The rules have changed and the challenge is greater—but so are the rewards…

Remember when a “local directory” was just the Yellow Pages?

No, not Yellowpages.com – I mean the actual book. You know – real paper, heavy as a sack of bricks, thrown down on your doorstep and cracked open to reveal a teeming mass of hundreds, if not thousands of local businesses.

Remember the shops vying for your attention with astonishing attempts at advertising alliteration – A-A-A Awesome Plumbing, AA A-1 Fabrics. AAA Absurd Business Name?

You get the idea.

For decades, that was the only game in town and the best-known “trick” to achieve local visibility and success in the eyes of Joe or Jane Doe in Yourtown, USA.

But the game has changed dramatically. When’s the last time you actually opened a phone book, much less received (or kept) one?

The effort to be front and center hasn’t stopped, but it has changed playing fields.

And it has new rules.

Online local search is the undisputed “Yellow Pages” of the day…on steroids. It includes yellowpages.com by the way, but they’re not the only game in town anymore, not by a long shot. Having a rewarding local search presence requires being listed correctly and consistently in every top directory out there, and then some.

And the days of winning by squeezing multiple AAA’s in the front of your business name are A-A-A thing of the past.

There are new tried-and-true methods that work even better than the old-school “tricks.” Use these to get a leg up on your competition.

How To Get Found By Local Customers

Wait. You haven’t heard of those? What about Factual? Infogroup?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone if you are drawing a blank. Those four not-so-household names are the vital “data aggregator” listings.

In a nutshell, aggregators are the hard working, behind-the-scenes data sources, in greater or lesser degree, for the “famous” directories everyone has heard of: Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local, Google Maps and so on. Think of them as the unheralded publicists to the stars. Without them, the big companies would miss out and not know what you want them to know about your business.

Good. So it’s easy then, right? Just get listed in those few data aggregators and sit back and wait for the customers to find you and flood through your doors.

Ah, if only. It isn’t quite that simple. Let’s pull the curtain back a little further.

There are key rules to know and follow. Otherwise, you’ll be that unfortunate business that, in bygone days, missed the deadline to get in their Yellow Pages listing, making them invisible.

Here’s the must-know essentials

1. NAP time is vital

   NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. Your business name, address and phone must, must, must be consistent (did we mention must?) across every single listing.

   Why would it not be consistent? Well, your business has an online footprint already, probably within a week of your doors opening. If you’ve been around a while, you have a Jurassic-size footprint across the web – your Chamber of Commerce may have you listed, the Better Business Bureau and other “official” organizations likely list you online as well. Not to mention your address is on your website and can be “scraped” that way and listed by any such website, and it likely has.

   These potential inconsistencies can create online confusion you aren’t even aware exists. You’re official business name is “Alan and Sons Plumbing”, but it’s listed in one location as “Alan Johnson and Sons Plumbers” or “A.J. and Sons Plumbing and Repair” somewhere else. Those different results, and business owners are often as bewildered as anyone as to why they appear differently, can be viewed as different businesses within local search results.

   Have you changed names over the years, particularly during the “Internet Age”, aka the last 20 years? You are virtually guaranteed to have incorrect listings.

   The result of NAP inconsistencies is these data aggregators and other local search players will not see a unified, clean identity for your business. It looks unprofessional, in a word. As a result, they aren’t likely to “recommend” you to those doing local searches. At best your “online power” is being diluted. At worst, you aren’t showing up for some local searches at all. Instead, potential customers see the business “next door” who has everything properly set up.

   Don’t take it personal, they’re just computers. And it can be fixed so that they do YOUR bidding as well.

2. NAP corrections

   

   As a vital first step, you need to find all of the online directories where you are listed and ensure your listings are correct.

   This is often called an “audit” and “verification” step. It’s the first step we do with any local business clients. It includes “claiming” the listing, because as mentioned above, some of these directories find your business identity online from who-knows-where and use it to auto-create a listing for you. Take control back. You deserve it!

   What does this local search audit and verification accomplish?

