Local SEO Marketing

Focus On Local SEO To Rank Higher In Google For Locally Based Searches

What is local SEO? How does local SEO work? How do you use local SEO marketing to rank locally in Google for the searches you want? In this episode we’ll answer these questions and run down the most important things you should be doing to get found locally in Google, and Bing. Learn what you need to do on your website, plus the importance of social media profiles and review portals as it relates to your local presence. We’ll round up some tips from previous episodes, plus talk about some new tactics too!

Don’t miss an episode – listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and more!

YOU’LL LEARN

  • If you’re trying to get found locally, you need to setup your Google My Business (GMB)
  • You need to be appearing in the top 3 results within the GMB for searches
  • Getting reviews on your GMB will help with your local search rankings
  • Google Posts (within GMB) expire after 7 days, so post weekly to stay visible
  • Choosing the primary category for your GMB is very important
  • Take advantage of the Business Description in the GMB and fill it out
  • Make sure you properly setup your Service Area Business if you visit your customers
  • You can setup a GMB even if you do not have a website yet, and still rank in Google
  • Get setup on Bing Places to show up in the Bing map pack, for local searches in Bing
  • Setup business pages on the main social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc)
  • Put up a profile on popular review portals such as Yelp, CitySearch, and similar
  • It’s very important to keep your NAP (name, address, phone number) consistent on all listings
  • Local SEO just means that your efforts focus on showing up for your local city, not nationwide
  • Make sure your GMB primary category is leveraged heavily on your homepage
  • List your physical address twice on your homepage, once above the fold and once in the footer
  • Put your phone number at the top of your website, and make it big, bold, and contrasting
  • Get local backlinks by sponsoring clubs, teams, and organizations in your city

Thanks for Listening!

Here is the transcription from Episode 25 What Is Local SEO Marketing, How Does It Work, and Why You Need It To Rank Locally;

Jesse: Welcome back to Local SEO Tactics, Jesse Dolan here, with Bob Brennan. This week
we’re gonna be talking about Local SEO for small business. We’ve touched on various
elements of SEO, obviously, through pretty much every episode. This week we’re gonna
round some of those up, and just focus on Local SEO for small businesses. Most of our
listeners out there are small businesses. Some of you that maybe are doing marketing
for agencies focus on small businesses, local business. So, we really wanna have a
roundup episode here.

So, we’re gonna dive right in. One of the main topics we’ve talked about a lot is Google
My Business.

Bob: Yep.

Jesse: Our first couple of episodes, I think, of the show we’re even launched on that, and we
come back to that every half dozen or so. It’s extremely important. It’s always changing.
There’s always new stuff, and if you’re gonna be filing for local business, you gotta be on
the GMB, Google My Business. So, we’ll start with that right there.

If you’re trying to get found, trying to get local business for your company you’ve gotta
get a GMB. So, we’ll put some links in our show notes for the first few episodes. We go
through how to set it up, optimize it, and how to use it the best, but we can’t stress
enough how critical that is if you’re wanting to be found.

Bob: Yeah. GMB is, obviously, just critical. I sound like a broken record, but specifically for
local SEO, it’s absolutely critical.

Jesse: And if people don’t know what we’re talking about we should say too, when they do a
search, that Map Pack. Some people call it the Map Pack, the Snack Pack, whatever you
wanna call it. When you do a regular search on Google you usually get the top three
results with a map interface right there. That’s what’s gonna get you in there. Those are
the Google My Business listing. So, if you don’t have a GMB set up, you have no chance
of even being in there, right?

Bob: Right.

Jesse: So-

Bob: And we wanna go through the tips, and the tricks too. It’s not enough … You need to be
in the top three, but ideally you wanna be in the very top position, and that top position
is almost … Well, it’s two to one for the next position, and then it’s four to one for the
third position. And along with that, you gotta have, again I hate to round and round
about this, but you need to have good reviews.

Jesse: Yep.

Bob: So, it’s no good if you’re at the top, and your reviews are poor. People are gonna default
to the next one, and the next, and whatever the case is.

