On this month’s episode of ‘Adventures in Local Marketing’, we spoke with Ben Fisher of Steady Demand. Ben is one of only two officially-recognized Platinum Product Experts on Google My Business, so this was an amazing opportunity to find out:
Ben also shared his backstory in SEO, which dates back to 1994 – four years before Google was even founded! With no playbooks to follow at the time, Ben explains how experimentation was key to success back then and how it still rings true today. Finally, we dived into Darren Shaw’s recently revealed Local Search Ranking Factors Survey (of which Ben was a participant), to find out Ben’s reaction to the findings and his biggest takeaways. Listen to the episodeResourcesHungry for more Google My Business advice and insights? These should keep you busy.
Subscribe todayIf you want instant access to the latest episodes, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts:
Tell us what you thinkWe’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode and to learn about your own experiences with Google My Business and fighting spam. Drop a comment below to let us know. The post Ben Fisher on Finding Competitive Advantages in Google My Business appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2S5BJKu Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
0 Comments
Advance Your Agency is a BrightLocal series designed to equip you with the skills, knowledge and advice necessary to take your agency operations to the next level. This month we focus on pricing, something that can be a thorny and difficult issue for all kinds of agencies. Contents
IntroductionOne of the most common questions we get at BrightLocal is ‘how much should I charge for local SEO?’ It comes from fresh-faced SEOs dipping their toes into the local space and experienced consultants alike, and the answer is never a simple one. While I’d love to be able to say: “It’s $500 a month – that’s what everyone charges,” and grab a neat featured snippet for my time, the fact is that the answer is the same as it is for many SEO questions: “It depends.” Still with me? Haven’t bolted grumpily out the door after not getting the clear-cut answer you wanted? Great, you’ve probably got what it takes to develop a considered and appealing pricing plan that will better pit you against your competitors and give you the edge when compiling pitches. Before we go on to how to decide what to charge, though, let’s talk about when to charge… Retainers vs Project Work vs Daily/Hourly RateThe first question to answer is whether the work you’re pitching for is going to be on a retainer, a piece of project work, or paid for by the hour or day. I’ve defined these below, and provided thoughts on who they’re most suited to. RetainerA regular (usually monthly) payment provided for equal use of your time and expertise each month. You arrange with your client what this work will consist of and agree top-up fees in months where additional work is required. You can offer a retainer based on time spent per month or deliverables complete per month. Which agencies are most suited to retainers?
Which clients are most suited to retainers?
Project WorkOne-off projects that are performed for an agreed sum. Timescale and scope of work is agreed between client and marketer at the start of the project. Once the project is over, there is no guarantee of further work. Which agencies are most suited to project work?
Which clients are most suited to project work?
Daily/Hourly RateAs the name suggests, this is a simple daily/hourly rate billed based on the time you spend working for a client. Which agencies are most suited to daily/hourly rates?
Which businesses are most suited to daily/hourly rates?
If you’re the type to make highly data-driven decisions, then the below charts may help. They’re pulled from our Local Search Industry Survey 2020, which is definitely worth a read when you’re done here. Here you can see that, of all the local SEO-focused agencies, consultants and freelancers we polled, the two types of retainer (based on deliverables/based on hours) are clearly the most popular solution. And it’s easy to see why! Most businesses, particularly fledgling agencies, need regular, assured income and the retainer is the way to achieve this. The retainer also reflects the nature of local SEO work better. If you’ve convinced your client (rightly) that improving local search performance and using local marketing tactics to reach new customers and generate revenue is an ongoing project with no clear endpoint, then a monthly retainer is a natural solution that reinforces this strategy. Those of you who stuck with me at the start but who are still holding out hope for a clear, easy-to-digest price to charge could do worse than take a look at the following chart. If you want to use the size of your agency and the number of staff you have as prime factors for what to charge on a monthly basis, then there you have it. But I’d argue that what you charge your clients, regardless of how you charge them, really comes down to several key considerations, which I’ll go through below. How to Decide What to Charge for Local SEOUse the Local Search Industry Survey 2020 as a baselineThe BrightLocal research piece mentioned and linked to above really is a treasure trove of insights into what and how local SEO agencies say they charge their clients, so you should take the time to absorb it and try to use it as a baseline for your pricing decisions. For example, in it you’ll learn that the average local SEO agency bills $127 per hour and the average local SEO freelancer bills $102 per hour. You’ll also learn that the average monthly charge for reputation management is $359 (the median is $200) and that the average local marketer charges $389 for citation management work for a new client (the median, coincidentally, is again $200). But that’s not all that’s included! If you’re looking inward and want to think about how much your time’s worth, there are interesting statistics on salaries, working hours and the job market. Plus, you could even use the survey as a baseline for your service offering, as it includes a section on the services most commonly offered by local SEO agencies and freelancers. I hope that’s enough for you to take a deep dive into the useful figures and analysis of the Local Search Industry Survey 2020. Look out for another in early 2021! What can you learn from the location of your client base?If you’re planning on keeping your local SEO work, well, local, you’ll want to consider the economic geography of your chosen playing field, be that at a city or state level. There are a few factors here that can affect not only what you can reasonably charge but also what your clients can reasonably afford, regardless of how powerful your pitches might be. As a local resident yourself, you’ll no doubt have an understanding of the local economy, what the wages are like around your area, and how profitable different types of businesses are. This needs to be factored into how you price your services, as being in a highly cosmopolitan area is likely to drive prices up, regardless of the quality of services received or offered. When looking to understand exactly what local businesses are willing to pay, it can be tricky to learn to walk the tightrope of enquiry and snooping. But it can be done: consider holding or attending networking events and striking up conversations in local business forums online. If you exercise tact and informality with your conversations and questions, you’ll get a feel for how seriously businesses are taking their online presences and how much they’re willing to put aside to improve them. Another important, but somewhat less impactful, location factor is population and business density. If your client is the only dentist in the area, they’re not going to be hurting for local visibility or clients (however they might have got blasé and dropped the ball on customer experience, meaning that reputation management services might be suitable). At the other end of the scale, larger cities can have dentists competing for local search visibility that differs every block. Suddenly the Local Pack becomes a turf war and rankings become more and more prized. This is especially true when all competing businesses are firmly aware of the importance of reputation and have invested in it to the point that they’ve all plateaued at 4.8 stars on Google Reviews. So you need to consider how valuable, and in-demand, different local SEO services are, depending on the population density and client’s sphere of influence. As we’ve just touched on, the industry you’re serving plays a big part in this, too, which brings us nicely on to… What’s your specialism (and do you even need one)?Perhaps less relevant for those just starting out with their agency, but very impactful when it comes to pricing, is how specialized an SEO agency or consultant is. This specialism, or focus, can be in:
It’s generally considered that an agency or consultant that specializes in a particular field of marketing, and that has been around for a while, must have had enough success with prior clients to warrant this focus — it just makes logical financial sense. If you weren’t one of the best social media experts among your peers, why would you try to position yourself as such? This naturally means that specialists tend to be more senior SEOs with a proven track record in their given field, a virtual rolodex of satisfied clients, and a healthy stock of testimonials and case studies. if this sounds like you, then you’re likely able to charge more for your time. In a similar vein, specializing in delivering services to a specific industry or niche can help to elevate your status to expert, again based on the natural assumption that focus=experience. However, specializing in a given field doesn’t require quite the same level of expertise and experience if you’ve chosen an industry with a very healthy competitive landscape in your chosen area. You’ll need to show that you’ve performed exceptional work for relevant businesses and that you clearly understand the unique local search aspects of your chosen industry. Good examples of industries with specialist requirements in local search are law, medical and dental, service-area businesses, restaurants, and hotels. These requirements actually lend themselves, over time, to the additional development of a marketing discipline focus. To put it another way, if you only work with restaurants, you’ll be dealing with review generation and social media a lot, so you’ll naturally hone your skills in that area! Specializing in discipline or industry is a great way to improve the selling power of your services, providing you’ve taken a look at what’s feasible and relevant to your location (as discussed above). Those just starting out on their agency journey, however, might want to start by developing a broader set of skills for a wider range of industries in the first instance, particularly as marketing is a holistic thing. Developing a true understanding of the gamut of local marketing tactics, from content to PPC to social media to GMB spam fighting, allows you to see how the puzzle fits together, so you can later focus on one particular piece. Don’t be disheartened if you feel a lack of specialism means you won’t be able to charge a lot for your time, though. Remember the old saying, a ‘jack of all trades’ is a ‘master of none’? Well, how many businesses do you know that can afford one ‘master’ of PPC, another ‘master’ of on-site SEO, yet another ‘master’ of reputation management, and so on? Sometimes it pays to be the jack, provided that what you charge reflects your broader, but perhaps less deep, skillset. If you’re looking to develop a specialism, take a look at the following research pieces from BrightLocal, which highlight which industries need help in which areas.
