Showing posts with label Local Seo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Local Seo. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

How to Improve business Using Social Media and Increase Followers




One of the challenges that businesses face when it comes to social media marketing is how to gain more followers. How can you find people to follow your business page and most importantly how do you find people that interact with your pages and share your content?
To make this article more interesting I will not just discuss the theory of social media marketing but I will show you the results of a social media campaign we have been running for the last 10 months for an online business. I will try to explain the challenges that we had to overcome and the solutions that lead to a dramatic increase of followers on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
Company Profile
The company is knownhost.com, a web hosting provider offering managed VPS hosting packages to consumers since 2005.
The results
Increase in Twitter Followers
Example of how Twitter Followers increased over the last 6 months
When we started social media marketing for knownhost in November 2013 the company had:
400 followers on Facebook
480 followers on Twitter
200 followers on Google+
After 10 months (September 2014) the numbers are:
7300 followers on Facebook (1825% increase)
4018 followers on Twitter (837% increase)
900 followers on Google+ (450% increase)
The challenges
  • It was difficult to reach out to people who were not currently interested in our products (web hosting packages).
  • There is huge competition in the hosting industry
  • We needed a strategy to differentiate our company from the rest
  • We wanted more people to find out about our brand, products and services

3 Steps for a Successful social media marketing for businesses

The solution to the above challenges that lead to a dramatic increase in followers was to combine content marketing with a carefully planned social media campaign. Let’s see below the 3 steps that can almost guarantee you success.
Step 1: You need content
That may be obvious to many people: you need content to run social media campaigns, but for most businesses this is the most difficult part to achieve. The reason is that they have a lot of content about their products and services but not enough content that can be used for social media awareness.
People that use Facebook, Twitter or Google+ are less likely to follow a business page that only advertises their products and services, unless of course they are a big brand (think Apple) that sells popular products.
The solution here is to publish content on your business page that is interesting for people to read, share, comment and follow. In general, you can use content that is part of these 3 categories:
  • How-to articles
  • Industry news
  • Tips and advice
Take a look at the Google+ page to see how the above content rich categories can blend together with the products and services a company is offering. See how we share content about technology news, blogging, social media and everything that may interest our current and potential customers (bloggers, graphic designers, small business owners, webmasters etc).
Step 2: Content is not enough, you also need to promote your accounts
I know that I said above that you need content but content alone is not enough for social media success. You also need to promote your social media accounts and content.
What do we mean by promote? Don’t expect that by just creating and publishing good content on your business page people will start following you. You need to get out, spread the word and tell people about your interesting content. To be more specific:
On Facebook the best way to reach more audience is to use targeted ads. For those that are not aware, Facebook has an advertising platform which you can use to promote your business page or posts and get more likes, more website visits or more sales. What is nice about this system is that you can create targeted campaigns and get your page in front of the ‘right people’. In terms of cost, once you run a pilot campaign for a couple of weeks you will be able to predict how much budget you need to reach more audience on Facebook.
On Twitter the most efficient way to find targeted followers is to use the twitter search function and find out users tweeting about your industry, related products or competitors. Searching for hashtags instead of plain keywords can get you better results (i.e. search for ‘#socialmedia’ instead of ‘social media’). Once you find these people follow them and statistically some of them will follow you back.
You can follow the same approach for Google+ but have in mind that a business page can only follow 50 people per day so you need to follow a less aggressive approach to stay away from unwanted troubles.
Step 3: Monitor your brand and clean up your accounts
So, you have good content, you promote your accounts by advertising or reaching out to potential followers, what’s next?
The next step is to monitor what people say about your brand in the different networks and reply to any comments (either positive or negative). There are various ‘brand monitoring’ tools you can use but another easy way is to use the search function of the different networks and search for your brand name. Make sure that you do this on a daily basis and that you publish and share your replies so that other people can see that you have an active presence.
As a final step you also need to clean up your accounts on a regular basis. ‘By clean up’ I mean remove people that are not active or not related to your niche or business. On networks like Twitter it’s very difficult to find users that only tweet about your industry and niche so you need to regularly review who you follow and try to stick to people that are a better match to your customer profile.

