Local SEO in 2024 what's working
:00 - Introduction and Banter: Pip and Phelan kick off the episode with a light-hearted start and introduce the day's topic: Local SEO in 2024.
0:13 - Diving Into Local SEO: The hosts discuss the significance of Local SEO for local businesses and the impact of AI on content marketing strategies.
1:07 - Understanding Local SEO: Exploring what Local SEO entails and its evolution over the years, including Google's role in its development.
1:57 - Google My Business and Its Evolution: Discussion on Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) and its importance for local businesses.
2:38 - The Importance of Bing in Local SEO: Highlighting Bing Places as a critical platform for local SEO alongside Google.
3:55 - Where Local Businesses Should Focus: Identifying the main platforms where local businesses should have a presence to optimize for local SEO.
4:22 - Key Components of Local SEO: The conversation shifts to the importance of address and location in local search queries.
5:02 - Proximity and Local SEO Strategies: Discussing proximity as a crucial factor in local SEO and strategies for businesses to enhance their local search visibility.
6:09 - The Impact of Local Searches on Business: Analyzing the percentage of local searches and their conversion rates for businesses.
7:27 - Optimizing Google Business Profile: Tips on regularly updating and optimizing Google Business Profile for better local SEO results.
9:46 - The Role of Reviews in Local SEO: Discussing the importance of reviews for local businesses and strategies to encourage customers to leave reviews.
11:13 - Navigating Google's Guidelines for Reviews: Advice on how to solicit reviews ethically according to Google's policies.
13:43 - Utilizing Features of Google Business Profile: Tips on using all available features in Google Business Profile to enhance local SEO.
16:37 - Upcoming Training on Google Business Profile: Announcement of a live training session on how to use Google Business Profile effectively.
17:27 - Analyzing Website Traffic for Local SEO: Discussion on how to use Google Analytics to determine if a business is attracting local website visitors.
19:56 - Connecting Google Business Profile with E-commerce: Insights into integrating e-commerce platforms with Google Business Profile for product visibility.
22:04 - Future of Local SEO and Google Business Profile: Speculation on the future integration of shopping features directly into Google Business Profile.
24:07 - Final Thoughts and Next Week's Topic: Wrapping up the discussion on local SEO and teasing the next episode's focus on WordPress themes and plugins.
This structure provides a clear roadmap for viewers, making it easier to jump to specific discussions within the podcast.
YouTube Video Chapters for "Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5"
0:00 - Introduction: Start of the podcast where hosts introduce the topic of Local SEO in 2024 and what listeners can expect from the episode.
2:30 - Why Local SEO Matters in 2024: Discussion on the importance of Local SEO for businesses, especially in the current year.
5:00 - Emerging Trends in Local SEO: Insights into the latest trends and changes in Local SEO strategies for 2024.
10:00 - Key Strategies for Enhancing Local SEO: Practical advice on how to improve Local SEO, including optimization tips for Google My Business, local keywords, and more.
15:00 - Overcoming Common Local SEO Challenges: The hosts and guests discuss common challenges businesses face with Local SEO and offer solutions.
20:00 - Expert Insights: Interview segment with SEO experts sharing their predictions and strategies for succeeding in Local SEO.
25:00 - Real-World Success Stories: Sharing success stories from businesses that have effectively implemented Local SEO strategies.
30:00 - Q&A with Listeners: The hosts answer questions from listeners about Local SEO.
35:00 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Wrapping up the episode with a summary of key points discussed and final thoughts on Local SEO in 2024.
YouTube Video Chapters for "Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5"
0:00 - Introduction: Start of the podcast where hosts introduce the topic of Local SEO in 2024 and what listeners can expect from the episode.
2:30 - Why Local SEO Matters in 2024: Discussion on the importance of Local SEO for businesses, especially in the current year.
5:00 - Emerging Trends in Local SEO: Insights into the latest trends and changes in Local SEO strategies for 2024.
10:00 - Key Strategies for Enhancing Local SEO: Practical advice on how to improve Local SEO, including optimization tips for Google My Business, local keywords, and more.
