Localu Search Manual

LocalU Search

Manual Advanced Edition 2019

Foreword 01

Introduction 02

Knowledge Graph 03

Keyword Research 04-06

Location Data 07

Google My Business 08-09

Website Optimization 10-12

Architecture 13-14

Reviews 15-17

Building Your Brand 18-20

Paid Campaigns 21-22

Endnotes 23

LocalU seminars were started to help small businesses market themselves online. The idea grew to include the best minds in local search, with appearances at regional conferences to show local businesses why they should care about NAP, verify their listing on Google, and invest in a marketing plan to grow their business.

Shortly after that, the LocalU faculty found marketers wanted more help to address the unique challenges of promoting a local business. As a result, the Advanced LocalU seminars were born. Twice a year, the faculty now brings new in-depth insights to marketers about the constantly changing local search landscape.

Personally, I got my start in local when I became frustrated with the healthcare experience while my wife was pregnant with our first child. Scheduling medical appointments was a nightmare, and finding information about obstetricians near us was difficult at best. I wanted the journey to be much better for patients - and with that in mind, the idea for PatientPop was born. Today, the company delivers our practice growth solution to doctors across the US, and as part of that solution, we help them effectively build their local presence online.

I went to my first LocalU conference in Minneapolis, 2015, where I met Mike Blumenthal, who was introduced as ‘Professor Maps.’ He became an early advisor to PatientPop, shaping our initial platform vision. Mike then introduced me to Joel Headley, who, at the time, was working in search at Google, having previously led the operations and support teams for Google My Business. Joel now heads our SEO efforts at PatientPop.

We’re now honored to host the LocalU faculty for a second time for LocalU Advanced, and I look forward to our continued partnership and collaboration across our organizations in years to come.

Luke Kervin Co-CEO, PatientPop Santa Monica, CA February, 2019

Local University covers a range of internet marketing topics, with a focus on Local Search Engine Optimization. Simply put, we teach business owners and the agencies that serve them to thrive online. This manual is a companion to our Small Business Edition (localu.org/smb), which helps businesses get a head start tackling local search topics and activities related to opening a new business, developing a local-ready website, getting reviews and citations, creating email and paid marketing campaigns, and tracking success.

The advanced topics included in this manual touch upon subjects covered in LocalU Advanced seminars, which are designed to help SEO experts deepen their understanding of local search challenges and opportunities.

Local SEO is the art of talking to a machine, usually Google, and coaxing that machine to help your business appear more often, and in a better position, in search results. However, you don’t need to approach the task strictly from a machine’s perspective. Ideally, think beyond that single outcome to find ways to promote your business or client, increase website size, and improve your visibility. Content developed for local SEO can also be used for email marketing and social media to further benefit your business.

Contributors:

Mary Bowling, Ignitor Digital Kirby Kushner, PatientPop Mike Blumenthal, GatherUp David Mihm, ThriveHive & Tidings Jason Brown, Over The Top Marketing & Mike Ramsey, Nifty Ventures ReviewFraud Ed Reese, Sixth Man Marketing Dana DiTamoso, Kick Point Will Scott, Search Influence & UpScribed Joel Headley, PatientPop Darren Shaw, Whitespark Carrie Hill, Ignitor Digital Aaron Weiche, GatherUp Paula Keller French, Search Influence JJ Workman, PatientPop

Right now, search involves searching things, not strings. That means your keyword research and content creation should take into account not only the keyword relevance of your website, but also how your keywords and content represent your local business.

Background

Technology companies today use entities to organize information and deliver search results. Entities are organized into the form of: subject, predicate, and object. For Google, this information is known as the Knowledge Graph. The Knowledge Graph uses a subject, object, predicate (S,P,O) format to answer questions. A simple relationship may be:

Tzur Gabi is a dentist.

Google can evaluate this statement as true or false.

Subject Predicate Object Valid

Tzur Gabi is a dentist True

The Knowledge Graph extends the entity to include Google uses these extended relationships to multiple relationships. answer questions. The knowledge panel is one of the ways Google organizes much of the information stored in the Knowledge Graph for a local business.

