There are over 20 million local businesses in the US alone, and not even half of them are utilizing free tools on the internet to promote their business. Learn how to increase your revenue using Google Places and local search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.

1. Formic Media Seminar Series:
Increasing Revenue through Local SEO
Presented by:
Formic Media, Inc.
www.formicmedia.com/seminars
503-517-9059 x122| johnm@formicmedia.com

2. Agenda
Why is Local Search Important?
What is Local Search?
Local Search Eco System
Local Search Components
Local Paid Search

3. Why is Local Search Important?

4. Local Search Volume by Month
Why is Local SEO so important?
Roughly 20% of all searches have local intent
June 2010
Google = 10.1 billion searches
Yahoo = 2.9 billion
Bing = 1.9 billion
Total of Big 3 = 14.9 billion searches
2,980,000,000 searches had local intent!

5. Local Search User Stats
97% of American internet users shop online, of
which 57% say they purchase offline (NPD Group)
90% of online commercial searches result in offline
brick and mortar purchases (comScore)
82% of local searchers follow up offline by an in-store
visit or phone call (comScore)
80% of all budgets are spent within 50 miles of the
home (DMA)

6. Local Search Business Stats
Roughly 25 million SMBs in the US
Approximately 2 million Place pages have been
claimed
8% of SMBs have claimed their Google Place page
Huge Potential and Opportunity!

7. Local Search Definition
Local search is the use of specialized Internet search
engines that allow users to submit geographically
constrained searches against a structured database
of local business listings.
- Wikipedia

8. Difference Between Local & Organic
Location, location, location
Organic/Paid search = “the what”
Nike running shoes, Sony DSLR camera
Local Search = “the what” & “the where”
Nike shoe store Portland, Camera World Portland

9. What is Local Search?

10. Evolution of Local Search

11. Online Yellow Pages
Iconic yellow-pages books, but online:

12. Business Listings in Search
Google joins local with 10-pack:

13. Google 7-Pack

14. Google O-Pack

15. Google O-Pack

16. Google O-Pack

17. Local Gets Social
Yelp

18. Local Gets Mobile

19. Local Gets Mobile

20. Local Gets Mobile

21. Local Gets Social & Mobile

22. Local Search Eco System

23. The Major Players in Local Search

24. Google Place Pages

25. Bing Local Listing

26. Yahoo! Local Listing

27. Yelp Business Listing

28. Top Ranking Factors
1. Business address must be in the city that is being searched
2. Manually owner-verified Place Page
3. Choose the most appropriate categories for your business
4. Volume of traditional structured citations (IYPs & data
aggregators)
5. Crawlable address on-site matching Place Page address
6. PageRank, authority of website homepage and highest
ranked page
7. Quality of inbound links to the website
8. Crawlable phone number on-site matching Place Page
phone number
9. Local area code phone number on Place Page
10. City and State in Places landing page title
Source: David Mihm, Local Search Ranking Factors:
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

29. Business Address in the City Being Searched
Proximity:
Having an address in the city
and close to the city center
helps with local ranking.
Importance is determined by
competition.

30. Manually Owner-Verified Place Page
Trust is a huge signal for Google
Only 2MM claimed in U.S. so far
http://www.google.com/places
No duplicate listings!
Do the same at Yahoo (listings.local.yahoo.com)
And the same at Bing
(ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx)

31. Manually Owner-Verified Place Page
Claiming:
Enter business info.
Verify your listing.

32. Choose the Most Appropriate Categories for
Your Business
Add
Relevancy
Factors:
Search Engines use
categories to help
define your business
accurately.

