Archive for the ‘Local Business’ Category

Guest article by Greg Danford, marketing writer and content strategist.

I’ve been thinking a lot about small businesses lately. Partly because I own one, but partly because I spend a lot of my day working with them. Small businesses, or growing businesses — since no business that I know of aspires to be small forever — all have one thing in common: One person or a few people all wearing a lot of hats. That’s just the nature of the beast. Because most entrepreneurs can’t afford appointment secretaries, full-time bookkeepers, a director of sales and marketing, or many of the other jobs found in large organizations, these people find themselves doing just about everything, usually out of necessity.

So when it comes to marketing their businesses, which is really just a fancy way of explaining to potential customers what they do, “going it alone” comes naturally. Some business owners believe that access to a pencil and paper and an English degree means they can write their own content. The truth is, it does look easy, and for a handful of business owners it is. But for most, nothing is more intimidating than staring at a blank computer screen.

This is the point where a writer is usually brought in, albeit reluctantly. While these companies know they need to hire someone to write their content, they also hate giving up control. The key is to give your writer the best chance for success, which starts with striking a balance between you maintaining some control without handcuffing your writer’s creativity. Here’s something else to consider: No one is going to know your business better than you, and any writer who tells you that he or she does is probably someone to be avoided. What you’re really looking for is someone willing to tap into what you know, then put it in a voice that existing and potential customers will find compelling. Creative writing is one thing. Good marketing copy is something else altogether — it accomplishes a clear objective, and it puts your passion for your business into words. When you read it, you’ll instantly recognize it.

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This is the first guest article on the Two Octobers blog. On this blog we seek to provide actionable advice to local business on how to market online, but we have much to learn ourselves, so from time to time we will be asking our friends to contribute their insights. If you have perspectives or ideas you’d like to share, please let us know.

Greg Danford helps small businesses and major brands craft messaging and create engaging web content. He works from his studio in Burlington, Vermont. Visit www.danfordinc.com for examples of his work.

“Reputation management” is a term that is used to describe a variety of activities related to monitoring and management of online presence and reputation. Reputation management is important for organic ranking in search engines, because it helps generate more links to your site. It is also important because most people research purchasing decisions online before visiting a store. How visible you are and how you are being talked about will have a direct impact on your sales.

From a local business standpoint, reputation management activities include:

• Review monitoring and negative review mitigation
• Monitoring of brand name mentions on other sites
• Management of business listing information on directories and local search sites

Some of the tools below help with all of these activities, and others are specialized to just one. The tools listed here were selected out of several dozen that we reviewed. To make the final cut, a tool had to be useful, easy-to-use and free. If you have a favorite that we didn’t include, please comment below.

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Quickly search social media for mentions of your brand or related keywords with SocialMention

SocialMention searches a variety of social media sources to provide a comprehensive view of how you are being talked about in social media. The interface makes it very easy to drill down into specific channels such as blogs, Twitter, photo sharing sites, etc. You can also set up alerts to notify you of new mentions. One drawback is that it is not locally-focused at all, so it may not work as well for you if your business name is used elsewhere on the web. I did get quite a few false positives when trying various local business names. By “false positive” I mean a mention of your business name that is not actually referring to your business. This is a common setback of monitoring tools, particularly if your business name is not particularly unique. SocialMention is also a great tool for monitoring keywords that are topically relevant to your business.

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Grow your online network with HootSuite

Hootsuite is for general-purpose social media management versus reputation management specifically, but it is remarkably feature-rich for a free tool. And monitoring is only useful if you can add people to your network and engage in conversations, which is what HootSuite is all about.  You can use the tool to monitor wall posts in Facebook, @replies in Twitter and various other social network activities. You can also post and schedule updates in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other networks. And if you have a blog, you can have Hootsuite automatically push new blog post notifications to your networks via RSS integration. You can also set up HootSuite to monitor for keyword mentions in Twitter.

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Make sure you are showing up with GetListed.org

GetListed.org is a simple, easy-to-use tool for checking to see if you are listed in major local directory sites. It shows whether your business is listed in Google, Yelp, Bing, Yahoo and Best of Web and indicates whether the listing has been claimed. It has links to get signed up, and tips for how to optimize your listings.

