Zero Moment Of Truth and Online Reviews

Think online reviews are something you can ignore or that you have control over people shopping online?
This video from Google’s ZMOT website gives awesome insight into the other side of the Internet, your prospects.

Try our new local search visibility checker and see how your business measures up against it’s competition in your local market. It’s free and measures your success on Google, Yahoo, Bing, Google Places, Yahoo Local and also citation sites.

http://searchnearby.visibilityscore.com/

Google+ Pages for Businesses: The Impact on your AdWords campaign

Yesterday, Google introduced Google+ Pages for businesses, which is expected to have a dramatic effect on +1s in AdWords. Businesses can link to their web site URLs and their AdWords account when they create a Page on Google+. As a result, +1s for any of the linked URLs — on web sites or landing pages for AdWords ads — will all accrue to the brand, making the numbers much larger. 

Up to now, +1s were specific to individual URLs, and could only accumulate when someone +1ed either that URL in organic results or an AdWords ad that used that URL as a landing page. Now, +1s with ads will be displayed both on Google.com and on the display network. According to Google, ads with +1s are performing better than ads without, probably because they’ve been socially recommended.

Google uses +1 data to improve target ads on its display network. Consequently, advertisers’ ads are served more often to friends of those who +1ed the ad or the landing page URL. Despite this new way of aggregating +1s, Google claims this won’t affect the auction on the display network or ad targeting any differently.

Advertisers can enable Social Extensions in the Ad Extensions section and enter their Google+ Page URL. AdWords Express users can enter their Page URL to have their Google+ Page selected as a landing page for their ads. This option may not yet be available to all advertisers immediately.

Car Repair Internet Marketing & SEO client testimonial.

Mike Lembke of Bavarian Imports tells you how the Search Nearby approach to Google Places listing optimization help brings him another new customer.

Google Places Gets a New Look

Google.com has released a new look for local Places search results. This upgrade sports a greatly enhanced right column that includes images below the map such as street view photographs, along with a variety of images for local searches. Details below the map organize and condense at-a-glance information. A search for a local restaurant pulls details such as prices, hours, transit, and menu, and lists them neatly under the map. More Reviews are placed below Details.

The new look substitutes a horizontal map for a vertical one on the right rail, allowing more ads to appear above the fold. Local results appear on the map as gray pushpins that become red when moused over. These updates all spell the end of any third party online review info being displayed on your Google Places Listing.

While some of these test features appear to be improvements on the current look of SERPs, the new horizontal­-rectangle version of the map is one of the weaker points. The new map look seems small and out of proportion with the page dimensions. The company appears to be trying to find a compromise between a map big enough to indicate local information but proportioned to maximize valuable ad space.

Over the last few days Google has rolled out even more significant changes to it’s Organic SERP. First lets talk about Google’s changes for the supposed privacy of it’s logged in users. To protect the “privacy” of anyone logged in to a Google account, they will no longer show webmasters the search query info in analytics, Google or otherwise. Just how this creates a more private internet experience is anyones guess…

Next they once again changed Local Search with a new look for the map section and Google Places results display. The two big changes there are the map oriented horizontally instead of vertically, which now pushes right side paid ads below the fold, and the removal of ALL third party review info from Google Places listings. That’s right, you knew it was coming sooner or later, all those “reviews” from the third party sites like dealerrater, citysearch, yelp or kudzu will no longer be attached to your GP page at all.

Next up they have just refreshed the algorithim for natural results again!

This change is a little more complex and likely harder to track in the short term but it will try to determine if a user wants more current results or if they want more seasoned results. According to Google this new change will impact 35% of the results we see. That’s right, 35 freakin %!!!

As an aside, we are predicting the END of traditional SEO. I know, it has been predicted many times in the past and has yet to come to pass but look at the new evidence. Removal of important data from analytics about how people are getting to your site is HUGE and in some cases I have seen 50-75% of search querries blocked. Then, a more persanolized change to the SERP’s that will impact 35% of results Google shows.

WordPress Website SEO Experts

WordPress websites can help your content show up at the top of Google Organic search results better than any other platform however it doesn’t perform these miracles on its own. In the hands of an expert, your word press site can help you rank at the top of Google for many search phrases quicker than any other website. WP has tons of plugins that when configured properly will make your website more search engine friendly than the competition but it takes years of working with the platform for these results to happen.

At Search Nearby, we are experts at configuring your Word Press site with the most current best practices of SEO on Google in mind. Our clients are blown away at how quickly their sites get ranked at the top of Google and start generating phone calls in the first few weeks! Don’t expect that just because your website is a WP site that it will rank well, you still have to understand search engine optimization for the best possible results. We are an SEO company that builds all of our websites on WordPress for the last 3 years and know all the secrets to ranking well on Google. Call Search Nearby today at 678-592-5398 to find out how we can help your business.

Optimizing your Car Dealership for Local SEO will boost in-store Traffic & Sales

Today’s car buyers are a lot more tech savvy than their counterparts 20 years ago. Just about everyone uses the internet to conduct research before making a car purchase. BIA/Kelsey and ConStat conducted a survey in 2010 which revealed that:

1)      97% of consumers use online media to research future purchases

2)      90% use the various search engines

3)      48% use the online Yellow Pages

4)      42% use comparison shopping sites

5)      24% use vertical sites

Many auto dealers can attest to the huge influence of the world wide web on the sales in their brick and mortar stores.

Consumers are big on convenience which is what the internet offers. A Performics/ROI study revealed that 32% of respondents used mobile search more than their computer search engines. They want to know how far they need to travel to get what they need/want. In addition, today’s consumer will conduct additional searches for contact information, operating hours, special offers and coupons, purchase and in-store pickup information – all questions that should be answered by the savvy retailer on their digital storefront to boost traffic and sales.

