Real Web Marketing Blog

SEO Today

by John Eberhard

SEO stands for search engine optimization. The purpose of SEO is to get your web site to rank well for certain specific keywords on search engines, so that you get more traffic to the site from those search engines.

It used to be that SEO meant taking actions to the site itself to make it more likely to rank for your keywords, which is called “on-page optimization.” It still means that, but now the term has taken on the additional meaning of actions you take to build up links to your site, which is called “off-page optimization.”

Local or National?

The first thing to do when considering embarking on search engine optimization is to determine whether your business is local or national in nature. Do you sell products or services to people only in one local area, or nationally or internationally?

If yours is a local company, then your efforts should be directed towards ranking well on Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Bing Local, as well as doing SEO specifically for local oriented keywords, i.e. keywords that contain the name of the cities or towns where you do business. See my recent articles on local businesses and Google Maps.

National

If you have a national business like mine (I do business with companies all across the U.S.) then you need to do regular SEO. This consists of:

1. Keyword Research: This means to come up with a list of possible keywords and then finding out the amount of traffic they are getting (how many people are searching for them), and the number of sites that are competing for them. You want to find keywords that have a low number of sites competing for them, because if the number is too high, you just won’t be able to compete for those keywords, at least not in the short term. I consider the number of competing sites to be more important than the traffic per keyword, and I sort the keywords and group them by the number of competing sites. Most single word keywords are too competitive.

1. On-Page Optimization: Isn’t that a fancy word? That’s at least a $10 word I think. Anyway, this means to take the keywords that you select, and to put them into the various pages of your site. You have to write titles and descriptions for each individual page of your site, then put those into the meta-tags, or invisible code of your web page. Those titles and descriptions are then what appears on Google or other search engines when your listing comes up. Usually it works best to select 3 primary keywords for each page, that are most relevant to that particular page, then write titles and descriptions using those keywords. You can also put keywords into what are called “alt tags,” which are tags associated with pictures on your page.

1. Link Building: Next it is important to build up links to your web site coming from other web sites. Google has said for years that they consider the number of links to your site to be the most important criteria in determining how well it ranks for any given keyword. I have been engaged in link building in various forms for about 7 years. Here are the most effective forms of link building that I have found:

1.  
   1. Press Releases: Write press releases about your company and then submit these to online PR sites, and post them to your blog or blogs. When you post them to a blog, include text links in the blog post that point to pages on your main site.
   2. Blogs: Post items regularly to your blog or blogs, and include text links linking to various pages on your main web site.
   3. Article Marketing: Write articles about your company topic and post these to article directories.

SEO people used to do what is called reciprocal linking, contacting other web site owners and offering to link to them if they’ll link to you. Google took steps to discount these types of links several year ago, so it is typically not done anymore, though I occasionally see companies still offering this or software being offered that is geared to this.

Panda

There has been a lot of discussion recently about Google’s algorithm update called “Panda,” which began in February, and there have been regular additions to it every couple weeks since then.

It appears that the intention of Panda is to make it so web site owners can’t do anything to improve their search engine rankings, and specifically to target article marketing, where you submit the same article to multiple article directories.

I have been silent on Panda up until now, other than discussing it with colleagues. First of all I will say that I don’t agree with the overall apparent intention to make it so web site owners can’t improve their rankings. I think this objective is something that is good for Google or makes things easier for them, but is bad for web site owners. Thus I will condemn it here in the strongest terms.

Second I’ll discuss whether this affects link building. I think it will affect link building in the coming year. But since I am doing link building for a number of clients using the actions listed above, I have closely monitored the effects, in terms of the only statistics that matter, namely number of links, keyword rankings and web site traffic.

For the clients that I am monitoring, I am seeing no adverse effects due to Panda, in terms of links, rankings and traffic. The above link building program is still working well and getting good results. Will we have to change it eventually? Yes probably. When the statistics indicate it. But in my opinion we have not reached that point yet.

With an overwhelming market share in terms of online searches, I believe Google has too much power. They hate people finding ways to “game” their system as they put it. But from my perspective, if, as a small business owner, you can’t find a way to be proactive or “cause” over your rankings situation, then you just have to sit there as total “effect.” Their philosophy seems to benefit entities that are already well established and known, but small companies that are just now starting to do SEO are just out of luck.

I don’t agree with that, and will continue to find the best ways for companies to be able to improve their rankings and be “cause” over their situations.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

Is Pay Per Click Advertising Still Relevant?

by John Eberhard

I was talking to a friend recently who is a salesman for a company similar to mine, and he told me that he is running into more people lately who have a negative reaction when he brings up pay per click advertising (PPC) on Google AdWords or MSN Ad Center.

