Category Archives: SEO

Google Discontinues Geo Sitemap Files

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Google has discontinued support for GeoSitemap XML files.  The exact reason behind the move are fairly cloudy and this change was not announced to the public at large.  Instead, thousands of webmasters just happened to notice that their GeoSitemap files suddenly displayed an error status in February & March of this year.  The exact error those webmasters saw was “This tag was not recognized. Please fix it and resubmit.”  The reported error was really vague and misleading and as I mentioned, this change came unannounced.  It was only on March 20th in follow up questions from SMX West on Susan Moskwa’s Google+ page that any of this was explained.

“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.

Google Has New Way to Connect Your Blog Posts to Your Personal Brand

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Google has a new way to connect your blog posts to your personal brand. By going into your blog and making some simple changes you can have each post point to an author page on your blog, which in turn you can link to the author’s Google+ page.

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!

Google Search Plus Your World – Changes bring Changes

Posted on by Russ Lubin

Google Plus Your World: Changes bring Changes

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

Googles Search Plus Your World Results Google Images Search Plus Your World Results

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.

Consistent Branding is key to your Franchise Online Image

Posted on by Michael Boyer

Your franchise online marketing program needs to be built on a foundation of brand consistency Nationally AND Locally

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. Continue reading →

Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace YouTube, and Reddit – Is It Something You Should Consider to Share Your Franchises Brand Image?

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Pinterest is a new(er) social media site that could very well help you get the desired “local” exposure as well as engagement for your franchise.  Read on to see how companies like Lands’ End to Facebook are using Pinterest to their advantage.

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.

Google Integrates Their Own Social Into Search, Big Deal?

Posted on by Russ Lubin

As you’ve probably already read, Google has introduced their new social search which is on by default into their “Everything” search.  Adding social circle recommendations and social media posts within the results is not the problem; Bing integrated Facebook social signals into their results almost a year ago.  Most pundits take issue with the fact that Google is showing great preference to their own Google+ social network in their search results.  Some are even going so far as to state, is that Google is willing to sacrifice relevance and quality in favor of their own social results.

google plusTwitter (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.

Franchise Online Marketing Outlook for 2012: Creating an Adaptive Marketing Platform

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Reflecting back is more than just remembering where you wanted to be. It’s an eye opener about how dramatically the sands shifted under your feet in 2011 and a clear sign 2012 will be no different.

For Franchise Marketers Google introduced significant changes to the way it displays and delivers search results. Many franchise marketers had to quickly react to the importance of social media, blogging and directories. Our own vision of being a complete solution for franchise online marketing was expanded to include new best of breed partners in directory submission and social media. Our dashboard reflects the integrated nature of how pay-per-click, organic search and directories (such as Google Places) inter-relate and converge.

This being said, what does 2012 hold in store for Franchise online marketing? Seeing future trends is exactly what we need to do in order to anticipate change and be at the top of our game.

It’s not just about how to show up, attract and sell to consumers today, but next month, next year and years to come.  Lets transcend ideas like “social network” and “search engine” and focus  on consumers and technologies. Will we be using a search engine like Google in 5 years? Will we be using desktop computers in 5 years? What will future social networks look like? Answers to those questions are answers to the future of marketing and customer engagement.

Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and plenty of other large companies are innovating at amazing speed to gain control of our attention. Some are doing it through devices, some through content, others through infrastructure.

So, what is message we got from 2011? Change… we must take a critical look at what it will take to adapt to change.  Rather than jumping from one place to the next in your franchise online marketing plan, consider developing an adaptive model that allows for rapid assimilation of new technologies and trends.

Creating an adaptive model assumes that you will have to adopt new technologies or new methodologies. Is your company an early adopter? Have you taken on the risk of adopting a technology platform before everyone else? Or have you given up first mover advantage because you felt it was going to be too expensive or time consuming. Continue reading →

Franchise Online Marketing: The Pros and Cons of Using Call Tracking Numbers

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

The use of call tracking numbers in your Franchise Online Marketing ads is very useful because it is a great way to track incoming ad generated leads for your franchisees.  Search Engines like Google aim to provide the most useful and accurate information for users, so a local phone number is always preferred.  That being said, if you are using a call tracking phone numbers in your advertising you may be run up against a few challenges.

There are three fundamental reasons why call tracking numbers can cause issues with Google Places, and other directories, and and even organic search rankings.