Conclusion

Businesses can successfully use social media provided that they are willing to invest both time and money to establish their social media presence. Depending on the type of business, you can choose which networks to utilize but the recipe for success is always the same: Share useful content that goes beyond your products or services, promote your accounts, protect your brand and keep your accounts in good shape.
To go from theory to practice, take a closer look at what we have done with the knownhost case study and apply the same strategies to make your company a social business.
How businesses can gain more followers on social media (case study) by

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

AMA: Common Local SEO Mistakes Made By Businesses Big & Small

Have questions about local SEO? Columnist Andrew Shotland has anticipated these questions and is answering them, Reddit-style!


shotland-reddit-ama-800

Hi, everybody. I am Andrew Shotland, founder of Local SEO Guide. Seems like every day, we run into multi-location and small businesses having problems with their local and organic Google rankings. My guess is you are reading this because you’ve got some problems of your own. So go ahead. Ask me anything!
Note to the uninitiated: This post is done in the style of a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), in which users ask questions to people who are knowledgeable about a topic. Here, our esteemed columnist is identified as “localseoguide,” who is answering questions from hypothetical inquirers.

[-] multilocomonsterbrand 
We grow by acquiring competitor locations. Seems like every time we do this, we kill the new location’s local rankings. Doesn’t exactly make for a fun honeymoon.
[-] localseoguide
Hey Multiloco, rebranding a location is one of the quicker ways to tank your local rankings.
You are likely changing the name of the business and the phone number which can cause a mismatch in your NAP (Name, Address & Phone Number) across various services on the Web that Google looks at to help it figure out if it should rank the business for various queries.
Inconsistent NAP issues can lead to local ranking problems. While there’s no easy way around this, we typically use the following approach when rebranding a location:
  1. Domain Name Changes. Avoid changing your domain name (see here, here andhere for why this process sucks and advice on how to do it). Do not mark your old brand’s GMB page as “permanently closed”. This can cause all sorts of problems if you can’t get Google Local Support to merge it with your new brand’s GMB page.
  2. Up-To-Date Business Data. Update your business data everywhere, particularly at the main citation sources and data aggregators. Terminate with extreme prejudice any old NAP listings you can find, including any old inconsistent NAP Info for the acquired location (e.g., the name it had two names ago, the phone number it had five phone numbers ago, etc.)
  3. 3. Rebranded Website. Update your business name, etc. on your website. Can’t tell you how many times I have seen this one.
  4. Google My Business. Once you have fixed the citations and data aggregators, then go to your Google My Business page and update the NAP. We have seen the process of updating everything else before the GMB page can help speed the rankings recovery.
  5. Rebranding. Make sure on all your citations and website you include some “formerly known as {OLD BRAND}” language as people may still be searching for the old brand on Yelp or Google and you want to make sure that your new brand shows up for these queries.
  6. Changing Business Name. Check out The SMB Guide To Changing Business Names & SEO for more detail.

[-] thanksfortherankingsobama!
I tried everything you recommended above and our local rankings still blow.
[-] localseoguide
While there can be many reasons for a business not ranking, one of the primary issues we see a lot of agencies and DIYers miss is that they didn’t do a thorough enough job of cleansing the NAP data. Are you sure you found everything, or at least every major thing?
For example, did you check Google Mapmaker to make sure there weren’t any problems? Did you squash all the dupes at the main aggregators? Did you update the Facebook page?
We often see these things overlooked. There are a lot of tools that can help you figure this stuff out. We developed NAP Hunter, a free Chrome extension to make it easier to suss this junk out.
You also may want to check out the Local Data Ecosystem tab on our free Local SEO Audit doc. And I really like Joy Hawkins’ & Phil Rozek’s Google MapMaker Troubleshooting guides.

