Local Search Optimization

What is it?

Buzz is an understatement for the talk that's been going on about Pinterest lately, and a lot of business owners are asking just what it is. Many of us are unable to keep up with all of these social media sites that seem to be popping up like dandelions on the front lawn. But, for small business owners, Pinterest is one that you should definitely get to know. Pinterest, a virtual pinboard and photo-sharing website, allows users to "pin" and organize anything they find interesting on the Internet. Common uses of the site include developing home decorating ideas, wedding plans, fashion ideas, or browsing tech trends. Essentially, the site can be used to explore anything.

small business strategies for pinterestCredit: Thea N.
Why should I be on Pinterest?

As my boss puts it, humans are "visual creatures" and Pinterest capitalizes on this human trait. The user interface is incredible in that it allows browsers to "like" or "repin" hundreds of pictures, filtered by their interests, on a massive virtual board. This has proven to be engaging, as Pinterest has more than doubled its unique visitors since November 2011 from roughly five million to eleven million uniques in February 2012. Statistically, Pinterest is the fastest site to have reached the ten million mark ever. It now accounts for 3.6 percent of referral traffic, just below Twitter, which accounts for 3.61 of referral traffic but has been operating since 2006. Put simply, Pinterest is hot and business owners should highly consider creating a profile. Admittedly, the Pinterest community is very artsy, and a business that serves the creative community will have an easier time taking off. However, if you can think of an imaginative way to visually promote your service or product, I think that any type of business can thrive on the site.
Request an Invite to the Party!

In order to create a Pinterest profile, you must be "invited". Go to pinterest.com and request an invite. Shortly after, you will receive an e-mail that informs you of what to do next. Note: Pinterest requires that you sign in through a Twitter or Facebook account. However, the site has not integrated with Facebook fan pages yet, so assuming that you have a business Twitter handle, you should sign in with the e-mail associated with your business' Twitter.
Start your Pinboards

This is the fun part! Create "boards", or categories, of content that you want to post and share. Generate boards that are relevant to your business and industry- this will show that you are an active member of your community. If you are a wedding cake business, create a board that showcases your extraordinary wedding cakes and maybe a board of "dream weddings". "Pin" pictures from your portfolio and make sure they link back to your company website. Pinners searching for wedding ideas will come across your pins and subsequently land on your "wedding cakes" board. From there, viewers will click on your pins, which will lead back to your site. This is why Pinterest is such a referral powerhouse. Make sure your descriptions will catch viewer's eyes!
Find People or Businesses in your Industry and Repin their Content

This is another way to be active in your respective Pinterest community. As everywhere else in the world, Pinterest users have specific interests and engage themselves in particular communities within the website. Some use it to browse recent fashion trends while some use it to find informative SEO blogs (like us!). Find users that have already established themselves in your particular industry or interest group and follow their boards. Repin, like, and comment on pins you find interesting. The more active you are, the more people will find you and eventually land on your pinboards.
Follow People that follow them

This is an unbelievably effective way to quickly build a following on your Pinterest profile. After you've found relevant people or businesses that have established a following in your community, follow their followers. Whether it be twenty people to follow or three hundred, once you follow them, they will likely view your boards and if interested, follow you back. This is the absolute fastest way to develop a strong network of pinners that support and advocate for your business.
Be Creative

The content of your boards have no limitations. Be creative in how to engage the audience that you seek. West Elm, Whole Foods, and Mashable are three examples of companies that have found success using Pinterest. View their profiles for innovative ideas on how you can amass a following.
Be Courteous and Have Fun!

As influential of a marketing tool that Pinterest may be, always be mindful of pin etiquette and do your best to avoid blatant self-promotion. Rather than simply selling or advertising your product or service, you want to be a valuable member of the community by adding quality content to the site and repining or liking content you find interesting. As Pinterest says, "be nice, credit your sources, avoid self-promotion, report objectionable content and tell them how they're doing." Most of all, have fun. I guarantee that you will find yourself spending hours on Pinterest as it is a fun and exciting website. Start a personal one if you can find the time!

http://localmarketlaunch.com/local-market-launch-blog/pinterest-your-virtual-marketing-pinboard

"How can I use the power of Social Media to my advantage?" It may be worded a hundred different ways, but this is one of the top questions we receive here at Local Market Launch. Now that social media has officially moved beyond "shiny new toy" to essential and quantifiable, it's vital to discover exactly how to leverage its power for your benefit.

Today we're going to give you the step-by-step social media plan of action.

harness the power of social mediaCredit: Daniel Iverson
Financial Benefits of Social Media

First, the smart business owner will want to qualify the use of social media. Exactly how essential is it? I'm glad you asked.

A four year report published by McKinsey Quarterly provides measurable business benefits and goes a long way toward justifying social media as a vital business tool. According to the report, enterprises using social media are experiencing measurable business benefits.

The customer related benefits of social media include:

Increase in customer satisfaction by 50%

Reduced marketing costs by 45%

Increased customer awareness, conversion and loyalty by 63%

Reduced travel costs by 29%

Direct increase in revenue of 24%

Another interesting discovery from the survey was the fact that companies currently using social media and Web technologies were more agile organizations overall, with proactive and performance driven staff members. They were also the group reporting both market share gains against their competitors as well as higher profit margins. In a nutshell, this tells me that those who are moving forward with the times are experiencing increase, while others are getting left behind.

*Results graph from McKinseyquarterly.com
Define Social Media

Next up, let's define social media. Instead of just thinking Facebook or Twitter posts, which may seem vague and leave you feeling lost, the main point of social media is the word "social." To be social is to share. With this in mind, the best way a business can harness the power of social media is by creating things worth sharing. Things worth sharing become "viral", which simply means they are picked up and re-shared or re-Tweeted again and again. It's just like the old Herbal Essence commercial, "I told two friends and they told two friends, and so on, and so on." That's the ultimate goal.

Everything you share isn't going to reach five million people, but everything you share should have value and make the consumer feel like they are being brought into an inner circle.