What are your competitors charging?Earlier we looked at research into what the average SEO charges on a monthly and hourly basis (as well as the, perhaps more realistic, median), but does that mean you should set up your pricing plan to reflect this, perhaps undercutting a little here and adding margin there? Of course not. As we’ve already discussed, your positioning, experience and location should have significant influence on your price point, but there’s still more to it: no-one works in a vacuum; it’s time to look at your competitors. There are many reasons to monitor your direct competitors in the marketing space, and understanding and comparing pricing models is just one of them. Comparing services, website messaging, attitude, customer satisfaction, reputation and performance are all valuable ways to allow you to position yourself differently and more appealingly to your given client. That said, there’s nothing quite like knowing exactly what your competitors are charging for comparable services. This gives you a real edge in the game and is naturally going to influence your pricing. The only problem is that, far more often than not, marketing agencies don’t display their rate cards on their websites or discuss this kind of thing openly on social media (for the precise same reason you want to get at those rate cards). While I could suggest you contact your competitors anonymously to ask for the pricing plans, I personally feel that’s rather underhand. There are other ways of getting an idea of what your potential clients are paying, and they start right there, with the very people you’re competing for. If, from the very start of your relationship with a potential client, you can develop a good rapport with them by always being open, honest and friendly, you’ll feel much more comfortable asking the difficult questions later on. Remember there’s nothing wrong with asking which other agencies are in the mix when it comes to a pitch, and if you feel it’s appropriate, you may well be able to come right out and ask what they’re charging for what. Even if gaining competitive insights this way isn’t productive, remember that every lost pitch is an opportunity to learn about your competitors. If you know who you were up against, and you learn in your post-pitch communications that price was a determining factor, you can make a note that that agency is charging less than you for an equivalent service. Do this a few times and you’ll have a clear picture of where your pricing sits in terms of your competitive landscape. How to Put Together a Pricing Plan for Local SEOWhile it might not be suitable for every local SEO, setting up a simple pricing plan that stays fairly consistent between pitches is a great way to simplify pricing and allow potential clients to build trust in your agency. If what you’re proposing is clear and easy to understand, there’s nowhere for you to hide hidden costs. This will appeal particularly to those potential clients who have perhaps been burned by an SEO agency in the past. A local SEO pricing plan is best suited to agencies kicking off an ongoing retainer with a client. Sure, there might be some one-off tasks on there, such as a local SEO audit or a citation-building campaign, but the majority of factors that keep local businesses high in rankings require ongoing work and investment. These include Google My Business management, spam fighting (depending on the industry), link building, and so on. If you’ve read our previous Advance Your Agency guide, ‘What Should I Do in My First 6 Months With a Local SEO Client?‘, you’ll already have a good idea of what tasks to include in your pricing plan. The question is, how much should you charge? Be realistic: make sure your services and pricing are scalableOnce you’ve gone through the factors that affect pricing that we discussed earlier, such as local economics, specialisms, and competition, you’ll have a fair idea of what’s realistic to charge before potential clients scoff at your prices and turn their backs. However, it’s not just client expectations you have to be realistic about, it’s what you can achieve in your own time. Consider this: your pricing plan includes a single charge for writing and placing five guest blog posts linking back to your client’s site per month. Sounds reasonable, right? Provided you have the time and skill, you could achieve this and the client would, over time, benefit from it. Now let’s say this tactic works well, and your client spreads the good word around about your agency. Suddenly three other businesses are knocking at your door, wanting the Content Hero they’ve heard so much about. If you’re sticking to the same pricing plan, as you probably should, the same charge for five blog posts per month all of a sudden isn’t quite so achievable. As a small agency, are you about to churn out 20 blog posts of good quality per month, while also working on the various other factors we know impact and improve local search visibility? Sure, you could trawl the web for freelance writers or hire new staff in a mad panic before your new potential clients lose interest, but there’s bound to be a dip in quality. The issue is this: your pricing plan was never scaleable in the first place. Through greed or ambition, the local SEO tasks you said you could perform in a given month simply aren’t achievable in the same number of hours for two or more clients. So the takeaway from this is to start your pricing plan small, and leave room in your month for additional client work. Be realistic about what you can achieve and about your pricing plan and you’ll prevent yourself from ever having to stress about managing expectations. Consider using a plans-based pricing modelBorrowing from the SaaS world, a popular model for local SEO pricing is that of tiered pricing plans (e.g. Bronze, Silver, Gold). Provided you have some clients under your belt and have experience in what each set of tasks can truly deliver, you can confidently package your services up in this way. The benefit of this is it’s easier for the potential client to understand the comparative value of what they’re paying for. Also, if you name the plans after the types of clients they best serve (e.g. Small Business, Multi Business, etc.), so that the plan name and description immediately speaks to them, you’ll have an easier time convincing them that you have a plan that suits them. A good way to approach this is by having the plans quite simply scale in terms of size, rather than scope, of operations. With this model, every plan includes the same tasks, but what changes is the amount of time devoted to them. For example, you could have one plan that offers one guest blog per month and two hours spent monitoring reviews, another that offers two posts per month and four hours spent on reviews, and so on. This is probably the simplest model for clients to understand, and inherently acknowledges that every local SEO task you perform is critical for every business. Conversely, removing some tasks from your smaller plans can leave clients with a fear of missing out, meaning they may be more likely to consider a more expensive package just to ensure their local SEO strategy covers all bases. At the early stages of your agency, it’s fine to play around with different pricing models for different clients, testing different plan names and contents, but always have in mind the goal of reaching one core pricing model that you know is a good fit for all businesses. If you do this, be sure not to advertise your rate cards on your website, for obvious reasons. If, early on, you have a client you have a particularly good relationship with, you could use them as an ambassador client, and test a strategy and pricing plan on them to see what you can achieve on that plan. Later on, though, once word gets around about your agency and businesses start to compare what you offer, you don’t want to look inconsistent or tricksy. The whole point of a pricing model is that it’s consistent across pitches, and changing this too much can lead to a lack of trust in your business. Include competitor comparisonsIf you’ve been particularly successful in eking out the pricing models of your competitors, you have the opportunity to include a competitor comparison in your pricing model, to clearly display where your services are less expensive or where you offer more for a similar price. This will work well for businesses for whom you know price point and cost savings are critical decision factors. If you want to be less upfront about it, and perhaps more tactful, an alternative to displaying the price difference on a rate card is to more casually mention it to potential clients in conversation during pitches. This method is more suited for businesses that you feel wouldn’t appreciate the cutthroat nature of competitor-slamming, and instead want to work with an agency it perceives as caring and supportive. So it’s important to consider the personality and pain points of your potential client, and choose how, or if, you should communicate your competitive advantage based on this. It’s important to remember that most buyers don’t just want to see a comparatively lower price, they want to be assured they’ll get the same amount of expertise, a better service, added value, and be charged a little less. On that note, I’d strongly recommend not undercutting the competition to a ridiculous degree just to win business. Hugely reduced prices can end up just giving the impression that your services aren’t of as high a quality as those of your competitors. Remember that buyers want things that are ‘affordable’, ‘inexpensive’, and offer ‘great value’; no-one wants ‘cheap’. Other Frequently Asked Questions on Local SEO PricingI hope that, while I haven’t supplied a magic bullet for pricing, the above guidance has given you inspiration for how to research and consider your