These days Local Marketing is more important than ever…

• 74% of business searches are conducted online

• 61% of local search results in a purchase

• Local marketing feeds information to Mobile

• Consumers who perform local searches are ready to buy your products

Some Background…

Back in 1989 I went to work for Western Temporary Services, they asked me to open a branch for them in Modesto, CA.

What that meant was, right from the get-go, I had to create a marketing system that worked, my job depended on it! In fact, I needed to not only hire 100’s of employees I needed to find work for them.

Finding employees was not the problem because unemployment was averaging between 15%-18% in Stanislaus Co (California) at the time. Back then all you had to do was spend a few bucks on a newspaper ad and people would line up outside your door to fill out an application.

But finding work for those employees was a little more difficult. I had an assistant, and we started telemarketing… between us about 200 – 300 phone calls a day. We followed up with direct mail; marketing letters, fliers, brochures and postcards.

At the same time we sent one of our temporary employees in the field to drop off brochures, and pick up business cards.

This type of marketing brought us about a 2% return. In other words, for every 100 contacts we made, we got 2 work orders. Within one year we were showing a profit. And, that was during a recession!

Fast forward to 2007, and we find ourselves in another recession and the family construction company is struggling. So I went to work…making phones calls, about 200 a day, following up with a sales letter and more phone calls.

After 2 months and about 10,000 calls later – NOTHING happened. No work orders, no return phone calls, no 2% return.

WHY? Because not only were we in a recession, the methods of marketing had changed. No longer were people using phone books and news papers – they were turning to the internet to get their information quickly.

Of course… we did not have an internet presense, so I decided to fix that problem. Over the next couple of years I learned how to get our little construction company onto the first page of Google Maps.

Back in 2009 it was fairly easy to get your listing on the first page of Google Maps, today there is a lot more competition, so it takes a bit more work.

What is Google Places and why should you care?

Take a look at how Google Places works

→ Go to the Google Search bar and type in a keyword… like: Dentist Modesto CA

→ Scroll down and you will see a list of 8 Dentists in Modesto, CA – A through G and a map

→ Click on the words ‘See results for Modesto Dentist on a map’

     NOTE: If you don’t see a map, then click on Maps

→ In this screen you see a map with about 18 Dentist markers

→ Now click on List all Results and in the next screen you will see 10 results for Modesto Dentists

→ At the bottom of the screen click on NEXT to view 10 more results for Modesto Dentists

There are a number of factors that affect your Google ranking on this page;

• How complete (or incomplete) your Google profile is
• The number of pictures you have in your profile
• The number of reviews people have written for you
• The number of places your business is listed around the web
• The number of people that have circled your business page

The Google algorithm is fairly complicated, so I am sure there are many more… however, if you work on getting all of the above factors right, you have a better chance of getting found locally (and organically) by the search engines.

Let’s start with the Google Places Listing.

Go to www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

You are going to use your gmail UserName and Password.

1. Fill in the Country and the Business phone #

2. Fill in your business name. If you are an independent contractor, just fill in your name. If you have a dba, fill in that business name. Don’t add any keywords or descriptions, you will have time for that later.

3. Fill in street address, it must be a physical address, not a P.O. Box. If you don’t want people to know your physical address, don’t worry you can hide it.

4. Add your City, State and Zip code.

5. You can add more phone numbers. A word of caution, do not add a phone number that other people use.

6. Enter your email address and your website address.

7. Copy and paste your business description (200 characters max). Make sure you include your keywords in this description.

8. Enter your business Category. The first category has to be one of the default categories provided for you by the system. Add up to 4 more, and they don’t have to be in the system.

Service Area and Location

9. Unless you are a brick and mortar store, and all of your clients come to you, be sure to click on “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations”

10. Check the box – Do not show my business address on my Maps listing – if you don’t want your physical address to show.

11. At the Distance from one location, if you add City and State, then type in the service area miles, the map will show a radius of how far you will travel to sell products and provide services.

12. If you click on List of Areas Served and add in City, State, or just add the zip codes of all the areas you serve that map will again show how far you are willing to travel to sell products and provide services.

