Just about every local business that we work with has a local listing. They’ve been around for a while, and they’re likely not going away anytime soon.  Here’s an example:

This local listing (in this case, a “7 pack”) takes up a large chunk of this search engine result page. One of the very first things we do for clients is create this local listing account and promote it to gain the maximum amount of visibility possible. Virtually all geographic searches will have some form of the local listing pack.

Enter Enhanced Listings

Google has recently added features to the local listing center that enable you to enhance your listing:

Local customers already search Google for the products and services you offer. By creating a free business listing, you can make sure they can find you. When you add an enhancement to your listing, you can highlight what you most want your customers to see. For example, you can add a coupon for new customers, highlight a video overview of your store, or even link to your menu. You decide what what’s most important about your business and make sure it stands out.

Here’s an example of a listing that has enhanced their photos:

Make no mistake, that little bit of highlighting can potentially make a world of difference. $25 is a drop in the bucket compared to potentially increasing the amount of clicks on your ad. What’s one extra lead worth? Probably much more than 25 bucks.

And the big question…

No, this does not appear to affect the positioning of your local business listing. You’ll still need a good internet marketing company to accomplish high ranking.

The Benefits

• You can easily and inexpensively highlight your listing on Google Maps and Google.com from the Local Business Center.
• Potential customers in your local area will see what you think is most important or unique about your business.
• You can track the effectiveness of your enhancement with your Local Business Center dashboard.
• You will be charged a low $25 flat monthly fee, with no bids and no keywords required.
• There is no additional work or ongoing management needed.

What you can Enhance

• Website for your business.
• Photos of your business.
• Videos of your business.
• Coupons for your listing.
• Menu for your restaurant.
• Reservations page for your business.
• Driving directions to your business.

And the Catch

These enhancements aren’t available to everyone just yet:

Enhanced listings are being offered in limited areas, but we hope to expand soon. Because this is a limited trial, it is subject to change. We’re using your feedback from this trial to improve our products and services and help local businesses grow!

Unfortunately, as far as we can tell, Atlanta GA is not one of the areas currently being tested. This gives you time to look at your existing local listings and decide if you are where you want to be. If you aren’t – we’d be more than happy to help. Take the first step toward securing your internet marketing success and contact us today!

Additional Reading

Official Google Enhanced Listing Answers

Google has recently announced they are personalizing all searches. In the past you had to turn this feature on. Now it’s the default. Personalized Search is how Google attempts to use your web history to give you the most relevant results.

Here’s a quote:

Now when you search using Google, we will be able to better provide you with the most relevant results possible. For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I’m looking for news about Cornell University’s sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others.

Overall, this is a big deal! One of the biggest problems for search engines has always been providing results for general search queries. Google is using your search behavior to solve the problem.

What This Means to You

Not a whole lot for the average searcher. If you often click on Amazon results you’ll end up seeing Amazon pop up a lot more during product searches. The same goes for your favorite news outlet. If you really like the Huffington post and click on it often, you’ll see more stories in the search results from the Huffington post.

This also is Google’s way of understanding very broad searches. Let’s say you really like basketball. In the past 180 days you’ve visited 3 dozen basketball-related sites. Now, when you type in “traveling” you should get a definition of traveling as it applies to basketball as opposed to a very general query relating to travel. This is the overall idea of the technology.

What This Means to your Business

Let’s say you’re a Personal Injury Attorney and you have a great site that gets a lot of relevant traffic. Should you be worried that this change will dramatically affect your bottom line? Not really. If a visitor clicked on your competitor more than once in the past 180 days, it’s likely that either:

• They typed in the same query to find the same website (maybe for a followup, or to get a phone number)
• They are searching through the search engine result pages to find other attorneys, ie “shopping around”.

In the first case the person was already a client, and in the second case the person will most likely eventually click on your site because they are looking around. If someone is doing comparison shopping they’ll likely find you either if you were pushed down a spot or two on the first page, or if you’re on the second page.

This change may drastically affect ranking reports, or reports that indicate where your site is ranked for specific keywords.  Since everyone will potentially see slightly different results, it reduces the accuracy of an already diminished metric. It has already been diminished because people have been using personalized search for a while now. This change is a shift from the minority to the majority.

What This Means to WebTech Services

Not Much! Our focus is to create valuable websites that are optimized for search. We research which phrases people are using to find products and services, build sites around that language, market the site, and finally analyze the user behavior to both increase conversions and user engagement.

While we do utilize ranking reports, we use them as a general progress indicator of how we can improve our sites.  We use them to look at what search engines think of our sites overall, and use them to try and detect patterns.

If you are interested in learning more about us and what we can do for your company, please fill out our contact form or call today!

More Reading On This Subject

• Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results
• Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention

You’ve come to the point where you want more out of your website – but you’re not quite sure if you’re ready to take that next step.  You know everyone around is turning to search engines to find what they’re looking for – so naturally your customers must be doing the same.

There aren’t many occasions where search engine optimization would be a bad thing – in fact most companies would benefit from increased traffic to their website.  Here’s a quick list of questions that you’ll want to ask yourself before taking the plunge with an Internet marketing company:

1. Do you have time? It takes about 6 months before you’ll start seeing organic results. Don’t worry, we’ll send you reports and keep you in the loop as much as possible. The problem is that it takes time for the search engines to find, process and apply what we’re doing to the search indexes (Google, Yahoo and Bing).
2. Do you have a specific set of phrases in mind you want to rank for? They may not be the best goals. Sure you’re a car salesmen, so naturally being #1 for “cars” sounds like the perfect position for your site to be in. Not really. For one thing, it’s going to take a lot of time and money climbing to the top of that very competitive search engine result page. Two – a person typing in “cars” may not be a potential customer looking for you. It could be a little kid looking for movie spoilers or someone looking for music lyrics. The bottom line here is to have an open mind – optimizing your site for certain phrases is merely a means to an end. The goal is ranking you where people will find you to buy from you.
3. Do you have other marketing channels? As great as SEO is, let’s not place all your eggs in one basket. Sure SEO can account for a large portion of your ad budget – but it should be one of many channels you’re using to drum up business. The search engines have final say where your site is positioned – not an SEO company you hire. More important, never rely on one single source of marketing.
4. Have you done your homework? Before hiring anyone to alter or market your site, make sure they know what they’re doing and will be watching out for your best interests. The SEO industry, like any other, has its share of snake oil salesmen and people looking to make a fast buck.

Ask your SEO prospect the following questions:

1. Do you use submission software (or automated software) in any step in your internet marketing process, for instance to create social bookmarks or submit your site to directories? This should be an absolute NO. Just about all automated submission software is bad news.
2. Can you measure and report on the ROI (return of investment) of your marketing campaign by tracking phone calls and email lead submits? This should be a YES.  How else would you know that SEO was an investment as opposed to an expense?
3. Can you show me previous client work? What was their goal; what did you do for them?  The prospect should be able to show you all of these things, which will give you an idea as to what they can do for you. Call a client, have a chat, see if they’re happy.
4. And finally, are you willing to work on this? When hiring an SEO company, you’re hiring someone that will be representing your company and culture. You’re going to have to do some work to not only help this person understand who you are, but be prepared to work with them as a team. The best writers in the world may not properly represent who you are, so you’re going to need to pass that knowledge along. Don’t think it’s as simple as throwing money at an agency and waiting for results. While some agencies will let you do that, they aren’t representing your interests as well as they could.

In the end, the more prepared you are for this relationship; the better off all parties will be at managing expectations, and eventually, being successful.