the search volumes for them will be pretty low in comparison to more generic terms. This limits the effectiveness of many enterprise keyword research tools because they just don’t have enough data to give you accurate insight on the search volumes for long tail, local terms.

So I would suggest that you use a combination of the following tools for your keyword research:

1. Local Marketing Source-keyword tool – a very useful, free tool for generating extensive list of local search terms
2. Google’s PPC keyword tool – another free tool which provides an estimate of monthly searches for long tail local terms with geo-modifiers in them (e.g. Lawyer Boston or Dentist San Diego)
3. Google Trends – (also free) this tool is useful for search volumes for geo-modified terms vs. non geo-modified terms (e.g., Lawyer Boston vs. Lawyer)

Outcome from this step: you should have a list of target search terms ordered by their monthly search volumes so you can identify the best search terms to target and track for your client.

2.  Identify The Top Ranked Businesses For These Terms Or Industry/Location

Search competitors are often different from real-world competitors. So, you need to work out who ranks consistently high in results for both local search and organic search engines. Create a shortlist of competitors (5-10) which you can use to benchmark your client against.

Useful tools to help with identifying top local competitors:

1. Google itself – you can manually identify these competitors
2. Google+ Local Wizard (from BrightLocal) targeted tool which analyzes Google+ results and optimization
3. Placesscout – suite of tools geared to tracking and monitoring local SEO performance
4. GPScraper – powerful tool for finding local prospects and comparing Google+ performance

Outcome from this step: a list of 5-10 businesses that rank the best for your target search terms.

3.  Benchmark Your Client Vs. Competitors

Now that you know your competitors, you can turn your attention to benchmarking. Focusing on the key local ranking factors, you need to establish how well your client is doing and how they compare to their top competitors.

You should examine the factors which you as an SEO can directly influence, e.g., Google+ optimization, links, citations etc.

There are other factors, such as business location, which you can influence through non-orthodox measures (e.g., establish a virtual location for your client), but these aren’t easy to do and are not the first things you should focus on.

Drawing from the 2012 Local Search Ranking Factors study, the highest priority factors you can influence are:

• Google+ Listing Optimization – listing verification, category selection, local address and number etc.
• Website optimization – authority (aka Page Rank) of client’s website, inclusion of local signals on the site, backlinks to the site
• Citations – both quantity and quality of citations for the business
• Reviews – quantity of reviews on Google+ and 3rd-party sources
• Review ‘Score’ – rating received on Google+ listing

You need to gather data on these factors for both your client and their competitors and put them into a table which makes it easy for you to compare your client vs. competitors.

Below is a screen shot of what this table should display to make benchmarking easy.

Some of the same tools mentioned above can also help with competitor benchmarking:

1. Google+ Local Wizard
2. Placesscout
3. GPScraper

Outcome from this step: a table of data which clearly shows if your customer is doing better or worse than its top 5-10 local competitors for these key local ranking factors.

If you completed these steps correctly, you will have all the information you need to be able to answer those three questions we asked earlier:

1. Where is my client now and how does their SEO compare to their competitors?
2. What SEO tasks do I need to focus on as a priority and what can I put aside for now?
3. How much work is needed to get my client into top x search results for their key terms?

Benchmarking Helps You Pick The Right Battles

By seeing how your client compares to their competitors, you can now prioritize the activities you need to undertake. Benchmarking makes it clear which factors you should focus on and which ones you should park for now. This will save you a heap of time and stops you from chasing red herrings down a blind alley (is that a muddled metaphor or just mixed thinking?).

Prioritization is all about picking the right battles, and those battles will be different for each client. Most campaigns will require you to ‘battle’ on 2, 3, 4, etc. things at once — it’s rare that improving one SEO factor makes all the difference.

Here are two simplified examples which highlight the fact that each client’s case is different and will require a slightly different approach to improve their ranking.

Example 1: Google+ Listing Optimization Is A Quick Win

Your client has only got 60 citations and 120 backlinks. That’s low and must be the reason they’re not ranking well. So, you must go out and build lots more links and citations.

But on closer inspection, you see that the top ranked businesses actually have fewer or less citations and links, but they still out rank your client.

So actually, citations and links are not the problem, but what is? Well, your client hasn’t bothered to verify its Google+ listing and to select the best categories for it’s services.

Great, that’s pretty easy to fix, and you should find that with some smart optimization work on their Google+ listing so that they jump up the rankings. That’s a quick win for you and makes you look great!

It also means that you haven’t charged off and spent three weeks building links and citations for an unverified and unoptimized Google+ listing.

Example 2: Building Citations And Links Are The Key

Your client has claimed its Google+ listing, and it’s nicely optimized with the right categories, local NAP, description and photos. They have 150 citations and 350 links, which is pretty good for a local site. But, they don’t have any reviews yet and no Google ‘score.’

So, you spend six weeks putting together a clever strategy for generating reviews from their most satisfied customers, and get their staff whipped up into a frenzy about the importance of reviews and how this will make all the difference.

But, two months pass, and there is still no improvement in their rankings. Hmm…

Then, you decide to do some benchmarking, and you find that this client has fewer citations and links than competitors, and that most competitors only have 1-2 reviews themselves. So, you actually need to focus on citations and links rather than reviews. Having those reviews isn’t bad, but it shouldn’t have been the first thing you focus on and wasn’t an effective use of your time and effort.

Now, you need to change your strategy and find a smart way of explaining this to your client without making you look incompetent!

Secondary Research Gives You The Ammunition You Need

Now that you know what factors to focus on, you can kick off the next phase of research. This secondary research gets under the hood of the main issues and provides the detailed data which you’ll need to carry out your tasks.

