Talkin cowboys

Imagine this: You’re at a new neighborhood boutique restaurant with your better half for Friday date night and are looking forward to epicurean brilliance and great service. Over the next hour, your server who never seems to be available, allows your wine glasses to go dry, gets your order wrong and doesn’t even offer dessert. Not living up to your expectations or the price, you whip out your mobile device and write a scathing user review on your favorite local search web site. Instantly your voice is heard by millions of like-minded consumers as this information is picked up by the other related web sites, blogs and web services offering aggregated consumer reviews. Think about how this information almost instantly shows up on iPhone apps like iWant and Urbanspoon. The consumer’s voice is heard, and while many of us are now using our mobile devices before going to a business or restaurant, we are strongly influenced by the business ratings, scores and consumer … [Read more...] about Who’s Talkin’ About Your Local Business?

Brands and large, multi-location businesses are horrible at local SEO. That is a bit of a generalization, of course, but it certainly represents my experience working with larger multi-location businesses in the U.K. If you have a recognized brand with a local presence, your general authority should make ranking in local search results somewhat easier; yet all too often, this is not the case. The purpose of this post is to outline the key areas for brands, franchises and multi location businesses to focus on for local search success. Why Is Local SEO Important? Why should you care about local search visibility? What’s in it for you? According to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2014, 92% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in 2014. And that number is likely growing — a recent Google report noted that Google searches containing “near me” have increased 34X since 2011. The proliferation of mobile internet access via smartphones … [Read more...] about Top 5 Issues Wrecking Local SEO For Multi-Location Businesses

Google’s recent deployment of Universal Search resulted in the inclusion of content drawn in from their other search verticals into the main web search results. As this integration trend continues, and as Google further expands upon the 200+ signals they use for ranking, it becomes increasingly important to diversify a site’s presence on the web, and to work on ranking well in each of the various areas of vertical search. We might reasonably expect that “diversification of signal” could also help with ranking in each of the individual verticals as well. The lines are blurring and beneficial ranking in one area can now leach over to affect another. For these reasons I’m providing some suggestions for using images to achieve better rankings for local businesses and for local search. A recent Hitwise report indicates that usage of Google Maps increased significantly as a result of more visibility from Universal Search. Another long-running, high-performing … [Read more...] about Using Images For Local SEO

Instagram’s the best. Where else can you find out the best place to get a hipster kebab AND take a terrifying white-water raft ride AND be subjected to endless Kardashian selfies all in a single scroll. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook… yeah yeah, sure, alright, shut up. But still, Instagram is one of the best places for brands to experiment with short-form video, without wading through the millennial mire that is Snapchat. And now that Instagram allows you a full minute to play with, along with a choice of any image ratio, the only restraints you have are the ones caused by your own lack of imagination. That’s where we come in… These are some of the best Instagram videos from the last six months, collected to inspire and motivate you. Although if you’re only inspired by the Red Bull one, you’ll just be motivated to ring for an ambulance. Red Bull You know how back at the beginning of the 20th century when people watched the footage of the train coming … [Read more...] about 18 best branded Instagram videos of 2016 (so far)

The online advertising universe is constantly evolving. With innovations in digital advertising happening all the time, it can be challenging to maintain high performance and stay competitive without a constant pulse on the Google platform. There’s a ton of strategy, trial and error, and creativity required to drive successful PPC campaigns. Here are some next-level tactics that can help supercharge underperforming ad campaigns. Mobile Ad Campaigns Mobile ads are a power tool in the digital marketer’s toolbox. By 2019, mobile will account for more than 33% of total media ad spend in the US. With that kind of growth and Google’s mobile-first policy, optimized mobile ads should be a key channel of your online advertising mix. Google has released many new mobile ad elements, including price extensions and call-only campaigns. Price extensions allow advertisers to display a menu of services with pricing. You can launch call-only campaigns to focus on compelling buyers to … [Read more...] about Four Tactics to Supercharge Your PPC Campaigns