There’s something comforting in the familiarity of brands we know and love. The safety of knowing that, no matter where you are in the world, when you see that brand’s logo you know exactly what to expect from them. That’s especially true for fast food brands. Take Burger King and McDonald’s. Whether you’re traveling for leisure or work, and find yourself in unfamiliar territory, there’s just nothing like seeing those famous golden arches or orange burger buns and feeling that, in a way, you’re home. Is that too dramatic (or perhaps just reflective of my feelings towards delicious, salty junk food)? It certainly got us thinking recently about the role of local business reviews for some of the world’s biggest brands. How do these global icons stack up from a local perspective? We gathered the Google reviews for every Burger King and McDonald’s outlet in the USA (that’s over 20,000 locations!) to see how their average review ratings compare. Who will come out as the top-reviewed brand in the USA? Choose your player… this is the Big Brand Review Showdown! via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/vzjVCPJ Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
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This month, we’re putting a focus on employee wellbeing within marketing agencies. We know that employee wellbeing is important for the growth and success of an agency. By putting your people first, you’ll create a culture for your company that people love being a part of. With that in mind, we spoke to a group of local SEO experts, to find out what makes their company culture what it is. They’ve shared valuable ideas to help you make your agency the best place to work!
Blake Denman Founder at RicketyRoo
Employee wellbeing; our core ‘culture’ word is ‘balance’. RicketyRoo has been 100% remote since 2018 and we’ve learned a lot in the last five years. I look at a big part of my role as acquiring great talent for our team. Once we acquire great talent, I need to keep them happy. How do I do that? I’ve implemented things that I would personally be looking for if I were looking for a job. Such as:
Those are all ‘things’ that have served the agency as a great foundation. When it comes to the company culture, that’s a bit harder to define. The culture, in our case, has mainly been set by the team. The agency didn’t go through some elaborate process or workshop to figure it out, it just became what it is. As our team grows, the culture will naturally evolve, too. Here’s what’s really helped us have a STELLAR culture:
Joy Hawkins Owner/President at Sterling Sky
I think understanding what your employees care about is crucial. It’s not the same for everyone. One of the best decisions we ever made was our unlimited vacation policy. It allows people to have the freedom to take the time off work they want instead of dictating it for them.
Elizabeth Linder SEO Strategist at Kick Point
I spoke with another Kick Point team member Laura Salter, Co. Director of Strategy to help provide you with an answer to this question:
Colan Nielsen VP Local Search at Sterling Sky
In my experience, employee well-being comes down to many factors. If I had to isolate one I would say this: Treat your employees well and provide opportunities for them to do the things they love most and are good at.
Claire Carlile Local SEO Expert at BrightLocal
It’s just me here at Claire Carlile Marketing Towers so I’m my own Career Architect, Business Coach, and HR Manager. I think I’ve come a long way in understanding what I personally need in order to balance work life, home life, health and fitness, family life, personal life, and emotional health—from investing in psychotherapy to embracing the role of meds in helping keep myself in balance.
Greg Gifford Chief Operating Officer at SearchLab
We’ve doubled down on work-life balance and company wellbeing. We’ve instituted profit-sharing bonuses and retention bonuses to reward our team. We’ve recently switched to unlimited PTO, and we’re monitoring the time people take away from work to ensure that everyone takes a break… If someone goes too long without taking time off, we require a few days off. With so many remote employees, personal connections aren’t as easy to make, so we make sure to have social hangouts where people can chat and get to know each other. It’s also important to keep the team learning, so we’re constantly training and teaching.
Don’t miss Greg discussing how he’s leveled up SearchLab’s company culture as the agency has grown exponentially over the past few years, in our upcoming webinar. Register now to attend.
Amy Toman SEO Analyst at Digital Law Marketing
Work culture is changing rapidly in the aftermath of the pandemic, and the rise of working from home. For companies to continue to draw and retain staff to this structure, elements that may have previously been overlooked need to be addressed. Communication should be easy (I love Slack for this), and occasional get-togethers are nice. Yearly gatherings are also a great way to build positive company culture among those who are based far apart. But truly the best thing is to encourage positive communication on a regular basis. Slack channels, video chats, and message boards are great for sharing resources and experiences.
Amanda Jordan Director of Digital Strategy at RicketyRoo
The places I’ve worked with the best cultures have focused on transparency, curiosity, acceptance, empowerment, and personal development. These weren’t just nice words on an “about us” page but principles that the agency owners lived by and practiced themselves. One of my favorite things about working at RicketyRoo is that Blake cares about what each member of the team wants to do with their career. The biggest mistake agencies can make with their culture is to not consciously consider their principles when making new hires, choosing clients, communicating internally, and producing work.
Ben Fisher Founder and VP of Marketing at Steady Demand
Having a voice and being heard is super important. We use slack as our main way of internally communicating, and we have a specific channel where no owners are involved in, this allows our people to communicate effectively with each other with zero oversight. A. It is a sign of trust, B. It allows for creativity and venting. Then there is our feedback loop, we have calls with all staff bi-weekly and touch base on everything from personal issues to professional needs. Additionally, most ideas from the owners are vetted by the team and this allows for changes and sometimes even vetos, we are very aware that our team is in the trenches and their wellbeing is paramount, no one likes to do things they are told to do, it really needs to be more of a hey we all feel this way. Also, every meeting ends with any thoughts, ideas, or concerns that you want to discuss. This can be as open-ended as our team wants. Everyone has a voice. Lastly, we are a 100 % remote team, this is a benefit for sure but can always lead to problems for some. So we make sure to team build at least once a year in Vegas for a retreat.