Website Audit

Whatever the outcome of your benchmarking, it’s always advisable to audit a client’s site. Nine  times out of ten, there will be improvements which can be made which will aid your wider activities. As search engines blend their local and main search algorithms, the influence of organic ranking factors on local search rankings will continue to grow.

In your site audit, you should look out for usual, on-site issues such as error pages, missing meta content, lack of keyword focused content and poor internal linking.

But also look out for local signals such as having the business name, address and phone number on every page, use of proper schema.org mark-up, location and category words in the pages titles and meta content, Google map or map link on the contact us page.

Useful website auditing tools:

There are a slew of excellent site auditing tools out there, so I’m going to cherry pick a few and invite readers to mention their favorites in the comments section below.

1. WebCEO (doesn’t include local signals)
2. SEOmoz (doesn’tcurrently include local signals)
3. Woorank (doesn’t include local signals)
4. Local SEO Check Up (does include local signals)

Citation Finding

If citations is an area you need to focus on, then you need to build up a prioritized list of directories and sites to target. But before you do this, you should identify which sites your client already has listings on so that you can review the accuracy of these listings and then track citation growth over time.

The easiest and most productive way to build your target list of citation sites is to spy on your competitors and copy them! If you know which sites they are listed on, and which of those sites are the most powerful, then you can quickly create a priority list of sites to add your client to.

Useful citation tracking and citation finding tools:

1. Citation Tracker (by BrightLocal)
2. Whitespark
3. Placescout
4. SweetIQ
5. GetListed.org

Link Building

If your client has a low number of links and a poor link profile, then you obviously need to tackle this — links are an undeniably important factor in good SEO performance.

Link building is a huge subject and one that it is hard to summarize in a short paragraph. It’s also extensively covered in other articles on SEL — so I thought I would point you to three of the best articles which focus on local link building.

1.  How To Rank Nationally With Local Links
2. 5 Local Linkbuilding Ideas For The Post-Penguin/Panda Era
3. 10 Unorthodox Ideas For Local Citations & Links

Beyond Research: Tracking Against Your Starting Point

Once you start your SEO activity, you need to track your client’s performance and compare it back to your starting point. This tells you if the actions you’re taking are proving successful and if you should carry on or if you should change tack.

Some actions can have a very quick impact — such as verifying and optimizing your client’s Google+ listing — while others will take longer to kick in, e.g., citation building. So it’s worth being aware of the typical time frames so you know when you should start to see improvements in performance.

You also want to keep track of competitor performance and continue to benchmark your clients. You can be sure that the top ranked businesses will be working hard on their SEO, so those initial targets you set will need to be revised.

What Metrics You Should Track

It’s useful to track a number of metrics because they each provide a different piece of the jigsaw:

1. Citations and Links: it’s very useful to keep track of the citations and links you build. While many clients may not appreciate the significance of these numbers, it provides evidence of the work you’re doing ,which is useful in the early days before rankings and traffic pick up. It also allows you to benchmark your performance against competitors
2. Search Rankings: there’s a definite anti-rankings vibe in the SEO world right now, but tracking you search rankings still has its merits. Rankings can act like an early warning signal for successes or failings with a campaign. If your client’s rankings start below page one, then you might see ranking improvements well before actual site traffic increases, so this alerts you earlier to the impact your work is having.
3. Site Traffic: knowing how many extra visitors you drive to a client’s site is critical. This is the proof that your actions are generating leads for you client to convert into customers.
4.  Online Contact: track how many site visitors engage with your client online by tracking actions on the site such as completion of contact us forms, clicks on email links (trackable in analytics) and coupon downloads.
5. Phone Call Tracking: many local searches result in an offline interaction. It’s hard to track shop visits back to specific online activity, but you can track phone calls. Local businesses love to hear their phone ring, and tracking calls gives you proof that you’re delivering tangible results for your client.

This must have been a tough decision for Raven’s management team to make, and I’m sure they agonized over it before deciding on this course.

This event got me thinking about the relationship between SEOs and the tools they use, and wondering how much understanding there was about how tools work and how to select the best tools for you.

An Insiders View Of SEO Tools & Software Companies

I thought it would be useful to give an insiders view of how SEO tools and software (‘tools’) work, addressing some regular questions which arise. I also thought it would be useful to provide a checklist of questions you should ask when researching which local SEO focused tools to use.

Image via Shutterstock, used under license

And, to make this post even more useful, I have curated a list of the leading ‘locally-focused’ tools, what they do and what they cost. Enjoy!

What Are The Benefits Of Using SEO Tools?

Every week, I speak to an SEO who tells me that they do all their research by hand and manually track their performance, often storing data in uber-sized excel sheets. Whenever I hear this, I want to scream out ‘why! why would you subject yourself to that?’

Data is power in SEO. We need fresh, accurate data to inform every decision we make. Gathering this data by hand is such a waste of precious time which would be much better spent analyzing findings, taking informed action and working closely with existing  and potential clients.

The reason we (for the purposes of full disclosure: BrightLocal) switched from being an agency to a ‘tools’ business is because we struggled to cope with the volume of intensive, data-gathering tasks we need to complete each day, and we could not find appropriate tools to automate them. So we built them ourselves.

SEO is a cerebral occupation. Data gathering is not. Using tools to automate these time-consuming processes frees up valuable time and enables you to spend more time focusing on your clients, implementing strategies, finding solutions, winning new customers and knocking off a few hours earlier on a Friday to have a beer with your team.

SEO Is Not An Exact Science, Neither Is Reporting

SEO isn’t conducted in a lab, and for each situation, there are a ton of variables and relationships which influence the results. We can repeat the same action for different campaigns, and the results are always slightly different.

Our approaches and methods are also different. SEO strategies are often similar, but the actions and implementation can vary greatly from one SEO to the next; but, both can achieve great results for their clients.