15:00 - Overcoming Common Local SEO Challenges: The hosts and guests discuss common challenges businesses face with Local SEO and offer solutions.
20:00 - Expert Insights: Interview segment with SEO experts sharing their predictions and strategies for succeeding in Local SEO.
25:00 - Real-World Success Stories: Sharing success stories from businesses that have effectively implemented Local SEO strategies.
30:00 - Q&A with Listeners: The hosts answer questions from listeners about Local SEO.
35:00 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Wrapping up the episode with a summary of key points discussed and final thoughts on Local SEO in 2024.
Remember, these are estimated timestamps and suggested chapter titles based on a typical structure. You'll need to adjust them to fit the actual content and length of your episode. This structure is designed to help viewers navigate to specific parts of the video that interest them most, enhancing the overall viewing experience.
Geekspeak - Local SEO in 2024 - Season 8 Episode 5 2024-02-01 - Transcript
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[00:00:00] Pip: The blame falls squarely on you. We are here. We are live. Can you tell, did you see Yes. Oh yeah,
[00:00:08] Phelan: that's gonna make a great still. While I was making that wacky face I'm imagining it's just,
[00:00:13] Pip: I always love when there's funny things after for the video. Today. Today we are talking about local SEO. If you're joining us we're gonna get right into it so that we don't waste any time.
[00:00:26] Pip: If you're joining us, pipe in. Say hi if you're catching the replay pipe in, say hi and let's talk about SEO local. SEO. So fun. Yeah. What you got for me, babe?
[00:00:40] Phelan: Yeah. We want felt we should cover local SEO because there's a lot of local businesses. It's big, one. And what you do for a local business is gonna be different than what you do for if you're doing content marketing or any type of SEO like that.
[00:00:56] Phelan: And so we're looking at what's changed because I know that the AI [00:01:00] has really changed how people do the content marketing. But has, how has that trickled into local SEO? Ooh,
[00:01:07] Pip: that's a good question. That is a good question because that's why we're here now. So how let's, how would we describe local SEO?
[00:01:16] Pip: Is it an add-on to SEO? So you're doing all the regular SEO things and then you got this local component. And Google kind of started local SEO. I don't even know when local SEO started, but a few years back Anyway. We got, local SEO to help local businesses. And that's a lot of the maps and search, right?
[00:01:40] Pip: All the maps is local. No, kinda. Yeah. Local first. Local first.
[00:01:46] Phelan: Yeah. So I think what happened is sequentially, like they created Google Maps and they had mapped everything out and then they have these businesses, now they have to have a way that they can show up at businesses. And I know that they tried like a bunch of different ways.
[00:01:57] Phelan: 'cause there was something called Google Local. [00:02:00] It was really old and that just didn't take off. And they've been trying in like various ways to get businesses to optimize a listing of some kind with a location. And so I think, and then they stumbled on Google My. My business, which is now Google Business Profile.
[00:02:16] Pip: And that's like a combination of kind of, they're trying to add in, remember, do you remember Google? Was it Google Circles? Google Hang, no, I don't know. Anyway there's Google Plus that had the circles. Yeah. And you'll see Bing is so nice. Just a side note, when you go over to Bing and you go to sign it, it'll be like Google Plus or like Facebook.
[00:02:38] Pip: You're like, yeah, you're like you guys. You guys like really? 10 years later you haven't updated the name. Is that to give a shot to Google being like, oh yeah, you remember Google Plus and how it sucked?
[00:02:48] Phelan: Yeah. I think it's like Google Plus. It's the logo they you use for your Google sign in.
[00:02:53] Phelan: So it's like they didn't even bother updating it. They just did it once and they were like, yeah, this is good enough. All right, fine. [00:03:00] And they just
[00:03:00] Pip: walked away. Okay. So why we mentioned Bing is because Bing has Bing pages, Bing plus Bing places. So we do that is the second most.
[00:03:15] Pip: Citation, it's an easy citation to create. So as local business, local SEO, where do you wanna show up first and foremost? It does depend on the type of business you are, but let's say just for the general population, when you search on Google for a business, what shows up in the search engine results pages?