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Get a dashboard view of your online business presence with Marchex Reputation Management

This one may not be free for long, but it is right now. Of the tools listed here, Marchex is perhaps the most powerful from a local business standpoint, though Yext Rep is pretty comparable. The tool provides a dashboard view of reviews of your business, mentions of your business and listings in several major directories. To find mentions, they have indexed a great number of locally-oriented sites, and show fewer false positives than any of the other tools I tried. I also like the clean, intuitive user interface, and their help section has great tips for local businesses.

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Manage conversations and monitor your listings with Yext Rep

Yext Rep and Marchex Reputation Management are similar in many respects, so you will probably want to choose one or the other. Yext Rep is brand new, but given how powerful it is now, it could quickly lead the pack if Yext continues to add features. In comparison to Marchex, Yext Rep monitors more directory sites for listings, but fewer local media publishers for mentions. And while Marchex provides an analytical view of your business presence, Yext Rep provides a more conversational view. Mentions show up very much like the status stream in Facebook and Twitter, and you can reply to some networks directly from the Yext Rep interface. I recommend giving both a try and seeing which you prefer.

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Honorable mention: Google Alerts

Google Alerts is not quite as easy-to-use as the other tools mentioned here, but it is a very powerful tool for monitoring of brand or other keyword mentions. Here is a post I did a couple of months ago describing how to use Google Alerts for monitoring: Reputation Management: 1% Perspiration, 99% Google Alerts

A few other related blog posts:

• Unhappy Customer: Judge, Jury and Executioner
• Top 10 Free Places to List Your Business

A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of the Top 10 Free Places To List Your Business. This post is the first in a series describing my experiences adding a business to each of these sites.

A friend of mine recently lost his architecture job due to the recession. He’s decided to take this as an opportunity to start his own business. His name is Kelton Osborn and his business is QUICK-BEND design. He is a brilliant designer, but I’ll let his pictures speak for themselves. This is his website. Since he’s not in any directories, and he is looking to get exposure for his business, he is a perfect test candidate for my project.

Google is on top of my top 10 list, so I started with them. My first step was to follow the link on my top 10 post to the Google Local Business Center. I clicked on the “Add A New Business” link, and filled out address, phone number and description text – piece of cake. On the next screen, I could add photos and a video. I added some photos from the QUICK-BEND site. Google allows you to point to a picture URL, which makes it very easy. You can get the URL of a web photo by right-clicking and selecting “properties”, or control-clicking and selecting “copy image address” on a Mac. I strongly recommend adding photos to a business listing. Don’t assume people will click through to your web site to see pictures. They might, but you have to capture their interest first, and pictures are a good way to do that. Video is a great idea too, and Google is one of the only places where you can add a video to a listing for free. On most other sites this is a “premium” option that you only get if you pay. Once I finished filling out the business information, I was given the option for how I wanted to validate the listing. The two choices are by phone and by postcard.

I selected “by phone” and got this:

Google called right away. I got the PIN, entered it, and about 10 hours later voila:

And you can see the full Google Local Listing for QUICK-BEND design here. I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty exciting! The whole thing took less than an hour to do, including finding photos and getting the PIN. Next up: Facebook Fan Page.
A couple of related posts: why Google Maps is so important and why it would be good to get some customer reviews on this listing.

Before the web, the vast majority of consumers found local business by opening up the yellow pages and searching by category. This made it easy for businesses to ensure that they could be found. Buy a yellow pages listing and your job was pretty much done. While consumers are increasingly looking for businesses online, there is no comparable authoritative source for local business information on the web. Consumers look to a variety of channels to find businesses, which makes the job of getting found a bit more difficult. I have compiled a list of what I view as the 10 most important sites on which to list (for US businesses), with the important qualification that doing so is free in all cases. I looked at a variety of factors, including overall traffic, domain authority, share of local search and depth of listing content in compiling the list.

All of these sites also have paid advertising options, but first you should take advantage of what they have to offer for free. Note that in most cases, you will need to be able to verify a phone number and/or a physical address to add your listing. I have included traffic figures for each site, using Compete.com January data. I have also noted cases where web site links are nofollowed, with an explanation of what that means at the bottom of this post.

