“Google has retired support for the Geo Sitemaps format. You can continue to submit your Geo content to us using the standard Sitemaps format (just listing the URL of the file(s), without <geo>-specific tags)…

We previously supported an extension to the Sitemaps protocol where you could include tags in your XML Sitemaps that contained geo-specific information in addition to the URL of your KML file. We no longer support those geo-specific XML tags in Sitemaps, but you can still submit the URLs of your KML files in a standard Sitemap format.” (http://goo.gl/ovcxf)

The good news is that Google still supports the use of KML files which help validate accurate business contact information which can lead to increased rankings in local search.  Our recommendation is to add your KML file’s location into your general sitemap.xml which you would then submit to Google’s Webmaster Tools.

This is a huge opportunity because Google has more trust in articles that are written by unique authenticated authors. The more articles tied to your Google+ account and the more people who recommend your articles through Google+, the more weight your articles will carry when it comes to ranking your articles in Google’s search results.

On your end, here is how to authenticate your authorship on any blog you contribute to:

• Log into your Google+ account
• Click on the circle with a head in it at the top to get to your profile page
• Click on the “Edit Profile” button
• In the right hand sidebar click on “Contributor To” button
• Add a custom link to your blog
• Click “Save”
• Click “Done editing” at the top of the profile

The following then has to be added to your blog. You may need your tech folks to do this part:

• Create an author page on your blog if you do not already have one (author.php)
• At the bottom of each post put in an author tag that will point to that author’s page (<?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></p>)
• On the author page you will need to link to that author’s Google+ profile page with the following tag in the link (rel=”me”)

That’s it!

Have a Locally Optimized Website

Having a website that is optimized for local exposure gives your local franchises ‘credibility’ with the search engines.  The franchisee will be seen as a local business and can enhance their authority as a local professional and expert and boost website conversion.

Keep Your Website Updated

Having up to date news and content on each Franchisee website, including local ‘Grass  Roots’ news and information, is important to convey ‘freshness’ with search engines.

Put What the Consumer Wants Upfront

Put information about your services and products upfront. Also, make your join pages easy to get to! Front page access is best.  Give them this information upfront; don’t make them dig around your site looking for it. Your website visitors have a need – i.e. the service you provide - and the sooner you demonstrate that you can satisfy that need, the better.

Local Address and Phone Numbers on Websites gets 60% More Attention

As well as being an important factor for Google Places ranking, it gives consumers confidence that you are a genuine local business.

8 Point Checklist For LOCALIZING your Franchise/Franchisee’s Website(s)

If you want to take full advantage of these great tips then ask yourself:

• Do you have your physical address on every page of your website?
• Are your contact details – i.e. phone number and/or email address – displayed near the top of your website?
• Do you have a full list of services & prices on your site and is there a clear link to them from your homepage?
• Do you have a special offer on your website and is it clearly visible on the homepage?
• Was your homepage updated in the last 7 days?
• Do you have a blog or ‘latest news’ section on your homepage?
• Does your website look better or worse than your top search competitors? (be honest here)
• Do you have at least 1 positive quote/testimonial from a customer on every page of your website?

For more information on branding local visit www.elementslocal.com .  Sign up for a free webinar on BrandLocal  http://elementslocal.com/Join/Elements2012WebinarSchedule.php

We have seen change after change occur, both algorithmically and to the user interface of Google.  All of these changes affect what franchises do to generate leads to at the local franchisee location.  In this article we will explain the impact of Search plus Your World and provide instructions on how to change with the times.

Explanation of Search plus Your World

In January of 2012 Google launched what they called Search plus Your World.  The goal of this algorithm change is to create a very personalized result which they expect will have more value to the user than a more generic general result would.  Google has been offering personalized search results for years, but average users didn’t even know that that they were being provided with personalized search because the difference between them and a generic search result was subtle.  Search plus Your World entirely changes the search results layout and drastically changes the rankings of websites.

In 2010 Google launched a social network called Google+.  What the public didn’t realize at the time is that one of Google’s purposes of this new social media platform was to create a way to authenticate people’s online persona.  By doing so, Google can create rate the value of an individual social persona.  This means that the websites recommended by a recognized industry writer will carry more weight than the recommendations of a faceless IP address.  In the same line of thought, the recommendation from a peer in your circle of friends would be deemed as having more value to you because it is likely that they have the same interests and opinions that you do.

