Local search marketing is driven by what the search engines can spider or collect from the text on the page and its relevance to the users search. It relies heavily on the context for the user searching and relates to the type of device, behaviour of the searcher and other personalization factors . One of the leaders in information about Search Engine Optimization is SEOMoz In this weeks edition of Whiteboard Friday by SEOMoz’s Rand Fishkin outlines in his video the importance for search engine optimization in local search marketing that these factors

Here is the link to find the transcript of this Whiteboard Friday video.

Tip 1 Follow Local Search Marketing Experts

Following top industry leaders in the local search marketing arena is one way you can ensure you get it right when you are promoting your practice or business. I encourage you to get in the habit of bookmarking these posts to help you improve your seo habits and improve your local search marketing.
Rand is a leading commentator in the field as is Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land.
I have mentioned other practitioners like David Mihm,before on this blog and he along with Olean,NY based Mike Blumenthal . Mihm and Blumenthal,Andrew Shotland,Mary Bowling , Matt McGhee from Marketing Land and Will Scott have been faculty at the Local University events which are well worth going to.

Tip 2 -Automate your Blog with an SEO Plugin

WordPress is one of the most widely used platforms for small business websites. By this I mean WordPress.org, the self-hosted variety developed by Matt Mullenweg of Automattic.com.

I have used a variety of SEO plugins but the two I like the most are WordPress SEO by Joost deValk or Yoast.
You can find details of all the features that it assists you with for your SEO and provides for automated sitemaps and webmaster notification verifications. Yoast is also developing a paid plugin especially to enhance local search marketing.
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Team Yoast

The folks at Yoast have some other excellent plugins for Google Analytics, and Video SEO as well.

My other choice is

SEO Pressor has a number of features that help you ensure your on-page seo is optimized and scores your work and gives you messages encouraging improvements. It has social sharing,rich snippet view,
Dublin Core as well as Facebook and Twitter sharing.

Tip 3 Get Professional SEO Tools: Citations Matter

Local search marketing is enhanced often with professional help in the areas that can most benefit you. Generally SEO tools are wide and varied and range from free to hundreds of dollars a month. If you have limited budget I would suggest getting a subscription to the following service offered by my buddy in Edmonton,Canada Darren Shaw
Whitespark SEO Tools

I have used the Local Citation Finder and found it very useful and reasonable. I have attached below a few of the testimonials about Whitespark that come from experts I have quoted earlier in this post.

Whitespark Testimonials

Citation Building for Local Search Marketing e-book

I also suggest you consider getting Nyagoslav Zhekov’s recent edition NGS marketing ebook on citations building which is a key element of local search marketing. NGS provides a number of offerings in citation building which is pivotal to local search marketing success.

Ultimate Guide

P.S. If you want to get the best out of your experience with Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder then I encourage you to check out a post by Michael Smith of Powered by Search that came out today.It is entitled the Ultimate Guide to Whitespark’s Local Citation Finder

Content Marketing is the practice of telling people who you are, what you are about and whats in it for them. Basic thoughts but important if you are trying to build your reputation online and attract more clients.

How you do it is basic to the story you would tell to anyone meeting you for the first time. People love stories and they are the best way of letting potential customers or clients who you are and what you stand for.

You can provide content in a variety of ways such as podcasting,articles,videos,slideshows, and info graphics. You can also author e-books as well as publish online using Kindle editions or hard copy books. This enables you to build your reputation and allow you to share your ideas and information with others.

How you do it is important also in that you want to be very aware of Search Engine Optimization techniques to make sure your content gets the widest distribution via Google,Bing and other search engines.

Examples of Good Content Marketing

I am always looking for examples of content marketing and here are a few people I have got to know.

The first is a video explanation of Search Engine Optimization with elaboration on how it is important by marketing expert Maria Gudelis utilizing her You Tube Channel

Maria who teaches and practices marketing gives you the basics of Search and describes where you can get more clients and get higher rankings based on your content marketing efforts.
She gives you the justification for doing the work for content marketing based on industry statistics, and outlines that organic search is a great driver for lead generation.

Secondly let me use this slideshare presentation by Ryan Hanley as another example of good content marketing using established search engine optimization techniques. The content is spot on with the topic here and Ryan provides some excellent ideas on content marketing.

My last example of excellent content marketing is Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion, who is an accomplished speaker and operates a swimming pool business in suburban Virginia. He is an engaging presenter who provides all the knowledge you would ever wish to know about fiberglass swimming pools. This abundance of information gives him not only leads but also a positive position of influence in his industry. When you search on “fiberglass pools pros and cons” here is what you will find.