Jesse: Or you can just transition right into that. There’s a few different elements, like you’re
saying, of the GMB that are extremely important. One of them is getting reviews. To
Bob’s example, if you’re in, let’s say, even the top spot in that GMB for plumbing, or
what have you, if the people underneath you have a lot of reviews, or have a better
score, or both compared to yours, doesn’t matter if you’re in the top spot. They’re not
gonna call you. They’re not gonna click on you, so have a GMB, and definitely make sure
you’re getting reviews. If you own a local business, definitely start in those two areas.
Couple other quick things you can do rounding out the whole GMB topic here, is there’s
Google My Business posts, and they also have offer posts, and promotional posts now.
It’s a very robust offering that they’ve been rolling out the last couple months. Take
advantage of that. Again, we’ll throw a link to a previous episode that talks about that in
the show notes, a lot of good information there. You’re gonna wanna do that.

The thing about those Google My Business posts is they expire in seven days. So, this
isn’t a set it, and forget it deal. Some of the information in here is. You set up your
categories, and some other information we’re gonna talk about. But the posts, they
literally expire after seven days. So, once a week you’re gonna wanna get in there, put
up a new post. Doesn’t have to be super creative. It’s really just take a bullet point off
your website. Throw up a quick image to get some flash and some flare, and attract
people, and that’s just gonna take up real estate in that GMB listing, and in that side
panel, if you get onto the side panel. And, it helps for conversion rates. So, there’s some
SEO value, there’s some conversion value. It’s free, put up by Google. Definitely make
sure you’re taking advantage of that.

And then as I just mentioned, another area, which is extremely critical for your GMB, is
your categories that you’re picking.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: So, there’s two different levels of the categories. We’ve talked about this, again, before.
One is your primary. So, you’re gonna pick five to seven categories for your business,
and just search through it when you’re picking your categories. You can start typing and
Google will give you suggestions on what it thinks it is, and you have to pick from their
list. You gotta pick one that’s the most critical for your business. I think you’ve given the
example before, coffee grinders or whatever.

Bob: Yeah. You gotta be real strategic. That’s where you sit down, and maybe look at the
categories, or what have you, but definitely put some thought to it.

Jesse: Yep. So, pick all the ones that apply to you. Go back, like Bob’s saying, what is the one? If
I could only get found for one, or if one really describes me the best, what is it? Make
that your primary, because that’s the most high end signal, if you will, that you’re
sending to Google for what you do as a business. Everything else falls in under that. So,
give a lot of credence to that, and you can go change it later too. If you’re working on it
tonight or whatever, and you just get it all filled out, if you wanna circle back tomorrow,
or a few days later and really think about it, you can totally do that. You don’t have to
get it right on the first shot. But it’s worth stating, again, that the primary category you
pick, it’s primary for a reason. So, make sure you’re doing that correctly.

And then, I would say just rounding out real quick areas in the GMB, anything in the
GMB, take advantage of it. But the other main area you definitely wanna do is your
business description. This is something that used to exist that Google took down, and
then they put back up. Use that. I think you get, off the top of my head, is it 750
characters? So, it’s a fair amount of text that you can put in there for your business
description. And that’s just, again, gonna help for SEO, for conversion, and just taking up
more real estate. So, review those areas. Get your GMB set up, and you’re gonna be
better for it.

I should note one more thing for your GMB. This trips people up sometimes. There’s two
options for the type of location you in your GMB. You can be a service area, or like a
storefront. Some businesses are both. So, the difference there is if you don’t go to a
customer’s location to deliver your products, or perform your services … So, maybe
you’re auto glass replacement or repair, or if you’re a cellphone repair shop, and people
come to you. You wanna make sure that you set that up properly. One’s gonna show
your address, one isn’t. If you’re a service area business people don’t come to you.
Google’s not gonna show your address to those people, because otherwise they’re just
gonna show up at your house, or at your warehouse, or wherever it is. And if you have
service area business, you then tell Google what your service area is, whether it’s certain
zip codes, or certain. Or, if you wanna do a radius within 60 miles of my location, that’s
important to put in there too.

If you don’t do that properly, and if you try to gain that, you can get your listing
suspended, so just pay attention to that part when you’re setting it up. That will be
there when you do your address.

Bob: Google My Business is one of those things too. This is kind of important to understand.
Let’s say you’re just starting out in your business, you have no money, you have very
little time, you can essentially roll out a GMB listing, right?

