Dominating Local In a Mobile WorldBERNADETTE COLEMAN – ADVICE INTERACTIVE GROUP

Importance Of local search

People in the U.S. perform over 6.2 Billion local searches every month

50% of mobile searches are users trying to find a local business

61% of local searches result in a purchase

50% of mobile users visit a store within a day of performing a related

But wait, there is more! 68% of smartphone searchers use the get directions or call button on smartphone local listings •

90% of local searchers that take action do so within 24 hours of performing the search

So How Do You Compete in this

Very Mobile Local World?

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY

Know your client

Welcome to Local Mobile SEO Now

•Research has confirmed that 60 percent of U.S. daily media consumption now takes place via mobile,

•48 percent of consumers now say that mobile has a direct influence on their in-store buying decisions.

•It means there has never been greater urgency for companies & brands to ensure they are fully prepared for the opportunities of mobile search.

Mobile Optimized Sites•If your web site is not optimized for mobile you will struggle to achieve or maintain search visibility.

•Google, Yahoo, and Bing now give priority to mobile-friendly sites, while sites that aren’t optimized may experience a negative impact in their rankings.

•Adopting responsive web design to ensure your website performs optimally on any device – including mobile.

Optimize For Local & Local Search

Research shows that up to 56 percent of “on the go” or mobile searches have local intent. Essentially, when people are looking for a businesses or products, they are interested in results that are local to them. If your business has any local elements, it’s important to leverage these search habits and optimize your site accordingly.

Practical tip 1: start with an audit

Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals

1. Solicit your Gmail clients for reviews a direct link to your Google My Business Page.

• Get your GMB URL, simply remove the /posts and replace it with:

• /?hl=en&review=1

Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals

1. Optimize your local photos on GMB

Don't use generic photos. Use high quality photos so when the

users hover over your listing they get an accurate representation of what they're looking for.

Doing this will increase your click-through rate.

Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals

1. Title tags: optimize them for the user and engine• Optimize your meta title tags to increase

click-through rates. • Each page should have a unique title tag

and should help the viewer with their query.

• Also, optimize your meta description to get the user to click on the search result. If you're not doing this just because Google may or may not pull it, you're missing opportunities and clicks.

Practical tip 2: optimize behavioral signals

1. Review Schema markup: add this to appropriate pages• Reviewing Schema markup is still a very

overlooked opportunity. Like we talked about above in the local section, if you don't have reviews coded in Schema, you could be missing out on getting the orange stars in organic results. 

Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO

In a nutshell, we know that if you're trying to rank on page one of Google you will find others that you may be able to attach to. If Yelp results come up for a lot of your search terms you might identify that as an opportunity.

Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO

You can try to have the most visible profile on that third party page

If Yelp is ranking for LA Personal Injury Attorneys, it would suit you to figure out how the top users are showing up there. Maybe your customers are headed there and then doing some shopping and making a selection. Or maybe they're using it for a research platform and then will visit your website. If your profile looks great and shows up high on the list, you just gave yourself a better chance at getting a conversion.

Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO

2. You can try to get your page to rank

If Google is already showing you that they trust a third party site by ranking it,

use similar organic ranking techniques that you would use on your own site to make your profile page stronger.

Over time you might add this to your bio on interviews or other websites to earn links.

If you increase the visibility of your profile on search engines and they see your website on the same page you might increase conversions.

Practical tip 3: don't ignore barnacle SEO

Start by finding a list of potential barnacle SEO partners for your industry. As an example, I did a search for "Personal Injury Attorneys" in Los Angeles. In addition to the law firms that showed up in the results on the first page, I also identified four additional places I may be able to show up on.

Yelp ThumbtackAvvoWikipedia

If you were attorney, it would be worth your while to explore these and see if any make sense for you to contribute to.

Practical tip 4: earn some good links

Most people get too carried away with link building. I know because I used to do it. The key with link building is to change your approach to understand that it's always better to get fewer high quality links than hundreds or thousands of low quality links.

Practical tip 5: have consistent citations and remove duplicates

Identifying and correcting incorrect or duplicate citations is the #1 most important thing you can do. Your goal with any citation cleanup program is this:

Ensure there are no duplicate citations Ensure there are no incorrect citations with wrong phone numbers, old addresses, etc.

You can ignore small differences and inconsistencies like St vs. Street. I believe the importance of citations has been greatly reduced over the past year. At the same time, you still want to be the least imperfect and provide your customers with accurate information if they're looking on third party websites.

Citation Audit & Cleanup ServiceIncorrect or outdated local business information is served up to 28.7 percent of people who search with Google, Bing or Yahoo and can result in poor customer experiences (unable to find a business location, inaccurate store hours resulting in a wasted visit, etc.).

