Kicking off the day at the Local, Search and Social Summit 2015 was Bernadette Coleman who leapt right in to Dominating Local in a Mobile World.
Why You Need To Dominate Local Search On Mobile
Why is mobile important?
- 50% of mobile searches are trying to find a local business
- 61% of local searches result in a purchase
- 50% of mobile users visit a store within a day of performing a related search
- 68% of smartphone users use their phones to get directions
Voice search is really important – you have to make sure that your keywords are things that mobile searchers will look for/find.
So, how do you compete in a mobile world?
Make sure you have the tools to market in a mobile world – it’s all about relationship management.
You can target your audience based on their data:
- Trust = Convenience
- Reading reviews, listening to what others say/what is being said about your brand is important
- Ignores ads, seeks authenticity…. Are you an expert/authority?
- Opinionated and shares opinions
- Social media has a 100% higher lead to close rate than outbound marketing
- Make sure you are engaging – be proactive instead of reactive
- The potential clients are value conscious
- Doesn’t want to waste time – instant gratification
Local Mobile SEO Now:
- 62% of organic searches show differently on Mobile
- You don’t want to be behind the 8-ball, you want to be ahead of the curve!
- Make sure your site is mobile optimized
- Search engines give preference to mobile friendly sites
How to Start Dominating Local Search
Optimize for local and local search – people are searching for what they’re looking for that’s close.
Start with an audit: Audit = Learning Opportunity
- Optimize behavioral signals – see how they are behaving and you can react to them
- Use real, local photos
- Optimize title tags to help click-though rates
- Optimize meta description – this is what search engines pick up on
- Don’t ignore schema reviews – review your schema markup
- Don’t ignore barnacle SEO – if you’re trying to rank on the first page of Google you will find that you might have, for instance, some Yelp reviews – make sure your profiles on those sites are optimized
- Earn some good links – fewer high quality links are better than ton of low quality links
Have Consistent Citations and Remove Duplicates
- Make sure that they are correct, not duplicated
- Only focus on the Top 50 citations and data aggregators. Ignore low quality cites.
- Citation = name, address, phone number
- Make sure your data aggregator data is cleaned up and accurate
- Make sure you have social signal enhancement
- Use videos to help with conversions
How To Create Local Content?
LISTS!!
List = Hook + reward
Numbered lists = Traffic – give them what they want in a short time
Lists help you:
- Collect
- Manage/Organize
- Rank
Use Lists to answer questions and Add local content to your lists.
View the Slides
Bernadette packed a lot of information into the first session of the Local, Search and Social Summit and these were the highlights.
Are you dominating local search? What one thing have you seen makes a difference for your business in Local Search?
