Local Search provides the latest news and information about the growing segment of local search marketing, including tips on how to take advantage of local directory providers and online yellow page listings, mapping tools and location based services to help users uncover real-world merchants, franchise locations, locally owned small businesses and community places. Columnists cover geo-targeting, zip code and map data being used by searchers and search engines to provide locally relevant results.

How Local Businesses Can Leverage New Facebook & Foursquare Features

Feb 4, 2013 at 10:51am ET by Wesley Young

Recently, Facebook and Foursquare announced new features that will drastically change the ways local businesses leverage the social networks to build customer loyalty and drive new sales. With Facebook, the introduction of Graph Search provides businesses with greater incentive to invest time and effort in their presence on the site so they can appear among the top search results for a wider group of potential customers. With Foursquare, changes in privacy policies provide businesses with access to more information that will help them analyze customer trends and better reach loyal custo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

How Google’s Lack Of (Re-)Consideration For Local Businesses Makes Life & Listings Difficult

Jan 28, 2013 at 10:01am ET by Chris Silver Smith

For local business listings, ranking well in Google search results is highly important. So, many proprietors attempt all sorts of things to get their businesses to rank well, and they often unintentionally break Google's rules in the process. Yet, there's no real means to get forgiveness once their listing is burned. Confusion surrounding this further exacerbates the issue. For years now, I've provided recommendations on how to improve one's local business rankings in Google. (Your business listing with name, address and phone may appear embedded in the regular keyword search results along wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

How To Create Your Local SEO Roadmap Through Research, Benchmarking & Tracking

Jan 21, 2013 at 1:33pm ET by Myles Anderson

During the regular online training sessions which I deliver to our customers, I inevitably get asked the same question. Actually this question comes in a few guises. 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 clien [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To | How To: SEO | Intermediate | Local Search

10 Simple Things SMB Websites Need To Fix Before SEO

Jan 14, 2013 at 2:04pm ET by Andrew Shotland

When speaking with SMBs and companies that sell marketing services to SMBs, I hear over and over again how a business wants to rank #1 for important local keywords. Then, I look at their website and have visions of money being poured down the drain, horses being led to water sans drinking, Sisyphus rolling a boulder up that damn hill, and a variety of other cliches. While SEO is an important channel, the ROI that can come from improving customer conversion rates on your website can't be beat -- assuming you actually have people coming to your website in the first place. Most SMB websi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Five Steps To Successfully Navigate Negative Online Reviews

Jan 7, 2013 at 12:52pm ET by Neg Norton

Last month, D.C. contractor Dietz Development made news when it filed a $750,000 Internet defamation lawsuit against its former customer, Jane Perez, for negative reviews she posted on Yelp and Angie’s List regarding renovation work at her home. The company claimed the reviews, which alleged that Dietz did not complete its work and stole jewelry from her home, sent customers fleeing, resulting in $300,000 in lost business. While Dietz won an initial judgment ordering Perez to remove some of her accusations and not post other reviews while the lawsuit is pending, both the ACLU and Public C [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

13 Semantic Markup Tips For 2013: A Local SEO Checklist

Dec 31, 2012 at 1:54pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

One of the least-tapped areas of local business website optimization continues to be semantic markup. Semantic markup can increase chances that information from your website will be highlighted in search engine results pages via rich snippets, attracting greater attention and clickthroughs. So, read on and use this checklist to see if you're exploiting all elements possible for your local business website. While special markup likely may not directly improve your rankings in search, it does apparently increase clickthrough rate or "CTR," as consumers are more drawn to your site's listings. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Local Search | Schema.org

SEOMoz + GetListed: Let The SMB Toolset Death March Begin

Dec 26, 2012 at 11:43am ET by Andrew Shotland

SEOMoz's recent acquisition of GetListed has got me thinking -- there's a dangerous trend going on in the SEO Tools market. I call it the SMB Death March. [caption id="attachment_143172" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Image courtesy of GapingVoidArt.com[/caption] SEO Tool Market The SEO Tool market has exploded over the past couple of years, and with good reason. These days, it seems like most businesses understand that showing up in Google is critical. More and more marketers have had some experience with SEO, either on their own or via consultants. Hollywood is using SEO as a pri [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Insiders Guide To Selecting The Right Local SEO Tools

Dec 17, 2012 at 4:11pm ET by Myles Anderson

Last week's announcement by Raven tools that they would remove all 'scraped data' (e.g., ranking reports) from their toolkit came as an unwelcome surprise to many of their customers. This action effectively makes a big portion of their service redundant, and the reaction to this news hasn't been all positive for Raven. 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 wa [...]

7 Key Takeaways From BIA/Kelsey’s ILM Conference

Dec 10, 2012 at 12:36pm ET by Stephanie Hobbs

I just returned from the jam-packed annual BIA/Kelsey ILM West conference in Los Angeles, where there was a lot of excitement about what’s next in local SMB advertising. As we head into 2013, local businesses have some important trends to consider when developing their marketing plans. The ways in which consumers are both searching and finding local businesses are rapidly changing, and local businesses and marketers are quickly adapting to take advantage of new opportunities to drive business in the door. Here are my 7 key takeaways from the event: 1. Local Business Spending Remains The [...]

Should You Count Ratings Out In Google Local Rankings?

Dec 3, 2012 at 12:25pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

For years now, there has been some discrepancy between statements from Google Local engineers and general optimization advice from some local search marketers where reviews and ratings are concerned. So, what's the skinny? Rating values may simply not affect your rankings. Read on to see why. Ratings Vs. Reviews First, a quick note on terminology, since many refer to ratings simultaneously with reviews. A rating is usually a qualitative measure -- essentially, a numerical score which a consumer selects when critiquing a business -- such as on a 5-point or 10-point scale, or one to five st [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

What Is Foursquare’s SEO Strategy?