Los Angeles Connecting businesses to potential customers relies on content that brings the entities together in the located in Knowledge Graph and answers questions. Your local business can be considered an entity, but so is a are its categories, location, and services. Each entity Tzur Gabi Dentist needs to be connected in the Knowledge Graph as provides the service Google moves closer to answering questions, and moves away from simply showing links on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Marketers who can Teeth help make these connections for Google will be whitening effective regardless of the search surface used — whether through web search, voice search, or maps navigation.

Move away from only using keyword research tools Also, research the types of results Google returns to help increase your business reach and rankings. for key terms. Does Google return local results, Your primary source for keyword research should images, or answer boxes? Do businesses like yours come directly from your business and its current appear on the first page? If not, consider other customers. Use words your customers and clients keywords where there’s a likelihood of landing use frequently, and answer these questions: among similar businesses.

• What does your business want to be known for? • How do your customers describe their needs? Here’s an Example • What are the current search behaviors of your prospects and customers? • If you have onsite search, what searches are most The SERPs for informational queries about medical popular? conditions, symptoms, and treatments are owned by Google’s most trusted topical sources such as MayoClinic, • Which pages on your site are read the most? WebMD, Migraine, Healthlines, etc. So, if you’re in this business, you should only optimize for informational queries specific to your niche,in your location. For instance, if you’re Your obvious search terms are the ones most an ear, nose, and throat specialist in Dallas, what do people likely to have the highest search volume. Typically, in that particular city need to know about the cedar pollen optimizing for the obvious brand, location, and there? category (each its own entity) in local search will Keyword research can be a deep and distracting black hole. cover the majority of key or head terms. Focus on Know when to stop, and remember that keyword research these entities to naturally help you explore related is only as valuable as the content you actually develop and terms and expand the content menu. By including publish. Therefore, you can take an iterative approach to related terms in content, performance for the head research and content development, and discover what is likely to help your site perform better over time. terms improves.

After researching, organize search terms in a meaningful way:

• Create groups of closely related terms • Create groups of keywords that answer the same question or a set of closely related questions • Note groups of search terms where new content and pages are needed for your business • Don’t disregard low search volume terms (they can still be valuable)

Keyword research will help inform your website navigation structure and primary pages, and keyword use within your website content. Low search volume terms can still be sprinkled through relevant pages, or used as internal link text and alt image text.

Google Trends

Use Google Trends to see the relative popularity of entities, topics and search terms.

The Topic Layer in the Knowledge Graph groups Search trends are available for YouTube, Images, everything related within your website content News and Shopping, and the Web. Use related into a single topic with related subtopics. Google topics and queries to mine for additional keywords has just begun offering immersive experiences in to target, paying attention to rising terms showing search and Google Discover as a result of the Topic upward changes in search traffic. Layer, which often provides the context needed to determine searcher intent. Google Trends can help you determine if your local business is a recognized entity in the Knowledge All topics are also search terms. So, topics and Graph. The ‘compare’ function of Trends tracks the entities will likely provide the biggest buckets of relative popularity of an entity or topic, allowing you terms to kickstart your research. Start with topic to track the relative popularity of your business and research and keep digging into additional topics competitors over time. and subtopics, as needed. Google Trends already defines searches astopics , search terms (i.e., keywords), or entities.

Example of Compare: The relative popularity of two local entities, Shamsah Amersi, MD and Caroline Colin, MD. Up to five search terms can be compared.

Search terms and Topics are labeled in Google Trends while listed locations, books, and people are entities in the Knowledge Graph.

Keyword Planner

Use Keyword Planner to see search volume and the relative difficulty of ranking for a term.

Keyword Planner is a simple way to get a sense of search volume for a particular term, or the relative difficulty of ranking for that term. Keyword Planner Useful Tools buckets keywords into broad volume groups — but note that the specific volumes should be taken with Google Trends https://trends.google.com/trends/ a grain of salt. Explore how Google data can be used to tell stories. Explore the year through the lens of Google Trends data. Get search volumes and forecasts will allow you to compare impressions, cost, average position, and Google Ads Keyword Planner typical click-through rates. ‘Impressions’ identify https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/ Google Ads Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool opportunity while ‘cost’ determines difficulty. Higher- that allows you to find the right keywords to target for cost search terms are generally more competitive display ads, search ads, video ads, and app ads. and can be more difficult to rank for in organic search. Moz Keyword Explorer https://moz.com/explorer/