I have been giving this some thought as to why this would be, and whether many people have given up on PPC. My theory on this is that PPC has been getting more and more competitive over the last few years, in that there are more people using it and that drives bids higher. So it makes PPC more difficult to do, especially if you’re managing it yourself or if you have a company “managing” it who only looks at your account every couple months.

What Companies Are a Good Fit?

There is also the factor of whether your company and product are a good fit for PPC advertising in the first place.

I have said in past articles that PPC works best for high ticket items, and let’s arbitrarily set that at say, $200 or more. If you are selling a book or a CD or some other similar low ticket item, pay per click advertising is not right for you. The reason for this is driven by the bid levels. Bids are driven by how many companies are competing for any given keyword.

Let’s say that the bid level for a keyword that you want is $1.00. That’s not unusual today. That means that every time someone clicks on one of your ads, you will get charged $1.00. The days when you could get a competitive keyword for 15 or 20 cents are long gone. I saw a book recently claiming to give the real skinny on how to do pay per click management and throughout it was talking about getting people to click on your ads for 5 to 10 cents. That just doesn’t exist any more so it really threw the whole “system” this guy was selling out the window.

From my experience managing many accounts over the last few years, PPC works extremely well for companies like home improvement, for example, where the average sale is in the thousands, and especially in cases where the product is something you really need and not a luxury item. It works well in health care, but there you really have to know what you’re doing because there is so much competition.

Conversions

The purpose of setting up a PPC advertising account is to drive in a steady flow of leads or sales to a business. In PPC terminology we call this a “conversion,” which is defined as someone who calls in from the campaign or fills out a form on the web site asking for more information, an appointment, etc.

It is vital with both Google AdWords and MSN Ad Center to set up what is called “conversion code” and put that on certain pages on your site. This allows the Google or MSN interface to track the number of conversions you are getting, and you can see which campaign, which ads, and which keywords your conversions are coming from. This also allows you to see what your cost per conversion is.

It is also a good idea to set up phone call tracking, so that you can know how many phone call conversions you are getting. There are a number of companies that do this, where a new toll free or local number is set up, that bounces to your phone number, and you put that number on your PPC landing pages. If you have multiple campaigns you can set up multiple numbers to track them all. Most of these companies can also record all the calls so you can review them later if desired.

Managing

The first task of managing a pay per click account once it is set up, is to get it to the point where it is producing a steady and viable flow of leads or sales. You have to select a budget for your account, and this has to be adequate to produce enough people clicking on your ad and coming to your landing page, so that a percentage will fill out the form or call and become a conversion.

If your average cost per click is $1.00, and your monthly budget is $100, that’s not going to produce very many conversions. I read somewhere that the average nationally for conversions for lead generation campaigns is 3%. So in the above scenario, with a monthly budget of $100, you are only going to get 3 conversions per month. So you have to select a budget that is enough to produce enough leads to make it worth doing.

With online sales, Ed Dale says that the average conversion percentage is 0.5%. So with 200 people clicking through to your landing page, you would get one sale.

With many keywords, the average bid, or cost per clickthrough, is much higher than $1.00. It depends on the industry.

Here are some general fixes for specific problems:

Low Impressions: Add more keywords

Good Impressions but Low Clickthrough Rates: Write new text ads and test them against your current ads. This is called an A-B test when you test multiple ads or landing pages against each other.

Good Clickthrough Rates but Poor Conversions: Look at your landing pages. If the conversions are poor your landing page is to blame. Write new copy, or come up with a new offer. Then put up one or more new landing pages.

High Cost per Conversion: Adjust your bids. Look for expensive keywords where you are getting high clickthroughs and spending a lot of money but getting no conversions. Pause those keywords.

Still Relevant?

So in answer to the question in the title of this article, is pay per click advertising still relevant today? The answer is – absolutely. As long as it is a good fit for your product or industry, PPC can produce a steady flow of leads or sales for your business.

But if you are managing it yourself and not getting any joy, before throwing your hands up in despair and turning your account off, have a professional PPC manager work on your account. And make sure he will actually manage your account weekly. I have recently run into people who had PPC managers who seemed to be asleep at the wheel and were not tracking what was happening with the accounts. One allowed the cost per conversion to double over the course of a year. Another was only looking at the account every other month.