Nov 26, 2012 at 11:50am ET by Andrew Shotland

Two weeks ago, Foursquare launched a new version of its homepage which Greg Sterling touted as "taking on Yelp" by adding a search box. Naturally, my first reaction was to figure out what Foursquare's new SEO plan. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there was none... First a bit of data. According to SEMRush, Foursquare's organic traffic has been growing aggressively since July of 2011: This traffic growth appears to have been the result of the launch of Foursquare's "Self Serve" pages for Business. Clearly, the growth of mobile and Foursquare's profile, created a lot of incentive for b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Foursquare | Local Search

5 Important Trends Affecting The Local, Social & Mobile Industry

Nov 19, 2012 at 1:16pm ET by Myles Anderson

On Tuesday last week, London hosted the Local Social Summit 2012, the fourth year this great (and growing) summit has been put on. As a UK-based local SEO, I am envious of the plethora of local and social events that run regularly in the US; sadly, I don’t get across to many of them. So, it’s great to see an event of this caliber thriving in the UK, and even better to see the array of talented speakers and panelists who attended from the UK, Canada & US. I am constantly impressed by the level of professionalism, innovation and entrepreneurship which abounds in the local/social indus [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

5 Areas That Demonstrate The Growing Potential Of Local Search

Nov 12, 2012 at 9:08am ET by Stephanie Hobbs

As those of you who read my column know, I believe strongly in the potential of an integrated, multi-platform approach to local search, and the importance of educating small businesses about the various advertising opportunities available to them. Small businesses today often struggle with the idea that local advertising can no longer be executed using a small number of platforms. In the past, print Yellow Pages, newspapers, direct mail and possibly television were the key driving forces in attracting consumers and getting them in the door. Today, these platforms – in addition to new t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Can Blogging Be Your Secret Weapon For Local SEO?

Nov 5, 2012 at 2:31pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

I get called frequently by local companies wanting a quick fix for local rankings. In many cases, they discover that local SEO doesn't equate with a cheap shortcut to high rankings. Increasingly, local SEO is about ongoing, consistent online promotion activities. That's where blogging comes in. Good blogging doesn't have to be a back-breaking enterprise. It will require some effort and/or some cost, depending upon if you outsource it or if you do it completely yourself. Why Blogging Is Your Secret Weapon The cool thing is, a great many local businesses still are not blogging, so use of it [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

The Building Blocks Of Good Local SEO

Oct 29, 2012 at 1:41pm ET by Myles Anderson

It’s been a few months since I have written for SEL. I had to take a short ‘sabbatical’ to hunker down and focus on a major phase of development and updates on our own site. 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 m [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

5 Things Businesses Need To Know About Apple Maps Right Now

Oct 22, 2012 at 1:36pm ET by Andrew Shotland

You've probably heard all of the noise about how much Apple Maps suck, but do you know what doesn't suck? The 1,000,000,000 iOS devices projected to be in the hands of consumers worldwide by 2015. But forget about the far away future. Tomorrow, Apple is likely to unveil the "iPad Air", which combined with the iPhone5 + upgraded older iOS devices + Santa Claus is going to equal tens of millions of new iOS6 devices in use Q1 of 2013, just in the US alone. And most users will be using Apple Maps to find local stuff, no matter how much they purport to suck. So even if you think Google Pla [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: Maps | Channel: Mobile | Local Search

Why It’s Time For Local SMBs To Get On Board With Mobile

Oct 15, 2012 at 10:25am ET by Stephanie Hobbs

While attending BIA/Kelsey’s SMB Digital Marketing 2012 Conference in Chicago last month, I was surprised by the results of a recent LCM study, which showed that only 20 percent of local businesses said they have experience with mobile marketing. Small businesses today operate in a time when smartphone adoption is growing rapidly (eMarketer predicts there will be 116 million U.S. smartphone users, representing 37% of the population, by the end of this year. A continuous wave of new statistics are illustrating that consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices for local inf [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Relocation, Relocation, Relocation – A “New” Local Ranking Tactic?

Oct 8, 2012 at 1:13pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

Google's marketshare and success at fighting spam in rankings continues to create pressure in the local search ecosystem as businesses vie to rank higher than one another in various markets. Some businesses are now resorting to relocating under the assumption that this will give them an advantage in rankings. Will it? Read on to find out. In larger markets such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and New York, the competition to achieve top rankings in highly contested business categories (such as hotels, restaurants, florists, attorneys, dentists, chiropractors, real estate agents, et [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Local Search

Are You Ready For The Coming SMB Marketing Boom?

Oct 1, 2012 at 9:37am ET by Andrew Shotland

Without a doubt, 2012 has been an insane year for small business marketing on the Web. Most companies I know providing digital marketing services to SMBs have been up to their eyeballs in work. What's going on? Aren't we in some kind of recession? Apparently not. While attending the BIA/Kelsey SMB Digital Conference in Chicago recently, it became apparent small businesses are busy getting their Digital on. So to prepare you for the coming onslaught of Moms & Pops who desperately need your fine services, dear reader, I thought you might enjoy some of the juicy stats presented at the conf [...]

7 Tips For Crafting Local Business Updates In Facebook

Aug 20, 2012 at 3:24pm ET by Chris Silver Smith

Do you spit out status updates on Facebook for your local business without much thought? Carefully engineering your status updates can result in more effective targeting, better engagement with your audience, and improved EdgeRank to help more of your followers actually see your status updates. These tips should be considered to be "spice", rather than the meat in cooking up your Facebook contents. Use these tips with some restraint and balance or you could create fatigue for your followers, resulting in reduction of your audience engagement rather than growth of it. Increasing engagemen [...]

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