Yahoo Turns To Yelp To Beef Up Local Search

According to a report appearing today in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Yahoo will be incorporating local content and listings from Yelp into its main search results. As the article points out, Yelp has asimilar deal with Microsoft-Bing and, of course, with Apple (maps).

Yelp has an API that permits third parties to use a portion of its reviews and local listings content. The Bing deal, announced in June of last year, is a more elaborate version of that with a deeper integration. Below is a screenshot of how Yelp content is shown in Bing search results today:

Yahoo has recently started to introduce a new, more elaborate presentation of local business content into its search results. Like the Bing page above (and like Google), there will be a structured box on the right that offers a broad range of enhanced information.

It’s very likely that we’ll see Yelp reviews, photos and other content integrated into Yahoo search in a way very similar to the Bing example. However, Yahoo will probably go further if it considers Yelp’s content a potential differentiator.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been trying to upgrade Yahoo search in a number of ways and has expressed frustration with the Bing relationship. Continued content and UI improvements in Yahoo’s PC results may halt a further market-share slide, but they’re unlikely to do much to regain desktop search share for Yahoo.

It will be more interesting to see how Yahoo uses the Yelp content in mobile search results. That’s where I believe Yahoo has an opportunity to gain some ground.

Assuming the WSJ story is accurate, the market should reward Yelp for another high-profile deal. The local reviews site reported solid revenue and usage growth last week.

5 Tips To Kill The Competition In Local Search

If your business has a local presence — anywhere — you must take advantage of Google+ Local. Creating and optimizing Google+ Local profiles is a critical marketing practice for local small businesses, multi-location enterprises, national franchises and companies with a single physical location. It will help you reach the 97% of consumers who search for local businesses online.

Google+ Local not only helps web searchers find and share local business information, it can also help your business get displayed near the top of Google SERPs. When a search is made with local intent, Google typically displays “blended results” that include Google+ Local listings at the top and organic results underneath — or, in some instances, the Google Local carousel will be shown at the top of the SERP.

What follows are five simple tips to help you dominate search results, own more “real estate” on the SERP, and beat your competition.

1. Complete Your Profile 100%

Yes, this may sound obvious, but it is unbelievable how many listings are only 50% complete. Google often gives preference to profiles that are 100% complete — providing them with as much information as possible allows them, in turn,  to provide the best user experience for searchers.

Google also takes into consideration hours of operation, i.e., whether your business is open during the time period in which a search is conducted. If your hours of operation are not completed in your Google+ Local profile, you could be left out of search results. Don’t forget about photos which can help showcase your business and help your listing stand out from the crowd.

2. Make Your NAP Consistent

This is true for all listings, not just Google+ Local. Make sure your Name/Address/Phone number (NAP) is accurate and identical everywhere online. For example,  if your address has a suite number, be consistent. Don’t write “Suite” on your website and “Ste.” on your local business listing. Don’t use a local phone number in your business listing and a toll-free number on your site.

NAP inconsistencies can trigger Google+ Local to auto-generate listings, which are not as effective as your self-provided profile information.

Lastly, I strongly suggest having your name, address and phone number in the footer of every page of your website using structured data such as Schema or an hCard, if possible.

3. Use All Relevant Categories

Make sure you take advantage of Google+ Local’s categories to add depth and interest to your listing. Make sure you check off all categories that directly relate to your business — for example, a pizza delivery franchise might select the categories Pizza Restaurant, Delivery Restaurant and Fast Food Restaurant.

Note: Google no longer allows custom categories.

4. Solicit Legitimate Customer Reviews

Google loves to see lots of reviews on your listing, and studies have shown that Google reviews strongly determine local carousel rankings. But reviews aren’t just good for search engines — users also use reviews to determine which local businesses they’re going to patronize. (According to one study, 85% of those surveyed said that they read online reviews for local businesses.)

Do not prompt your family and friends to write “fake” reviews. If you get dinged for suspected fake reviews, Google may suspend your listing or give you a penalty, hurting your rankings. Doask your customers to post a review and specify what service or product they purchased. (Google looks at reviews for “keywords” that are related to your listings products or services.)

For more info on how to do reviews right, check out 4 Go-Tos To Make Online Reviews Work For Your Business.

5. Add A Google Local Map

Add a Google Local Map to your website’s Contact Us page to help Google+ Local link your website and your Local Business Listing. Make sure to add your business’ Google Local Listing Map — not just a Google Map.

To do so, go to Google Maps, search for your business, click the “Link” button, and copy and paste the HTML to embed the map in your website, preferably on your Contact Us page.

Here is an example of how to add Google Local Listing Map:

Take Advantage of Google+ Local

Make sure your business is listed on Google+ Local. This is a critically important way to promote your company online. It enables people to easily find, share and recommend your business.  Google+ Local also helps you to monitor customer reviews and improve your customer service.

