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Have you heard the term local search citations? Perhaps you’ve heard the term local online directories instead. These listings of local businesses provide people with a list of potential businesses to contact for services. They may list all of the restaurants in an area, or dentists or plumbers. They act like the phone books of old by providing simplified listings of businesses within a given industry.

In addition to helping shoppers find the right match to their needs, behind the scenes local search directors also help search engines find and rank businesses favorably for local search.

Here’s how your business can use local search citations to boost search rankings and gain greater visibility in search engine results.

Local Search Citations Defined

A local search citation or local online directories (the terms may be used interchangeably) is any online mention of the name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a local business. It may come in the form of a directory such as the “10 Best Med Spas in Minnetonka” or the “5 Best Chinese Restaurants in Madison”. Or, you can find local search citations on sites like Yelp and Angie’s List™, which also provide places for customers to add their reviews about your business.

How Local Search Citations Improve Local Search Rank

Search engines scan the internet looking for contextual clues on how to improve the user experience or how to list search results in order of relevance to a user’s query. A search engine’s job is to match your inquiry to the best results. If you are looking for a local business, search engines want you to find businesses close to your location, not ones halfway across the state or country. Local search citations help search engines verify the business and its pertinent information.

Search engines also trust certain sites more than others. A well-known listing site for service providers such as Angie’s List™, carries more weight with search engines than “Joe’s List” which started yesterday (We just made that up but you get the idea). Getting your business included on popular and well-regarded listing sites can boost your local search profile, provided that your NAP is consistent from one directory to the next.

Make Local Search Citations Work for You

Consistency is the key to make local search citations work for you. While Google has evolved over the years and can tell the difference between 123 Main St. and 123 Main Street, if you have multiple phone numbers associated with the business, combined with old locations lingering on local directories, this can hurt your local search rankings. To a search engine, these are all unique addresses. If your business has changed locations multiple times, Google might even create a new Google My Business (GMB) listing that competes with your main listing and seriously impacts your local search positioning! Be sure that local search profiles include consistently presented information for each location.

Working with a company that specializes in Local Search

Many local business owners attempt to add their companies to local search directories, often with mixed or poor results. Why?

• They don’t have the time to commit to finding and updating their search listings
• They have no way of knowing which search directories rank favorably with Google and other search engines
• They do not have the attention to detail needed to ensure that 50 local addresses are consistent.
• They have no way of tracking the results of their work, so even if they do devote the time and resources to updating all of the local search engines, they don’t know if they were successful or not.

Does this sound like your business? Have you tried local search citations and failed because you just didn’t have the time to do it right?

If that’s the case, then it’s important to work with a company like Dashboard Interactive. We have the expertise and personnel to ensure that your local search citations are handled correctly. Plus, we can report back to you on the results of our work so you can see how your money achieved your marketing ROI.

Local search citations are vital for small businesses who cater to a specific geographic area. The next time you’re craving Mexican food in St. Paul or need a plumber in Plymouth, and you type a query into your favorite browser, think of how local search plays an important part in which businesses you choose to visit. We’re guessing it’s the businesses that appeared near the top of your search results, and we’d also put money on the fact that local search citations probably had something to do with why those companies appeared at the top of the results. Local search engine optimization truly benefits from local search citations.

You Can With Google Beacons

Beacons are one-way transmitters that are used to mark important places, such as your Local business. Typically, a Beacon is visible to a user’s mobile device from a range of up to 230 feet, allowing you (the business owner) to target potential new customers within range. By utilizing existing Bluetooth low energy (BLE) hardware technology, Beacons communicate with nearby smart devices. Devices enabled with what’s known as “Eddystone” technology are capable of receiving and transmitting data to smartphones, including Apple and Android devices. Beacons may be able to help your business in the following ways:

Impromptu Sales or Special Offers

Are you running a special today-only? Stores or other consumer businesses can advertise deals and promos through a Google Beacon broadcast to encourage nearby customers to purchase your products or services.

