When was the last time you reached for phone book when you needed a hotel, a florist, or indeed…. a solicitor? We’re much more likely to reach for Google rather than the good old Yellow Pages, and “Local Search” is way the Internet presents geo-targeted information about your business, including location maps, customer reviews, and detailed information about your services.

Google reports that one in every thirteen searches includes a map in the search results. That means a lot of people searching for local businesses, and one of those people might be your prospective new client.

Local searching isn’t limited just Google web search. Yahoo! has a local business listing service (http://uk.local.yahoo.com) and Microsoft’s Bing search engine shows local listings and a map for most local searches (http://www.bing.com/maps).

Nevertheless, the major player in Local Search is, of course, Google. Run a search for a local business type, say “Solicitor Newcastle”, and you will trigger search results from the Google Maps service that includes a list of 7 local business listings, including mapping information. This display is known as the Local Onebox and the 7 business listing is the Local 7-pack.

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If there aren’t enough suitable businesses to generate a 7-pack, then Google might display the local 3-pack, and indeed sometimes just a single company listing is displayed, for instance for a search for your company name.

You can submit your business to the free Google Maps service at the Google Local Business Centre. You will require a Google account to list your business, and it is likely that your company will already have an account if it is using Google services like AdWords advertising, Google Analytics, or Gmail.

There is a very good chance that Google will have your company listed already even if you haven’t provided the information yourself. Google gathers information from a number of Internet Directory sources, and it may have created a generic listing for you. If that is the case, it is essential for you to claim the listing as your own. If you do not claim your listing yourself, you may find yourself victim of the scam known as “hijacking.” At its simplest, that means another organisation claims your listing, but changes the phone number to be their phone number, thus siphoning off your phone calls. Reclaiming a hijacked listing is tedious, so prevention is much better than the cure.

As you enter your company information into the Google Local Business Centre, keep in mind that how you enter the information will have a significant influence in whether your firm appears in the all important Google 7-pack.

Google publishes Google Local Business Listing Quality Guidelines and in particular these rules stipulate

you can only list

Tips for creating the perfect Google Local listing:

Name of your firm: it is important to use your official company name in the Title of your listing, but also making it clear what you do. So, if your firm is called Smith & Jones and you are solicitors, then make your entry Smith & Jones Solicitors. It is against Google guidelines to cram in keywords, phone numbers, or other SEO trickery in your company name.

Business address: ensure your business address matches exactly the address you are listing on your website, and the address that is listed on other Internet directory sites. The more identical addresses Google discovers for your website, the better.  You can only have one Google listing for each physical address of your business.

Phone number: 0800 numbers do not indicate any geographic area, so be sure to include your local dialling code phone number. You can add your 0800 number, but make your local number the first number.

Business description: You have up to 200 characters to describe your business, and you will want to include keywords in here. Keep in mind, however, that this content is intended for humans, so it will need to read well, and cramming too many keywords in here may get you banned.

Business categories: The categories you choose to classify you firm are exceptionally important, so choose them carefully. You should choose some categories from the suggestions provided by Google, as well as creating your own categories.

For Internet searchers using their mobile phones, Google Mobile Search uses the My Location feature to pinpoint your precise location and provides you with search results targeted to your physical location. Put in the word “curry” into your Google Mobile search, and you’ll find every curry house in the vicinity. (http://www.google.com/mobile.)

In addition to the search engines’ own local business directories, firms should be creating listings in the major Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) websites. Many of these listings are free, and offer you a way to provide consistent contact information for your company. These directories can be generic business listings like Yell (www.yell.com), City Visitor (www.city-visitor.com/), FreeIndex (www.freeindex.co.uk ) or Touch Local (www.touchlocal.com).

Review websites play an important role in local search, so make sure your firm is being reviewed in services like Qype (www.qype.co.uk) and Yelp (www.yelp.co.uk)

And finally, in addition to your listings on other websites, you need to ensure your own website is giving off clear local signals. Make sure you are including your physical address, including postcode and local phone number on every page of your website; typically this will be included in a footer on the page.

There are many more factors that influence local search rankings, but if you address these as your top priority you should start to see good results. The importance of Local Search for law firms in the UK cannot be underestimated, and the process of providing complete, accurate and consistent location information is what you need to do in order to take advantage of this relatively new and low cost marketing tool.

Universal Search is the “other” content that Google displays in the search results: Images, Video, Shopping results, News, Maps, and more. The prominence of universal search results means less space on the first page of Google results for your own website to appear. Your search engine optimisation strategy isn’t just about your optimising your website, you now need  tactics for getting your other content ranking well.

How do you optimise your own content for Universal Search?  I’ve produced some quick checklists for the main results types that I presented at the eChampions event about Universal Search.  I’ve summarised them here, and provided access to my slides:

Optimising Video for Search

• Use Original Text when describing your video – make it unique, and keyword rich
• Video Title (120 characters)
• Description (start with your URL) (1000 characters)
• Tags (120 characterse)
• Nothing new under the sun: Incoming links
• Community interaction: Views, Ratings, Comments
• Your own interaction on YouTube: contributions
• Views: embed on other keyword rich relevant pages
• Going viral: Name your channel something good (“How to..”