Hours of Operation

13. Click on I Prefer not to Specify my Hours, or,

14. Click on My Operating Hours are, and fill in the hours, or,

15. You can click on I’d Like to Enter two sets of hours for a single day, and add a second shift to your available operating hours.

Payment Options

16. Specify how customers can pay you for your products and services

Photos

17. Add photos of your store front, your personal photo, photos of your products, up to 10 photos. NOTE: Make sure that your keyword is in the photo title.

18. Add your YouTube Videos (up to 5) to your listing. Again, make sure your keywords are in the Video title.

19. Additional details – don’t ignore this, it is important. You can add more of your keywords and services here. For instance:

• • Short Sales:Yes
  • Foreclosures: Yes
  • Residential Real Estate: Yes
  • Parking: Yes
  • Free shipping: Yes

20. Click Submit, in the next screen, Google lets you know that they are going to send you a post card in the mail to verify the information you have given them. When that notification comes, you will need to go to your Google Places dashboard and enter the code provided in the post card.

NOTE: You can’t just put your listing up and forget it. In order to stay on the first page you have to put some time into maintaining your place. You need to monitor your Dashboard and where your listing is indexed to make sure you stay indexed on page one of Google places.

Presenting you Business to other Local Directories

Did you know that there are other local directories? Like Yahoo, Bing and Yelp? Signing up at a number of these local directories not only makes it easier for you to get found, but will also improve your Google indexing, thus enhancing the placement of your listing.

In fact, I highly recommend getting listed at 20 local directories.

Let’s start with Yelp.com

1. At the bottom of the page Click on Business Support Center

2. In the Start by Finding Your Business, type in your business name location.

3. If you business is there, you may want to Claim your Business and edit the details. If your business is not there, then click on Add your Business to Yelp.

4. Fill in all the blanks and click ADD.

5. In the next screen Yelp advises you to go to your email and confirm your listing.

6. After you click to confirm your email address, Yelp advises you – Once our customer support team has reviewed your submission you’ll receive instructions on how to unlock your free business tools.

Now, go to https://www.bingplaces.com/

And, http://listings.local.yahoo.com/

There are a couple of places that you can go to that supply your business information to other local directories – http://www.expressupdate.com/search, and http://www.neustarlocaleze.biz

Set up a Google+ Business Page linked to Google Places

If you have already presented your business to Google Places, it’s easy to add a Google+ Business page to your Google+ Profile. This will not only increase your search engine visibility, it will also make you more visible at Google Local and mobile devices (for on-the-go prospects.

1. Open your Google+ Profile

2. Hover over the HOME link on the left-hand side of the screen and in the drop-down menu, choose Pages

3. Click on the blue Create a Page button in the upper right-hand corner.

4. Click on the Local Business or Place box

5. Agree to the terms and conditions

6. In the Search for your business box, enter your business phone number.

7. In the next screen, choose your business.

8. Google will ask you to verify your business either by phone or by mail, if possible, choose by phone.

9. Once Google gives you access to your Business page, fill out the profile completely including; Business Name, Address, Contact Info, Category, Hours, and Description.

10. When complete, click Finished Editing.

HOMEWORK

5:1. Present your business to Google Places, Bing Places and Local Listings

5:2. Present your business to ExpressUpdate and NeustarLocaleze

5:3  Present your business to at least 20 more Local Business Directories

5:4. Link your Google Places listing to a Google+ Business Page

Getting Online Reviews

Getting Reviews is at the heart of this type of marketing, and it is going to be even to be even more important in the future.

Research your competition at Google Places, and take a look at how many reviews your competition has. Your goal is to get at least as many reviews as your competition.

If you have put up your business listing (using all of your important keywords), AND, you have signed up with at least 20 local directories AND you are still not on the first page, there may be a couple of reasons why:

1) Google ranks businesses on how old their listing is.

2) Google also ranks businesses on how many reviews that a business has, not only at Google, but all over the internet; City Search, Insider Pages, Yelp, etc.

3) Google also ranks the quality of those reviews according to how they relate to the keywords, and whether or not they are good reviews with 4-5 stars or bad reviews