For All Businesses

Remember the Science post?  Well I’ve got some more good stuff for you.

Social Proof

It’s the current buzz word and will be for a while until something new takes over.

What is it?  It’s the presentation of what people are saying about your business on your website.

Cut and Paste Reviews Then…

Well yes - that’s a start and what we’ve done in the past but there are ways you can make those reviews stand out. 

With the arrival of the semantic web you can wrap your reviews in code that tells the search engines what they are and can result in them being pulled into your search results.

This is good.

Do People Review Your Business? 

Yes.  Yes they do.  And while some of them might use Yelp, G+ or Tripadvisor, the vast majority of reviews come in the form of word of mouth or thank you emails.

The micro-formatting doesn’t care where a review comes from - it’s just as easy to wrap a thank you email as it is a Google+ review.  Sure you’ll need to get their permission to publish and at the same time you might want to ask them if they would rate you on a scale of 1 to 5, but so long as it’s real - the search engines don’t care.

What Next

I recently wrote that generating reviews is a must for any local business.  I’d amend that and say generating reviews is a must for any business.

Shout me if you need help with this.

Written while listening to: Introduction to music2work2

Image Credit: 4.5 Stars.SVG on Wikipimedia.org

For Local Businesses

If you have a physical location then you need to be aware of how local search works.  While it initially seems fairly opaque with terms like Local Pack, Three Pack, NAP, Citations etc - it’s actually pretty straightforward

Steps To Take

On-Site

There are a few things to check on your existing site.  If I built it with you the only thing we need to look at is correct schema setup in the footer for NAP, schema for on-site reviews and maybe the amount of content and internal linking on some of the major pages.

Off-site

This is about NAP consistency and the amount of citations you have in local directories.  This is something you can do yourself - which takes time - or you can have a third party do it.  You’ll be looking at a few months at around $225 a month to get everything set up.

Behavioral

Generating reviews on Yelp and Google+ is now a must for any local business.  If you’re speaking to customers on a daily business how hard is it to bring up the topic of online reviews?

If you change your mindset to accept that a review will increase your local visibility in search - why would you not talk about this with your customers?

What Next

Every business is different and will have different priorities.  If you’d like to talk about your business and work out a plan of action, drop me an email and book a session.

Written while listening to: Andy The Barman 1105 by music2work2

Image Credit: Map by Amber Case on Flickr

How to be more visible to local search

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Get your location in the title of your home page

If you don't know how to do this - shout me

Pay for a tool that gets your local data out to the major US data aggregators

Many of you might recognize names like Yext ($499 a year) or Do-It-Yourself ($346 a year) and yes they're bloody good at what they do - but if you want a quick easy entry to this world at just $49 a year, check out Moz Local

https://moz.com/local

It's made by one the most open and effective companies in the SEO world and I highly recommend it.

Sort out your Google+ page

Google are finally getting their act together when it comes to business pages.  Yes it's been messy in the past but there's a new interface and it actually makes sense.  It's now call Google My Business and here's what you should do today:

• Log into your Gmail account
• Click the +YourName link on the top right of the screen - this takes you to your G+ page
• Underneath the Google logo on the top left of the page, click the home button and a drop down menu appears - click on pages
• You should now see your business page - select it and you'll arrive on the new Google My Business dashboard
• Follow the instructions - add photos - check your address and phone number (you might need to be verified first but they can now do that over the phone!)
• If you don't have a page - maybe you should.  Get in touch if you'd like some help.

As with any other social network you'll need to be active in order to really get the benefits, so a nice easy win is to write reviews of other local businesses as your G+ page. 

Seriously - this is a great idea!  If your business frequents the local coffee shop and they're on G+ - write a review - same with the local dry cleaners, market, car wash,  etc.  The more reviews you write - the more visible you are and the more likely it is others will review you - and yes - reviews are good!

Check out Bing

Once you've got Google up and running check out Bing's version:

http://bingplaces.com

There.  That should keep you busy for a while. 

If you've got questions - you know what to do.

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Written while listening to: Minecraft Playlist - music2work2

Image Credit: Me!

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