LOC@L SEO GUIDE

Last week Google launched a controversial new feature on local Place Pages - a list of nearby businesses that promotes local competitors on a business’ Place Page, even if that business has claimed their GLBC profile.  With this move Google has perhaps decided that the Yellow Pages industry is totally off their rockers - many YP sites show competitive listings on a business’ profile page only until the business becomes an advertiser.

As Matt McGee suggests, it would be a good move by Google to remove the Nearby Places list for businesses that have claimed their profile else Place Pages like the Buffalo jeweler’s found by Mike Blumenthal that shows 10 other jeweler listings will be the norm and those businesses that claim their profile and do the most work to make them more visible will also end up helping their competition the most.

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In my recent interview on SEOBook I mused that Google might create ways for agencies to get access to a business’ GLBC profile.  Matt McGee spoke with a GLBC rep today and got the following responses:

“agency access to LBC is unlikely”
&
“they may give biz owner a way to share account with one person”

Not perfect but sounds like a step in the right direction.

VanillaCoke, one of my fave readers, has done the honor of putting up an interview with yours truly on my fave SEO Blog, SEOBook.

I mean come on:

It’s all about relevance right?

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Matt McGee has put together a great list of the top online marketing posts from 2009.  There are a lot of great articles to dig into and I am psyched to see a few LSG posts from last year made the cut:

How To Get Your Site Indexed Quickly In Google & Other Search Engines (I Hope)
(in the SEO Category)

IYP SEO Rankings Report 2009
(in the Local Search Category)

Yellow Pages vs. Social Media: A Rebuttal to the Lazy, Lying Mainstream Media
(in the Rants Category)

Hint to judges, I am pulling for the Rant.

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My bud Tim Tevlin has just started video seo biz at VideoSEOShop.com. Tim has done some great SMB video SEO work with me in the past so if you are looking for some help in that area I recommend checking him out.

LSG has just come off another record year and if today is any indication 2010 is going to be uber crazy.  I am looking for someone who is interested in learning the SEO trade and helping service some of the biggest brands online, coolest startups and excellent SMB customers.

Skills required in order to be considered:

1. Basic understanding of search engine optimization, keyword research, site architecture and linkbuilding
2. Ability to set up and operate a wordpress blog

Skills that are nice-to-have but not necessary:

1. HTML, MySQL, php programming
2. Interest in sales
3. Good writer
4. Product management

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My how time flies when you are spamming improving Google’s results.  Time again for my take on what’s in store for all of you localsearcharati in ‘010. And check out how my seo predictions did for 2009. Drum roll please…

1. The Open Source Yellow Pages Will Emerge
   Business listing data online has traditionally been severely fragmented.  Different sites have different business names, phone numbers, website URLs, hours of operations, services, etc.  The backend data suppliers like Localeze, InfoUSA & Acxiom have done an ok job of trying to become the source of truth for business listings, but ultimately the world really needs a single source for the so-called golden record for each business.  Twitter looks like it’s about to become that source.  It’s recent purchase of MixerLabs and their GeoAPI product is the yellow pages API I have been whining about for the past year or so.  If this rolls out the way I think it will, Twitter will now become the central clearinghouse for a huge portion of local data.  The data providers, yellow pages publishers, ad agencies will still play a part, controlling what proprietary info they feed into the system, but pretty much any application that involves local businesses will use the Twitter system, so much so that if you aren’t using it, your product will seem deficient.  Mastering the inputs and outputs of this system will become a key differentiator for local marketers in ‘010.
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Happy New Year to all of LSG’s readers!

As per my custom around the holiday season I encourage everyone with a web site to give the gift of SEO by linking to their favorite charity’s site with on-the-money anchor text.  Here are some of mine:

Clean Water

Green Christmas Gift

Lymphoma

Orphans Charity

Nicaraguan Aid

And it wouldn’t be New Years without a few resolutions.  Here are some of mine:

1. Blog more
2. Launch at least one new business
3. Redesign this site
4. Provide search marketing help to deserving charitable organizations
5. Reclaim my #1 ranking for “soup nazi” in image search (a man can dream can’t he?)