So….What Is A Digital Storefront?

It is a website that represents a single or multi-location brick and mortar business on the internet. This website should have all the necessary information that consumers require and offer the business’ goods/services for sale. Each dealership location is represented by a landing page that the consumer can see when they conduct a search for a particular business (yours!) on Google, Yahoo, etc. and business information directories such as YellowPages.com, Yelp and so on.

Your digital storefront can be displayed in multiple locations such as Google Places, Yahoo Local, YellowPages, and other business directories. Utilizing these search engines and directories effectively will inform consumers accurately, achieve higher rankings and ultimately boost traffic which will result in more conversions.

How Can I Optimize my Digital Storefront?

Using scalable digital storefront optimization is essential for boosting search traffic via local and organic search results. Through the optimization of your digital storefront, you will increase the value of your brand, increase market opportunity for each location and increase customer satisfaction and most importantly – boost conversions.

Optimizing your digital storefront displays can be performed manually or by the use of digital storefront software. This should be done for BOTH mobile and standard web browser platforms. We have already discussed the increasing importance of mobile searches. The optimization process for the digital storefront should include traffic and conversions for include all the informational components that consumers look for.

Optimization Tips

These are the six basic features that consumers want and search engines look for a on a local digital storefront page:

1. Images: storefront, floor space, products, services, employees.
2. Location Information: address, phone number, hours of operation, holiday hours, in-store services provided, local descriptions, manager announcements.
3. Promotions: coupons, loyalty programs, COOP branding/promotion, events, tent sales, community events, sponsorships.
4. Social Influencers: Facebook, Twitter, Google +1, Yelp, check-ins, Likes, sharing, share via email, share via text, text to phone.
5. UX (user experience) Features: click to call, click to driving directions, text to share, loyalty sign-up, m-commerce, gift card purchase/management.
6. Rich Media: video, YouTube, product images, COOP advertising/promotion, reviews.

Five basic steps to optimize your digital storefront for search engine and directory visibility:

1. Location Pages. Build a location page for every location using relevant and updated content. Using a Web Store Locator Software to generate store location pages is much more scalable and cost efficient.
2. Mobile Pages. Build a mobile location page for every location with user friendly mobile calls to action.
3. Local SEO Best Practices. Optimize and add all six of the above features to each location landing page, ensuring you include updated information such as local descriptions, content and Microdata or RDFa mark-up to help the engines and directories understand every detail about each of your business locations.
4. Submit To Engines and Directories. Submit all of your individual location landing pages to each local search engine and directory. Be sure to enhance your Maps and Google Places pages, linking your location landing page URLs.
5. Submit To Information Services. Submit each of your individual location landing page URLs and all of your updated business information to Information Services that feed IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages).

Optimizing your digital storefront is essential to compete in today’s marketplace. It is imperative that you do your due diligence when deciding how to implement your digital storefront optimization process.

Text Link Building 

 What is link building?

Link building is the process of sharing links and getting your links onto other websites in order to draw more relevant traffic. It also means building the links for your website in order to provide good information and resources for visitors.

 What are text links?

Text links are those created with hyper links, relying only on words to communicate. They are typically used for advertising or building links, and they direct the user to another site.

 Why are they important?

Text links are an excellent way to direct traffic to your website, helping add credibility to your site.

 Things You Need to Make Successful Text Links

• Write Well – the more attractive and intriguing your links are, the more likely people are to use them.
• Directness – get all the important information down in just a few critical words.
• Monitor – develop a strategy to effectively watch how useful your links are and where they are falling short.
• Avoid abuse – always have a method for avoiding abuse of your links.

 What are the advantages of link building?

• Increased ranking
• Enhanced credibility
• Increased traffic
• Increased return of investment

free backlinks

Good Sites for Google Places Citations

The big question in today’s SEO market is where to get the best coverage for citations. Here are three ways to begin this process:

• Free self-listings: take full advantage of free listing sites, especially the major ones since they tend to carry more weight in calculating rank.
• Keyword Searches: do your own searches using relevant terms to your business to see what pops. Try to find the things that will make your business more unique, and therefore more desirable.
• Competitor Analysis: keep an eye on the competition – try getting yourself listed on the same sites that they’re on as well as finding some places where they aren’t so you can begin to have more than they do. There is software available to do this for you if you don’t want to do it yourself.

 Some of the best sites to use for your listings in order to help boost your SEO listing can be found below:

yell.com

ufindus

SmileLocal

TouchLocal

Scoot

InfoServe

Yelp

WeLoveLocal

BrownBook

BView

Hotfrog

Qype

local,yahoo.com

yellowpages,com

411.com

infospace.com

anywho.com

judysbook.com

yellowbot.com

shopcity.com

dexknows.com

magicyellow.com

zidster.com

infousa.com

localeze.com

citysearch.com

yellowbook.com

insiderpages.com

kudzu.com

local.com

merchantcircle.com

cityvoter.com

citysquares.com

foursquare.com

hotfrog.com

rateitall.com

bestofthewest.com

qype.com

Angie’s List

Brownbook

ziplocal.com

foundlocally.com

citydirect.info

frommers.com

ibegin.com

daplus.us

hotpot (Google)

gowalla

urbanspoon

zagat

tripadvisor

ezlocal.com

backpage.com

metromix

nymag.com

parentsconnect.com

servicemagic.com

cosmotourist.com

trivago

blog.hostelbookers.com

promotionalcodes.com

couponsnapshot.com

avvo.com