Digital Marketing Agency | Barracuda Digital

This week the Barracuda Digital SEO team attended the New year in Search event organised byseojoblogs and sponsored by Google, a great meetup about the integration between natural search, paid and social media and how working together can provide the best digital solution for your own business or for your clients.

It was insightful and interesting. We have particularly enjoyed the presentation about Google in 2011. This is a  brief round up:

-      Semantic Web: Google is heading towards the semantic web, which means that it will be able to read and translate contexts soon. Given that “Context” is becoming increasingly important for search engines, there should be a shift towards themes and group of keywords related to specific topics vs. exact match keywords in on page SEO, in fact  on page optimisation for exact match keywords will be a less important ranking factor. When optimizing pages for search engines, you should do it with your site visitors in mind, as Google rewards websites that have users in mind.

-      Social: Social links from Facebook and Twitter now influence rankings as Google officially confirmed last year.  Google’s push into social this year will not involve directly taking on Facebook but it will consist in pulling more content from social sites into search results, e.g. site links will soon show your social connections. How much and which data will be shown will depend on how active you are in social networks.

-      Local: Good reviews will be increasingly important in order to achieve high rankings for any local businesses.  After the partnership with Hotspot last year and after seeing turned down its $6 billion offer by Groupon last month, Google will be looking at new ways of integrating more local content into search results. Also, the prediction that by 2014 there will be 300 million more mobile coupon users worldwide means for Google more attention to Local & Mobile, which are expected to be primary areas of growth this year.

If 2006 was all about Facebook, and 2008 was the year of Twitter, then 2010 might reasonably be claimed by Foursquare.

Social media with location check-ins is a popular activity amongst young, urban, liberal technologists – the so called Twitterati, the self same ‘twinfulencers’ who made Twitter popular.

The three main location based social media outlets are MyCity, Gowalla and Foursquare. It’s the last of these – along with Facebook of course – that is emerging on top. With 2 million registered users, growing at over 15,000 every day, Foursquare is following a similar trajectory to Twitter a couple of years ago.

So what do you do on Foursquare?

Foursquare is a status update microblogging platform that lets you update friends on where you are. As a user you can ‘check-in’ to locations and receive badges for your efforts. You can also take a look at other places in your local area, and find out where your friends are,

What’s that got to do with business?

Location based services were worth just £50m this year, but this is set to grow to over £350m in the next two. As every business can claim a Foursquare location, it’s a huge opportunity for businesses to reach out onto social media and bring in new customers.

Here’s 8 steps to kick start your Foursquare campaign.

1. Download the App and register

The very first rule of social media is that you have to try and ‘get it’ yourself. You need to be able to understand how it works and work out what motivates people to use it. And the only way to do that is to roll up your sleeves and start using it yourself.

2. Add your business to foursquare

If it’s not on there already, make sure your business is on foursquare. Simply search for locations near where you are (when you’re at work). Find your business and check -in. Or ‘add a place’ to create your business listing.

3. Encourage your employees to check in

Part of what makes social media work is apparently active communities that others may want to get involved with. Ask your colleagues to use Foursquare, check-in to work, leave tips and create a buzz about the location.

4. Claim your business location

As a business owner you can claim a business location. You’ll need to do this from your PC.

Foursquare verify that you are the business owner by sending you a pin in the post.

5. Take a look at the analytics

As a business owner Foursquare give you intelligence about who has checked into your location, when they checked-in, and what activity is going nearby. You can use this to work out when you’re busy and when its quiet, indicators which shape when your social media activity might be right to kick off.

5. Build specials for your business

Incentivize customers to check-in to your location by creating ‘specials’ or rewards for those who do so. Mayor specials reward those users with the most check-ins. Frequency specials get people to come back again and again. And check-in offers get those first timers who might be checking in to locations nearby.

6. Special offers appear in nearby locations

If you have a check-in special, this appears as an orange flag to those users checking into locations nearby

These literally pull people from other places into yours – perfect for boosting footfall in a quiet time of the day.

7. Be a part of the community

As mentioned above, you need to be a part of this community in order to understand it and to reap the rewards. Leave tips for others, follow other people’s tips, comment and debate. Be active on Foursquare.

