SEO Articles | 6S Marketing

How To Rank In Google Local

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

If you have ever tried to list a business in the top few or so positions in Google Maps without success, you’re not alone. This can be a frustrating and fruitless effort on any Marketer or Business Owner’s part. Determining which information to include, how to best include the information, and where to include it can be a time consuming task.

This Whitepaper will cover the following topics:

What is Google Local?
Where Google validates & gathers business information
How to create a proper & well optimized Local Business Listing
How to create Local Business Ads in AdWords
Mobile Ads for Google Maps for Mobile
Global Recommendations
Google Local Quality Guidelines
Google Local Reporting Capabilities
Conclusion

Download the Google Local Whitepaper »

History

In March 2004, Google introduced Google Local, offering relevant neighborhood listings, maps and directions as a local search platform. This was Google‟s answer to “Localize” search results in the global search realm.

In February 2005, Google Maps goes live offering an even more advanced form of localized search with plotted business locations relevant to the type of business searched for.

Present

Three years later Google Local has combined with Google Maps to offer traffic information, transit information, street views, and the ability to serve both sponsored and free business listings.

What Is Google Local?

Google Local is a combination of Google Maps and localized business listings, search results & sponsored Ad serving. The two Ad serving components that make Google Local are:

Google Local Business Center (LBC)
Google AdWords

The Ads created in the LBC and AdWords are called Google Local Listings.

There are two types of Local listings that are served in Google Maps:

Business Listings – Free business listings created in the Local Business Center. These can be used by those businesses that do not have a website.
Business Ads – Sponsored (paid) business ads created in Google AdWords. Part of the AdWords Online Advertising platform, these Ads are for those businesses that do have a website.

To truly ensure maximum exposure online and full benefits of Google Local, it is recommended that both of these listing types be utilized.

For the full 6S Marketing Whitepaper on Google Local, Download the PDF

Regardless of your online goals, 6S Marketing’s online marketing strategists can help you. Contact us today to learn more.

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Emerging Trends in SEO

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

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Since search engines have never published their algorithms and are not likely to do so in the foreseeable future,
the field of Organic Search Engine Optimization is usually furrowed by doubt and uncertainty. In this landscape
the one guarantee is change.

Online Advertising Figures Continue to Increase

Synonymous with Google as a household name, is the rise of
search in today’s online marketing mix and this keeps SEO
strategists constantly on their toes to stay ahead of the game.
In July this year the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) reported
that online advertising figures for Canada had risen 38% in
2007 from the previous year. This shows the increasing
importance that marketers are placing on the web. Pertinently,
the greatest growth in online spend was search.Earlier this summer Microsoft described its focus on search
technology as ‘mission critical’ to reporters at Associated
Press. Following a failed bid to buy Yahoo Inc, the software
giant turned to Social Media data mining and persuaded
Facebook to incorporate Microsoft’s Live Search engine into
their site. Meanwhile other search engines are focusing on
vertical fractures – like Ask.com’s 3D search (where relevant
multimedia results are displayed in a panel without users
leaving the page) or sites like Zillow which specialize in real
estate, Avvo who deal with everything legal and Technorati –
experts in the blogosphere. While the big guns battle it out for
dominance and the lesser-knowns progress laterally, we can
expect to see some dramatic changes on the search scene in
the coming months.

All this points to increasing weight and value being placed on the role of the Search Engine Marketer. And with the
conversion rates between organic and paid results continuing to favor the organic listings, the pressure is on to
anticipate and work with updates from the search engines.At 6S Marketing in Vancouver, staff strive to keep up to date with the emerging trends in organic search engine
optimization. Here are six key areas in which SEO strategists focus. A six-point guide to SEO at 6S:

Personalized Search

While personalized search is an established functionality, Google and the other search engines are competitively
innovating to create results, browsers and toolbars (like Google Chrome and Microsoft’s Live Search bar) that
are tailored to the individual. Yahoo! recently released “Search Monkey”, a plug-in that pulls information from a
website and from a site owner data feed to create personalized search results that include videos, addresses
and other relevant details that Yahoo! feels may be important to the user. For SEO strategists this causes
difficulties in standardizing results. But on the positive side, niche industry websites now climb in their own
specialized area of search rankings, resulting in a new era of micro-search success.

Geo Location

Google has long been logging users’ IP addresses and serving results based on where the searcher is in the
world. However, since they started to include the ‘Local Business center’ listing in results pages, geo-location is
now vital when establishing search tactics. As Google ranks sites in their local listings differently to their organic
SERPS, SEO specialists must strike a balance between clients gaining rank in either local or organic results. For
instance clients in the hotel and leisure industry have found it increasingly important to appear in local listings for
users looking for accommodation in their area. Other companies with a more global appeal (like Nike or Nintendo)
have less need to specialize. Establishing how important geo targeting is to a client and tailoring search tactics to
accommodate it has become standard SEO practice.

