Syzlak’s SEM

SearchFest 09 Recap – Local & HyperLocal

Posted on: March 12, 2009 by Syzlak Comments

Over the next few days, I’ll be recapping various sessions from SearchFest09. Today, Local & HyperLocal Marketing

Local & HyperLocal Search Marketing

Let’s start by setting the stage a little bit. While most of my work involves being a snarky asshole on a blog and working on Nationwide PPC, Display and SEO, there was once a time when I was strictly a local marketer. It was ages ago back in 2004, before the IYP was a major player, when the world of local was dominated moreso by the “super-aggregators” like BellSouth, Verizon and SuperPages. Back then, the world was different. You could outrank a competitor by paying more than they did, and Overture (yeah, I know) would actually tell you how much to bid to jump ahead of your rivals. Bruce Springsteen called them glory days, RuPaul called them glory hole days, I called them the days when you could walk into work hungover and still please your clients.

So, although I don’t do a lot of Local Search today, it’s still fascinating to me.

SearchFest 09 - Local...with a guy in the way

First up, Greg Hartnett of Best of the Web.

Surprisingly, his advice is to start your online campaign with the web directories. While I can’t disagree, it does kindof feel like Google saying the best place to start is AdWords. However, to qualify this he encourages us to work only with the good ones.

• Yahoo Directory
• Best of the Web
• Business.com

He also stresses the importance of finding and utilizing local niche directories. This is really one of the best pieces of advice during his entire presentation. One of the things that can really hold back a local campaign is the failure to be seen in the right places.

What’s another great piece of advice? Properly using phone numbers and addresses. This is something that we used back in ‘04 to differentiate the 500 Atlanta Plumbers for which we used to have to write titles and descriptions. One thing that Greg pointed out is to use 1 phone number and address per page, as search engines will be confused as to which phone number/address to associate with the listing. Priceless. This has a two-fold effect. First, you’ve made the engine’s job easier, which is crucial because we all know that the search engines are too stupid to process 4 phone numbers, secondly, you’ve a reason for 3 more pages of content, phone numbers, et cetera to work for you on the engines.

Last thought – Greg seems like he could be a tough guy.

Now, Mary Bowling from seOverflow.com

I have 2 pages of notes on Mary’s presentation, that being said, you’re not getting all of them here. Sorry, but you don’t want to be reading my site for 10 minutes either.

Of the things that I do wish to share, the first head smacker was when Mary introduced an age-old local marketing idea to the crowd – create a geo-targeted tagline. How insanely simple. It’s so simple that you probably know about 30 places around your town (maybe 4 places for my potato farming readers and those stuck out in the middle of Canada ) that have geo-targeted taglines. Neighborhoods, cities, region, state, anything can be used; just take whatever you want, combined with your service (e.g. Boise’s Famous Pizzeria), and boom goes the dynamite.

The other, slightly less obvious, suggestion Mary had was to pusue citations in whatever form (not just links). Apparently, seeing a business name referenced throughout the web builds trust with Google and other engines. Obviously, it’s easier to pursue a reference or review or note than a link, and although it may not have the strongest end impact, trust is trust, and is best to be built than squandered.

Last thought – Mary needs a PowerPoint consultant

Next, my man, Matt McGee – Small Business SEM

First, Matt recaps what’s happening in the Blogging and SEO session “Blogging is good for search.” Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with the conference. Matt’s still got it.

The local blog, Matt and his wife run 4 of them. His wife being a real estate agent, obviously has great reasons for having a local blog. It conveys an inherent knowledge of their city, the schools, restaurants, stores, doings, et cetera. A level of expertise is communicated to the readers, while, most importantly, not plugging any real estate content along the way. This is a common mistake for the small, local blogger – the thought that their blog must actually serve a purpose to their business aside from content, traffic, readership, subscriptions, comments, links, advertising space, references…do I need to continue?

So many small business/local blogs fail on this very first step. I’m a plumber so I need to have a blog all about plumbing, or I’m a dentist so I could write about silly things that happen when I put patients under. Well, yes, I’d read about how you lost your licesnse to Dr., however, you could also just write about the new restaurants going in across the street and capitalize on the traffic that’s interested in those restaurants. The same people that are looking for those new restaurants probably have teeth, and they might live in your neighborhood. Put it together Hoss.

Again, I’ll hold back on Matt’s presentation as I want to save some info for myself; however, this was really the crux of his presentation.

Last thought – Only Matt could make Tri-Cities sound nice

Also, I have to get one plug in here for David Mihm & Patrick Sexton’s GetListed.org. It’s a great little tool for any company with a local office to leverage their local presence.

That’s all for now, Technical SEO will be up soon.