Here's the blueprint of exactly how this is accomplished:

Social Media Blueprint
Step #1 - Begin

In order to begin, you should understand how the platforms are connected. Picture Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google Plus as spokes on your social media wheel. The information you share with your social media wheel should essentially work like breadcrumbs that lead your audience to the hub, or your primary website. The hub is what ties all your social media activity together.

Once on your website, you can engage potential customers by educating them on the benefits of your business, service, or product. You can also use a blog for this purpose, or a combination website/blog. Looking at social media from this perspective, the light bulb should start getting brighter. Remember all those email lists you purchased in an attempt to generate interest in your business, or the postcards you sent out to targeted zip codes? How about the time you hired teenagers to put flyers on all the cars in the mall parking lot and almost received a citation? Those days are over. With social media you can draw interest to your business without any of the tactics you used before.

Step one is to join the top social networking platforms and connect your followers to your business website or blog, which, of course, should be populated with local search optimized (LSO) content. Start with your Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Google Plus profiles. We'll show you how to develop them and gain a following in future posts.
Step #2 - Engage

The things you share on social media platforms will draw interest and many people will automatically click over to your website or blog (depending on what you have listed in the web address section of your profile). Don't embarrass yourself by having outdated content, expired offers, or last month's calendar of events on display. Stick to a weekly blogging schedule for a constant supply of fresh content and be sure to remove anything that's not evergreen.

Integrate social media into your business day. Make it a priority and a habit, much like checking your mail. Most businesses have lulls during mid-morning and mid-afternoon. This is a perfect time to share about an upcoming event, upload a photo of a current happening at your location, or provide an offer or a link to a deal. Side note: People love photos. You'd be surprised at how much interest a photo of your Chihuahua sitting on your desk will generate. Bottom line? Have fun with social media! Engage your readers in conversations. Ask questions. Give them a topic or question of the day. Your efforts are going to generate revenue, so you should already be smiling!
Step #3 - Track & Monitor

You can't harness the power of anything if you don't know where it's going. Use tracking tools to alert you when anyone mentions your business or your name on the web. Your response to both praise and criticism is extremely important and is part of your reputation marketing. Other tracking tools include monitoring interactions on your walls, pages, and accounts, along with stats of retweets, link clicks, and more.

Google Alerts - Setting up auto alerts through Google Alerts is the simplest way to track mentions of you on the web. You can set notifications for daily, weekly, or as they occur.

Facebook Insights - An analytic tool that provides full details of how fans are interacting on the page.

Bit.ly - A universal url shortener, which is especially useful with the limited number of characters allowed on Twitter. Beyond the helpful compression of lengthy urls, this tool provides analytics which include the number of individuals clicking on your links, top referers, location of traffic origination, and daily, weekly and monthly traffic overviews.

Twitter Analyzer - Provides you with graphs which gauge your Twitter popularity, exposure, and your level of interaction.

Backtype - This is definitely one to watch. Backtype helps companies to understand the way people are interacting with your social media content. It provides comments on your site, tweets, comments on Friend Feed, Digg, and allows you to compare your social media site to others.
Step #4 - Innovate

You may think social media is not for you or not used in your industry. If your particular niche is not one that doesn't readily engage in tweets or status updates, I've got good news for you. You've got yourself a wide open market. So, you think that your chain of bait and tackle shops won't do well online? You will if you think outside the box. Create a weekly fishing tip video and post it on your business blog. Start tweeting about it. Post a few videos on your Facebook Page. I guarantee you'll have a steady stream of traffic before the month is over.
Step #5 - Manage

Now that you have a basic understanding of how it all works together, here's a management task list that will help keep the obvious from falling through the cracks. I've divided it into daily and weekly tasks:

Daily Social Media Routine

Check your Twitter for DM's or Direct Messages that you can reply to. Also perform a search for your business name, product or service to see if you can engage or answer a question.

Respond to comments on your blog.

Bookmark any websites or blogs on topics of interest related to your industry that you might blog about later.
Weekly Social Media Routine

Write at least two blog posts per week. Set your posts up to automatically feed to RSS subscriptions, and use Networked Blogs to automatically populate LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook with your posts.

Scan Twitter and Facebook for any hot, trending industry topics you can join in.

Find at least 20 new people to follow on Twitter (often they will follow you back) and scan for possible valuable connections on Facebook and LInkedIn.
Step #6 - Avoid the Obvious Mistakes

When you think about it, these mistakes are no-brainers, but I see them occurring again and again so they are worth mentioning.

When adding people to your social media network, remember, the ultimate goal is to generate revenue. Time and time again I see real estate agents, for example, who are building their connections by adding other agents. Newsflash: Other agents won't be buying property from you. Reach out to new people groups. A great tool called Twellow allows you to search for people by profession, city, or other attribute. These are the people you should be following on Twitter; the business owners and professionals in your town, not other agents!

When posting on any of the social networks, don't go for hard sells. If your response to ever question is an invitation to purchase your product or patronize your business, you'll be a prime candidate for "unfriending" and "unfollowing". Engage in authentic conversations. Yes, you can talk about your business and products, but don't bombard people. Basic rules of face-to-face etiquette do apply, even in the virtual world.

With this social media blueprint you should have plenty to do over the next few weeks, and by the end of thirty days or so, you'll be an official social media guru. Stick around, we'll be providing deeper insights for each individual social network in upcoming blog posts.

In the mean time, remember, social media is all about sharing, so drop us a comment and let us know how your small business is using social media. (it's a great first exercise for you!)

http://localmarketlaunch.com/local-market-launch-blog/smbs-harness-the-power-of-social-media

But I'm not a writer!