Try the following when using Keyword Planner: SEM Rush https://www.semrush.com/

• Set Keyword Planner to search closely related terms. Keyword.io • Use filters to sort by search volume and keyword https://www.keyword.io/ difficulty. • In the filters, remove the ‘adult’ filter, since many Answer the Public medical and legal terms will trip it. https://answerthepublic.com/ • Enter a website page URL to see what terms Google thinks an individual page is about and which terms Buzzsumo are related to the page. This is useful for competitor https://buzzsumo.com/ research, too. SERPStat • Search your brand’s name to learn which terms https://serpstat.com/ Google Keyword Planner suggests. This will enable you to discover gaps in Google’s knowledge about the entity.

Adding new keywords to existing content can get 4x more impressions on Google.1

Managing locations entails managing information across multiple publishers and partners, and on your business website. An agency that oversees many small businesses, each with its own website, is likely to take a distinct approach from overseeing many locations for a separate brand. Recently, Google My Business made agency management a feature, not a side effect. So, an agency should migrate its managed listings to the new dashboard.

The agency dashboard provides a key benefit: the listing is managed by the agency as an entity, instead of individuals within the company. Locations can be added to location groups, which is the only entity transparent to other users added to the listing. Location groups within the agency dashboard can be managed by users in the same domain or entire user groups. Turnover, or assignment changes, are opaque to the customer, simplifying the exchange of invites and users assigned to any individual listing.

Citations would otherwise be difficult to update. The legal profession has vertical-specific publishers that In the past, citations were a straightforward way those in the legal industry will want to include in the to stand out in search results. Today, citations are management software, too. necessary, but not sufficient enough to stand out from other businesses. This is likely the result of the As you approach location data management, ensure proliferation of citation management tools and the you’ve considered: awareness among local businesses that they need to maintain a consistent name, address, and phone • Website management number (NAP) across the web. • The need for updates to a large corporate site • Management of many websites, each with a handful of locations When choosing a citation tool for your business, • Citation management focus on the capabilities of the platform along with • Automated vs. manual updates any vertical-specific opportunities unique to your • Build vs. buy strategy. Yext not only delivers citation management, • Publisher diversity but can also create local landing pages that might • Niche-specific sites work well for large enterprises, where local data • Local-specific sites managers don’t usually have direct access to edit the corporate website. Brand Building Additionally, a business that has locations outside Ultimately, creating or updating citations is a brand- the U.S. might require selection of a system that building exercise. The citations most likely to move can accommodate international publishers. For the needle for search presence are hyper-local and healthcare, choosing the right partner can provide niche-specific. For more on how to partner to build a immediate access to healthcare platforms that brand online, see the brand-building section.

Google My Business (GMB) basic setup and optimization is covered in detail in the Small Business Edition (localu. org/smb). In this manual, we’ll touch on some of the high level issues. For an in-depth view of local search, especially on Google, check out the Experts Guide to Local SEO: https://localu.org/experts-guide-local-seo/.

Attributes

Google regularly increases the number of attributes available in GMB. Sometimes attributes appear first in Google Maps. While not every attribute is immediately used in search, attributes can impact customer decisions and conversions. Also, as the data for particular attributes becomes available, user-selected filters can be applied, as is the case with ‘wheelchair accessible entrance.’

Listing Updates

Frequently, and seemingly at random, updates can happen to your listing. These updates happen without notice and can drastically change your ranking if name or category changes are applied. Getting to the source of the changes is necessary to ensure your listing remains published properly. The top culprits for the cause of these updates can include:

A third-party app that updates the listing via the GMB API

To find out if another app has access to your listing, check which apps have been given permission to your Google Account at https://myaccount.google. com/permissions. Browse under Third-party apps with account access, which labels apps that have The primary attributes that should be added to a access to View and manage your business listing location are the additional URLs associated with on Google. Revoke permissions to any unauthorized menus, services, bookings, or ordering. Because or unwanted app, and it will no longer be able to those links shorten conversion steps, there can be update the listing. an incremental increase to bookings, for example. Additionally, where appropriate, filling out more detailed service menus permits users to make conversion decisions directly on Google. (continued on next page)