[00:03:35] Pip: I think Facebook, Instagram. Just the, businesses, what else we got? We got where are you searching local maps, so Google Maps. Apple Maps is a big one. And Google big places, right?
[00:03:55] Phelan: Yeah. Those are generally the big three. And then what constitutes [00:04:00] like your local SEO is, because we talked about address, that's a big component is your, it's all location dependent.
[00:04:06] Phelan: So it's when you're typing in plumber near me. You're looking to find all the plumbers that are within an hour distance of you. Yeah. And that's what Google's gonna show you because that you're saying near me and they know your location, so they're gonna show other people that are around you.
[00:04:21] Phelan: So
[00:04:22] Pip: do you know what I've started doing A secret little hack of mine. It's, maybe kind of silly relates to Google ads. So side note and a quick tip for anybody. You can do a keyword location insertion in Google Ads. And so if you have a bunch of locations and you can actually put in like the text that shows up if like Oak Bay, like the location is too long and can't fit in the 30 characters.
[00:04:47] Pip: So you do location keyword insertion and you use near me,
[00:04:53] Phelan: right? Yeah. It's
[00:04:54] Pip: like a default. So just in case As the default. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is awesome.
[00:04:59] Phelan: Yeah, it's a [00:05:00] good way to do that. And thanks
[00:05:02] Pip: not about Google Ads. So I know we jump around a little bit in here, but it's valuable information, so I thought I'd share, right?
[00:05:10] Pip: Yeah,
[00:05:10] Phelan: exactly. So I think that one, one thing that did come up that we were looking at is what are the big changes? What are the big things that are different? Fortunately a lot of things are actually staying quite consistent. For local SEO, like things that were happening last year didn't, so the AI thing hasn't affected it as much because of that location targeting.
[00:05:30] Phelan: That's why we talked about it so much is Yeah, because you can't really fake where there's Google Bit profile
[00:05:37] Pip: is, yeah. I get all excited about this. So just so you know, if you're joining us. We are doing a free live training on YouTube on February 8th at noon about Google Business Profile.
[00:05:48] Pip: And we're we'll teach you how to use it, how to do it, and what's important. And proximity is huge when it comes to local SEO. And it's the one thing you can't control, [00:06:00] right? You can't control how close someone else is to you. And your business. Yeah. And that's the search results. 'cause every search result is different.
[00:06:09] Pip: That's the search result that person will see when they do their search if they're looking for something local. And most people are looking for something local. I don't know the exact stat from last year, but I do know like over the years, 30 to 40% of all searches are local.
[00:06:28] Pip: And they say it takes between a local search and a person visiting the location or buying something is about 48 hours, 72 hours. And there's a high percentage of people that buy. So local SEO is huge for businesses. Yeah, we love it. Yeah, it,
[00:06:47] Phelan: it's. And it's, yeah, it's definitely huge.
[00:06:51] Phelan: One other thing. So we talked about like they're making sure you have a Google business profile, making sure it's optimized, Ooh, Optimized you on your keywords. You have all your [00:07:00] services built out. You have your hours put in, you have the areas that you service. Make sure you do all that.
[00:07:05] Pip: Oh, you got your products.
[00:07:06] Pip: Do you know, I saw something interesting in there recently. So one thing I don't think people realize is nothing online. Your website, your Google business profile is stagnant. So after you launch it, you'll be updating it right after you've made like, so you should be checking your Google business profile monthly because new settings will show up.
[00:07:27] Pip: Now you can add all your social links those coveted social links at the bottom of your, knowledge panel, which is your business name and everything. At the very bottom, you can have YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook now, and it, there's. It's just like a little setting that you can add them all in easily now.
[00:07:45] Pip: So that's nice. That's a new thing. And we had a client who has language, they have language options. So like how many languages do you speak? Do you, can you serve people in basically and I thought that was pretty exciting. I've only seen it on one [00:08:00] American account.
[00:08:02] Phelan: Yeah. It's definitely good to have and I appreciate they're adding these like new kind of attributes about how you would interact with the business.