"Content is still King, but audience is Ace." Simply put: speak to your audience. This is increasingly niche in the exploding internet universe of content. I read this quote somewhere and it has become my mantra. Being a great blogger on the modern internet, actually isn't about being a Pullitzer Prize Winner or Wall Street Journalist. Just speak authentically in your own voice about what you know. Or, if you do have someone close to you do this on your behalf, make sure you trust them to effectively speak to your audience, the one you've already been building up for years offline with pre-existing marketing efforts. I recommend posting weekly or a few times a week (whatever interval works for you). Post some helpful information about your field in your own natural voice. Give some examples of what works for you. Speak to the customer whether it's home improvement tips, dog grooming, dry cleaning advice, fashion advice or discounts on places to shop.

You can even enjoy the freedom to blog about any topic under the sun, as showing your personality will bring your customers closer to you. As you will find, building a deeper engagement which will lead to more clicks, calls, foot trafffic and reviews. We revisit the concept of how to get reviews time and again on this blog. Building engagement with customers around quality content is a top level strategy to all facets of the review cycle. The closer they feel to your store or brand, the more they will want to engage across the board. The real secret to blogging isn't to be a perfectionist and try to write the Great American Novel. Be conversational. Establish a voice. Set your sights on sharing your specialized knowledge, your unique experience, your story and above all: AVOID BEING SALESY AT ALL COSTS. We know from the lion's share of research, that a pitch turns your followers and fans off. We are all trained to avoid the ads and commercials we are bombarded with all day. I've seen a business run its blog completely about snapshots of its customers and get the best results, even letting customers guest blog and post YouTube interviews for them - highly effective in the service business. I recommend a multimedia approach to blogs.

blogging for small business Credit: ShareSource
But I don't have time to Blog!

How many times have you seen a blog with 2 retweets and no Facebook shares? It's like a piece of valuable business real estate with the windows boarded up and an overgrown hedge. If nobody is sharing, nobody knows you are there! But this is frustrating: If you're like most small business owners, you have VERY LITTLE TIME to be writing blogs to influence your industry and build up interaction with your customer base. So maybe you bought a book, took a seminar, rolled up your sleeves and wrote a first post. Sigh! Where are my thousand followers? I even attached my YouTube video walk through of the house I'm selling and it's not Bieber viral! Grrr. Not to worry! Perhaps a friend or family member who is a bit more tech savvy can take the reins of your social media to spread your blog, and even help create some content for you out of the kindness of their heart. When I speak to small business owners, the main question I get asked is "How do I grow it all, like you do?" And a second set of questions frequently right after are, "Where's the best place to go to start a blog?" and "How do I get more followers of my blog?" Secret one: Blogging alone is worth very little, much like shouting in the woods. You need a strategy in place of what to do AFTER.
Blog Creation Favs

Wordpress.com - This site is quickly becoming the industry standard. You can hire a talented web designer to build you something really sophisticated on here and customize it for a few thousand dollars adding the bells and whistles. You can also just set up a free account, choose a great free theme, and be off the races in under 45 minutes. If you want to get really slick, you can get a WordPress theme like Thesis.

Blogger.com - I've run some blogs in Blogger and been happy with the result. It's so convenient to be able to get a domain name that quickly and have it sync right with your gmail. I highly recommend it.

Typepad.com - Beth Kanter started off writing a fantastic in depth blog on nonprofit fundraising on Typepad which gained international reach, and I particularly enjoy her style for how in depth her bloggi is. Marking guru Seth Godin also has a famous TypePad blog keeping it super short and sweet. He took a wild approach to social media at first, by only choosing to blog in short bursts. The results was a ton of support from his fans, retweeting it. But I'm a small business, you say. The lesson here, is to focus your efforts on the tools that you like the best and delegate the sharing to your fans and stakeholders in your small business to do the rest. Maybe you just write a daily blog or even dictate it out loud to an assistance and then all your employees retweet, share and kick it out to hundreds of local people. Remember your business strategy in 2012 is a Social Business Strategy. Bar none. Check this excellent blog platform out along with the other two above, and see what you think, before you decide to pull the trigger on blog one!

Blog Sharing Favs

Squidoo.com - In local Search Engine Optimization (SEO), one universal key is quality backlinks but what's often missed is link velocity. Slow and steady wins the race. Squidoo is a fantastic site to created Lenses, portals of content, and share your latest blogs to them, as well as aggregating similar content sources as well. It's a great source of traffic and you can even publish your Squidoo lenses to other online magazines promoting in there, free of charge in many cases. Bottom line: Distribution makes Google happy and helps you in Google Places when someone is performing a search over the net or mobile.

Pinterest.com - Based on organizing people around their Interest Graph (their interests) as opposed to the Social Graph (friends), the beauty of Pinterest is it works almost the opposite of Facebook. If you are an equestrian obsessed with everything Dressage related, you can find an active community in there to get excited about that with you. Some are calling this the fastest growing social network in history. You can create a personal profile on here and create a pinboard with your latest industry related blog posts, along with going and repinning a ton of cool posts.

Twitter.com - We've all heard of Twitter, but few small business owners leverage it fully. Definitely share all your blogs back to Twitter but make sure to retweet other blogs you like from your profile. Also, dive deeper into listening with Twitter Search and follow influencers in your industry and retweet their tweets. Use TweetDeck to listen to your Twitter account and mention other Tweeters you like. If you want to get fancy schmancy in the cloud go for Seesmic or check out Sendible and SproutSocial. Make sure to engage by replying to retweets you receive. Make sure this is a two way conversation, and other Tweeters with bigger following will return the favor and mention you, especially if you have something valuable to say. The trick to Twitter has always been karma. Tweet unto others and they will tweet back to you!

Ezinearticles.com - Another cool magazine article submission site that can get you some good backlinks going. There are many hub like this one and HubPages.com is another good example. I like the effectiveness of posting your content in these because of the value to increasing Prominence for loca search optimization (LSO).