With Search plus Your World, Google brings those recommendations from your circle of friends right to the forefront and it can draw those recommendations from private conversations on their social network.  The changes to the search results can be seen in the screen captures below.  The image on the right shows how even a Google Image search is affected by this recent change.

click image to expand

The problem is that Google is now showing more preference to their Google+ results than it does to other social networks and websites.  Google draws the data for their personalized search results from the Google+ network only, stating that once other social networks will be included when they sign-up for a long-term partnership and offer up their networks worth of data completely to Google.  Obviously Facebook & Twitter, advertising competitors of Google have serious reservations about both of these requirements.

Google is also bumping up the positions from these personalized results right to the top position.  This might be great if your friends happen to be discussing something completely relevant to what you are searching for, but could also be just a text mention of a product or brand rather than a local store or website that can fulfill your needs.  Take a close look at the image above on the left.  The third result is a personalized result pointing me to the Google+ network to find information on ‘search engine help’.  Well, this Google+ post is about a free tool that can show me where my site is listed on Google, but this isn’t really search engine help, is it?  Obviously this is not the most relevant result I could be looking for and is definitely not worthy of a top result.

Taking Advantage of Personalized Search Results

If you are wondering how your franchise can benefit from Google+ and Search plus Your World, the short answer is that every business can.  Recently Google made a change to their search system that obscures the keyword terms that drive visitors to your website if they are logged into Google, whether that is because of Gmail, Google Docs or YouTube.  So, instead of seeing the relevant keywords you will instead see (not provided).  Now Google also creates a Google+ account profile automatically if you have create and account for any of Google’s online products.  From this, we can see that the percentage of results arriving to your website as (not provided), actually have Google+ accounts and are actively logged in when they have made this search.  According to reports from many companies, the current percentage of searches done by people logged into their Google+ account sits between 10-20%.  One of our franchise client’s corporate webpage is showing over 30% of their search visitors are logged into Google+.  That’s a significant percentage of potential leads and leaving them off the table by not optimizing for Search plus Your World makes no sense.

The link graph is dying.  Obtaining links can be easily gamed.  Recommendations from authentic industry experts and friends within a circle are the new most powerful search signals that Google is using to rate websites in their search results.

So How Can Your Franchise Optimize for Google’s New Socially Guided Results?

The first step is to setup a Google+ account for your business. Understandably a franchise may be leery about creating another social media account because they already have Facebook & Twitter accounts that they having difficulty keeping current, but Google+ is a game changer when it comes to  search results and if you don’t grab a Google+ account for your business and begin posting to it now you will be playing catchup.

The first thing you should do is add Google+ badges on your website in conspicuous places on your website, near your companies contact information and in places near where your website’s visitors will be interacting with.  These badges will drive interested users to your Google+ account and hopefully the content you post to your circles is interesting enough to them that they add you to their circles.
Secondly, you need to install a +1.  Similar to a Facebook Like, a +1 button on your website encourages visitors to rate your website positively and these positive ratings will be delivered to others in their social circles.

The key to achieving success in Search plus Your World through your Google+ account is by recognizing your audience.  Finding, growing and pruning potential leads and existing clients into your Google+ social circles is pivotal to ranking success.  This isn’t Twitter.  You don’t need millions of followers.  What you should be targeting is your key demographic, people that are deeply entrenched in the products or services related to what your franchise delivers.  Relevant links or Google+ recommendations –- similar to Facebook likes — from authentic industry experts will do more for your company’s search results than thousands of unrelated mentions from empty profiles will.

What do I share with my users?

Now the goal of this social build-up is to get your Google+ page shared with other users through search or having other users share your website material.  By creating high quality relevant content you can increase the odds of getting users to +1 your website’s content.  With every Google+ update you should keep focused on moving the user from your social profile to your website’s lead generators whether those are a contact form or a newsletter sign-up page.  Track those conversions and the sources that led to them and use those metrics to drive your Google+ campaigns.

Keep in mind that a Like, follow or +1 is great and may be something that you can measure by a simple line chart it is not a conversion.  A conversion is an e-mail, a phone call or a join form that turns a user into a qualified lead.

Many franchises struggle with this issue as there is cross contamination of intended and un-intentional advertising and marketing content for a franchises anchor identity as well as well-meaning franchisees advertising outside of the franchise system.

This contamination causes confusion and noise for consumers in their search for business information through online, mobile, social and email channels thereby

cutting into the number of leads generated by your marketing efforts.