pricing models, particularly at the start of your agency journey. There are a few common questions I’ve not been able to neatly cover in the structure above, though, so I’ve done my best to answer them below. Should I offer loss leaders?Loss leaders, wherein you offer something for free in order to shore up interest and gain work in the long term, are a great way to show commitment and value to your potential clients. One element of local SEO that’s particularly suited to offering for free at the start of a relationship is a local SEO audit. In fact, performing an automated audit of a business site, using a tool like BrightLocal’s, is a great way to find businesses with local search visibility issues in the first place, and showcase where you can help. Going one step further, and taking your potential client through the audit for free, is a perfect opportunity to give them an insight into your expertise and make them feel like they’ve got a bit of free consultancy to boot. A screenshot of BrightLocal’s Local Search Audit tool When should I start to upsell my clients on other services?Providing your initial local SEO work goes well, you may find opportunities to work with your clients that go beyond your original retainer or project work. The key to getting this right isn’t just to look at what services they’re not buying and try to convince them of a need, but to sit down with them and talk through what’s not quite working that other services can help with. For example, if your client has plenty of people viewing their Google My Business profile or website, but not enough people becoming customers, you have an issue of conversion. You can then sell conversion rate optimization services off the back of this. Likewise, if their PPC ads aren’t converting, you can upsell them on landing page content improvements. Ask for a free meeting to look at where the blockers to success are, and use these as opportunities to provide more value with other services, in a way that the client can clearly understand will definitely impact their bottom line for the better. Can I just ‘set it and forget it’?While you could simply offer a month’s worth of local SEO (including foundational tasks like citation building and local SEO auditing), take the money and run, I’d strongly recommend against this. Firstly, we know that improving local search visibility takes time and effort, no matter the industry. If you simply do a month’s work and move on, your clients will never really see any tangible benefits from your work, preventing you from receiving quality testimonials and reviews, a good reputation, and the potential to grow. Additionally, there are only so many small businesses in any market, and the quicker you burn through them, the faster you’ll run out! A much more scalable solution is to work with clients on an ongoing basis wherever possible. What should my markup on citation building be?This question sadly betrays a fundamental understanding of how citation building fits into the bigger picture of local search success. Asking this question suggests that you’re interested only in scale of citation building, and how many you can get away with selling, rather than quality or impact. Instead of thinking so granularly, consider citation building a single task at a single price. Rather than saying “we will build citations on X number of sites, and the more the better”, you should be saying “for $X, we will ensure your business is listed and managed on every citation site that is relevant and important for your industry and audience”. This way, you’ll be selling value rather than mere quantity. Should I guarantee results?Put simply: absolutely not. No-one can possibly guarantee new customers or results in local search every time, even if they can prove they’ve achieved it for previous clients. Every business is its own unique challenge, and you need to manage expectations to accommodate this. At best, you can provide broad outlines of what results you hope to achieve in a given time, but this is still risky. Instead, sell your potential clients on the ongoing benefit of regular SEO work, and sell based on core, measurable deliverables rather than promising rankings, traffic or sales. This approach is more likely to lead to a positive relationship with your client and well-managed expectations mean you can underpromise and overdeliver, rather than vice versa. How Do You Charge for Local SEO?Do you have any tips you’d like to share about how you build your pricing model? Agree or disagree with any of my points above? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
The post What Should My Agency Be Charging for Local SEO? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2HkCwoz Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Ranking for local searches requires focus on a combination of different local SEO ranking factors. With Google’s local algorithm relying on so many different signals, it can be hard to know where to spend your time to maximize your chances of ranking highly. Getting a local business to rank highly on search engines is becoming much more difficult. Local SEO has become increasingly competitive as more and more businesses recognize that they need to optimize for local searches – both for the local pack, and for localized organic rankings. At Whitespark’s Local Search Summit in September 2020, Darren Shaw announced the initial findings of his latest Local Search Ranking Factors survey. This near-annual survey was first created by David Mihm over a decade ago, and polls around 50 local SEO experts, asking for their opinions on which activities and factors impact local business rankings. The previous edition was published on Moz in 2018. ContentsIn this article, we’ll explore the most important ranking factors for local pack and localized organic rankings in 2020, based on the expert opinions collated in Whitespark’s report. We’ll explore how these have changed over time, looking at which tasks the experts think you should focus on over the coming year.
The Top Local Ranking Factors for 2020
In the table above, you can see what Whitespark’s expert survey respondents said they believed were the most important ranking factors to local pack and localized organic results. See below for what’s meant by Local Pack and Localized Organic results. We’ll go into the individual factors in more detail below, after looking at how trends have changed over time. It’s my hope that this won’t just give you a snapshot of what impacts rankings in 2020, but where things might be headed, too. If you’re looking to improve both types of local rankings, it may be useful to see how local pack and local organic factors look when combined as an average: 1. On-page optimization (24%) 2. Links (23%) 3. GMB (20%) 4. Reviews (11%) 5. Behavioral (9%) 6.= Citations (7%) 6.= Personalization (7%) When planning your local SEO strategy, always bear in mind that different factors will require very different time investments, so it’s not as simple as reading these results and saying, “Okay, I’ll spend X% of my time on X”. Link building, for example, is a time-intensive and ongoing task, whereas a lot of work with reviews or citations can be automated or outsourced, freeing you up to focus on other factors. Local Ranking Factors 2013-2020Over time, Google’s local algorithm has changed significantly. Ensuring you’re doing the right thing for your clients requires ongoing attention and vigilance. If you work with local businesses, understanding this changing local environment is crucial. The many factors that can affect rankings in the local pack (AKA local finder) are some of the most critical to local businesses, so any shifts in importance must be closely monitored. Local Pack / Local Finder Ranking Factors Over TimeGoogle My Business has shot up in importance in local pack rankings ever since 2017, taking up more space proportionally as time has gone on, while links, citations, and behavioral signals all saw dips over time. It’s worth noting that this year’s survey, unlike its predecessors, doesn’t track the impact of social signals on local rankings. Social signals have always been seen as having a very minor impact on local rankings, so it’s no surprise to see these dropped from the survey, but please note that this removal has allowed the experts to shift their voting power elsewhere. How these areas are ordered in importance has remained broadly similar to previous years, meaning every discipline should still be accounted for in your strategy. Local Organic Ranking Factors Over TimeWhen looking at localized organic ranking factors, on-page signals and link signals are the clear leaders – taking up more than half of ranking signal impact. Other factors have far less influence on localized organic rankings, though this doesn’t mean you should count them out – they could be the difference between you and your competitors! The Top 15 Individual Local Ranking Factors
Understanding the individual factors that are most likely to move the needle is far more useful than looking at improving a whole group. Focusing on the factors in the table above should help provide a useful starting point for the tasks needed to optimize for local searches. Though, with more than 100 individual factors to choose from, it’s highly advised to focus on a broader set of tasks – with some improvements necessary in most of the grouped factors. Once the full data is available, we’ll update this article to include more of the local SEO ranking factors that matter most for each group. Google My Business SignalsGoogle My Business individual factors include the primary GMB category, keywords in the business title, and additional GMB categories. The impact of activities related to Google My Business has grown significantly since 2018. As a grouping of ranking factors, Google My Business has jumped from 25% in 2018 to 33% in 2020.