The same is true for tools and reports. Different tools have different approaches based on the knowledge of the team who develop them. You may run a ‘citation tracker’ report using one tool and get 155 citations, while the same report on another tool yields 178.

Who’s correct?

They both are, given that they have their own interpretation of how to calculate citations, and we can never be 100% sure of what Google’s own citation index contains (it would be nice if they told us, wouldn’t it!)

One area where we encounter a lot of questions is on ranking report accuracy and the impact of ‘personalization’ of search results.

As search engines modify results based on personal factors such as location, search history and social connections, each one of us gets a tailored set of search results which are slightly different from the next person. This leads to confusion when comparing ranking report results with manual look-ups — the results don’t always match. But which is correct? Well, there really isn’t a correct answer anymore, so we’re both right, and we’re both wrong (arrrrgggghhhhhhh…)

So what you need to look for in your tools is a ‘good’ degree of accuracy, a methodology you agree with and consistency in the results. Ranking reports are best used to show performance trends. You need to understand the impact of the work you’re doing, and this can be seen by upward/downward trends in rankings over time.

Ranking reports aren’t the only way to measure performance, and tracking traffic and conversion alongside ranking gives a more complete picture of campaign performance.

How Do Tools Gather Their Data?

Different tools use different methods to gather their data, and it’s useful to understand these methods and how they can affect tool performance and reliability.

APIs – tools which use APIs (e.g., Google Adwords API) have approved access to the data they get via the API. Data providers create APIs because they want other businesses to use their data within 3rd party services or tools. This data is typically well structured and easy to use, and data providers often charge for API usage.

Because the data providers create the API, they also support it and update it as they update their own site/data structure. They notify their API users of these changes, which makes it much easier for tool companies to update their tools, so they continue to work with API updates.

Scraping – this is, essentially, unapproved access to information which is gained by extracting data published on another website. Scraping uses automated techniques to ‘scrape‘ this information from a webpage and often mirrors human action so they can go undetected.

Because ‘scraping‘ is not approved access, it is often harder to process this data (vs. an API), and any changes made to a website may not be immediately picked up by the tool, which means there will be data inaccuracies until the tool is updated to match the website changes.

Scraping is common place among tools, and there’s often no other way to get the data that we present in our reports. Just because a tool uses scraped data doesn’t mean it’s bad, but you should expect more bumps in the road as data sources change and tool companies scramble to adapt to these changes.

SEO Tools Are Working Machines With Many Moving Parts

Good quality, professional tools are powerful pieces of software. They are working machines with moving parts.

The nice-looking interfaces and reports a user sees is just the tip of iceberg. Behind this is a mountain of sophisticated code and infrastructure which gathers data for the reports, processes it, analyzes it, stores it and spits out the results in a pretty-looking table or chart.

It’s inevitable that parts of the machine will break or slowdown and need fixing. This isn’t a sign of a bad tool, but a reality of working with multifaceted, complex software. The key is how fast these issues are dealt with and if they re-occur.

You shouldn’t be surprised if things don’t always work, but you should expect them to be dealt with swiftly. So, be sure to report any issues you find — having extra eyes and brains to spot an issue helps to get things fixed faster.

Supportability Vs. Customization

As I mentioned above, all SEO’s have their own approach to their work. Because of this, as a tool provider, we get a lot of requests for new features which are very specific to a customer’s needs and the way that person/agency operates.

We’d love to be able to satisfy everyone’s requirements, but it’s just not possible without creating a monster toolkit which is overly complex and really hard to support and maintain.

So, we have to be selective about the changes we implement and make decisions which benefit the majority of customers. Creating something new isn’t the tough part, it’s the long term support and maintenance which is.

8-Point Checklist To Help Choose The Right Tools For You

It’s very important that you understand the tools you use and select the right tools for your business. You obviously need them to be fit for purpose, but also, the more time you invest in using these tools, the more reliant on them you become, the more familiar your clients become with the reports, and the harder it is for you to switch. So, be sure to make the right choice at the start.

You need to think about what you need today, but also what you will need in 6 months, 12 months and even 3 years down the line.

Here is an 8-point checklist for you to use when evaluating which tools are right for you.

1. What is the breadth vs. depth of the tools?

Some tools have a broad offering and cover many different areas of reporting and monitoring, while others specialize in one specific area. You need tools which mirror the services you offer (plan to offer).  Do you need the detailed attention of a specialist tool, can you combine multiple specialist tools, or will a ‘Swiss army knife’ do the job you need?

2. What is the cost of the tools and does this work within your pricing model?

Tools can vary greatly in price (sometimes with very little difference in the offering); so, you need to clearly understand what the price is and what the pricing model is. Is it subscription fee? Is it price per location? Is there a 12 month discount? You need to work this cost into your business model and make sure it fits.

You also need to know how that price scales. As you add more customers and reports, how does the cost change, and can the tools scale with your business?

3. What customization options are there?

Do the tools offer white label reports and do they offer full re-brandable dashboards which you can give your customers access to? These can enhance your brand, add functionality to your site and add credibility to your services; so, it’s important to leverage them.

4. How do they gather their data?

Is the bulk of their data gathered using APIs or scraping? If they scrape data, then what monitoring do they have in place to pick up changes in their data sources, and what SLAs do the offer (if any) for updating their service when changes are detected.

5. How regularly are the tools updated?

It’s important that you choose tools which are well invested in and which are regularly updated and improved. Updates are often announced in blog posts and in ‘change logs’ on the site.

You should look to see when the last update was and how many updates have been made in the last few months. You want to ensure that the tools you use will keep getting better and will adapt to the changing LoSoMo landscape.

Also, will you get automatic access to any updates and enhancements, or will you need to pay for these?

And, will your package price remain fixed forever, or is it subject to change as the tools change?

