Posts by Larry

When I launched this specialized website focusing on local marketing, I was fully prepared to talk about how businesses could improve their presence in local search — how their listing could get a higher ranking on Google search results and better placement on the map driven by the results. What I wasn’t prepared for is that many local businesses don’t realize how critical the Google business listing is, where to find it and how to claim it. Not claiming and populating your Google business listing is akin to having the latest technology and swank furniture in your office and not having a telephone. For almost any local business it’s absolutely essential and building an effective listing is easy to do, as a matter of fact a lot easier than it used to be: Step one: If you haven’t already done so, claim your business listing. The easiest way to do that is to search for your business in Google, click on your business on the map results, and when the details show click claim this business. You’ll have to verify that you own the business and Google will usually do this by sending a postcard to your business with a PIN. Once you verify your listing, make sure all information is accurate, including address, phone number, hours and so on. Choose a category that best fits your business and write a description that succinctly describes what your business has to offer. Upload photos, they help to make your business look interesting. Get reviews, reviews and more reviews. They are the most important factor in how your listing gets ranked in local search results. Did I mention get reviews? Make sure that the information on your business (phone number and address) is the same in other places like your website, Facebook, Yelp and Yahoo (we can help with that). That’s all there is to it. You can post to your Google My Business page like other social media pages and include things like video, but posting no longer appears to have much effect on your local rankings as it used to as far as I can tell. Have questions? Give me a call at 904-744-8877. The advice is...

This is another post from the Everyday Marketing Advice archives. Some of the mechanics of managing your Google My Business Listing have changed, but the basic tactics for improving ranking in local search remain the same: Why spend money on a human directional dressed as a chicken or a giant submarine sandwich? If you’re a business with a local trading area, your best bet to get seen by your potential customers  is through local search. It’s really just a matter swimming with the current (or dropping your line where the fish are swimming or whatever aquatic metaphor that you prefer) because that’s how most people begin to search when looking for a place to go or something to buy. And with Google looking to return localized results with every search and mobile searches growing exponentially (where local results are most prominent) needing to succeed with local search is as essential as paying the electric bill to keep the lights on. In fact, it may just be the most effective way to keep the lights on! So you may ask: “Larry, can I really get free visibility through local search instead of paying someone to stand all day in an uncomfortable costume in the stifling heat?” Not only will I say yes, but I’ll tell you a few simple steps to get you started. So here goes: If you haven’t yet claimed your Google My Business listing (the one associated with the map, search for yourself (aren’t we all searching for ourselves?) and when your listing comes up,  click the Own This Listing? link. Follow the steps that Google gives you to verify your business and set up your Google+ Local page (which is basically your My Business Listing). In setting up your listing, make sure you complete all of the business information that Google asks you for (they give you a handy progress bar to let you know how you’re doing. This includes choosing the category(ies) that most closely match your business, writing an about description using words that people use when looking for what you do or sell, adding hours and contact information (including your website). You also set up your Google+ Local page with a cover photo,...

No, I don’t mean whether you invariably spill drinks on people at parties or find it hard to start up conversations with strangers (although there are probably virtual equivalents to both). I’m referring of course to your social marketing efforts. Plenty of businesses spend lots of time on social marketing. Some measure effectiveness by the amount of followers or likes, how many comments they get, reach, or how many “influencers” they create (people that can affect other people’s purchase decision). Others even trot out the vintage Larry Tate (of Bewitched fame) or Madmen adage of brand awareness. Few can tell you what they’re actually getting out of it when it comes to booked business. Many do it because they read they should be doing or because they like it (hey, I’m on Facebook and Twitter all the time anyway). This is the equivalent of a job candidate saying I like to work with people because I’m a people person. This article from Web Marketing Today makes a valiant attempt to give you a framework for putting some metrics around social. What strikes me is that of all of those listed, only one — clicks to the website from social channels and the resulting conversions — are hard metrics. That’s not the fault of the author, it’s simply the nature of the beast. From social interaction through engagement to the sale is a complicated chain and it can be difficult to discern what generated the behavior that resulted in a sale. A person could go to your website directly or through branded search (typing in your business name). There is no definitive way to know what generated that behavior — advertising, social influence or even a prior search. So the bottom line is, you have to be careful to calibrate the money, time and resources you put toward social with what you think you are tangibly getting out of it. Now if you can marry social with the search dynamic, that’s a whole other story. And yes, the topic of a future blog...

Another from the Everyday Marketing Advice archives: This article in the New York Times gives helpful and practical tips for creating watchable, informative videos that may or may not get rapidly shared. But the hope of going viral is kind of like the hope of winning the lottery — no matter how strategically you play the numbers it’s probably not going to happen. That doesn’t mean businesses shouldn’t have videos — in particular YouTube videos — as part of their marketing mix. Of far more practical value is the opportunity to get a stronger presence in the search engines. A video, strategically targeted to search terms that reflect what you do, can: Give you another way to appear on the search-engine results page as Google blends video or YouTube items with the other results from the search query Strengthen the content on your website, helping to optimize it for search When uploaded to your Google Places/Google+ Local listing, optimize your business for local search (learn why local search is now so important) Gives you another avenue to build links to your site. This article gives some useful tips on how to use video as a search engine tool. Some of the highlights: Open a YouTube channel and include in the title keywords that are relevant to what you do Add descriptions and video transcriptions Strategically use tags Embed your videos on your website, including text that describes the video and even include a video transcription Create a video...

As Hurricane Hermine was preparing to strike the Florida Panhandle last month, here in Northeast Florida I was deluged by a torrent of another kind — wall-to-wall “storm coverage” by both local and national news outlets. Now although the storm did create some serious havoc along its direct path, we along the fringes were subject to breathless speculation about wind speeds, rainfall levels, storm path possibilities — all widely varying and as it turns put completely wrong. On top of that you had local politicians posturing to be somber and leader-like, intoning on how prepared they were and why we should take this threat seriously. This scenario has played out several times over the last few years as we’ve been lucky enough to escape major storms here in the hurricane capital of the U.S. (Hermine was the first hurricane to strike Florida since 2005). And you get the sense (justified or not) that the media weather departments can’t wait to put their crack storm watch teams into some live action, sort of like invading a country because you want to do something with all that gear and training. The problem with all this of course is that people start to tune the information out — sure, whatever you say, heard it all before — and then when there’s a real need to, they won’t be listening. But Larry, you might ask, beyond your usual grousing, what does this have to do with marketing since this is a marketing blog? Well I’m getting to that. I’ve run across so many companies who think that more is necessarily better. Flood the Facebook page with posts. Send out those email blasts every other day. I actually ran across a prospect who placed the same print ad every day in the same position in the paper. This is obviously counter-productive from a communications standpoint. You become like wallpaper and people start to tune you out. What’s more, with email marketing, open and click-through rates diminish with increased frequency and with Facebook, the more posts you throw out there with no engagement, the less likely you are to get in anyone’s feed. So pick your spots carefully. Make sure you have engaging content with...