Local Search Blog

Google+ Pages, ideal for companies, products, brands and organizations, have finally been launched. Your business entity should sign up if your existing and prospective customers are on Google+.

Google is working on Direct Connect which lets users go directly to Google+ Pages that have the feature enabled by keying in ‘+’ alongside their search queries that list the page name.

You are allowed to have as many pages as you wish, so that you can create separate G+ Pages for your products, events or services.  Each G+ Page has a +1 button like those found across the web now.  However, in the capacity of a G+ Page, you will not be able to +1 other pages. 

Your G+ Business page also lets you list your address and telephone details that generates a map and other contact information to your G+ Page.  While similar to the Google Places offering, the two services are distinctly separate and have to be managed independently. 

There have been a few teething troubles like just one user per Page being registered and authorized to manage a page, which can pose operational problems for large organizations or where local search engine marketing is involved. Also it seems all too easy to unintentionally publish information on a page.  Lastly, your brand’s Google+ Page will lead your customers away from your business enterprise’s website.

Despite any seeming disadvantages, possessing a Page on Google+ is considered beneficial in terms of web presence, and an opportunity not to be missed. That said, it’s quite probable that Google+ Pages will enjoy enviable visibility in the coming years due to the feature’s integration with Google Search.

Google’s alleged quality rating handbook was leaked in October 2011, causing webmasters the world over to sit up and take stock of their sites. Basically quality raters visit websites listed in Google search results.  If they are not relevant, the raters mark the sites spam. Here are the handbook guidelines:

Relevance – This is assessed at five levels: vital, useful, relevant, slightly relevant and off-topic.  Other descriptions are a combination of: authoritative, highly satisfying, entertaining, and recent. However, generic queries don’t return ‘vital’ results.

Meaning – If the query has more than one, the search engine picks the popular. For instance, it is assumed users searching for “blackberry” are looking for info on the mobile phone. Results meaning the fruit will receive lower ratings.

Intent – A page can be marked span even if relevant when it contains too many or unrelated PPC ads with little or nil original content, keyword stuffing, hidden text or links with stealthy redirects, besides other adverse parameters.

Query type – Search queries are categorized as any one of these action (‘do’) queries, information (‘know’) queries and navigation (‘go’) queries, and results must match the query type. Also, broad queries must return broad results and specific queries, specific results.

Language – Pages featured on query results should match the language used in the query.

Local – Certain queries are treated as local depending on the search term even if local qualifiers are not clearly used.

Steer clear of spammy strategies, use ethical SEO via local search engine marketing to maintain high SERPs for your site on Google.

Early research on Facebook’s fresh multiple news feed version shows that while it boosts interaction on posts, it simultaneously diminishes post exposure. The implication for brands on Facebook Pages is that they must modify their marketing strategy to suit this change.

Facebook’s new hybrid feed is part of its changes in response to Google’s new social network offering. The feed is an intelligent mix of the existing ‘top stories’ and ‘most recent’ feeds with a fresh scheme of prioritizing posts at the top of the group. The user also has the option of separating feeds from different sources or groups.

The study found the visibility of brands on Facebook Pages was impacted in two ways. The upside was comments increased by over 20% and ‘likes’ by almost 10%. However, post visibility was down by over 25%. This is because when a Facebook user likes, comments on, or shares content, it has the effect of instantly boosting that piece of content’s visibility to other users. So appealing content bobs to the top, and unappealing content drops very quickly to the bottom. However, high-impact content will be seen only once as the new feed pushes posts that have not yet been seen by the user to the top at the next visit, accounting for visibility being affected.

In order to deal with this, brands must create very appealing and shareable posts, as well as raise posting frequency in order to counterbalance the depressed post exposure. Also work with a local search engine marketing firm with a view towards gaining customer loyalty over the long term by motivating repeat engagements.

If you have not already done so, place social share buttons on your blog or website as a component of your online marketing campaign. The exercise may seem intimidating, but will reap benefits as a rousing ‘call to action’ to your site visitors to ally with your products or content. Research shows sites that installed Google +1 share buttons got over three times more traffic from the search engine compared to sites that did not.

