Improving Customer Feedback Through Digital Text Communication

Google's TalkBin allows your customers to send you digital text messages through their mobile phones while in your store. This tool is meant to help engage people in your store and allow them to send you anonymous feedback, suggestions, and questions to you in real time and lets you respond immediately via your cell phone or via email.

When you sign up for TalkBin you receive a TalkBin phone number and TalkBin signage from Google. Customers in your store can then send anonymous text messages to your TalkBin number which is then forwarded to you. No personal information about the customer accompanies the message, encouraging honest communication from your customers.

Here are some TalkBin videos that will help you better understand TalkBin...





To learn more and sign up go to TalkBin.com

By the way, you can supposedly get the TalkBin service for a $1/month through the end of December. See http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/12/13/googles-talkbin-special-1mo-per-location/ for details.

Creating Google+ Page for your Business

Google+ pages for Businesses has just gone live for everyone. What that means is businesses and organizations can now create their own business page, sort of like a business page on Facebook. To create your FREE Google+ business page you must first create a Google Account and then sign into Google+ with your Google account username and password.

Once signed into Google+ for business you have several different options for creating a business page. You can create a local business page using your business phone number or create a brand/product page, a business page, etc. Each has slightly different requirements for creating the initial page.

 Once you have successfully created you page you can add interesting posts about your products and services as well as add an about section, business photos, a business logo and links to your YouTube videos. You Google+ Business page can also include a link to your website and your business phone number.

You can then select to share your content with just those who are following you (called your Circle) or make it public for all to see. With each post you can elect to allow others to leave comments or not allow any comments. Below is my Google+ business page I recently created for my company, Webstream Dynamics. Feel free to follow me to updates about search engine marketing, effective website design strategies, mobile website design, Google+ and Google Places.

Click here for Webstream Dynamics' Google+ Business Page

Lastly, you can help spread the word by adding a Google+ icon to your website with a link to your Google+ Business page.

How all this will effect website's SEO and driving traffic remains to be seen, but it certainly can't hurt and it is free.

Lowes introducing new interactive consumer Internet tools

There was an interesting article on Forbes yesterday about How Lowe's Plans To Revolutionize Its Customer Experience. The article talks about how Lowe's is trying to use technology to help engage their customers and improve customer service.

Lowes is introducing a new online tool, called “myLowes”, that will enable consumers to access information and advice via the Internet about their home improvement preferences. It sounds like a personalized digital workbook with various home decorating tools and helpful articles. Along with this Lowe's has supposedly given 42,000 employes iPhones for in-store use to search products and make sales.

"It allows customers to build room-by-room profiles of their homes and to experiment with different styles virtually."

This sounds like it could be a win-win for web-savvy, home improvement shoppers and Lowe's. There is no doubt Lowe's is definitely pushing ahead of the curve trying to find new, innovative ways to engage customers through technology. In my August blog post Lowes Launches A Slick iPhone Shopping App I talked about Lowe's iPhone shopping application. Now they are taking another step further by connecting Lowe's sales people directly with homeowners and giving homeowners additional online tools.

For retailers, Lowes is definitely a company to watch.

Note: flooring retailers Lowes free install for STAINMASTER® Carpet.Offer ends 11/18/2011

2011 WFCA Consumer Buying Flooring Study

The WFCA and Clear Seas did a flooring consumer study in August 2011. Most of the research focused on flooring buyers use of various online websites and social media channels.

There were 494 email responses from consumers who had previously purchased flooring in the past 6 months and had remodeled or updated one or more rooms. 75% said they were either post graduate or a college graduate and 69% said their annual income was $65,000 or more. 59% said they were full-time employed, 21% said they were retired, only 3% were unemployed or a student, and the remainder were either employed part-time or were home makers.

From the 494 consumers who responded Tile was the most popular flooring type installed for their most recent project, followed by Laminate flooring, Hardwood flooring and Carpet. Most of the laminate floors were do-it-yourself remodel projects, not professionally installed. No real surprise there. (It should be noted that the 494 responses were about a 50-50 split between DIY and professionally installed.)

Here are a few highlights of the results that I found most interesting...