8. Add foursquare to your website & other social media

Make it clear to customers who visit your website or your other social media that you are active on Foursquare. Add a link to your Foursquare page, and give a clear indication of the check-in specials you will reward them with. The people most likely to adopt foursquare will be those already using your other social media. Use the relationship you already have with them to promote your Foursquare offering and get them to share it with others

9. Add foursquare to your offline marketing

Through leaflet, stickers, and badges, highlight your Foursquare activity to customers who you interact with offline. Promote foursquare in your shop or cafe. Add Foursquare to your poster and print ads. Give social media aficionados an extra reason to visit and check-in to your location.

That’s it

Foursquare is a popular and fast growing location based social media outlet. As a business owner you can use foursquare to boost footfall, sell more products, and foster a community. If you need Barracuda Digital to help set up your first Localised Foursquare campaign get in touch.

Last month Google introduced ‘Place Search’ – a ‘new kind of search result’. Google claim they have organised the place search directory according to locations, making it easier to find information about local areas.

This is what a new location based search result looks like:

The results each have a red pin, and each one is a unique place with relevant information, links and reviews. For example, you can easily see that Chez Gerard ‘has the best Steak Frites’ and I can click zagat.com, viewlondon.co.uk and other sites to read reviews’.

Before this update the same location based search would have links about Chez Gerard in different parts of the results page.

Place Search now happens automatically, but you can now also use the ‘Places’ vertical in the left hand panel.

In order to create places search Google is indexing, sorting and connecting millions of websites containing local information with the specific locales they’re happening in, to give a pretty accurate local result. They’re even able to understand when people spell or refer to places using different names.

As each search brings in a comprehensive view of each place, Google reckon that users will be able to find local information much more quickly – a single search rather than 5 or 10.

What does this mean for your local SEO?

To start with, as users will be getting results from one or two searches rather than 5 or 10, it’s important to focus your efforts to a greater extent on the head terms of your campaign.

With regard to link building, there are two actions you need to take. Sort out which local search you want to rank highly for, and then pick apart the leading listings for those searches to find which directories they have invested in. Make sure your cover off those local directories, and work hard to give your directory listings standout by gaining reviews and recommendations.

Next, try to pick out a few target sites for your local links, those high authority sites that are acting as a local hub. Work hard – negotiate – ingratiate – provide content to these sites to get a keyword rich link to your own.

That’s it

Google place search makes it a lot easier for users to find high quality local information. You need to take steps to modify your local SEO program to take advantage of this. For help on boosting your local campaign, get in touch.

We’ve talked quite a bit on this blog about how to boost your local campaigns to drive footfall to your location. From location extensions for desktop and mobile, to foursquare and Facebook places, there are lots of tools out there to help local businesses.

The first – and perhaps the best – way to grab local traffic is with a Google Places listing. These are an effective one-pager all about your business. To start with, follow these steps in order to claim your Google Places listing.

Once you’ve done that, it’s important to add a bit of colour and personality to your pages. With Xmas now just a few shopping weeks away, this is the perfect time to give your listing some seasonal cheer. And here’s my top 5 ways to do that:

1. Try using a Google Tag

A Google Tag is a yellow marker that appears for local searches on Google Maps. Tags let you highlight stuff like coupons, videos, photos or offers. Currently available just in the US, you can  create a tag by going to your Places dashboard and click ‘add a tag’. Just choose the type and let it run. At the moment Google are giving them away for 30 days for free.

2. Link to a list of offers

You can include more than one link to your website from your Places page. As Xmas approaches people will be using the web with their present list in mind. You can appeal to that mindset by highlighting a link to the offers that you currently have on. Special offers are usually the single most clicked-on link on a homepage, and the same will apply to your places page.

It’s easy to add additional links. Go to you dashboard, find your listing and click ‘edit’. Then go down to ‘additional details’ and make another column by typing “Menu” in the label. You can then add the URL of your offers page. .

3. Add a coupon

Coupons are a great way to incentivize purchases, especially in the holiday season. Just click the ‘Coupons’ tab and then ‘add a new coupon’ before filling out your coupon details. Create urgency by giving your coupon an expiry date. If you make your Google Places coupon code unique, it will be a great way of tracking the effectiveness of your Google Places page.