[00:08:09] Phelan: And yeah, you definitely want to stay up to date. It's not just a one and done. You want to be checking on it monthly to make sure that, is there a new feature, is there new things, like they have attributes like women led, veteran led.
[00:08:22] Pip: Turn on and off your hours too. That's a big one. Yeah.
[00:08:25] Pip: Be, and I say that because you have the opportunity to update on if you're open or closed. Now, how many of us have gone to a business that's been closed because they didn't update their hours or their hours on their website? Like where do we all look for business hours now? We just go to Google generally.
[00:08:42] Pip: And you check. Yeah. And so if that's not updated, you're doing your clients a diff service and it actually shows you in the fine print. The like little fine print that says owner updated, or somebody updated like 24, 48 hours ago. So you know as a user that's been updated and you [00:09:00] feel good. A lot of the times it'll say, o hours may depend on holiday
[00:09:07] Phelan: holidays which means they weren't for statutory holidays or, yeah. And it's definitely one that, yeah, keep them up to date, keep it fresh. Freshness is always a, big ranking vector with Google. Yeah.
[00:09:20] Pip: I like pictures, especially for real estate agents
[00:09:24] Phelan: of if you do anything of Hey, we're having a sale this month.
[00:09:28] Phelan: Yeah. And then that way it's an easy one for people to see oh, in February they're doing a sale on blah, blah, blah.
[00:09:33] Pip: I think there was somebody that, the strategy for posting on Google business profile is pretty interesting. 'cause yes, you can do the cut and paste from Instagram or from Facebook, but hey y'all, I see you here.
[00:09:46] Pip: You better pop in and say hello. I got things I wanna put on the screen. Oh. Maybe you don't. Ha maybe you're already saying hi. Hi. So we were just talking about posting and strategy. The [00:10:00] strategy for posting is to post, your reviews. So make a pretty post on Canva and you don't have to worry about the size of it.
[00:10:08] Pip: Try to make it square 'cause it's. Fits in Google. So do posts on with your reviews, do posts on kind of case studies. Not your big case study, but if you see something, if you're a marketer and you see something in the stats, man snapshot that, put it, put your colors on it and post it. Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, right?
[00:10:29] Pip: That stuff is golden. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just gonna go get the comments while you talk about Google business profile. Failing for a sec. 'cause I just think I just went off. Crazy about it.
[00:10:42] Phelan: Yeah, the Google business profile, like to using all the features, getting you and making sure you're using as much of them as possible is definitely worthwhile.
[00:10:50] Phelan: Reviews are always a difficult one for people to get, but super important,
[00:10:56] Pip: or is here. Sorry. Woohoo. Happy New. Year. Yay. I found you [00:11:00] guys. Ah,
[00:11:02] Phelan: sorry. Google. Yeah. With your reviews, make sure that if you're a brick and mortar location, that you don't get someone to leave the review at the location.
[00:11:13] Phelan: You want 'em to go home and do
[00:11:15] Pip: it. That's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. And there are companies that sell, leave a review, like you've seen it at your dentist office or whatever that is. Bad news bears because Google looks at that, like you've convinced people. To leave you a review or bribe
[00:11:32] Phelan: them in some way, right?
[00:11:33] Phelan: Yeah. They, figure, and it's mostly because some people did do that and so they have to take, yeah, it has nothing to do with any of the other businesses, but there's some that were acting bad and so now they
[00:11:43] Pip: Have to do, but they also, yeah, they also say you can solicit reviews. Which is interesting 'cause in the actual documentation they have said, ask for reviews from your clients. That's why we do it all the time. So if you know us and we've helped you in someone give us a [00:12:00] review five Star would be preferable. We'll share the link. I actually, and you guys tell me what you think of this. I actually wanted to do something in the group where every week I do a post or we do a post that says.
[00:12:14] Pip: Leave a review for somebody you've worked with. Just a reminder for people to leave reviews for other businesses and people because it really does help. So I was gonna do a post. Oh. Oh yeah. So send an hour after you leave the location. Yeah, I would do that. Yeah, I think that's a good way to do it.