   Inevitably we discover two things when completing the process:

   1. The business has odd variations scattered throughout its online listings. Anything from not having the proper street extension, to having an old phone number or a business name inconsistency.
      
      One client was literally “off the map” – Google had their map listing about 40 miles away from their actual office. Another had two listings everywhere – their old business name and their new one. The result was that people searching for these businesses couldn’t find them, both online and in the real world.
   2. The next discovery we make is the one you want – once those elements are corrected, the business improves its local search positioning and visibility, often dramatically.*
      
      * Inevitable disclaimer: This is particularly true if the business was not doing well, e.g. far down the local search results. Also, we’d be remiss to not point out that results are often significantly improved with additional marketing basics such as a properly built website and other local search content set up…why yes, that was an impeccable segue.

What Else To Know About Local Search

Well, there’s plenty, but without the NAP steps done above, the rest is like trying to get a car rolling without an engine. You might be able to push and shove it a few feet online, but soon enough you’ll watch competitors with everything in place race by you.

So in brief, what makes a well-oiled winning local marketing machine?

One that has a powerful engine AND great aerodynamics, a turbo booster and sweet racing stripes to boot.

Start your engines with:

1. website: solidly built, well-structured with core on-page search factors
2. site content: relevant, quality local-oriented
3. business address: your addresses properly listed on your site (there is behind-the-scenes code for your website that helps “identify” and “locate” your business for search engines the right way),
4. consistent NAP: having consistent NAP on the key directories. Having above and beyond the number of “standard” listings, especially if you are in a specialized profession, e.g. dental, medical, legal, etc.
5. reviews: getting reviews on the key review portals (Yelp, Facebook, Google+ and specialty sites as applicable like Houzz), and
6. social: active social profiles and activity which we include to being “locally” social such as interacting with local relevant blogs/channels.

Yes that can be a bit overwhelming, and isn’t done in a weekend to be sure. When your preferred game is running your business, helping your customers and delivering a great product or service it’s wise to bring in hired experts.

That’s where local search experts (ahem) can save you hours of confusion or added errors damaging your local presence.

The game WE love to play is to get your great product, service and business more visible. To stay on top of the “tricks” and “secrets” and have businesses reap the rewards. (The tricks and secrets are also known as hard work and paying attention.)

We’ve successfully raised client’s online search position from essentially invisible to top of the stack.

And all without renaming their business to “AAA Absolute Best Company.”

So if you are looking to be found by customers searching for what you have to offer, consider the local search basics above. And if you need professional expertise, just let us know on our contact page.

Read Article #1 in The Rules of Marketing Series: 3 Branding Rules To Maximize Your Marketing Spend

But unforeseen problems can sometimes arise that take a bit of cunning to resolve.

A new building, built on new land with brand new address

One such circumstance occurred with a client of ours – an expanding dental practice.  They were opening an office in another city and had built a new, state-of-the-art facility on the access road adjacent to the main highway.  It was a totally new structure, built where nothing had existed before.  So it had a totally new address.

Several weeks prior to the clinic’s opening, we were given the new postal address and went to add the location to the practice’s Google Places for Business account so that it would be listed on Google Maps in time for its grand opening a number of weeks down the road.

Setting up the new location on Maps

When you add a business to Google Places for Business, in order to verify that the business actually exists, Google sends out a verification card to the address.  The card has a PIN code that needs to be inputted back into the online application before Google will fully list it.  This card can take a week or so to get delivered but our experience was that it arrives pretty fast.  You can also verify by phone but as no one was manning the new clinic’s phone, this method couldn’t be used.  We had two or three weeks so we could afford to wait for the card.

The verification card never arrived, twice

We used the new postal address in the online setup and, low and behold, Maps apparently had it in its system.  The street number was there with only a slight change of wording for the access road.  No error messages that the address didn’t exist or anything. Happy day, smooth as silk!

Except the card never arrived.  A week later, because the phone was still not manned, we had another card sent out.

It never arrived either.

We couldn’t understand what was going on.  Google apparently had the address for the clinic but the card didn’t get there.

Oh, oh, the Maps address was wrong!