Another compelling reason to employ these buttons is that they increase your brand visibility, promoting increasing online conversation around it, resulting in a positive snowball effect. Making a large array of social share tools available to your visitors also broadens your online presence as niche communities like StumbleUpon, Reddit and Tumblr are favored by users who are active in different fields like technology, politics and business.

When your visitors find the right social buttons to push, you are essentially catering to their impulse to share your content with friends directly and easily without the additional hassle of navigating to another web page. Social sharing establishes links to your blog or site creating more paths for prospective visitors to follow, again increasing your online visibility manifold.

Spearhead your online marketing campaign with social tools that enable easy sharing of your web content and brand. Finally, remember to handle your followers and supporters as you would treasured guests, taking steps to make them feel valued and comfortable when they visit your homepage on your website or blog. Be amiable, open, and encourage interaction. These fairly simple local search engine marketing efforts will reap rich dividends.

Social media participation and content management on an international level requires much strategizing, planning and implementation. Managing content on a global scale means scaling up and preparing a systematic plan for establishing policies, a content library and managing the community you build around your growing brand.

The first step is to come up with processes and standards that will govern your brand’s launch into a specific regional market via local search engine marketing. Your territorial marketing team must have certain policies clear before the expansion begins. Issues will include determining what social media platforms or tools are most popular in the region, the context and frequency of blog posts and updates on these platforms, the moderation policy to be adopted, a crisis plan, as well as what parameters will be used to measure the effectiveness of the social media marketing campaign.

The second is to establish a content library for your brand. Bring together content like blog posts, specification sheets, PDF files, infographics, videos, FAQs, and so forth, that is spread out across the web, your internal corporate portals and even your staff inboxes. Categorize content by timeline, language and service or product, and encourage staff to share all types of content including hashtags about events, which can later help to measure metrics.

Finally, your social content needs a great community manager. Choose well as this individual is the main online representative of your brand, responsible for combining and posting content, answering queries and solving problems customers may present. The manager should also have the authority to give random customers rewards for being loyal.

Social media is mercurial and can reduce you to desperation. You literally spend a week toying with a topic, days writing an article. You publish it online, share the content on Facebook, tweet about it, and contact industry experts for reviews and media exposure. But unless you already enjoy a great reputation and a sizeable loyal fan following, your content will in all likelihood be forgotten within hours in the case of Twitter and Facebook updates, and a few days with blog posts. How frustrating to realize the more you post, the quicker the older content gets pushed below ‘event horizon’.  However, if you fail to publish fresh content, your readers will migrate away.

It is important to remember that all this changes when content is made more visible on search engines via search engine optimization (SEO). Natural search traffic tends to build up with the passage of time and supplies consistent page views over months and even years if the search engine deems the content relevant.

Social media is a quick fix solution providing immediate stimulus, while SEO slogs to provide sustained traffic, visibility and page rank. If you wish to get more bang for your buck, combine the two approaches – marry social media to SEO – to extend the expiry date of your content.  Take the help of a local search engine marketing firm to create relevant, great quality content on one domain such as a single blog or website that will, over time, progressively amass link equity. Next produce interactive, well-timed, live content on social networks which will compel interest and links back to your site or blog. Of course, have an ongoing SEO campaign to refine keywords and topics utilized across all your content, regardless of the media.

Search engines have been focusing on relevance these past few years, but the fact remains that what is pertinent to other people may not be appropriate to what you are looking for. Additionally the same search term can carry a variety of meanings. For instance the term ‘winter’ can mean the season to some, numerous song titles or even the Winter Olympics to others.

The search engine Bing works on personalizing your search results.  This is based on your Facebook relationships – you must be signed in – and geographical location. Bing recently introduced the concept of adaptive search that makes results even more relevant.  This involves Bing retaining your search history and using it to more accurately figure out the information you are searching for.

Bing does not aim to limit your results or lock out certain data.  It just wants to give you greater personalization based on your interests and search history. At present, Bing restricts search history utilized to 28 days if users are not signed into the search engine, and 18 months worth of search history if you have signed in.