Dayna Lucio Strategist, SEO at Amsive Digital
I think collaboration is great for company culture and that cross-team collaboration can be beneficial as well. You can learn so much from your coworkers and especially in an agency where people have so many backgrounds and experiences to share. Nothing really compares to a big team brainstorming session. One of my favorite things that we do is have a Slack channel dedicated to shouting out team members. It’s great to see our team members supporting each other and hearing about all the great things that everyone is doing.
We’re continuing the conversation around agency culture at our upcoming webinar, with Greg Gifford and Jen Salamandick. Register today, or catch up with the replay to learn more about how strategy and culture are the keystones of a successful agency.
via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/bx67rXK Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Welcome back to the Local Search Roundup! We’re going to take a look back at the biggest, and most important updates across local marketing over the last month. As ever, it’s been a busy month. So grab a hot drink and read everything that happened in February 2023. Google Business Profile (GBP) and Google MapsGBP Removed Emojis and Special Characters From Business NamesWhile Emojis in business names aren’t something many would recommend in the first place, Google started removing them from GBP in February. Not only that, but they started removing special characters too, like ® and others. Source: SEO Roundtable Many received notifications from Google showing them what their current name was and detailing what the new name would be. While this would make the results more accessible for users, it likely caused issues for many businesses that actually have those characters in their names. Google Maps Removed Policy-abiding Reviews from Local Guides…According to its own Google Local Guides Connect blog, there was an issue with moderation. Their own attempts to avoid spam and policy violations went too far and they removed completely legitimate reviews, including those from Google Local Guides. … Then Reinstated ThemThey stated right away that they were working on a fix though, and not long after they reinstated all the Google Local Guide reviews. Crisis averted! Updates to the NMX dashboardSince rolling out the new, and much-maligned, NMX dashboard Google has been tweaking it left constantly. In February alone each of these was added:
The New “Profile Strength” LabelOne of these updates to the dashboard was a new ‘profile strength’ meter, that appeared in the top corner. We’ve covered what this means, and why you shouldn’t panic if your score isn’t at 100, in a guide to the Profile Strength Label. Business Tab added to Google Maps AppWhile you’ve been able to edit your GBP on the Google Maps app for a long time, they’ve added some functionality on Android to make it easier. Now you’ll find ‘Business’ added to the tab at the bottom of the screen. Now you just need to click here and it’ll take you to your GBP screen. GBP Sunsetted the Old Insights APIFinally, and one that’s been on the cards for a while, Google has sunsetted the GMB Insights API for GBP. This is specifically the Google My Business Insights reporting API. It went offline on February 20th, 2023. You should have already, but if you haven’t you need to update to the new Business Profile Performance API. Local SEOYahoo search is coming back
Ok, ok, this was actually announced right at the end of January, but it’s something you may want to keep an eye on. Yahoo announced they were relaunching their own search engine sometime soon. There’s a growing appetite for alternative search engines to Google, so it’s understandable that they’re considering the move. John Mueller Says Local Businesses Don’t Need to Worry so Much about Core Web VitalsSpeaking on Mastodon, John said that local businesses, “in most cases” shouldn’t have Core Web Vitals at the top of their list of priorities. This mainly comes down to page experience. Google generally only shows data in Search Console on Web Vitals and Page Experience for “sufficiently popular sites”. This means that small businesses with only a few pages on their websites shouldn’t worry too much. John isn’t saying to ignore it, but more that you shouldn’t focus as much on it as some people do. New location snippets appearing in BingThis is currently just a test, but Bing is trying out serving maps within search snippets. At the moment you can only trigger this map within a snippet with specific search queries. An example of this can be seen with our own brand name below. Google says embedding third-party local reviews won’t help search rankingsThis was another case of John Mueller being asked about a specific ranking factor. On Twitter, he was asked whether embedding reviews from GBP, Bing, or Facebook on your site through an API would provide a benefit.
He said that they won’t improve your rankings, and re-iterated previous guidance that any review not collected on your site shouldn’t use structured data if you choose to showcase it. At BrightLocal, we obviously have some thoughts on showcasing reviews. While Google may not use them as a local ranking factor, they provide important social proof and add trust for your potential customers, so don’t ignore them simply because they may not improve your rankings. The Local Pack Disappeared, for 15 MinutesIt’s been reported that the Google Local Pack disappeared in its entirety. The good news is that it only happened for about 15-20 minutes. It’s unlikely that it’s anything to worry about beyond a bug, but as ever, it’s good to be aware of these things. Artificial Intelligence (AI)AI seems to be moving at a face pace lately, so there are a few things you should know from the last month. ChatGPT is going to cost $20We’ve known that ChatGPT wasn’t going to stay free forever. The good news is that the paid version isn’t as wallet-busting as originally thought. For now, the premium tier, known as ChatGPT Plus, is $20 a month and gets you access to a couple of features the free tier won’t have, including priority access at peak times. Google Announced BardAfter all the noise from Bing and Open AI, Google finally announced their own search AI; Bard. Bard itself is a chatbot a little like ChatGPT, but Google is aiming to combine it with their regular search engine, in the way that Microsoft intends to with Bing. Currently, the main use for Bard appears to be to field informational queries, often without sourcing the answers it supplies. We’ll keep you updated if and when Google gives us any updates on how it could affect local. Read more: What does AI mean for local SEO? Test driving BingIf you want to see how ChatGPT integrates with Bing then Search Engine Land has done a detailed deep dive into how AI will look on the platform that specifically uses local examples. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/yE6UGDZ Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ |
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