4. Add an interesting post

Posts are like mini-blog items – 160 character messages that appear on your Places page. They are a good way to add colour and interest to your page, and bring alive the people behind the business. You can also highlight your post with a Google Tag.

5. Add some people and product images

This might seem like a bit of a cliché, but if you add some themed people and product images your places page can come alive with the spirit of the holiday season. Whether its employees in Santa hats – or products surrounded by tinsel – a little bit of effort goes a long way in getting your visitors into the holiday mood.

6. Make sure your holiday hours are up to date

You might have extended hours on some days. On others you might choose to close. And when do you open for sales? Make your hours clear sot that local customers and last minute shoppers can make the correct decision about whether to visit your shop.

That’s it

A Google Places page is a good source of web traffic and footfall, and is an effective tool to boost Xmas sales. Be sure yours is working hard for you as we head into the Xmas season. Once you’ve put some effort into sprucing up your Google Places listing, take a look at ways to boost traffic to it.

Imagine the scenario: you’re driving to an urgent meeting and your car breaks down. You need to get there quickly and haven’t got time to get it fixed. You need a hire car!

You get your smartphone out and search for ‘car hire’: the results show an ad for Enterprise rent-a-car, along with a plus box showing the nearest location. Not only that, but there’s blue distance marker showing you the distance. You click the phone number on the nearest location and are instantly connected to Enterprise, allowing you to book your car.

These blue distance markers are a new update of location extensions for mobile, the latest in Google’s hyperlocal project. They consistently highlight the distance between the searcher and your business location.

Driving Footfall

These visual clues are a powerful way to drive footfall in-store and boost revenue for your business. They are automatically enabled for campaigns using location extensions. These allow users to click to see where your business is on the map, and click to call and connect with your business immediately. Advertisers are only charged when users click through to their website or click to call their number.

They are only visible to those users who have opted in to sharing their location on Google.co.uk. Campaigns must be opted into to show on iPhones and android smartphones, which you can do on the settings page of each campaign.

That’s it

In the last year Google have introduced several innovative features to help local advertisers get visitors in the door. If you need help with your local or mobile campaigns get in touch.

We’ve been writing about Location Based marketing for a while, including how to set up your Google Places account; how to boost traffic to your Google Places account; how to reach out to local people on mobile; and how to run a local campaign on Foursquare. We bring all these under our Local Campaigns service. Consumers are often looking for services near where they are, so location based activity is highly relevant and often has good returns.

Finally Facebook Places has launched in the UK, bringing location based social networking to the masses, This means that location based activity – for both users and brands – is going to start getting some serious profile.

What is Facebook Places?

Only available on touch.facebook.com or the iPhone, users can use Facebook Places to check in to physical locations, in a similar way to Foursquare or Gowalla.

Users can access a list of local places based on where they are. If the right one isn’t available a user can create it. These places can be checked-into. Friends can also be tagged with their location.

Your check in appears as a status update which other users can comment on or ‘like’. You can also find out when friends check into the same location.

What does this mean for brands?

Currently brands can ‘claim’ their Places pages since they are similar to regular Facebook Pages. Once claimed the ‘Place’ can be merged into the regular Facebook page. This allows the brand to spruce up the page with a map, photos, videos, and events. And most importantly, the page includes a list of people who have checked in.

Since they’re like normal Facebook Pages, a Places page also includes ads. It’s not possible to target your advertising to particular pages; you still have to use the regular demographic targeting plus likes and interests.

Is this a privacy issue?

Much has been written about location based social networking as a threat to privacy: for example, if you’re checked into a coffee shop in town then your house is going to be empty. But Facebook have taken steps to diminish these fears by making the service opt in only.

And if others tag you in a location you get sent an email asking if you accept this tag.

It’s just your friends that get notified of your location- not everyone. People looking through whom is in a location can see that you are ‘here now’, but you can even opt out of this setting.

Under 18s only have the option to share their location with friends.

So what is the opportunity?

If you want to drive footfall to your business the potential is huge. Simple ideas include using local and mobile search to share your business location and make it easy for users to find you. And you can incentivise a visit by awarding badges or discounts for check-ins.

