With a presentation like this, you are never sure if the speaker is going to cover the basics or step it up into geekdom. Mike took the geekdom route. Including slides like this:

#RocksDigital @realmikestewart shares the rules of the game! pic.twitter.com/AlRO0XjS16

— Lissa Duty (@LissaDuty) January 27, 2016

We had so many takeaways from last night’s meeting, it was hard to decide the 5 to share here, but I did it anyway.

5 Takeaways on Dominating Local SERPs

1. Going Through Basic Training

Mike started off his presentation by sharing the standard operating procedure.

• Local Listings (NAP 1st)
• Content Development
• Content Ideation/Posts
• Social Media Amplification
• Virtue & Honor = Good Reviews

2. Selecting a Listing Management Company

There are several listing management services out there to choose from. You need to understand the pros and cons of each one before make your choice.

Right now, you have to use Yext to claim your Yahoo listing, which means your clients will start getting lots of sales calls from Yext. Prepare them for this in advance. Another point he made is that it is cheaper to go through the Yahoo interface to claim your listing vs. going straight to Yext.

3. Claiming is Better then Submitting

Make sure the listing management solution you select claims existing listings. If you use a company that just submits, you can have duplicate listings created. If you use listing suppression, like with Yext, once you stop using their service, the bad listings will reappear.

4. The Nuts-n-Bolts of Websites

Website code was a bigger discussion than you think it would be during a local SEO presentation. Site load speed is very important because it effects the user experience.

Mike says it is better to use something like Python vs WordPress. He said WordPress does too many calls out when loading the site and pages, which slows down the load time significantly. If you are going to use WordPress, go back to the original developer to get changes made to the theme. This will help keep the code bloat down.

5. Getting Reviews with a Review Tool

Guiding customers through a review process that enables them to easily give reviews is important. Mike said there are several services out there to use, but he recommends Grade.us as the tool he uses. Looking through Grade.us, it seems you build out a landing page that you can easily give to your customer and, through that landing page, guide the customer to the sites you need reviews on the most with the review funnel.

Mike also said to ask customers to include the name of the person that helped them when giving the review. This adds more value to the person reading the review later and also encourages others to include a name when giving their review.

Great (and very geeky, techy) presentation on #LocalSEO by @realmikestewart Thanks! #RocksDigital pic.twitter.com/MSLIFUfizd

— Culium (@Culium) January 27, 2016

At one point in the evening, the conversation turned to how much data is online about us, especially what Facebook has been gathering about us.

#RocksDigital @realmikestewart says find your info on allaboutthatdata.com. It’s creepy what they know about us.

— Lissa Duty (@LissaDuty) January 27, 2016

The evening closed out with a discussion on JSON coding and AMP html. When I asked Mike if his company was testing out AMP, he responded “We don’t need it, our sites already load fast. If your website is built right to start, speed isn’t an issue.”

Mike, generously shared his slides with us. You can view them below:

#RocksDigital Meetup Highlights – How to Dominate Local SERPs with @RealMikeStewart by @LissaDuty
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Thanks Mike Stewart of Status26, Inc. for an educational evening and making all of us geeks heads spin!

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**Editor’s Note: This story was written in good fun. There was no actual interview that took place with Donald Trump. Just as stories on the Onion and other sites publish, this was just for laughs. The goal of the writer was educate business owners about bad data and the impact it has on a local business’s future success in an engaging way.**

Yesterday Donald Trump announced, if elected, he would find ISIS and fire them. When asked about this tactic, he stated, “I don’t know why Obama hasn’t thought of this yet. All you need is good data. Just call Google and verify the address.”

Donald Trump Presidential Announcement

He has already appointed former Celebrity Apprentice reality TV star, Omarosa as his Chief Data Officer for his campaign. He has vowed to create this prestigious cabinet position when he is elected as President of the best, most luxurious country in the world.

Trump modestly declared at his recent press conference:

“Good data is the most important thing you can do. It’s good business to have people find you. People can find me because I am everywhere, I own everything and I am rich.”

His foreign policy has left some government analysts amiss. He has vowed as president to supply the troops with the top of the line cellphones with GPS and local search apps such as “Foursquare” and “Yelp” to aid in finding terrorists, Trump hotels, and popular restaurants. His military tactic is to find local terrorist hotspots and mark them as public. Then using the best, top-of-the-line drones, he will employ military forces to target their specific hideouts. The former terrorist hideouts will then be turned into Trump towers that will stimulate the local economy. “It just makes sense. It is a win-win for everyone. Especially me.”