Happy New Year!

It’s that time of year again and who really cares about the latest Google Maps announcements when there is a disgraced celebrity to ponder?

I am hearing from a lot of different sites that the whole Tiger Woods thing has been a like a big traffic Christmas gift, particularly for news sites and social networks that are generating a lot of articles and discussions on his night putting activities.  In my attempt to cash in on the craze I figured I’d see what sort of data Google is showing for “Tiger Woods”-related queries.

Google Suggest

If you read the list downwards in sequence it kind of tells the whole story doesn’t it?

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Tim Kendall of Facebook: Manages self-service ad program

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter: Focused on building out revenue products

Greg Isaacs of AT&T Interactive: Manages revenue products

Kara Nortman of CItySearch: BD

Tim Kendall of Facebook:
There are about 700K FB for business pages.  5000 created per day.  They have facilitated over 1 billion merchant-consumer connections via FB Pages.

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
Twitter’s geotagging API provides a valuable context for local conversations.  A restaurant will update its menu based on what people are saying.

Greg Isaacs of AT&T Interactive:
Yellowpages.com using Facebook Connect to integrate social connections and local.  Building Buzz.com which should come out next year that melds conversations and lead-gen.

Kara Nortman of CitySearch:
CS implemented Twitter APIs this week and relaunched free claim your profile product.  Users can use Twitter profile to write reviews against biz profile.

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
Every tweet should have a bunch of meta data that puts the tweet into context.  This is pretty huge.

Kara Nortman of CitySearch:
Focusing on creating an “introductory” social media marketing product for SMBs.

Tim Kendall of Facebook:
Next year FB will focus on doing more geotargeting with ads.  RIght now it’s all IP address targeting.  From a base of 100 fans, there are 15k one-degree-separation of possible new customers for businesses

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
We don’t know if advertising on Twitter will be local at first.  It will be an introductory product that will provide basic engagement metrics and assistance.  This will be the first step towards an advertising program.

Final Thoughts:
FB: Use FB Connect

Twitter: Use the Twitter API and go crazy with it

AT&T: Businesses need to make sure social makes sense for your business before jumping in

CitySearch: Please take our ads and content! Simplicity of implementation is key.

Great panel.

Local news has highest Interest, value & trust of all media yet local media ratings shrinking

Overall media consumption is higher than ever but more outlets competing for attention

Not enough differentiation in local content to create demand

Successful media outlets operate with tight target focus and brand filters.  Brands today as much about what it is not as what is is.

General players (i.e. broadcast TV) getting picked off at the margins (such as by cable).

Individuals are increasinly “polylocal” - distinction between national and local is eroding

Consumers seek mobility and a seamless content experience

Audiences expect a dialogue

Audiences have increased expectations.

The Consumer Need State During the Day

In the morning, audience is focused on utility & agenda setting - radio is king

In afternoon, updates, info, actionability & escape are important so the PC (Web) and mobile become important, particularly for entertainment

In the evening it’s more about entertainment & escapism, TV becomes the dominant platform.

NBC NY’s News broadcast went from 10MM viewers in 1998 to 3.7MM in 2010.  By adding websites and other digital media options NBC brought total viewership up to 15MM.

NBC Targeting “local lifestyle content” - areas that have above avg interest but low satisfaction with current offerings.  Targeting social capitalists.

Sorry guys I had to leave in mid-session so I missed the big finale.

VCs from Canaan Partners (Warren Lee), Trinity Ventures (Patricia Nakache) & Comcast Ventures (Michael Yang):

Patricia Nakache:
no one has cracked local impulse purchases - mentions Groupon

Warren Lee:
Skeptical that growth will happen as fast as Kelsey predicts because access to venture capital is not as easy. Venture capital is going to contract by 20-30% and fragmented nature of local with big capital requirements makes it harder to fund. (sounds like a lot of VCs will be getting into SEO next year)

Michael Yang:
It is not for the faint of heart on the VC side to spelunk in the local space (truedat)

Patricia Nakache:
Making shopping fun has a lot of opportunity.   A more curated, better matching experience than Craigslist is needed.  See care.com

Warren Lee:
Video.  Oh yeah and did I mention video?