This growth mirrors the evolution of Google My Business as a tool. Google is adding new features to Google My Business all the time, so it’s no wonder that the experts are seeing this have even more of an impact for their clients. If anything, it’s a surprise that more of Google’s local ranking factors aren’t based on GMB information! This is borne out in what the experts perceive to be the key individual local pack ranking factors in 2020. Looking at the list of Top 15 individual local ranking factors in earlier table, you can see that many are directly related to Google My Business: setting the most relevant primary category, having keywords in the business title on GMB, fighting GMB spam, and choosing the best additional GMB categories all play important roles in whether or not a business shows up in local searches. Beyond ensuring you have the most relevant and up-to-date category set for the business, and adding your business’s name, there isn’t much you can legitimately do to “optimize” these. In fact, ensuring the “completeness” of your Google My Business listing has become even more important this year. Google My Business Factors That Don’t Impact RankingsBut that’s not to say that you need to utilize every aspect of GMB if you’re only looking to boost your rankings. Elsewhere in Whitespark’s survey, the experts agree that many GMB-related factors do not impact rankings:
Obviously there is more to Google My Business than rankings, with many of the above having a big impact on conversions from GMB, but if you’re looking to solely inflate your rankings, there are other things you can focus on, too. A Note on Google My Business Name SpamThis is the first year that ‘spam fighting’ was included as a potential factor in the survey, and it’s an interesting one because traditionally we’d see ‘ranking factors’ as ‘what we think Google considers when ranking’. But in this case, the benefit from spam fighting doesn’t come from Google rewarding you for playing sheriff, but from you seeing competing, spammy listings removed from the results. The sad fact that GMB name spam unfortunately still works is shown by ‘keywords in the business name’ being such a highly-rated individual factor, so it’s no wonder that spam-fighting is considered the 9th most important factor in local pack rankings. While more of a tactic to lower unfair competitor rankings than a factor that improves your own, many experts are seeing great successes from investing their time into spam fighting. Research finds that 64% of agencies and 23% of local businesses spend time fighting GMB spam – meaning that those that do so have a definitive edge. To learn more about Google My Business, check out these resources:
Review SignalsReview individual factors include keywords in Google reviews, high numerical Google ratings, and the quantity of Google reviews with text. Reviews have grown a little in importance over the last few years – taking up 16% of ranking factors in 2020, compared to 12% back in 2018. This small increase reflects the ongoing rise in the importance of reviews among consumers. Now, reviews are the second biggest influencer of local rankings, overtaking links back in 2018.
In our annual Local Consumer Review Survey, we’ve seen significant increases in the perception of reviews among consumers over the last decade, so it makes sense for Google to also be seeing these as useful factors for rankings. Within the top 15 local pack ranking factors, we can see ‘keywords in Google reviews’, ‘high Google ratings’, and ‘quantity of Google reviews with text’ all being important. The experts also said they were focusing more on Google review quantity in 2020 – making it even more crucial to ensure you’re collecting a steady stream of fresh reviews, that at the very least equals the velocity of your competitors. But how do you get reviews from your happy customers? Just ask! It was found that 67% of consumers that are asked to leave reviews go on to do so! With online reviews more important than ever to local rankings, setting processes to monitor, grow, and show off reviews can help save time, and ensure potential customers are seeing your business in the best possible light. Review management software such as BrightLocal’s Reputation Manager can automate review monitoring to ensure you never miss important feedback, and help you grow the quantity of reviews. Remember, reviews aren’t only important for rankings! Elsewhere in the survey, the experts posited the factors with the most impact on conversions through GMB. The top three are all based on Google reviews:
They also agree that negative review sentiment and a low overall star rating can both negatively affect your rankings. Please remember that Google isn’t the only review site that matters. Historically, third-party review sites have also affected local rankings – and have a strong influence on conversions from customers. To learn more about online reviews, check out these resources:
On-page SignalsIndividual on-page factors include presence of NAP, keywords in titles, and domain authority. On-page signals are, of course, incredibly important for SEO – both traditional, and local. As you can see below, these signals trump all others by some margin in their influence on localized organic results, and they’re certainly no slouches when it comes to the local pack – on-page accounts for 15% of local pack ranking factors.
In particular, having keywords in the titles of landing pages, and keyword relevance across the entire site make a difference to your local rankings. Optimizing your local business website for search engines remains an important practice, as this maximizes performance both organically and locally. On-page SEO will never become unimportant for rankings, so it’s vitally important to upskill in this area. When you plan your keyword strategy, think about what questions your customers would ask when they look for the types of products or services you offer. Don’t use jargon or industry terms that your consumers are not familiar with. Think like they do. Try also to use your city’s name in approximately two spots on your website pages, and be sure to use relevant keywords in your site’s Title and Description metadata/tags. If you want to compete locally in search rankings, focus on creating some content about your city or local area on the pages of your website. Try and tie what’s going on in your local area to your business. (Regularly writing content for your website or blog is not optional if you’re a local business – these days it’s mandatory.) If your business has more than one location, create a separate, localized web page for each one, including name, address, phone number, office hours, contact details, etc. Not only will this make it easier for the people visiting your site to find the specific location they’re looking for, but it could also affect local rankings for each of the locations your locations are in. To learn more about on-page optimization, check out these resources:
Link SignalsIndividual link factors include inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, and linking domain quantity. Link-related signals are incredibly important for your local organic rankings – as links make up 31% of the localized organic ranking factors in 2020. This continues to rise (up from 24% in 2013), meaning that quality links are only becoming more critical to quality rankings.
Whitespark’s survey sees the authority of inbound links to the domain being the 6th most important ranking factor affecting local pack results. The quality of links to the landing page URL named on the Google My Business listing is also important. Getting backlinks to your site can be a difficult task, but links improve the authority of a website in the eyes of search engines, so they’re worth the effort. One thing you want to be careful of is bad backlinks. One way you can check to see a site’s “quality” to determine if they’re a link-worthy partner, is to download the MozBar Chrome extension. When you visit a site, check the MozBar and see what the site’s Page Authority and Domain Authority are. The higher the numbers, the better the quality of the site. Also, look at the Spam Score. If you see a high Spam Score, chances are high that the site is bad news and you should not try and get a backlink from the site. When looking at local organic factors, the quality of links is by far the most valuable factor affecting rankings. Keywords in the anchor text of links is also very important, while diversity, and quantity of links from industry-specific or local sites also sit in the top 15 local organic factors. As Darren Shaw said in his presentation of the initial results, “in summary – build links”. To learn more about local link building, check out these resources:
Behavioral SignalsIndividual behavioral factors include click-through rate, mobile clicks to call, and check-ins. Behavioral signals remain broadly static in local pack importance (8%, down from 9% in 2018), and also remain important for localized organic search results (10%, down from 11%) – being the 3rd most important local organic signal group.
As ranking signals become more complex and reliant on user-submitted information, it makes sense that behavioral signals are made more important as they cannot be nearly as easily manipulated. It’s as if behavioral signals are now used as a bellwether against which to determine business quality quite apart from classic signals such as links, citations, and on-site content, which are easier for businesses and SEOs to influence. There’s little you can do to affect user behavior – paying people to click your listings all day is not a good SEO strategy. Instead, spend your time optimizing your titles, meta descriptions, and GMB details to be as enticing as possible for searchers. And, of course, getting your site in the top rankings to begin with. In Darren’s excellent talk on the 2020 Local Search Ranking Factors, he also shared the most important GMB conversion factors that the experts believe are most likely to affect user behavior. It’s vital to remember that SEO isn’t only about improving rankings – it’s a wider strategy that focuses on attracting the right sort of customer to your business. And with more and more decisions being made right there in the SERP, there are even more levers you can pull that impact users before they hit your site. To learn more about influencing user behavior, check out these resources:
Citation SignalsIndividual citations factors include IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, and citation quantity. The humble citation (or business listing, or directory listing) has had a rough time of it these past few years, going from tied second-most important to the local pack in 2013, down to sixth-most important this year. As Google My Business relies more and more on the data in its own business database, external sources are getting less of a look-in for local rankings.
Examples of online directories include Yelp, YP.com, Foursquare, and Citysearch. Directories are a quick and simple way to get backlinks to a business’s website. Since Google considers many of these citation sites as quality, trustworthy websites, they provide useful sources of links for local businesses to either get started with, or put them on an even playing field with local competitors. A local business’s listing on a high-quality directory can often show in top search results – which is a huge bonus! Take a look at the example shown below. These are the SERP results when the keywords “restaurants in Tulsa” are searched for on Google. You’ll see that the first page of Google is almost exclusively filled with online business directories. While it’s true that citation signals (such as NAP consistency, citation volume, etc.) have decreased in their importance in influencing rankings in competitive markets, they still have an important role to play in reaching customers in the right places and ensuring that they’re presented with accurate data. In fact, 80% of consumers lose trust in local businesses if they see incorrect or inconsistent contact details or business names online – meaning that having errors in your listings could be putting off potential customers before they’ve even had the chance to call you or walk in your door. They may have lost a little of their sparkle in affecting rankings, but having an accurate listing on the right citations can help you get in front of high-intent customers that are looking for a business like yours. If you don’t have a listing on sites such as Facebook, Yelp, or Nextdoor, or don’t invest in the local or industry-specific sites that your potential customers are using, you could be missing out on a vital source of leads. To learn more about citations, check out these resources:
Personalization SignalsLocal ranking factors related to personalization have remained steady since 2018, after peaking in perceived importance in 2017. It’s important to remember that these factors are all in proportion to each other, so a drop doesn’t necessarily mean that this is no longer important – it could be that another factor has grown instead.
