Local Seo Tactics And Digital Marketing Strategies

Develop A System To Consistently Produce New Content For Your Website Content is king, but producing good relevant content for your website is easier said than done.  Especially if you need to put out that content on a regular basis.  In this episode we share some tips and tactics on how to create a content production strategy that allows you to stay on track and keep putting out fresh content.  Learn how to get easy ideas for content, what type of content you should produce, and how often you should be creating it.  Plus, don't forget to setup your website to automatically alert Google when you have new content on your site, too! What You’ll Learn You need to have a regular content production schedule to continually produce new content for your website Your level or quantity of content production will depend on what your competition is doing You can research your competition to see what their content output is by viewing their blog, or checking their XML sitemaps You need to be active in producing new conte

Get Your Website Submitted To Google and Bing And Have Your Pages Indexed For Search Listings Learn how to submit your website to Google and Bing, to make sure your pages are indexed and available to show up on search engine results pages (SERP). The only reliable way to accomplish this is to use the Google Search Console to submit your website to Google, and to use Bing Webmaster Tools to submit your website to Bing. In this weeks episode we'll walk you through the basics on how to get your website submitted, make sure the Google and Bing know about new pages, and ensure that your pages able to be found by the search engines! You'll Learn The only way to submit your website to Google Setup your account in Google Search console (GSC) to submit your website You need to submit a sitemap in your GSC account Your sitemap acts like a Table of Contents for Google, to help them understand your website pages You should be using a Wordpress plugin or some other method to auto-update your sitemap when you create new c

How To Create and Use Category Pages To Improve The SEO On Your Site Use category pages to boost the SEO on your website!  Category pages are very helpful for multiple reasons.  They are an easy way to produce content on your site, and attack specific keyword or phrases you're trying to rank for.  Category pages can boost your SEO by helping to group relevant web pages together, so Google can understand the products and services you provide and better match them up with the searchers intent.  This approach is also great for your actual human web visitors, too, since it gives them natural navigational hubs to learn more or explore your offerings further.  We'll walk you through some easy ideas and concepts, to help you get started making or improving your own category pages. What You’ll Learn Using category pages on your website to round up content on similar topics Improve your SEO and search engine rankings with category pages Begin by looking at the type of products and services you offer and put them into

Hire Top Talent On A Temporary Or Part-Time Basis To Instantly Increase Business Productivity This week we interview Nate Hirsch from FreeeUp.com, who teaches us how you can use freelancers to scale your company on a budget.  Nathan Hirsch is a 28 year old serial entrepreneur who is an expert in hiring online and building eCommerce businesses. He co-founded his first eCommerce company out of his dorm room in 2009  built it to sell over $25 million worth of product over 5 years. While scaling, Nathan discovered the power of outsourcing and ended up building a remote army of freelancers.  In 2015, Nathan co-founded and became the CEO of FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace that allows business owners fast access to a hand-picked network of top talent freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, web development, and much more who have already been vetted for skill, attitude, and communication. Nate shares his story of entrepreneurship, delegation, and scaling a small business on a bootstrap budget.  Using freel

Understand Searcher Intent On Google So You Can Incorporate User Intent Into SEO For Your Website Understanding user intent and searcher intent can be a huge benefit to your SEO.  As Google continues to leverage it's AI and Machine Learning to provide search results, one of it's main focuses is to effectively guess the user intent on any given search term.  For example, someone who often watches DIY videos may be presented with DIY information for a relevant search, even if they are not inputting "DIY" or "DIY videos" into their search.  Gaining a clear understanding of the your audience, and what their intent would be when finding your page, will help you develop clearly identified content.  This makes it much easier for Google to match your content with searcher intent, rather than guessing.  In this episode we'll break this down and digest what it means, so you can create better content, convert more users, and rank higher in Google by incorporating searcher intent into your SEO strategy. What You’ll Learn

The Importance of Using Google Questions and Answers on Google Maps and Your GMB Listings Have you heard of or viewed the Google Questions and Answers area in your Google My Business listing?  This is an area you should be paying attention to!  Anyone with an active Google account can post a question about your business.  Additionally, anyone can also answer that question!  This is pretty cool, but also pretty scary from the standpoint of the business.  Learn how to monitor Google Q&A, how to answer questions in Google Maps via the Q&A area, and how to leverage this to enhance your online exposure.  Learn how to take control of the questions, how to have the best answers, and how to make sure your business content is in your own control. What You’ll Learn What is the Google Question & Answer feature in the Google My Business listing area Anybody with a Google account can ask a question about your business Anybody with a Google account can answer a question about your business It's possible for pe