Another manager makes direct edits Phone calls are only measured on mobile devices where a user touches the phone number to bring up Recognize that various users may be able to make their dialer. To get precise numbers on anyone calling edits to your listing. If your listing is associated with from the listing, use a call tracking number. an organization that no longer works with your business, remove the organization. Also, remove Click tracking isn’t granular to all the URLs available to any names you don’t recognize or trust to keep your business categories. Tracking URLs should be used on business information accurate. the authority page (your primary website) along with different tracking for your menu or services / products Any user of Google Search or Google Maps URLs — or your order, reservations, or booking URLs. with a Google account Using Google Analytics, the tracking URL for a menu While it may feel like a violation of trust for the might look like www.yourbusiness.com/menu?utm_ business owner, Google needs to get feedback from source=gmb_menu&utm_medium=Organic. various channels to keep listing information up-to- date. As a result, users can suggest edits to your listing. Depending on the type of edit and the edit history of the user, the edit may be accepted quickly Useful Tools or sent for further review by a Google moderation team. While pending edits don’t appear in GMB, Google My Business you can see them in search. So, you should monitor https://www.google.com/business/ and reject any inaccurate edits before they are Your free Business Profile on Google My Business helps you reach and engage with local customers across Google published, when possible. Search and Maps.

Insights and Tracking

GMB provides a dashboard with insights about how your business performs in local search results. It includes impressions, clicks, actions, and search terms. There are a few things to remember about this data: Complete and accurate business profiles on Google are 2.7x more likely Clicks, impressions, and actions are always an to be considered, receive 7x more undercount, because Google usually doesn’t show data that could be attributed to an individual user. clicks, and are 70% more likely to 2 For instance, a single ‘driving directions’ request attract location visits. from one postal code won’t be reported.

Keyword research informs the development of website structure and content — the heart of website optimization. When choosing what to invest in, keyword research should have you viewing search results on Google, both on desktop and mobile. Google has a number of search features beyond links to pages on a website. For instance, answer boxes, events, and immersive experiences can all be impacted by proper website optimization.

Structured Data Search Features

In its earliest form, structured data held the basic Rich Results HTML elements of headers and paragraph tags. For local businesses, the most typical form of rich Markup fundamentally tells machines how to results is a review-rich snippet, in which stars, interpret content, and HTML is primarily for a web aggregate rating, and review count (or votes) appear browser, like Chrome or Safari. However, it is clear as part of the snippet in the SERP. that other programs can take advantage of more structure to drive features. Maps can use addresses and Contacts can consume information in virtual business cards. Primarily, we focus on what a search engine consumes and uses to drive search features.

Structured data can be broken down in two parts:

• Vocabulary: The system of tags that define information. • Encoding (language): The way those tags are marked up for machine consumption. Other rich results can include rich cards, which appear in courses, jobs, and recipes as either lists or While there are some lingering vocabularies — carousels. like Facebook’s Open Graph — which can be implemented on sites, Schema.org is the most current and widely used vocabulary on the web. Also, JSON-LD is the most straightforward way to encode content on a website. Ultimately, we recommend relying primarily on Schema.org and JSON-LD to markup sites with structured data.

Featured Snippets Images and Videos

When Google can find answers to questions that Often, appearing in carousels, images and videos aren’t available in the Knowledge Graph, a featured can provide searches that are categorical in nature, snippet will be highlighted at the top of the page. reaching searchers who wouldn’t typically search Featured snippets can include lists and tables, but for a local business. Images and videos are a great shouldn’t be confused with answer boxes, which way to increase awareness and introduce a local are answers from the Knowledge Graph and lack business through a different medium. attribution (e.g. [what time is it in hawaii] or [how tall is steph curry]).

Semantic Markup does not guarantee a featured snippet. The most trusted, highest-quality answer is likely to get the snippet.

