The Last Local SEO Guy You'll Ever Need
Today I had the honor of speaking on the “Local” panel at SMX West.
Just thought you might like to see the slides from my presentation on customer reviews – more specifically, how to get them using what I call the “zigzag” approach to requesting reviews.
Citations help your local rankings and overall visibility to customers. The more you can rack up, the better – right?
Wrong. There are some sites you simply don’t want your business to be listed on.
If I had to categorize them, I’d call them consumer-protection / complaint-board sites.
How would you like to be the proud owner of juicy citations like these?
Didn’t think you’d want a piece of that action.
(Please note: I picked the above listings at random. For all I know, the businesses listed there do a great job.)
Here are some sites I’ve found where a citation = bad local visibility:
BBB.org (if you have a bad rating there)
CompanyNameSucks.com
Complaints.com
ComplaintsBoard.com
ComplaintsList.com
PissedConsumer.com
PlanetFeedback.com
RipoffReport.com
Scam.com
ScamBook.com
TheSqueakyWheel.com (charges $5)
My guess is Google will not put a wet towel on your rankings if you’re mentioned on any of the above sites. (But who knows…maybe.)
It doesn’t really matter, though: The goal is to attract customers. If any of the above sites shows up in the search results when someone types in the name of your business, you’re repelling customers.
If you’re in the unenviable position of being listed on one of these sites, at least respond to the complaint. Many sites give you (the business owner) some way to address the beef – as a way of making things right or of telling your side of the story. Whatever you do, be wary of companies that claim to be able to remove complaints.
If angry customers are doing your citation-building for you, you’re in trouble. But things will never get out of hand as long as you care and try to do a good job:
It’s my pleasure to publish the first guest post that’s made its way onto this blog.
Colan Nielsen of Powered by Search has impressed me over the last few months with the knowledge he shares over at Linda Buquet’s forum, and I really liked an idea he had for a post (below).
At the very bottom is a link to the PDF that contains Colan’s answers to the quiz questions.
Enjoy!
—
Last year Phil did a post with a quiz on “How Well Do You Know the Google Places Quality Guidelines?” After taking Phil’s quiz (and acing it…cough cough), I realized that this was the first time that some of the Google Places Quality Guidelines were actually sticking to my brain. After all those years of writing, and not particularly enjoying all those tests in high school, I’ve finally come full circle and have a new appreciation for the mighty “quiz”.
That motivated me to create a training resource for our local marketing team at Imprezzio. Once I had created the quiz, I sent it out to the team, and then on the following week’s team meeting we went over all the questions, dissected the answers, and in turn, created some great discussion. It was one of the best meetings we had in a while, and it dawned on me that this was only the beginning of a great way to stay on top of the constantly changing rules and guidelines of Google+ Local.
It’s important for local SEOs to know the rules. It’s even more important if you’re a business owner trying to get your own business visible in Google+Local.
Whether you ace the quiz or fail it gloriously, you‘ve got to know Google’s rules. It’s the difference between sinking and swimming.
1. Which of the following categories would Google deem acceptable? (multiple answers accepted)
a. Dentist
b. Teeth Whitening Service
c. Braces
d. Toronto Dentist
e. NYC Renters Insurance
f. Insurance Agency
g. Best Insurance Agency
2. Categories must describe what your business_____, not what it ______.
3. Where do you put the Suite#/Apt# etc. in the Google Places Dashboard?
a. Address line 1
b. Never add suite #
c. Address line 2
4. Which of the following businesses would most likely need to hide their address?(multiple answers accepted)
a. Insurance Agency
b. Electrician
c. Plumber
d. Sporting Goods Store
5. A Service Area Business (SAB) can have a Google+ Local page for every city/area that it services?
a. TRUE
b. FALSE
6. Only businesses that make in-person contact with customers qualify for a Google listing.
a. TRUE
b. FALSE
7. The business name must represent your business exactly as it appears in the offline world. Name 3 things that you should never put in your business name.