• Three-out-of-four consumers surveyed used online resources when shopping for their most recent flooring product purchase. Big box retailer websites (such as Lowe’s and Home Depot) are the most used online resources, followed by flooring manufacturer websites and search engines. Just over one-in-three consumers used a specialty flooring website.
• Among those who used an online resource only about one-in-three actually researched and selected a specific brand online to purchase before visiting a store who did use.
• Seven-out-of-ten also rate special offers/coupons, benefits of products carried, brands carried and customer reviews of retailers as important or very important. Consumers reported the least important content to include on the website is, by far, links to social media.
• Most also stated they used previous experience or personal recommendations when selecting a store, followed by search engines, retailer's website and then manufacturer's websites.
• While 80% of consumers report participating on social media (mainly Facebook), they are unlikely to use it to find a specialty flooring retailer and do not find it important that specialty flooring retailers are involved in social media. Social media involvement does appear to positively influence consumers’ perceptions of specialty flooring retailers.

Social media has become a large part of society today, but despite the high involvement, consumers buying flooring are less inclined to use it when purchasing new flooring. From my personal conversations with various retailers I find most feel they have to be on Facebook but don't find it a big traffic generator. Of course consumers who post great things about the flooring they recently purchased on their own personal Facebook page would be a great word-of-mouth testimonial for that store.

This brings me back to what I posted last week about Creating an Effective Local Web Marketing Business Strategy. I am seeing more traffic being generated to the store's websites from Google Places and in some cases other Internet Yellow Page type directories than from any social media channel. Google Places and their other business directories also contain all the essential things needed for a consumer to find a local store, including directions, map, store hours, address, phone number and in some cases are really a mini-web page with customer reviews as well. That doesn't mean this holds true for all types businesses, some other types of businesses are doing very well with Facebook and other social media channels. If you have any questions feel free to email me at: john@webstreamdynamics.com.

Creating An Effective Local Web Marketing Business Strategy

There is a lot of store owners confused today when it comes to creating a smart, effective online marketing strategy. So often I see the shotgun approach - do a little of everything and see what sticks. A large part of that is due to lack of understanding and hearing all the hype about what is the latest online rage. So many local businesses try to do to much and in the process do nothing extremely well.

Deal of the day websites like Groupon are a prime example of hype we have all heard for a while. Now there is a saturation of too many of these type websites and they are starting to loose their effectiveness with many local consumers. A lot small businesses jumped on offering deals without thinking through to the end result - will this really be profitable for my business (ROI).

Many stores are beginning to post on Facebook and some are Twittering, or have some company twitter for them. But few have a real content strategy and even fewer are measuring their results to see if it is worth their precious time. Also, few analyze if their tweets and Facebook posts are really engaging their targeted local  consumers. For example: go to your Twitter and Facebook page and pull out all your friends, relatives, competitors and employees and count how many are left.

So here is what I recommend store owners to start with for their online local business strategy:

1.  Establish your online marketing goals
1. For example:  drive online, local targeted buyers to your storefront
2. Keep the goal(s) in focus with everything you do online
2. Get your website in order first
1. Local SEO optimized
2. Compelling content for driving targeted buyers to your storefronts
3. Highly visible "Call-To-Actions"
4. Google Analytics & WebMaster Tools to measure website results
3. Claim, or add, to all major Yellow-Page type business directories
1. Google Places a must!
2. There are about 15 others to add all locations too
3. include description, website address, categories, upload photos and video if possible
4. Get other local listings where possible to improve your visibility
1. Local Chamber of Commerce website
2. Local newspaper business listings, if available online
3. Supplier's website store listings
4. Association member listings (for example: www.WFCA.org)
5. BBB online (if you can tolerate all their BS)
6. exchange links with other local businesses
5. Create a Facebook store page that is public
1. Keep content interesting to targeted buyers
2. Try posting promotions and drive to website, create special landing page
3. Make sure website is update to date with sales, etc.
4. Measure the results
6. Set up a pay-per-click advertising campaign
1. Establish a monthly dollar budget
2. Bid on local geo-keywords +  major product groups you don't do well with in natural search
3. Create compelling text ads and tweak as need
4. Create special geo-targeted, relevant landing pages with "Call-To-Action"
5. Measure the results weekly
7. Re-examine all the above after 3-6 months to see what is working and what is not

If you need more explanation or help understanding any of the above feel free to email me at john@webstreamdynamics.com

Monitor What Others Say About Your Business Online With Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free search tool that can help manage what others online are saying about your business, or about your competitors. This is not a full-blown reputation management tool, but as a freebie, it ain't bad to start with.

It only takes a free Google Account to save your alerts and have new alerts emailed to you every time Google Alerts finds something online that matches the keywords you selected. For example:

1. I logged into my Google Account and then went to: http://www.google.com/alerts

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2. Type in the Google alerts text box the desired keywords, such as your business name. For this example I used my business name "webstream dynamics" (highlighted in yellow above).
3.For Type: I selected on wanted "Everything" that Google crawls.
4. For How Often: I selected "As it happens" (So I only get an email alert as it is found by Google.
5. For Volume: I selected "All results". I want it totally unfiltered.
6. For Deliver to: I left it go to my Google Account email address.
7. You should notice a sampling of results on the right side of your screen based on the keywords you typed in the Google alerts text box. You can also click the blue-colored Preview results button located to the right of the alert text box.
8. Last, if satisfied, click the red-colored Save Alert button.

