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earlpearl
This is an excellent post. The logic behind it is impeccable. As a business operator I've used all of that. It definitely works. Its amazing that with small businesses it can vault you over the competitiion. Thanks for the article.
Dave
As a hard business operator and webmaster we are able to interview customers. Its an absolute advantage and provides excellent insights as described in this piece.
Interesting and quality article. I rarely look at bounce rates....maybe because they are too high. Thanks for writing this. Its an issue that I have ignored.
As commentators continue to emphasize maps, the impact of blended search with a huge 10 pac list dominating the important page real estate, and then an endless number of other ways to get the message out in local, I suggest that people don't forget organic results and high rankings for a variety of relevant local phrases. Similarly they shouldn't forget ppc ads run on a regional basis for generic search phrases that don't include a regional phrase in the search....
Not all searches generate maps. Searches with state names as part of the search phrase don't generate maps. Using the example above, if the San Francisco searcher looking for a plumber had used the following search terms... California plumber, or Northern California plumber or even less geographically helpful.... plumber a map would not show up. The effort has to be to capture all these variations on traffic.
Of course, the post is really about all the benefits and information in Local/Mobile SMX....and I'm sure speakers will address these topics as well.
Dave
Miriam: I'm glad you had fun with it. I struggled with it. I simply wasn't sure about most of the questions. It is interesting to see that there was a lot of disagreement on a lot of the items.
But, kudo's first. This was a great piece of research/compilation. It touched on many potential impacts for Maps/Local rankings on which we are trying to get a handle. Bravo, David. Good work.
I will say, that after 12 months of tracking I've seen one site I manage with lots of traffic and a variety of presentations in maps between an authoritative one map and presentations in maps with multiple sites listed.
Traffic from the authoritative one map phrase has jumped to about 50% higher than other phrases....that before maps entered organic google results all showed similar levels of traffic.
Those are results that have dramatically changed since before the entry of maps into organic results.
Before maps, that one phrase generated about as much traffic to the site as about 2-3 other similar regional phrases. The one map presentation has definitely increased traffic. (and that is after about 1 year of research with the authoritatitve one map for that phrase and about 3 years comparing traffic for phrases before maps.
Again, kudo's David
Its great work,.....and oh yeah....I would love to discuss this in greater detail with others. And David, with regard to your insights vis a vis how we answered....I can verify that my answers were colored by a variety of very specific sites I either manager or follow. My answers were definitely skewed toward what seems to be working for those sites in those industries and within those markets.
Meanwhile, I still struggled with answers. One very strong aspect of the study IMHO were the great number of different elements that David referenced that might affect Maps/Local rankings. It was thorough and way beyond what I have worked on with regard to sites.
Dave
What a great story. We lease to one of the Papa Johns franchisees in the DC area. I totally missed this.
I wonder which one it was. I gotta speak with the regional manager and see if he knows the scoop.
Meanwhile... sounds like corporate Papa Johns did the best they could on short notice to make up for this blunder.
But darn....I missed the $0.23 pizzas. Rats!!!!!!
Great article Bill:
And very worthwhile discussion. I've been involved in that for my business for a while (pre web) and have recent web experience for my business and saw an example for a business/website I was assisting.
First the example of the other business: These guys planted someone to promote their product in a forum for specialists who are the specific target audience for the product/company.
It was an obvious plant. The person kept referencing the product at the dumbest most inappropriate times and virtually all the time and at every opportunity within this forum. It was obvious.
Following a bunch of forum posts, others called out this "plant" and attacked him for his obvious effort at guerilla/underground marketing.
It was way too obvious, too overwhelming, too blatent.
The business lost any chance at penetrating the forum and a source of opportunity in that network. C'est la vie.
Our example:
Years ago we decided to always address word of mouth and always set up to emphasize customer service to build for testimonial sales. It has worked its part of our culture. On the other hand we decided to very quickly address any major complaints with immediately trying to correct the problem.....and make it go away. The worst thing in our eyes is negative word of mouth.
In this environment that is far more important. Word of mouth is spread virally through the web at rates dramatically faster and more far reaching than any source in the past.
