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Internet Marketing for Local Business Internet Marketing For Local Business Internet Marketing For Local Business Edward Kundahl, Ph.D., M.B.A. BusinessCreator, Inc. www.BusinessCreatorPlus.com Internet Marketing For Local Business DEDICATION This book is dedicated to all the men, women, teens and children who aspire to live the entrepreneurial dream in a democratic environment. I give thanks to the technology era, while we further expose ourselves, we can leverage the Internet era to flourish the dream that the little guy can still make it. I dedicate my work, effort, direction, ideas and passion put forth in my work to and from my mom and dad. Internet Marketing For Local Business Forewords This book has come from several years’ worth of work and education and experience as a business owner. I opened my first small business-marketing agency in 2000, recognizing early on the advent of Google would change the face of how business is done on the Internet. Our industry of Internet marketing has become very confusing and cluttered with technology gurus, executives, spammers and newbies. This has made it very difficult for the local business owner to push their business through. Fortunately great companies like Google were built on something organic. Like the food you eat, organic is good. Word of mouth advertising is the best form of marketing, it’s organic, and it is natural. While Google is a massive company with dozens of amazing products, their foundation is search. You can’t buy organic results. Hence Google must give great results, make their users’ happy, or they won’t come back. That’s why Google is Google, they do a great job at providing good organic results. This is to our benefit. In order to provide good organic results, Google tends to look at good organic factors, like word of mouth advertising. If you’re considering a meal at a restaurant and it’s busy, chances are they have good food. The point is, Google’s goal to provide results that will make their users happy. If Google is showing busy restaurants that have had other happy customers, then Google’s users will continue to remain faithful to Google, and in turn, consume Google’s advertising…which is how they make money. iii Internet Marketing For Local Business Give them something great for free, and they will keep coming back. Internet Marketing is just about good marketing. It’s not about understanding and knowing the 200+ different factors the Google algorithm looks at, or the most recent algorithm update that affected a bunch of websites. With my years of experience as a marketer, two decades of B2B sales experience, my education and being a small business owner myself, I’ve created this book with the intentions to have a step- by-step strategy to help the small business owner achieve the #1 spot on Google. I assure you, this is not difficult. You do not need a degree, or understand how Google works. This is not about the latest craze on Facebook, nor will you have to be connected to your smartphone, tablet and laptop. You will have to continue to do what you do best. Service your customers, patients, or clients. Do what you love. This book will not help you if you do not have a sound business with happy customers. This book is about discovering how to leverage everything you already have, and I bet you don’t know everything you can leverage. iv ©2015 Edward Kundahl Internet Marketing For Local Business Table of Contents 80/20 Rule ................................................................................ 3 Changing the Paradigm ............................................................ 5 The Big Advertising Shift .......................................................... 7 A Fresh and Focused Approach................................................ 8 Websites – Your Tool to Convert Clients ............................... 10 White and Black Hat Online Marketing ................................. 12 The Local Internet Marketing Fundamentals ............................. 13 Listings.................................................................................... 13 Citation and Links ................................................................... 13 Reviews and Check-Ins ........................................................... 14 ................................................................................................... 15 Local Listings .............................................................................. 16 Local On-The-Page Factors..................................................... 16 Types and Location of Results ................................................ 17 Local Search Results Triggers ................................................. 18 Local Search Engines .............................................................. 20 Claiming and Correcting Listings ............................................ 21 Ranking Methodology ............................................................ 23 Local on-the-Page Factors for the Website ........................... 24 Citations and Links ..................................................................... 28 Local Citation Sources ............................................................ 29 Citations Acquisition Strategies ............................................. 32 ©2015 Edward Kundahl 1 Internet Marketing For Local Business Customer Reviews...................................................................... 41 What is a Review? .................................................................. 41 Local Search Review Profiles .................................................. 44 Testimonials and Check-Ins .................................................... 46 Social Check-Ins ...................................................................... 47 Local Search Reviews, Rich Snippets and Ratings .................. 49 Local Review Acquisition Strategies ....................................... 52 Local Review Sites .................................................................. 53 Review Filters ......................................................................... 55 Local Reviews Website List .................................................... 56 Top Ten Strategies for Local Rankings ....................................... 57 1. Profiles ........................................................................... 57 2. Reviews .......................................................................... 58 3. Social Media ................................................................... 59 4. Citations ......................................................................... 59 5. Video .............................................................................. 60 6. Local PR .......................................................................... 61 7. Website On-The-Page SEO ............................................. 61 8. Company Blog ................................................................ 62 9. External Links ................................................................. 62 10. Systems for Measurement and Correction ................ 63 What to do now ......................................................................... 64 2 ©2015 Edward Kundahl Internet Marketing For Local Business Local Search Marketing Industry The ‘Internet Marketing’ Industry is being hammered; it’s a highly unregulated, fragmented industry with little oversight, far-reaching best practices and simply poor business models. The results have been businesses with little results, agencies and ‘experts’ with poor communication and execution and simply an industry with a poor image. Marketing a local business on the Internet seems much more complex than it really is. Let’s face it, you’ll find the 80/20 rule in many areas of most businesses, whether it’s the finance department, operations, sales, marketing or even with human resources. Something I learned early in sales was that 20% of the sales force brought in 80% of the business. Interestingly, the Internet is no different. 80/20 Rule I find the 80/20 rule all over the place. Imagine if there were 100 different things out there a search engine looks at to evaluate which website it should rank first, second, third and so forth. You’d suspect that changing the top 20 of them would make the greatest impact if the 80/20 rule applies. Well if you suspected that I’m going to say, it does apply, drop the suspense, because I am saying that. But it does get interesting. While Google is a search engine, which is essentially a mathematical computer algorithm with human programmers, it does consider only metrics, numbers….as in factors that can be measured. ©2015 Edward Kundahl 3 Internet Marketing For Local Business So it’s natural for our industry to try and understand these things and then try to replicate what we suspect the search engines want. Truth is, this is where 80% of the SEO industry plays. I don’t. Those 20% of the factors I’m talking about can surely be measured. We surely can replicate them and satisfy the needs of the search engine. But the easiest way to do this is with marketing. Real, Old School Business Marketing. It’s just Marketing The American Marketing Association defines marketing as: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” A simple Google search defines marketing as: The action or business of promoting and selling products or services At the end of the day, marketing a
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