• Question & Answer formats work well. • Answer each question thoroughly in about 60 words right after each question. • The use of

Onsite Opportunities Video Events • If you run a business with individual agents or practitioners, introduce new customers to them. This is Events can show up in the knowledge panel or particularly helpful for practitioners who have diverse as lists in search. Using proper markup increases backgrounds or hard-to-pronounce names. search real estate, too. • Mark up video with semantic markup to ensure Google understands the structure of your video — e.g. how long it is, how old it is, what it is about, and what thumbnail • Use Event Markup: https://schema.org/Event. you want used to represent the video. • Events can include seminars, panel discussions, open • Include a transcript. Don’t assume Google is going houses, or meet-and-greet gatherings. to understand your video content. Instead, serve it to Get creative! Participate in a parade, perform • Google on a silver platter. professional screenings or consultations at the local • Embed your video on pages that are related to the YMCA, or get involved in other community events. video topic. A video can be shown on multiple pages. • Events are news and can be used in other marketing • Never use autoplay, as it degrades the user experience. initiatives including social media, email marketing, company announcements / media relations, and so on. Note that Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (SDTT) displays what Google thinks about your structured Q&A Page data, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of correct markup. The tool checks to confirm you have sufficient Use the Q&A page markup: https://schema.org/ • markup for features that Google displays in search QAPage. results. It generally doesn’t show the latest content • Add one question per page with multiple answers — this increases your opportunity for in-depth FAQ from Schema.org. If you see errors or warnings in explanations. the SDTT, check your markup for mistakes. Then, • Use a single FAQ page which links to a full page with if you need help, reach out to the semantic search more specific questions and answers. community on Twitter or the Schema Working Group. • Avoid using accordion menus. • Use internal linking to related content or other mentions of the topic. • Poll your phone/customer service staff to find out Useful Tools what questions are asked frequently, so you can create more relevant Q&A content. Structured Data Testing https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool

Pages with rich snippets (stars from reviews) improve their click-through rate by more than 200%.3

Entities

Entities can be used to group and organize the content on your site, where the architecture should include navigation and internal linking. Both are valuable mechanisms to signal to Google what’s important content. Through the Knowledge Graph, Google understands entity relationships. Making these relationships explicit through site architecture helps Google put these pieces together from your website content.

Using the example search [best rhinoplasty doctor], Google likely processes the information in the following way.

• Finds the entities: • Doctor • Specialty: plastic surgeon • Location • Services: rhinoplasty, nose job • Person

• Defines the relationships among the entities: • The Knowledge Graph links entities. • Crawled content validates if entity relationships are true or false. • Synonyms are found for related or additional content (e.g. rhinoplasty and nose job).

• Finds the prominence of the entities: • Number of reviews Google then displays the results based on the scoring of the • Number of links / citations information. • Known accreditations / credentials • Number of visitors to the location

• Finds the relevance of the entities: • Query matching the entity • Entity relationships with other entities that match the query

• Calculates the distance from the searcher’s location

Cross Linking Site Consolidation

Entities on a website should interlink to show their For enterprise SEO, we often run across relationships. For instance, a page about plastic opportunities to consolidate multiple websites (i.e. surgery should link to a page about rhinoplasty. A one website per location) into one large website page about rhinoplasty should link to a page about with topics and supporting links that lend more the location where that rhinoplasty is performed. power to the individual location pages.

Consider cross linking (or internal linking) as a Merging multiple location-specific domains into roadmap of relationships between entities. For one website that has multiple location-specific instance, for medical practices, this allows Google pages has many benefits, including cost savings. to draw relationships between doctors, services, Marketing for, optimizing, and linking to one website locations, related services, alternative services, is much easier to accomplish than performing these different names of services, etc. activities for multiple website domains.

• Doctor One Domain Pros • Performs plastic surgery One domain with multiple location pages is inherently • Performs rhinoplasty • more powerful than 50 domains with two to three • Performs injections pages. • Injections of botox • It limits duplicate or similar content across domains. • Location • One domain links nearby locations. • Has doctors • You only have to build links to one site or domain. • Has services • It’s easier to optimize and monitor one domain vs • Service multiple domains. • Has locations • Has doctors One Domain Cons • Person • At location • No ‘exact match’ domains. • Performs services

Reminders for internal linking: • Do not rely solely on navigation and footer links for internal linking. • Link related pages of content to each other. • Avoid linking to anything offsite.