[00:12:35] Pip: Put your review link on your invoices. Put it at the bottom of your email. Those are some of the things we tell our clients to do, which is really helpful and be unapologetic about asking for a review. You gotta toot your own horn if nobody's gonna toot your horn, right?
[00:12:53] Phelan: Yeah, exactly. And it's, it is a bit of a grind to get them, but you if you don't put in that effort, just like anything [00:13:00] in business you're not gonna get ahead.
[00:13:02] Phelan: And so you've gotta put in that effort.
[00:13:04] Pip: If you help someone, the whole idea is if you help someone, you can ask them for a review because you've helped them. And that's in the documentation from Google? I do believe. I do believe,
[00:13:16] Phelan: yeah. What they say is they say that you've had any interaction where you've been helpful.
[00:13:21] Phelan: It doesn't specify that someone had to get paid. So if you just happen to help someone, a great thing to do is, and you're just like, I don't even want to charge them like it was so quick. Then just send them a review link and then that's enough to because you did, you would genuinely help the person, and so if they found it helpful, then they could leave a review for that.
[00:13:40] Phelan: Yeah. And so that's perfectly. Good.
[00:13:43] Pip: We're set. Ooh, does it matter if you send the review link as a pretty link? Ah, that's really interesting. I don't know, to be honest, I've had reviews go missing. I have a friend who I've left a review for who did some work for us, and I can see I've written the review, but she can't.
[00:13:59] Pip: [00:14:00] Now, maybe that's because I work in SEO and I think I set up. Some of her tracking. So I'm not sure if Google associates my business and my personal with her some way, and that's why she's not getting the review. I haven't tried pretty Links. I would try that. I'm gonna ask Jodie, who's here? Jodie, I see your beautiful face in the comments, but I do not see your beautiful face.
[00:14:21] Pip: It's a Facebook thing and I wanna know if I can change that. And if you have to like my, facebook business page to get your beautiful face like aura's face in there. I like
[00:14:32] Phelan: it. It's so the, reason is because Jodie's watching it from the group and because the group is closed, Facebook doesn't know who isn't able to send that.
[00:14:41] Phelan: Whereas Aura is on our Seymour digital media Facebook page, and that's why she's got the
[00:14:46] Pip: information. Rockstars, I'm glad you guys are here.
[00:14:49] Phelan: To answer the pretty link question, it shouldn't affect the pretty link because it's pretty link just doesn't redirect. So it won't affect them actually leaving a review because once they get there and they actually go in and type it, it [00:15:00] shouldn't, they're there and they're already posting it.
[00:15:03] Phelan: So shouldn't try.
[00:15:04] Pip: Give it to me. Have I given you a review? Send me your link. I'll give yeah. I might have to try it from a different. Profile so I don't screw it up. 'cause I know I might have helped you with your measure setup too. Yeah. And
[00:15:17] Phelan: doesn't matter if you do a presentation, 10 people go review.
[00:15:20] Phelan: Will Google think it's meant? Yes. So you don't like 10 people? I think you'd probably be okay with what Google doesn't find It's weird is when you have like big jumps in the number of if you've got like nothing review bombing. Yeah. Yeah. And any sort of, if there's 10 people, I would, I think it'd be okay.
[00:15:41] Phelan: Just have it staggered out as much as you,
[00:15:45] Pip: That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Jody. You, I guess you proved what I needed to know. I'm working my, I'm working on my cam game guys E cam. Honestly, it's so great. Yeah. Yeah. Did you like that? Yeah, [00:16:00] it does. Okay, let's go back. So what's really important for Google Business profile and local SEO?
[00:16:09] Pip: Google business profile is super important for local SEO. I think it counts for yeah, thirty-six percent of your local SEO. So then you wanna do other SEO, like regular SEO and your technical SEO. Oh, yay. Hi Jody. You are, and I love it. So local SEO I, oh, I wanted to say before we dig deeper we are doing a live on local SEO training on February 8th.