6. What technical and customer support do they provide?

As with any sophisticated software, things can go wrong, and/or you’ll have questions about how to use it. It’s important to check what level of technical support and customer support are provided and what response times are worked to.

If the tools offer a free trial period, then find out if you get the same level of support during the free trial as you do when you are a paying customer.

Do they offer phone or live chat support, or is it just email support? If you really need to, can you talk to someone — there’s nothing more frustrating than not having your emails go answered and have no other means to contact the company!

7. What training and support content is there to help you learn about the tools?

Are there comprehensive FAQs, video guides and other support documents which you can read/watch so that you get a detailed understanding of how to use the tools?

8. Do they offer an API for their tools?

More and more agencies are building their own reporting dashboards and tools. You may be planning to do this now or in the future, so it’s good to know if your tools provider has an API and what it costs to use.

Typically, the fees for API access are based on your usage and are additional to normal subscription fees. So, find out what can be accessed using the API and what the costs are.

Comparison Of Local SEO Tools & Software

The tables below contain a list of the well-regarded, locally-focused tools. There are tons of other tools which deal with other aspects of link building, content creation, PPC, call tracking, etc…

Table 1 – Comparison of Fees & Platform Capabilities

Table 2 – Comparison of SEO Features/Services

Admittedly, this list is not exhaustive but offers a targeted list of tools for you to start with, and I’m happy to add others on recommendation so please contact me via my author page with your suggestions (the more details you can give me the better!)

I am constantly impressed by the level of professionalism, innovation and entrepreneurship which abounds in the local/social industry. I’ve worked in and closely observed other industries, but I haven’t encountered another which has the same feverish pursuit of new opportunities. Bees and honey pots come to mind.

I want to use this post to highlight some significant trends discussed at the Summit and how they will impact us jobbing SEOs. But I also want to warn that the rapid pace of innovation is in danger of leaving local business owners struggling to keep up.

Key Trends Affecting The LoSoMo Industry

1. Mobile is king
2. Rise of ‘Local Discovery’
3. Data Purity & Ubiquity
4. Shift from Acquisition to Retention
5. Solution led Service

Mobile Is King

This topic has been done to death, so I’m not going to dwell on it too much. We should have all read the key facts by now, but as a quick refresher:

• Mobile Internet usage to surpass desktop Internet usage in 2014*
• 50% of smartphone users have used a local app
• Mobile advertising spend to hit US$15 billion in 2015 (was US$1 billion in 2011)

Anecdotally, I caught up with a representative from Yelp who told me that approx 45% of searches on Yelp are done via their mobile apps. Given that Yelp had 84 million unique visitors in Q3, 2012, while their app was used on just 8.2 million mobile devices in this period, it shows a huge level of activity by their mobile audience.

While the headline figures are hugely exciting, it’s interesting to note that only 10% of Internet usage is done on mobile,** so a lot fewer pages/visits are being consumed by mobile users. Also, the most popular place for using a smartphone is in the home. So, while mobile is undeniably a game changer for the LoSoMo industry, the behavior of mobile users isn’t necessarily what we might presume it to be.

*Based on number of users accessing Internet on a mobile device

**Based on number of pages consumed on a mobile device

The Rise of ‘Local Discovery’

‘Local Discovery’ is an evolution of ‘Local Search.’

The difference being that ‘Search’ is broad and requires the user to invest time and effort in narrowing down and identifying the content they want.

‘Discovery’ is about presenting users with pre-filtered results based on their preferences, location and other elements of personalization. It means less effort on the part of user, and more curation and editorial involvement by site/application owners.

It’s hard to do this well on large sites which cover a broad set of verticals and locations (e.g., Superpages, YP.com) because of the need for detailed understanding of each industry or market. For a consumer to put their trust in a service which pre-filters results, the consumer needs to know that site/app is a specialist in their field.

So, we should expect to see a rise in the number of niche-industry apps and hyper-local applications which can afford to dedicate their time to understanding an industry and getting the best deals and latest information about the businesses they cover.

Tips for local business owners & SEOs: Keep a look out for new sites and mobile apps which are dedicated to your industry and city. Make sure your business is correctly listed on them (see ‘Data Purity & Ubiquity’ below) and engage with these sites to supply deals and content which will convert their users into your customers.

Data Purity & Ubiquity

While the mobile Web and the desktop Web may compete with each other for a user’s time, the data which drives them is essentially the same.

Yelp’s apps use the same database as yelp.com. Google maps app uses the same database as Google maps on your PC (algo differences aside). And many of the data aggregators which supply business info to websites also feed mobile sites and applications — with a few others which you may not have considered (e.g., TomTom feeds into Apple Maps, Nokia has its own solution)

We all appreciate the need to build ‘citations’ and ensure that the data shared about our business is accurate and consistent across as many directories and data aggregators as possible.

Well… this task just got more important. Mobile Internet users consume less pages and take action quicker than PC Web users. So, if your information is inaccurate or (worse) absent from a site, then you will be missing out on more and more potential customers.

Tips for local business owners & SEOs: Double your citation efforts so that you clean up incorrect listings and build out new listings on data aggregators and directories. Be sure to add you listings to services like TomTom & Nokia so you get into their ecosystem and data supply chain.

Shift From Acquisition To Retention

The objective and role of SEOs has typically been to acquire new customers for our clients. But, we know from our own businesses that it is easier to extend a relationship with an existing customer than it is to win a new one.

New customer acquisition has higher costs and higher churn associated with it, as well as diminishing returns in the long run. However, retaining existing customers and extracting more money from them is much more profitable.

Tip for SEOs:  So, for SEOs who serve SMB customers, we should be thinking about how we reposition ourselves to help our clients with both their acquisition and retention.

Why SMBs in particular? Well, these businesses typically don’t have a ‘retention’ specialist, so this role is there for the taking!