Reputation Management

Encourage users to leave a review using Google Beacon messages or notifications. After someone has been at your location for a set amount of time, prompt them to submit feedback. Reputation management is a valuable resource for improving your local search visibility.

Engagement Signals

The more engaged users are with your business, website, and services, the higher Google will value your pages. Engagement signals are important ranking factors for search engine results pages (SERPs).

If you would like to learn more about Google Beacons and see if it might be a fit for your business, please contact us. Beacons can be a great tool to assist in growing Local businesses.

Ever wonder if your Google Ads or other Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing efforts are paying off or coming close to reaching their potential? Are you concerned that you may be spending too much money or not reaching the right people? Have you tried PPC in the past, but you gave up because you felt it wasn’t working? If you answered yes to any of the above questions, a Pay-per-Click audit may be warranted.

Why should you invest in a Pay-per-Click (PPC) audit?

Most pay-per-click advertising campaigns have room for improvement. This is even more valid for small and medium-sized businesses because they have fewer resources and less expertise. We evaluate and optimize Pay-per-Click and other paid search campaigns on a daily basis and usually find opportunities that were either overlooked or the person managing the campaign was unaware of.

This is due to a number of reasons, but it boils down to knowledge, expertise and execution. There’s usually a reason that a PPC campaign isn’t performing up to expectations. Today PPC is more complicated than ever due to continued Google enhancements and the numbers of options and variations available. Even the legacy term Google AdWords is no longer used because Google has rebranded. The appropriate term is now Google Ads, partially due to the options available.

What do we evaluate in a PPC Audit?

At Dashboard Interactive, we evaluate a number of components of your Google Ads or other PPC campaigns. Each is important and each can determine if your pay-per-click efforts are successful or not. Let’s take a look.

Campaign and AdGroup Setup

Are the AdGroups set up properly? Are your Campaigns set up in a way that attempts to accomplish too much or should they be set up differently? Are you using the appropriate daily budget and how is it being allocated? The set-up of your campaigns and AdGroups can determine your effectiveness, efficiency and costs.

Ad Copy

How many characters are being used in your ads? How many ads are you running, how is your ad copy structured and is there a correlation between your ads and where your ads point? These questions can determine the number of potential customers who click on your ads and how many go elsewhere.

Landing Pages

Are the ads taking visitors to the right pages and are they designed in a way that connects with campaign visitors? What are your bounce rates and how do they compare? How about the conversion rate? A poor landing page or no landing page can potentially cost you money.

Goal Tracking

What conversion metrics are you attempting to measure? Are your campaigns set up in a way that you can measure if your goals are being met, based on quantitative data? If not, you may be making decisions based on partial information or the wrong information.

Keyword Match Types

Are you using the correct types of keyword phrases and are they set up properly? There are lots of options available. What are the quality scores for the keywords that you are using and what about negative keyword phrases? All these and more can determine how much you spend and how often your ads are served.

Testing

Are you testing each component of your campaigns and AdGroups? If not, it’s highly unlikely that you’re reaching your potential. It’s also highly likely that you’re wasting money.

More

These are just a few of the items we evaluate in a PPC audit and there are many more. Other items include Extensions, Geographic Targeting, Bid Strategy, Competition and more. The above elements can comprise hundreds of combinations tested over time, which is why properly managing PPC is in no way as easy as some PPC vendors make it out to be.

If you’d like to learn more about a PPC audit, contact Dashboard Interactive at 800-807-1852 or 763-242-2454. We’ve been specializing in pay-per-click advertising for over a decade and we are a Google Certified Partner. We’re good at what we do and we enjoy doing it. Maybe you need an additional set of eyes to take your pay-per-click and online marketing efforts to the next level.

 

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If your website is ever hacked, the attack can dramatically impact your business, especially if Google identifies the breach. The infographic shows the impact of a website hack as it relates to lead generation and e-commerce efforts. See how a breach can put the brakes on your digital marketing strategy while wasting valuable time and money. Unfortunately, the threat is real as over 32,000 websites are breached each day. Take a look at the steps associated with a website hack.