RSS Strategy - Real Simple Syndication - Sounds super confusing but it's really simple if you just think about Google Reader. You can pull the feeds of a bunch of good blogs and read them all in one place. You want to submit your blog to RSS Submission sites relevant to your field. The tools above come standardly RSS ready out of the box so just encourage your base to add you to their RSS reader apps.

twittersandCredit: Rosaura Ochoa
Now to some basic strategy & examples:

Social media is only as valuable as the size of your network. Share, share, share and share some more! If you're sharing with the wrong folks, you may not get comments, reshares or retweets. So the goal is to keep search acquisition strategy in mind. Who might benefit from learning about your service or perhaps someone in a related industry could find the content valuable. Dentists and orthodontists can connect up and share backlinks. I can think of dozens of home repair companies that would benefit from being connected in Twitter and cross linking their blogs. Participating in LinkedIn forums and referencing the blog is a solid strategy. Going into a community like Pinterest and commenting on pinboards or creating one full of fun images and following Pinners with similar interests that will then follow you back, are also good tactics. All of the above activities are working in your favor long after the fact and ultimately building link juice back to your blog.

http://localmarketlaunch.com/local-market-launch-blog/so-i-blogged-now-what

2012: The Year of Mobile or is it Local?

Your customers are on the go with increasingly busy schedules and lives. Mobile search is immediate and changing everything for small business marketing. A customer wants to see a menu, store hours or directions right now. They're going to trust reviews by real people, if they even have time for that at a glance. So let's analyze that glance. The short nature of attention span is amazing! Our lives are inherently ADD and we are doing everything we can to separate the signal from the noise. We are struggling daily to find useful info under the barrage of ads in every possible medium and thundering presence of constant notifications, clicks, whirs, flashing lights and vibrating indicators which ironically we've tuned out so well, we don't even notice. If your business strategy is not optimized for this new consumer behavior in 2012, your target audience will just bounce off your web properties and choose someone else.

Eye tracking studies with heat maps reveal that when mobile surfers are looking at search results, they're going to subconciously favor complete listings with star ratings, reviews and higher placement in the results on the tiny screen, over ones without them. Think of Gladwell and the "thin slice" in the book "Blink." It's important to be aware of a new activity we're coining LSO: local search (engine) optimization, which is the process of making your business appear more prominently in LOCAL search results when customers look for you on any device, including navigation systems and Siri. The mobile revolution we have all been waiting for as year after year has been dubbed the "Year of Mobile," is actually being delivered through apps and search with a local focus as we care increasingly about our closest contacts and life experiences nearby. Your customers are experimenting with Siri, Evi (cross platform) and soon Majel (for Android), and because voice recognition virtual assistants are so trendy and cool right now, (especially on the iPhone), you need to optimize your web presence for this, or risk not being found. You have a unique opportunity to get into the game before competitors on this, so seize it!
Here are 5 easy steps to get LSO done, and done right:
1) Create the Mega-List of Search Portals, then do it again, then again...

Frequently cultivate a big, awesome list of local search portals to submit your business into. Do this by following LOCAL focused blogs like MilkMen, David Mihm's and Blumenthal's and Googling "top 50/100 places to list your business for free." Scan through the listings and evaluate which are most appealing but do this monthly, because portals update and change constantly. These days, you're better off gauging your list from thought leaders and bloggers, rather than oft-debated, mystical-theoretical concepts on toolbars like PageRank, TrustRank or MozRank (there are 500 updates a year to Google's algorithm and now over 1,000 signals that influence how a site ranks). Keep in mind personalized search can significantly change the results of each individual customer's search experience as can Google+ (from a logged in query). So to combat the mercurial nature of all this and even the wild variance of traffic measurement mechanisms like HitWise, Compete, Alexa and Quantcast, our blanket term "search portals" has you covered. Search portals include top directories like InsiderPages, MojoPages, BrownBook, CitySquares - Internet Yellow Pages like SuperPages, YellowPages, InfoSpace, Switchboard - Local Search Engines like Google Local, Yahoo Local and Ask Business Search - and data providers like infoUSA.

The new LSO mantra: Be thorough to win.
Here's a sample Top 10 pulled from consensus not PageRank, just to give you an idea of the art meets science of LSO:

1. Google Places

2. Brownbook.net

3. Localeze

4. Supermedia

5. Local.com

6. Yahoo Local

7. InsiderPages.com

8. Citysearch

9. YellowBot

10. InfoUSA

local search opitimizationCredit: Si1very
2) Focus on Free

LSO can be a free process so always look for the free option if that's your bag, as hard as it may be to find the links in the site layouts of these directories. For every portal you can find where a free claimed or verified listing is possible, go through the verification process whether it's a letter in the mail or phone call pin verification. Not all portals are free, so be aware of this and weigh the benefits of paying for a listing there against fanning out across the hundreds of valuable free portal locations where you could grab LSO real estate. With Google and Bing there is a letter/postcard in the mail option but services like YellowPages, Yelp and Foursquare achieve verification with a quick phone call where you can then enter in a PIN number to a web form to validate the listing. Only 15% of businesses have claimed or verified their listings online so verification whenever possible is the name of the game.
3) Complete Your Listing: It's trickier than it looks

Most of the directory listings you'll run into online, are nowhere near complete. Take the extra time to get 5 photos, create an Animoto or Vimeo slideshow with them, if you don't already have a thriving YouTube channel with a cachet of great videos, and submit every possible detail about the business to the listing portal. In many cases, the directory site will give you a percentage of completion as you are filling it out. "Your listing is 81% complete," for example. In some cases, 100% just isn't possible, as this is yet another marketing tactic to get you to pony up for the paid listing so settle for over 90%.
4) Get reviews: They're worth their weight in gold

Between Yelp and Google Places you're covered for Siri but you'll also get some traction with initial reviews anywhere you can get them. Plus, your friends already enjoy the experience on Yelp and are accustomed to writing reviews on there. Start there, by emailing a handful of your best clients to ask for a quick review and star rating on portals like Google Places. Earn a Yelp sticker and place it in your storefront window. Test the theory out, but I would say getting a bunch of reviews on a few sites would serve you better than being in every possible portal without them. You'll find over time if you take on the task of running your own LSO that some combination of submissions and reviews is a healthy sweet spot.
5) Set a monthly schedule