Video Search

When Google acquired YouTube it was not a financiallymotivated
move. The Ad revenue that YouTube could provide
was far less valuable than the content it made available to
Google. A recent Google Labs experiment, “GAudi”
demonstrates how seriously Google is taking the ability to
index video content. GAudi uses speech technology to find
spoken words inside videos and lets the user jump to that
portion of the video – providing amazing potential for indexing
rich media content on the web. For now, the video search
optimization solution is viral; creating a customized video player
widget for your website or blog audience and encouraging them
to share.

Mobile Search

Mobile search is on the up. According to comScore Metrics, the number of mobile search queries in June 2008
was double those of the previous year. Since Yahoo! analyst Russell Beattie declared: ‘it’s really not a matter of
IF the mobile phone will become the dominant internet platform any more but WHEN” – SEOs and developers
have been hard at work optimizing their sites for mobile search. And with a screen of two or three inches wide,
designing for the medium is more challenging and calls for an elegant user experience. While traditional SEO still
applies in mobile, there are now techniques to be considered for your mobile site to gain exposure on the search
engines. SEO’s need to ensure the site is compliant and coded in XHTML as well as submitting a mobile sitemap
to Google and Yahoo who both now accept these formats.

Mobile Phone to be Dominent Internet Platform

Link Quality

These days, more and more emphasis is being placed on the quality of link building. In 2003 when Google
bought Applied Semantics it was obvious which direction they’d take their linking strategy. The ability to collate
and index a page based on its overall content has become a central part of the Google inbound linking strategy.
As search engine algorithms evolve to include more semantic linking technology, it’s more critical than ever to
gain quality, authoritative and trustworthy links rather than the former sheer quantity. As Ivan Strouchliak noted
on seochat.com, “Users abandoned former search leaders AltaVista, Excite, AllTheWeb, Hotbot and others
because they could not maintain spam free indexes and return useful websites”.Expect to see growth continue
in the area of semantic linking as the need for quality over quantity increases.

Search Functions on Social Networking Sites

TechCrunch recently reported that Google is in final negotiations to buy Digg for about $200 million. Aside
from terminating Microsoft’s ad deal with Digg the ramifications of the purchase could pose further reaching
questions about the direction Google intends to take its own search algorithm. Even Google, the best so far
at search advertising, has acknowledged difficulties making money on social networking sites. However the
pursuit of Digg could be seen more as an interest in the platform’s search algorithm than the revenue it
could add to Google. Are we potentially looking at Google experimenting with social bookmarking as a way
of ranking pages and sites? It’s too early to tell where they’ll take the technology but it’s certainly one to
watch in the future.

About The Author:

John Blown is the Managing Director of 6S Marketing Inc., Canada’s largest Search Marketing Agency. As a
veteran of the Search Marketing industry, John has been providing Internet marketing consulting for over
10 years to hundreds of clients across the globe. John is consistently called upon to provide expert
commentary and articles within the Internet marketing discipline. To contact John directly email -
john@6smarketing.com.

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Online Marketing in an Unstable Economy

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

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Experts and checkbooks around the world agree, the global economy is entering recession conditions accompanied by stock market behavior unseen since the 1930’s. Businesses across industries are being forced to tighten spending for fear that sudden movements in this thin ice environment will create the crack that sends their company into icy and unforgiving waters.

Out of the ashes, however, rise well-placed industries able to weather the economic storm, and perhaps even benefit. Online marketing is one such industry. Remaining strong as companies slash traditional marketing and advertising budgets, the strength of this niche industry highlights the benefits offered by online marketing that have set it apart, and at an advantage.

Economic Woes

Recessionary trends across world markets have spiraled in recent months and show no signs of stopping soon. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported that global economic growth is due to slow to 3.9% this year and be stunted an additional 3% in 2009, bringing economic activity to the lowest levels experienced since 2002.

Despite the intervention of governments around the world to rescue economies in peril, numbers continue to dip in sales, equity value, and consumer confidence. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has stated that despite an injection of $700-billion into the economy, an increasing number of firms that were previously stable are likely to fail in the months ahead.

Traditional Marketing and Advertising: Downward Trends

Unfortunately, the traditional marketing and advertising sectors are bearing the brunt of the current economic conditions budget cuts. Emarketer reports that 59% of marketing executives initiated a decrease in spending on traditional marketing in 2008 and 65% decreased budgets for traditional advertising. Additionally, the Newspaper Advertising Association of America reports that total newspaper advertising revenues fell by $3-billion in the first six months of 2008, marking the lowest level in 12 years.