Personalization of search results is mostly down to language, location, device, and browsing history of the user. For example, I may be more likely to see results in search from BrightLocal than if a person that had never heard of BrightLocal would (if such a person even exists!) This means that rank tracking software can play an important role in performing a more ‘independent’ search for your rankings – unfettered by personalization to represent a more realistic view of rankings. But personalization doesn’t play much of a role in either local pack or local organic rankings – and there’s very little you can do to optimize for this. If you serve locations with multiple languages, creating content in different languages can help access searchers using these languages, but this is unlikely to apply to many locally-focused businesses. To learn more about personalization in search, check out these resources:
What’s Next?In short, there are a great many local search ranking factors that influence how well a business ranks, and there’s no magic bullet that will get you to the top of local search results. Local SEO takes time, knowledge, and ongoing effort to get right – it should never be a case of “set it and forget it”. We recommend that you use the Local Search Ranking Factors survey as a guide to what the experts are doing, and test as many of the high-rated factors as you can to see what sticks for your business. Darren is due to release the full results over the next few weeks, and we’ll update this article to include more of the individual factors that are recommended by the experts. We hope this article proves a useful starting point in determining how you spend your time over the next year, and helps you understand which signals matter most for ranking locally. We’d like to say a huge thank you to Darren Shaw and the Whitespark team for creating another excellent Local Search Ranking Factors survey, and to the survey respondents for providing their expert opinions! The post Local Search Ranking Factors 2020: What Affects Local Rankings? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2v05eFk Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Getting local SEO news and information from the right sources can be what propels agencies and local businesses to the next level. That’s why we make it our priority to collate the very best local SEO blogs in the industry. But, we need your help. We want to know what blogs you’re reading, what you’re loving, and who you think deserves to be crowned ‘Best Local SEO Blog 2020’! Take our quick poll below and vote for your five favorite providers of news and insights for local SEOs. And, if we’ve missed anyone out, please let us know in the poll. Plus, keep your eyes on your inbox to see when the winner is revealed… Don’t forget to sign up to BrightLocal emails to see how your vote has affected the results! The post Top Local SEO Blogs 2020 appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/32Ex8Vz Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ With years of experience in both SEO and digital marketing, Steve Wiideman is a trusted pro in his field. In this article, he explains how you can rank in Google Maps – one of the most powerful platforms in local search. To maximize keyword rankings in Google Maps and Map Packs, a business must set up and continuously nurture four primary local SEO focus areas that include: business data, local landing pages, off-page visibility, and online reputation. Contents
How the Google Maps Ranking Algorithm WorksIt’s important to address that not all users of Google Maps are looking for a business. Some users are looking for a quick route home — for example, a park or landmark, or any non-commercial location for directions or general information. For businesses, holding a position in the search results within Google Maps or the Google Maps App is paramount to business sustainability and growth. Based on an estimated 67% market share in mobile app navigation according to a study by The Manifest, to not be listed in Google Maps is to be in the dark ages as it relates to marketing in general. Google claims to use three focus areas in its Google Maps rankings for businesses, known as the Google Local Algorithm:
RelevanceRelevance refers to how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for. Adding complete and detailed business information can help Google better understand your business and match your listing to relevant searches. Distance or proximityThis is just what it says on the tin – how far is each potential search result from the location term used in a search? If a user doesn’t specify a location in their search, Google will calculate distance based on what’s known about the user’s location (this is visible at the bottom of SERPs and is not always 100% accurate). ProminenceProminence refers to how well-known a business is. Some places are more prominent in the offline world, and search results try to reflect this in local rankings. For example, famous museums, landmark hotels, or well-known store brands that are familiar to many people are also likely to be prominent in local search results. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories). Google review counts and ratings are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking. Your position in organic search results is also a factor, so general SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization. The somewhat obvious signal Google Maps will start with before displaying search results is the distance from the searcher’s location. After all, why would Google show you a business listing 10 miles away, when there is a business offering the same product or service only 1 mile away? The distance focus point is thought to be based on the algorithm created by a computer scientist named Edsger Dijkstra, known simply as Dijkstra’s Algorithm, which finds the shortest paths between nodes in a graph, such as road networks. The remaining ranking signals for businesses can be influenced by the local search engine optimization specialist. These attributes include:
We will be talking about each of these areas herein, but it’s critical to the success of a local SEO strategy to have the mindset of treating these factors like a needy plant, with constant sunlight and water. Many businesses lose traffic by simply deciding to rest on their laurels, resulting in a competitor earning more reviews, business listings, or having a better landing page. Managing the Accuracy of Business DataAnyone can create a Google My Business profile with a valid phone number and address, even if they are not conducting business from either (although this is against Google’s guidelines), just so long as Google can verify through a phone call or postcard. This might explain why there is so much spam in the search results, something Google has continuously said they are working to address. To authenticate whether a business is real or not (and to improve location accuracy), search engines use a number of data sources. The most well-known are listed below, but it’s likely Google is using a number of other sources as well. Managing business data, be it for one location or thousands, for multi-location brands or franchises can be challenging. Thankfully, there are platforms and services available (such as BrightLocal) that have direct connections with these data sources, often called data aggregators, who receive bulk rates and pass the discounts down to their clients. BrightLocal’s Citation Tracker Optimizing Local Landing PagesIn the Google My Business guide mentioned above, Google states that “Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization.” To rank in web results, a corresponding page must exist, and on-page search engine optimization best practices should be used for that page. Many of these optimizations are discussed in Google’s SEO Starter Guide, including basic SEO focal points, such as:
The kinds of on-site optimizations you perform will be impacted by the industry you’re in. A 2020 study of multiple locations by my company, Wiideman, revealed several common attributes of pages used by food and dining franchises, for example. Several of those factors are listed below, in order of percentage used across 100 pages analyzed. Note: single-location businesses may use many of the attributes discussed in this section within the lower portion (“footer”) of the website across all pages, versus using a single Contact Us page. Most-used Local Landing Page Attributes in Food & Dining
Page PerformanceBeyond attributes, the Wiideman study revealed specific performance averages for speed and the number of external requests a page makes (for scripts, style sheets, etc). Below is a table of averages to consider using as key performance indicators when coding the local landing page. These are based on approximately 100 local landing pages. Average Performance Metrics of Food & Dining Local Landing Pages
Most importantly, as it relates to local landing page optimization, user experience is absolutely everything. Invite groups from every demographic to test the page via usertesting.com or via your own in-house focus group initiative. Have your testers (mobile-only should be fine for local pages) compare the page to competitor pages and ask questions that might include the following:
Pro Tips for Local Landing Page SEOListings that stand out in organic search results often have more rows than competing listings. Test using structured markup to earn Rich Snippets. Successful campaign examples I’ve seen have used schema.org/Event and schema.org/FAQPage. Also, be sure to find the right markup for the schema.org/LocalBusiness subtype inspired by what competing pages are using. Improving Off-page VisibilitySimilar to an organic SEO strategy, a local SEO campaign meant to improve rank in Google Maps requires trust from external sources, mainly other websites. Google itself states this requirement in the guide mentioned above and highlighted below. In particular this hint: At a bare minimum, businesses should claim and manage their profiles in the following destinations: Off-Page Visibility Placements for Local Businesses