Another controversial economic policy Trump has proposed centered around job creation. He has recently pressured Uber to employ all current and former Miss USA contestants as premium drivers. Former beauty pageant contestants have some of the highest rates of unemployment in the country. “They are a suffering minority. I want to get them working again.” Trump declared in a recent blog post. Within weeks of the program’s inception, it was abruptly cancelled due to complaints of drivers getting lost. When a former employee was asked about the recent program shut down, she replied, “I can’t even.” The failed program had incurred $10,000 of damages due to torn upholstery caused by stiletto heels and tiaras.

His campaign has already been fraught with issues, as his new intern, Russian model Milla Vanakovakakov, was hired and fired within 20 minutes. Vanakovakakov mistakenly picked up Caitlyn Jenner’s wig at IBeWeave wig shop on Jefferson Avenue instead of Donald Trump’s signature hairpiece located at a different franchise location. While she blamed the mix up on an incorrect business listing on Google, Trump had little patience for misinformation. They are now engaged and will be married within the next fiscal year.

Trump was alarmingly absent from a few of his first press conferences following his announcement yesterday. TMZ host Harvey Levin reports sightings of Trump in Biloxi, MS at The White House Hotel. When asked for a comment, Trump’s Chief Data Officer curtly states:

“Future President Trump searched ‘White House’ on his mobile device and couldn’t verify the business location before directing his assistants to escort him to the location.”

It’s reported that after 10 hours in the SUV, Trump suspected something might be wrong. He couldn’t remember the driver’s name so he sat quietly, feeling assured that Chief Data Officer Omarosa hadn’t pointed him in the wrong direction.

It will be interesting to see how the Trump campaign pans out for the billionaire. All we know is that it will be the best, most prestigious, most luxurious campaign in the history of the United States.

#DonaldTrump “I Will Be President.” Get the story on #RocksDigital #MoData
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#DonaldTrump declares his first presidential executive order if elected. #RocksDigital #MoData
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Exclusive Interview of #DonaldTrump on #RocksDigital! Really? Click to see. #MoData
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#DonaldTrump and @Omarosa together again? Find out on #RocksDigital
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Join us in having some #DonaldTrump fun! Click your favorite “Click to Tweet” and share online!

The post Donald Trump Announcement: I Will Be President. His First Presidential Executive Order if Elected: ISIS, you’re fired. appeared first on Rocks Digital.

Social media sites such as Twitter are always walking that fine line between allowing free speech and protecting their users against abusive tweets. As you can imagine, with the number of users Twitter has on their site on a daily basis in combination with the number of tweets sent, protecting users’ rights without stepping on the rights of someone else is a challenge.

Just this week Twitter has announced that they are stepping up their efforts at stopping abusive tweets.  They have made adjustments to their algorithms, policies and procedures to both catch and stop more tweets that cross the line into abuse.

How Is Twitter Going to Monitor Abuse More Effectively

1. They are increasing the team overseeing this area threefold allowing for more people to implement the additional procedures associated with these policy changes.
2. They have broadened what type of abuse and threats they can act on, “We are updating our violent threats policy so that the prohibition is not limited to “direct, specific threats of violence against others” but now extends to “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others.”
3. They are adjusting their algorithms to flag content that meets these updated qualifications as being possibly abusive. These changes are still in a test phase, but the updates will take a wide range of signals, context and the content that is actually being tweeted by users into consideration.

These changes will allow Twitter to move quickly and swiftly in identifying abusive tweets and taking action with the accounts in question.

My Impressions on This Change in The Twitter Algorithm

1. Twitter realizes that safety and protecting the rights of all their users are equally important.
2. Their objective isn’t to take away the rights of free speech, but to protect their users from verbal abuse. (I hope it will also stop the extremes that Twitter trolls often take when someone tweets something they don’t like.)
3. Twitter’s changes will also require it’s users to potentially be more selective with some of the words they tweet that can be considered abusive for example a post titled “20 Ways to Kill It…” could be flagged, at least initially while Twitter continues to work out all the kinks. (As always, continue to choose your words wisely and those you follow even more wisely.)

One thing that I sincerely hope is that this change in the Twitter Algorithm will make it more difficult for cyber stalkers to continue to register accounts in multiple names and verbally abuse those they do not like online, or wish to cause harm too.

Twitter has a challenge ahead of them. Let’s all be patient while Twitter works out the kinks. I am sure there will be several.

#News: #Twitter Updates Algorithm to Reduce Abusive #Tweets by @BernieColeman #RocksDigital
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What are your thoughts and observations about this Twitter update? Please share below.

The post Social News: #Twitter Algorithm Update to Reduce Abusive Tweets appeared first on Rocks Digital.

As you probably have heard by now, Google will be changing the algorithms for mobile sites starting April 21^st. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you need to know, as it will have a huge effect on your site’s rankings.