Now when ever Google finds something new said online that contains the keyword phrase you will be notified. Later on if you want to remove any Google Alerts you just log in and delete the ones you don't want to receive emails for any more.

TIP: If you want to create an alert and fiilter out some results you can append "negative keywords" after your keyword phrase.
For example: carpet -red -cleaning -cleaners

Lowes Launches A Slick iPhone Shopping App

If you have an Apple iPhone or iPad and you are looking to buy products for your home, are on the go a lot, and live close to a Lowes store this powerful little, FREE iPhone shopping app is for you. I recently saw this promoted on Twitter and had to go take it for a test run, At first glance it seems extremely well done and includes a ton of great features, such as: idea gallery, how to videos, find a store and of course the product catalog. Nice app Lowes - 2 thumbs up!

Lowes iPhone Shopping App

Lowes entire online product catalog is only a touch screen away. I checked out some Bruce hardwood flooring and all the info I needed to make a buying decision was there, including: reviews, product specs, pricing per carton, product availability, in-store and truck delivery and even social media sharing.

Shopping Bruce Flooring on my iPhone

Lowes states you can also activate the videos and product ratings by scanning barcodes and Microsoft Tags found on the products while in their stores. Who needs a saleperson to answer questions anymore? :-)

You can checkout the Lowes' iPhone shopping app here, or go right to Lowes' iTunes app page.

Note: If you are looking to use your iPhone to help buy or shop flooring be sure to download my free, Flooring Calculator Lite from the App Store too.

A Glimpse Inside Your Free Google Places Business Listing

This assumes you have already claimed your Google Places business listing. If not, go read this post.

One of the advantages you get from claiming your FREE Google Places business listing is you can get a glimpse on how well your Google Place listing is doing or a given time period and what actions people took. All you need to do is login to Google Places to see the visitor activity details in your dashboard. There you will see the number of times your Places listing appeared (called: Impressions) in the search results over a given time period and the various Actions taken by some of the search users.
The Actions will show you:

• how many people went to Google Maps to learn more about your store location
• looked up directions to your store
• how much traffic was sent to your website

Along with the actions you also get a listing of the top search queries. This can help tell you if your Google Place listing is really getting your targeted shoppers.

If you feel you actions are low and the top queries are not the best keywords used by your targeteed audience then maybe it's time to revamp your business description and 5 business categories to better match your targeted buyers. You can also add a 30 day sales announcement or update to your Places page that can help entice viewers into action and drive more store traffic.

It's important to also realize not everyone has to go to your website to get your store address, phone number and directions. With Google Places listing all the necessary information is right there. This is also true with the other Internet yellow-page business directories. Look at these as mini-display advertising pages to help improve market reach and drive store traffic.

Is Your Business Taking Advantage Of The Free Online Listings?

The major search engines and local business directories include free business listings. A quick way to check if you are taking advantage of these is by going to getlisted.org and typing in your "real" business name and zipcode. After a few seconds you will see your "listing score" on 6 different search engine websites, including Google, Yahoo and Bing.

If you click on "To Do" in the left menu next to your results you will see how the score is determined and things you can do to take better advantage of the free listings at these 6 search engines. There is also a lot more you should do as well, such as add a business description, update and/or add categories for your products and services, add your website address if it doesn't exist, etc..

This is by no means a complete list of all the  local search directories, such as YP, SuperPages, InsiderPages, YellowBook, CitySearch and more. All of these allow businesses to claim and update their "free" listings. Plus, by actually checking your business listings you may find incorrect information and by claiming your listing you can correct the errors. One thing to note, if you have multiple locations you have to do this separately for each location.

Last, you can listen to my recent radio interview with Dave Foster about this and other local seo advice on TalkFloor ... http://www.talkfloor.com/interviews.aspx?interviewParentID=467

Impress Your Online Customers With Great Photography

We have all heard pictures tell a thousand words. On the Internet that is also true even if they are 72 dpi digital photos instead of print resolution. Yet, I often see retailer’s websites with poor digital photos of the interior of their store and products.

First impressions do count when shoppers land on a website and having the right photos can make a huge difference. Unlike the big chain stores most shoppers are unfamiliar with most specialty small businesses. For example: most consumers can easily visualize in their minds a picture of the products sold and type of service offered by Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart or Best Buy store because they frequently shop there more often than specialty stores.