Citation velocity is critical. Simply put, it's important to continue a steady stream of listings of your business month over month in highly relevant places. If you are an attorney, submit your business to industry specific directories, newspaper directories and local hubs. A citation just means a vote in the eyes of the search algorithm. It doesn't necessarily have to be a direct link back to your website. It's simply a mention. Here are some great vertical directories: Contractors.com, Restaurants.com, FindLaw.com, and Dentists.com.
Summary:

Ensure your LSO efforts are ongoing as opposed to being hyperactive for a month or two which may give you marginal lift in organic search results but suddenly you'll find yourself sliding back down the rankings to page two and three on Google, Bing and Yahoo. Keep up the good work and persevere year round. This concept is much like link velocity in traditional SEO. Remember, it can take up to 90 days for major search engines to index your listings, so be patient, consistent and continue to list yourself and get review. You can do this easily and for free with the simple instructions above, but to do it thoroughly it can take a decent investment of time equating to dozens upon dozens, even hundreds of hours to achieve LSO excellence. If you feel overwhelmed or aren't looking to add tasks to your busy schedule, I suggest enlisting the services of an LSO expert or results driven company to help you. LSO is an extension or evolution of many free forms of social, viral and guerilla marketing available in a Do-It-Yourself model to businesses for years. Remember, whether you do LSO yourself or farm it out to a trusted shop on the web, increasing your visibility also increases advertiser calls as you're now appearing in a bunch of directories. It's totally worth the new exposure across the board. I always say, "you've gone from 1 bus stop to hundreds of bus stops," so don't be surprised if the yellow pages comes calling tomorrow morning. Trust me, they will and when they do, just smile because you're creating a far greater web presence than just one yellow book could ten years ago. You're helping your business be everywhere all at once. You can never predict where, when and how your prospects and clients will look for you and that's precisely why LSO was created: so you can be ready.

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/5-local-search-optimization-lso-tips-tricks

Foursquare is an application for smartphone users that enables small businesses to engage with their customers by allowing users to check-in at a venue and leave helpful tips; these check-ins appear on the user's Facebook or Twitter and act as a personal endorsement for the business, while allowing them to share their experiences with their social network.

The increasing influx of check-ins cultivates a community of loyal customers through Foursquare's hierarchy that awards points and positions the customer. The one with the most amount of check-ins at the venue becomes the Mayor of the establishment. In this example below, she became a Super Mayor by checking in the most at 10 venues!! Why is this important? Well, below you will find out how to increase customer loyalty and generate new fans by using this ranking system to your advantage!

1) Enlighten your customers about Foursquare

Use your social networks and storefront to let your customers and fans know that you've joined Foursquare. Get them excited by physically displaying potential discounts or specials around your venue so that they can get involved as well.
2) Give back to the hand that feeds you

Reward your loyal customers with points every time they check in, and give them a reason to come back through promotions or discounts after earning a certain amount of points.
3) Create healthy competition

Being a Mayor at a venue entails bragging rights, which seems a great enough incentive especially among the younger crowd. However, raise the bar among your complete customer demographic by handing out tangible incentives such as a free smoothie for the Mayor.
4) Help the losers feel like winners too

In order to maintain a steady stream of traffic for your venue, you should create several smaller incentives for those that can't invest all of their time in becoming the head honcho of your community. A lower amount of points accumulated can pertain to a smaller discount, but a discount nonetheless.
5) Constantly communicate to your customers

Keep your customers updated on news regarding your business and let them know about any new discounts or specials. Once you start building a loyal community of customers, you will find that they will start actively checking their Foursquare to find out more about your business.

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/foursquare-changing-the-rules-of-the-playground-for-small-biz

Launched in May of 2003, LinkedIn operates the largest professional online network, occupying over 200 countries with more than 150 million members around the world. Growing at a rate of two members every second, the network is constantly expanding, hosting over two million company pages and millions of small business pages. Examining LinkedIn's exponential growth among the professional world, you'd be remiss to ignore your small business page. Here are a couple of tips to jumpstart your LinkedIn presence:

Get your Employees to join LinkedIn

Small business owners often fear that encouraging employees to build exceptional LinkedIn profiles may highlight them as a target for prospective recruiters and employers. On the contrary, having employees create professional profiles will most likely reflect highly upon a business owner and improve the credibility of the organization. The bottom line: The more involved your company can be with LinkedIn, the more results you will see.
Share your Expertise

LinkedIn's "Answers" forum is a perfect channel to not only share your knowledge and expertise, but to demonstrate familiarity in your field to business owners and potential clients around the globe. Don't use the forums to simply sell yourself or your product- this may turn away prospective customers. Instead, join the conversations and present yourself as a helpful resource in your area of specialty.
Find Vendors or Services, Easily!

As a busy small business owner, researching vendors to outsource services can be a huge hassle. Whether you need a web designer or a social media strategist, LinkedIn provides an easy-to-use search engine to find the service you need. The best part about it? Top search results will include people or companies in your network, and you can research your peer's recommendations ahead of time.
Participate in Relevant Groups

LinkedIn's "Groups" feature is an online forum that deals with specific topics. By joining a group, you will be able to interact with a community of prospective clients or possible partners in your respective industry. Additionally, members of these groups often hold offline events that will serve as excellent face-to-face networking opportunities.
Stay Active

In order to maintain your LinkedIn presence, you must stay active in the community. Remember, LinkedIn is a social networking site, meaning you should actively participate in relevant discussions, join groups, and act as a resource to community members to preserve the relevance of your company and your expertise. Put simply, the more you contribute to the site, the more your business will get out of it. Remain a dynamic contributor and watch your LinkedIn profile skyrocket!

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/leveraging-linkedin-for-local

What are search portals and why are they so important to your business?