[-] imalawyerandusedtogettingmywaybutwtf
We have several attorneys in our practice and I hear that Google allows you to have listings for each attorney. Should I do this?
[-] localseoguide
Google calls these “practitioners” and there’s a good chance that if your staff are already listed in various industry databases that Google has already created GMB pages for them. This can be a tricky issue because sometimes these practitioner pages will rank well for good queries and sometimes they won’t.
But in general, our experience is that practitioner listings can act like dupes and we often see clients perform well if we “de-dupe” which basically means try to either merge them with the business’ main GMB page or remove the business’ branding from the listing and give them a unique phone number.
But before you start fixing the problem, make sure that none of these are ranking for anything as sometimes fixing this problem can do more damage than good. I really like Linda Buquet’s take on this issue in her Dr. Dupes & Google+ Local User Edits post.

[-] napattack
I am getting hit up by listings management vendors. Some have automated solutions while others do manual claiming of citations. Which works best?
[-] localseoguide
This is one of the multi-million dollar questions in local SEO these days. Our typical answer is there is no perfect solution and it often comes down to budget, time, labor and other stuff particular to your business’ situation.
Automated solutions like Yext* are pretty great for what they do, which is to quickly get control of your listings on approximately 50 local directory sites and allow you to update them — many in real time.
These solutions also have a duplicate suppression service that we like. So if you want the work done fast with minimal effort, and you want to be able to update your listings whenever you want, automated is a good solution.
But Yext doesn’t hit all of the data aggregators and it doesn’t hit some directories that may be important to you. In those cases, you need a manual solution.
Moz Local has an interesting service that hits the four big local data aggregators. There are some vendors that have automated these tasks to some degree with bots that can login for you; but sooner or later, a person needs to touch these and often these are low-wage, high-volume operations prone to error. But if you have a lot of locations and/or are unfamiliar with this stuff, there may be no alternative.
One common question about Yext is what happens when you stop paying them. In those cases, your listings get “unlocked” and sites may overwrite your data and screw it up. Of course the same thing happens with manual listings management. We have seen plenty of claimed and deduped citations get overwritten, screwed up, etc. This is one of the many reasons local SEO at scale can be aggravating.

[-] servicearea51
I do all my work out of a truck. How do I get ranked locally in cities where I don’t have a physical location?
[-] localseoguide
This is a tricky one. Google has been trying to tighten the radius on local results for a while and not having a physical location in your target city can make it hard to crack the local packs, particularly for high-density, competitive categories (e.g. restaurants, dentists, lawyers. etc.).
While many companies use virtual offices, P.O. Boxes, fake addresses and the like to try to game these results, we try to avoid tactics like these that we think Google is trying to snuff out.
In many cases, the best offense is to go for organic rankings (the non-local pack parts of the SERPs). I recommend How To Rank Outside of Your Physical Location in Google Places for further reading.

[-] linklessinlouisville
How do I do linkbuilding that can help my local rankings without getting crapped on by the Penguin?
[-] localseoguide
Linkbuilding is a challenge for every business. But we continue to see, particularly post Pigeon, that backlinks can overcome a lot of local SEO problems. So here are some easy ways to get started:
  1. Charity Sponsorships. List all of the charities you sponsor. If you don’t sponsor any, grow a heart and find some in your community and/or in your niche. Find out how you can get involved with them in a way that can generate a link.
    Often this means helping out an event, becoming a sponsor, writing content for their site, etc. We find these types of opportunities provide some of the best links and feel good at the same time.
  2. Know Your Niche. Research all relevant media for your geo/niche and figure out which ones accept content. For example, our local newspaper site allows you to become a local blogger. Of course be careful with how you link back to your site, but that’s for another post.
  3. Seek Link Opportunities. Put a list together of all local groups and businesses that you are involved with. Is your kid in a local theater company? Are you a member of the local mother’s club? Part of a regular MeetUp group? All are good link opportunities.
  4. Local Citations. Make sure that you have all your local citations covered. These are often the easiest links to get and many get overlooked.
  5. Grab Attention. Do something crazy. Like make a crazy car dealer website. Ask for one star reviews. Or just be born with a really bad name. It’s the Attention Economy. Get some.
Ok. Enough with the questions. Back to work…
*Full disclosure: Andrew does some consulting for Yext on occasion and is totally in their pocket. Can you say “conflict of interest”? Don’t trust a word he says. 