Coke Wants To Give The World A Pet Collar In Spoof Ad Offering A Cure For Social Media Addiction

Facebook Delaying Launch Of Auto-Playing Video Ads In News Feed

As a follow up to story we published in December announcing the testing of auto-playing video ads in Facebook’s news feed, it may come as welcome news to most people that Facebook has decided to delay the rollout of these ads until as late as summer.

Mashable reported this week that the launch of these ads could come as early as March or as late as summer. Facebook is taking their time reviewing tests of the video ads while ensuring they can keep up with demand and provide the high quality analytics advertisers have come to expect from Facebook’s ad platform.

Another reason for the delay is that advertisers are put off by the lack of targeting and high price point. As a small business, don’t expect to be able to run these ads. The going rate is now $600,000 per day. This is actually a decrease from the original price range of $1 million and $2.5 million per day.

These ads don’t come with a lot of targeting options either, only four to be exact: men over 35, men under 35, women over 35 and women over 35. You could also hit them all at once for a price of around $2.4 million.

However, Facebook guarantees that the ad will be in the first position on the News Feed for everyone who logs on that day, which puts their price more or less in line with a page takeover ad on YouTube or Yahoo.

Advertisers aside, users are also put off by the idea of auto-playing video ads. Mashable conducted a poll  of 1,130 readers, 61% of which said they “don’t love” the idea of auto-play ads in the News Feed. So Facebook needs to ask themselves if the extra revenue is worth ticking off their users and risking them abandoning the site.

Would you be put off by auto-playing video ads at the top of your News Feed? Let me know what you think in the comments.

What Are SEOs Even Good At Anymore?

We used to be magicians; we used to be tech-savvy entrepreneurs that challenged the might of Google’s algorithm, and for a long time we were winning. Fast forward 2-3 years and we’re still tech-savvy marketers, but Google’s crushed us. Our ‘secrets and techniques’ no longer work and creative agencies, writers, and PR specialists look down on us as the ‘hacks’ of the marketing world.

Yes, I’m an SEO, and despite the reputation we may have, I’m proud to be one. I take pride in being a marketer, a creative thinker, and an outreach specialist.

But what really makes us special? All the sudden we hear the words ‘inbound marketing’ and take it as an identity rebirth because we’ve hit a dead-end? We start preaching ‘quality content’ and evangelize ‘content creation’ in our conferences, while ad agencies and PR agencies have been doing this stuff FOREVER.

The Answer

If this rant sounds familiar, it’s because I’m echoing what Tom Critchlow forewarned about at Mozcon 2012. He asked these same uncomfortable and stirring questions. So what is it that we really do? What’s our identity?

Tom told a story of an author who was promoting his book over three marketing channels. The launch of his book was mentioned in The New York Times (impressive), featured on the Oprah Network (most impressive), and then he wrote a guest post for Tim Ferriss (not bad). The guest post with Tim Ferriss absolutely blew the other 2 channels out of the water in terms of direct results. Tim, also an author, doesn’t have the widespread influence of Oprah or comparable credibility to New York Times, but he has a highly engaged audience. He has regular readers, followers, and fans that trust his every word and recommendation. Connecting with highly engaged audiences is what we do best.

Why We Need To Succeed At This

Organic search continues to bring one of the best returns on investment (ROI) and the business world needs us to be good at what we do. Don’t believe me? Just ask any business that’s been blogging for years and their rankings haven’t even budged. Or perhaps online retailers that continue to exhaust their budgets in the competitive world of paid search.

Links are and will always be an important part of SEO. Google will always need digital signals to evaluate the web, plus you can’t get referral traffic without a link.

How We Can Succeed At This

The method for acquiring content placements with highly engaged audiences is three-fold:

Knowing Your Target Audience

Once you’ve identified the audiences you want to get placements with, start creating content they’ll love. Do your homework, but also don’t be afraid to just ask the gatekeepers “what content do you want?” Don’t rush the planning stage, because you may only get one shot. Teach the readers something new, give them useful data, and solve their problems. Look for ways to join or stir the conversation.

Having Content Outreach Capabilities

Highly engaged audiences come in many forms: blogs, Facebook pages, forums, editorials, etc. You need to understand how to work within these diverse web properties with the ultimate goal of acquiring a link. Skip the salesmanship and look for the win-win. You want content placement and they want awesome content that will engage their audience. Outreach templates can help streamline the process, but personalization is a must. Remember that you’re working with busy people: social media specialists, forum moderators, editors, business owners, etc. You can bet they’re receiving multiple pitches a day, so make sure your pitch stands out and is genuine. If all else fails – up your game: pick up the phone, send a gift basket, or stop by their office.