As it turns out, many of these directories buy their data from the aggregators, so most of the time you don’t need to worry about claiming a business profile with them. Exceptions might be websites such as Yellowpages.com and JudysBook.com, both of which pay for offline advertising and drive reasonable traffic to their respective websites. Earning links to local landing pages can be challenging. Consider having periodic events and getting neighboring businesses involved. A Starbucks in La Mirada, CA, had an event that included the local Sheriff, enabling them to get a link from the La Mirada city website to promote the event. Meanwhile, an attorney in Louisville, KY, offered free CPR classes, a blood drive, and gave away free helmets to promote safety month. All three events earned free PR and inbound links to the event page (AKA the local landing page). Improving Online ReputationFor obvious reasons, very few search engine users prefer to click on unrated or low-rating listings in Google Maps or blended Map “Pack” listings. As a result, less desirable businesses and their listings are typically demoted over time. Whether a user’s behavior in SERPs affects SEO is argued time and time again by industry experts. Some experts simply don’t believe the data because the tests do not hold up to their standards (such as a post from SEO Theory that came across as somewhat angry at those who believe in click behavior’s influence in rankings.) Others, such as a Rand Fishkin post entitled, “Queries and Clicks May Influence Google Results,” and Larry Kim’s study, believe CTR and click behavior do in fact play an important role in the long-term rankings. Whichever side you take in the “user behavior influences rankings” debate, getting more clicks can never be a bad thing, whether it supports SEO efforts or not. “What’s this got to do with reputation?” you ask. Well, while Google does not say they use clicks on listings based on their reviews when they describe how to rank in Google Maps, they do say they use reviews and positive ratings in their algorithm, as shown below. If a business does not have an active strategy for earning and improving reviews, it’s possible that over time rankings will plummet, and right along with them, leads. A simple strategy might be to pass out a “Care Card” to those who seem like they may be having a poor experience. This card might contain the contact information of the store manager or regional director, along with a URL to share their feedback and get a coupon to try a different location. While it won’t stop all customers from Yelping at the business, it may reduce the volume. A “Share Card” might make sense when an employee is certain that the customer had a delightful experience. This card might offer a short URL to a native review intake form, later used to share customer experience on the local landing pages, with a request to share a review online after submitting the initial feedback. As a business owner or marketing manager, consider creating an incentive program and leaderboard outside of the customers’ view. Set some review goals for each platform mentioned in the table above (Google, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor, etc.), monthly, quarterly, and annually. After all, they say the first step to achieving a goal is to write it down! Scaling Local SEO for Multiple LocationsMost of the recommendations above are manageable for businesses with around one to twenty locations. But what happens when you have 2,000+ locations? Who is going to write custom content for that many local landing pages or moderate reviews from that many locations? Below are a few tips that may help streamline local SEO for multiple locations. Create a Cheat SheetProvide each location with a printed, perhaps laminated, copy of a single page Local Marketing Guide. This guide might include three sections:
Use a Data Management PlatformTrying to manage 2,000+ locations manually with the aggregators, search engines, local review websites, industry/niche directories, and regional directories could be extremely difficult. Fortunately, platforms such as BrightLocal offer scalable solutions to manage and automate the syndication of business data. Simply log in to the platform, update changes to a location one time, and the data will automatically get updated across the various syndication points. Build a Franchise (or Location) Marketing PortalGetting buy-in from franchise owners and store managers is critical to the success of a multi-location SEO strategy. A Marketing Portal is a simple way to create a place to find up-to-date information, tips, and events to help propel online marketing initiatives at the local level. Consider scheduling webinars, and organizing them in the portal for reference. Use the portal as a unique selling proposition to increase franchise sales. Send periodic reminders and updates to keep the portal top of mind. Final ThoughtsIf one were to choose a single actionable item to focus on to improve online performance, that item might be to get everyone in the organization excited about learning how to rank in Google Maps, be it through the Cheat Sheet mentioned above, the Marketing Portal, or through recommended training. Having worked with multiple franchises and multi-location brands, the biggest challenge is always educating the leadership team and the person most in charge of the individual location, be it the owner or store manager. By nurturing the areas of local SEO each month, either through KPI goals or percentage of growth improvement, a business with one or more locations can climb their way to the top of Google Maps and stay there for an array of target keywords. Keep in mind that algorithms don’t just store data; they analyze patterns. Avoiding a “set it and forget it” mindset could be the one strategy that sets your business apart from its competition. The post How to Rank in Google Maps appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/33vJT3T Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ We always aim to deliver fantastic value for everyone, and we mean everyone. For example, we believe that having the right tools to build and maintain a strong online reputation shouldn’t be exclusively for those that have the deepest pockets. We recently took a look at how rival vendors price their reputation management products, and felt that many people weren’t being catered for. We think a price point of $200 per location, per month prevents a lot of businesses from being able to reap the rewards of a well-managed reputation. And it’s not just small businesses who miss out. Marketers at bigger brands are already stretched enough trying to maintain online reputation at scale, and they struggle to get the budget to do it efficiently. Meanwhile, agencies will always need a cost-efficient and profitable way to provide reputation management services. That’s why we’ve decided to start offering our entire review management product, Reputation Manager, as a standalone plan costing just $8 per location, per month. We call it ‘Just Reviews’, and you can try it for free today. That’s $8/month to:
Now those of you who just want to focus on reviews only have to pay for what you need: a complete review management solution at a great price. It’s a small investment that can reap big rewards. Don’t just take it from us, though: Accelerate Marketing The post Just Reviews: A Priceless Reputation at a Fair Price appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2Zpr0P0 Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Every month, we challenge our readers to test their understanding of the latest local marketing news. Try out our quick-fire quiz of all of the biggest news stories in August, and find out how much of the month’s news you retained! Answer the 10 questions below, and please don’t feel disheartened if you don’t score a perfect 10! We’ve shared links to all of the stories included in this month’s quiz so you can be sure you’re up to date. Create your own user feedback survey If you’re particularly proud of your score, or want to see how others fared, share your results on Twitter using #LocalQuizness. And if you wanted to brush up on any of August’s news, check out the full reading list:
See you next month for another quiz! The post Local Quizness September 2020 – Local SEO News Quiz appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2DDCsig Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ When you think of reputation, what do you think of? It’s a good bet that online reviews will spring immediately to mind. Little wonder, given how vital they are to local businesses today and how much they influence the opinions and actions of potential customers. The truth is, reputation marketing for local businesses goes well beyond the humble consumer review… It isn’t just about proactively taking steps to acquire online reviews and responding to them across various platforms. It isn’t just ensuring you always put your best ‘public’ foot forward on social media with carefully curated content and updates. It isn’t just sending out a PR to celebrate a great case study, award or endorsement, or networking with reporters to be mentioned in articles or on TV. Reputation marketing is the broader overall strategy which sets out how each of those micro actions will be conducted and directed, with each considered in line with how the organization wishes to be perceived. It encompasses all of your brand messaging, tactics such as how you amplify good reviews, and plans for how you will cope in a PR crisis. Forbes contributor Steve Olenski observed that with so much information available on demand online and so many forums for sharing opinions and experiences, reputation is created from a range of sources – comments, shares, recommendations, reviews etc. – and a constantly evolving ecosystem which shifts and changes at warp speed thanks to new publishers, platforms and apps springing up at a lightning pace. Reputation marketing recognizes this and brings clarity to the chaos in the form of a documented global strategy that unites and controls the wealth of channels. Why is reputation marketing important?If the closest you have to reputation marketing at the moment is a crisis management plan (such as a template for responding to negative reviews) and you’ve done just fine with that so far, you might be wondering if you really need to invest the time as a local business to scale up your reputation marketing. Taking a management stance means you’re reacting once the damage has been done. Your reputation is your most valuable asset, and if you’re only taking care of it when a blow has been delivered, it’s already at risk. The Harvard Business Review puts it this way: “Knowing first aid is not the same as protecting your health.” Reputation is important to businesses big and smallWhether you’re the head of a juggernaut brand like BP, Airbnb or Ford Motors, or you run a ‘mom and pop’ convenience store, a bed and breakfast or a local veterinary surgery, what people say and think about your brand and business matters. It has a direct impact on whether people want to spend their money with you, feel they can trust you or would be better off with a competitor. Reputation marketing isn’t just for big business. We’ve all seen examples of major organizations putting reputation marketing to work for them, but it’s just as vital for local businesses to embrace this discipline and have a strategy in place to amplify the good and deal with the bad. The task of reputation marketing doesn’t have to weigh heavily on your local business as there are a multitude of affordable tools out there which can do some of the heavy lifting. A free Google Alert, for example, can notify you of any online mentions of your brand. ResponseSource or HARO can deliver journalist requests directly to your inbox to scour PR opportunities, while BrightLocal’s own small business solutions can help you grow your customer reviews. The perception of your brand directly impacts your bottom lineBrandwatch defines brand perception as both fluid and in the hands of consumers. They say,