Not only are the three above examples of content marketing instructive, they are all search engine friendly and yield results as lead generation tools for the authors themselves.

Content Marketing for Local Business

One of the methods I also use is podcasting. One of the clients I have worked with is Jeff Brodie, President of Codefusion Communications Inc, a Toronto based I.T. and telephony consultant. He and I have done a series of podcasts and articles on technology topics to provide useful information to his client base.

His work on the podcast was not enough. Jeff joined a select group of North America’s leading experts to co-write the book titled, “The Tech Multiplier: The World’s Leading Technology Consultants reveal In depth Case Studies of How the Smartest Businesses in the World are Leveraging Technology to Increase Profits and Reduce Waste While Safeguarding Data.” His chapter in the book is titled “Using Technology to Manufacture Time and Print Money.”
On the day of release, “The Tech Multiplier” reached best-seller status in six Amazon.com categories – The book reached best-seller status in the Computer Networking, Computer Networks, Protocols &APIs, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Computer Science, and Computers and Technology categories.

Think about content marketing to help build links and the content you may have already produced. I hope you now can see many other ways to repurpose it and create more content to generate more leads.

Marketing Analytics Optimization Framework with Bryan Eisenberg

If you are a marketer one of the sharpest guys in town for me is Bryan Eisenberg and I came across this video as part of post he had written for Click Z’s Analytics column. Bryan also refers in the video to the undisputed King of Clarity, Avinash Kaushik, in his discussions about marketing analytics and frameworks.

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Analytics Talk in the Universal Language of Business

By converting all your marketing speak to actionable numbers you get better traction and understanding with all members of your team. Avinash and Bryan are prolific contributors to the discourse in this field and are opinion leaders to listen to. Fear not they take the complex constantly and convert it to the simple.

If you want to learn more from these two guys you should consider visiting Market Motive , where they both offer extensive education opportunities in a variety of marketing subjects.

I found this cool tool to map your twitter followers around the world. It tells you where the most of your followers are so you can have an idea of your audience. Here is the Silent Seller’s below.

Follow The Silent Seller on Twitter

You can follow the Silent Seller on Twitter  our Twitter handle is @thesilentseller

We are also on Facebook,  Google Plus and  StumbleUpon for your interest. Check us out and see what’s happening.

What Twitter Can Do

Twitter can help you communicate in real time with your audience and can expand your reach . Remember it is not the quantity of Twitter followers you have it is the quality. More engagement gets people to know like and trust you and allows you to engage in meaningful conversations. As a business no one is interested in continuous spam and shilling for your service and product. Put useful actionable ideas in your tweets and you will grow and strengthen your connection with your audience .

Being active on twitter and other social media properties is just a good earned media strategy that will help you in expanding and consolidating your sphere of social media influence.

It is not a be all and end all but according to Gartner quoted in Eweek “The rise of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others means businesses run the risk of irritating customers, who are becoming used to the instant contact such platforms provide, if they don€™t adequately respond to their requests and complaints, according to a report from IT research firm Gartner.

By 2014, organizations refusing to participate in customer-based social media would face the same level of wrath as those that ignore today’s basic expectation of responding to customer emails and phone calls, Gartner predicts.

€œThe dissatisfaction stemming from failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15 percent increase in churn rate for existing customers,€ Carol Rozwell, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, said in a prepared statement. €œIt€™s crucial that organizations implement approaches to handling social media now. The effort involved in addressing social media commentary is not good cause to ignore relevant comments or solvable issues.€

Gartner researchers also recommended businesses develop a framework to deal with social media commentary on relevant topics, as not all comments on the social Web are aimed directly at organizations, noting that any such framework must complement how a business deals with a direct inquiry received through social sites and should help the company determine whether a response is warranted, who should respond if it is, and what action is necessary following any response.”

For a few (13) more tools to look at check this article out from our friends at the Social Media Examiner

Your best marketing system tip is be conscious of and build your community around you. If you build your community your community will help you build your business.  Every business needs a marketing system to do the following things according to top small business marketing expert John Jantsch ,creator of the Duct Tape Marketing program  or Hubspot which are two of the best example I can find of active community building.  That is by creating and sharing content on your site,your blog or in your ongoing communication with your customers.