Having Content Creation Capabilities

This is where most SEO’s get bogged down. Creating ‘quality content’ takes time, planning, and resources. No more shortcuts or budget undercuts (unless you can find a more affordable graphic designer). Don’t rush the design stage – you can’t rush a masterpiece. Hire the best writers, have graphic capabilities, and have video capabilities.

Bottom Line

It used to be so easy.

We’ve evolved and the SEOs that couldn’t have dropped out of the game. Our efforts are targeted and quantified. We need to own our craft, because the business world needs the ROI we bring. Let PR agencies continue to send press releases ‘over the wire’ and let ad agencies continue to create brand awareness. We need to stick to what we do best – connecting with highly engaged audiences.

Bing’s Satori Adds Timeline Data For About 500k Famous People

Satori, Bing’s knowledge index, is expanding with the addition of timeline-style facts about important individuals.

The new “Timeline” section is now showing up in the right-side search results for famous people such as Abraham Lincoln and Isaac Asimov (shown above), along with athletes (Serena and Venus Williams), artists (Vincent Van Gogh), business people (Bill Gates, Donald Trump, etc.), explorers (Sacagawea) and other important people.

The Timeline section seems to be almost exclusively reliant on Wikipedia, at least based on my searches this morning.

Bing says it currently has timelines for about 500,000 important people and it’s “constantly adding to the list.” It won’t, though, show timeline-style data for all famous people. For people like actors and singers, Bing will continue to show their movies, songs and albums in the Satori-powered search results.

How Many Links Should you Build in 2014? All of Them

Link building isn’t dead. It’s still meaningful, it’s still valuable, and it still works. And it will continue to work until the web is replaced with direct digital downloading of all data directly to our brains, which I predict will happen just before the zombie apocalypse.

Over the years we’ve seen a lot of changes to how links can and should be built. While some links have lost all value, and some can even hurt you if you’re really, really bad at it (or were once really, really good at it, depending on your perspective), there are still quality links to be gained that can have an immense value in boosting your business in search engine rankings.

Link Building Still Matters

Link building is still meaningful, valuable, and still works. Google has finally been able to prevent crap links from being valued in the algorithm. This caused many SEOs to panic and declare link building dead, but really all Google did was what we’ve been wanting them to do for a long time: Stop valuing crappy links. That does the opposite of kill link building—it makes good link building more valuable.

Here’s a good way to test the quality of a link: If it’s easy to get, it’s crap.

The fact is, link building has always been hard (At least good link building). Ask any SEO worth their salt and they’ll tell you link building sucks. Why? Because it’s hard!

5 Things That Make a Good Link

The first question you should ask isn’t, “How do I build links?”, but rather, “What is a good link?” If you can answer that question, then you can go on to learn how to build good links. While we can argue about the merits of any individual link, on a global scale I can tell you the quality of a link by looking at five things.

A good link should be:

1. On a site tangentially related to yours
2. On a page with content relevant to the content being linked to
3. Valuable to the reader
4. Likely to be clicked by the reader
5. Different from other link text to the same page (except for brand names)

It all comes down to relevance for the visitor. If it’s not relevant to them, then the search engines certainly don’t want to give you any points for the link. Keep your links relevant, on point, and look for opportunities to actually get targeted traffic from the link. After all, that’s the whole point of SEO.

One more thing I want to mention here. If Google could track every link that gets clicked (and they can track a lot), I guarantee they would not give value to a link that doesn’t get clicked. In fact, I suspect they will increase or decrease the value of a link based on how often it gets clicked (and by whom, but more on that later.)

If you’re still building links that you know won’t ever be clicked, you’re building into a failed system. Sooner or later, Google will add click-through data into their link algorithm and all those links you’ve been building since 2014 will be irrelevant. Don’t fall into the trap!

Social Links Matter, Too

Links are still an important part of the algorithm, and in my opinion, always will be. With that being said, links are becoming less relevant as other signals become more relevant. I’m specifically referring to social signals and shares. There is no doubt in my mind that socialization of content plays a very significant role in pushing sites up in the search engine rankings.

Image by Ivelin Radkov via Shutterstock

My best guess is that links are on-par with social signals in terms of overall weight in the algorithm. As time goes on, that might continue to push more towards social or it might stay roughly even. Either way, social signals play a critical role in achieving what used to be done traditionally by “link building”.

If you want your link building efforts to be successful, you must be working the social side. And guess what? That’s hard too!

Working the social sphere is all about relationship building and engagement. You can’t just push your content on people and expect them to care. You have to engage with them so that they will care. And, like any good relationship, the caring has to go both ways. Don’t just look for opportunities for a quick link. Look for relationships that will pay off for years.

