Dec 10
17

Welcome to Go Social to Go Local!

Please sign up to our newsletter to receive all the latest Social Marketing and internet marketing tips and tricks so you can dominate in your Local Market!

I will be teaching you a large number of internet marketing techniques that will incorporate all the top social networks to increase your website or blog search engine results.

I will primarily be focusing on local service industries, but these marketing techniques can be applied to any internet business’ to bring in more traffic and increase your online visibility.

If you are a local business, and you want the most exposure you can get on the internet, please sign up to the newsletter and we will keep you updated on the latest local and social marketing techniques.

Posted in Social and Local Marketing News by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

May 11
11

Claim your Google Places / Google Local account!

This is one of the first steps you should take in your small business marketing strategy.  If you are looking for local customers, this will provide the best return for your marketing budget.

Google Places is completely free to set up and will provide high quality targeted customers to your business if your profile is completed properly.

Watch this tutorial and read more information on my previous blog post below:

Claim your Google Places and make sure it is 100% Complete!

 

Posted in Local Marketing Tips by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

Apr 11
23

Google competes with Groupon: Offering Google Offers to select neighborhoods

Over the past year Google has really been moving in the direction of local search and they have finally launched a product that will give Groupon a run for its money.  With Google Offers, they will be offering an email-based local deal platforms to customers currently in New York City, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon.

Following in the footsteps of many similar services offering hyper-local deals to their customers, this opens the doorway to many local marketers that are looking to make very local based offers to their customers.

If you have a local based service, now is the time to add this service to your small business marketing plan and get ready to take advantage of the Google Offers system.

So many people are interested in this new service that they are putting in their zip codes to be notified when Google Offers is available in their area.

Current local search partners should think of creative ways to bring more customers to their local based businesses.

Watch out Groupon and LivingSocial, Google Offers has just stepped in to your playing field and we can only imagine they will put forth another high quality product for their local search customers throughout the world.

 

 

Posted in Social and Local Marketing News by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

Apr 11
1

3 Local Search Marketing Tips

Local search marketing is not very different from your search engine optimization efforts. It is even similar to getting higher PageRank. As mentioned in prior posts, your first steps should be to optimize your website for local search terms and also to claim all your local listings in Google Places, Yahoo and Google.

Assuming that you have already completed these tasks, the next steps you should follow to help your search engine placement in the organic and local search results.

  1. Have a domain name with the primary search terms you are targeting

    For example, when I target potential clients in La Jolla, CA with my appraisal services, I purchased and built a keyword specific domain at http://www.lajollaappraisal.com. This is heavily weighted in the search algorithms and will help with your website placement. If you visit this website, you will see it is not very built out. The keywords are so specific and the competition fairly low that I received top position within a matter of days. The sites also work very well and I frequently get orders from the website.

  2. Create back links from local directories

    You can do this by searching for your primary keywords and finding online directories that you can get your website listed on. Since they are showing up in the search results, they are definitely a place where potential customers can come from. The quality and number of back links will determine the overall affect it has with search engine placement. The more relevant to your industry, the better. You can also do this with online articles and by commenting on local blogs.

  3. Do some social media campaigns

    You want to use the power of social media networks to promote your services and find potential clients. You need to find the right platforms and media to spread the message about your brand, product, services and website. You can do this with text and video posts about your products and services that add value to a users experience. These networks are not for hard selling, but more about sharing valuable information. If you do bathroom remodeling, you might post a video or link to a blog post about replacing the toilet in some local home improvement networks that can be found on Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter. At the end of your article you can let the readers know that you can provide this service for them and any other special offers.

Once you get started on a local search marketing strategy, you will eventually learn what works for your specific business. The main point is that you need to try these techniques to figure out what will work for you. You will quickly find out what works and what doesn’t which will give you the ability to successfully implement a local marketing strategy.

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Posted in Local Marketing Tips by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

Mar 11
30

Local Search Engine Optimization

Local search engine optimization is the addition of local search terms added to your website, blog and local directories. By focusing on local search terms that your customers are using to find your services, you will be ahead of the competition.

For example, I am a real estate appraiser covering San Diego County. If you go to google and type in San Diego Appraiser or San Diego Appraisal, you will see my company listed at the top of the search engine results. I make sure to use my primary search terms throughout my website and in the basic design and layout to ensure people will find my website.

How you include Local Search terms:

  • Make sure your primary keywords are located in the title tag, description and meta tags on your website. Just naming your blog San Diego Appraiser with the sub heading ‘San Diego Appraisal Services throughout San Diego County’ will help your companies local search results.
  • Use your primary search terms throughout the text on each page of your website.
  • Make sure to have your local company address and phone number prominently displayed throughout your website. The search engines will be looking for this.
  • Link to your website from your Google Places Account.
  • Identify all of your primary search terms and also use these throughout your website. A great tool to do this is Internet Business Professional.
  • Be very specific on your website of all your services and / or products.

Local search marketing is the least expensive and most productive small business marketing out there today. More than 70% of all searches made from smart phones are for local based services. Make sure to take advantage of this by optimizing your website today for local search results.

Make sure you sign up to my newsletter to get exclusive tips that are not posted on my blog!

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Posted in Local Marketing Tips by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

Mar 11
17

Claim your Google Places and make sure it is 100% Complete!

This should be the first step of your local marketing strategy!

One of the best things you can do for your local small business marketing program is to make sure to claim your Google Places listing and make sure it is 100% complete. Without a 100% completion of your profile in Google places, most likely your listing will not show up in the top 10 organic local search placement.

While this post is about optimizing your Google places listing, you should check all of your local listings with the top search engines.

Google has gone through the process of setting up millions of Google place accounts to add to local search results and Google maps. All you need to do is to “claim” your listing by verifying you are the owner either by a phone call or by receiving a post card to the registered address.

Follow the following steps to ensure your Google places listing is 100% complete:

  • claim your listing
  • verify the basics: Company name, address, phone number, email
  • Add your website. To fully take advantage of google search results, you should have an optimized website powered by wordpress. Check our website for more information on creating a website if you already do not have one.
  • Fill out your company description incorporating some of your primary searched keywords that your customers would most likely use when trying to locate your company. Make sure it sounds good and makes sense. Do not keyword stuff or you will be penalized.
  • Add your hours of operation. Even if you are available 24 hours a day, enter this information as it is important.
  • Put in all payment options available, if you only have 1, that is fine, but put that in there to optimize your local search results.
  • Google loves videos and pictures. We suggest putting in photos of your company, the location, services, people, etc… Use 10 photos and maybe 1 video. You can shoot a simple video talking about your services or products from your cell phone. The higher quality the better, but it will be easy to download the video off your phone, convert for free online and post to youtube. You can also use a powerpoint presentation converted to video describing your products and services if you don’t want to be on video.
  • In the additional areas location, make sure you put in some additional information about your company.
  • Select the categories that show up as you type in your keywords. These are pre-set categories from Google that will help determine when to show your listing. You can also add a few custom fields, but make sure to use at least a few of the Google category results.

If you consider more than half of the traffic is coming from mobile devices these days, by taking advantage of Google places, you are setting your company far above your competition. In addition to the mobile market, google is now showing the top local search results above the standard organic search results when searching for local companies and services.

Do not delay, claim your listing today, it really does not take a lot of time to complete. You can always add the photos and videos later, but at least get started today.

In addition, make sure you have signed up for our Go Social Go Local Marketing System today. I completely outline the whole process of dominating the local search results for all the top search engines.

Please leave me feedback or ask any questions on this post below.

Thanks!

Bryan Knowlton

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Posted in Local Marketing Tips by BryanKnowlton. No Comments

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