©Milestone€¦ · MILESTONE CONFIDENTIAL Agenda About Milestone Local Search Ranking Factors Best...

MILESTONE CONFIDENTIAL

Local Search Ranking Factors Benu Aggarwal [email protected] www.milestoneinternet.com blog.milestoneinternet.com http://twitter.com/milestonemktg http://www.facebook.com/Milestoneinc

http://bit.ly/LocalSocial

©Milestone


Agenda

  About Milestone   Local Search Ranking Factors   Best Practices Google Place   Local Search on Mobile   Reviews – Why, How?   Problems, Solutions,

Opportunities   Upcoming Trends   Final Walkaways

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Milestone at a Glance

Mission

Founded

Location

People

Products

Customers

Driving Reservations for the Lodging Industry on the Internet

1998

HQ - Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley)

Sales Offices – US, Mexico, India

90 Employees

Website Design, SEO, PPC, Social Media Optimization, Social Media Monitoring Tools, Hotels to HTMLs – A complete guide to internet marketing for the lodging industry

900+ Customers

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Factors Impacting your Local Search Today

2

IYP’S Listings

Best of the web Yellow Pages Info USA

Local Search Ranking Factors

Reviews

Your Site

Hotpot

Tripadvisor

Yelp

5

4 Hyper Local

Title Tags

H1, H2 & Alt Tags

Anchor, Rich Snippet

Address & Footer

Custom Maps

1 On Page Optimization

Claiming Local on SE

Updating Local with correct information

Local

Facebook Places Gowalla Foursquare

Local

Claiming Local on SE

Updating Local with correct information

Local Claiming Listings

100% Enhanced Listings

Add pictures and videos

Google Offers (Coupons)

Add Google Tags, Events, Boast, Location Ext

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Google Offers, Tags

Boast, Location Extension

Local 3

6 Mobile

Mobile location-based PPC QR codes Reviews Mobile sites

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How – Integrating SEO Strategy to the On-Page Optimization 1

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Website Optimized for Local Search

Display Address in text Phone numbers

Location MAP

Image names and ALT tags Should have city-state keywords

Add physical address text to bottom of every page. Add hCard Microformat to enable rich snippet.

1

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Rich Snippet

  What/Why - Rich snippet?

  Rich Snippet is Google’s way of indexing most critical and time sensitive information on a website faster.

  User can achieve rich SERPs by providing certain information on the site such as address, phone numbers, reviews, events etc in the rich snippet format .

  Helps user get relevant / realtime information quickly.

  Site is indexed faster by Google.

Address Reviews

Events

1

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Maps and Coupons – Customizable and personable

What is a Custom Map (E-maps)? • A dynamic map posted on the website,

which contains information about the property and nearby attractions

• The custom map is created on a spreadsheet and shared publicly on Google Doc.

Why should we do Custom Maps? • Easy to manage local attractions. • Custom maps are easily crawl able by

search engine. • Add attractions on Google Doc’s and it

reflects the map real time. • Places account gets more credibility • Helps drive more traffic • Map with attraction gets high visibility in

mobile/local search

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Maps and Coupons – Customizable and personable

Results?

 Hotels places listing started to show search queries that custom map is optimized for.

 This means that custom map is driving traffic to listing/site for local attractions.

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Off Page Factors – Accurate & Consistent Information

  IYP’s:   YellowPages.com

  SuperPages.com

  MagicYellow.com

  Info USA

  Localeze

  City Search

  Acxicom

  Insider Pages

  Business.com

  Best of the Web (botw.org)

  Yelp & Trip Advisors

  Reviews sites

  Several other relevant city and state directories

Business Directories / Verticals

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Best Practices - Local Search

  Enhanced local listings

  Description written keeping local and regional factors in mind

  Check if your website is optimized for local search?

  Consistent information – IYP’s, Business & Vertical, Hyperlocal

  Securing valuable local citations / listings

  Custom local PPC campaign

  Google eMaps tagged with local attractions

  Promotion - Wikipedia profile, real time search and use of social channels to promote / network locally

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Best Practices – Google Places

  Validate and Enhance Google place listing. Claim and delete duplicate listings.

  Use exact business name as it is on maps & real world. Do not add additional keywords in the title of the listings.

  Proper Use of Categories. Do not add random categories. See which categories are recognized by google in that location.. Use 7 pack help finding in relevant categories.

  Reference Social Media Profiles. Add as many photos / videos as possible. (Owner/ User created video on You tube)

  Fix incorrect marker location. Add coupons, Google Map and tags

  Include keywords and geomodifiers in “Additional Details”

  Multiple businesses are at the same location and getting citation to different URL - Claim /enhance listing separately for each business. Try to differentiate business by adding suite number or changing location on the map

  Accurate Information about your business on third-party sites

  Encourage customers to review or blog about your business. Google uses reviews and feedback to improve search results

3

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Google Place Optimization

  What should we do with Google Local?   Use exact business name as it is on maps & real world

  Include Website URL

  Use all 5 Categories to describe hotel without GeoModifiers

3

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Google Place Optimization

  Include photos and user created videos of the Hotel

  Additional Information about the property (include Facebook profile, Twitter etc.)

  Make profile 100% complete

3

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Example of 100% Enhancement

1.  Site URL

2.  Categories

3.  Hotel Details

4.  Site powering reviews

5.  Reviews

6.  Photos and Video

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2.

6.

5.

4.

3.

