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

In putting together this list, we 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. We have included traffic figures for each site, using Compete.com December, 2010 data.

1. Google Places

By adding your business to Google Places, you show up on Google Maps and Google local results. 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:

• Google Maps is a hugely popular mapping application.
• Google Place Page results show up on Google.com for most local searches.
• Google Maps is one of the most popular applications on smartphones.

Compete puts monthly visits for maps.google.com at 58M, but Google.com and mobile are probably the bigger traffic drivers. If we conservatively estimate that 10% of search on www.Google.com is local, that amounts to over 300M locally-oriented visits per month. I don’t know of a good source for usage data for the mobile Google Maps application – please let me know if you do.

To add your listing: Google Places. And while claiming your Place Page is a good start, you should also invest the time in optimizing your page so that you rank well for your categories.  Here’s an article with some pointers on Place Page optimization: To-Do List: Creating a Fabulous Google Place Page

2. Facebook Fan Page

Apart from being the most visited site on the internet, over 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 the first place 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 3.5 billion visits in December, 2010, though little of this constitutes local business search traffic.
To create a page you must be logged in to your personal account. People who follow your page won’t be able to see your private information, FB just doesn’t allow people to anonymously create pages. Also, once you’ve created it, you can add other administrators to the page.  Create a Facebook Page. And here are some suggestions for how to engage with prospects and get people interested in your business: Great Content for Facebook Business Pages

Facebook users can also check in to locations, and Facebook has their own version of place pages as part of this functionality. You need to claim or create a place page in addition to creating a business page, and then link it to your business page. Here are instructions for doing this.

3. Yellowpages.com/YP.com

AT&T owned Yellowpages.com rebranded as YP.com, and it’s not your parent’s 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. They also distribute listings to a number of syndication partners. Currently at 29 million visits per month.
Claim your listing

4. 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, but they did have a nice uptick last Fall. They get 19 million local search visits a month.
Get your free listing now

5. Yelp

The review site Yelp is the most popular social 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 18 million visits per month.
To add your listing: Yelp signup page

6. 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 9 million visits per month. Citysearch is also a powerhouse when it comes to review syndication.
To add your listing: add business – note that you must be logged in to a personal Citysearch account to see this page.

7. Yahoo! Local

As with many things Yahoo!, Yahoo! Local is holding steady, but not seeing the growth of Google or even Bing. But they still provide a very popular service, so worth making sure you are listed there. Local.Yahoo.com is currently at 17 million visits per month, and we estimate about 60 million more local search visits at search.Yahoo.com.
To add your listing: add a business page

8. 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. Bing local and maps operate under the www.Bing.com domain, which gets 654M visits per month. We estimate 65M of that to be local search.
To add your listing: Local Listing Center

9. 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. LinkedIn is very important for business-to-business exposure, since people will often browse from a personal profile to a business profile. Currently at 48 million visits per month, though very little of this is local search traffic. Add a company to LinkedIn

10. Localeze.com

Localeze is not a local search site itself, it is a back-end data provider to many other local search services. Create an account on Localeze

Honorable Mention – Universal Business Listing

Universal Business Listing’s basic submission service costs $75, but deserves mention here. UBL.org provides an automated submission service that gets your listing into Acxiom and InfoUSA, back-end data providers similar to Localeze. UBL also distributes business information to a number of other sites. All told, submitting to UBL will get your listing on to hundreds of sites and services, definitely worth the $75.

You’ll notice that both Localeze and UBL distribute listing data to some of the sites mentioned here – we still recommend that you claim them and enter all the information you can.

A Couple of Pointers When Creating/Updating Listings

• Be accurate and consistent. If you have a registered business name, use that as your business name in all cases. Some of these sites will verify your information with public business registration data, and consistency will help your search ranking.
• Fill out everything you can. More information helps you get found, and makes your listing more useful to searchers – remember, your goal is not just to have your listings show up, you want people to visit your business.

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. 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 – consumers are using the internet more, and print yellow pages less.  According to one study, print 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.
• Citations – citations are references to your business that include your business name and some sort of geographic identifier, like a phone number or street address. Citations are one of the signals Google uses to determine ranking for local listings.

[note: this post was updated in January, 2011]

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.

I’ve been looking around for a list of local businesses that are making good use of social media. So far I haven’t found any, so I decided to create my own Twitter list as a starting point: http://twitter.com/nicobrx/denver-boulder-local-biz#. If you are a local business, I recommend that you follow this list as a source of ideas for how to create and strengthen relationships. There are also great businesses on this list, which anyone in Colorado should want to follow!

My list is not comprehensive. I’ve done my best to find out which local businesses are actively using Twitter, but there is no authoritative source of such information that I have found. It is also very subjective. My intent is to list businesses that are engaging with their customers and the local community using Twitter. This rules out, for example, @denversolarguy who is incredibly prolific and has many followers, but is mostly one-directional as far as I can tell. This also rules out the many businesses who follow the crap out of people to up their follow numbers, but don’t have much of interest to say.  I have also tried to represent a variety of types of businesses. Since restaurants and bars are making heavy use of Twitter, I set the bar a little higher for these categories. Otherwise, the list would be hundreds of restaurants and bars with a few other businesses strewn about.

I plan on updating this list frequently and welcome any suggestions. Sources of information I have used include:

• Businesses followed by people I follow
• Wefollow.com
• Twellow.com
• Listorious.com