  1. Google may not recognize the call tracking number as your local number and think you’re spamming.
  2. You may confuse Google because many local business directories use the phone number as a key identifier for individual businesses. A phone number is often an easy ID to use for indexing businesses because they are generally prone to less variation in how they’re presented in databases or on webpages. A second phone number associated with a location may ‘devalue’ that location or produce a duplicate location.
  3. If the business ever changes call tracking solution providers or stops using the tracking numbers, the phone numbers they’ve been using will stop working, yet will be published throughout the Internet

We suggest using a locally recognized phone number and when you are able to, purchase the use of that phone number for your exclusivity for use in the call tracking. That way that phone number will remain consistant when changing providers or stop using the tracking numbers. There are also new ways to place call tracking technology on your existing phone numbers.

We also suggest that as part of your inside sales procedures for franchisees, asking callers directly where they found you  You may or may not be able to collect that data from your franchisees, but at the very least encourage the collection of the data.  Have the employees who answer the phone write down responses for you to see later. This remains an excellent and free way of polling to see how effective different channels are performing.  Optimize leads by asking for referrals as well.

The data and feedback for our advertising campaigns is imperative, but you also need to follow good SEO practice to drive business locally.

ElementsLocal has worked with many Franchises on call tracking and has integrated the service directly into our platform..  Take an online tour today: elementslocal.com.

Thinking beyond SEO: Website Attention = Retention

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Beyond SEO

Franchise online marketing strategy is as much about engaging the visitors on your website as it is about building traffic and search engine optimization.

The goal of online marketing is to convert leads into business.  Beyond all of the SEO work to get people to your website you must also pay attention to the content, layout and aesthetic appeal of your website in order to turn attention into conversion and even better… retention (which is driving people back to your site again and again).

Here are some actions you can take today that will optimize your online marketing:Franchise Online Marketing

  • Make sure that any links that lead visitors off of your website open in new windows. Do not direct traffic off of your webiste.  Ushering people off of your website is not productive.  By opening links in new windows,  your website will still be up when they close that window.  This is also applicable to your social media icons. Make sure they open in a new window as well.  Keep the traffic on your site as long as possible.
  • Be aware of the users display.  Remember, an increasing number of people are viewing your website on mobile, or handheld devices.  Recent studies show that mobile traffic is on the rise, so having a strategy for a mobile friendly website both at the national and local levels is a must for 2012.
  • Review your website for deficiencies regularly.   It may be just as easy as mending broken paths or replacing broken code. Again your site is only as legitimate as it is functional. Use websites like http://validator.w3.org/ to validate your website and find issues with it.

Following these simple suggestions will garner results. You will see a decrease in your bounce rate (visitors to your website who land on a webpage and leave without clicking deeper into your website) and an increase in the amount of time visitors spend on your website, the amount of content that they will read and ultimately the number of leads will you receive from your website.

Learn more about refining your Franchise Online Marketing by attending our Franchise Online Marketing Webinar on January 18th at 12:00 p.m. CST.  For more information visit : ElementsLocal Webinar – Franchise Online Marketing Tactics

Google Fresh – Blog and Update Social Media Sites Regularly for SEO Optimization

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

I have a quick update about what’s been happening that affects our Franchise Marketing clients, SEO Clients and anyone with a website.  Big news - GOOGLE’S big changes last week.

Google has updated their local search results.  They have dubbed their newest twist on search engine processes:  Google ‘Fresh’ Update – Google changed its algorithm. The Grey pinned results and several other things are now live. This is how it affects us:

They estimate this will affect about 35% of web searches. The change is meant to provide more ‘weight’ to the most relevant recent updates.   This serves to keep active, predominant and frequently attended to sites fresh on the search list.

Most of our clients are service based organization rather than news sites.  Google wants to produce near instant results for searches that are best answered with timely information, like baseball scores or TV shows.  They are still planning on delivering “best results” for searches that do not need near instant results.  I don’t believe that the service industry businesses or their keyword targets are going to fall into that instant bucket.

“For evergreen results, like recipes or how to change a tire, Google said the algorithm would know to show the best results no matter when they were posted.”

However, we have seen some of our clients with up to date websites get a boost in rank from this change almost imediately.

Integrate more social media into your website and post regular blog postings with unique content to take advantage of this algorithm change. BAKE freshness into your website and benefit with better SEO.

The week also included Google announcing that they can now index Facebook comments that are embedded into websites. A blog plug-in that allows users to use their existing Facebook accounts to comment on your blog and more timely blog posts should be something you integrate into your current marketing plans.

See Blumenthals article and / or the Google Blog Spot for more about the Google changes.