Although the specialty store, such as flooring stores or camera shops, may have better quality products, competitive prices and outstanding service most shoppers don’t know that, so today most shoppers are using the web to research their local store options. Interior photos of the store and personnel on a website can make consumers feel much more confident in choosing that particular store, or the photo images can totally turn potential customers off. So why do so many storeowners skimp on store photos? Quality digital SLR cameras are not that expensive any more. Add a good low-light, wide angle lens with some lighting accessories can make a huge difference. As an alternative, there are a lot of wedding photographers in most communities that for a small investment can help storeowners capture great photos of their store, products, jobs and staff.

Take this simple test… which store shot impresses you more? (Click image for large view)

Store Shot A

Store Shot B

Not just storeowners, but also manufacturers need to pay attention when creating roomscene product photos. Which of these two hardwood flooring roomscenes seems more appealing? (Click image for large view)

 Roomscene Shot1

Roomscene Shot 2

Avoid Duplicated Content to Improve Search Visibility

In the first part of this video by Matt Cutts from Google talks about the use of duplicated content pages within the same TLDs (ie: ".com", ".net", ".org", etc.) will likely be filtered out by Google's algorithms. This is one reason I keep preaching to retailers not to use a  templated website that re-uses the same content over and over from website to website. Besides, you really need to differentiate yourself from your competitors and give your targeted shoppers compelling reasons to buy from you. Personalize the web experience with ins-store photos & videos, testimonials, your staff's experience, selection, service, etc.. Successful websites are not a printed advertisement, they are a whole lot more today.

Show What You Like On The Web With Google +1

Google officially launched on June 1st a new way for people to show others what they like or recommend on the web by clicking on the Google +1 button. The button will appear on web pages, in search results, sponsored ads, blogs, websites and more.

Google +1 is meant to be an approval or popularity rating counter that increments by one every time someone new decides to click on the +1 button. This is similar to Facebook's Like button, but can appear in many more places around the web depending where webmasters want to place them.

All people have to do is when they really like something is click on the Google +1 button, such as the bottom of this blog post. The key is you have to have a Google Account and enable your Google public profile in order to click on the +1 buttons. Also, if you are not logged into your Google Account you will not see the Google +1 buttons, which I think is crazy. Google has also stated the +1 ratings will have some effect on your search rankings.

Google Offers (beta) Launches in Portland, OR

Google launches Google Offers (Beta) and joins all the other local-deals-of-the-day websites that email daily a local business's special offer to local email subscribers. Google has launched their beta offers inititive in Portland, OR. first. Obviously they plan on going head-to-head with Groupon, Living Social and the others who offer a local special discounted deal sent daily to your email inbox.

Time will tell if these deals of the day will survive and continue to grow or will eventually fade away. I am not sure how many small businesses can afford to offer legitimate, deep discounts (50% or more) and pay the email-deal-sending website around 30% for a one-time mass buy-in. Lost leaders are not made up with more volume. Anyway, it will be interesting to sit on the sidelines and watch all the players vie for the deal-of-the-day crown champion.

Is My Online Advertising Campaign Really Working?

A lot of stores are considering if they should do some advertising on the various online yellowpage type directories, such as YP.com, Yelp, Yellowbook, etc. I often hear storeowners tell me that have a campaign already setup with a major local business directory they have no clue if they are getting their monies worth for the bucks they are spending.

Before you start any online, store advertising campaign you need to be able to view how people are getting to your website. The easy way to determine where your website visitors are coming from is by using Google Analytics (it's free) on your website. This will help you track where your website audience is actually coming including any advertising campaign you decide to try. See a simple example below...

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Notice the yellowpages.com source. What this is showing you is over a selected time period how many website visitors came from Yellowpages.com. I also added the region so you can also see where the website visitors came from. If you were a store in Massachusetts you would see that 5 visitors came from Massachusetts to your website from Yellowpages.com. Depending on the time period and advertising costs you can now better decide if it is worth it.

One thing to note: The bottom line is getting web visitors to your store (converting visitors to buyers). So if those 5 Yellowpage.com web visitors all became new customers you might find this advertising program is a great deal. It's about the quality of the leads, not just quantity.

Using Google Trends To Look At The Flooring Industry

Now that we have completed one third of 2011 I thought I would look at the trends in certain flooring industry categories again to see how things look compared to previous years. Although some things seem pretty obvious I wanted to confirm my suspicions based on conversations I had with many different flooring customers.