Reasons Your GMB List Can Get Suspended and How You Can Get Your Listing Unsuspended   You definitely do not want to get your Google My Business page suspended, since your GMB listing is such a crucial part of ranking high in Google for many popular local search terms.  However, if your GMB got suspended, there is hope!  In our first "Beer Friday" episode we'll discuss GMB suspensions, the reasons for getting suspended, and how you can get reinstated using the Google local businesses reinstatement requests.  We'll also drink a beer. Cheers!   What You’ll Learn First Beer Friday episode - where we drink beer and talk SEO Beer is from Bald Man Brewing in Eagan, MN Reasons why your Google My Business listing can get suspended How to get your GMB listing reinstated if it gets suspended One of the more common reasons for getting your GMB suspended is because you check the box that says you have a storefront and serve customers at your location, when you do not have actually have a store front If your business

Improve The Speed Of Your Website To Rank Higher In Google Searches And Get More New Customers Website speed is a ranking factor, for Google.  It's official, Google has confirmed it!  So, if you're not paying attention to how fast your website is, then you're completely ignoring something that can easily help your Google rankings!  In this episode we dig into what can cause your website to slow down, how to test the speed of your website, how to identify exactly how long each element of your website takes to load, and best practices you can implement to maintain a fast website today, as well as into the future. View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at https://www.localseotactics.com/episode31

How To Survive As Local Business For Over 20 Years By Embracing New Marketing Strategies You know Bob Brennan as the co-host to Local SEO Tactics.  What many don't know is Bob's history as a successful brick-and-mortar business owner over the last 20+ years.  For episode 30 of Local SEO Tactics, Jesse interviews Bob Brennan, discussing what it takes to survive as a business for over 20 years, and how continuing to seek out and embrace new marketing technologies can help grow your small business. What You’ll Learn Insights into what it takes to persevere in small business with an ever changing marketing landscape How inbound or "pull" marketing is so much more powerful and outbound or "push marketing Contrasting the traditional marketing techniques like direct mail, versus newer digital methods Focusing on SEO and digital marketing costs substantially less than cold calling, direct mail, and appointment setting Business owners need to shift their marketing to become a "service based business" Using digital ma

Understand When The Google Map Pack Shows Up and How To Get Your Website Ranked In The Map Pack We're all familiar with the Google Map Pack, right?  Google map pack is the general term used to describe the location based results you see on a Google search results page, where it lists local businesses and identifies their location on a map with little place marker icons.  Well, if you want your business to get in front of new customers, you need to be ranking in the Google map pack!  In this episode we'll talk about how to determine which keywords will trigger that map pack to show up (not all will).  We'll also dig into how you can optimize your website for the keywords that trigger the map pack, to make sure you are showing up here for local searches! What You’ll Learn You need to be in the Google map pack if you want to be found for local search results on Google The Google map pack is group of businesses that appear in a box at the top of the search results page The map pack does not show up for every sea

Discover The Easy But Hidden Way To Engage With More Customers And Get Ahead Of Your Competition We've noticed a shift happening - customers are contacting businesses more and more with instant messaging, SMS text messages, and emails, and less with phone calls than they used to.  This is great, but it comes with a catch!  It's super easy to know when your phone is ringing...but how do you know if you have a new message on Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, or any other 3rd party messaging platform?  Don't let these customer inquiries slip through the cracks!  In this weeks episode we share some tips and tricks to quickly engage with these customers, and win the sales that your competition is missing out on!     What You’ll Learn There is a rise in the ratio of non-phone call communications for customer contact from websites Phone calls remain the most popular method of contacting local companies for service requests Often times businesses are slower to reply to emails than they are in handling

How To Approach Local SEO and Increase Rankings If Your Business Has Multiple Locations If your business has multiple locations, you need a slightly different approach to your local SEO strategy.  There are a few simple but highly effective concepts you can deploy to maximize your exposure and increase your Google rankings for all locations.  In this episode we'll break down the subtle differences that are needed when you feature multiple locations on your website, in order to get every location ranked and dominate in your local market! What You’ll Learn How to setup pages on your website to rank and dominate for each location you have Setting up one website with a page for each location is better than having separate websites for each location Make sure you have a Google My Business (GMB) listing for each business location Create an individual page on your website for each business location you have Link to these individual location pages from the respective GMB listing for each page Create a main "Location

Bing SEO Using Bing Webmaster Tools and Bing Places To Increase Your Local Rankings and Exposure Bing SEO!  It's something that most businesses ignore, and you can use that to your advantage!  Research shows that up to 33% of the US population uses Bing on a monthly basis, with over 5 billion searches on the Bing network each month.  Bing has some great SEO tools, just like Google, including Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing Places, and Bing Connected Pages.  We'll break down how to use these tools and get your business listed in Bing, to tap into the hidden audience you may be missing out on! It's super easy to get your business setup on Bing Places Bing Places is the Bing equivalent to Google My Business (GMB) Yahoo pulls Bing Places business listings into the Yahoo Local search results AOL pulls Bing Places business listings into the AOL local search results Over 5 billion monthly searches on the Bing search network each month in the US Up to 33% of the US market is being served by Bing, via Bing, Yahoo, and AOL