Jesse: Yep.

Bob: And maybe get to the website 30, 60, 90 days later, but you still want to give that as
much attention as you can, again with reviews, everything else. There are businesses
out there that hold the top GMB position, and they have no website.

Jesse: Right.

Bob: You click on … There’s no website. And there were … Bubba was smart enough, not to
pick on Bubba, smart enough to whip up a GMB, and that’s all you need to get started.
So, it’s a germ … If you have a germ of an idea for a business you can get going with a
GMB, and just see what happens. And then, as you create revenue, and then back in and
build your website again, and you’re good to go.

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I would say, crawl-walk-run, right?

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: Don’t worry about having all the inventory, all the investments, everything else. Get the
idea, get the marketing going, get found. And in some areas this is a good way to prove
out that it’s viable or not, right?

Bob: Right.

Jesse: Throw it up it there. See if you can get any kind of rankings, and exposure. And then,
you can build it out from there, like you’re saying, whether it’s the actual digital
presence, or physical presence, or what have you. So, check that out.

The other one, that’s parallel to this, is the Google My Places. I’m sorry, Bing Places-

Bob: Bing Places.

Jesse: … is what I’m trying to say here. We’re not talking about Google anymore. We’re talking
about Bing. Bing Places is very, very similar to Google. We’re not gonna get as in depth,
because it’s kind of repeating everything, but going out there. Bing.com will put a link in
the show notes for you guys how to get there. Same thing, physical address, digital
presence, you don’t have to have a website. You can build all that later.

Bob: Oh, yeah.

Jesse: I would say, if there’s one distinction between the two, outside of, of course, the
volume, Google is, depending on the reports that you look at, anywhere from 90%, and
that should say for the US market here, 90% to 60%. It depends on the search type and
everything else. So, reverse that. Bing is anywhere from 10 to 30% of any searches that
are happening. So, depending on your business, your industry, that’s a good amount of
customers.

Bob: Oh, yeah.

Jesse: You don’t wanna ignore that. But, aside from that, one thing that’s slightly different
about Bing verus Google is they’re not as tight. What I mean by that is Google … A few
years back people had really tried to spam it saying like, “Detroit trial lawyers,” is the
name of your business when it’s actually Brennan Law, or whatever. That was good for
rankings, and that can help you rank real good for Detroit trial lawyers.

Bob: Sure.

Jesse: And people still do that nowadays, but it can get you trouble with Google. They can
suspend your listing, which all you gotta do is change your name back, then it’s a cat and
mouse game. But with Bing, that’s something that people can now take advantage a
little more. They don’t have the stringent controls. There isn’t as much focus on them.
It’s kind of … Back in the day a little bit PCs had this stigma of getting way more viruses
than Macs, why? PCs are the bigger target. There is way more PCs out there in service
than there was Macs. So, Macs weren’t as much, more or less, secure. I’m probably
gonna get a ton of Mac and PC hat email now, but the point on that way more about the
population out there.

Same is true with Google and Bing right now. Bing you can game it a little bit more if you
wanna do that and get a little risky, and you’re a little bit under the radar just because
there’s not as much attention there. Bing is happy to have.

Bob: Right.

Jesse: So, come on. Use our listing. And again, take advantage of it. It’s completely free for a
business, both of these, Google My Business, and Bing Places are completely free, and
that’s how you’re gonna show up in the Map Packs for both of those respectively.

Bob: So here’s a strategy off the cuff. If you are gonna quote, “Go down that road,” legal trial
lawyer, or whatever the deal is, do you create a separate site specifically just for Bing,
for that SEO of Bing, if you will?

Jesse: Yeah, you sure could. It aint gonna hurt anything. If you’re doing that I would just make
the assumption I’m living on borrowed time. Now, whether that’s a month, or 10 years
who’s to say, but you’re definitely playing the gray area, and it could work well for you.
A lot of people do it. A lot of people crush by doing what you’re saying, basically, but I
wouldn’t trust on riding that thing off into the sunset, just in case.

Bob: But you could, conceivably have a site optimized for Google, and then one for Bing
perse.

Jesse: For sure.

Bob: And that’s a strategy, depending on whether it’s worth the time do it, right?