1:
2:
3:
8. What is the best-practice for when a business moves to a new location/address?
a. Edit the existing listing in the Google Places dashboard
b. Edit the existing listing with the EBD (“Edit business details”)
c. Mark the listing as closed and create a new listing
9. When is it acceptable to claim a single listing into more than 1 account?
a. Only for a Service Area Business (“SAB”)
b. Only for a business with a storefront
c. When you want to have multiple managers for the listing
d. Never
10. Which method of reporting a problem to Google Places support gets you an open line of communication with Google, which allows you to correspond back and forth?
a. “Report a Problem”
b. Google Places Troubleshooter
11. Videos uploaded to the Google Places dashboard currently take how long to go live?
a. 4 to 6 weeks
b. 1 to 2 weeks
c. Instantly
d. The video feature is currently disabled and doesn’t ever show live
—
Done? Check out the answers.
You can also get the quiz as a PDF.
Oh, and here are the rules straight from Google.
About the Author
Colan Nielsen is the Agency Operations Manager at Powered by Search in Toronto, Canada. By night, he is Linda Buquet’s right-hand man and moderator at the Catalyst Local eMarketing Local Search Community.
About a year ago, Darren Shaw of Whitespark.ca and I had an idea:
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a free and easy way to make a single page of instructions that walks your customers through how to post a review on your Google+Local page?
Darren had created the superb Local Citation Finder. He was the “local SEO tools guy.”
I had already created simple, easy-to-follow Google+Local review “handouts” for my clients and other business owners. I was the “reviews guy.”
Darren had bought my Google review handout for a client and really liked it. I’d used and benefited from the Local Citation Finder since the day it came out.
So…our idea was that the Whitespark crew would build a free tool that instantly creates “how to write a review” handouts based on my tried-and-true design.
That tool is finally here. Darren unveiled it in his SearchFest presentation today, and I’m unveiling it here now.
You can use it whether you’re a business owner or a local SEO. You can use it whether you manage one business location or 100.
Go ahead – try the new review-handout generator at:
https://www.whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator
By the way, in case you’re wondering, there are only three differences between the documents you can make with the new Whitespark tool and the custom-made review handouts I’ve long offered on this site:
(1) I can easily add custom features to your handout (e.g. QR code, extra graphics, annotations, etc.).
(2) It’s easy for me to embed links in the PDF for you, so that if you email the doc to your customers, they can just click the steps to complete them.
(3) I offer review handouts for other sites.
—
How do you like the Google+Local review-handout generator? Any questions or suggestions?
How about a great big “Thanks, Darren!”
If you read everything that’s been written about local search, you’ll know a lot.
Easier said than done. There’s a ton to read because there’s even more to know. It can be overwhelming.
It never stops being overwhelming. The longer I do local SEO, the more questions I have. For me, the questions reproduce like rabbits.
Still, every now and then someone picks up the crayons and communicates volumes in just a few square inches. Local-search enthusiasts do this better than most people who attempt to make infographics (most of which are confusing and useless).
Here are my favorite infographics and other visuals on local SEO. Except for the top 3, I haven’t listed them in any particular order.
The Local Search Ecosystem – David Mihm
(accompanying blog post here and more info here)
SEO Success Pyramid – Matt McGee
Web Equity: Owning Your Web Presence – Mike Blumenthal
Infographic: Citations – Time To Live – Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm
Anatomy of an Optimal Local Landing Page – Mike Ramsey and Avalaunch Media
Google Details Information Sources for the Business Listing “Cluster” – Mike Blumenthal
Primary Data Providers in Local Search – David Mihm via GetListed.org
A Brief History of Google’s Local Efforts – David Mihm
The Apple Maps Ecosystem – David Mihm
The Local Reviews Ecosystem – Andrew Shotland
(Note: Although I’d seen Andrew’s graphic long before I published my similarly-named “ecosystem,” I forgot the name of the former by the time it came time to name the latter. Major head-smack moment!)
—
I won’t put my own infographics on the same list as the great ones above, but here they are anyway, bringing up the caboose:
12-Week Action Plan for Google Places Visibility
The Local Business Reviews Ecosystem
Canada’s Local Business Reviews Ecosystem
How Long Local SEO Takes: the Short Version
—
Can you think of any handy graphics I missed? Let me know – leave a comment!