local seo Archives

Announcing the Podcast: The Local Small Business Show
After years of helping small business owners with their social media and web development needs, it's time to help even more people. To do that, I've launched my own podcast, The Local Small Business Show. It's available so far on:
- iTunes
- Stitcher
- SoundCloud
- Blackberry
- TuneIn
- Miro
- Windows (which doesn't give us links so search)
- and all other directories via RSS
In each show, you can expect to find the top 5 most important updates related to changes you need to make for your business's social media, website, and other digital marketing. I'll keep you posted on the upcoming events, and share with you the pros that want to promote without being solicited.

Part of creating this show may be a bit self-serving. I love helping everyone stay current in an ever-changing internet sphere, but need a better way to get the information out to more people at the same time.

I'll be hosting the podcast at Simple Local Business. Simple Local Business is a project that I am working on to help small business owners learn the basics of maintaining their website, using social media, and connecting with their local community effectively.

To listen to the podcast, ask a question, or submit a review, visit http://simplelocalbusiness.com/podcastreview.
April 18, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Social Media

local seo, mobile marketing, Podcast, simple local business, social media, the local small business show, wordpress
Mobile Marketing Part 7 – Using Apps
Mobile marketing can include how your website looks, getting found locally, text message marketing, ads, paid search, and even apps. In this series, we’ve already reviewed many of these. Let’s look at mobile apps for your business.
1. Mobile websites
2. Location-based marketing
3. QR codes
4. SMS messages (like email newsletters)
5. Mobile ads
6. Mobile paid search
7. Apps
Caveat: A mobile app is different than a mobile website. Your app should do more than what someone can do visiting your website on their mobile device.

Examples of Mobile Apps for Your Business
- Loyalty rewards – two nearby ice cream businesses (Rita’s and Sweet FROG) use their mobile app to scan loyalty “cards” and additionally to push alerts to special promotions. Usually there is a QR code in the app for the store clerk to scan at your checkout.
- Ordering food and reserving tables – Chipotle’s app helps customers place their order for pickup and Starbucks will be rolling this feature out soon in their app.
- Shopping – whether you are buying clothes or car parts, sometimes a shopping cart on an app will just work better than expecting mobile users to navigate your website
- Photo submissions – if you want people to upload photos to you, an app would more readily allow for this than emailing or other uploading options. Progressive Car Insurance and Bank of America are using these as part of routine business.
- Track previous purchases – Have you ever wanted to see what you purchased last time? This is a feature that Lowe’s makes available and helps you know exactly what you need even without your measurements or color swatches.
- Coupons – If you want to offer special discounts, create your own coupons for customers to access from their phones
- Store Locator – if you have several locations, a store locator can help people find the nearest location
If your business has a great idea for building an app for your business, consider first if it offers something that can’t be done on your mobile website.
April 14, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

local seo, mobile apps, mobile marketing, social media
Google Places Dashboard Updates

Google Places is a tool for business owners to claim their place on Google’s search results, much like the bygone days of the YellowPages. Google Places is free, and has been available for years.

Finally,

Within each, you can edit the listing and view the dashboard.

You can quickly see the reviews others have left on Google as well as other review websites:

You can also see how many times your information was suggested in a local search result:

And within the insights, you can see how many people then used your information to navigate to your business:

The Google+ page link will take you to your Google+ Local page.

It will be absolutely important that you complete the listing information as thoroughly as possible and remain consistent with how you have claimed other local citations.

If you haven’t viewed your Google Places listing lately, now is the time to review the information.

March 27, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Local SEO

Google Places, local seo, Small business
Local SEO by Yoast
Local SEO involves adding snippets of code to your website so that when people search for something in your region, your business should be discovered. If my pipes burst, I don’t want to see the highest ranking plumber of all time, I want to see the plumbers in my town that can provide service to me. Local SEO is especially important for all businesses that need customers to actually walk into the store.

Earlier we looked at how to add the Local SEO Contact Form plugin to your site. This makes quick work of the minimum information needed. For a more complete listing of additional snippets to add to your site, see Schema.org’s Local Business.

If you’d like more functionality than just a contact form and need more results than what you are getting now, take a look at Yoast’s Local SEO plugin. This adds considerable functionality for things such as:
- Multiple locations
- Widgets (maps, show address & hours)
- Geo sitemap settings to submit to search engines
This looks like a handy plugin to use for many local and small business owners. See Joost’s how-to article for a preview.
March 21, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Local SEO

local seo, wordpress

1 2

Announcing the Podcast: The Local Small Business Show

Mobile Marketing Part 7 – Using Apps

Examples of Mobile Apps for Your Business

Google Places Dashboard Updates

Local SEO by Yoast