1. Google Local Business Center

By adding your business to the Google Local Business Center, you show up on Google Maps. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the most important things a local business can do to get found on the web. Here are a few reasons why:

• It is the most popular mapping service on the web, period.
• Google Maps results show up first on Google.com for many local searches.
• Google Maps is the default local search app on the iPhone (for now) and of course Google’s Android phone.

Google Maps is currently at 182 million visits per month. To add your listing: Google Local Business Center
My post describing adding a Google business listing

2. Facebook Fan Page

Apart from being the second most visited site on the internet behind Google, 1.5 million businesses have created fan pages on the network, and 20 million people become fans of pages every day (source). Facebook is a long way from being where consumers search for businesses, but it has quickly become the most likely place for consumers to connect with local businesses online. According to Compete, Facebook received almost 3 billion visits in January, but little of this constitutes local business search traffic. Web site links nofollowed. To create a page you must be logged in to your personal account, then go here: www.facebook.com/pages/create.php
My post describing adding a Facebook Fan Page

3. Yelp

The review site Yelp is now the most trafficked site focused on local business search. Given its emphasis on social content and interaction, Yelp tends to do better than other directory sites when it comes to attracting younger, more social users. Currently at 50 million visits per month. To add your listing: Yelp signup page

4. Citysearch

Citysearch.com has been holding steady for a number of years now in terms of on-site traffic, but they have been growing their network of distribution through syndication and the recently announced CityGrid blows their distribution opportunity wide-open. Currently at 34 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. To add your listing: add business – note that you must be logged in to a personal Citysearch account to see this page.

5. Yellowpages.com/YP.com

AT&T owned Yellowpages.com rebranded as YP.com, and it’s not your parents yellow pages any more. Under pressure from the likes of Google and Yelp, YP.com has a fresh look and more social content and features. And they are beta testing a new social-local search site called Buzz.com. They also distribute listings to a number of syndication partners. Currently at 28 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. Claim your listing.

6. Bing Local

Microsoft has long struggled behind Google and Yahoo! in the world of web search, but the tides have turned of late. Since Microsoft launched Bing.com last year, they have steadily been gaining search share. And recent regulatory approval in Europe clears the way for a long planned partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo. As a result of this partnership, Bing will replace Yahoo’s own search engine on Yahoo properties. Bing currently accounts for a relatively small portion of local search, but expect that portion to grow. To add your listing: Local Listing Center

7. Yahoo! Local

As with many things Yahoo!, Yahoo! Local is on the way down. But they still provide a very popular service, so worth making sure you are listed there. Currently at 12 million visits per month. Web site links nofollowed. To add your listing: Yahoo! Local add a business page

8. LinkedIn

LinkedIn isn’t exactly a place where people go to look for local businesses, but it does offer rich business listing functionality, and the domain carries quite a bit of authority. LinkedIn has also been adding many useful features for businesses, such as the ability to announce promotions, share articles and blogs, and list open jobs. Currently at 63 million visits per month, but very little of this is local search traffic. Web site links nofollowed. Add a company.

9. Superpages.com

Superpages also went through a significant redesign recently, but doesn’t seem to be keeping up with Yellowpages.com or the others. Their traffic figures indicate same, with a fairly consistent downward trend. Nonetheless, they get 9 million local search visits a month, so deserve to be on this list. Web site links nofollowed.  Get your free listing now.

10. Local.com

Local.com is another directory site, less well-known, but with a great domain name and considerable traffic. Local.com has an extensive syndication network, but is primarily focused on promoting paid listings. Currently at 14 million visits per month. Add your listing.

There are many benefits to getting your business listed on other web sites. Four important ones are:

• Links – links pointing to a web site are major factor in how that site ranks in search engines. I would say the most important factor, but linking is a complex and nuanced topic. Links are not all created equal. Where a link comes from is important. For example, a link from the home pages of nytimes.com is worth a lot more than a link on a page buried deep within a blog like this one. And some web sites put a “nofollow” attribute on links. This attribute is a way of telling search engines not to follow nor associate value with a link. However, there is still some SEO value in a nofollowed link, in particular because user behavior is also a factor in Google ranking. And Matt Cutts of Google explains more about the value of nofollowed links here.
• Web site traffic – this one is kind of obvious, but your listing will include a link to your web site, which will result in more traffic. Many consumers like to visit a web site before visiting a business. If yours isn’t listed, you lose out.
• In-store traffic – as mentioned at the beginning of this post, consumers are using the internet more, and print yellow pages less.  According to one study, print now accounts for less than a third of local business search. Listing your business on the web is now the best way to get people to walk in to or call your business.
• Placerank – PlaceRank is a measure Google uses to understand location-based relevancy. It is not very well understood, but as location is increasingly becoming an integral part of search, expect optimizing for PlaceRank to become an important part of local business SEO. The short version is that businesses that are strongly associated with well-ranked places will benefit. SEO expert Ash Nallawalla has an excellent post explaining PlaceRank in detail.

Now that I have compiled this list, I am going to go through the process of adding a business to each of these sites. Look for posts in the coming weeks as I describe that experience.

Network Solutions has partnered with the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland to produce a series of studies tracking a variety of factors that affect the competitive health of small businesses. The most recent installment is detailed here: The State of Small Business Report – December 2009 Survey of Small Business Success. There is a lot of useful information in the report, ranging from statistics on methods of acquiring capital to characteristics of an effective workforce.

Below I have pulled out some choice statistics from the study relating to small business marketing and in particular social media. The number of small businesses who are using social media has doubled in the last year! While small businesses have been slower to adopt social media than big companies, they are starting to catch up. I believe this harkens a sea change in consumer habits, as social connections are strengthened between local consumers and local businesses. Mass marketing benefits big brands and big box stores, because it favors price as the common denominator across all consumers. But social media benefits businesses that are owned and operated by people who live in the community, because it favors social connections between individuals.

• “The incidence of small businesses having a social media presence has doubled from 12 percent to 24 percent in the past 12 months.”
• 70% of small businesses who use social media believe the medium has met or exceeded expectations.
• 50% of small businesses who use social media say it has used up more time than expected.
• 46% of small businesses have a web site – down from 50% a year ago.
• Marketing & innovation was second to capital access in affecting overall competitiveness. Workforce, customer service, computer technology and compliance were all less important factors.
• Referrals from existing customers are the most effective source of new customers.

Oh, and unrelated to marketing, but I couldn’t resist pulling this statistic out as well:

60% of small business owners are highly satisfied and 33% are somewhat satisfied with their jobs. Only 43% of the overall population are satisfied with their jobs. Source for the latter: The Conference Board.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the impact an unhappy customer can have on a business by writing negative reviews on sites like Yelp and Citysearch. While I suggested that businesses should actively solicit positive reviews, I also believe that unhappy customers should be heard, and in fact that giving unhappy customers a voice is good for your business. But this is different.

Unfortunately, there are scumbag marketers that generate fake reviews, both positive and negative. This is highlighted in a recent story involving Peak Studios, based here in Boulder. The story is long and involved, so I will summarize it here. Someone from Peak Studios gained the attention of Scott Hendison by attempting to post a spammy self-promo on a forum Scott moderates. The attempted post pissed off Scott – not good for Peak Studios, since Scott is a well-connected SEO expert and a self-admitted hothead. Scott did some investigating, and found that Peak Studios was in the practice of generating fake reviews on behalf of clients. This offense is hearsay, but Scott has documented his findings on his blog and I believe his accusations to be true. Scott described what Peak Studios was doing, and his exposé ended up ranking just below Peak Studios in Google for the search “peak studios”. This anecdote is particularly telling, both because it describes a marketing firm that was unrepentant about their fake reviews and comments, and because it shows what can happen if such activity is exposed.

If your business is the victim of fake, negative reviews, I’m sorry to say that there is little you can do. Some sites will remove reviews if you can prove that they are fake, but providing such proof is very difficult. The best you can do is to encourage legitimate dialog about your business, and thereby drown out the scumbags. And you can and should avoid the fate of Peak Studio’s clients:

Stay in Control of Your Marketing Activities

What I recommended in my previous post was that businesses ask customers for input in the form of reviews on 3rd party web sites. If you serve your customers well, the majority of your feedback will be positive. As a  business, this is very much within your power to do. But an outsourced marketing firm doesn’t have a relationship with your customers, so will often resort to tactics that are at a minimum less effective, and at worst could damage your reputation. A good marketing partner will work closely with you and provide full visibility in to what they are doing on your behalf. And trust your instincts: if a marketing activity smells fishy, it probably is.