Now, we are all dealing with formerly offline-only media (e.g., newspapers, Yellow Pages) offering online versions, the intermingling of advertising information hascreated even more conflicting data.

Your franchise online marketing ecosystem should follow these best practices to achieve a consistent business identity:

Be cognizant of your online brand identity.  Regardless of the types of media you include in your advertising and marketing programs, incorporate the same standards so your widely accepted corporate identity remains universal.

Be sure to monitor your identity on search sites that are important to you for traffic. As an example, franchises should track how franchisees come up on their local and vertically-focused sites. If something doesn’t look right on the results, contact the site. Identifying the root data source is vital to fixing these errors.

Additionally, give your Franchisee the tools they need to build the franchise brand locally by using local advertising campaigns that are brand consistent.  This solidifies the franchises anchor identity. Tether your ads to existing correct identities. There are helpful tools for querying the common data sources to retrieve the identity of record.  Also, ensure that you conform to standards for the company’s brand identity by using the proper local business name, a standardized business address and the commonly accepted main phone number.

ElementsLocal software, gives the franchise a tool to protect brand integrity with BrandProtect™ included in our franchise online marketing software platform.  The software platform contains controls that allow the franchise to have control of the brand through work flow for content and protect the integrity of the brand with standard content across franchisee websites.

The digital age has forced the intermingling of online marketing and user-generated content sometimes to the detriment of the sanctity of the franchises true identity.  As the search for local information continues to rise so does the need for a consistent identity across all platforms.

Brand consistently- Brand locally - Brand protect.

Pinterest is a new, innovative and exciting site that allows its users to ‘Pin’ images from anywhere online. It has quickly become a large social community of people who like to view the world through imagery.  Pinterest is built upon SHARING.  Sharing personally built life categories with personally built content.

The best thing about Pinterest is the ability to get personal with others. For a business that could be showing and demonstrating their products and services to customers in a whole new way. This is a great platform to establish franchisees local presence through the personal ‘boards’ in Pinterest.

One of the biggest advantages to Pinterest is the demographic that has made the site so popular. The site caters to a female audience (reportedly nearing 70 percent), most of whom are under the age of 45. This much sought after demographic can play a key part in the purchasing decisions of the average American household and your bottom line.

How can your franchise brand use an image sharing website?

Whether you sell something that’s exciting, seemingly uninteresting or especially offer a unique service that’s hard to understand Pinterest will make it exciting and simple to understand through imagery. W a bit of creativity and research you’re bound to find a way to use the new platform.  Especially if you use Pinterest to invite your customers into your personal franchise business or local franchise life.

Here are some creative ways to establish your brand locally with Pinterest

Hold a Contest

One creative way to utilize Pinterest is to hold a contest. Lands’ End recently held a contest they coined: “Pin It to Win It”. Participants were encouraged to browse the Lands’ End site, create pins of items they liked and the most creative and stylish entries won prizes. This kind of contest can engage your audience and also gets them to your site, browsing your products and linking to them!

A hair and beauty franchise could give a demonstration on quick hair styles or hold a contest as such while a food and beverage franchise could hold a local photo at the location contest. Again, creativity and making the contest unique with a local twist would be advantageous.

Conduct Market Research

Have plans to revamp services or products in 2012?  Why not test out new products or even your upcoming ad campaign on Pinterest?

Other brands have started using Pinterest as a platform to conduct market research or test product launches. In a recent Mashable post, one creative suggestion was to use Pinterest as sort of a social online focus group to see first-hand reactions, on a platform not as inundated as Facebook.

Feature Customers

One way to appeal to this demographic is to play to their vanity. Feature customers on your Pins, especially if you have a clothing boutique or store. “Customer A paired these shoes, belt and top to create this stylish winter cocktail party look!”. Showcase customer purchases that exemplify their style or pin photos of products that go well together and that customer X recommends.

Present Concepts in a New Way

Pinterest allows you to add contributors to your boards. Have a few team members put together a storyboard on Pinterest to present to a customer. Or co-Pin with a customer to create a board full of ideas for their next event or shopping spree.

If the product or idea is presented in a clean, simple and creative way using Pinterest it can stand a chance of being better received. Not only that, it allows you to creatively engage with customers and prospects can see too!

Put a Face to Your Franchise Brand

Personalizing and localizing your brand can be a hard thing to do with plain ol’ web copy. Use Pinterest to showcase your brand uniquely, what makes you different, what your brand stands for and use it as an opportunity to highlight your employees too. Putting a face to your brand is key to localizing your brand and easily done with Pinterest.