Reviews are a major ranking factor. When you have more reviews and a better rating than your competitors, this will help increase your website traffic and turn prospects into customers. For new businesses, getting current, happy customers to share their positive experiences online is a tried-and-true method for growth. In our Small Business Edition of this manual (localu.org/smb), we emphasize the need to have a plan around growing review volume, responding to reviewers, and adjusting your business practices based on feedback.

Identify Fake Reviews

A word of caution: there are some businesses and marketing agencies that invest heavily in review solicitation that sometimes includes illegitimate review generation. Knowing how to spot, report, and remove fake reviews can reduce competition from bad actors, and allow your prospects to digest real reviews on Google, Yelp, and Facebook.

The easy way to spot and identify a fake review is to look at the review profile. Review profiles generally contain a username, profile photo, and a list of reviews.4 The reviewer might be a spammer if:

• They leave multiple reviews in different states for similar services. • Their profile photo looks fake. • The review has duplicate content. • The photos included with the review aren’t original. • A large number of reviews were added in a short period of time.

Also, if you find one reviewer who is a spammer on a single listing, chances are there will be additional spammer reviews on that same profile. To check the profile image, perform a reverse image search on the profile photo to find out whether it is unique or used frequently elsewhere. In some cases, image search will identify the name of the person in the image. To check the content of a review, search the full text of the review on Google — you might find the same review posted multiple times.

Report Google Reviews

If you find a business with fake reviews, document and report the reviews to Google. It isn’t sufficient to report the reviews one-by-one through Google’s reporting functionality. Instead, you’ll need to use the Google My Business Community to escalate the reviews.

It’s not enough to report fake reviews using the “Flag as inappropriate” feature. You’ll need to turn to the Google My Business Community.

Before reporting on the community, create a Google Doc and list:

• Name, address, phone number, and website of the business with the fake reviews. • A link to each suspect review. • A short explanation noting why you believe the reviews are suspicious.

To escalate the reviews to Google, you can submit a post on the Spam & Policy discussion category or contact Google My Business support through Facebook or Twitter.

Keep in mind when escalating in the community that you’re communicating with volunteers, not Google employees. So, please remain patient, polite, and professional. It can take time to for a Product Expert to see the thread, and up to two weeks for Google to take action.

You may want to create an alias to protect your identity from the business or marketing company you are reporting, because there have been instances of retaliation.

If you do contact Google My Business support directly through Twitter or Facebook, you can communicate privately with a Google employee via direct message, and explain why you believe the reviews should be removed. Note that those channels still need to contact a separate team for review removal, which doesn’t have an immediate turnaround, so patience is still required.

In rare circumstances, sometimes a business can become the subject of a negative media story, inciting the ire of an online community and causing a rapid succession of negative reviews to appear on the business listing. In this instance, the business can contact the Google My Business support team directly to ask Google to stop all reviews on the listing until the news cycle changes.

Report Yelp Reviews

On Yelp, we frequently see questionable photos Useful Tools posted with reviews. Home improvement companies, for instance, can have photos copied Google My Business Community, Spam & Policy from other websites, which is detectable using https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Spam-Policy/ reverse image search. If you identify a situation bd-p/Spam_and_Policy Whether you’re new to Google My Business or an expert, like this, flag the profile and photo, and detail the your voice matters. Join the community to connect with violation that justifies removal. business owners and product experts.

Google My Business on Twitter https://twitter.com/googlemybiz The latest Tweets from Google My Business (@GoogleMyBiz) Support.

Google My Business on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GoogleMyBusiness The official channel for information and updates from the Google My Business team.

Support Center | Yelp for Business Owners https://www.yelp.com/support/contact/questions?src_ article_id=000007285 If the business has several fake reviews, create a Support Center. Call (844) 889-3486 9 am - 5 pm PST. document with the details, and link to it when filling out the contact form to report a business.

Report Facebook Reviews 86% of consumers read reviews for Facebook has removed the ability to flag and report individual reviews. To report fake reviews, local businesses (including 95% of 5 you’ll need to report the user profile that created people age 18-34). the review. While viewing the user profile, select the three-dot menu under the user’s cover photo. Select Give feedback or report this profile > Fake account.