(click image for larger view)

(click image for larger view)

 

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If you’re not using Attribution Modeling, you’re probably making less than ideal digital marketing decisions.

Many business owners, agency personnel and marketing executives may not be familiar with Attribution Modeling, but this very important feature in Google Analytics can provide insight to help you determine the effectiveness and efficiency of your overall marketing and digital marketing strategy.

Measurement and attribution are the foundation on which fact-based marketing decisions are made, yet with today’s customer acquisition process being highly fragmented across multiple channels and devices, this creates complexity and additional challenges that must be overcome.

What is Attribution Modeling?

Attribution modeling assigns credit for sales and conversions to touchpoints in conversion paths. Think of an attribution model as a rule, or set of rules, that dictate how credit for sales and conversions are assigned. This is important as some touchpoints may be worth more than others.

Attribution modeling example (images, courtesy of Google)

A potential new customer finds your site by clicking one of your Google Ads. He returns one week later by clicking over from Facebook. That same day, he comes back a third time via your eNewsletter, then a few hours later, he returns again directly and request a call via the contact form on the website.

What Does it Mean?

If you set up and evaluate data based on the appropriate attribution model, you’re positioned to make knowledgeable big-picture decisions based on accurate data.

If the wrong attribution model is utilized, you may receive a partial picture or evaluate data that’s inconsistent with your original goals and make less than ideal marketing decisions. This could lead to budgets being cut for initiatives that are working or overspending on tactics that may not be performing as hoped.

With proper measurement and interpretation, marketers can track each step in the sales process – even if the user interacts with multiple channels via different devices. It’s important for marketers to know how much credit to assign to each touchpoint along the way. Proper allocation yields accurate data which can be used to make more informed strategic and budget-related marketing decisions.

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We tweet, we like, we share and pin…but which social media websites should you use for your
business? The answer, like most things in life, is really, “It depends.”

Each social media website offers various pros and cons. Depending on your business’ needs and
your target audience, some sites may be better at reaching your potential audience than others.

Where Are Your Customers or Prospects?

The first question to ask before setting up any social media account is, “Where does your audience
enjoy spending time?” If you’re posting to social media accounts in order to acquire customers or
engender loyalty among existing customers, you need to be sharing on platforms where your
audience enjoys spending their time.

Ask yourself:

• Who are my core customers and prospects?
• What do I know about them? How old are they, and what do they like to learn about my products and services?
• What needs do they have, and how can I help them?

What Are You Selling?

Let’s take a deeper look. If your customers love do it yourself (DIY) projects and you own a hardware store, sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook may be great places to share project details and photos of your products in action to entice customers back into your store. If you have a busy local dental office, however, you won’t get far showing photos of root canals and tooth fillings on Pinterest! Sharing links to articles on Twitter and Facebook may be better for you.

Each social media site offers unique pros and cons. Photo-based sites such as Instagram and Pinterest are great for companies that sell heavily based on pictures of their items. Others find that professional networking sites such as LinkedIn offer them the best advantage for their business. It all depends on what you’re selling and your goals for social media.

Get Help with Social Media Marketing

The social media marketing landscape changes quickly. Some sites are gaining in popularity, while other sites decrease in popularity. A good social media marketing plan works in concert with an overarching internet marketing strategy, a well-designed website, and a great content marketing plan.

Dashboard Interactive can help you develop a robust social media marketing plan that offers cost effective, measurable social media marketing. We have a team of content strategies, social media marketers, internet marketing specialists and more to help you acquire, retain and create loyal customers. Call us at 1-800- 807-1852 for a consultation today.

For Small and Medium Sized Business Owners and Agencies.