The online landscape has changed to a local focus. There are really only two primary search engines in 2012: Google and Bing as Yahoo is powered by Bing. (I'm going to give honorable mention to DuckDuckGo, (pure results minus ads), Blekko (a slashtag and trusted site-based search engine) and WolframAlpha (a wicked computational answer engine) to be fair here as these are awesome search resources too). Because there are only two majors and there are so many second tier directories, aggregators, databases, social networks and Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), it all becomes one big jumble for our local search optimization efforts. So this term is something we coined to simplify it for you. Let's just define it this way. Search portals are the best places "you want your business to be on the internet."

Check out my latest list ranked by not just PageRank (the mystical google ranking factor from internet's past). Remember, Google's algorithm now includes over 1,000 signals as does Bing's, as supported by this recent blog post from SEO guru Danny Sullivan.
1) Google Places

What: This is Google's core mapping function. It's what Google Maps has become. Why? The Siri voice activated search service will pull from Google Places, so if you're not there you may risk not being found. To do: It's key you verify on Google Places to get one of those red balloons we all know and love.
2) Yahoo Local

What: Yahoo is neck and neck for overall traffic with Bing according to a recent Comscore study, and is still pretty major as so many of your customers will still get their personal emails from Yahoo or use the portal as a hub for their communication or daily news when they log in. Why? Yahoo Local is still a key garden for those searching in the signature Yahoo style created a decade ago where content is organized for you. Customers are performing random searches in there and the listings often show up in results for many search queries. To do: Verify your business listing on Yahoo Local.
3) Bing Local

What: Bing is more than just a snappy sound and finally something people collectively find cool from Bill Gates. They got really popular with custom backgrounds. Why? Bing's powerful in that its search results integrate Facebook data showing likes and shares, etc. For Local, they have a great business directory list. To do: To be thorough, it's key to be here, so list and verify.
4) Yelp

What: I first heard of Yelp on a trip to San Fran, as it was so popular there before it hit smaller towns like Santa Barbara. I saw a sticker in the window of the best eateries and a friend demanded I sign up to join in the community and read/write some reviews. Restaurants and hotels really shine on Yelp and now, the service has transitioned into every facet of local business. Why? Reviews, reviews, reviews. Think of how powerful it is to get a real customer's opinion of what they experienced, as opposed to the establishment's biased opinion. To do: Claim your profile for your business once you've created a basic account. Yelp regulates their reviews to ensure they're real, so get the automated phone call to verify your profile, and then make sure customers act on their own accord to review you. You'll do just fine but be ready for some candid feedback. All publicity is good publicity.
5) Foursquare

What: Mobile apps have changed the game with what I like to call Web 3.0, social media with a twist of location. It's fun to check in to Starbucks repeatedly and get to vy for the top check-in mayoral spot. You can set up your Foursquare to incentivize your customers in a variety of ways. Why? Foursquare has begun to call itself a local search engine because you can see nearby friends and suggested nearby locations based on past preferences and a great grid of local places in the results. To do: Create a foursquare account for your business, claim your venue and place an offer at your register for the person with the most amount of check-ins. Check out our recent post to learn more about Foursquare.
6) YelllowPages.com (YP.com)

What: AT&T realizing that phone books themselves are getting replaced by online environs (the city of San Francisco doesn't even deliver them), jumped headlong into the LOCAL space with yp.com and it's a great place to list and advertise your business. Why? It's a brand that is known and a highly trafficked site (30mil/mo according to Compete.com). They also have solid pay-for-performance campaigns. To do: Chances are, your business is already listed there, if you've been in business for awhile, but go double check now.
7) Local.com

What: I really like Local.com's interface and daily deals element. This is another very heavily trafficked, high PageRank site. Why? The more links and citations you have pointing back to your site, the better you'll rank in the organic search results. To do: Focus on getting a free listing here with a description. List your deals, events and activities. Reach out to your email list to ask for reviews here. I would include all your requests for reviews in one email to make it easy for your customers.
8) Hotfrog

What: Hotfrog not only has the coolest logo, but is a free business listing directory with over 20 mil businesses. Why? It is a great place to tell the unique story of your business, and complete a profile to attract more hits to your home site. You can share your latest products and services and news. To do: Hop over to HotFrog and get listed.
9) MerchantCircle

What: I give this site credit. They are morphing beyond just a local directory listing portal, and getting into the deal and expert advice realm. Why? With 5+ million hits per month (according to compete.com), you definitely want to be listed here. I like how they integrate social into their profiles and how it can be used as a local search engine to hunt around the city for cool offerings. For example, I found Cafe Stella in there. To do: Grab a listing on MerchantCircle.
10) Best of the Web

What: This Internet Web Directory sports a classic layout broken up by category, reminding me of early Yahoo in some ways. Why? They've been around since 1994 dubbing themselves "the internet's oldest directory" so the value of a link in here is very helpful to your Local Search Optimization. To do: Definitely get a free listing here.

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/top-10-search-portals

Where do I get started with creating a Twitter?

The beauty of Twitter for local business is you can develop a following for free and share specials, deals and info about your business in microbursts known as tweets: 140 characters or less. Beyond going to twitter.com and following the simple sign up process to create an account, take a moment to stop by the following sites to make a nice looking Twitter presence for your local business: TwitBacks, FreeTwitterDesigner.com, Twitlay.com. You can utilize these simple intutive tools and many others like them to express your brand individuality, list some important descriptive info and the hours and details about your business to enhance your Twitter page beyond a standard, plain background they supply.

Word of mouth has now become "word of mouse." When someone retweets or "shares your tweet" with their followers on Twitter, a multiplier affect is achieved which allows your business to be discovered and followed by extended networks. This whole scenario reminds me of The Brady Bunch or a classic Bye Bye Birdie game of telephone. Their friends tell their friends, who tell their friends, who tell their friends, who tell their friends...The difference? You control the message and the message gets preserved, so really think about what you're going to say because you have 140 characters to do it. This should not be a source of pressure for you. Imagine a customer popping into your location briefly, what's your message? "Hey, how was your day? Try the lunch special." You'll frequently hear me reference real world scenarios that translate to social media. People are people. The media changes but your message stays the same, remember that. What makes you successful offline will be successful online. It often just requires some editing and repackaging to fit the technology. Tweet tweet!
So how do I get MORE followers?