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! 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 f

How To Use Google My Business Descriptions, Services, Attributes, and More Google My Business (GMB) is an extremely important part of SEO and the digital marketing strategy for any local business wishing to get found online.  In this weeks episode, we'll review some recent changes and updates to GMB, plus some important areas you'll want to take advantage of.  Find out how to continually optimize your listing, increase exposure, and stay up-to-date on any new GMB updates in the future! YOU'LL LEARN New features that are available to use in your Google My Business listing What you should do with the Google My Business description area How using the Google My Business description can benefit your SEO and exposure Overview of the new Services feature within your GMB listing How to match up your website structure with your GMB Services Best practices for Section names, Service titles, and Item Descriptions When you should or should not show your pricing in the GMB Services area Google has removed all anonymous r

These Are The Pages You Need To Include On Your Website What are the most important pages you need do have on your website - one of the most common questions we get asked! In this episode we'll break down the main pages that every local business should be including, and answer this question. These are the critical pages for Google bot and your customers, and you need to design them for both to have success. Here's what working for us right now and we hope it helps you, too! YOU'LL LEARN What are the critical and essential web pages that you need to have on your website Your homepage is the most important page on your website Using your primary Google My Business category on your homepage How to properly display your address and nearby cities you serve on your homepage Creating niche pages for the products and services you provide Including your secondary Google My Business categories in your niche pages Designing your pages for both your customers and Google to navigate and find Using an About Us page to sen

Apps For Website Change Monitoring, Change Detection, and Alerts Nowadays, there are many great website change detector apps to help monitor website changes and give you instant alerts to said changes! Ever have the pleasure of receiving a message from your customer, telling you your website is down? Or that you have an error on the page preventing them to buy or contact you? It's fun, right? No matter how great things seem to be going, errors can happen in an instant! We'll break down some of the free and low cost apps we use for change monitoring and to keep us instantly informed! Plus - learn how to use these same apps to spy on what your competition is doing! YOU'LL LEARN How to automatically monitor your website for downtime Get automatic alerts if your website goes offline, and when it comes back online Monitor your website for hacking and hijacking issues How to make sure your website does not have plugins causing on-page issues Ensure any content embedded into your website is always active Monitor sp

How To Take Better Photos For Your Website - Part 2 Matt Addington shares tips and tricks for taking your own photos for your website, with your smartphone, in part 2 of this interview. We'll also cover how to edit photos, great tools for editing built into your phone, and how to use photos on your website in the best way for maximum engagement and conversion. Matt shares some great tips that will make anyone better at taking photos, telling stories, and ultimately developing better content for your website! YOU'LL LEARN How to take great photos for your business with your smartphone What are the best angles to take photos with your iPhone How to zoom in on ordinary things to take dramatic photos Getting your camera to a place that you or others normally take for granted Don't let the background be a distraction ("when in doubt, leave it out") What is the HDR camera setting on your phone all about How using the touch focus feature on your phone can help take better photos Using built in editing features righ

How To Take Better Photos For Your Website - Part 1 One area of your website that can have a huge impact on user experience is the photos (or videos) that you have on your web pages. Interesting and engaging photos can draw customers in, enhance your image, and tell the story of your brand. We've got Matt Addington – photography wizard – in to talk about this. In part 1 of this two part episode, Matt shares some tips and tricks on how to take better photos for your website, to help make your pages stand out from the crowd and resonate with your customers! YOU'LL LEARN Techniques on how to take better photos with your smartphone Why images, photos, and video are more important than ever for your brand identity How to stand out with photos taken from a unique perspective How photos and videos can be used to tell a story and be more engaging Focus on a simple and tight image and remove background clutter for powerful images Use multiple images on your page to tell a story, instead of one all inclusive photo Gre

Introduction To The GMB Offer Posts and How To Craft A Great Offer Google has released a new feature within Google My Business (GMB) called Offer Posts. The new GMB offer posts are very similar to the traditional posts, but you can use them to post sales, discounts, promotions, or other special offers.  The new offer posts have some unique features like staring date and ending date, promo codes, and more! We'll break down the features, and go over some best practices to leverage this new feature to help you improve SEO, gain rankings, and get more sales! YOU'LL LEARN What is the "posts" feature in your Google My Business listing What is the new GMB offer posts feature How is an offer post different than a traditional post Where you'll find the GMB offer posts feature in your GMB listing How often you should put out new GMB posts How many words you can use in a GMB post What types of offer posts are having the best conversion rates How to construct a good offer within GMB offer posts How you can use keywords