A professional PPC manager can get the best possible results out of your account.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

New Video Introducing Real Web Marketing Inc.

Here is a new video I just completed introducing Real Web Marketing Inc.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

The Local Business on the Internet

by John Eberhard

The marketing of a local business, one that just sells products or services within a limited geographical area, such as a restaurant, a health care practice, or a home improvement company, is a special issue and has to be treated differently from a business that can sell its products or services nationally or internationally.

What’s More Important for a Local Business

Google Maps: Google has completely changed the search landscape with the introduction of Google Maps. When someone enters a search that Google determines is local in nature, they put up a map in the right hand column showing businesses near you. And then you will see listings in the left hand column related to the red dots on that map. Google keeps changing the way the listings are displayed. Right now there is a special section in the left hand column with all the Google Maps listings. See below for a screen shot of a search for pizza.

When I first started doing work on Google Maps I thought you could just throw up a listing on Google Maps and you were done. But I soon found out that with some particularly competitive industries, such as dentists for instance, that you had to continue to work it month to month by adding more and more listings on other sites (called “citations” in Google parlance, and Google sees these and it helps push your listing toward the top). Also it is important to work to get more reviews from customers.

But if you get onto the first page of Google results via Google Maps, you will see good traffic from that.

Google AdWords: Pay per click advertising through Google AdWords is very important for the local business, but only for relatively high ticket items, i.e. products or services that sell for say $200 or more. That is because of the large number of businesses that now advertise on Google AdWords, which pushes the bid prices up. So this works very well for say, a home improvement company that sells services starting at $5,000, but not so well for a company that sells something for $50.

But if it is appropriate for your type of business, pay per click is a great way to generate leads or sales, quickly, and on an ongoing basis. And you can select the exact geographical area where your ads will appear, so you don’t waste your money on people outside your service area.

Email Marketing: Marketing to people via email, specifically by creating a growing an “in-house” list of customers and prospects, is vital for the local business. I have observed that renting email lists, which was a huge deal back in the early 2000s, is now pretty much dead, because of the proliferation of spam. But if people are already aware of you, then email newsletters and other reminders about you and your services are vital today.

This means you have to have things on your web site for what we call “capturing identities.” This means to have a “contact us” form, but also to offer things that will appeal to your prospects and especially appeal to people who would be your prospect but are not ready to buy right now. So it is a good idea to offer an email newsletter, as well as free information products such as free reports on topics related to your business. Basically these are things to build up your email list.

Video: Having videos on YouTube and on various places on your site has become more important over the last few years. This is an excellent way to differentiate your company from the pack and show the public what you do. See my recent articles on video marketing (1, 2).

Blogging: Having a blog and posting regular articles to it is an excellent way to drive traffic to a web site, although you can’t be guaranteed that everyone will be a local area resident. The key with blogging is to post things regularly, and to send a notice called a “ping” to blog search engines each time (this is done automatically in Wordpress).

What’s Less Important

SEO for General Keywords: If you are a dentist in Glendale, it is not very important for you to try to rank for the keyword “dentist.” Remember you will be competing with every dentist in the entire world. Similarly if you have a pizza restaurant in Pasadena, you should not try to do actions to rank for “pizza.” You’ll be competing with thousands of other restaurants and with corporate company sites like Pizza Hut and Dominoes.

What IS important for a local business these days is getting your web site to rank for local oriented keywords, like “dentist Glendale” or “pizza Pasadena.”

But I will add a big caution on this. I’ve seen companies similar to mine going around selling local businesses on services to get them to rank for local keywords like this. And the thing is that it will do you NO good whatsoever unless those keywords have some decent traffic coming to them. In other words, you can rank #1 for a keyword, but if no one is searching for it, so what? I have seen cases where someone was sold a package to get them ranking for local keywords and most or all of them had no value. So you have to do some research and see what kind of traffic the keywords have first before embarking on something like that. It depends on what industry you’re in and what location you’re in.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

Video Marketing 102

by John Eberhard

In my last article I talked about video marketing and various statistics that indicate that video marketing is an important tool in marketing your business online today. I also listed out 6 different types of videos that a business could create today to market itself.

Recently I found market share figures from AimClear showing that in Google search results, YouTube results were returned 84% of the time. Not surprising, since Google owns YouTube. Dailymotion.com results were returned 3% of the time and Metacafe.com results were returned 2% of the time. So YouTube is truly the main place to be for your videos.

Getting Your Video to Rank

Google and other search engines are now doing what is called “universal search,” which means that they add other types of results to the search results, such as news, videos, images, or local results from Google Maps.