Meanwhile, marketer Dana DiTomaso says that “your brand is your promise”. Those two statements, when put together, go a long way towards explaining why the perception of your brand matters – it tells the consumer what they can expect from you, and that is shaped by what is being said and shared online by others. This is further compounded by the fact that the vast majority of consumers do their own research before making an important decision. Data released by Pew Research confirms that 81% will seek out their own information before making a decision and that journey, most often, starts online and involves resources such as Google and online reviews. Pew Research notes that as trust in traditional institutions such as government has declined, the number of people posting reviews, comments and ratings online of things they buy and experience has soared. This has led to an interesting term, ‘distributed trust’. Ratings and reviews are embedded in the path to purchaseOnline ratings and reviews are now a pivotal stop on the path to purchase. They are used at each stage of the buyer journey, from initial research, through the consideration phase and through to playing a decisive role in decision making. Such is their power, 8 in 10 young adults ‘never’ buy anything without first looking at online reviews. That figure is all the more impressive when you also consider that the same study found that half of all consumers will consult reviews and ratings before purchasing, yet just 8% will ask friends or family members. BrightLocal’s annual Local Consumer Review Survey has tracked the growing importance of online reviews for a decade. Our latest figures indisputably demonstrate that reviews play a very nuanced role across the whole buyer journey:
A key point to note here is that the power of reviews isn’t restricted to review platforms. A cohesive reputation marketing strategy will allow you to repurpose and leverage your reviews to their fullest across a range of channels to amplify their impact. That could mean sharing on social media, posting on your website, creating case studies or showcasing in a TV ad. Trust mattersConsumer trust is the heartbeat of your organisation. Without it, your local business simply isn’t sustainable. Today, consumer trust is harder to win and more important to hold on to than ever. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: In Brands We Trust? discovered that being able to trust a brand is a major factor in purchase for 81% of consumers. With three quarters of respondents saying they actively tried to avoid advertising by using things like ad blockers, reputation marketing can help you to demonstrate trustworthiness and create a positive brand perception, using a range of channels (reviews, social media, PR and local search, for example) in a joined-up and cohesive, consistent manner. It gives you a rounded view of your businessAt its most basic level, taking proactive measures to establish a positive reputation simply makes good business sense. Through the course of reputation marketing, you’ll have opportunities to study how consumers perceive your brand, what they loved or loved about your business, where the niggles and disappointments were, even how you stack up against competitors. This is not just a chance to see your business through the eyes of your customers, but an opportunity to gather intel and data which could help you make improvements and refine your offering. Reputation is important for recruitmentYour business is only as good as its people. And to recruit the best people, you need a stellar reputation. Research by the online jobs board Indeed revealed that just 23% of job seekers would be able to overlook a negative reputation when researching a prospective employer. For local businesses this is especially important, with LinkedIn reporting that a strong brand can help to lower the cost of recruitment, attract better candidates and speed up the time taken to fill vacancies. How to build a reputation marketing strategyDeveloping a reputation marketing strategy doesn’t need to be intimidating! Think of it as a fact-finding mission, followed by the creation of a plan to focus your efforts on the things that matter most to you. Step 1: Research your current reputationYour first task is to understand where you stand right now. What are people saying about you? How are they rating your products and services? What is their perception of your business? Assembling all of this information manually can be daunting, but you don’t have to. There are numerous tools available to automate and speed up this process. You could use Hootsuite or similar to compile brand mentions across the social media ecosystem, for example. BrightLocal can help you track reviews. There are numerous free and paid tools to track brand mentions as a result of PR activity and media mentions. Awario will clue you in to any mention of your brand across the web including in forums, blogs and news reports. For this data to be useful, though, you’ll need to assign context and sentiment, so try to quantify them. A simple system such as ‘positive, negative, neutral’ is an easy place to start. For small amounts of data, take a sample of statements from across these channels to get a general idea of how people are feeling about your brand. Be sure not to let your unconscious bias lead to you pick only very good or very bad comments. Cast a broad net. Step 2: Send a NPS SurveyNPS (Net Promoter Score) is a scale which runs from -100 to 100. You ask a series of questions and then apply the scale to measure how willing your customers are to recommend your local business. It helps you to understand loyalty and sentiment, which is useful when developing your reputation marketing strategy as it shows you what you’re working with, highlights any reputation problems to address, and indicates where your focus should lay. You can use a tool such as Reputation Manager to ask your customers to give you feedback or reviews, and then apply the NPS scale to determine how they feel. If you don’t want to survey your customers, you could add an NPS popup to your site. Many popular CMS systems, including WordPress, have NPS plug-ins which you can simply download and activate. Step 3: Find out what matters to your customers and what helps them build trustTrust is subjective. What gives one person peace of mind may not matter at all to another. Data from PWC’s Global Consumer Insights Survey paints a very telling picture; consumers have a louder voice than ever before thanks to social media. They also demand more from the brands they do business with. The survey of 22,000 people across seven countries revealed that more than one in three consumers consider ‘trust in brand’ as one of their top three reasons for choosing any given business. But that trust has many facets; brands need to be authentic, responsive to feedback, transparent, dependable, consistent, offer good customer service, maintain a high product or service quality, consider sustainability, have an ethical supply chain… the list goes on. The purpose of this step is to find out what your customers expect from you. Are they likely to forgive slow shipping if your customer service and product quality is top notch? Do they expect a highly personalized service or do they appreciate more straightforward communications? A crucial part of this stage of the process is determining which platforms, forums, apps and websites your audience uses. PWC’s research suggests that social networks are the most influential resource when a consumer is deciding what to buy, but you need to know which social networks your audience specifically turns to. Do they prefer Facebook to Twitter or Instagram to Facebook? Which newspapers do they read? Which forums are they active on? Which review platforms do they gravitate towards when they want to read online reviews or leave them after a positive or negative experience? The purpose of asking these questions is to narrow down where it’s most important to build and manage your reputation. Referring back to the research conducted in step one should give you the answers to these questions. Step 4: Set goalsFor the time you invest in your reputation marketing strategy to really pay dividends, your actions must be both measurable and accountable. The goals you set will directly influence the tactics you adopt to manage your reputation and help you gauge whether or not your approach is effective. Ask yourself what you want to achieve. If the results of your NPS survey in Step 2 above were disappointing, for example, do you want to see that improve by the end of this project? How are you going to go about that? For example, does your poor reputation stem from a genuinely poor customer experience? If so, you’ll need to start by resolving that. If you get great reviews, perhaps you want to put a process in place for regular review monitoring to ensure they stay that way. If you’ve determined that your audience reads a certain newspaper but you fail to feed their journalists positive stories of your achievement, maybe you want to raise your profile there. You could well find that you need to add to or adjust your goals as you begin to execute your chosen reputation marketing tactics – and that’s fine. Don’t be afraid to adjust them as you get to work so that they continue to help you measure the success (or otherwise) of your efforts. Step 5: Decide on your tacticsDeciding on the tactics you’ll use is the final piece of the strategic puzzle. From review generation to social media monitoring, you’ll need to choose the activities that help you meet your reputation goals. There’s a lot to pick from so let’s take a look at what your options are. Overview of reputation marketing tacticsReview generation and monitoringRequesting reviews from your clients is a no-brainer for reputation marketing. It’s well established that today’s consumers crowdsource information via reviews to help with the decision making process. We have seen the value placed in the experiences and opinions of others soar over the last decade, with the average consumer now said to spend almost 14 minutes poring over online reviews before making a decision about a local business. There are many compelling reasons to take a proactive approach to generate as many new reviews as you can:
Perhaps most compelling of all is the fact that 82% of consumers are less likely to use a business if it has negative reviews. This makes a poor reputation extremely costly. Asking for reviews can be done in a number of ways, including with a review tool such as BrightLocal, via an email template or as a website link. In addition to gathering reviews, you’ll also need to factor in the time needed to respond to reviews. Your responses are read by consumers searching for your business online, but they also indicate that you value feedback. To really make the most of your reviews and further move your reputation marketing forwards, share the best outside of the review platform. For example, you could take your top Google reviews and share them on your website, quote them in digital and printed brochures, put them on product packaging or use them in advertising. Google My Business monitoringConsumers naturally turn to Google when they want to find a local business or share their experiences with a local business. To be in the loop, you’ll need to monitor your Google My Business profile. If you download the Google My Business app, you’ll receive an alert to your device when someone leaves a review for your business. That makes it easier to read the review and respond promptly. It can help to think of your Google My Business profile as a mini website – this gets you into the mindset of ensuring that profile information is accurate and images and videos refreshed often. Don’t forget, images can be a powerful force when cultivating your reputation so selecting professional images and regularly reviewing images shared by consumers is an important box to tick. In addition to the reviews function, Google My Business has lots of other useful features for reputation marketing, such as the option to share news and offers via Posts, and respond to questions in the Q&A section. If you haven’t claimed your Google My Business listing yet, it’s free to do so. Our guide here has step-by-step instructions. Social media monitoringToday’s consumers don’t just use social media to catch up with friends – it’s increasingly a place to discover new brands and products, aid in decision making and connect with local businesses. Research by the Chartered Institute of Marketing found that 62% of consumers now rely on their preferred social networks to influence their buying decisions. This figure rises to 78% for 16-24 year olds and 77% for 25-34. That alone is reason enough for your local business to factor social media monitoring into your reputation marketing strategy. Adding a social media monitoring tool to your arsenal means you can keep abreast of what is being said about your local business on social media. There are plenty of free and paid tools available online with popular options including HubSpot, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social. Broadly speaking, you can segment your social media listening into two parts: Part 1 is the monitoring itself, which flags up mentions of your brand (either manually or using a tool). Part 2 is taking stock of those mentions, understanding the sentiment and then taking appropriate action, such as taking part in the conversation, thanking the social media user for their feedback or directing them to a relevant resource. Monitoring brand mentions on the webOpinions and comments about your local business aren’t just restricted to review platforms and social media; they can appear anywhere, from local newspapers and trade press to to forums and blogs. This means you need to monitor the web to stay up to date with positive and negative comments about your business, ensure you’re able to react to them accordingly. Keeping tabs on brand mentions online can be largely automated – simply go to Google and set up a Google Alert for your business name. It’s advisable to also set up alerts for your own name if you are closely associated with the business and any brands or products specific to you. If you have budget available, there are a number of dedicated tools available. Brandwatch, Awario, Mention, Meltwater and Brand24 are good starting points. When you’re actively seeking out what people are saying about you, it’s inevitable that you’ll come across negative mentions at some point. That could be in the form of a disgruntled customer, a disparaging rival or a less-than-glowing review on a blog or in a magazine. The whole point of reputation marketing is to find this information early so you can react quickly and minimize the damage, which brings us nicely on to… Crisis managementWe’ve all heard the old saying that ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail’. Crisis management is one area where it really does pay to be prepared. The last thing you want is to find yourself faced with a crisis and no plan in place for minimizing the damage. The easiest way to do this is to create a list of the worst case scenarios you can think of. Divide them into levels of crisis such as bad, very bad, the worst, and then outline what to do in each instance. You’ll also want to assign specific roles to specific people so everyone knows what’s expected of them and who is responsible for putting out a press statement or updating social media. Crisis management is a big deal so it’s worth doing your research. Mention has a 20-minute on-demand video sharing tips on how to respond to negative press, while Meltwater has a free crisis communications guide and The Chartered Institute of Public Relations also has a free library of webinars, podcasts and skills guides dedicated to handling an online crisis. A crisis management plan isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s something that can be a lifeline when you’re being pulled in a dozen different directions and trying to save your business. Even the biggest brands find themselves very publicly in the midst of a crisis from time to time, but you can turn a negative into a positive with the right approach! Take a look at examples of the best-managed PR crises from brands such as KFC (running out of chicken), Starbucks (reacting to the actions of a racist customers) and Crockpot (ever seen This Is Us?) if you need a little inspiration. Public relationsReputation marketing isn’t just about reacting to what people are already saying; it is also about actively creating positivity around your business. Traditionally, this falls under the umbrella of public relations and generating positive press about your company. Gone are the days when this meant you had to be well-connected to every editor on Fleet Street or have a direct line to the New York Times. It’s a myth to think you need a little black book of contacts to have any hope of getting your name in print. It’s entirely achievable for local businesses, so don’t be put off including this in your reputation marketing toolkit. All you need is a good story, a willingness to pick up the phone and perseverance. PR isn’t a quick fix. You can’t send out a PR one day and wake up to front page news the next. While that may happen once in a blue moon, in most cases it takes time to build momentum and secure coverage, so the ‘slow and steady’ approach wins the race. With that in mind, you’ll need to incorporate other PR tactics, such as sponsoring local events or organizations and entering local business awards. Both of these are also good ways to build links back to your site from reputable, relevant local sources to help with your local SEO. HubSpot has a series of free PR templates here along with examples and tips for creating a newsworthy PR to boost the chances of your news getting picked up by journalists. ConclusionReputation marketing is a broad area of activity with lots of moving parts, so you’ll need to be mindful of the broader strategy, goals and performance to master it. Using the strategy above and selecting the tactics that are right for your local business and current situation puts lots of benefits at your fingertips. These methods and this approach enables you to see your business through your customers’ eyes. Most importantly, reputation marketing will help you bring your business and your customers closer together. Do you have reputation marketing stories or strategies to share? Let us know in the comments below! The post What Is Reputation Marketing for Local Businesses? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/2ZbjSph Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ We Asked the Experts is a series designed to provide you with the most relevant insights from local search experts. Each month we’ll cover a different question and share insights from key figures in the local SEO community in an effort to help you further your knowledge and strategy. We Asked the Experts is back with a new task to tackle and some new expert local SEOs to share their insights! This time around we’re tackling Google My Business — considered a key source of visibility and leads for local businesses – and more specifically, how to make your Google My Business listing more clickable. Attributes, posts, photos, reviews, and beyond – there’s a lot to tackle when it comes to Google My Business, and it can be hard to know where to begin. Hopefully, our experts can help to simplify the process, as they share how to make Google My Business listings more exciting, more engaging, and more ‘clickable’. Read on to hear how our roster of local marketing pros would approach Google My Business optimization, and how they help clients make their listings more enticing — leading to more leads, more conversions, and better business. How do you make a GMB listing more click-worthy?Niki Mosier (Head of SEO, Two Octobers)
Andy Simpson (Senior SEO Specialist, Digital Law Marketing)
Ben Fisher (Founder and VP of Marketing, Steady Demand)
Krystal Taing (Solutions Engineer, Strategic Partnerships, Uberall)
Steve Wiideman (President, Wiideman Consulting Group)
Amy Toman (Search Engine Optimization Analyst, Digital Law Marketing, and Local SEO Specialist, Pet Sitter SEO)
Greg Gifford (VP of Search, SearchLab)
Crystal Horton (Digital Account Manager, Accelerate Marketing)
Blake Denman (Founder, RicketyRoo)
Tim Capper (Local SEO Consultant, Online Ownership)
So, according to our experts, you can increase your chances of gaining more leads through Google My Business by taking advantage of and optimizing each GMB component. Make sure you’ve got authentic, engaging photos, use Q&A to show customers more about the business, and showcase great customer support through responding to reviews. Finally, as Tim Capper suggests, experiment with what works for you and keep testing until you find that magic formula. Below we’ve shared some of our top resources related to Google My Business, so you can take the experts’ advice into your own hands. The post We Asked the Experts: How Do You Make a Google My Business Listing More ‘Clickable’? appeared first on BrightLocal. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/3i85UMB Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2023
Categories |