With only two months left in 2018, it’s crunch time for many businesses. There are also many major Google, WordPress and other Digital Marketing announcements that have recently been made that may directly impact your business. In this edition of Dashboard Interactive News, we’ll delve into news and announcements that may be affecting your Digital Marketing, Website and Social Media initiatives or may impact them in the future. We’ll also overview an exciting Google offering that you may or may not be aware of.

Google Mobile First Indexing – Why You Should Care

If you use your website to generate new sales leads, sell products online or build brand awareness, Mobile First Indexing is important. In the past, Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have typically used the desktop version of a page’s content for search engine rankings.
Mobile-first indexing means that Google now uses the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking. This means that Mobile First pages achieve ranking priority over non-Mobile First pages.
Learn More

Have you noticed a drop in your website traffic or website leads or sales over the past three months?

If so, the issue could be SSL related.
Its been three months since Google flipped the switch and required that all websites shift over to HTTPS encryption or be identified as “Not Secure” in their Chrome URL browser bar. Given that Chrome dominates search with 68% market share, not having an SSL certificate can significantly impact your rankings.
This change was over two years in the making, and if this is new information, you may want to contact your web developer. Hopefully, they were aware and shared this information as not converting to HTTPS, can impact website visitors, website leads and revenue. You are also a target for hackers without SSL in place.
Learn More

Using Social Media to Help Drive Google Rankings

You may have heard that Social Media can help improve your Google rankings. That’s true, but it’s also true that the Social Media properties that you use and how you use them are essential in the eyes of Google as well. Not all major Social Media properties carry the same weight. Click to learn more on the list of Social Media properties that provide the biggest bang for the buck with Google, when utilized effectively and consistently.
Learn More

WordPress Gutenberg Update

WordPress websites currently account for over 30% of all sites on the internet and WordPress has developed a reputation for ease of use and efficiency. It’s dashboard editor; however, (the place where you put the words and images and other items that go in your website pages and posts), will be undergoing a major upgrade soon. This upgrade will provide plugin users with more flexibility over their layouts and create additional website possibilities without extensive knowledge of HTML or CSS code.
 
This upgrade, called Gutenberg, has been in development for some time. There had been no official release date, or clear path for developers to test (with certainty) how it will affect their themes, plugins or websites. This changed about a week ago when WordPress announced that mid-late November Gutenberg would be going live and integrated directly as part of the new version of WordPress.
Learn More

Changing Dissatisfied Customers into Fans

Dashboard Interactive has a Home Services client who provides excellent customer service. These individuals are skilled at what they do and are recognized as experts in their field. They are honest, hardworking people who do business with integrity. Until recently, all of their Google reviews were 5-stars. Then, the unthinkable happened: one dissatisfied customer gave them a 1-star rating.

A little background: Our client was contacted by the homeowner behind the 1-star rating. They completed the project and found additional issues that they addressed before the customers warranty expired. This saved the customer over $1,400. It’s not often that you save more money than the actual cost of the project.

A few months later, another company visited the same homeowner and completed additional work. Problems surfaced after the other company finished their project. The homeowner blamed our client and left a one-star review on Google even though our client was not responsible for the homeowner’s dissatisfaction. That’s when our Home Services client called us.

After talking with our customer, we realized the one-star review was not warranted. The client had attempted to resolve the issue with their customer directly and was blamed for a problem that they did not cause. We spoke with the employee who actually did the work and then developed a response.

We were successful in presenting a clear, logical response to the comments that were made on Google. It was important for others who might see the review to understand that our client was not at fault. We were successful in crafting a bullet proof message that didn’t embarrass the reviewer, yet also stated the facts.

A few months went by and we’d moved onto other things. We monitor reviews for all of our clients and my social media person noticed that the review had been changed to five stars and we shared the news with the client. It was a very good meeting and now each of their over 20 Google reviews is once again five stars.

In summary, it pays to do excellent work and provide great service while treating others with respect. It also pays to respond to unwarranted negative reviews in a way that states the facts yet doesn’t embarrass the reviewer. In the end, this turned out to be a win/win for both parties.