The Strength of Online Marketing

In stark comparison to the struggling traditional marketing sectors, online marketing firms have been steadily building market share for several years and are surprisingly unaffected by the current failing markets. Displaying a clear strength in a clearly chaotic business environment, both paid search and online advertising revenue have grown by 28% since 2007. Marketing Sherpa reports that 29% of medium to large businesses in Canada plan to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) spending in the upcoming year.

Explaining it All

During a recession, the initial instinct for most managers is to cut back on marketing expenditure – leaving them vulnerable to strategically minded competitors. But why shouldn’t they be strengthening marketing efforts to ensure market visibility when competition is tightest?

-Businesses aren’t forgetting marketing completely, but simply being strategic about how and where they spend their money. Evidence reveals that the only areas in marketing avoiding the current budget cuts are online. The uncomplicated reason behind this is that marketers are not likely to cut budgets that drive sales efficiently with an attractive ROI.

Vancouver, BC-based 6S Marketing is one of the largest online marketing firms in North America. They provide search engine marketing services aimed at driving profits with targeted and effective online presence. Co-founder and President, Chris Breikss, reports that the company has seen relatively unchanged client volume and levels of spending during these past few months of economic turmoil. The simple reason is that “Clients are more willing to spend money if they can see that they are gaining results.” explains Breikss.

Breikss makes this critical point explaining the edge of online marketing over traditional methods that has been further revealed as a result of recent economic decline. Online marketing differentiates itself from traditional marketing methods in several ways:

Traditional Marketing vs Online

1. Quantifiable Results

Traditional marketing and advertising often involve multiple media campaigns and a process of testing strategies and techniques. Measuring results is a very difficult and subjective task that is at times impossible. Despite the esteem of traditional marketing and advertising, it is difficult to prove who actually saw your ad or received your message, or when and how they responded to it.

Online marketing is quite the opposite. Businesses who advertise online or use SEO can track and measure precisely how their company was discovered, the keywords used in a Google search, click through rates on advertisements, and direct sales results based on internet ads or searches. With this specific knowledge, tailoring campaigns to a particular market becomes easier and ROI can be easily monitored.

2. Flexible Messaging

With traditional marketing and advertising methods, there are no second chances at making an impression or communicating a message effectively. Once an ad is placed and printed it is essentially permanent.

Online marketing is a much more forgiving and flexible option. If it is shown that internet ads are not getting enough attention, companies can quickly and easily make strategic adjustments and reap the rewards. Changes to direction, strategy, and style can all be made with the click of a mouse. Using internet marketing, managers are able to ensure that their marketing strategy is in line emerging trends quickly and efficiently.

3. A Focused Approach

Using traditional marketing, a business can purchase a magazine ad or bill board in hopes that in the right place and at the right time their message will convince a potential buyer to purchase or become interested in their product or service. This approach does produce some results, but suffers from inaccuracy and high inherent costs. Additionally, many consumers are used to traditional approaches, and tend to ignore them. Modern consumers change the channel during commercials, skip over ad space, and have essentially tuned out such passive advertising methods.

Using internet marketing, a company can hone in on specific customers that are searching for a particular product or service. Rather than convincing a customer to try their product, internet marketing works to position a company as a resource for those consumers actually seeking their specific business offerings.

4. Cost Effectiveness

SEO and internet advertising is quite cost effective in comparison with traditional marketing and advertising, especially taking into account the factors explained thus far. A comparison of costs shows that the creation and distribution of an offline leaflet/magazine typically takes between 16 – 23 days to develop and deploy, compared to 4 days for an electronic version. Pair this with the fact that response rates from electronic publications are typically higher (20%) in online promotion versus offline (5% – 7%) and we have a clear winner for the savvy marketing dollar.

In the current economic conditions, more than ever, it is important to think strategically about where and how a marketing budget is spent. Those who understand this will be able to reap the rewards of greater market share when the economy eventually rebounds. With online marketing options showing marketers greater value, flexibility, and insight into the changing trends of the market, we can expect to see more companies advertizing online to help their firm weather the storm and succeed in the future.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7659086.stm

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7660236.stm

http://www.gannett.com/investor/data/2008/data0808.pdf

http://images.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006621

http://adcentercommunity.com/blogs/advertiser/archive/2008/10/07/uk-search-spend-up-28-how-does-this-affect-you.aspx

http://www.iabcanada.com/newsletters/080703.shtml

http://www.aicpa.org/pubs/tpcpa/feb2001/internet.htm

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Client Testimonials

6S Marketing's expertise and service offering positions them as one of our most important agency partners for the coming years. Facing a difficult recession last fall, how we spent our marketing dollars became an even more important...and I can tell you that 6S is one of the only companies we actually increased our budgets with. Their cpc and social media work with us has set new benchmarks for our company, and the broader industry, with more than 50% of our site traffic and 25% of our total online registrations now attributed to their efforts.

Ben Smith
VP Marketing
Polygon Realty Limited