Optimising Your Products for Google Shopping

• Requires online sales
• Create a high quality data feed with complete set of item attributes
• Category
• Mandatory, Recommended & Optional attributes
• Tax and shipping
• Specific Image
• Manufacturers Part Number (MPN) or Universal Product Code (UPC) or equivalent
• Custom attributes (what people search for)

Optimising Your Google Local Listing:

• Verify listed in Google Local Business Centre
• Have a local address
• Choose appropriate categories for listing
• Include product/service in Company Name
• Get listed in the major local directories
• Create a complete listing
• Have a locally-optimised website
• Get customer reviews

Optimising your News

See my article on successful Online PR (PDF)

• Press release newswire services
• Keyword rich
• Headline
• Summary
• Headings
• Bold, italic
• Focus on keywords at the top of the release
• Keyword density
• Keyword rich links back to your site

Universal Search Optimisation
– Slideshare Slides

New – Google Maps is asking users whether the details being displayed from the Google Local Business Centre are accurate.  Perhaps Google is trying to let users help clean up the spam in their database?

I searched for John Lewis Nottingham, and Google not only provided me with map and details, but prompted me if the details are accurate:

I clicked on the “Is this accurate” prompt to find out what happens next, as you do.

Now, with the most sincere apologies to John Lewis, I must confess that I pressed the “Confirm” button to say I thought the details are wrong.

What will happen to this “vote” that I just cast?

• Will John Lewis be notified?
• Will a Google attempt to verify the results?
• Can unscrupulous competitors get a company blacklisted?
• Will the user generated content have an impact on John Lewis’s rankings in the Local results?
• What about unclaimed business listings?

With thanks to Mike Blumenthal who has an interesting collection of Google Local blog postings including one on this topic. Some of his articles do not pertain to the UK yet, but worth keeping an eye out might be heading our way. See also American Google vs UK Google.

23 April 09 Update : See also my Google Map Spam Update blog posting.

Google Maps is a powerful marketing tool for small businesses in the UK – but it is being hijacked by unscrupulous SEO companies in the UK.

Map spam is a black hat technique used that manoeuvres inappropriate listings to the top of the map listings results. The best known examples of map spam are the infamous Locksmiths of New York and it has also plagued other industries.

Here in the UK I’m seeing more and more examples of map spam.  I’d like to discuss one example: the accommodation industry, targeting small businesses providing guest house, or bed and breakfast.  This is a particularly despicable scam in that they are targeting a business sector that has one of lowest adoption rates of Internet technologies, and yet operates in one of the most competitive markets.

Google should hurry up and fix this problem. It has a special responsibility to provide trustworthy results to an unsuspecting audience.  It has undertaken the role of developing a business directory, knocking services like Yell out of the picture.  And now it is delivering results that are untrustworthy, and putting small businesses in the position that they feel they have no choice but to give in to the demands of these cowboys.

If you were to go and search for a bed and breakfast in Mablethorpe, you will find the top 10 Google Maps listings clogged up with 3  false listings, creating spam records that read “YOUR B&B can be HERE” – and offering to blackmail the owner of a genuine business that rightfully deserves to have that listing for free.

If you were then to go to Google Maps and search for his marketing strap line YOUR B&B can be HERE you’ll find these cowboys are operating around the whole of the UK, targeting everywhere from Glastonbury to Lincoln, Liverpool to Portsmouth.  There are 9 pages of these results, and they are even spreading their tendrils into France.

It’s not just B&B’s – they are targeting estate agencies, dog trainers, limousine hire companies, perhaps even businesses like yours.

You can report Google Map spam here.

And finally, we can see a trail of damage they have left behind, selling these entries to unsuspecting small businesses, who no doubt will have their listing removed once Google pulls its finger out.

Google Maps no longer limits its display to the top 10 business  listings in its Maps display.

In addition to the top 10 companies, plotted on the map with a little tear dropped shaped pin labelled A to J, Google now also displays clusters of  additional little circles with click throughs to all the other local companies.

This means customers can discover more businesses like yours, and it makes the Local Business directory even more useful.

Here is the distibution of plumbers in Nottingham on Google Maps, and by the way, it is worth noting that either there is a shortage of plumbers in certain neighborhoods, or they haven’t added their plumbing business to the directory:

Further Reading:

Learn how to make your own Google Map

Learn more at the Google Lat Long Blog

My top 5 Internet Marketing tips for fighting the credit crunch.

The economy may be turning ugly, but the Internet offers small businesses opportunities to survive, and even thrive, during this recession we are all calling the credit crunch.

Businesses are looking more carefully at budgets, making sure we can squeeze every penny of profit out of our investments, and looking for the most cost effective ways of delivering our products and services.