Local Businesses: How To Get Good Online Reviews That Build Business

Online reviews can make or break local businesses these days, so columnist George Aspland shares his process for cultivating (good) reviews.



Good reviews on sites like Google and Yelp can entice people to check your business out, improve conversions, and potentially help organic search engine rankings. In this article, I’ll show you how to generate a continuous flow of good online reviews that should help your local business.

Why You Want Good Reviews

Reviews Stand Out in the Search Results. Good reviews on search engines like Google and review sites like Yelp can help attract more people to check out your business, as they often feature prominently in search results.

woburn-famliy-lawyer

Local reviews are not just helpful for restaurants and hotels, but for most local businesses.
We focus on a number of markets including the legal market. I was showing a prospective customer its local results in Woburn, MA for one of the areas of law it focuses on.
A competitor’s listing appeared at the top of the local results with a 4.5 star rating (see the screen shot above). The star rating makes that listing stand out, and the reviews likely play a factor in it being the top listing in the local results. (I’ll talk about reviews’ effect on rankings below.)
Reviews Can Help Improve Conversions (Leads, Sales, Signups, etc.). Having a number of good reviews can make people feel more comfortable about doing business with you. In surveys such as this one on Marketing Land, 90% of the respondents said that positive online reviews influence their buying decisions. Perhaps even more importantly, almost as large a percentage were influenced by negative reviews.
People May Choose To View Only Highly Rated Or Reviewed Sites. Some sites, like Yelp and Google, allow people to only see listings with a minimum star rating, or to sort the listings by the most reviews.

reviews-choose-by
If your business is in a market where a large percentage of your competitors have online reviews, your listing may not even be visible if you don’t have enough good reviews.

Do Reviews Affect Rankings?

While Google and Bing have never confirmed that reviews have an impact on rankings, anecdotal evidence suggests it’s likely.
In a 2013 analysis for the hotel industry, Digital Marketing Works found a strong correlation between reviews/ratings and positions, specifically between Local Carousel rank and average review rating and quantity. (Note: Google’s Carousel display is being retired.) We have seen have seen similar correlations in markets we focus on and others have reported correlations, as well.
In the 2014 MOZ Local Search Ranking Factors, a survey of industry marketers which focus on local search, respondents were asked to identify and assign a percentage of influence to ranking factors. Overall, the respondents believe that review signals — such as the quantity of reviews, review velocity, review diversity, etc., are a significant factor in rankings.

moz-local-search-ranking-factors-2014

Is It Okay To Ask For Online Reviews?

Whether or not it’s acceptable to ask customers for reviews depends on the review site. You’ll need to check the terms and conditions for any review site you’ll focus on – some frown upon asking customers to submit reviews, while some encourage it.
For example, Yelp discourages businesses from soliciting customer reviews. It believes that solicited reviews jeopardize the site’s integrity, as users would eventually see the reviews as biased toward favorable ones, and therefore, untrustworthy.
Remind your customers to leave feedback on Google. Simply reminding customers that it’s quick and easy to leave feedback on Google on mobile or desktop can help your business stand out from sites with fewer reviews.
It’s important to research the terms and conditions for any review site you plan to focus on so you’ll know what is allowed. If you can’t find this information easily on their site, try searching for “[review site] terms and conditions” in a search engine.
Now, I’ll show you the process we recommend to our clients to develop a continuous stream of online reviews.

Make Sure Your Customers Are Happy!

First and foremost is to ensure that your customers are happy. You need happy customers to get good reviews! Unfortunately, unhappy customers are the ones most likely to post reviews.
You should work to identify both your satisfied and unsatisfied clients. Depending on the nature of your business, you could send out a satisfaction survey or call your customers periodically.
What we do is to ask our clients, “Would you take a call from a prospective client?” If they say yes, we know they are reasonably happy. If we don’t get an answer, we may have a problem.
If you find unhappy clients, you should take steps to learn what you need to do to correct the situation.