1. Content that builds trust
2. Content that educates
3. User-generated content
4. Other people’s content
5. Content that converts

Marketing system Tip 2 :Build Your Email Marketing  and List

Ensure you are collecting email addresses to keep in touch with your customers. Think of the Top 5 questions you are asked and build a free Report you send out to readers in exchange for their email address. Then communicate regularly by email, not by spamming them withoffers and specials you are offerring but by providing them items of interest to them that are useful, such as Tips and Techniques you find valuable. Build a relationship by email where you are continuing to provide value to them.  make sure you a have built up a regular set of emails in an autoresponder that your marketing system has set up in advance with a series of preplanned emails that will engage your reader and encourage two way  contact

by providing a balance of education and  sharing of items that you think would be of interest to the,.  After the initial 30 day period if you have followed the ideas mentioned then you can keep in periodic content by sending an email newsletter or very selectively including the odd offer which you believe would be in their interest. Monitor your unsubscribes , test your subject lines, and styles , monitor open rates to discover what works for your audience.

Two good autoresponder systems  that I use  are Aweber and Mailchimp

 Marketing system Tip 3 : Ask Your Customers

Make it a practice to send out short regular surveys to your readers and customers based on your testing of what you see gets the best responses.Let customers tell you in a structured way what they want more of or less of. You can then satisfy their wishes to align your content to that.  There are simple tools like Survey Monkey or even using inline surveys like Voice of the Customer by 4q. This is one of the best marketing systems that is simple to employ on your website or in your emails.

Instead of “here is my marketing strategy and plan”, usually the first thing I hear from small businesses,dentists and other professionals is that they must have a website. I hear that almost as much as Facebook pages and the latest Social Media flavor of the day. My usual question is yes, but why. Because Harry down the street has one or for what purpose I ask.  The answer is usually the same , because my competitors do and they might take business away from me.

I sit back and say okay but ask what is your marketing strategy for your business and what makes you different from your competitors. I want to know if you know who your target market is and where they live and play. That means both in real life and in their digital spaces.

What is your ideal customer I ask and what do you do to satisfy that customers needs? These are questions that will help you define your market, your method of dealing with your business and what generates the best return. All to often small business people are too busy fighting fires to notice the strategic issues.

What is Small Business Marketing Strategy ?

Once again I turn to Wikipedia for my definition of Marketing Strategy.” Marketing strategy is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. A marketing strategy should be centered around the key concept that customer satisfaction is the main goal.”

.You should develop this kind of strategy in order to maximize the efficiency of your time and resources and to let you do what you do best, a In consideration we must ask several questions.

Who do we want to serve.? What market is the one that we want to find our ideal client from. This narrowing of our focus allows us to serve clients that value our services . These are clients that need and want what we have to offer to solve their issues. Our product as professionals is the service that we provide that clients see value from and will exchange their resources for.

By defining the practice or area of expertise and developing a strategic marketing plan we can then focus on where we wish to draw our client base from, what makes us different from others in that area and what actions do we have to take to dominate.

This component of strategy also allows us to determine how we are going to achieve our objectives, what resources we need to accomplish this and what particular plan of attack we have to have. You might think that all the verbiage that I am using has a definite sound of battle or war. It does because it is simply focusing our resources and marshalling our talents to deliver what we have to offer to people that need our help while providing us the income and satisfaction we need.

Our marketing strategy will also define what tactics we are going to deploy to best serve ourselves and our clients.

Tactics include items like  websites, social media ,advertising, hours of service,promotional mail or postcards, and educational content we put out for the market we wish to serve. So to give you the quick answer to why a website, the website serves as a digital outpost,indexed by search engines, and used primarily for lead generation or if you sell from it ,ecommerce. It can also drive customers into a brick and mortar business location, provide information to build up our social proof. Website marketing strategies give customers the ability to know,like and trust us on their terms and turf.

But it in itself is only one arrow in your quiver of tactics that allow you to hit your target.

 Objectives of Marketing Strategy

The objective of our strategy and marketing plan thus is a series of tactics that will allow our market to know, like and trust us.. Once they become clients , the next effort is to make the experience so useful to these clients that they will become repeat clients and come back again and again as their needs require. The way we do this and the planning to accomplish this objective results in happy clients and more free promotion of our service by the best marketing tactic possible. That is referral by them to their family and friends to grow a base of raving fans.

In my next post I will talk about systemizing all your marketing activities so they become second nature in your daily activity.

Don’t Miss Leads- Use Mailchimp for Lead Capture

Your lead capture is an important facet of marketing your business or professional practice when you have a web presence. One of the best lead capture tools is a good autoresponder.