Promote Your Franchise Image Content

A franchise brand could start a board on  infographics.  Feature all of your image content in one place for easy access.

Infographics, product photos and your own photography can be featured. Do your research and see how other brands are using Pinterest to share their image content.

Pinterest can help a customer see the full picture of their needs before they even know they need it. Pin photos of activities in the area and how they relate to your franchise, landscape photos, photos of the local business and of course the staff. The possibilities really can be endless.

These are just a few of the creative ways your franchise brand can use Pinterest to spark interest and engage with customers. And to wet your palate for Pinterest even more, check out the announcement from Facebook – 60 new and exciting apps were unveiled including a Pinterest app.

A picture is worth a thousand words, in Pinterest’s case, an image could be the local exposure your franchise brand is needing to establish that local location to generate more leads.

Here is a great article on Pinterest’s popularity and it’s ability to drive traffic:  http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/pinterest-traffic-study/

Brought to you by ElementsLocal – the leader in branding your franchise locally.

Visit us in booth #724 to find out what all the excitement is about!

1. Build LOCAL Content
2. Deploy LOCAL Domain Names
3. Link LOCAL Websites      Together
4. Insure LOCAL Unique and Descriptive Titles, Headers and Descriptions are written for every page
5. Create Regional Websites connecting your LOCAL websites together
6. Send LOCAL Email Campaigns on a consistent basis
7. Send LOCAL Promotions Via Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare/Yelp
8. Use call/number tracking to capture your LOCAL phone leads as well as your form leads
9. Measure your LOCAL goals using Google Analytics
10. Test, test, test using Google Website Optimizer – Which LOCAL CTA gives the best conversion

All of this equals BrandLOCAL.  Visit BrandLocal.net for more information or call us at 805-547-1160 ext. 205

The easily embeddable widget lets users either +1 a webpage or add that page to their Google+ circles. The widget also displays the faces of other users who have +1ed the webpage. It doesn’t have Facebook’s ability to display your friends’ faces first  though.

The launch of Google+ Badges coincides with Monday’s launch of Google+ Brand Pages, finally giving businesses the ability to create a presence on Google’s growing social network.

The Google+ Badge has a few other tricks. The Google+ badge also contains a snippet of code that connects your website to your Google+ page. And In addition to helping Google better index your Google+ page, this snippet will help you show more personal recommendations around the web by linking your +1’s on sites, your Google+ page, search and display ads.

Google also revealed that the badge is a requirement for inclusion in Google Direct Connect, a feature that makes it possible for users to find a Google+ Page from Google Search. Users type in the “+” operator, followed by the name of a brand participating in Direct Connect. The search result will lead users directly to the company’s Google+ brand page.

The widget was a necessary component for Google+, given the success of its Facebook counterpart. While it doesn’t have the same benefits  Facebook enjoys with Open Graph, the Google+ Badge gets the job done. Google still has a long, uphill battle to convince both brands and users that its social network is an ideal place to do business.

Stay tuned as ElementsLocal keeps track of the impact Google+ has on your Franchise Online Marketing.

Twitter (General Counsel,Alex Macgillivray) fired a salvo at Google claiming that it is a “bad day for the internet” because Google is displaying unfair practices by giving link preference in their search results to their own properties.  Google publicly stated that the Google+ social network would get no preferential treatment if Facebook & Twitter gave them permission to access all of their content, which of course neither competitor is willing to do.

So is Google using anti-trust techniques to bolster their own properties?  Well, it can be argued that Google does not hold a monopoly on search as they currently hold a 66% of the market share and there is no obstacle for consumers to use another search engine.  So most likely Google is not breaking the law, but we can see how the spirit of the law appears to be broken when the 800lbs gorilla of search is showing a lot of results to their own properties in their results.

By showing Google+ profiles in their search results Google is encouraging their users to sign-up for a Google+ account.  See, Google needs a large scale adoption of their social platform in order to pick up social signals which they can then use to base their search results on.  Google’s use of these social signals, such as quality ratings (+1) from trusted Google+ profiles could very well replace the current link graph system.  The existing system assumes that the more links a website has pointing to it the more popular that website is which speaks to its’ quality, but this can easily be gamed.  This paradigm shift from link graph to social signals for search results is a real big game-changer in search engine marketing.