Solution Led Service

SEO is a service industry, and our fees are defined by the time and expertise we can bring to a client’s business.

In the future, we will combine our service with solutions. These are technical solutions which our clients will need to enable better customer management, retention (see above), email marketing, mobile marketing, call tracking, content publishing, etc.

These aren’t solutions which we develop ourselves, but ones we curate from the market. We use our knowledge to pre-select the right solutions for our clients and become experts in using them so our clients don’t have to!

Tip for SEOs: Start to review the available solutions in the market. Build up your technical ‘armory’ which you can present to clients and then provide the service layer on top to run and manage them. In this scenario, you not only get paid for time and expertise, but also for the solutions you can bring to the table.

Don’t Leave Business Owners Floundering

As I alluded to at the start of this post, the innovation on display at the Local Social Summit was very impressive. But, while we charge ahead with developing new solutions, we are in danger of leaving SMBs behind… far, far behind.

Most SMBs are still grappling with how to use Facebook and Twitter effectively, and simply don’t have the time or headspace to appreciate the latest opportunities we present to them.

As an industry, we need to be wary of overloading SMBs with new opportunities and losing their interest. But, this is good news for SEOs. We can be the trusted filter through which new opportunities reach SMBs; we can do the hard work of analyzing the options and presenting the best solutions to them. And then provide the service and support to make the most of these exciting new opportunities.

It’s nice to get back to blogging but I have to admit that I feel a bit off the pace. Writing is like exercise; once you are out of practice the first time back takes longer and feels harder to produce content that you’re happy with.

Before I started writing this post I did a sweep through the last few months of Local Search and SEO articles on SEL and on other prominent blogs. I reminded myself of just how much information there is out there and how much new data we churn out each month. SEOs are information junkies! The more insights, research, data and charts we can consume the better; we love this stuff.

But this glut of information is overwhelming for business owners and even for some experienced SEOs to make sense of – myself included.

Information is our greatest asset, but also a potential threat. We can also obsess about the minutiae and lose sight of the value of the key building blocks which make up solid, effective local SEO strategy. We are in danger of making SEO an impenetrable topic which daunts business owners rather than exciting them.

I think a important quality of a good SEO is someone who can think like an expert but talk like a layman.

With this in mind, I decided to peel back the layers of complexity and draw out what I consider to be the most simple yet valuable parts of good local SEO strategy.

I hope that this is useful for business owners by providing them a few fundamentals to focus on, and useful for SEOs by reminding us of the value in doing the simple things well.

Basic Building Blocks For Local SEO

For a local business owner, it’s helpful to understand the basics of good local SEO.

If you tackle SEO yourself or engage someone to do it for you, knowing what’s critical and what’s not will save you time, money and effort.

The 3 rule playbook:

1. Get your website up to scratch
2. Spread your business details far and wide
3. Be social! Promote yourself and get your customers to promote you

1.  Get Your Website Up To Scratch

Since Google started to combine its normal search results and local search results, your website plays a big part in getting good rankings in local search results as well as normal search results.

There are several things you need get right on your website:

a) Make the website structure clear and accessible to search engines & users

You need to spend some time making sure that your website has a simple, flat hierarchy of pages with the most important pages linked to directly from the homepage. All the pages which you want Google to view should be accessible; provide clear ‘sign-posts’ by using plenty of internal links between your pages, creating an XML sitemap and placing a robots.txt file on your site.

This ensures that Google’s crawlers go where you want them to go and they know which pages you consider to be the most important.

b) Fill your site with good content and plenty of it!

Having good content on your site has always been important but recent changes to Google’s algorithm have made it even more critical for effective SEO.

You need to make sure that you have plenty of content on your site which describes the services you offer and the locations you serve. Your content says everything about you – to Google and to your site visitors – so take some time to consider the search terms people might use to find your services, and then use these terms within the content of your pages. But don’t overuse them - Google can penalize your site if you repeat phrases too often and stuff search terms into your content. Just make sure it sounds natural when you read it.

Don’t forget the text you can’t see. Be sure add descriptive ‘alt text’ to your photos & images and include your most important search terms in your page titles so they tell Google exactly what each page is about.

Try and add new content to your site every week or 2 through a blog post or company update. This gives search engines a reason to come back to your site and re-crawl it. It can also help to generate backlinks to your site when other site owners & bloggers find it; and it gives you something useful to tweet, share and email your customers with. All of which can be very useful for your SEO and sales.

c) Make it easy for site visitors to contact you

Once someone gets to your site then make it easy for them to contact you. Display your contact details prominently on each page and use a simple contact form to enable users to request a call back.

If you operate from a physical location where your customers can come to you then put your address and link to a Google map on every page. This reinforces your location and leaves Google in no doubt about where you’re located.

If you have multiple locations then have a contact us page which has all your locations as well as 1 page per location. If you have too many locations to do this in a sensible way then just be sure that Google can find each ‘location page’ easily through good internal links and sitemap.

2.  Spread Your Business Details Far & Wide

The Internet is all about information. Websites contain information; directories curate information; Google filters information; mobile applications use information.

In your case the most important information is your business details – your business name, postal address, phone number, description of services, photos, working hours etc…

Having your correct business details widely available is positive for local SEO and sets you up nicely to take advantage of the mobile-boom. Many of the same data sources which feed the desktop internet also feed mobile sites and applications so even if your website isn’t mobile enabled your business will appear on popular mobile applications.

There are 3 actions to focus on -

a) Get your information on to as many local directories and sites as possible

There are hundreds of local, niche or national directories you can submit your business information to. You can either submit directly to them or go via ‘data aggregators’ who sell information to directories. Using both direct submissions and submitting to aggregators ensures that your information gets on to as many sites as possible.

b) Fix incorrect information

If your business has changed name, moved location or switched phone numbers then the chances are that somewhere online your old information is hanging about like a bad smell. Having old or incorrect information displayed on directories is confusing for Google and your potential customers. This can hamper your SEO performance so you should update wrong information as quickly as possible.