However, in the meantime, Google announced yesterday they are making another change to mobile search. They have already started rolling this change out for mobile results. They are changing the format or presentation of the way URLs appear in a mobile search.

What You Need To Know About Google’s New Breadcrumb Structure

This change does not require you to do anything and will actually help those searching for your products or services from their mobile devices.

• They will be using the “real-world” name of a site instead of domain names.
• Including a “breadcrumb” trail to your actual domain as well.

This will give a better a better reflection of websites, which will enable mobile searchers to find what they need more easily.

Things to Know About This Google Update:

1. This only affects mobile search results
2. This change will be rolled out gradually
3. The site name change will only affect the US at this time
4. URL as Breadcrumbs will be rolled out worldwide

You can learn more on this change by visiting Google’s Webmaster Center.

#Google Update: Change in Format of URLs to Breadcrumbs by @BernieColeman #RocksDigital #Mobile
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Wrapping up #SEJSummit Dallas with the last session of the day was the AMA “Ask Me Anything” Panelists.

• Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Interactive Group
• Warren Lee, VP of Marketing at Nationstar Mortgage
• Tony Wright, CEO of Wright/MC
• Steve Floyd, CEO & Founder of AXZM

Moderated by: Kelsey Jones Executive Editor at Search Engine Journal

Q: Google’s mobile update is coming April 21st- what are the 3 most crucial things to prepare for it?

• Bernadette – It is an update with real time upload network, so if you are late yours will still go up as soon as you are up
• Steve – Get mobile before it gets here even if it isn’t perfect. Something is better than nothing
• Tony – Go to Google mobile and see if your site is mobile friendly or not first
• Warren – You need to be mobile anyway and if you don’t get it done you will lose a lot of traffic so just get it done. They are testing now. Check your webmaster tools daily and clear them out as soon as possible.
• Bernadette – SEO is mobile, app, everything. Almost everything is searched with mobile these days and you need to make it part of your strategy now.
• Tony – if you sell a product that people are looking for on their phones and your site does not show up on your phone you are going to have some really big problems by this summer from lost traffic.
• Moderator – if your site is not mobile optimized Google will not show you in mobile searches.
• Bernadette – Mobile is becoming the foundation of search.

Q: Optimizing mobile friendly websites or Mobile apps which is better?

• Bernadette – most of what you do on mobile is an app. Very few people actually go to the internet on their phones, it is done through apps. So you need to do both.
• Tony – I predict that in a few years there will be very few apps. As speed and code increase more businesses will be moving to user and  mobile friendly sites. At this point, Google does not care about your apps. It is not in the algorithm at all.
• Steve – Thinks there are going to actually be more apps

Q: How does a business with numerous locations optimize?

• Tony – You have to maintain each one of them separately. It takes resources but the ROI is worth it. You cannot use the same photo for all locations and same descriptions. You lose ranking that way. You can’t be lazy. You have to utilize resources.
• Bernadette – Paying an outside company like Local Site Submit or any of them is well worth the cost of using them to keep your SEO ranking
• Warren – If you are able to create global pages with multiple locations and the only thing different is the city name, then that is spam and that is how Google will see all of your business sites. You have to have individual content for every single location.
• Steve – You have to look to the future and consider predictive analytics. You need to prepare all your sites for the future as well as this latest Google update.
• Bernadette – I have heard that city pages may soon be considered doorway pages or even spam in the future.
• Warren – the best way to combat this is to combine some of your pages into larger combined pages so you don’t have so much combined content.
• Tony – if you are “spinning” your content now you are going to be screwed very soon and you need to hire someone to fix it now. There is no easy way to write individual content for all your pages, you just have to hire someone to do it.

Q:  What is more important to capture the home phone or mobile and why don’t more companies ask for the mobile number?

• Bernadette – I ask for both but if I were to choose definitely their mobile phone number.
• Warren – On all of our PPC landing pages we asked for everything, so they tested taking the phone number off and making it a non-required field. When offering it as an opt in there was a 3% opt in conversion.
• Tony – It also depends on what you are doing; do you need a cell phone number? Many consumers don’t want companies to have their phone number if it isn’t necessary.
• Moderator – if you don’t like it, then your target audience probably doesn’t like it either.
• Bernadette – SMS is something that people will look at sooner, but you don’t want to annoy your audience either.

Previous Posts – Brand Marketing and Content Strategy. Brand Marketing with Podcasts and Reddit. SEO Strategies & Best Practices. Social Media Management and Facebook Ads.

The post #SEJSummit Dallas Keynote Panel with Mobile Websites dominating! appeared first on Rocks Digital.