I like to use Google Trends because it gives us a pretty accurate picture based on searches done on Google. I will start with a couple of trend tests to demonstrate Google Trends is fairly accurate and believable. First one is based on a recent fad which is women putting feathers in their hair. This really took off late 2010 and is going crazy in salons right now across the USA. (I know this because I have a client who sells a boat load of feathers each month.) So let's see how it looks using Google Trends..

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The second test is the "Super Bowl", which should peek for a very short time span and does...

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We can see the Google Trends are fairly accurate. So lets see how Walmart and Amazon are doing over time. Notice the high peeks every year during the holiday shopping season.

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So now lets look at some search trends for specific flooring categories from 2004 to present and only for the USA.

1. Carpet..

2. Hardwood flooring...

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3. Laminate flooring...

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4. Flooring...

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I heard from many store owners that 2010 started out fairly strong and then died the second half of 2010. The Google search trends for 2010 seems to pain the same picture.

5. Shaw Carpet, Mohawk Carpet and STAINMASTER

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6. Compare "Carpet One", Flooring America" "Mohawk Flooring" and "Shaw Flooring"..

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7. SmartStrand (Notice the huge spike in searches during zoo animal promotions

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Google Trends seems to say the amount of interest and noise being made online about flooring is steadily declining. If we looked at from State to State I am sure we would see some area trends doing much better than others.

Does Google Places Drive Website Traffic?

On Mike Blumenthals blog he recently posted a local SEO survey conducted by Brightlocal.com in which they reported that 59% of consumers use Google each month to find a local businesses. Although I don't doubt that, I found this a little harder to swallow... "Local SEOs reported that Google Places was the number one source of traffic and Google organic was number two". This part of the survey really interigued me, but I wasn't convinced that statement was accurate. Especially interviewing SEOs that could be just throwing out numbers without real data to back it. I know us SEOs and web designers aren't in the same category as politicians, but some I feel are pretty close. :)

Since our April showers today turned into a blowing, wet snowstorm, I decided to stay indoors and do some data digging rather than going outside and doing some honey-do projects. At least I can tell her I am working, right?

I decided to look at the actual log stats and examine the referring URLS that all originated from Google. To keep this simple and fast I used 2 different retail websites in different cities in the USA. One has just one store location while the other website has 2 store locations. Both have claimed their Google Places listings and updated the information. Also, neither website has ever used Google Tags or Google Boost/Adwords. I then looked at the stats for the past 30 days and removed any referrers that were not from Google. This left me with just referring links that came from Google, but not always Google in the USA.

Store #1

Store #1 - clikc for full view

Store #2

Store #2 - Click for full view

The first thing that caught my attention was that so few clicks to the client's website actually came for their Google Place's page. It appears the majority of Google Local clicks to the business's website is actually coming from Google organic search results which includes Google Places listings (ie: 7-Pack). What makes me think this is true is the number of clicks to website Google Places's dashboard stats reports versus how many referring URLS include http://maps.google.com/maps/place.
Note: I haven't conducted a big enough sampling to determine if this is true, but from the above it seems to have some real merit.

Also, others things to notice... the purple colored referring URLS I discarded based on the search location doesn't seem to be relevant to the client's location, or the search doesn't appear to be location in nature. As example, some Google searches were from other countries and others are from Google image searches. So in both cases about 10% of the Google searches I felt were not relevant to the stores.

In both store cases there were aproximately 82% of the searches from google.com/search or google.com/url. I refer to those as Google blended search results based on comments made by Mike Blumenthal on this blog.  Without further examination I have assuming Google blended is coming from Google's search engine listings that include both Google organic and Google Places' listings. Further evidence that makes me think this is,  for each business Google Places stated 30-50+ users clicked and went to the business's website in the past 30 days, but the referring URLs  don't show from http://maps.google.com/maps/place, except for 1 user. So where did the rest of the users come from? That leads me to assume all but one came from the Google's search engine normal listing pages.

Also, this is Google's Mobile search window - http://www.google.com/m Any referrers with that URL were from someone doing a mobile search. This is interesting too.. http://www.google.com/m/local?site=local

How to claim and update your business listing in Google Places

Google Places is the name for Google's local business directory. You will sometimes see local businesses listed in Google search results and when you click on Google Maps, or Google Places. Every brick-and-mortar small business should take the time to claim and update their listing in Google Places. So how does a small business claim their business listing and update the information?

