One of the greatest resources I believe in for local SEO is the online directory. Local search testing has been done and it supports the fact that the more geo citations you have, the more trust search engines will have in your site for local search results.

But with so many local directories and search engines, where do you start? And how do you prevent yourself from becoming spammy? Well, fortunately these directories, from Google Places (formerly Google Local) to Super Pages, all pull their data from a few business listing databases. Now, don’t get confused. The bigger sites like Google and Yahoo still maintain their own database, but they also utilize the sites below to round out their index. And luckily for all of us, the big databases like Super Media and Express Update USA allow you to update and add your submission FOR FREE. Can’t beat that.

Now, I’ve taken the liberty of doing all the research and condensing the data of “who shares what with whom” into the flowchart below.  Take a gander and save yourself some time!

And to make things even easier, here are links to the “Add Listing” pages for the above directories:

• Super Media
• Express Update USA
• Bing
• Dex
• Google
• City Grid Media
• Localeze
• Acxiom

Special thanks to localtype.com and Bruce Clay in creating this post.

I’ve been a sports freak nearly all my life – as a player, coach and fan.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that success is dependent on three main things:  hard work, skill level and most of all, teamwork.  We’ve all heard the sayings “There’s no ‘I’ in TEAM” and “You win as a team and you lose as a team.”  Yes, there are “stars” (highly skilled players) on every team, but all the members of the team have to contribute to be successful.  Watch a pass play unfold during a football game from above  (where you can’t see their numbers or faces) as the receivers run their routes, the linemen execute their blocks, the backfield blocks or  slips out into the flat and the quarterback reads the defense to hopefully make the best choice for his team to advance.  Or watch a baseball game from high above (again, the names and faces don’t matter) as a ball is hit to the gap and you will see EVERY player take action with players backing up each other, lining up for a relay and communicating during the play.  To me, it’s a work of art that requires commitment from every team member.

In the business world, it’s no different.  Success is dependent on the same 3 things and I was so thrilled to see it “live” during a meeting this past Friday.  I know.  I know.  “Thrilled” during a meeting?  What?  If I was Jim Gaffigan (the comedian), I would now mutter under my breath, “This guy’s sick”.  Anyway, our Web Marketing Team has grown quickly over the last few years and as a result, we’ve carefully brought in some tremendous marketing and technology talent to take great care of Beacon’s clients, many of which are extremely high profile with high expectations.  When we started the web marketing business unit here at Beacon over 10 years ago, it was primarily search engine optimization (organic) with a single specialist assigned to our clients.  Once we got to a point where we had enough SEO clients to justify adding more staff, I quickly realized that the overall knowledge base of the team grew exponentially because they could bounce ideas off each other, discuss techniques and essentially, provide significantly more value to our client base.

Like in any competitive arena, players have a choice:  They can play for themselves or they can play for the team.  But guess what, our clients’ success and Beacon’s success requires teamwork.  I’ve seen way too many “one-person shops” that just can’t compete and their clients truly have “all their eggs in one basket” (I hate clichés, but this works here!).  Can a one-man shop seriously stay current and provide expertise in all the critical areas – SEO, PPC, social media marketing (SMM), Google Analytics, eMail, Shopping Engines, Google Website Optimizer, and many other areas?  It’s essentially evolving into a model that is very similar to an IT Development Team – requiring varying areas of expertise. Beacon’s clients get a team of experts – a team that works hard and shares information to win the marketing battles that occur on the internet. 