Jesse: Yep. And they may also rank in each other. So, it’s not like you can say to this one,
“Don’t be in Google.” You’re not gonna have your GMB like you’re saying mimic that,
but if you create a website, and still submit it to Google, it will get ranked. It won’t show
up in the GMB like we’re talking there.

Bob: Sure.

Jesse: But, yeah. If you’ve the wherewith all, and you’ve got the means to do that, that’s not a
bad deal at all.

Bob: Okay.

Jesse: But again, just have that asterisks of you’re in the gray zone, just to be clear. So, take
advantage of that as well. And right there, those two things, if you’re looking to get
traction locally, for local SEO … We haven’t even talked about your website yet, but do
those two things. If you haven’t done them yet that’s where you wanna start.
Other areas, again not quite to website yet, is social. And if we had this podcast, let’s
say, a year ago, or 18 months ago, two years ago we wouldn’t be talking like this, but
now all of these non website factors are so important for local SEO. Because really, if I
was to wrap all this together, it’s sending these signals to Google that you’re a real
business, you’re a legitimate business, and that you’re a local business. Back in the day,
they just wanted to see that you, again, had Louisville and trial lawyers on your website
you could spam it, or game it a little bit more.

Now, you need all these different signals, and the more the better, to show them that
you’re, again, legitimate and real. So, we’ll get to the actual website SEO stuff here in a
second, but helping your SEO with some off sight is these social profiles. So, if you don’t
have a Facebook page, a Twitter page, a Linkedin page yet for your business, not just for
you personally, but as your entity for your business, you’re gonna wanna do that. And
when you do these you want to have … they call it the name, address, phone number,
your NAP to be the same on these, because that’s how Google knows that that’s that
same trial lawyer again, in this example, same address, same name, and same phone
number. You don’t even need to link these websites together. So, Google’s a lot more
intelligent now, and Bing’s following suite in the process.

So, I just name the big social profiles there, but really anything, whether it be
Foursquare, anything that you’re using. Get on there. These are free too, which is
important, and just have that consistency, name, address, phone number.

Now, if you have a website, you can link your website on all of these. You absolutely
should link your website on all these. But again, to your example earlier Bob, you don’t
even have to have a website to do all this that we’re talking about so far, and you’re
gonna get found, and you’re gonna get some results. So, take advantage of those. And, I
would say, in the same being for those … Looking at my notes here, review sites like
Yelp, Yellow Pages, City Search. Those are the bigger ones nationally. And a lot of people
are gonna have, depending on where you’re at locally, some more boutique, or local
ones.

Same thing there. If you can put up a profile, and get listed in some kind of directory to
get reviews, and just have that name, address, phone number, that NAP, take advantage
of those as well too. And again, if you got a website pop your website in there. This is
just more citations, more links, more signals to Google that you’re real.

Bob: Yeah, and what they’re looking for … I mean, they’re looking for proof.

Jesse: Yeah, exactly.

Bob: Because it’s been so spammy over the last … up until, let’s say, a year ago, it’s been so
spammy. What Google’s saying, “Okay. Now, local business person, prove that you’re in
fact a local business person. So, we wanna see the fact that you’re linked to the
Chamber of Commerce, and we wanna see that you’re linked the various social entities.”
The more proof you can provide, and we’ll get more into that, but that’s more
wholistically what Google’s looking for is that prove it. Prove that you’re local, and prove
it eight different ways until Sunday.

So, if you’re in the court of law they wanna know, “Okay, yeah. This is your address. This
is your city.” The whole nine yards, and then be very consistent throughout all that.

Jesse: That’s the key part, right?

Bob: Yep.

Jesse: Using that same name, and everything else. And like you were talking earlier, if you
wanna get gamey and do something different for Bing, go for it. You have that different
website with your different nameBob: Sure, that’s a strategy.

Jesse: There’s strategy, sure. But don’t do a different name in Yelp. Don’t do a different name
on Facebook. Don’t do a different name on your Google My Business. Have all that stuff
be the same, like you’re saying. That’s Google’s background check. That’s like saying how
they know you’re legitimate. It all has to add up.