Before starting it is best to be prepared with all the business details, including business name, address, phone, business hours, website address, contact's email address, a short business description, product categories, services offered, and major brands. Also, gather up 5- 10 digital photos that will help promote your products and services to online shoppers. Plus, any online YouTube videos you may have too. I use Microsoft's Notepad and insert all the text details before beginning. Planning ahead will save time from having to scramble around the office looking for the details and timing out on the web page.

 Be sure you have an existing Google Account. There are two ways to claim a business listing

One way is to start here at Google Places: http://places.google.com/business. This is best if you need to add a new business listing that doesn't exist in Google Places, or you want to edit a business listing that you have previously claimed. Just log in with your Google Account.

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After logging in this will get you to your existing business listing or help you select and claim a business listing.

If you do not have a Google Account, click on the button that says "Create an account now". By the way, creating a Google Account it is FREE and very simple. You can use your existing email account (you do not need to create a Google Gmail account) and be sure the password you create you write down some where so you don't forget it. Here is a screenshot for creating a new Google Account:

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Pretty simple right?

The second way to claim your existing Google business listing is to first do a search for it on Google and then click on its Google Place listing. You should then see a business listing something like this one:

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If you are the business owner or an authorized person for the company click on "Edit this place". This will take you to page where you can update the business details.

Step #1: Add the basic business details...

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Be especially careful when adding the business categories. You are allowed to add up to 5 categories. Categories should represent your major product groups you sell, or services you offer. This would be similar to what you would list you business under in the Yellow Pages. For example: "Carpet and Rug Dealer", "Plumbing Contractor", "Interior Designer", "Hardwood flooring store", or "Commercial builder". Use them wisely, but be sure to use all 5 if you can.

Step #2: Add payment options and upload any digital photos you have.

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You can add up to 10 digital photos or images. The images / photos could be of your showroom, products, previous jobs, outside of your business, etc.. Anything that might help entice targeted shoppers to call or visit you business.

Step #3: Enter your service area and business hours

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On an earlier blog post I showed how to map out a service area. See: http://blog.marketingyourstore.com/2011/03/mapping-out-your-service-area-in-google.html

Step #4:  Add any YouTube videos and additional details

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If you have any Youtube.com videos for your business you can link them to your Google Places page. We feel that it is such a good idea to add videos we actually help our clients create them for their business. Secondly, you can add additional things about your services, major brands you carry, etc.. Again, this additional information all helps potential customers learn more about your company and hopefully than call you, click on your website link, or stop in your store. When done entering all the information click the Submit button.

Finally, we are getting near the end! Now you must validate your listing with Google either by phone or by postcard mailing to your place of business. If you select Phone, Google will immediately call your business phone number and expect you to answer it. When you do answer it an automated voice will give to a pin number. All the pin numbers I have seen were 5-digit long, like: 49324.

If you select by postcard Google will mail to your place of business a postcard that will contain the pin number. See below...

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 Last step.. hooray!! If you selected by phone and clicked submit you got the call and at the same time Google will show you  a web page to enter your pin number. Like below...

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Type in the box you pin number and click on the "Go" button. That is it! Your Google Place's business listing page will be reviewed and updated by Google in about 24 hours or so.

If you had selected by postcard you will have to go to Google Places, login and then you will see a similar screen as above. Enter the pin number from the postcard and click on the "Go" button, Again, that is it. You business listing has been claimed and updated.

From now on you can go to Google Places to view visitor traffic, impressions, clicks and to make more updates to your business listings when needed. Just be sure you save you Google Account username, password and  bookmark: http://places.google.com/business

I would love to hear any feedback after you try claiming your Google Places business listing.

Dissecting Local SMB Listing Opportunities on Google, Yahoo & Bing

I decided this morning to dissect local search results on Google, Yahoo and Bing using the search term: "plumbers West Bend, WI”. I choose “plumbers” + “a local city” + “state code” which I knew all 3 search engines would assume the phrase to be service and location in nature, thus showing at least some local results along with other results. Also, I knew this city, which is not far from me, has more than 10 plumbers. I also figured there would be plumbers listed that didn’t even have a website as well as others who do. My assumption was correct; of the 10 plumbers listed in the local search engine listings only 5 or 6 have websites (about 50%).

I only looked at page #1 search results on Google Local, Yahoo Local and Bing Local.  I also compared Google Everything, Yahoo All and Bing Web results. The idea was to analyze the search engine real estate and local listing opportunities between the 3 search engines, as well as to compare some of their similarities and differences.

I began with the same search term on each and did screen captures so I could more accurately view and analyze the listings. Then I grouped and compiled the listings into a spreadsheet to help visualize the results and where the best listing opportunities were for local plumbers.