What is an Autoresponder ?

In lead capture you want to capture a web site visitor’s name and email address so you can continue the conversation with them in the future. The tool you use is an autoresponder like Mailchimp or Aweber. The autoresponder sends out a predetermined series of email messages you have written in advance that go out automatically over the period you choose. These are not messages that are selling but rather are providing useful information to the visitor. One in 10 should be an offer that you think is of value to the reader on your list. The autoresponder takes care of email delivery and making sure your lead capture adheres to all the appropriate anti-spam legislation. People have provided you their trust by giving you their email, so it is wise to honour that trust and provide continuous value so people can know like and trust you.

Click on the image above to get your copy or just below.

Mail Chimp has lots of research on Lead Capture and Autoresponders

The Best and Worst Open Rates on MailChimp

“New email marketers often ask , “How should I write my subject lines so that more recipients will open my emails?” In order to answer that question, Mailchimp analyzed more than 40 million emails sent from customers through MailChimp, and singled out the ones with the highest and lowest open rates. Then we pulled 20 from each pile, and put their subject lines in a side-by-side comparison. The highest open rates were in the range of 60-87 percent, while the lowest performers fell in the dismal 1-14 percent range. Do you see a pattern below?

Best and Worst Open Rates on MailChimp

Best and Worst Open Rates on MailChimp

Best Open Rates (60%-87%)	Worst Open Rates (1%-14%)
1. [COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter	1. Last Minute Gift – We Have The Answer
2. Eye on the [COMPANYNAME] Update (Oct 31 – Nov 4)	2. Valentines – Shop Early & Save 10%
3. [COMPANYNAME] Staff Shirts & Photos	3. Give a Gift Certificate this Holiday
4. [COMPANYNAME] May 2005 News Bulletin!	4. Valentine’s Day Salon and Spa Specials!
5. [COMPANYNAME] Newsletter – February 2006	5. Gift Certificates – Easy & Elegant Giving – Let Them Choose
6. [COMPANYNAME] Newsletter – January 2006 [ *|FNAME|* *|LNAME|* ]	6. Need More Advertising Value From Your Marketing Partner?
7. [COMPANYNAME] and [COMPANYNAME] Invites You!	7. [COMPANYNAME] Pioneers in Banana Technology
8. Happy Holidays from [COMPANYNAME]	8. [COMPANYNAME] Moves You Home for the Holidays
9. ATTENTION [COMPANYNAME] Staff!	9. Renewal
10. ATTENTION [COMPANYNAME] West Staff!!	10. Technology Company Works with [COMPANYNAME] on Bananas Efforts
11. Invitation from [COMPANYNAME]	11. [COMPANYNAME] Update – A Summary of Security and Emergency Preparedness News
12. [COMPANYNAME] Jan/Feb 2006 Newsletter	12. Now Offering Banana Services!
13. Website news – Issue 3	13. It’s still summer in Tahoe!
14. Upcoming Events at [COMPANYNAME]	14. [COMPANYNAME] endorses [COMPANYNAME] as successor
15. [COMPANYNAME] Councils: Letter of Interest	15. [COMPANYNAME] Holiday Sales Event
16. [COMPANYNAME] Coffee Exchange – Post-Katrina Update	16. The Future of International Trade
17. We’re Throwing a Party	17. [COMPANYNAME] for your next dream home.
18. October 2005 Newsletter	18. True automation of your Banana Research
19. [COMPANYNAME]: 02.10.06	19. [COMPANYNAME] Resort – Spring into May Savings
20. [COMPANYNAME] Racing Newsletter	20. You Asked For More…

Observations

On the “best” side, you’ll notice the subject lines are pretty straightforward. They’re not very salesy or pushy or slimy. Heck, some people might even say they’re boring. On the “worst” side, however, notice how the subject lines read like headlines from advertisements you’d see in the Sunday paper. They might look more creative, but their open rates are horrible. It’s as if those email marketers assumed that subject lines have to jump off the screen and GRAB THE READER’S ATTENTION! or something. Unfortunately, most people get so much junk mail in their inbox, anything that even hints of spam gets thrown away immediately.

Setting Expectations

So does that mean your subject lines should be stale and uncreative if you want high open rates? Not necessarily. In this study, we actually saw some campaigns that used more creative subject lines (like the ones on the “bad” side of our table) but had decent open rates. The difference seemed to be in the expectations that were set for the emails.