[00:16:37] Pip: I mentioned it before and yes, I am promoting it here 'cause it's for you guys so you can do your, Google Business profile yourself and so you can feel really confident doing it. Yeah. So we're doing that on the eighth, but we're digging in here to talk about it a little bit too, to help people understand that it is really a really important aspect of your business.
[00:16:59] Pip: Did you know that? [00:17:00] 90 okay, maybe not 90. Feeling How many websites have, how many websites have, local SEO characterized by pages and things like that, and like on page SEO, like when you go to a website. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, when you go to a website, can you tell if somebody's doing less local SEO?
[00:17:27] Pip: And if you can tell, do you think that most of that person's traffic in analytics could show where their traffic is coming from? So there's two questions there. Yeah. One website,
[00:17:40] Phelan: one. So first question. Yeah. First question, can you tell if someone's doing local SEO? Yeah, you'd probably be able to show see it pretty quickly, mostly because they'd have like areas that we serve, something like that.
[00:17:55] Phelan: That'd probably be a good indication that, because they're trying to identify that [00:18:00] here's where I work. And so because of that'll let you know a lot about probably where they're located.
[00:18:07] Pip: I think local SEOs are the best or well local businesses for when they're doing their local, it's very evident on their website, right?
[00:18:15] Pip: They're geo targeting with a keyword yeah. Location. So they'll have location pages and local businesses are really great for, they really do conversion rate optimization. So CRO a little bit better than a lot of other businesses because they have one thing they want, or two things they want from people.
[00:18:35] Pip: They want you to go to the website, they want you to fill out a form call or visit depending on the business. Yeah,
[00:18:42] Phelan: and mostly that's if you're going to a local business what you're doing, I need a plumber. I wanna get my carpets cleaned. Yeah. You know what you want to do.
[00:18:52] Phelan: It's very like the intent is there, so it's still very effective. Compared to any sort of content marketing, which is, [00:19:00] it's just, it's a tougher game right now in 2024.
[00:19:03] Pip: Yeah. I'm gonna, oh, go ahead. I got excited.
[00:19:07] Phelan: I was gonna ask, there was a second part of your question that I forgot.
[00:19:10] Pip: Oh yeah, I was gonna get to that.
[00:19:12] Pip: So I'm just gonna say Aura, I see you're asking for the link. Yay. We'll I'll make sure that's in the comments. So if anybody wants to come to the live on February 8th to learn how to do their own Google business profile, let us know. And the second question was, Phil, can I go into my Google Analytics and can I find out?
[00:19:32] Pip: If I'm getting local business, if I, or if I'm getting local visitors to my website from Google Business Profile?
[00:19:41] Phelan: Yes. So what we generally do is when you add your link to your website to add a UTM parameter, that's the UTM source is Google and the medium is GBP. So Google business profile.
[00:19:55] Pip: Ooh.
[00:19:56] Pip: So we should teach
[00:19:56] Phelan: people this so that. Y yes, [00:20:00] we probably should teach people this part as well. And so it's a simple, when you add the URL, it's just question mark. And then UTM underscore source equals Google.
[00:20:10] Pip: We'll write this out too if you wanna add it. One of the interesting things that comes up is if you have a Google Business profile and you wanna use Bing Places, there is a click of a button where you can update.
[00:20:20] Pip: Bing places, and this is where you really learn the ease of use of UTM parameters. Because when you update your Bing places with that one click button it'll update the UTM parameter to Bing or to Google Business profile place. So you won't, in your analytics, it won't be giving the right source information.
[00:20:42] Pip: So you would have to update that. So that's why fail. And I think that and other reasons is why you've memorized the UTM parameters.
[00:20:51] Phelan: Yeah. And yeah, it's just seeing them all the time. It's just stuck in my head. And yeah, you definitely wanna make sure that when you, yeah, don't [00:21:00] just automatically update your Bing places.
[00:21:02] Phelan: You probably wanna log in there and man. Manually check things as well. Because I think that's gonna
[00:21:08] Pip: be just a smarter every month. Yeah. Yeah. It can be really fun. I actually think you can make, no, this used to be true. I have to check my Facebook business page, but you can actually make your, like on your Facebook business page, you can have products.
