As a local business owner, if you’ve been in operation for more than 5 years, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve purchased an ad for your business in the local yellow pages at some point. That’s because up until 2006 or so, yellow pages advertisements were the way to reach local consumers.

However, if you’ve been in business for less than 5 years, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve never purchased an ad in the phone book. The reason? Since 2006, consumers have steadily replaced their phone books with search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. By some estimates, less than one-third of consumers will use a phone book in 2011*.

Local Search Forcing Out Traditional Print Ads

As consumers steadily replace their phone books with search engines, local businesses are beginning to recognize just how important search engine optimization has become.

Because search engines only show a handful of businesses on the first page – and because consumers usually click on the top search results – being listed #1 on Google (or Bing or Yahoo) for your business search term is more important than ever.

So, if you want consumers to find your local basement finishing business when they do a search for “Denver Basement Finishing,” you’ve got to work on optimizing your business for local search.

In the SEO industry, we call this Local SEO, and it’s the fastest-growing service in our industry.

Getting Started with Local SEO

One of the first steps in any local SEO effort is to create and/or claim a profiles for your business on popular websites like Google Places.

With a profile on Google Places, business owners can share their business phone number, location, hours of operation, types of payment accepted, types of services provided, etc., and this information can then appear in local search results.

Google Places isn’t the only place business owners can register a profile. Bing, Yahoo,Yelp, MerchantCircle, Best of The Web, and dozens of other companies all offer business owners the opportunity to create profiles as well.

By creating and/or claiming profiles for your business on all of these websites, you increase the likelihood that your business will show in local search results.

Why Business Profiles Boost Search Results

When someone conducts a search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo for a local business, the search engines each use their own complicated algorithms to determine which business should appear #1, which business should appear #2, etc.

While the specific details of these algorithms are secret, we know that “citations” – or a mention of a specific business in an online directory, local business organization website, etc. – correlate with rankings.

The reason that search engines look for citations is that they’re a very good indicator of a business’s trust and longevity. If a local business has been around for a long time, or if a business is well-liked and trusted, there will be a lot of mentions for that business in local business directories, on the local chamber of commerce website, on local business association websites, and even in local media.

So, if you want your local business to show up at the top of local search results, you need mentions…and that means you need to create profiles on as many quality local directories as possible.

Contact us to learn more about our Local SEO services, including local directory submission, profile creation and reporting

*Based on a survey conducted by Harris Interactive

-Chris

You Can’t Just Digg Your Way to the Top Anymore

Digg announced today (9/2/09) that it is now applying the no-follow attribute to any links that are deemed untrustworthy, effectively ending the constant stream of SPAM that is posted to Digg daily.   While they did state that they are going to continue to allow link juice to flow to “trusted” articles, and they are not adding the no-follow attribute to all links, they did not specify what would constitute a trusted article.   Links on user profiles, comments and not-so-popular posts will get the no-follow tag, meaning it won’t pass along link juice.

John Quinn made the announcement regarding the changes on the official Digg blog:

“We’ve made a few changes to the way Digg links to external sites that may impact some folks in the SEO community. These changes reduce the incentive to post spammy content (or link spam) to Digg, while still flowing ’search engine juice’ freely to quality content. We’ve added rel=”nofollow” to any external link that we’re not sure we can vouch for. This includes all external links from comments, user profiles and story pages below a certain threshold of popularity.”

From what I can tell initially, any articles that make the front page of Digg avoid the no-follow attribute, therefore allowing the social community to effectively police the articles that are posted to Digg.   If an article gets enough votes from the community, it earns the trust needed to garner the link juice that comes from Digg.

Seems fair to me…

Minimal Impact on the SEO Community

This really shouldn’t affect the good SEO’s too much.  Sure, you lose an easy source of links that can be built with keyword based anchor text, but Digg seemed to be cracking down on link spam in general, so this just takes it one step further, and does so in an orderly fashion.  This will really only affect the spammy SEO’s that are simply posting article’s for the single Digg link.  If you are writing good content, and it includes links to true subject matter experts, you will still earn your link juice, they’ve just made it much harder to game the system.

Secondly, the no-follow attribute doesn’t completely eliminate the passage of link value, it simply dilutes it.  How much?  No one but the folks at Google really know, and they’re not going to show their hand.   The best you can do is read up on Matt Cutts blog post about no-follow and link sculpting, and draw your own conclusions.  For the purpose of continuing to use Digg for SEO, you should have a quality copywriter that can captivate an audience with a great article (or at least a great title), and you should build your network of friends, thereby increasing your chances of hitting the front page.