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First thing to point out is that businesses without websites seem to appear in the local search results as much as businesses with a website. In some cases the plumber may have a website that is not listed or claimed yet. That should not be a real surprise, since so many websites are poorly optimized and many local businesses have not unclaimed their listings. Oddly, Google Local had one plumber listed with their website’s title tag instead of their actual business name and the title did not include the word plumber or plumbing. Bing Local listed one plumber twice with slightly different business names but the address, phone and website URL were identical.

It is surprising to me to see Bing Local still allowing the 3 Sponsored Ads at the top and bottom of the page to be controlled by the YellowPages.com, not by Bing themselves. That is why I decided to put “0” for Bing Local for Ads Top and Ads Bottom. Even when you click on “Advertise Here” in Bing Local search results it takes you to AT&T’s YellowPages.com website.

I find that Google Local gives the best opportunity to promote your business. It is possible to have both a free local listing and a sponsored (PPC) listing appear together in the search results page, thus doubling your exposure on the page. Plus, Google includes 3 organic listngs at the bototm of the page results. Even a plumber from another city that wanted to appear in the PPC page #1 results for "plumbers West Bend, WI" have 5 more sponsored listings chances with Google Local than Yahoo Local and 8 more chances than Bing Local.

Click on the image to see the full size screen shot

 

In the regular search results Google again wins with 28 total listings which includes their 7-pack local listings. With Google Everywhere  results it's possible to appear in the 7-pack local listings, sponsored listings (PPC) and organic listings – although rare it can be done.

Comparing the organic listings for the three search engines (not using local), Yahoo included 7 YP-type directories (Yellowpages.com, SuperPages.com, YellowBook.com, etc.) and only 1 actual plumber’s website. Bing Web had almost the same results with 6 YP-type directories and 1 actual local plumber. Google Everything listed 4 local plumbers in their organic listings and 4 YP-type directories, along with the 7-Pack Google Places listings. (Note: one plumber’s website in the Google’s organic listings wasn't from West Bend but was optimized for West Bend Plumber.)

Of the 7 local plumbers listed in the Google's lucky 7-pack only 1 had claimed their Google Places listing and only 5 of the 7 even have a website. Obviously distance, actual names, others citations, etc. also are a factor in being one of the seven local listings.

Click the image for orginal image screen shot

Click image for full view

Of the 5 local listings on Yahoo it appears only 1 had claim their local business listing and 3 had websites listed. Plus, on Yahoo's left meny they include links to 3 YP-type directories (YellowBook.com, DexKnows.com and SuperPages.com).

Click image for to see original screen shot

Google gives a SMB more listing opportunities (free and paid). They also are known to have the highest, total monthly search engine traffic volume as well. This doesn’t mean you go at this blindly and put everything on Google. You still need to use some smarts and continually measure your results to see where you get the most bang for your buck and the greatest amount of sales leads.

Getting listed on page #1 in all six of these search engine listing scenarios would be a great marketing goal for 2011 for any SMB. In the above example only one plumber acheived this without sponsored listings but also had some sponsored listings as well. Then make another goal to make sure your listings are claimed and up-to-date within all the major YP-type directories to add more opportunities to connect with your targeted local audience. Lastly, consider including in your marketing strategy doing some sponsored (PPC) advertising to boost your listings in cities within your service area that you business is not actually located in. Doing all of the above mentioned should dramatically improve your local search visibility to your targeted audience. Good luck!

Last note: If you perform the same search using the same search term you results may be slightly different depending on your location, foot print and other factors.

Lowe's Offering FREE Entire-House Installation With STAINMASTER® Carpet

Right now through 5/2/2011 buy STAINMASTER® Carpet and STAINMASTER® carpet pad from Lowe's and get free basic installation. Lowe's states the offer does not include customization, installation on steps, removal, haul away, moving furniture, gluing-down carpet, or prior purchases.

Lowe's also rolled out their own carpet comparison chart, called "Discover the Difference". The Lowe's graphic carpet chart compares STAINMASTER Carpet to Martha Stewart Living Carpet as of 11/15/2010. Even though they never mention the name of other major national home center chain, it doesn't take a genius to realize who they are targeting.

See it here...
http://www.lowes.com/cd_Stainmaster_236673818_?%20cm_mmc=sm_tw-_-l-_-product-_-stainmaster#hero

Specialty flooring retailers who offer STAINMASTER® Carpet would be wise to promote that fact so you get a shot at selling to those local carpet shoppers as well.