Then realization dawned – Google’s address, even though similar, wasn’t compatible with the postal address.  So the post office couldn’t find the clinic. Agh!

Immediately, we called Google.  Yes, you can call Google and it isn’t that hard.  You just have to know your way around their Google Places for Business interface.

How to phone Google Help

This is how you do it (this assumes you already have a Google Places for Business account set up for your business.)

1. Go to the Google My Business Help Center and logon to your Google account.
2. Click “Contact Us” near the upper right. (see image below)
3. Request a call and follow the instructions and fill out the form to leave your phone number.  Google will ring you back almost instantly.  Their staff are typically very helpful.

This was done for our client and we spent almost an hour on the phone getting it worked out.  Actually, it took two phone calls and, as the new clinic’s phone was now manned, we were able to get the address verified without waiting for a card to be mailed.

Getting it right

In the end, the client’s new business had the proper address on Google and was finally set up on Google Maps to be found and is being found today.

All is happy!

It just shows that what you think should be a simple and straightforward matter can evolve into a problem of magnitude.  Who would have ever thought that Google would have an address in their system that didn’t agree with the post office?

But the way things are going, perhaps in the near future, we’ll be phoning the post office to adjust their address because it doesn’t agree with Google!

Get Found In Local Search

We excel at helping local businesses be found. Get started by filling out our online form.

Google came out with yet another new local search tool in February that is causing some uproar. It’s called “Carousel” because, well, it looks like a carousel. I’m going to discuss the Good, Bad and Ugly.

First let me explain what Carousel is.

Currently if you do a local search for hotels, restaurant, bars and such, you now get a band of images across the top included with the results (see example of search for “dallas restaurants”).  I think the images are well-received by most.

Then when you hover over a business’ entry, the right side of the page updates to present information about the business taken from their Google Places/Google+local page (see second example).

The Good!

Visual imagery is proven to engage and convert more than text.  But a word of caution, you cannot pick which photo you want displayed. Google selects it from your Google+ business page so make sure you have it well optimized with images that are cropped to best represent your business or service.

Also you don’t want a photo of something that isn’t relevant or doesn’t communicate well to show up. I actually saw a listing where the photo for the business was of a newspaper. Guess a patron took a picture of the newspaper’s front page and posted it to the business’ profile.  Ouch!  Hopefully, the owner knows who posted it so he can get it removed.

But when Google can’t find anything for a business it usually just puts in a picture of a map of its location (see example).  Nothing could look deader and more unappealing for a business and its due to a little lack of web savvy that could be easily remedied.

Another important point is that Google reviews are included. Thankfully, Google is going back to their five star rating system. At one point, they had converted to a largely unfamiliar 30 point system used by Zagat. The Zagat scores, which historically have been used for restaurants, were too confusing for most people. Across the boards, I’ve heard a sigh of relief that Google ditched Zagat and went back to the old five star rating on reviews.

There are two simple lessons here.  Every business needs to leverage this tool by claiming their Google+ business page, optimizing it with great content and posting lots of excellent photos.  Then start getting positive customer reviews as this shows up in the results page. Reviews are very important and people respond to them – good or bad.

The Bad

Even if you get a negative review, it should be viewed as an opportunity.  It has shown you where you might be weak service or product-wise so you can fix it.  Also you can engage the customer by responding to the review in an appropriate manner which makes things right.  This makes your business look positive and on-the-ball to other potential customers looking at the reviews as no one is perfect.

The Ugly

Well, if Google’s business model is really about the ease and relevancy of search they have seriously missed the mark. With Carousel you are at least two clicks away from the venue’s website. Considering a recent survey showing 71% of searches for local business end up on a website, I would assume the searchers have a deeper need than just the business contact, directions and reviews.

Another concern we have is the impact on organic, non-branded keywords. Although the search starts with a non-branded organic term, once you click on an image the search results changes to a modified branded +location keyword.

It seems the issue is not so much a question of having a positive experience for the searcher as it is to retrain us, the searcher, in our expectations.

As a PPC certified specialist I will also be interested to see if branded keyword pay-per-click prices go up with the changes.