This means that if you have a video that has been uploaded to YouTube or other video sharing sites, that you want it to show up in searches on Google and other search engines related to your topic or business.

AimClear says that in nearly 100% of cases where a video was shown in search results on a search engine, that the video ranked on the first page of search results on its native platform, meaning on YouTube, MetaCafe, etc. That means that in order for your video to come up in search results for a given keyword, that it has to rank well, or come up high in search results on YouTube or other video sharing sites.

Google typically will show videos in universal search results in what are called “two-pack,” “three-pack,” and “four-pack” formations, where they show 2, 3, or 4 videos in one line going across. According to AimClear, 58% of the videos returned in search results were in the two-pack formation.

Keyword Intent

A recent article on Reelseo.com indicated that the intent of the keywords you use, in the text description that you upload with your video, affects how well your video will rank on the video sharing site.

Transactional Keywords, like “buy,” “cheap,” “free,” or “sale” may appeal to viewers, but they will not help with getting your video to rank well on YouTube or other sharing sites. Only 12% of videos that showed up in universal search results contained these transactional type keywords in the descriptions.

Navigational Keywords, containing the website address, brand names, and brand descriptions, did poorly also. Only 18% of videos that showed up in universal search results contained these navigational type keywords in the descriptions.

So what did do well?

Informational Keywords, like phrases that are comparative (this versus that), instructional (“how to” or “learn”), and educational (“what is” or “history of”), did very well. 84% of videos that showed up in universal search results contained these informational type keywords in the descriptions.

So when giving your video a title when uploading, and in writing your description text and tags, include informational keywords and steer clear of transactional keywords.

And as the article referenced above also states, “Make great videos – this is not from AimClear’s study, but still seems like good advice to me. With universal SERP (search engine results pages) real estate being so valuable, I doubt Google or Bing are going to let it become infected with poor quality video anytime soon.”

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

Video Marketing 101

by John Eberhard

Since I started doing live action videos (shooting and editing into final form), I’ve been doing research lately on video marketing. Here are some initial results.

A recent study by Doubleclick found that people are 4-7 times more likely to respond to dynamic audio visual content than static content. This fits with my experience over the last few years in managing pay per click advertising, where I have found that we always got higher response when we put audio clips or video on our landing pages.

A Forester study found that email clickthrough rates were 2-3 times higher with video, i.e. when you link in the email to a video.

Marketing Sherpa found that viewers spend 8 times more time on video (1.5 minutes) than on static emails (10 seconds). And I’ll add that we’re talking about a link in the email to a video, as there is no reliable way to have a video actually play in the email itself.

Flimp.com reported that for their email campaigns involving video, the clickthrough rate was 32%.

Videos have 41% higher clickthrough rate than plain text in search results.

So I think we’ve established that adding video to your web site and into your marketing campaigns is a positive thing.

6 Types of Video

This is an excerpt from an article “The 6 ways your company should be using video” by Shana Fulle on Ragan.com.

“FAQ. Creating a frequently asked questions video will allow clients and customers to have easy access to their questions. A great FAQ can be the determining factor whether you are chosen over a competitor.

“Social media. Creating video blogs (vlogs) or including other useful and relevant video to your social media channels will not only enhance your brand image, but will also increase search engine optimization (SEO)—and your chances of being found over a competitor.

”Interviews. Interviewing your C-suite executives (top level execs, CEO, CFO, etc.) on camera is a great way to communicate the company's message. These videos are also perfect for establishing your brand as a thought leader in the industry.

”Video Tour. Online virtual tours have allowed people to see all aspects of an environment without having to be present. In 2010, 108 million Internet users viewed a Web-based tour. Creating a video tour is an inexpensive way to show potentially millions of people what you are offering, like a house or car for example.

”Testimonials. Drive your sales by boosting customer confidence with video testimonials. Posting your testimonial videos via multiple platforms will also increase your visibility and likelihood of appearing in search results. If that's not enough, these videos are also inexpensive and hold a long shelf life.

”Promotional. Along the same lines as a testimonial video, a promotional video can be taken even further. Create an animated video for your brand, an infomercial to showcase products, or develop a concept to promote an upcoming event.”

Video can be in a couple of different formats, including a very simple Powerpoint style slide show video, with narration and music, photos, but no live action video. The pictures can move or zoom, but there is no actual live video in it. Then there is, of course, the live action video, which can have various degrees of complexity.