By following these tactics, over three million fake 4-star ratings posted by 37 reviewers were escalated and removed by Google.6

When we talk about building your local brand online, we often think about link building and citation building. However, link building isn’t simply about adding a link to your website from any site that will allow it. Brand building is about taking relationships that exist in the real world and making them apparent online. You can also extend those relationships to online sources, including market or category-specific directories. Instead of commenting on blogs, focus on building relationships with businesses that are willing to showcase your brand alongside theirs.

The goal of brand building is to attract more people and prospects to your business. You can spread the word by growing your reviews, links, citations, and individuals on your email list.

Ultimately, the combination of visibility and reputation determines your brand presence. Cable companies, for instance, have high visibility but poor reputations; conversely, the corner cafe may have a great reputation but low visibility. Every effort to build visibility should have an online component and a plan. True brand building can only work via a partnership with each individual business, and each successful partnership can drive benefits to your business.

Benefits Brand Building Tactics Ranking Make real-world connections

Links have always helped websites rank better in When building your brand, take the extra steps to Google organic search results. In the past few years, ensure your efforts are reflected online. Typical online links have also gained considerable and irrefutable marketing tactics may include: influence with local search rankings. High rankings, as noted, are one of the best ways for small • Referring partners businesses to gain online visibility. • Promoting professional networking • Listing vendors and suppliers • Showing active volunteerism in your community Overall Visibility • Sponsoring local events via grants or individuals via Links to your website and mentions of your business scholarships (i.e. citations) on other websites are a proven way to increase your overall online visibility Upgrade current mentions because they establish a presence across Find all of the current links to your domain. Ensure more places where prospects are likely to look for they link properly to live pages, and replace links that your products and services. land on 404 or 301 pages. Additionally, recognize that anchor text and content on third-party sites can be Good Community Karma improved. When third-party sites display attributes Links and mentions can serve as visible online about your business (e.g. payment methods), ensure evidence that you support your community by the details are up-to-date. sponsoring local groups and events, donating resources to area nonprofits, or volunteering your Perform a brand search, excluding your website: services to benefit your city, town, or neighborhood. [brand_name -site:www.brandsite.com]. Also, find sites that mention your brand, but don’t currently link to your website.

Use the Moz Link Explorer to find current links that need improvement, and compare those results to the Google search for mentions that don’t have links.

Add links based on current relationships

The products you offer, brand you convey, and referral relationships you have built should all be expressed online. Work with your partners and vendors to define your relationship on their sites, whenever possible.

Build new relationships • Start memberships in local business groups and industry groups. Join appropriate local and professional associations to anchor your business to your geography and industry. • Include listings on local and hyperlocal websites. Get listed on sites associated with cities, towns and neighborhoods where you’d like to draw in more customers. • Aim for ‘barnacle’ SEO. Sites that already rank well for a desired term are a great target for links related to your business. • Promote features that make your business special. Take advantage of any characteristics that entitle your business to be listed in niche directories, like veteran-owned businesses, pet-friendly eateries or handicapped-accessible stores.

Useful Tools

Moz Link Explorer https://moz.com/link-explorer Get to know this all-in-one link building tool. Link Explorer replaces Open Site Explorer with a new set of link analysis and competitive research tools.

Given the first ten pages appearing in organic results on Google, 30% of the total referring domains point to position one.7

To get started in paid campaigns, check out our Small Business Edition guide (localu.org/smb). While simple paid campaigns like Google AdWords Express can jump start a new or struggling business, they are often more costly than steady investments in your brand, website, and local presence when you want to gain leads through organic search.

To realize a return on investment, it’s important to understand your complete customer lifecycle and have clear revenue goals. Marketers initially tend to think mostly about cost per lead when using paid campaigns. However, the ratio of lifetime value (LTV) to customer acquisition cost (CAC) paints a broader and more accurate picture of the full value of campaigns. LTV is the monthly recurring revenue of a customer divided by the monthly churn (number of customers who stop using and paying for products / services). CAC is the total cost of a marketing and sales campaign divided by the number of customers acquired by that campaign.

An LTV to CAC ratio of 3:1 is good, while a ratio of 5:1 suggests an under investment in your marketing and sales spend. You can use the LTV to CAC ratio to justify additional marketing and sales spend, or to refocus your efforts elsewhere.