Improving a Store's Online Visibility Through Business Directory Citations

Whether you have a website or not there are many online local business directories where your store can be listed. In the world of Local SEO this is often referred too as: "Citations". Citations are defined as places where your Name, Address, Phone number (called NAP for short) are found, along with other store details, such as directions, maps, business description, products & services, website address, store hours, store photos, logo and in some cases customer reviews and ratings. Everyone of these listings can also have a effect on how local consumers find you and can also help improve your website's visibility in the search engines.

The graphic below shows some of the many local business directories that your store(s) should have a citation (listing). This should help businesses realize there are a lot more places other than just Google Places to monitor. If store currently exists in a directory you can claim and update the details. Or, if your store doesn't exist within the directory you can create a new, free listing. Be aware, this can take a lot time to learn where to go and to add/update a listing and to actually enter all the store details. But in the end it is worth the time and effort.

There are also local portals, industry portals, association portals, and local community websites where you can list your business's NAP, such as your local Chamber of Commerce. Also, many local papers are jumping into the action by offering a local business directory as well. Today, driving local, online shoppers to your store is about a lot more than just some keywords stuffed in a website.

Special Note: the directories all have a validation process when claiming a business listing. This may be in the form of an email to the business's email address, a phone call to the business location's phone number along with a pin number, or in a post card sent to the business address.

To make the job less time-consuming and the information more accurate I have a created an extensive Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet was designed to help gather and track the information and includes direct links to the add new listing pages for all the major online local business directories. This also helps for going back later on to make future updates when needed.

If you would like to learn more about this and the MYS business listing services feel free to call me (920-994-8835) or send an email to john@webstreamdynamics.com.

Home Depot Launched Spring Black Friday Savings on Facebook

Last week Home Depot launched a Facebook Event for Home Depot's Facebook fans called: Spring Black Friday Savings Every Friday on Facebook. This special Spring sales event happens every Friday only on Home Depot's wall on Facebook from Friday, March 18 through  May 20 at 7:00pm.

With Spring around the corner in many areas (except for us in the Upper Midwest) many homeowners are for sure going to be starting home decorating and yard projects. How does a social-savvy merchant try to capture homeowners' attention and improve visitor frequency to the Facebook wall? Well, see below...

For fans of The Home Depot on Facebook! Get exclusive savings of 50-75% off outdoor rugs, lighting, fans, patio furniture, and tools every Friday this Spring. These offers will only be available right here on Facebook, right on our Wall every Friday. Watch this quick video for details.

50-75% OFF should get their attention. As of the post they have over 2,100 fans say they are attending. Nice idea that doesn't cost them at lot to promote online, yet gets them frequent, targeted shoppers. Nice idea H.D.!

Click here to see home Depot's Spring Black Friday Facebook Sale Event

Retailers what can we learn from this?

If you prefer, you can post comments on the Marketing Your Store Forum too.

Keyword infographic - Where We Use Keywords

The world of keywords... Oh, how it has changed the way we write. It has helped define an entire industry - SEO. Ignoring keywords and you might find your website lost in the cyberspace black hole.

If keywords carried no weight with the search engines how would Google and Bing rank websites?

Web Equity - Owning Your Local Web Presence

This is really a great overview for store owners wanting to better understand what is all involved in building an effective online presence for their business. Thank you Mike Blumenthal for creating this.

Online marketing has two goals: engage and convert.

Web Equity by Mike Blumenthal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.blumenthals.com.

Marketing Your Store Forum Launched

Just recently I launched a MYS forum for retailers to ask questions about local SEO, social media, pay-per-click advertising, getting listed in business directories and anything else pertaining to web marketing. Although I have the MYS blog, I think for many people it is easier to follow and find specific topics of interest in a message board format. I hope many of the MYS fans and retailers will find the new forum to be a valuable resource and a place to check out before making any mistakes about their online marketing initiatives. So stop over and chime in. It costs you nothing but your time and you might learn something too.

Click here for the Marketing Your Store's Forum

Mapping Out Your Service Area in Google Places

Many local businesses, local carpet cleaners and plumbers, service customers in cities and towns outside of their main location. Google Places allows local businesses the ability to define their service area so your listing will appear in more than just your home town.

To do this you must first have a Google Account and log into your Google Places listing. If you scroll down your listing you will see a section called: Service Area and Location Settings. The default selection is No. You need to select Yes to be able to map out your service area.

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Now you will be given a choice of drawing a circle around your main business location with the radius being how many miles out you travel. This is a simplier way of mapping your service area but may not be as accurate depending on your situation.

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The alternative method is to manually add the cities/town names or zip codes that you service. This will probably be more accurate for many businesses. Just be sure you have them all handy when you start to map out your service area.

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When done you can scroll down to the bottom on the page and click the Submit button.