Getting Your Video to Show Up in Search

Google and other search engines are now doing what is called “universal search,” which means that they add other types of results to the search results, such as news, videos, images, or local results from Google Maps.

This means that if you have a video that has been uploaded to YouTube or other video sharing sites, that you want it to show up in searches on Google and other search engines related to your topic or business.

AimClear says that in nearly 100% of cases where a video was shown in search results on a search engine, that the video ranked on the first page of search results on its native platform, meaning on YouTube, MetaCafe, etc. In my next article I’ll cover how to get your article ranking well on the video sharing sites.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

Marketing in Cleveland

by John Eberhard

This article is going to be a bit different than most of my Internet marketing articles. This one is more about economics.

Back in August I traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, where I grew up, to spend a few days visiting with my father who was 92 years old and whose health was failing. In the past few days I visited Cleveland again to pay my final respects.

During the first trip in August I drove around my old stomping grounds - where we lived when I was younger on the east side of Cleveland, and then where we lived when I was in junior high and high school on the west side.

I was struck, particularly on the west side, with how economically depressed the area seemed. The houses still seemed well maintained, but many of the businesses were vacant and the area had the feel of a ghost town. It was starkly different from when I grew up there, and starkly different from where I live now in Los Angeles, which seems more active and vibrant economically.

Of course I know that the U.S. and the world really is in a major recession. So businesses are hurting everywhere. But the west side of Cleveland seemed particularly hard hit.

What caused this major shift, with Cleveland being listed as one of the most economically depressed cities in the U.S.? And what do they need to do to come out of it?

The Third Wave

So now I’m going to get all philosophical and intellectual on you (you’ve been warned). A few years ago I read a book called “The Third Wave” by Alvin Toffler, the author of Future Shock. In the book Toffler discussed what he characterized as the “third wave,” basically the information age or the computer age, with the first wave having been the agricultural age and the second wave being the industrial age.

One of the aspects of the information age which Toffler described was that different countries entered each of these ages at different times. So countries like the U.S. and the UK and other European countries that had entered the industrial age relatively early on, were now leading the way into the information age. And another aspect of this was that previously undeveloped countries were now entering the industrial age.

What I realized from this was that in the 21st century, there would be a sort of division of labor between countries. Previously second or third world countries, as they entered the industrial age, would now become the centers of heavy industry for the world, handling things like steel production. And early industrial countries like the U.S. would now lead the way with information products, like computers and software and high tech.

Following this line of reasoning, you could look at previously heavy industrial areas like Cleveland and Detroit, and where heavy industry had left, you’d be pretty certain that they weren’t going to come back again.

When I was a kid Cleveland had been a heavy steel and auto production town. Many of my friends’ fathers worked in the steel mills. Now those mills are gone. In fact, there is a big shopping mall there where the big steel mill used to be.

Now we could argue about what caused the steel factories to leave, and maybe it was the unions, and I’ve heard people argue that it is bad that we now get most of our steel from Korea. And we could look at how the unions have affected the big U.S. car companies and how they have all been in or close to bankruptcy.

And I’ve heard people argue that it is bad that we now depend on other countries for certain products, and that we as a country need to be self contained and totally self sufficient and produce everything we need.

While I do agree that the U.S. needs to be more energy self sufficient, I do not feel we are ever going to get the toothpaste back in the tube when it comes to heavy industry leaving the United States. Many of these other countries have lower wage levels and it makes sense business wise to have them do the manual labor, industrial type jobs.

So where does that leave the U.S.? And where does that leave Cleveland? And what do businesses in Cleveland need to do to get back to vibrant condition?

Well what Cleveland needs is the same thing that any other city needs. And what businesses in Cleveland need to do is the same as what businesses everywhere need to do:

1. Accept that we are in a new age, an age where the U.S. is and will be dominated by information or technology oriented products and businesses.
2. Innovate new products and services in the information or technology sector. Become the next Steve Jobs in your particular niche.
3. Work hard and deliver good service.
4. Market your better mouse trap aggressively so the world knows about it and can buy it (you were wondering when I was going to mention the word “marketing,” weren’t you?)

I think if we all do that, Cleveland, and the whole U.S., can get things going again and get back to the financial prosperity and vibrancy that we all desire.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

Real Web Marketing Inc. Completes New Video for Aero & Marine Tax Pros

This is a new video we completed for Aero & Marine Tax Professionals. We shot the live footage and edited the video into final form.