We are back at #SEJSummit Dallas live and talking about Social Media Management and Facebook Advertising Strategies.

Read the previous posts – Brand Marketing and Content Strategy. Marketing with Reddit and Podcasting. SEO Strategies and Best Practices.

“Facebook for Brands”

Kate Buck Jr., Director at Social Media Manager Pro

Facebook Advertising Strategy

1. Deploy a strategic re-engagement campaign to activate existing fans and increase organic reach
2. Leverage lookalike audience functionality to find and connect with new highly targeted fans
3. Use transaction-based direct response invitations to create meaningful connections between your fans and your brand beyond social.

• Social Properties are often launched and then abandoned due to things like lack of staff and/or lack of focus
• Increase staff and strategy
• Constantly engage with fans
• Create Social Media community events
• Gain a deep knowledge of competitors
• Audience Re-engagement
• Audience Growth
• Direct to Product (invitation) campaigns

Proven Posts

• Use posts that have proven to get engagement from fans
• Target existing current page likes first
• Gain Organic Traction
• Very cost effective first campaign to gain insight into your fans
• Also getting exposure to new fans
• Continue to create new content at the same time

Create a Lookalike & Custom Audiences

• Conversion Pixel – place on landing page and Facebook will create an audience that most closely matches the users that have fired the conversion pixel
• Upload your own email lists segmented by purchases
• Audience Growth continues with extremely targeted “likes”

Direct Response/Commerce to Create More Meaningful Connections

Test image, targeting, headline, copy
Looking for highest click thru rate, lowest cost per action, relevance score

“Social Media Brand Management”

Lissa Duty, VP of Community Management at Advice Interactive Group

Real-time Brand Management

It takes only one unhappy customer to create a social media crisis

Example:  Play-doh Extruder Tool – waited too long to respond, they did not monitor social media to combat the negative responses.

Should have created a response as soon as they knew it would be a problem, drafted potential scenario responses, get ahead of the problem

Good example: Chevy spokesman is quoted as saying “Technology and stuff”, instead of ignoring it they jumped on the band wagon with a sense of humor and created an entire campaign around it.

The Social Media Process

• Schedule for monitoring and responding and have a back up
• Social media account access should be available to others to pick up if someone is out
• Who is responsible for monitoring and how often
• Company expectations for social media should be clearly spelled out
• Have aligned marketing/social strategy
• Marketing Team works in conjunction with Social
• POC responsible for ensuring marketing objectives are aligned

Reputation Monitoring and Responses

• Consistent messaging – support responses should match across platforms
• Website FAQs and online answers should be consistent
• Social and customer service teams need to know what is on the website
• Inconsistent answers are a negative customer experience

Customer Service

• Have a response strategy for positive response and negative feedback both
• Escalation procedure with POC name and contact information
• Ignored feedback (positive or negative) can escalate quickly

Monitoring and Management tools

• Notifications via RSS
• Email alerts
• Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer
• Make sure account alerts are being emailed to a social media account that is being monitored

Content Sources

• Pre-approved content to share on socials
• 3rd party websites approved for posting on social media
• Keyword searches to identify content of  social sharing
• Content Sites – Alltop, Forbes, Harvard Biz Review
• Content Tools – Klout, Hootsuite, Postplanner, Feedly

“3 Red Hot Social Marketing Hacks to Crush 2015”

Marty Weintraub, Evangelist & Founder of aimClear

To make money with Social you must integrate!

Sell Internet Wide with Psychographics

• Psychographics is the part of us that makes us who we are and what we have to target to get people to buy what we are selling
• These are all tracked on the internet to target ads, etc.
• Building tight personas – “root” the persona (ie: foodies)
• Active targeting intent – dining out with, traveling with, etc.
• Financial qualification – behaviors, job title, etc.
• Some personas may have dual personas – veterans, mortgage, previously employed by the US military
• Specificity vs. Scale – start by over qualifying initially then you can expand from there
• Advise targeting with search – if you are marketing to people that use theme parks then go search theme parks
• External Traffic Driving Unit -Drive people back to the blog posts or back to an active page of your website

Scalable Psychographic Traffic

• Re-target filters
• Attributable conversion
• Real links from good authority sites
• Social signals rom strong users
• Focused likes, follow shares

New expectations for social marketers

• Team created, owned-audience cookie pools for performance marketers to exploit
• Filtered re-targeting from social cookie pools
• Owned audiences are brand assets
• Curate audiences
• Use remarketing to target people that have visited your site
• Understanding how to filter following is a prerequisite for modern marketers

The post #SEJSummit Dallas Social Media Management & Facebook Ads appeared first on Rocks Digital.