And don’t forget that each time a someone checks into your business location all their friends and followers are notified.

That’s it

Location based marketing has taken a big step forward with the launch of Facebook Places. It’s an opportunity for business to drive online and real world traffic, and it’s fun and engaging for users to.

If you want Barracuda digital to set up a location based campaign for your business then get in touch.

Last year I wrote a blog post about the Google Local Business Center (LBC) – a free one-pager given to all businesses, that includes basic information such as location and opening hours. Google Local Business Center has since been renamed Google Places, and it continues to be a great potential source of leads.

The reason for this is that your Google Places listing can appear in the search results for local searches, and for searches on Google maps.

These searches often have a place in the phrase, such as ‘SEO in London’. The results include a map with place-markers to show where each business is.

Since there are many people searching for local goods and services on Google, your LBC listing can be a great source of leads. The problem is that your listing has to compete with many other local businesses, which means it’s often hard to get it to appear at all.

So how do you make sure your listing appears high up the results?

Google uses many signals to determine the rank of a LBC listing. Here are my 6 tips to help you boost yours to number 1, and to grab the biggest share of that traffic.

1. Claim your listing as a business owner!

Obvious I know, but you need to claim your listing. In order to do this, you need to have a business address in the city that is being search for. There is a LBC listing for every business in the UK. Your LBC listing will exist even before you take ownership of it. But it won’t rank highly until you kick off your optimisation strategy. Follow the instructions in the original post to take ownership.

2. Submit your website to all the directories of local businesses.

Common ones include Yelp, Qype and the Internet Yellow Pages. Make sure you have a listing in any well known directories local to your area too.

3. Use the main keyword that you want to appear for in the title of your listing.

For example, if you are a Southampton based Florist, make sure your listing title has ‘Florist Southampton’ in it.

4. Use your main keywords in your directory description too

Put your product/service keyword and your location keyword in your Google Place Page business title.

5. Put your directory listings in as many categories as possible

You’re often allowed up to 5. The more categories you’re listed in, the bigger the list of keywords your listing will be boosted for.  Note that you don’t have to stick with the categories Google recommends; you can make up new ones. Make sure the categories are relevant though – remember Google likes ‘relevance’ more than anything else. I suggest doing some competitors’ research in Google Maps, by using the keywords you want to be found for, and seeing what some of the sites that are currently showing up are doing, e.g. in which categories they are listed.

6. Add some additional content

This is essential: images, videos, and map content is all loved by Google.

7. Get some good reviews and ratings

This includes an idea called ‘reputation management’, which is all about encouraging the development of a positive reputation.

A key way to do this is to foster good reviews of your product. There have been a few high profile cases where business owners have employed people to post positive reviews about their product in as many place as possible. This is strictly frowned upon, and can backfire on the business owner once everyone becomes aware of the scam.

It’s still possible to generate positive reviews without rigging the system. The next time a customer thanks you for your service, or sends you a positive email, ask them if they wouldn’t mind sharing that feedback elsewhere. You could even point them towards a few relevant reviews websites, and your listings on the directories we’ve mentioned here. You might know of a few local reviews and ratings sites that operate in your area too.

It’s also important to get good reviews and ratings on your Google LBC listing page. There’s a designated place for people to leave reviews – point your customers towards those. A new feature of Google Places allows you to add sentiments to these reviews.

8. Create a map on Google Maps

This is the biggest tip here. Find your placemarker on Google Maps. Click ‘Save to’ then ‘My Maps’ and then ‘create a new map’. Then name the map using keywords that you want to be found for. Shhhh now. Don’t tell anyone about this trick.

9. Associate your local area code with your phone number

Not a lot more I can add to that instruction!

10. Ensure continuity

If you move address or change phone numbers you have to update all your local directories listings, otherwise there will be duplications of your listing which are frowned upon by Google and you’ll be competing with yourself. Make sure that your address and telephone number are written the same way on every place you are showing up  online.

And that’s it.

The Google Local Business Center gives you a handy one page listing that lets potential customers know all about your business, and is the cornerstone of your Local PPC campaign. This listing can appear for local searches on both Google and Google maps. Take control of yours, boost its rank, and it can be a valuable source of leads.