Other Social Sites Soon to Follow?

It will remain to be seen, but the social media world is a copycat arena.  Twitter was strong-armed into adding no-follow to all of their links, and now Digg has gone the same route.   Digg has said that ” This work was done in consultation with leading experts from the SEO/SEM and link spam fields” and one can assume that the experts included Google.

If other social sites start to get the overflow of Digg spammers, they too may start evaluating their own links and whether or not they should follow links.  And you always have the possibility that Google will “help” them figure out how they should handle their links as well.   I think there’s a good probability that more social sites will follow suit in the coming months.

If This Hurts You, You Need Better Link Sources

This is a good thing for SEO.  It will force out some of the spammers that can’t, or won’t put in the effort to find their own natural link sources, and will reward those who have spent the time building their profiles and interacting on the site.   Great content is still going to get Dugg, and will still have the potential to make the front page, while your quick and easy link-spamming will deteriorate, although it may not come to a screeching halt.

Get that copywriter going, get back to writing good content, and seek other link sources.  They are out there, you just have to stop being lazy.

-Chris

How important is your online brand?
It’s getting to be more important, and search engines are starting to place additional importance on the relevance of the content source.  Great content from well know brands is always going to rank well, so promoting your business through various mediums is going to be a big help in your branding and online reputation management.  The more places that people can find your business, the better.  Having more options for pushing and controlling your message increases your chances of reaching and engaging your target audience.

As you begin to build your online brand, it’s important that you carry a consistent message, and that you control the information that can be found online.  It’s extremely easy for customers, clients or competitors to write an article, blog post or review your company through a variety of social sites.  Making sure that you monitor, produce and manage your reputation is en essential step to an effective online marketing campaign.  The following steps can help you manage your reputation and come out looking squeaky clean.

Using Social Media to Manage Your Brand – 4 Quick Tips

1. Choose the right avatar – Choose an image that is memorable, displays class and professionalism.  People will learn your avatar, and the impressions you make will stick with you for a long time. Your avatar is your face online, so make sure you put your best foot forward at all times.
2. Use consistent images – Representing yourself with an avatar is a great idea, and it’s important to use the same one for all your social profiles.  It helps when people can recognize you in different areas online, and allows you to build relationships with people in your niche.  Having social media friends will go a long way in battling negative press or libel.
3. Keep your eyes and ears open – Monitor your company name, blog and industry.  Social news spreads fast – good, bad or otherwise.  It’s important to monitor your company name, web address and social profiles, and it’s equally as important to respond quickly when someone questions or challenges your reputation.  It’s often possible to resolve disputes if you respond quickly, and before the negativity spreads.   Tools for monitoring your name or web address include Google Alerts and Twitter Search, among others.
4. Avoid accidental branding – It’s easy to wander through the social media scene without a clear cut message or purpose, and it’s also a bad idea.  Everything you publish online is visible to the public, and remains there as long as the web property is live.   Make sure that you are in control of the message you are delivering, and ask yourself if your post or image is something you would want a family member, friend, potential employer to find.  If the answer is NO, then you probably shouldn’t publish it.   People lose their jobs over Facebook pictures or blog posts, don’t let that happen to you or your business.

Ready to begin your social media campaign?

Social Media is a great tool for building relationships, promoting your brand, and managing your business’ reputation.  When used correctly, it enhances your ability to correspond with customers, gauge your competition and control the message that’s being delivered, but it takes some effort and the willingness to entertain and engage others’ opinions.

If your business takes the time to manage your brand online, you’ll find that you can create a loyal following and make sure that the information found on the search engines paints your company in the best light.  If you don’t have the time or inclination to do it right, you should avoid social media altogether, or hire a professional to manage your reputation and build your brand.

There’s only one way to do social media: the right way.

-Chris

Google

This article, from Google’s Webmaster blog, discusses some of the key things to look for when hiring an SEO company.   This is an endorsement for quality SEO providers, and points out some of the negatives to look for in a bad SEO firm.

This is a good article for anyone who is considering hiring an SEO provider and offers some pointers on what to look for when evaluating an SEO company.

To read the full article follow this link > http://tinyurl.com/5whsw5

-Chris

Google recently released an SEO starter guide on the webmaster central blog.  Good info from the source.

Google’s SEO Starter Guide

Makes you think that Google really DOES want you to SEO your site, don’t they.  Great idea, since this makes their job easier and puts more on the site owner to get themselves listed.

-Chris