Now, if you have some errors in there they’re not gonna shut you down or anything, but
you’re just not gonna get that full credit. It’s not gonna show on your resume, so to
speak. So, do those. Again, everything there so far has been completely free, not even
touching your website. You can not do these and still do some good stuff with your
website, get some results, but if you’re really gonna try to build this out, and do it the
right way, invest some time. Get all these things set up. Get a file, or a system
somewhere to keep all these links and logins somewhere so you can update these
pages. None of this is set it and forget it situation. Not only does Google wanna see is
Bob saying that you’re legitimate and all this ties in, you gotta be active as well.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: So we talked about if you’re on Yelp, which not a big fan of Yelp, but we have to
mention them just because they’re on the first page of Google for such stuff.

Bob: Sure.

Jesse: You can’t ignore it. You’re gonna wanna get reviews on Yelp. You’re gonna wanna get
reviews on Facebook. You’re gonna wanna get reviews on your Google My Business.
First and foremost, Google My Business, right?

Bob: Oh, yeah.

Jesse: If I had to put some math formula to it I’d say get one or two reviews on the other
engines for every 10 on Google My Business. I would really weight it to the GMB.

Bob: Yeah, 10 to one’s probably a pretty fair ratio.

Jesse: Yeah, but you just wanna make sure you show that not only are you legitimate and set
these things up, but you’re active, and you’re participating, and that’s all gonna help you
just a ton.

And last but not least, we should say, is your website. So, search engine optimization,
really the core of it is about your website, and optimizing it to be found. And we throw
that local prefix on there, for local SEO. A lot of people ask me all the time, what the
heck’s the difference between local SEO and SEO. It’s just local. It’s focusing here on my
town, my backyard, wherever my business is located. If were in Minneapolis, as we are,
we don’t care if we show in Albuquerque, or Houston, or whatever. That’s not what
we’re concerned with. We wanna be local for people in Minneapolis.

So, all the tactics that really apply, in general, to SEO nationwide still apply to local SEO.
You still wanna optimize your pages, and we’ll get into some of this real quick. But
really, at the end of day, it’s making sure that you’re just known as a true, local, actual
business, whether you’re brick and mortar business, or again, that service area business,
it’s all just proving that you’re legitimate.

So, within your website, probably the number one thing I could tell everybody to do is to
make sure that you have your Google My Business primary category dominate on your
homepage. So, if you’re, again, a cellphone repair shop. I think the main category for
that is mobile phone repair for Google My Business. You should make sure, towards the
top of your page in an H1 tag, have the words mobile phone repair in there. Have that
be part of your title tag. Get that in your description, and I would even have an image on
the page that had that as a file name, and as the alt tag for my image on that on the
homepage. And try to get as much of that above the fold, or on the first shot of your
screen, when it pops up. It’s possible, because you’re sending those same signals to
Google. Not only, “Hey, I’m a business. I’m real. I have all these citations.”

Now, here’s what my business does. Here’s what my website is all about. First things
first, right? So, that’s the number one thing you definitely wanna make sure you’re
doing with your website. Carry that same logic to all your other categories for Google
My Business. You’re not gonna wanna mash all these in your homepage, and we have
another episode that’s talking specifically about using GMB categories to alchemize your
page. We’ll put that in the show notes for everybody.

So, if you guys don’t check out our show notes, we should say this too as a quick aside.
interex.com/show, all the episodes are on there as an archive, and then each episode is
also linked to as a show page. So, check out the show notes, for this one especially.
There’s gonna be … As we’re talking through this here, there’s just gonna be a ton of
information on there. So, make sure you guys check that out. We make it real easy for
you.

Couple of other things I would say here, looking at my notes, put your address on there
twice, if you’re a place that has a physical address, and you’re okay with customers
stopping by. You’re gonna wanna have it down in the footer somewhere, and then
somewhere in context, sidebar, there’s usually some kind of information about contact
us, or whatever. But, on your homepage especially, put your address twice. It doesn’t
have to be huge. It doesn’t have to be dominant, just have it on there twice.

Bob: Yeah. And I would just throw out there, I don’t know why you would hide your address.
There could be a reason, but this is about converting. So, you might as well have it
above the fold where people can see, “Oh, they’re on main street,” or, “They’re on blah,
blah, blah street,” or whatever the case is.

Jesse: Yep.

Bob: I don’t know that you’d ever really wanna hide it, unless it’s maybe your personal home,
or your home, and you just don’t want people coming there, or whatever the case is.