Constant Testing Facebook Targeting

Use A/B testing from the start of your campaigns Location targeting on Facebook can turn local to optimize your ad spend and improve lead events into inexpensive ad buys. A pin drop in generation. After finding a creative concept and Facebook allows you to target the right place campaign that works, test it as your champion across specific demographics. For instance, a against another challenger creative campaigns to restaurant business that’s open late may want to continually build on your initial success. When you target a theater nearby just as its show ends. Or, the create and test three or more ads per ad group, restaurant may want to advertise in the area around you’ll gain even more insight about what performs a competitor’s business (but not at the competitor’s best. exact location).

Focused Acquisition You can also use your current customer list to build similar audiences to grow your newsletter. If you Paid campaigns, unlike organic search, allow want people to drop in to your business location, focused spend. Ads should target lead generation, use dayparting (displaying ads only at certain times and help drive sales. Avoid social ads that merely of day) to ensure ads run during business hours. promote ‘likes.’ Always use ad spend to get direct conversions or develop a broader audience. For example, you can use social ads to build your email list.

Scaling Agency and Enterprise

The goal of every campaign is to find appropriate As the number of campaigns you oversee grows traction between your offer and your audience in beyond what you can reasonably manage on the a minimally viable way. Validate hypotheses with native ads platform alone, explore tools for automation the simplest acceptable campaign structure and as and aggregation with ad tech platforms. Examine each little budget possible to reach a sample size large platform against the dimensions that matter most to enough to ensure the conclusions are relevant. your business. Review the following when assessing an ad tech platform: Once you’ve cleared this hurdle, and know that • Onboarding and account creation efficiencies there is traction between your offer, creative, • Automation for ongoing management messaging and conversion mechanisms, it’s time to • Reporting aggregate and by specific client scale your efforts. CAC is a function of your Cost per • Cost structure and impact on your margins Acquisition (CPA) or Cost per Conversion (CPC). In • Required changes to current operations or campaigns paid search, push campaigns that have strong CPA to migrate and scale the platform metrics to approach 100% Search Impression Share. • Headcount impact to manage operations with growth In the display space, increase your reach to the • Implementation costs, including time and technical greatest extent while also maintaining acceptable resources CPA. Ad tech platforms can provide significant value if you For paid search, scaling is generally a function find the best fit for your needs. Ultimately, an ad tech of increased budget and geographic targeting. platform will require a restructure of your operations Upon capturing the available inventory within and ongoing technical maintenance, but will help scale your addressable geography, explore additional ads. keywords and measure their ability to produce an acceptable CPA.

In display, scaling is a function of increasing audience size by:

• Expanding geography • Adding new audiences (using Lookalike audiences) 80% of consumers want search • Adjusting targeted attributes and demographics ads customized to their immediate location.8 When creating new audiences, look at the audience attributes that historically correlate with conversions. Build audiences to grow the number of people within your target pool that possess those attributes.

1 “Beyond Keyword Research: Optimize for Relevancy with Proof Terms.” 28 Feb. 2017, https://www.slideshare.net/ searchinfluence/beyond-keyword-research-optimize-for-relevancy-with-proof-terms. Accessed Jan. 2019.

2 “Optimize Your Google Business Listing (and Get 7x More Visits ....” 20 Nov. 2018, https://thrivehive.com/how-to-optimize- your-google-my-business-listing/. Accessed Jan. 2019.

3 “Understanding Your Presence on Google.” 12 Apr. 2018, LocalU Advanced, Austin

4 Note: Google has recently allowed reviewers to hide their reviews, making this assessment more difficult.

5 “Local Consumer Review Survey | Online Reviews Statistics & Trends.” https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer- review-survey/. Accessed Jan. 2019.

6 “Massive fake review attack has big impact on small businesses ....” https://searchengineland.com/massive-fake-review- attack-has-big-impact-on-small-businesses-309255. Accessed Jan. 2019.

7 “We Analyzed 1 Million Google Search Results. Here’s ... - Backlinko.” https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking. Accessed Jan. 2019.

8 “Going Local: How Advertisers Can Extend ....” https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/advertising-channels/search/how-advertisers-can-extend-their-relevance-with-search/. Accessed Jan. 2019.