Becoming a Trusted Information Source

by John Eberhard

“Strategy” refers to a plan of action that one follows in business that affects nearly everything you do, and is usually followed over a long period of time. A marketing strategy is a plan of action for marketing a business that one follows over a long period of time.

A very effective marketing strategy that I have employed with numerous companies over the last 10 years has been to make that company into a trusted information source.

What you do to become a trusted information source is to write lots of material that contains helpful information on the topic of your products or services. Then you give it out to people, usually for free.

The first version of this was the company newsletter, where conventional wisdom said that you were supposed to make it 2/3 helpful information and 1/3 sales oriented copy. The idea was that the helpful information drew in the reader and then he would see your ads or other sales information.

Today one writes articles with helpful information on your topic (not sales pitches) and then put those articles into newsletters, on blogs, on article directory web sites, or in free reports or “white papers.”

Why Use This Strategy?

Many companies are following this strategy today. For those who are not, the question arises as to why you would want to devote time and money to such a strategy, because it is after all a pretty major commitment to follow such a strategy over a long period of time.

The reason you would to follow this strategy is to establish trust with prospects. This is vital to do today, especially over the Internet and especially in situations where the prospect has never heard of you before. The idea is that you are presenting information which the prospect can see is valid and true, and which he finds valuable. From this he concludes that you know what you are talking about regarding the topic at hand, which is the topic of your business and your products or services, and he feels more comfortable buying your products or services.

I have observed that this strategy has emerged in a major way in business over the last 10 years or so, and many businesses are following it. I myself have been following this strategy with my own company, writing an article a week and sending it out in my own newsletter and putting it on blogs, and this has been the most successful element of my own marketing strategy. I have also followed the strategy successfully with quite a few of my clients, either with my company writing the articles or taking the articles the client has written and sending them out.

I think that the strategy works especially well with companies like mine that are in the “information business,” but it also works equally well with companies such as home improvement, health care, skin care, the arts, technology, education, law, apparel, consulting and many others.

If you are not already following the “trusted information source” strategy, I recommend that you talk to a marketing consultant and discuss the merits of this strategy. There are various degrees to which you could get into this strategy too. You don’t have to write an article a week like I and some of my other clients do. You could write an article and put out a newsletter and blog post once a month, or even once a quarter. But especially if you have a blog, after a while of doing this you will build up a substantial body of work, that will do wonders for your credibility with new prospects.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous

More on Google Maps

by John Eberhard

Google Maps, also called Google Places, has significantly changed the landscape for local oriented searches on Google.

It used to be that you would search for something on Google, and you would get two kinds of results: one was called “organic” results, which appeared in the wider left hand column, and the other was called “sponsored search results,” which meant pay per click advertising with Google AdWords paid ads, which were located in the narrow right hand column and in the first three positions on the left hand side.

Now with Google Maps/Places, when Google figures out that you are doing a search that is local in nature, they will add a map in the upper part of the right hand column, and a series of listings marked with an orange balloon in the left column.

If you search for “pizza restaurant” from the Los Angeles area where I am, you will see this:

Note if you scroll down the page a bit you will see a total of 7 Google Maps listings, and for each it shows a star rating, the number of reviews on Google, the restaurant web address, the street address and phone. If you click on the name of the restaurant it takes you to their web site. If you click on the number of reviews it takes you to the Google Places page.

So the key to remember here is that if you have a local oriented business that serves one local area, and you have a Google Maps/Places listing, you could automatically have your Places listing on page one of the Google results. And getting onto page one of the regular Google organic results is not quite that easy.

So it would seem that all you have to do is put up a Google Maps/Places listing and you would automatically be on page one, right? Well when I started working with Google Maps/Places listings I thought it was basically that easy. I soon learned it isn’t.

The problem is that in some industries it is so competitive that just putting a listing up isn’t enough. You have to do other things to push your listing up to the top. For instance, I learned first hand that dentists and computer repair companies are both so competitive that your listing could potentially not appear until page 10 or later.

I soon learned that it is vital to have:
1. Lots of customer reviews
2. Listings on other similar sites such as Yahoo Maps, Bing Maps, Yelp, Hotfrog.com and other sites. Google sees these listings and if you have a lot of them it will push your listing up higher.

You will notice that whatever local oriented search you do, that for the most part the company that is in the number one slot will have lots of reviews, in most cases the most of any of the listings.

So I learned that this is a maintenance program where you have to do things every month to work towards that number one slot and then to maintain it once you get up there.

But once you get to number one the rewards are great.

Posted via email from Real Web Marketing's Posterous