However, you do have the option of turning this feature off or on as you please. You also have the choice of clearing your entire search history list, or even deleting individual entries you’re your search history if you wish. This can help you personally fine tune the adaptive search feature.  Check out the Help documentation on Bing for more details. Meanwhile seriously look at ways to optimize your website for these types of search parameters with the help of a local search engine marketing company.

The Internet today is nothing like it was once – the data available is bottomless and search engines have had to evolve with the changes. Initially they were not too concerned with the quality of the information being indexed but that has changed.

As search looked for unique, quality content online businesses had to change tack as well to ensure higher result page rankings. Building up good content takes time and money, so many websites began faking it by purchasing links, directories, content farms, and even stealing content to make it to the top ranks.

Once Google understood that this was happening, the search engine major changed the rules and began assessing social response. Social interactions cannot be faked and these are being assessed very carefully now, the concept being whatever a large majority finds excellent must be at least good. At present search engines are beginning to examine social trends and Google’s Panda update is part of this new ranking algorithm.

What this means for businesses wishing to establish an online presence is that while optimization and relevant quality content are still very important, what also counts is building a community around your brand. Community does not mean a few fans who ‘like’ your blog posts – it means an engaged, active networked community that religiously spreads the word about your content, services or products.

It seems obvious that you must devote at least a quarter of your funds, content and energy into community building. Seek the help of a local search engine marketing firm to seriously strategize your SEO approach to incorporate the new social mantra into brand and community building.

It is the dream of every local search engine marketing company or blogger to have their content go viral, having it shared and read by thousands of users, creating a huge rush of traffic to your site.
The secrets behind creating viral content are that it must be original and well written and visitors must want to share it with friends. While there is no secret formula to guarantee that such content will go viral, here are a few guidelines that should help.

Describe incentives or advantages in a ‘crisis’ scenario. Inform readers of the dangers of not following advice. It is human nature to share information with others. You need not be a doomsayer. Topics can be presented in a positive manner.
Use controversy to make an impact. Expressing constructive criticism or opinions that do not toe the popular line or looking at issues from a fresh angle for innovative solutions is one of the simplest ways to go viral. It does take much creative, out-of-the-box thinking, ingenuity and time though. Note down ideas immediately or use the voice recorder on your mobile phone.

Appeal to your readers’ egos by using the second person (you, your) when writing to generate personal interest.

Unless reader’s can share easily, your content cannot go viral. Make sure you have installed on all posts or articles on your website or blog, widgets or buttons for e-mailing, printing, and sharing with bookmarking and social networking sites.

Finally, establish your reputation and gain respect with consistent thought-provoking, quality content. You can even ask respected figures in your field to write guest posts on your site. Your posts should be updated regularly for search engines to index them consistently.

Your website can now get up to 50% more traffic by incorporating a small modification. Many webmasters have been unaware of this and so have not benefited from it.

Google may have been the majority of Internet users’ window to the World Wide Web, but research now shows that is changing.  The March 2011 U.S. search engine market share figures showed that Google held 64 percent, while Bing powered 30 percent of the same.

When optimizing websites for search engines, most people concentrate on Google and ignore other search engines. Discounting Bing can be a huge error because its massive current share of the market pie is growing at Google’s expense.

It makes sense to incorporate Bing into your site’s SEO campaign. As you will encounter lower competition on Bing for keywords, it is easier to gain higher ranks here. A market share of 30 percent translates into millions of web users and you can boost traffic to your site by 50 percent by optimizing it for Bing. The most attractive thing about Bing is searches powered by it translate into more click-throughs or visits to websites – 80 percent for Bing compared to just over 65 percent for Google.

Bing and Google give different results for identical search queries, so their ranking algorithms are certainly different. This makes it tough to optimize the same webpage for both search engines. Currently the best approach seems to be optimizing some of your website pages for Google and others for Bing. Take the assistance of a local search engine marketing to optimize your website for Bing’s regional search engines such as Bing.com, Bing.com.au, Bing.co.uk, and so on.