33. Volume of Traditional Structured Citations
Submit to Free and/or Paid directories
Add & verify business information with local Data Providers

34. Crawlable address On-Site Matching Place Page
Address
Rich snippets and hcard formatting on your website
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<h2>Contact</h2>
<div class="street-address">300 NE Failing St.</div>
<span class="locality">Portland</span>,
<abbr class="region" title="Oregon">OR</abbr>&nbsp;
<span class="postal-code">97212</span>
</div>
<div class="tel"> <span class="type">Work</span> +1-503-517-9059 x122 </div>
<div class="tel">
<span class="type">Fax</span> +1-503-517-9068 </div>
<div>Email: <span class="email">info@formicmedia.com</span></div>
</div>

35. PageRank, authority of website homepage
and highest ranked page
Building authority to your actual site build the
authority of you Place Page
Google takes into account both the homepage and
the next highest ranked page on your site

36. Quality of Inbound Links to the Website
Having quality links to you site will help build organic
ranking and local ranking
Inbound links also help improve PageRank

37. Crawlable Phone Number On-Site Matching
Place Page Phone Number
Rich snippets and hcard formatting on your website
<div class="vcard">
<div class="adr">
<h2>Contact</h2>
<div class="street-address">300 NE Failing St.</div>
<span class="locality">Portland</span>,
<abbr class="region" title="Oregon">OR</abbr>&nbsp;
<span class="postal-code">97212</span>
</div>
<div class="tel"> <span class="type">Work</span> +1-503-517-9059 x122 </div>
<div class="tel">
<span class="type">Fax</span> +1-503-517-9068 </div>
<div>Email: <span class="email">info@formicmedia.com</span></div>
</div>

38. Local Area Code Phone Number on Place
Page
Goes hand-in-hand with being in the city of the
search
Adds relevance to your locale
Avoid toll free numbers

39. City and State in Places Landing Page Title

40. Local Search Components

41. Local Search Components
Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)
Off-site Optimization
On-site Optimization

42. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)
Claim & verify your Place page

43. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)
Claim & verify your Place page

44. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

45. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

46. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

47. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

48. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

49. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

50. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)

51. Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing)
Business Title
Address/Phone
URL
Categories
Hours of
Operation
Business
Description
Additional Details
Photos & Video

52. Local Search Components
Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)
On-site Optimization
Off-site Optimization

53. On-site Optimization
Still need to focus on website optimization
Geo-specific keyword targeting
Title Tags
Meta Tags
H1 tags
Body Copy

54. On-site Optimization

55. On-site Optimization
Microformats help parse out business data for
the search engines
hCard
hReview

56. On-site Optimization
hCard

57. On-site Optimization
hReview

58. On-site Optimization
Local phone number = Good
800 phone number = Not ideal
Tracking phone number = Bad

59. On-site Optimization
If you have multiple store locations, you
should:
Create unique pages for each location

60. On-site Optimization

61. Local Search Components
Google Place Page (Yahoo/Bing Local Listings)
On-site Optimization
Off-site Optimization

62. Off-site Optimization
Web citations are to local search, what
inbound links are to organic search
More citations = more trust + higher rankings

63. Off-site Optimization

64. Off-site Optimization

65. Off-site Optimization
User reviews also help gain trust from both
the search engines and users
Quantity is still more powerful than quality
Engines are working to understand sentiment

66. Off-site Optimization
Get reviews through:
Email campaigns
Encourage employees to ask for reviews
Incentivize your employees if necessary
Google window sticker
Utilize collateral
Social media
Use website widget

67. Local Paid Search

68. AdWords Express
Utilizes Google Places Platform
Ads appear in the ads section on Google.com and
Google Maps
Advertisers pick categories to advertise under, but
not keywords
Ideal for small businesses with smaller budgets

69. AdWords Geotargeting
Target users by country or all the way down to a 10
mile radius
You can exclude certain locations much like you
can choose negative keywords to not have your ads
show for

70. AdWords Location Extensions
Provides a physical address where users can locate
the product or service they are looking for

71. AdWords Click-to-Call Extensions
Extension allows users to simply tap the phone
number in the ad and call
Quick and easy way for the user to call your company

72. Facebook
Over 500 million users Facebook
Facebook gives you the option to not only target
users by age, gender, interests, but by location as well
Increase local visibility by targeting users close to
your locations
Good for B2C businesses
Formic Media
Are you a Portland
small business looking
to increase your local
online presence? Learn
how Formic can help.

73. LinkedIn
Over 100 million worldwide users
Target users by age, gender, company, job title and
location
Good for B2B businesses

74. Questions?
Contact:
John McPhee
www.formicmedia.com
503-517-9059 x122| johnm@formicmedia.com