Bringing It All Back Around

Regardless if you’re getting a link on a blog, getting socialized on twitter, or finding other clever ways to promote your business, it all comes back to building something worthy of being linked to. Getting links is tough business but unless you do something worthy of the link, you’re making it even tougher.

Again, if you’re looking for easy, you’re looking in the wrong place. But if you have the patience to engage in creating valuable content and building the relationships you need to develop links, then every link you earn will return value back to your site.

Facebook prompts admins to add tags to groups

Groups were a major super star in Facebook’s Q4 earnings call, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that groupswill be a major part of the company in 2014. Changes are apparently starting already, as admins can add tags to a group. While it may not do much for closed/private groups, it’s a way for people to find new groups similar to or regarding similar topics for communities they’re already a part of.

Adam Rosenberg of Edelman Digital noticed that Facebook asked him to add tags to his group.

When a user clicks on the tag, they’re shown similar groups and communities their friends have joined.

Klout Acquired By Lithium Technologies For Roughly $100 Million

Online publication Re/code has reported that Klout, the online social influence scoring platform, is set to be sold to social customer service company Lithium Technologies. The deal is reported to be in “the low nine figures,” including a combination of cash and Lithium private stock. While the numbers are unclear, it can be presumed that the deal was signed for at least $100 million.

The two companies are said to be a great fit in terms of topic focus, as Lithium Technologies provides enterprise social customer experience management software and Klout provides a platform for measuring social influence. This acquisition comes at a good time for Klout due to the fact they have tried a variety of monetization strategies while falling short of the success they hoped to achieve with them.

Most notably, Klout has relied heavily on a business model involving “Klout Perks,” where brands entice influential individuals with products and promotions in hopes to achieve some positive word of mouth marketing.

They have also pursued data licensing deals with Microsoft’s Bing and other companies. Most recently they have launched a new content recommendation and scheduling system that helps people share content tailored to their audience to help raise their Klout score.

While the deal is officially signed it has not yet been closed. It’s difficult to determine what this deal means for both companies as they have declined to provide a comment on the acquisition. I can only hope this leads to further innovation by Klout and more insight into the social web and its users.

Google Says (Some) Missing Features Will Be Added To New Google Maps

Google took its new Maps site out of beta this week, but many users noticed that some of their favorite features from Classic Maps were missing.

Not to worry, Google says. It’s aware of that and plans to bring at least some of those missing over to the new Maps site in the near future.

The team will continue to work to improve the new Google Maps, so look out for better performance and additional features, like send to car, in the coming weeks.

That mention of the Send To Car feature is as specific as Google would get in its replies to our questions about the missing features we’ve noticed. That list includes:

1.) Send To Email and/or Car. When looking at a place or address in Classic Maps, there’s a “Send” option under the “More” tab that lets users email the place/address or send it to certain vehicle navigation systems.

2.) Default location. There seems to be no easy way in new Maps for a user to set his/her default location.

3.) More Info link on business listings. In Classic Maps, every business listing popup includes a “More Info” link that gives searchers quick access to the business’ Google+ Local page. On the new Google Maps, the only way to get from the business listing to its Google+ Local page is to click the link that says how many reviews the business has.

4.) Terrain maps disappear when looking at directions. You can see terrain maps in the new Google Maps, but the option goes away when looking at directions between two (or more) places.

5.) 3D Directions. In Classic Maps, there’s a 3D/2D toggle when looking at directions. The 3D version autoplays a moving drive-through of the route between your start and destination.

These are a sample of the features that we’ve found to either be missing altogether, or perhaps just very difficult to find in the new Google Maps. Google’s statement that at least some of these will be brought over from Classic Maps “in the coming weeks” is good to hear. Some more specifics on which ones would be even better.

AdWords Top Movers Report Update: Now With Conversion Stats, Device-Level Segmentation

The Top Movers report debuted in AdWords last June to help advertisers quickly see performance changes in their accounts. It was helpful, but somewhat rudimentary with reporting on just clicks and cost changes. Today, Google announced that conversion data will begin appearing in the Top Movers report as well as device-specific insights.

Note that the report shown on the Home screen still includes just Cost and Clicks data, you’ll need to click on the “see full report” link or navigate to the Dimensions tab on the Campaigns screen to see the conversion data.

The Top Mover detail below is now sorted by Top Increases for Conversions and Top Decreases for Conversions. This performance data is segmented by device/network level, including by Search Partners, as shown in the example above. However, unlike the example below, the live examples I’ve looked at so far have included only one device-level segment per ad group, which is much more helpful. This type of segmentation will help advertisers quickly see if there are troubled areas at the device-level even if conversion stats overall look stable.

The conversion data will be a big help for managing performance campaigns. However, the ability to see changes in conversion rate and cost per conversion data would be especially helpful for understanding the impact on ROI.

The change has rolled out globally, so if you’re tracking conversions you should see this update in your account now.