This leads me back to this “thrilling meeting”… 

So I’m sitting at the end of our board room table and the entire web marketing team is in attendance.  Every Friday morning, we come together to discuss 2-3 of our clients in depth from a marketing, technical and business standpoint.  Collectively, we look at their website.  We look at their pay-per-click ads.  We look at their key phrases and SEO results.  We dig deep into Google Analytics and review Google Website Optimizer testing results.  We talk about what’s working and what isn’t.  We brainstorm for new ideas.  We share alternative approaches, new techniques and the latest industry information.  Well, at last Friday’s meeting it dawned on me that it’s like a surgical team (or, for the sports theme, maybe it’s more like a “chalk talk”).  This group is totally focused as a TEAM, not as individuals, for the sole purpose of providing the best results for our clients.  It was truly amazing to see this group of bona fide experts working together to make a good thing even better – much like watching that pass play or handling that ball hit to the gap.  I’m looking forward to next Friday’s meeting!

As social media and traditional internet continue to blur their boundaries, the availability of online reviews has never been higher.  You can read about people’s experiences with given companies in blog posts, on forums, in countless yellow page directories, and even on Twitter or other social media.  Have you searched for you company in Twitter yet?  You may find what your customers are saying about you to be very interesting and/or surprising.  Good reviews offer free online advertising, and bad reviews may be even more valuable!  If the latter part of that statement seems odd to you, read on…

There are three primary benefits that a bad review can offer.  You might be able to think of more, but I think most can fit under these large umbrellas:

• First, bad reviews add credibility to the good ones.  If I see a product listed on a retail page that has 100% glowing reviews, I tend to take it with a grain of salt.  No company leaves its customers 100% satisfied.  This leads one to believe that these responses are fluff and possibly even bought and paid for.  However, a site that shows a product/service to have 85% positive reviews has more credibility.  It is less likely that the site manager is screening or cherry picking reviews.  There is an acknowledgment that the product/service may not be for everybody.  As a consumer, I still learn that the vast majority of the customers were happy with their purchase and the information is more believable.
• Second, bad reviews show you where your company can improve.  This follows the old adage that we learn more from our mistakes than our successes.  Your customers may see your business much differently than you do.  Learn from this – odds are that one bad review online represents many angry customers overall.  If you are not meeting their expectations, you may have to adjust your business or how you are marketing/presenting it.
• Third, and most important from a web marketing perspective, ANY review offers exposure.  By reading reviews, SEOs can learn what keywords people are linking with a brand  Getalistic has a good methodology to follow for using reviews to improve your product/service descriptions:  read here.  Sometimes, reviewers will even link to your company’s site.  The search engines do not care that this is a bad review, that link still has clout for your rankings.  At the end of the day, people talking about you and your company is far better than being forgotten or ignored.

None of this is to say that ALL publicity is good publicity.  JetBlue was once seen as a legitimate competitor to Southwest Airlines as the king of airline efficiency, but its image still has not fully recovered from stranding thousands of passengers (including leaving planes on the runway for up to 8 hours) after a snowstorm in February of 2007.  This came just two years after Thomas Friedman raved about their efficient information systems consisting of mothers-working-from-their-homes-across-the-entire-country in his best seller The World is Flat.  It turns out that it was a great system…as long as everything was working perfectly.  When it fell apart, the results were disastrous and JetBlue saw its stock price fall 70% over the next year.

Take all this advice within reason.  If you are getting 5-15% bad reviews, use them to build and improve your business.  If you are getting 80% bad reviews, go back to school and learn a new trade.

Finally, I leave you with this takeaway – encourage all your customers to write and publish reviews online, even the dissatisfied ones.  Put a link to your Twitter or Facebook feed on your site, or send people to your favorite yellow pages directory and ask them to review their experience.  Do not try to act as a censor (provided that it is not obvious spam or an attack from a competitor), encourage free expression and feedback.  Your ego may take a hit, but your business will love it.

-EW, Alumnus of the #7 ranked Kansas State Wildcats

Pubcon is the Las Vegas conference that deals with Web Marketing, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Web Tools, and every intersection of the aforementioned.  For three days, we spent 8 hours going from session to session to get advice and interact with some of the biggest names in the industry (Matt Cutts, the exalted one himself from Google, was in attendance).