We presented our business in a web forum that is relevant to one of our new sites. Prior to doing so we sweet talked a forum manager and commentator.
We have a lot of experience. We presented something within a community wherein we know that there would be eiher skepticism or negativity.
Our approach is not to turn attacks into battles but to emphasize that we are people and we do our best.....and in doing so.....there are benefits. We kept acknowledging the negatives and bringing up the alternative positives. The conversation in the forum got tons of commentary, an enormous number of eyeballs, and ultimately a fair presentation. We found commentary opportunities within the forum to create agreement between our business and the 2 people who were the biggest critics.
Our staff picked up a lot of pointers on how to overcome objections and we got tons of eyeballs from relevant people and possible customers.
But you can't act like a jerk or know it all in this environment of the web where anyone can take shots at you.
Its simply a wise article, Bill, and the citations.....oh the citations. How classic!!!!!!!
Story: Six AdSense Referral Lessons
That is a great story Matt and a nifty use of technology. In fact its an amazing story of using current technology to take a business out of the basement and make it webwide.
Thanks for the report....and congrats to Miriam.
Dave
I have a business that has been doing a twist on this for years. It works. sometimes you have to get after customers to get the response, even with the discount offer.
Its a great idea.
congrats.
It is problematic for website owners and webmasters that this continues to occur. It is one of those consistently reappearing comments in the Google Groups for Business Owners that never gets answered. The site to which I've communicated suggestions still has erroneous plusbox address information. I guess this has been occurring for about 1/2 a year and specifically about 4 months since it was first reported in google groups for business owners and since a google rep said they would check it out.
They never got a response from google.
While the suggestions in your article are "educated guesses" they seem to bear a reasonable effort at correcting the bad information, if only because they touch on topics referenced in various patents described by google and referenced at seobythesea.
Its ironic that universal search, which google introduced as an effort to improve results for the search visitor includes built in erroneous information that causes problems for some webmasters/site owners and problems for their customers (as reported by the site owner who I have tried to help).
Too bad Google doesn't help a bit with this problem.
There seems to be another solution in the works that Mike referenced to me earlier today;
Tim:
congrats on an interesting article with a lot of comments on your blog post and here. Its an interesting topic. My focus is more related to the approach taken by sling shot.
Should one decide to optimize an seo business for a local market, using slingshot's approach affords better results.
Dave
Having sold professional services into a local market for decades, advertised my company's resources, and been married to a board member of the local advertising agency community, I believe that if you want local seo clients, one should target and market to the largest potential clients in the region. One should target those clients. I'd look for the ones spending the most in local print, IYP, local radio and tv.
They already have the money to afford top notch seo services.
When one leaves it to the responses of local availability one typically gets the smallest clients.
Dave
After seeing MV's blog entry and reading the interview....It does seem like an ad to me....
I can see why Debra was motivated to ask the questions she asked.
If it smells like an ad...then I can see why Mike questioned its presence in sphinn subject to something that was deemed an ad being taken down.
I suppose its all in the eyes of the beholder.
Nice review. Boy is this a dilemma.
Riding it out is oh soooooooo tough.
Excellent story and nice analysis. I think last year there was some other reference to the data showing an increase in Google maps usage as of March, wherein Google started the process earlier.
Regardless of the timing of the uptick in Google Maps usage, it appears that Google's injection of maps (universal search) into generic searches that describe a geographic area and a service/product for a search that is something like Denver florist has been the chief reason behind this increase in traffic to google maps.
To the extent that this is reducing traffic to other maps products that is a significant business issue for the owners of competing products.
The second issue is that these business maps have inconsistant information that is often erroneous. This is creating big issues for a variety of businesses that are getting caught in this problem and are finding that it is difficult to correct the issues.
Come on Google. Start cleaning up maps!!!!!
That is a lot of evidence for pretty obscure phrases. So what gives?
Once Matt's hand stops smarting from the ;) smackdown, maybe he'll be able to give us an idea!!!!
Dave
Story: Google TrustRank Myth Busted!