If you can submit an update directly to a directory then do it. This ensures that your information is updated quickly and gives you control of that information moving forward.

c) Take control of that information

Should you ever move location, change phone number or want to add more detail to your business information, then having control of your directory listings and aggregator profiles is crucial.

You can do this by claiming your listings on directories; it’s pretty time intensive to claim each listing but once you have control then you can update, enhance or even delete your listings at your own discretion.

See below for a list of services & data aggregators which can help with distributing your business information & claiming your profiles.

3. Be Social! Promote Yourself & Get Your Customers To Promote You

Google is putting more and more value in ‘social votes’ for your business (e.g. tweets, likes, shares & check ins) and many SEOs expect these to be more valuable than traditional backlinks in the near future.

Here are 3 things to concentrate on -

a) Register your business on most prominent social sites

It’s surprising how many local businesses still haven’t done this so make sure you’re not one of them! Get yourself a Twitter, Google+ and Facebook page for your business.

If your business has a location which people come to then your should also have a Foursquare profile so customers can ‘check-in’ when they visit.

b) Make it easy for site visitors & bloggers to spread the word about your business

Do the simple stuff well. Make sure you have prominent tweet & share buttons on every page of your site. Encourage your customers to follow you on twitter and ‘friend’ you on Facebook; make it worth their while by offering perks and special deals which are only available to your followers/friends.

As you build your following, use it. Be pro-active and share all your blog posts, updates or special offers on all the social sites you use. Combine your social activity to your content. Every time you write a new blog post then tweet it. Every time you launch a special offer, share it on Facebook & Google Plus.

And think about how you can give those in your network a reason to share and re-tweet your news. Incentivize them with some extra value or prizes for promoting your business for you.

c) Get your customers to leave online reviews on Google+, Yelp & other directories

Getting your customers to leave online reviews for your business has 2 benefits.

Firstly, reviews can help to improve your local SEO ranking. Secondly, and more significantly, they will help to convince potential customers to choose your business over a competitor.

If you have more reviews and a better rating than other businesses listed side by side with you on Google, then which business is a potential customer going to try first?

Google+ & Yelp have the greatest reach of potential customers so you should prioritize reviews on these sites. Everyone knows that Google is the king of local, but did you know that Yelp is the sole provider of reviews to the new Apple Maps service? Think of all those iPhone users wondering around your neighborhood!

However, it’s good practice to have reviews on a mix of directories because they all have their own audiences and value;  if you have a strong niche directory for your industry (think TripAdvisor, Urbanspoon) then make sure you include them as part of your review campaigns.

Oh, One More Thing…

It won’t be long before Internet use on mobiles outstrips the desktop so local businesses need to make sure they take advantage of this powerful and targeted opportunity.

As a start, you should make sure that:

• Your website is optimized for mobile or has a mobile version – it’s pretty quick and cheap to do these days
• Your business is listed on Apple Maps (see list of data providers for Apple Maps)
• Your Google+ listings is displayed in Google Maps
• Your business is listed on all prominent local apps (see list of popular Local Apps)

List of US & UK data aggregators:

1. Localeze – US data aggregator
2. InfoUSA – US data aggregator
3. Axciom – US data aggregator
4. Thomson – UK data aggregator
5. Local Data Company – UK data aggregator
6. Market Locations – UK data aggregator

List of data distribution & local listing services:

1. UBL.org – US, Canada, UK & Australia
2. Yext – US
3. Citation Burst (by Brightlocal) – US, Canada & UK

About Local Consumer Review Survey 2012

This online survey was conducted between 15th January – 1^st March 2012. A set of 18 questions were put to a survey panel of 4,500 local consumers located in US, Canada and UK. We received 2,862 respondents.

This is the 2^nd wave of the Local Consumer Review Survey. The 1st wave of this survey was conducted in late 2010/early 2011. We compared results between the two waves (2010-2012) to determine any change in consumer attitudes and behaviour.*

Recap: Part 1 & Part 2 Of Local Consumer Review Survey 2012

Part 1 dealt with the consumption of online reviews and the influence they have on consumer behaviour and purchase of local business services. You can view the key findings and analysis here or read the full set of findings on the BrightLocal.com research portal.

See findings from Local Consumer Survey 2012 – Part 1

Part 2 dealt with Local Business Types, online ‘Reputation’ and building trust through online reviews.

See findings from Local Consumer Survey 2012 – Part 2

In Part 3 of the survey we ask 5 questions relating to consumers propensity to recommend a local business, which channels they actively use and what factors are likely to encourage them to recommend a business to people they know.

5  Questions

1. Select the Business Types you have/would recommend to (people you know) if you had a good or bad experience?
2. In the last 12 months have you recommended a local business by any of the following methods?
3. Which of these factors would make you more likely to recommend a local business to people you know?
4. Would you be more likely to recommend a local business if they had a good value offer or discount?
5. Would you be more likely to promote a local business if you could benefit personally from doing so?

Q1. Select the business types you have recommend to people you know if you had a good or bad experience? (select as many as you like)

Key Findings: 

• 65% of people have recommened a Restaurant or Cafe
• 49% have recommended a Doctor / Dentist
• 43% have recommended a Hotel, B&B or Guest House

Analysis

Consumers ar prepared to recommend any local business they use as long the experience warrents it. Some business types are more likely to be shared than others due to their nature – i.e. people got to restaurants every week and so there are more experiences to share; doctors and dentists provide such a critical and personal service that people don’t want to pick one at random from yellow pages so ask their friends for recommendations etc…

Even at the business types at the right hand end of the chart have high relative scores. About 16% have recommended their Yoga Class/ Alternative Therapy, but what percentage of the poulation actually uses these services? I would guess that 16% was a very high relative score for this particular sector.