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Google Place Optimization 3

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  What we shouldn’t do with Google Local

1. Use agency email address to claim / enhance listings

2. Alter the Business name

3. Adding Keywords to Business Name and Categories

4. Use Geo-modifiers in categories

5. Use 800 phone number for the hotel

6. Duplicate Listing

Things to avoid 3

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Best Practices – Google Places Referance 3

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Opportunities on Paid - Google Tags

Add Google Tags – Google Places allows site owners to highlight the info that they want customers to see such as coupons, website url or photos.

3

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Post Events – Post the latest and happening event information on Google Places Account and use Google URL shortener to track results. Posted an event deal on Google Places using Google Places Post Event option using url shortner. In 3 days, there was 11 visits to the deals page which was posted only on Google Places

Google Local Optimization

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

3

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Opportunities on Paid – Google Local Optimization

Google Boost Ads - With Google Boost Ads, we can advertise on Google and Google Maps and attract more visitors to the website or the place page.

  Attract more local customers to your website or Place page.

  Pay only when people click on your ad.

  Create ads directly from your place account within minutes.

  No ongoing management is needed after sign up. Boost runs the ads for you.

  Measure the effectiveness of your ads in your Places dashboard.

  Cost per click is lower than Google paid search.

  Nationally Rolled Out, Results to show on Adroid and I Phone

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Test Results

Clients Impressions Clicks CTR Ave.CPC Start TotalCost

HeathmanKirkland 1,357 135 9.5% 0.13 Jan.4 18.21

TheWhiteHallHotel 4,785 448 9.4% 0.15 Nov.1 67.16

TheOrchardHotel 3,283 279 8.5% 0.10 Jan.4 28.85

TheOrchardGardenHotel 1,909 54 2.9% 0.43 Jan.5 23.35

NickHotel 28658 201 0.70% 0.37 Nov.29 73.8

1.  More chances to dominate search results

2.  CPC is cheaper than Paid Search Promotion

3.  CTR is really high compared to Paid search promotion.

3

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Local PPC Campaigns: Location Extensions

What? Hotel address and phone number automatically appears if user is within a 10 mile radius of property.

Why? Increase overall conversions and click-through-rates by increasing your local presence.

How? Link your PPC campaign to your Local Business Center account (Google Places).

Budget? Location extensions can be activated with no additional costs.

Results: 23% increase in CTR on ads when location extension listings were shown.

Hotel address and phone

number

3

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Hyperlocal – On Mobile/ Social

What is Hyperlocal? • Promoting Businesses in their very own local online community

• Hyperlocal content is typically intended for residents of a particular community: region, city, town, village, or neighborhood

Why Hyperlocal? • Helps build relevance in organic SERP

results and local search results

• Captures considerable long-tail local search traffic

• Connects with residents of a particular area with highly targeted and locally relevant content

• Rewards customer loyalty

• Generates new customers

•  Engages users in conversations.

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Hyperlocal – On Mobile/ Social

Which Channels?

•  Social Media provides an ideal platform to build a Hyperlocal presence and reward users for connecting /engaging with you

Facebook Places (mobile) 200+ million users

Foursquare 4+ million users

Gowalla 500,000+ users

SCVNGR 500,000+ users

How?

•  Create account, claim and verify the hotel location

•  Set up special deals to encourage user participation

•  Enable guests to check-in on site

•  Post a check-in message and monitor user analytics

Results

4

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Reviews

Encourage users to write reviews about the property.

  Google Improves search results by collecting user reviews about the listing which are available on the web.

  Encourage users to write reviews or blog about the business. Connect all the reviews sites, hotpot site from your site

  Leverage your site, google hotpot and reviews site specific to your vertical and gather reviews from users.

5

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Reviews – Problems, Solutions

  Fragmentation in Reviews Site – Solved by HotPot

  HotPot has high likely hood to be more successful than Facebook Places, Foursqure and other reviews sites & results can be more accurate

  Hotpot results are based on yours, your friends reviews and also based on traditional place algorithmic signals i.e. review volume, link authority, sentiment analysis etc.

5

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Google Hotpot Now on Google.com Search

1.  Hotpot recommendations are now available on your regular search results on Google.com.

2.  User needs to have any google account to rate on HotPot. 3. Your search results will be personalized based on your usage history. 4. Google shows explanations on why you/your friend like that place

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Local PPC Campaigns: Mobile

What? •  Mobile Local PPC, QR Codes, Events, Deals/Offers

on Hyperlocal Sites •  Paid search ads shown on mobile devices. Ads will

display a click-to-call phone number so guests can call the business directly and/or land users on mobile optimized website.

Results (15 days of data):   698 clicks   42 direct calls to hotel   10.68% CTR   $.33 cost per click

Why? •  1/3 of all mobile searches are local in nature and is

about where I am. •  Internet use on mobile phones is on the rise. Less

competition & lower cost per click than PC search. Can reach people on the go, anytime, anywhere.

How? Mobile campaigns are typically created for local markets. Keyword phrases are focused on geo-location + hotel and brand name.

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Things to Remember - Conclusion

  Leverage all the factors impacting your local search  Make sure your site is optimized for local search  Enhance your Google place account  Consistent and accurate information on IYPs,

Relevant Sites, Directories   Take advantage of Mobile, Social and Hyper Social

Platform  Watch for Google HotPot and Place account ©Milesto

ne


Thank You Questions?

Benu Aggarwal [email protected] www.milestoneinternet.com

http://twitter.com/milestonemktg http://www.facebook.com/Milestoneinc

http://bit.ly/LocalSocial

©Milestone

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