Jesse: Sure, yeah. If you’re some kind of consultant, or something else working from home, I
could see that maybe-

Bob: Sure, yeah. You’re right.

Jesse: If that doesn’t apply to you, and it should apply to most businesses, put it on there
twice. And you’re exactly right, you want it once above the fold, if possible, or very close
to it. And then, like I said, once down at the footer. And that sounds kind of weird,
you’re not putting it there to hide, but people expect to be able to scroll all the way
down to the bottom of page nowadays, and get that contact information. So, put it on
there twice, and that’s also for Google too. You’re just really showing, and emphasizing
to them, “This is me. This is where I’m at.”

Now, this is all about if you’re single location. If you’re multi location, or if you have
multiple branches and offices, different strategy. Tune in to our future episode. We’re
gonna talk about that. This is all about single location stuff here that we’re talking, right
there.

So, put your address on their twice on your homepage. Make sure it’s on every other
page at least once.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: And then, if you have a contact us page follow the same guidelines for the homepage.
Get it on there twice, and one of those is gonna be huge, because the main reason for
the contact page is just all your contact info. And then, it’s probably just in your footer
again anyways if you’re doing it like that.

Another thing is making your phone number huge on your page. And, I know we’ve
been saying, not only just go above the fold, but literally the first thing in your website
should be this giant ass, huge phone number, contrast in color. If there’s one thing you
wanna make it easy for people to do its contact you. And even though everybody’s
gravitating towards messaging, and text, and everything else, email, leads are still
dominated by phone calls.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: If you’re gonna bury your phone number, much like you bury your address or
something, that’s just crazy. That’s just crazy.

Bob: Again, I don’t know style points, or whatever you wanna call it. Some people are like,
“Oh, it just doesn’t look good up there,” or, “It looks gaudy.” And it’s like, Jesse’s always
gotta pull me back, because I want phone numbers in red, and I want them bigger. And
you think of it as real estate, right?

Jesse: Yeah.

Bob: It needs to pop. And obviously, this is, for mobile, we’re all at that point where we’re
used to putting our thumb on the phone number and dialing, and it’s gotta have that
link to dial, right?

Jesse: Yep.

Bob: And those are some must haves for services where people are like, “Hey, my phone is
broke.” Bam, I’m gonna hit this number and call, or whatever the case is. Or, “My car’s
broken,” or whatever. And that’s just common sense. So, some bright, obnoxious color
don’t have it stylized fading into the back where nobody can see it. You want the person
with the worst eyes to be able to see that number, hit it, and boom, convert, and it’s
about conversion.

So, you wanna get to the top, and then once you’re at the top you wanna be able to get
conversion.

Jesse: Now, we have some clients that will … like the look and the style is just super, super
important. So, some tricks that you can do, again with working with Bob’s goals here
too, which are extremely important. I agree completely. Like you said, starting out years
it was on one end of the spectrum, much more now. You gotta blast people with this
thing, and let them know.

And to my point on that, with websites now you can get a lot trickier with some of the
animation and the effects. So, when somebody lands on your page that phone number
needs to just pop right at them. Now, if you’re on a phone, and they scroll up, or scroll
down I guess, depending on your perspective, that phone number can disappear. If you
can you want it to stay there the whole time. But, sometimes if it’s a huge phone
number like we’re talking about it’s taking up the top 20% of that page or something, or
more. That might be a little too much to just stay on the page, but they can scroll it
away. The important part there is they knew it was there.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: They can quickly get back to it. It was so big, so obnoxious. I don’t mean that in a
negative way, but more of like in a stand out, can’t miss it way. They easily go back to it.
They don’t have to look for it. They don’t have to think about where that phone number
was. And you can even do the same thing on a traditional website on the desktop mode,
if you will. I would encourage everybody on mobile to take that route. I shouldn’t say
that. If you can not do it, don’t. Keep it there the whole time, staring you in the face.
But, on desktop, try to keep it there. Don’t make it fade away on the desktop. You can
maybe make it get a little bit smaller, and push up to the corner a little bit more, but
still. If you look at that page, on desktop mode especially, or even tablet mode that
phone number should be just in your face.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: You should never have to look for it. On your phone, the big distinction there, what I
mean is like Bob … you’re saying. You can click the call on your phone. You’re not gonna
do that on your desktop. So, for your phone you just thumb up, thumb down a little bit.
Boom, click the number, and I’m calling. It’s like two seconds.