Q2. In the last 12 months, have you recommended a local business to people you know by any of the following methods?

Key Findings

• The number of people sharing advice via WoM has dropped from 79% to 77%
• 32% of people now make recommendations via Facebook – up 5% on 2010
• 13% of people share recommendations/reviews on Google Maps/Google Places
• Only 9% of people share recommendations on Twitter

Analysis

Word of Mouth (WoM) still dominates other channels but Facebook is really growing as a force for sharing experiences and recommendations of local businesses.

While WoM remains very high, it’s increasingly apparent that people are using a wider range of channels to share their experiences. The average ‘channels per respondent’ figure rose from 1.23 (2010) to 1.42 (2012)

We added in Google Places/Google Maps as a distinct option in this year’s survey (to make it distinct from ‘other directories’) which accounts for some, not all, of the increase.

As the 3^rd most used channel, Google Places outperforms twitter by nearly 50%. Given the wider popularity and daily use of Twitter this is surprising; however Google Places is only about ‘Local’ and this focus means it’s a more regularly used channel than Twitter for sharing ‘local experiences’.

Chart: Men vs Women

Key Findings:

• Men use more channels to share their experiences than women – avg. channels per user = Men 1.53 vs. Women 1.33.
• 20% of Men share via Google Places vs. 7% of Women.
• 78% of women share via WoM vs. 74% of Men.

Analysis

Men appear to be embracing other communication channels more than women to share their experiences. Interestingly 20% of men have used Google Places to recommend a local business – nearly 3x more than women.

Q3. Which of these factors would make you more likely to recommend a local business to people you know?

Key Findings:

• 65% of respondents said that they would recommend a business which provides Professional & Reliable service (vs. 60% in 2010).
• 45% said they would recommend a business which provides Good Value service.
• 45% said they would recommend a business which was Friendly & Welcoming.
• Just 16% would recommend a business because they were asked to do so.

Chart: Men vs. Women

Key Findings:

• Women are more inclined to recommend a business than men, and for a variety of reasons.
• For Men, Professional & Reliable service is the most significant factor by some way (65% vs. 39% for cheap pricing).
• 46% of Women are more likely to recommend a business is they have a special offer vs. just 27% of Men.

Q4. Would you be more likely to recommend a local business to people you know if they had a good value offer or discount?

Key Findings: 

• 66% of people would recommend a business (which has a special offer) – vs. 52% from 2010
• 96% of people would consider recommending a business – vs. 89% in 2010
• Only 4% of people said ‘No’ they would not recommend a business

Analysis

It appears that consumers are increasingly swayed by special offers and promotions – maybe a sign of the tough economic times. In 2012, we see a significant jump in consumers’ propensity to recommend a business which has a good value special offer.

Local business owners should use special offers intelligently to keep existing customers returning and also as a tool to generate recommendations and ‘talkability’ about their service.

Chart: Men vs. Women

Key Findings: 

• 98% of Men would recommend a business which has a good special offer vs. 93% of Women

Analysis

Both sexes are keen on special offers but Men have greater propensity to tell their friends & colleagues about it (brag about it even?!)

Q5. Would you be more likely to promote a local business to people you know if you could benefit personally from doing so?

Key Findings:

• 35% of consumers would recommend a business if they benefited from it – vs 41% in 2010.
• 40% of consumers might recommend a business if they benefited from it – vs 27% in 2010.

Analysis

The 2012 results show that more consumers are open to the idea of promoting a business if they could benefit directly. However, respondents were less keen to provide a definite answer with 49% saying ‘Maybe’ or ‘Unlikely’.

It’s obvious that the nature and scale of the incentive plays a significant part in whether a consumer does or does not promote a business. If a local business owner is able to calculate the value of a new customer and a cost per lead they would be willing to pay, then this provides a budget level for incentivising existing customers.

Being ‘generous’ with this incentive could create a powerful new acquisition tool for their business.

Chart: Men vs. Women

Key Findings:

• 41% of men would recommend a business if they could benefit directly vs. 31% of women.
• 24% of women would definitely not recommend a business vs. just 7% of men.

Analysis

Again, men are more inclined to recommend a business and the potential to benefit personally amplifies this. Local business owners should actively promote their offers to all customers but extra attention/focus on their male customers may see a greater return on effort.

Smart business owners will create offers which appeal to the different sexes, and they may have to provide greater value to their female customers in order to spark them into recommending their business.

• 24% of women would definitely not recommend a business vs. just 7% of men.

Local Consumer Review Survey 2012 – White Paper

We (BrightLocal) will be publishing the full set of findings from the Local Consumer Review Survey as a white paper. This will include the full set of findings from Parts 1,2 and 3 plus additional charts for Age Group comparison and Gender comparisons. These charts will be available for the 3rd party use (online and offline).

If you would like to receive the White Paper when it’s ready then please register your interest here.

Part 1 dealt with the consumption of online reviews and the influence they have on consumer behavior & purchase of local business services. You can view the key findings and analysis here on Search Engine Land.

About The Local Consumer Review Survey 2012

This online survey was conducted between 15th January – 1^st March 2012. A set of 18 questions were put to a survey panel of 4,500 local consumers located in US, Canada and UK. We received 2,862 respondents.

This is the 2^nd wave of the Local Consumer Review Survey. The 1st wave of this survey was conducted in late 2010/early 2011. We compared results between the 2 waves (2010-2012) to determine any change in consumer attitudes and behavior.*

*2010 survey had 2,012 participants from US & UK, but not Canada.

Local Business Types & Importance Of Reputation

In the 2nd part of the survey, we asked four questions relating to which types of local businesses searchers look for online and the importance of ‘Reputation’ for different businesses.