I’d also like to include a shoutout to Sebastien Provencher, who proposes a solution to the problem of scumbags and reviews: Social Graph-Based Commenting Systems. With the ever-increasing importance of reviews on the web, Sebastien’s solution seems both good and inevitable.

[edit: please see the comment section below for clarification from Scott Hendison on his initial and ongoing frustration with Peak Studios]

As if local businesses needed the playing field to be any further out-of-level, Google is solidly tilted towards big business. Do some local searches and you will see what I mean. Google’s own map results favor big chain stores, and the organic results favor directory sites, which tend to put the big-spending advertisers first. I did a search for “pharmacy boulder“, and the first locally-owned pharmacy showed up on page seven of the organic results. Since very few people even go to page two of the results, I am probably the first person to see that listing in quite a while.

This is not due to any ill-will on Google’s part, it is just a function of how Google’s ranking algorithm works. Much of how Google ranks sites is based on the number and quality of external links pointing to a domain and specific pages on the domain. The SEO resource site SEOmoz.org publishes a bi-annual report of search engine ranking factors, which puts 4 of the top 5 ranking factors as having to do with external links. National chains and directories will generally have more external links, and so rank better.

But there is something you can do about it: start showing some link-love to your neighbors and partners. By link-love, I mean create links on your web site that link to other local businesses. One way to do this is to create a “resources” page or similar. An example of this can be found on the Builder’s Appliance Center web site. They link to a number of local businesses on their trade partners page. This page would have more SEO value if they added a one-sentence description to each link, for example “Plush Designs kitchen designs in Colorado Springs,” instead of just a logo. Google looks at link text as an indication of relevancy, so including the type and location of the business will help the site rank for those keywords. It can’t hurt to add a personal touch as well. For example, saying “We’ve been doing business with ACME Plumbing for 30 years and always get great service,” leaves a good impression of both you and ACME Plumbing. Of course, you will only benefit if your neighbors and partners reciprocate by creating their own links back to you. If they need convincing, point them to this post.

This truly is a case where you can help level the playing field by being neighborly. And check out Yahoo Site Explorer to see who is linking to you now. You may find that you owe someone some link-loving already.

Customer reviews are fast becoming the primary currency of business information on the web. Google Maps is putting increased emphasis on reviews, and has been aggregating business reviews from all over. And AT&T just announced the impending launch of a new consumer-review-focused site, buzz.com. Presumably some of the motivation behind the new site came from the fact that the review site Yelp.com is eating AT&T’s lunch. Specifically, Yelp.com is crushing AT&T’s Yellowpages.com site, in terms of unique visitors.

And Google, AT&T, Yelp and others are putting reviews first because that’s what consumers care about. According to Nielsen Online (April, 2009):

When making purchase decisions, North American Internet users trust recommendations from people they know and opinions posted by unknown consumers online more than advertisements on television, on the radio, in magazines and newspapers, or in other traditional media.

But there has been some backlash against this increased emphasis on customer reviews. Many businesses believe that review sites give too much power to a vocal minority. An Inc. Magazine article recently described a business owner who began fearing and harassing her customers because of Yelp. While the proprietor in question sounds a-few-monkeys-short-of-a-barrel, there is some validity to the concern. One or two unhappy customers can create a bad impression, and if reviews of a business are sparse, prospective customers have little else to go on. It can even create an atmosphere where subsequent reviewers feel they have to respond to the earlier, negative reviews.

On this topic I have an instructive anecdote concerning my former dentist, Shauna Gilmore. (Note that she is no longer my dentist because I moved too far from her office.) Several years ago, I recall getting an email from her office after an appointment. I don’t remember the exact words of the email, but it went something like:

Thank you for your recent visit …

We would love to hear from you how we are doing. We would very much appreciate it if you would post a review of your experience with us on doctoroogle.com.

Again, I’m going on memory here – I don’t recall the exact wording, but the gist was that they were asking me to write a review, positive or negative. Since I’d just had a very positive experience in her office, I was happy to take a few minutes to write a good review. And so did a lot of other people. If you have a look at the Good Dentist Guide for Denver, Dr. Shauna Gilmore is the highest rated dentist there is.