Michael Yang:
Stay away from search and ad networks.  Video.  Leadgen & email are still interesting.  Commerce is more interesting than directory/media in local.  You need to be >1MM uniques/mnth to be interesting.  SEOd directories are a dime a dozen.

Warren Lee:
Invested in Associated Content at 1MM uniques/mnth.  Need 10MM uniques/mnth to get attention of brand advertisers.  Need to break top 100 mark on Comscore to get attention of ad agencies.

Michael Yang:
slightly backpedaling on his “not interested in SEO plays” but likes Associated Content/Demand Media because they have systems v. 2-3 people start ups which don’t.  IMO AC & DM started with no systems but used SEO to justify building them.

Warren Lee:
Shared risk models with contributors helps you scale up because the upfront costs are lower.  Content on the web has a remarkably long shelf-life which makes the biz model more scalable/sustainable.

Michael Yang:
Streetview technologies that allow users to have a virtual experience with the merchant before they go there are interesting

Patricia Kanache:
There’s an opportunity for the companies that owns customer relationships to be the advocates for the SMBs to help them figure out the right mix and manage their reputations

Warren Lee:
There are too many options out there for SMBs. A large group of startups out there that haven’t been consolidated yet.  Over the next couple of years we’re going to see a lot of start-ups fail.

Nice cheery ending to the panel.

Liveblogging Matt Booth’s & Neal Polachek’s forecast for SMB/Local media spending.  Enjoy:

Total U.S. Local Ad Spend should grow from $136B in 2010 to $144B in 2013.  Scary looking drop from $155B in 2008 to $141B in 2009.  A result of the economy and shift to digital.

Local Ad Spend by Medium: All mediums losing share except for digital/online

2013 Interactive Ad Market $58.57B -Search= about $26B of that

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I am supposed to be up there but given my lack of voice I thought it not such a good idea.  Here’s the presentation I would have given

ILM 09 Local Media SEO Presentation (it definitely needs narration so feel free to ping me with questions)

it’s pretty much a rehash of my SEL post: Don’t Give Google The NoIndex Finger

Hanan Lifschitz of Palore is speaking in my place.  Showing some data on what they have discovered by crawling different local search sites:

1.Only 14% of SMBs have claimed their listings on local search sites

2.64% of all businesses are only listed in 1 or 2 categories

3.Searching 20,000 local keywords for Orlando businesses on Google Maps, remarkably 20% of all businesses in their database show up on the first page of Google’s SERPs.

Now demoing their visibility tool - AmIvisible.org
Kind of cool you can compare your visibility with local competitors.

Hanan just typed a auto dealer in Memphis’ phone number and the service quickly showed that this dealer is the most optimized dealer in Memphis.  We can see how many categories he uses, which keywords he is targeting and which sites he is advertising on.  Very cool.

Now we’re seeing a less visible competitor and comparing to the above dealer and you can easily see why he is less successful compared to the top dealer.

AmIvisible is beta testing in only a few small cities but should be available nationally in a few months.

That was much cooler than my presentation for sure.

David Mihm now stepping up to the plate:

1. Maximize Your Internal Linking Strategy
2. Be Keyword Focused with Title Tags
3. Enable User-Generated Contetnnt
4. See Google as a Partner - XML sitemaps

Any important page on your site must be linked from your homepage

No more than 4 clicks from homepage

Use geographic anchor text when you link

UGC is great for long-tail phrases and creates distribution possibilities

Citysearch images seem to be showing up a lot on Google Place Pages - is there a partnership?

Google is starting to use more rich snippets in their results.  Add a CSS class that Google recommends to try and get your reviews/stars to show up in search.  Also try the hcard microformat.

Use an XML sitemap

Use KML to get your data on MyMaps pages

Creating an interesting map on your site and it can appear in the User-Created Maps section on Google pages.

Scott Knowles of AOL Local talking about how to use social platforms to get your info into search results.

David Mihm on Video SEO: Youtube is the place to be.

Yellow Pages headings are not search friendly.  Tags are.