4 questions:

1. Which Types of Local Business you have searched for via the internet? (in last 12 months)
2. Which Types of Local Business you have read online reviews for? (in last 12 months)
3. For which types of local business does ‘Reputation’ matter the most?
4. Which ‘Reputation-trait’ is MOST important to you when selecting a local business?

For this post, we are also including a chart and analysis from Part 1 of the survey (see question 5) which shows how many reviews a consumer reads before they feel they can trust a local business. This provides insight on how quickly consumers form their opinions and relates to the importance of Reputation as a factor in forming this opinion.

Findings, Charts & Analysis

Q. 1 – From the following list: select the Business Types you have searched for via the Internet in the last 12 months? (select as many as you like)

Key Findings:

The most searched for type of business was Restaurants / Cafes – 57% (vs. 37% in 2010)

3 other categories also saw significant gains since 2010:

• Hotels/B&B/Guest house – 35% (vs. 29%)
• General Shops – 35% (vs. 30%)
• Clothes Shops – 34% (vs. 31%)
• Dentists/Doctors – 27% (vs. 21%)

A number of categories saw a fall on 2010 figures:

• Specialist shops (e.g. bike shops, computer shops)– 11% (vs. 21% in 2010)
• Hair/Beauty Salon – 9% (vs. 13%)
• Taxi/Car Hire -  5% (vs. 10%)

Analysis:

Entertainment and leisure businesses remain the most popular types of business to search for online (same as 2010). People use these businesses more frequently than most other businesses – e.g. Tradesmen, doctors – and there is a wealth of rich, useful and fun content available online.

The growth in searches for General Shops & Clothes Shops shows that consumers are focused on essential items vs. non-essential services such as beauty salons, specialist shops (e.g. computer shops) & taxis which have seen a drop on 2010.

Strangely, 5% more consumers searched for gardeners/cleaners which are often services which suffer first in recession times.

Q. 2 – From the following list: which of these businesses types have you read online customer reviews for? (select as many as you like)

Key Findings:

Up on 2010:

• Restaurants / Cafes – 46% of consumers read reviews (vs. 31% in 2010)
• Doctors & Dentists – 21% (vs. 11%)

Down on 2010 –

• Hotels/B&Bs/Guest Houses – 22% (vs. 26%)
• Specialist Shops – 9% (vs. 12%)
• General Shops – 9% (vs. 13%)

Analysis:

Consumption of reviews closely follows search trends and many searchers don’t separate or distinguish between the 2 actions. Google’s increasing inclusion of map results into main search results (i.e. blended results) brings the prominence of online reviews to the fore.

Review consumption is heavily concentrated in a few categories. However, it’s obvious that consumers do use to the internet for finding and researching local businesses at the point at which they need their services.

Having positive reviews & star ratings offers local businesses a great opportunity to standout from their competitors and grab searchers’ attention at this key point in the purchasing cycle.

Q. 3 – For which of these local business types does ‘Reputation’ matter the most when choosing a business? (select maximum 3)

Key Findings:

• Restaurants / Cafes – 32% (vs. 26% 2010)
• Doctors / Dentists – 27% selected (vs. 33%)
• Tradesmen – 23% (vs. 27% in 2010)

Analysis:

As with 2010, this year’s results show that Reputation is a factor which affects all type of businesses. The increasing prominence and consumption of online reviews makes public reputation  and  Some business types (e.g. Restaurants) have seen an increase in the importance of reputation while others (e.g. Hotels) have seen a decrease.

Across the board, there have been small fluctuations in scores vs. 2010. Some of these changes may be the result of changing consumer spending habits; however with the survey consisting of just 2,812 respondents, we suspect that these marginal changes could be exaggerated by the relatively small sample size.

Q4. – Which of the following ‘Reputation-traits’ is MOST important to you when selecting a local business to use?

Key Findings:

• 64% of consumers stated that ‘Reliability’ is most important trait (vs. 47% in 2010)
• 44% stated that ‘Good Value’ was important (vs. 35% in 2010)
• Less consumers are concerned with ‘softer’ traits such as courtesy, friendly service & ‘localness’

Analysis:

In the current economic climate, consumers are feeling the pinch on their finances and so are extremely cost-conscious. When using a local business, they want to know that they’re buying a good, reliable service at a good price. Consumers are prepared to tolerate less personable service if it means they can save a few dollars!

Q. 5 –  How many online reviews & ratings do you need to read before you feel that you can trust that business?

Key Findings:

• 65% of consumers read between 2-10 reviews (vs. 58% in 2010)
• Just 7% of consumers read more than 20 reviews (vs. 12% in 2010)

Analysis:

This year’s survey shows a decline in the number of reviews being read by consumers. Consumers are forming opinions faster and trusting reviews more, leading to lower consumption of reviews.

This puts even more emphasis on the Reputation, and current reputation at that. if users are reading less fewer reviews it’s likely that they’ll focus on the most recent reviews for a business. Therefore, it’s important for a local business to generate a steady flow of reviews and to manage their Reputation so that positive reviews outweigh the negative.

Key Takeaways

Having a good Reputation which is publicly-expressed in online customer reviews is valuable for all types of local business.

Entertainment-based businesses attract the most online search activity, but consumers read reviews for all types of local business at the point at which they need those services. Therefore every business can gain from increasing its online presence and generating positive customer reviews.

With consumers reading less reviews, and forming opinions faster, it’s essential that a business manages its Reputation to ensure that it’s both positive and kept current with fresh reviews. In many categories, it doesn’t take many reviews to create standout from competitors and a little effort spent gathering these reviews will bring new customers to your door.

Consumers are looking for businesses which are reliable and offer a good value service. Businesses should emphasize these traits in the content on their sites and in their online profiles/listings.