If you’re on desktop, you’re scrolling around, you’re navigating with your eyes,
navigating with your mouse, make that sucker pop. Make it right there the whole time.
And then I would again say, put it down in the footer as well, too.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: Standard convention, everybody wants to scroll down, and have all that summary
information at the very bottom. Even if they miss it up at the top of the page, that’s fine.
Again, don’t make the customer think, especially when they’re trying to contact you.
We do all this work, get all these citations, all these local listings, get our website
together, everything else just to get ranked, just to get them to our page. You don’t
wanna stop with them trying to contact you. That’s where the money … where the
rubber meets the road.

So, yeah. Do all that. And I just actually got one more thing here, quick, is links. So, we
talk about people. There’s a lot of buzz words like local citations, or local links, things
like that. A lot of the stuff we just covered on the front side there with the social, and
some of those directories, and review portals, they’re gonna provide you with a lot of
those citations and links. Something that’s overlooked a lot for the local businesses is
the local clubs, associations, charities, Chamber of Commerce, you mentioned that. Find
out what your passions are. You have a business, so you’re a business owner, or looking
to have an impact in your community, you’re a part of it. You’re local.

So, what do you wanna get behind? Do you wanna sponsor the local tee ball club, or tee
ball team, computer science club, robotics, whatever it is, or just put up an ad at the
laundromat or something, I don’t know. But get out there in the community, and
wherever these organizations have a website try to get a link from them. Google’s
gonna see that. They’ll say, “Oh, all these Minneapolis club, and institutions are linking
back to these guys. They’re obviously in Minneapolis.” Google’s intelligent.

Bob: What’s better than proof right now?

Jesse: It’s proven out that you’re part of the community. You’re local. You’re in this area.
Where would you go, who should you pick? Search for some things around town. If
these organizations and clubs allow you to this linking, then their websites should be
exposed, and found. I mean, don’t search for your own product or business, just search
for things in your town. Seek those out. If you don’t know where to start, you don’t
wanna support anybody, you just wanna be a Grinch about everything, great. If you
wanna do it purely for strategic reasons find out which of these directories, and which
of these clubs and organizations are already ranking locally. Go talk to them. Say, “Hey,
if I throw a hundred bucks at you can I sponsor the local robotics team at my school, and
can you put a link back to my website on that directory page you got? Okay. Cool.
Thanks.”

It’s gonna be real cheap advertising for you. You’re not looking to actually get your name
on the back of that tee ball jersey. That’s not the goal.

Bob: Right.

Jesse: You’re not gonna bring customers in because they saw your logo with 18 other logos, or
something else on the back of a tee ball jersey. What you’re looking for is that link from
that assassination for that local proof, like you just said, that local association tracking
back to you.

Bob: That brings up a good point for local fundraisers. A little bit off topic, but if you were
part of the whatever city some kind of fundraiser for something, that would be a great
lead in to various business, and say, “Hey, you know what you need? You need a link to
our site. This is why.”

Jesse: True.

Bob: You need social proof, or … Not social proof, but local proof.

Jesse: Yeah. Here’s some value that we bring.

Bob: Yeah, and that might be a good fundraiser.

Jesse: Heck yeah.

Bob: So, all you fundraiser folks out there there’s a pro tip maybe.

Jesse: Yep. Absolutely right. That’s value. That’s helping you give reasons. And a lot of people
sometimes, and we have a tough time too, because we host this show. We try to give
back to all you people out there to help you out. Part of what we do is we do this for a
business too. So, we’ll have discussions with clients a lot of times like, “Oh, that’s a little
much to invest,” or that bill may be a little too steep, but people will go drop two, three,
four, five thousand dollars on a billboard.

Bob: Oh, sure.

Jesse: People are driving by getting that for three seconds at time. But yet, they may be
hesitate about spending a couple hundred bucks, let alone a couple thousand dollars on
a website that’s up 24/7, you can push people to, and it’s so dynamic. Spending a
hundred bucks, like you were saying, for a local fundraiser, or some local organization,
that might seem like a lot to just get a link for your local school pointing back to you.