So what did I learn in my time in Vegas? Good question. Contrary to what may be popular belief, it had nothing to do with a roulette wheel, the sports book (although I am kicking myself for not laying down $50 on the Spurs over the Mavericks), or how to spot a lady of the evening along the Strip. No, my new knowledge is more boring, but applicable to the job that I do. First, I learned that Beacon is well ahead of the curve on many industry practices. With only six months here, I expected to get a bit overwhelmed with new knowledge and competitors’ insights. Instead, I saw that many presenters were reinforcing practices that we already do (i.e. extensive keyword analysis) and many of our competitors were asking questions that I could have answered with ease.

On the new information front, I did get exposure to some programs, such as Majestic, that I have not been using that I am itching to try moving forward.  In addition, while they may not be practices directly suggested by the speakers, I was able to step away from some of my standard techniques and look at how I can introduce some new items with my current clients.  Sometimes, one can get so wrapped up in SEO that he forgets that it is a means to an end, not the end itself. I have some great ideas that will be very applicable for some of the companies I work with heading into the winter season.

Overall, it was a very worthwhile trip.  I am looking forward to going back next year.  Next time, I will remember to bet on the Spurs.

(logo courtesy of pubcon)

- EW

Google announced a change to its search infrastructure and is calling the change “Google Caffeine.” Implying faster web results, the objectives of the next generation of Google were revealed in a Google Webmaster Central Blog post.

In the post, three words immediately jumped out at me.

1. CRAWL

2. INDEX

3. RANK

Google wants to do these three things ”as quickly as possible.”

Caffeine is coming after the heels of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine which had a knack for reporting news very quickly. Not a slack, Google has created Caffeine to bring more relevant results to the search rankings faster.

Not only does Google want to be quicker on the draw, Google wants to be more efficient. A recent New York Times article on job opportunities in statistics mentioned a Googler who had worked on a new Google algorithm model that “increased the chances that the crawler would scan frequently updated web pages and make fewer trips to more static ones.”

For search engine optimization, Caffeine certainly places more emphasis on keeping content updated and fresh. I am sure we will see fluctuations in the search rankings as part of your everday cup of joe.

Yahoo signed a deal with Microsoft’s search engine Bing. In the near future, Bing will provide the search engine results for Yahoo. In return, Microsoft gets to keep a percentage of the ad revenue on Yahoo. The deal is for ten years.

All in all, I don’t think it is a bad deal for Yahoo. With the advent of Bing, Yahoo was destined to fall behind in search. Although it seemed as if Yahoo was making efforts in keeping up with advances in search technology, Yahoo just never pulled through on applying and improving its search results. I think Yahoo just threw in the towel due to a lack of willingness to focus more resources on search itself.

What does this mean for SEO? It means that your Yahoo rankings will change. Your Yahoo search engine rankings will become Bing rankings. Yahoo search optimization will now follow Bing terms of agreement. Microsoft search engine optimization has not been at the forefront, but this will likely change as well. We do know that Bing does favor older sites, especially older sites with authority.

For all you webmasters and seo consultant/ analysts, now would be a good time to become familiar with the Bing SEO Guide.

You never know how the final version of an interview will turn out, but I thought this turned out pretty good. We cover a lot of information about eCommerce, search engine marketing and site search that many readers may find informative. Enjoy!

‘Twas the day before Christmas, when all through the halls
All our sites were generating leads and qualified calls
Tracy’s team of eCommerce engineers coded with care,
In the hopes to avoid sneaky hackers’ malware;
John had our servers nestled all snug on their shelves,
While Barracuda spam filters blocked visions of naked elves;
And Brad with his backlinks, and Mark with his web apps,
Had just increased rankings with an SEO-friendly sitemap,
When out in Cascade Server there arose such a flurry,
As Justin typed CMS data definitions in a terrific hurry;
With a company like this, so lively and quick
I knew in a moment it must be Beacon Tech.

Have a wonderful holiday and please enjoy our card designed by Beacon’s own Wendy Honeycutt.