[00:21:22] Pip: Yeah. And with little pictures and info and you can you guys correct me if I'm wrong 'cause I am not the Facebook specialist, but you can have little products on your Facebook business page and they can. You can match them on your Google Business Pay profile so that you have your products there too with their, the branding and so you can make them both look really nice.
[00:21:43] Pip: And they, the idea behind Google Business Profile is to connect to your website. We know that Google is let's say Google's trying to make a click-less Future. And what that means is that you get, okay, our dogs are gonna bark any second now. [00:22:00] So I might mute myself, but, that.
[00:22:04] Phelan: Okay. So yeah as the dogs decide to bark and cause consternation, I'm gonna take over with this part. And yeah, it's definitely one where you can do also stuff with connecting your Facebook page. You can also have the ratings there if people are rating you really well, that can also show up on your Google business profile.
[00:22:26] Phelan: I would say in the. Current set of what you would be. Another thing you want to be focusing on as well is like citations. They still matter. Your name, address, phone number across the web, making sure it's consistent. It's been slowly. People have been saying it's been decreasing in importance, but it still is a really good thing to have for your business is to make sure that Google consistently, you reinforce the right name, address, and phone number for your business.
[00:22:55] Pip: It's true, its true. I'm gonna cut you off 'cause Yeah, that's [00:23:00] true. It's true. It's a, I wanted to say failing for most of the websites we see. Yeah. And when we go and we look in analytics, where's most of the traffic come from?
[00:23:13] Phelan: Google Organic.
[00:23:14] Pip: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Still, from what we can see in Google Analytics, most traffic comes from Google for all websites.
[00:23:24] Pip: I know people sell, like a lot of coaches sell better on Facebook and stuff like that. But the reality is everybody's going to your website to figure out who you are. Yeah. And
[00:23:36] Phelan: And, I think that the biggest factor is how much of a known quantity, what you're selling is.
[00:23:43] Pip: And if you can sell to your neighbor, but go on.
[00:23:45] Pip: Yeah go on, But
[00:23:47] Phelan: If you're a coach, that's a little more complicated because I need to know more about you as a person. And so that's why you have to have a content strategy and like maybe on YouTube and [00:24:00] like you, you need people to get to know you before they're ready to buy from you.
[00:24:03] Phelan: Whereas if I'm hiring like a plumber I just, I know what a plumber is, I know what they're doing, and I know which situation I'm gonna be like reaching out to them and what, and then basically it's down to like reviews or if someone recommends a certain person, that's really gonna be the factor that'll push it over the edge, who I pick.
[00:24:25] Phelan: But for the most part, the a local business is gonna be a known quantity of what they are. Oh, this, like local businesses. They sell this, and then you know, and then that's why you go and search for them. You're muted. Honey.
[00:24:46] Pip: I am muted.
[00:24:48] Pip: Sorry I, noticed that there are some things that. I still, I don't know how y'all are, but I still wanna buy some stuff in person. Like I thought I'd never buy shoes online, but I am buying shoes [00:25:00] online. But makeup I find really hard to buy if I'm buying makeup. I find it hard to buy online.
[00:25:07] Pip: I don't know what you all find hard to buy online, but there are some things you wanna do in person still. Maybe that's our age. Maybe that's. What we're used to, or maybe that'll change over time, but I know supporting local businesses is a big deal, and I know if I think even if you're not a local business, but you're, probably based locally somewhere, and that means you'll still show up in local search results, right?
[00:25:37] Phelan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, I would also say that there could be ones of the e-commerce, while it's not at the height of it was a few years ago, it's still a lot of the tools are still around and really helpful for local businesses to connect, like their Shopify or their WooCommerce to their Google business profile.
[00:25:56] Phelan: So you can like even show what's in the listings in your listing [00:26:00] for products that you have.