Phone Number Make sure your phone number is a local phone number and not a toll free or 1800 number.

Having a local phone number is a large ranking indicator to Google, showing where you are in reference to your area code.

If the business has a 1800 or toll free number, that should be included in “additional phone numbers” if there is that option.

The Need to Get Hyper-Local Add your neighborhood name as a descriptor at the end of your business name on your Google My Business page (e.g., “Cabo GrillEast Side”).

Add your neighborhood name to the description on your Google My Business page.

Add your neighborhood name in text to your website (if you have one).

Add your neighborhood name to title tags on your website.

Social Media Profile Enhancement

It’s important to claim your business / website username on other major networks besides Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Not only do you want to make sure no one else gets your account name, but you can often “own” all the results on the first page of a search for your brand if someone searches for your company. company. Not to mention the inbound links from these trusted sources.

Social Signal EnhancementCreate a like campaign

What is a social signal? Each time you Like, Comment, Share, Retweet, +1, etc. you are sending a social signal. Simply put, social signals are produced by an individual’s online actions and activity and are viewed as an endorsement of your content.

Add your social media links like Linkedin and Facebook link to all your local profiles & directories. This is a great way to piggy back off of your local presence and drive more traffic to your social community.

Ad weekly posts and tweets to your social profiles

Foursquare Enhancement Optimize for Foursquare listing by adding important information about your business. Make sure to include the following:• What you specialize in (Give tips)• Daily hours of operation• Your website and social media links• Other important services and amenities your customers will appreciate knowing about.• Create a “Check-in” special• Offer the Mayor something really special to reward him for his loyalty

Menu link• Promoting a restaurant? List your Menu! One of the most important aspects of your restaurant is the

genre of the food offerings. What better way to show it off then providing the end user a menu!

Yelp (Vertical Relative)

Approximately 71 million unique visitors check out Yelp every month, and many of these visitors represent the kind of people your business may be targeting.Work on ways to help – “Yelpers” – find you.

• Post awesome photos. • Recent research showed that people searching Yelp for local businesses spend 2.5

times more time on a Yelp listing with photos than on a listing without photos.

Tip # 5START ENGAGING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

I have a Mobile Friendly Site, What

Now?TIPS FOR CONVERTING TRAFFIC TO REVENUE

Mobile Coupons More than 50 million people will be using mobile coupons this year. • Everyone enjoys saving money, especially if the coupons are

conveniently located on their smartphone. • Incorporate mobile coupons or mobile offers into your

advertising campaign• Use audience segmentation to serve multiple offers to

different parts of your customer base.• The more targeted your mobile offers are, the more likely

you are to see increased conversions.

Use Videos Want to improve your chances of selling a product by 85 percent? • Add product videos to your website. • provide engaging content that allows your customer to see products in action• Questions about the relative size and function of products are answered through videos, which also cuts

down on the amount of pre-sales questions.

Create Local Content Create content around your local communities. This provides a more personal and local feel to your content. This will engage users that are searching for for POIs, services, events and news in the most intuitive ways possible and that translates into revenue.

Local Content Is King

LOCAL CONTENT IS KING

The Fun Part

Let me show you how to create simple engaging local content that drives traffic, rankings and converts into sales

using the simplest way ever!

My Secret WordLISTS!

Lists = Hook + Reward Your List Title + Intriguing Topic = Getting People to Care

Numbered Lists = Traffic•Numbered lists posts get more shares + reads than other forms of content

•Lists offer a contract to the reader. lists give you an expectation of time to skim

LIST = CONSUMABLE CONTENT•Lists can be good, bad or AWESOME.

•Lists prove were smart (know that!)

•List keep us entertained + provides cool stuff to share

LISTS TO LIVE BY•We love to Collect. We value Peace of Mind to not lose what we find/learn.

•We love to organize ourlives by lists. We love to regroup, sift + categorize

•We love to bring order to all things in our life. No two things are equal

LISTS = SELF-SERVICE CONTENT•People use the INTERNET to answer question and to solve problems they have right now

•The purpose of local content is to be found locally. Your content can solve an immediate need

LISTS HELP BUILD BUZZ•Sexy titles get your content seen & shared. learn from Buzzfeed, but get your community to help

•Involve your audience as contributors

THE A-Z of Local Content Ideas

JUST FILL IN THE BLANKS

WHAT LISTS WILL YOU MAKE TODAY?

WHAT’S YOUR PASSION?

WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY?

Conclusion A mobile SEO strategy that allows consumers to find your products or services and provides a great user-experience, regardless of device, will always be the best SEO strategy.

It’s all about that data