Find The Best Review Sites For You And Your Industry

There are many review sites. You want to focus on the most important review sites for your business and your industry. Here’s what we do for our clients:
  1. Search On Your Brand Names. Search on your company and brand names, with and without adding “reviews” to the search. You should find most of the public reviews you already have. Check those reviews. If you have some bad reviews, you’ll want to consider if and how you should respond.
    If you have a large number or bad reviews versus good reviews on a review site, you should consider focusing on this review site in order to build up more good reviews.
  2. Search On Important Non-Brand Keywords. Let’s say you own a gym. You’ll want to do some non-branded searches relevant to your business, such as “gym new haven” and other important search queries. Scan the results for reviews, and make note of the searches you’ve done and the review sites you see on the first page or so of the search results.
  3. Search On Brand Names Of Your Industry Leaders & Some Key Competitors.As with the non-brand keywords, scan the results for reviews and make note of the searches and the review sites you see in the top results.
After you have compiled the results of the above searches, make a short list of review sites to focus on by choosing the review sites that appear in the top search results for multiple searches along with the sites where you found you already have reviews. (Even if there are mostly good reviews, you may want to focus on these sites to keep a stream of good reviews as many people do look at the dates to see how recent the reviews are.)
Before you begin driving customers to any review sites, create or update profiles on any of the sites that allow it. You want clients and other users of the review site to see updated information. Plus you’ll have a way to respond to reviews.

Entice Customers To Submit A Review Online

Here are some tips to entice your customers to submit an online review. Again, check the terms and conditions of the review sites you plan to focus on so you know what you are allowed to do.
Create A Web Page With Links To Review Sites. You can create a web page that includes links to your profiles on some review sites, then encourage people to visit this page – for example, by putting a “Check us out on these review sites” link on most or all of your web pages and your email signatures.
Put Links To Review Sites In Your Web Pages & Email Signatures. Rather than creating a separate web page, you could put links to one or a couple of review sites on all or most of your pages. For example, you can add these links in the right or left column of the site with a headline such as “Check us out on these review sites.” Add similar links to your email signatures.
Create Business Cards With Review Site Information. Some businesses hand out a business card that includes the URL for an important review site.
I went to a surf school in Barbados a few years ago. When I was leaving (and they knew I was happy), they handed me their business card. On it was the URL to their TripAdvisor profile. Because of the number of great reviews they have (including one from me), this surf school was listed as one of the top activities in Barbados on TripAdvisor.
Hand Out A Flyer. Some businesses hand out a sheet with simple directions to get people started at a review site. However, the review process can change, so you’ll need to keep it up to date.
Just Ask. You could ask clients to submit a review on the phone or by email.
Add A Request To An Email About Another Topic. You could add a message to an email you send out to clients about some other topic.
For example, my family and I took a cooking class in Tuscany while we were there. A couple weeks later, we each received email messages with some free recipes. At the end of the message the site added, “Last pleasure to ask… can you write a review on TripAdvisor about our Tuscan cooking class?” Because of all the good reviews it had, that cooking class was ranked as one of the top things to do in that city on TripAdvisor.

About Google Reviews

If you have a local business focus you’ll certainly want some good reviews on Google Maps (Google+ Local).
However, Google requires a Google Account in order to post a review. Not everyone will have a Google Account, and those who don’t may not want to spend the time to set one up just to submit a review. So, have an alternative review site for them that is easier to post reviews on.
Also, look for customers who have a Google email account (such as name@gmail.com) since you’ll know they have a Google Account.

Get Reviews Over Time, On A Continuous Basis

It’s best to get reviews in a natural progression over time, so don’t ask all your clients to submit reviews at the same time. Make getting online reviews a part of your ongoing business processes.

You May Get Some Bad Reviews…

…and that’s okay. In fact, too many good reviews and no bad ones is unnatural and looks suspicious.
If you do get some bad reviews, you’ll need to decide if and how you should respond. Here are some articles about responding to bad reviews.
  • 5 Tips For Responding To Negative Customer Reviews Online
  • Handling Haters: How To Respond To Negative Online Reviews
  • 4 Cool-Headed Strategies for Responding to Negative Comments Online
Got any other tips for cultivating reviews? Share in the comments!