If, like Dr. Gilmore, you provide excellent service, think about respectful, unobtrusive ways you can ask your customers to review your business. Try to ask when you are still fresh on their minds as gratitude tends to have a very short half-life. And don’t ask for a positive review, just ask them to say what they think. For the most part, customers will appreciate that you value their opinion, and most if not all should have positive things to say. By encouraging a broad cross-section of your customers to speak out, you minimize the impact of a vocal few.

Also see this follow-up post: The Moral of the Story

I am working on gathering sources to do a weekly round-up of local social and viral campaigns. In so doing, I came across this video promoting Metro Taxi in Denver:

Believe it or not, this is the most-watched recently-uploaded video on YouTube that promotes a local Denver business. (Ok, it’s the most-watched excluding those that feature pretty women blowing smoke rings.) So, on the one hand the taxi video reminds me of a Saturday Night Live spoof of a bad cable commercial, but on the other hand Dale Finney (the guy in the video) inspires me. He inspires me because with no budget and apparently little knowledge of video production, he went ahead and did it. And people are watching. Not all that many people, but I’m guessing the ROI is pretty good. I’ll be calling Dale when I need a taxi, in any case. If you didn’t take the time to watch the video, I’ll tell you that he offers free, high-speed internet access in his cab. That’s pretty cool.

So, thank you and congratulations Dale! I’m no expert at video production either, but let me share a few of my thoughts. Unless you are a cute baby animal (or a cute smoke-ring-blower, apparently), telling a story is always a good idea. People like stories, and I bet you have a few to tell. In your case, I can imagine a story or two that illustrate the lengths you have gone to to serve your customers – maybe involving a blizzard or a trip to the maternity ward. People will forward a good story to their friends, and a great story will catch fire. Here’s an example of a great one: Shep Hyken: Customer Service Cab Story.

Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life on NPR, did a series of videos describing the art of storytelling. I found them incredibly helpful. And media theorist Gord Hotchkiss recently did a fascinating analysis of why stories work: The Psychology of Entertainment: How Our Brains Connect With Stories. There’s a real art to telling short, compelling stories. But in my experience it is an art that many cab drivers have mastered.

Yesterday I posted about the Twitter list I created for local businesses: Denver-Boulder-Local-Biz

I reviewed over a thousand Twitter feeds to come up with the list, but I didn’t provide much explanation for why I think the businesses I selected are worth following. I’ll start with a quote from Aliza Sherman:

Twitter is about listening to what others are saying, thoughtfully engaging others in conversation, contributing meaningfully to the conversation, and building real contacts and connects.

Well said. I was looking for businesses that fit that description, while actively seeking to promote themselves. I do think that businesses can gain benefit from tweeting without being conversational, but a salesperson who doesn’t listen gets pretty tiring after a while. There is more benefit to be had by actively engaging with the Twittersphere. Here are a few tweets from @ClearViewWater, one of the businesses I put on my list:

There’s a lot of goodness in just these few tweets. For example, he is very positive. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine he’d be that way to work with. And he is promoting other businesses. You can bet that those businesses will return the favor. And he is promoting himself with a real, compelling example of a project he’s worked on. To be sure, he also occasionally tweets in a more overtly self-promotional way, but he keeps people engaged with interesting content and meaningful, positive commentary on what’s going on around him.

In my list I tried to find a variety of types of businesses using Twitter in different ways, but all engaging with prospects and/or customers. If you know of others I should include, please let me know!

Here are a few resources to help an aspiring business Twitterer:

Aliza Sherman’s How To Avoid Seven Common Twitter Mistakes – this is a good list, and I much prefer advising on what not to do. The businesses I like to follow don’t appear to follow a formula, they just express themselves. But they do avoid these mistakes.

Kris Skavish commented with this great article on various styles of business Twittering: Four Styles of Marketing on Twitter – thank you Kris!

Klout is a service that measures influence and audience. You type in your Twitter name and it provides a detailed analysis of how you rate. It also has helpful tips for how to improve. I rate a pathetic 16, so I guess I have some work to do.