And our customers are doing the same:  but they are still spending money.  They may be spending less, but we need to figure out what they’re spending their money on.  And they don’t want to risk wasting a penny.  They want to buy the right products, from companies they can trust.

And our customers’ use of the Internet will continue to grow – after all, it is free.

Marketing budgets may appear to be a soft target for businesses looking to make budget cuts.

But canny business owners will be taking advantage of the opportunities the Internet has to offer.

Here are my top 5 top Internet marketing tips for fight the credit crunch:

1.  Work Smart to Retain your Existing Customer Base

Out of sight means out of mind.  You need to keep in touch with your customers or you risk losing them.  And it is always cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one.

• Email marketing is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective way keeping in touch with your customers.  I’m not talking spam, and I’m not talking about marketing to get new customers.  You need to be sending out personalised, targeted messages to existing customers who want to hear your news.  And well crafted email messages make sales.

• Blogs are another free and easy way to publish information anbd keep in touch with your clients.  I am of the personal opinion that the majority of the UK population doesn’t know what to do with an RSS feed, but they sure know how to read blogs.

• Getting Social means engaging in conversations with your customers.  Qype, Facebook, Twitter:  these are places where you customers are reviewing your products, discussing their purchasing decisions, exchanging views on your business.  Use these tools to listen to your customers, hear what they’re talking about, learn more about your market.  And remember it isn’t about advertising, your contributions ot the conversation need to be valuable and appropriate

2.  Get Even More Visible in Front of Your Potential Clients

You have to get visitors to your website to make the sales.  And one of the best times to get found by potential clients is when they’re searching for what you’re selling.  You need to get found on the Internet, which means Google, but also means a range of other places on the Internet that your customers visit.

Spending on online marketing is continuing to grow, competition is getting more intense, and as a result it is becoming more expensive.

Now is the time to review which of the visibility tools are going to give you the best return on your investment.  Put together your plan of action for building your visibility on the Internet.

Your Tools Checklist:

• Search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, banner advertising, classified advertising, online press releases, affiliate marketing, videos, sponsorship programmes

3.  Make Your Business Transparently Trustworthy

You an do all the advertising you want, but consumers trust each other more than they trust your carefully crafted marketing messages.  I have previously written about the importance of customer reviews in building trust.

If you’re selling business to business, then recommendations from colleagues, friends, accountants, and business advisers all have the greatest impact on building trust.

• Case studies and positive stories about your business form an essential part of the content on your website

• Plain speaking in the words you write may look easy, but it takes time and effort to write well.  Make your web copy and email messages sound genuine, and not hollow marketing drivel.

• Cultivate customer reviews.   Sites like Google Local Business Centre, TouchLocal and Qype are platforms for customer reviews and ratings.  I know businesses are scared of negative reviews, but remember even bad reviews contribute to the sense of honesty and trustworthiness.  Keep an eye on your reviews, and listen to what your customers have to say.

4. Measure, Measure, Measure

If you don’t measure, then you can’t manage.  And if you’re not managing, then you could be pouring money down the drain.

Measuring means accountability for your marketing spend.  You need to be measuring against your success criteria.  You may want to measure sales, or email enquiries, or phone calls, or visits to your website.

• You may be using low-tech ways of measuring, like a clipboard near the telephone, and making a tick every time a person says they found you on Google.

• You might be using a dedicated telephone number that is associated with your Internet marketing activities, and when that phone rings you know the web is working for you.

• Or you might be using a web statistics package like Google Analytics, and set up your Goals and Conversion Tracking to see who well your website is performing.

If marketing budgets are tight, then knowing what works makes it easier to make the decisions of where to invest your cash.

5. Test, Learn, Test

And finally, there is no one size fits all answer to the Internet marketing puzzle.

You need to try something new, experiment with a technology or technique you haven’t used before.  Measure your success, and learn from the experiment.

• Experiments should be quick, cheap, and easy to deliver.

• If it works, then well done, and more of the same, please.

• And if it doesn’t work so well, then kill the experiment and move on.  No harm done.  Be quick and be ruthless.  You will have tested something, learned from it, and moving on to test something new.

Have you found this article useful?

Why not contribute to the conversation by adding a comment, or bookmarking the site using your Social bookmarks.

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There’s been lots happening on the Google front in the last month, so I thought a quick round up of some of the latest news would be appropriate.

Google has beta released its Google local search facility here in the UK. It is designed to help customers and prospects find local businesses on the web. Powered by Yell.com, the Google local search is another great way to drive traffic to your website and needs to be an important part of your web marketing strategy.

Those of you linking to a map to your business on your website should consider replacing those less-than-ideal Multimaps with the new Google mapping feature.In addition to highly detailed, zoomable maps it also gives great directions from here to there, and very flexible search by postcode or street name. For all you geeks out there, it even has a satellite imaging facility . And the maps look great. There is a tutorial to learn more about Google maps on the site.

More Google news to follow soon….