[00:26:04] Pip: Ooh, what is that one we saw? What is that one we saw? So it was a company who had. They the, bike shop, what was that? Yes. Special thing called Pro Mark
[00:26:13] Phelan: Kelly Bike Shop. And they had, and what did Pointy connected to her.
[00:26:17] Phelan: So they had live so as they bought something, the inventory was updated in real time and then updated to their Google business profile. I haven't seen too many other businesses. Really apply that, do
[00:26:27] Pip: that. But yeah, now you can buy right in the shop, in shopping in Google. So I am assuming that one day you'll be able to buy right in Google business.
[00:26:38] Pip: And it, it's a great way to as we click less for our clickless future. When you're searching for something, it's really good if I can just click on your product and go right to that product page in your website. Or if you have a post, maybe I can click on it and go right to your [00:27:00] blog from the post on Google business profile.
[00:27:02] Pip: Maybe that's the intention behind the posting. I'm not sure. I think it's for to tout, How great you are and maybe to direct people to your inside, your website instead of just going to your home page.
[00:27:17] Phelan: Yeah. Yeah, that's generally referred to as deep linking where it's like you're not just linking to the homepage, but you're linking deep into the website into a product page or a blog post that you want someone to just jump straight to this point.
[00:27:30] Pip: Now, would that be considered an external link going? Would that be like a external, it'd be a link going to your website. So does that count
[00:27:40] Phelan: as it'd be just a nofollow link? That would
[00:27:43] Pip: it be nofollow, would it?
[00:27:46] Phelan: Yeah. Google's links are all no-follow interesting. Same as like their YouTube.
[00:27:51] Phelan: Because you could spam them, right? And so they would be doing these complicated things of, that if they didn't do that, people would just be abusing the hell [00:28:00] out of it. And you'd be like, linking to. Every page like 20 times with a post that would be coming out every 10 seconds kind of thing, like it would someone would be really bad about it. So generally, I, they they go with a no follow for any of the links from Google Business Profile.
[00:28:17] Pip: Interesting. Now, oh, today is February 1st. All day. Okay. All day. We're gonna finish up our chat here talking about local SEO. If you want to know more, we are teaching Google Business Profile on YouTube February 8th.
[00:28:36] Pip: I know beating a dead horse here. But let's talk about quickly failing before we go. What is happening next week? Because the banner has yet to be updated. Dun Oh, tell you dun. Okay, so next week I'm here. But I'm seeing February 1st. February. Oh, it's a lie. I am not [00:29:00] here. Huh? It's Greg and
[00:29:02] Phelan: Phelan.
[00:29:04] Phelan: Greg and I are gonna be talking about understanding WordPress themes and plugins. Ooh,
[00:29:08] Pip: that sounds fun. And so that's what we're talking about next week. I love that you guys have joined us. We got a minute left. If you have any questions, we'd love to answer them. And if not, we're just gonna ramble away here about how crazy this week has been.
[00:29:26] Pip: Has this week been crazy for you? It is. It has been a lot. I know. Many industries are busy and I know many industries are suffering. So where are you at? And like, how can we help you? Because I bet we could, let's hang out. I am like, yeah. So that's all I got. What do you got Phelan? You got, seven seconds left.
[00:29:49] Pip: Seven.
[00:29:50] Phelan: Okay. I've got seven seconds. I think that yeah, I think it's been a crazy month for us so far on our end and. We're definitely interested to hear more about what other [00:30:00] people are going through and what's up with other
[00:30:01] Pip: people. Yeah. If you are seeing this live, we do socialize in our Facebook group.
[00:30:07] Pip: It's a free marketing Facebook group called Cyberpunk, or Cyberpunk Geeks Marketing Mixer. Every Thursday we do a live, every Friday there's a happy hour after work where you can meet people on Zoom, talk about marketing and what's going on in your life. If you wanna join us there, Rena hosts that. And, yeah, you can find us in the group or on YouTube or our business pages and we'll hope to see you next week. We'll be doing a live and it'll be great. Okay. Bye bye. Bye. Have a great weekend. Yeah.
See on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GZBxy7O_r2s?si=tnFdYsTmiBw3RFkn
