Local SEO is the New Yellow Pages

http://www.localseotampa.com/newsjacking-as-an-seo-strategy-201512/The days of big, fat yellow books being found in every corner of every office building, home, and commercial area is long behind us. While the iconic Yellow Pages still exist, they are often much smaller in size and less ubiquitous than they were 10 years ago and that trend is likely to continue into the future as the Internet has replaced much of the function in this space. Local SEO and the investment that companies like Google have made in local search is really what has driven down the need for physical directories on local businesses and services.

This is especially important for small businesses which are looking at optimizing their marketing strategies. No longer are Yellow Pages registrations as valuable as they once were and in turn, local SEO is more important than it ever has been. For those starting out with local search strategy, it is important to first make sure that your basic business information (such as phone number, name, address, and maybe a small description) is appropriately listed in the major local search engines: Google+, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local.

Beyond that simple first step, there are a number of tactics that need to be carried out and will result in essentially every part of your online strategy being centered around local success. From choosing the right keywords and keyphrases (“dry cleaner in Hoboken”) to building content and links around those search terms, it can be a large task to effectively target local results, but the payoff can also be equally large. This is because the most targeted visitors will be local, especially for brick-and-mortar small businesses. By increasing local traffic by even 10%, it can be a substantial change in sales and may even beat out a much higher increase in non-local traffic. At the end of the day, absolute traffic does not matter, but targeted traffic does.

As with general search, local search is all about relevancy so it is important to have the right content and online presence to support that. Reviews play an additional role in this so it is important to encourage your happy customers to leave reviews for you online whether it be on Google, Yelp, Facebook, or another site. A mix of reviews in a number of places is the most natural way to do it and Google and other search engines will notice.

We are quickly moving to a point (if we have not already passed it) where local SEO is more effective than Yellow Pages in terms of return on investment. It is a must-do for any business looking to really succeed in today’s marketplace and thankfully it does not have very high barriers to entry. So what are you waiting for? If you don’t have a local search strategy in place yet, it might be time to start doing some research on keywords and building your strategy and tactics around that to effectively get all of those people in your town searching for your service to actually come to your website or shop. Go get them!

The Changing Face Of Social Media And SEO

The Changing Face Of Social Media And SEOGet ready for a ride!

If you think keeping up with social media and SEO then you had better get ready for what’s going to happen down the line. In the coming months and years, what we think of as standard SEO is going to change drastically. The old fundamentals will still apply but the social media marketing end is where the action is all going to be at.

Let’s take a look at what this all means.

First of all, social media itself is constantly changing. Facebook is still king but there are other powerful sites like YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and who knows what else is being invented at this moment that might take the world by storm. If you’re not participating or if your customers and supporters aren’t participating in the social media experience, your company’s brand name isn’t getting out there.

Social media sites are becoming more powerful than search engines themselves. More precise too regarding organic traffic. The reason being is that any information about your website , pro or con, is going to be mentioned by someone who wanted your services or partook of your services and loved them. You get good mention from an article, video, pic, regarding your company and you could end up swamped with business, enough to make you a worldwide phenomenon. It can happen. You can go viral but you just don’t know when. In order to better your chances you need to be in the game not sitting on the sidelines wishing something would happen.

Soon, social media marketing will be focused on the social media networks to get those targeted organic traffic sources and if your sites aren’t SEO’d you won’t see the boost up in search engine traffic. It’s going to be the other way around pretty soon. Search engines will depend on what people have to say about your site instead of people looking for what you have using keywords and query strings.

The hard work is going to be in your keeping your website popping with life. No more will a static, cookie cutter template website work. It might as a form of electronic business card but don’t expect any miracles if the site isn’t alive with fresh content nor anything for people to get engaged with. Your website has to thrive with action and vibrancy. Just adding a few new pics a week is better than nothing at all. Just pics or vids of new products or happy customers will do. The more the merrier though. Make that site mobile friendly and social media friendly with ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ buttons plastered wherever you have room or get one of the fine plugins that will do the job for you and your readers can use.

Although the benefits of upcoming social media marketing and SEO look very bright, it’s going to take ‘doing’. No more ‘auto-pilot’ sites. You’re going to have to engage with the public or hire someone to do so. Don’t let your niche go without you being an authoritative voice in it.