Bob: Yeah.

Jesse: But, if you think about it, say, “Okay. If I throw a hundred bucks at this, and that website
helps Google know that I’m here, and I’m local,” and it’s gonna help my rankings, that’s
like stupid money.

Bob: Well, I know. But I mean, the typical small business, and my biggest challenge the whole
history of my company is dealing with my ego, right?

Jesse: Sure.

Bob: So, a billboard feeds to my ego.

Jesse: Oh, yeah.

Bob: It’s like, “Hey,” telling my buddies, “I got a billboard.” But, obviously you’re much better
off. I personally don’t want anybody, not to pick on billboards, but I don’t anybody that’s
had success with a billboard.

Jesse: Right.

Bob: I mean, real success, other than feeding their egos.

Jesse: Or, if you’re going to though I think there’s a space for it, but it’s when you have 17
billboards around town, and it’s this massive budget, you know what I mean?

Bob: Right, right.

Jesse: But that’s a whole different level. That’s not what we’re … Local businesses aren’t gonna
do that.

Bob: Yeah, most of us don’t have that extra 50k a month floating around for 17 billboards.

Jesse: And then you gotta what? Give it like 90 days to sink in to see if it even works. So, it’s a
scale that a lot of us aren’t operating on, and just pales in comparison to this kind of
stuff. And I’ll also contrast this stuff to drop a hundred bucks here and there for these
links, they’re super valuable, even as compared to, what, throwing an ad in your local
newspaper. I live in a very small town, a suburb of the twin cities here, and we have a
great local newspaper. I know most of the people around town actually buy it, and go
through it just because it’s hyper local. There’s like four thousand people in my town. It
cost a hundred and something bucks to get in that thing. It’s just … You know what I
mean?

Bob: Right.

Jesse: To put an ad in there. Come on, what’s the reach of that. But yet, you get hesitant-

Bob: A few days, or a week, or whatever.

Jesse: Yeah, you’ll be hesitate to, maybe, sponsor the local team, and to come and get that
link. So, not to harp on it. I think it’s a super cool idea, real easy way to get local back
links to get that credibility, and get that juice back to your website, and prove to Google
that you’re local.

And again, at the same time you’re supporting your local community too. People are
gonna like that. This isn’t a SEO thing. It’s a brand thing at that point too, and that’s a
great double dip. So, my last tidbit on there. I don’t know if you have anything else you
wanna add to the pot here.

Bob: Nope. That’s it.

Jesse: Okay. So, that’s pretty much it. Again, for this episode particularly, check the show
notes. We’re gonna give you a big round up of a lot of the links in there to help you out.
And as always, if you have a topic you want us to cover, on that same interex.com/show
we’d love to have your feedback. If there’s questions you have, whether it be to this
episode, other things you want us to talk about, ideas, or corrections if you think Macs
are still way more secure than PCs, even today regardless of the population.

Bob: Right.

Jesse: Whatever it is, let us know. We love to hear from everybody, and get the feedback just
to know that we’re reaching our audience, and you guys are liking what we’re doing.
So, with that, we’re gonna get into our weekly review of the week, and this week here
we got a great five star review from Dina, and I’m gonna butcher your last name, Dina.
It’s Catalido, and Dina says, “Thanks so much for this podcast. You’re making SEO easy
for everyone to understand. Your episodes are short and sweet. Make it easy for me to
listen to them when I’m washing the dishes, or my short commute.” Exactly what we
want, not make it overwhelming, make it stuff where you can take some notes, go back,
take action on it, come back next week, maybe learn a new trip there … I’m sorry,
learning a new tip there.

So, thanks for the great five star review. Everybody else, love to hear from you too,
interex.com/itunes. You can leave us a review anywhere. You’re gonna find other links
on our show page to leave us reviews. We always pump iTunes, because that’s the
biggest reach that we have for the audience. That’s where everybody goes. That’s where
they all subscribe, so if you haven’t yet check us out. Subscribe on iTunes, leave us a
review on iTunes. Go to interex.com/itunes, and we’d love to hear from you.
All right. That’s about it for this week, guys. Take care everyone. Have a good week.
Bob: Have a good week.

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