This is the probably the biggest question I always get: "Hey Justin, can you teach me how to get 5,000 Twitter followers?" My response is always: "Sure, but what kind of followers?" As you click and search in Twitter for profiles relating to topics and businesses you find interesting, you can click the follow button on whomever you like. Follow others, and a certain percentage will follow you. It's important not to mass add profiles thinking you've cracked the code and will win by Blitzkrieging it. I see beginning Twitter users make the mistake of following thousands of local profiles to build up an account rapidly. This strategy can worked as an advanced strategy if you are highly targeting who you add. It seems like this is forward progress but it will not yield anywhere near the results of adding slowly and targeting just the people you already know, as well as profiles that appear to fit the profile of your clientele. Start with friends, family and existing customers. Another simple way is to announce your Twitter presence from Facebook or Linkedin requesting to be followed.

Adding your Twitter handle to your email signature and business cards such as "Follow me on Twitter: @thejmike" or just @thejmike which is pretty much universally recognized at this point. If you have a blog, mention it in your posts. There are lists of twitter directories like JustTweetIt and WeFollow which are great hives for interesting searchers to find you. Definitely join Twitter groups on services like GroupTweet, make and follow lists internally and go to TweetUps, local meetups in your city on a topic where everyone brings a tablet, laptop or mobile device and tweets live. I attended a great one of these held by the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Red Cross on disaster relief strategies. It's fun because everyone shows up, geeks out on their laptop, and it's all posting live to cyberspace connecting both worlds. Here is a great place to search: twitter.meetup.com. I also really enjoy sites like Twestival "a single day, global movement which uses the power of social media to organize offline events that mobilize communities in support of local causes." Offer to host one, or throw a TweetUp on a topic of your choice. Gather the realtors in your entire city and the local media around a cause your business' mutually support, or simply gather customers together to live review and tweet on a fun Friday event with some inspiring speakers. Check out: Meetup.com. This is a great garden for integrating social media into offline events around any topic you like!

When are the best times to post?

The frequency at which you tweet, is really a personal choice. It really depends on how much you have to say and if your audience is truly listening. If you find the right amount per day, you will start to see a steady stream of retweets. You can listen to who is tweeting about you by using tools like TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic which will monitor where your Twitter Handle (@localbusiness) is being mentioned in the Twitterverse. Sure, once a day could be very effective. Some companies even tweet on the hour from the Twitter App on their mobile phone. It's important if you find something cool, witty, fun or relevant to your base, that you Tweet that info back to your followers by simply clicking the retweet button under the post. I've known of bloggers that post on a Tuesday and Thursday. Like any network, you get what you put into it: quality over quantity holds true. How often does your phone ring each day at your place of business? You definitely can see Twitter as just another communication touch point and you'd like it to be ringing or tweeting at least as much. Just like my previous Facebook post, remember to listen to your followers' tweets and share them with others, adding in a comment. "Great job @biggestfan. Congrats on your #promotion!" (By adding the "#" symbol, you've created what's known as a "hash tag" which is indexed for searching.)
What is Twitter Karma?

Twitter karma is about following the people that follow you back. As you start to follow a bunch of people, watch your follower count from the home screen and always ensure when someone randomly follows you, you follow them back after a quick scan of their profile that they fit your community. This is just like karma in real life. Bring quality profiles into your circle of trust by ensuring a reciprocal following. If someone has the courtesy to take interest in you, take interest in them back. One strategy for a local marketing company, may be to follow a bunch of local marketing companies all across the country and then any that follow them back completes the mutual sharing equation. When you post relevant content and then get retweeted, you will start to get a steady stream of people following you from all across the web because they are looking at the content of your tweets and taking interest. Check on them and reciprocate: follow them back. If you feel the ratio is getting disjointed, there are tools to be able to quickly unfollow those that don't follow you back like: Twollow and FriendOrFollow. Some people refer to this as "whacking" your Twitter when you even the scales. You ideally want a follow:followers ratio of 1:1. Also, always be checking who is following you and block or remove spammy profiles, as unfortunately it's a reality of being on the service but has been drastically reduced in recent updates.
Who exactly should I follow?

There is a bunch of hype around following celebrities or the Twitterati, as they're called, a riff on Gliteratti in Tinseltown. Focusing on celebrities just lifts you into the noise of the internet. You really want to concentrate on "signal versus noise." Concentrate on key influencers or thought leaders in the community. I think it's really important to reach out to your current customer base through an email saying, "Hey, we're now on Twitter, so please follow us." Bring in your initial network and then reach out to profiles that reflect nearby tweets using a third party tool like NearbyTweets or just keyword search around similar industry verticals. You can do a keyword search from Twitter on real estate and see people tweeting about real estate related topics in your area and begin to follow them here: twitter.com/search.

What is a hashtag (#)?

This is the second question I get the most but the easiest to explain: A hashtag seems confusing but it is simply a # or hash sign that helps monitor keywords from Twitter Search. When you do a search from the link above, you can zero in on one keyword like #followfriday which is a repository of fun Friday Twitterers posting cool and interesting content each Friday. You can easily start your own hashtag, making it easy for people to find you. Sample Tweet: "We are offering a special on dry cleaning this week 20% off #santabarbaradeals"

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/twitter-tips-for-small-businesses

I'm busy running my business, do I really need a Facebook Page?