For example, traditional email newsletters are for “soft-selling.” They build relationships with your customers, and they’re great if your products have a long sales cycle. Use them to slowly soften your customers for the sale, or to make them feel really good about your brand. If your recipients signed up for these kinds of emails, don’t expect them to be enthusiastic when, out of the blue, you send an email with a subject line like, “10% Discount! Open Now!” If you’re sending newsletters, keep your subject lines simple, straightforward, and consistent.

On the other hand, if your subscribers specifically opted in to receive special offers and promotions from your company, there’s nothing wrong with saying there’s a 10-percent off e-coupon inside. They’re already expecting a “hard sell” from you. It’s when marketers send promotional emails to their entire newsletter list when things go wrong. The idea is to create a totally separate opt-in list for those who want to receive promotional emails only. You might even want to segment your promotions list into smaller, more focused groups before you send a campaign (don’t send an offer for purses and high-heeled shoes to the men on your list).

The Secret Formula for Subject-Lines

So what’s our advice when it comes to email subject lines? This might sound dead-simple, but here you have it: Your subject line should (drum roll please) describe the subject of your email. Yep, that’s it.

Always set your subscribers’ expectations during the opt-in or lead capture process about what kinds of emails they’re going to receive. Don’t confuse newsletters with promotions. If your email is a newsletter, put the name and issue of the newsletter in your subject line. Because that’s what’s inside. If your email is a special promotion, say so in the subject line. Either way, just don’t write your subject lines like advertisements.

When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside.“

]]> http://www.thesilentseller.com/lead-capture/feed/ 0 http://www.thesilentseller.com/lead-capture/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheSilentSeller/~3/MCumJr5Myso/ http://www.thesilentseller.com/universal-business-listings/#comments Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:06:01 +0000 Robert Metras http://www.thesilentseller.com/?p=926 Why Universal Business Listings

Universal Business Listings is the topic of my video interview today with Brett Fritz SVP Sales at U.B.L.. Below we discuss the service and the importance of an accurate business listing to ensure that you can be found by search engines,directory sites, social media sites,citation locations and GPS suppliers.

Get Your Business Listed Today

Get Listed

]]> http://www.thesilentseller.com/universal-business-listings/feed/ 0 http://www.thesilentseller.com/universal-business-listings/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheSilentSeller/~3/wVtbigqBBBI/ http://www.thesilentseller.com/local-search-marketing-tips-2/#comments Fri, 03 Aug 2012 03:50:57 +0000 admin http://www.thesilentseller.com/?p=901 Top Local Search Marketing Tip- Use Get Listed

Local search Marketing allows you to gain visibility and citations from across the Web. It helps people find your business. This is important as with the growing trend for local search you will be exposed to more customers and they will see your listings.

GetListed.org verifies your listings

One of the best tools to check your listings is GetListed.org a very helpful site developed by David Mihm of Portland Oregon, an established leader in local search. GetListed.org provides a summary of your listings and gives you links to update them and contact those you are not appearing on.

Local Search marketing Tips- Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill, New York

We produced this little video for our You Tube Channel to look at the process and provide you a local search marketing tip that you can use today.

Incidentally Bobby, you can give us a call while your New York Mesa Grill looks like you have claimed listings your Mesa Grill in Vegas needs a bit of work done. We would be glad to do it for you or sing for our supper.

Mesa Grill- New York

Mesa Grill- Las Vegas

GetListed.org Local Search Marketing Tips To Get Listed

Here’s the method I use for all my clients and my own business as well. It’s a quick and easy way to see if your business has been claimed or not for a few of the major directories. It even provides you with a score relative to your business on the Internet in terms of being officially listed or “claimed” in those directories.
Simply go to this website: http://www.getlisted.org where you will find a screen similar to this:

GetListed.org verifies your listings

As you can see, this site is pretty self-explanatory. All you need to do to see if your business has been claimed is to type in your business name and the zip code to where your business is physically located.
In this example I randomly typed in “Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery” with a zip code of “90210.” As you can see, a business was found under this name.

Also, as you can see, this cosmetic surgery business has not claimed some of their listings. This particular Plastic Surgery Business is leaving a great deal of money on the table by not having all their business listings claimed.

Also, you will see that getlisted.org gives you a “listing score.” In this case, getlisted.org assigned “Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery” a score of “57%” .

Keep in mind that the higher the score, the better for your business as it is more likely to show up when people in your area are searching for your products and services.

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