With one in six minutes spent online in social media, Facebook is no longer a college kid's hangout. It represents a serious opportunity to promote your business online with relatively little spend other than your time and creativity. It's a vehicle that you can utilize to engage your current customer base, and create new fans of your products and services to maximize return on investment (ROI). Facebook is the most important social network to be active in, as the average user spends 7 hours and 45 minutes per month on the site, according to Nielsen.
Building your presence on Facebook

Your clients may not admit it, but they are logging in daily: 50% of 800 million users log back in every day. The American user base is growing to upwards of 179 million with the fastest demographic being the 35-55 age group (Pew Study). 70% of small businesses are on Facebook in some form or fashion (MerchantCircle Report).

Step One: Make sure you have a Facebook business page by visiting: facebook.com/business
Step Two: Invite all your Facebook Profile friends to your Facebook Fan Page by using the "invite friends" button in the upper right corner of your Facebook Page. Many new to Facebook get confused between a Profile and a Page. The profile is you, the page is your business. You can invite friends into your main profile by simply clicking on the friends icon (in the upper left menu bar by the Facebook logo at the top of your screen) and inviting ones that are presented to you. Or, you can also export and re-import your email list of contacts from yahoo, gmail or hotmail from the "Find Friends" button under the aforementined friends icon.
Step Three: Once you have amassed ~25 fans, create a vanity URL for your business page by going here: facebook.com/username. It's not to say you're vain, a vanity URL just means a custom name like facebook.com/joescoffee. It removes the busy extra code used internally after the Facebook URL, making it easier for people to find you.

The value of good content

local search optimization with facebookCredit: GOIABA - Johannes Fuchs Facebook is not just about posting, it's about your customers sharing the information they see in your news feed and commenting on it. This is called "earned media" because you are rewarded with likes and shares. The kicker? The content needs to be relevant and engaging. You can actually use likes and shares as a litmus test, that the content you're posting is resonating with your audience. The key in getting into the social media game, is to authentically communicate just like you would in the offline world. You've more than likely been doing this for years in traditional channels.

Let's say you are a plumber, and you are available 24/7 as opposed to competitors who are notorious for making people wait, driving up from a different bigger city, or hiking their rates. Post status updates to your Facebook Page that specifically address what makes you unique. What differentiates you from your competition in your own words and how can you communicate some anectdotal examples of this? Tell your story of why you were inspired to start your business. Satisfied customers will chime in by commenting, liking and sharing from your feed. Strike a chord and see the resultant earned media. You are local, you care and so do your current customers. Post some customer testimonials, share stories as well as jobs you've recently done where you were timely and customers were happy. This can also be in the form of pictures you upload to your Facebook Page or YouTube videos.
How often should you post?

Everybody develops their signature brand and style in social media so this is really variable and up to you. I recommend posting at a minimum a couple times per week on days that are easy for you or scheduling updates once each week, to either have an assistant post or you can do this with simple software like TweetDeck. A proponent of real time marketing having come from mobile marketing, I personally prefer posting in real time before work, at lunch or after work. I'll do some updates and shares to the page (Just click on anything relevant and exciting in your feed and hit share - Facebook has an option as you share to select any of the pages you administer, in the menu that you'll see). You may want to post a deal or incentive to your status feed or go create a short blog post on something that inspired you, perhaps pulled from an industry journal or something you saw in the local media.
Need something to say? Just listen

So how do you get to know people digitally? Start listening and share back to your page. Tools like Seesmic and HootSuite can help you do this better, or just perform a search in Bing that will pull Facebook mentions. One fast and simple strategy is to set a Google Alert to monitor mentions of your business online which you can then share back to your Facebook Page wall or Tweet. Listen to and monitor your customers themselves. What's important to them? What are they posting about? For example, let's say you are a café and one of your clients just completed a marathon. Repost their victory blog post to your business Facebook Page and comment on it, "Great job to one of our most valued customers." Showing an interest in the lives of your clients and keeping your content fresh is key. Avoid being salesly, as delighting customers with inspiring content will be a call to action in and unto itself.
Be Funny, Be Creative

People are visual, they like a brand with a human face. I believe this is why videos of babies remain some of the most downloaded ever on YouTube. Humanize the face of your business by sharing amusing stories, uplifting press articles and YouTube videos. You can get a Flip camera that's relatively inexpensive and create short clips interviewing key staff, showing a fly through of the premises and interviewing satisfied customers and quickly fill your YouTube account, sharing it back to Facebook and Twitter.

You could incentivize participation on your Facebook Page through a YouTube video contest where the best customer submitted video on a whacky topic wins some free merchandise or services. Are you a supporter of a local cause, having a car wash for a local school or coaching a sports team? Bring this into the conversation. Support the community and gain support.
Making the jump from the sidelines to the game

The best advice I could give to a small business owner is to participate. Monitor the status feed of all your Facebook friends and start to like, comment and share what you see. There is no stronger way to build a business then to build relationships by focusing your valuable time each day in Facebook on others. Does this take a huge time commitment? Well, aren't you already doing this all day, every day offline?
Recap

Time is money and your time is valuable, so you could look at time spent on Facebook as an investment. I urge you to create a Facebook Page that is really a community and even name it something clever. Post pictures, videos and captivating content. I recommend taking a look at some local companies in your town that have very active Facebook Pages and keeping tabs on what works for them. Have fun generating more business!

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/how-small-businesses-can-win-with-facebook-without-spending-a-dime

Local search optimization - Getting your business information in front of your competitors has had a long road to travel. Back in 1883, a printer in Cheyenne, Wyoming was working on a telephone directory, ran out of white paper and used yellow paper instead, creating an industry we know as the Yellow Pages, things sure have changed. And then again, they've stayed the same. Local businesses continue to need clients and customers to find them before their competitors.

No longer is local search optimization done with "AAA" positioned in front of their business name, or is it done by enhancing Yellow Page ads with color, or paying extra for bold fonts.local search engine optimization

Today's customers are searching for businesses and services online, with desktop and mobile computers, smart phones, smart pads, and in-car GPS devices. But the goal remains the same, to get out and stand out from their competitors to generate new business!

Blog URL: http://localmarketlaunch.com/index.php/local-market-launch-blog/so-long-yellow-pages-hello-local-search-optimization