YOUR BUSINESSES DIGITAL LOCATION IS EVERYTHING

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1 YOUR BUSINESSES DIGITAL LOCATION IS EVERYTHING Your Digital-Location-Citation Management Digital location management is an increasingly important element of local marketing

2 While some companies claim to manage your company s listings, many don t have the bandwidth, or the capacity, to manage listings across ALL platforms. We allow clients to house ALL of their local content in one safe, centralized platform, and then we push them out across their ecosystem of 50+ publishers, or about 95% of the market share. Local Directory Listings Local directory listings are online informational sources that contain basic information about companies, such as their business name, phone number, address, hours of operation, photos, and sometimes reviews or ratings. Many local listings, like Google+ Local and Bing Local, are factored into search results in organic and map searches. The 2015 Comparative Listings Study shows that enriching these listings makes them more effective at engaging consumers. By adding a few simple pieces of information, businesses paint a fuller, more compelling picture. All of this is accomplished for very little effort or cost. Figure 3 shows the average lift in listing views for locations with each of the 14 fields completed, versus locations with fields left blank. For example, locations with a URL link in the listing received 116% more listing views on average than those with no URL. Completing all of the 14 fields is likely to increase consumer engagement. This type of improvement typically might require businesses to create new content, or paid ads, but in this case it was a product of adding basic business information. URL, logo, hours, and payment options are details that businesses have regardless of their vertical (target marketing to clients with specialized needs). Very little, if anything, needs to be created new by the business.

3 The core work of any local search marketing campaign is the creation of local business listings. A local business listing is an online profile that contains your business name, address, phone number, and other details. There are thousands of websites and directories on which local business owners are allowed to create free business listings. Some you may already have heard about include Google+ Local, Yelp, Bing Places, Internet Yellow Pages, and Yahoo! Local. The social component of local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is growing stronger with each passing year, and learning to participate in the social spaces your customers prefer can be a smart move for nearly any local business. Some local and review-oriented platforms enable you to interact with the public. The purpose of creating local listings is to make your business visible on the Internet. Each new listing you create increases your chances of being found by customers. At the same time, many of the local business indexes share data with each other, so the more places you are listed and the more visible you are, the more these indexes trust the accuracy of your business data increasing your chances of ranking well in local searches. While many of your potential customers utilize their favorite search engines for information on local services, inevitably a large portion of them find their way to a local business directory. Many of these directories not only have substantial brands, most of them have a huge amount of traffic. The Platform from ebusiness Media Solutions is Connected to 55 of the Largest Business Directories with the Heaviest Traffic in the US! These local directory sites are listed by size largest first on our Platform. When we improve your presence on these directories, it means your business will be exposed to a wider audience of local searchers. NOTE: It s easy to get listed in local directories. It s not easy, and very time-consuming and tedious, to use the 55 local directories to their maximum potential. But that s exactly what a local business must do if it wants to rank. This is where we get into one of the oft-overlooked features of local SEO. These directories should be filled out with as much information as possible: Google Places (aka Google+ Local) - Facebook - LinkedIn - Yellow Pages - Yelp - Local White Pages - Manta - SuperPages - CitySearch - Patch - City-Data - MerchantCircle - Yellow-book - Yahoo Local - Mapquest - Topix - DexKnows - Yellow - BBB - ServiceMagic Angieslist Area-Connect - Foursquare - American-Towns - Biz-Journals - LocalGuides - Yellowpages.aol - Bundle - Yellowpages.aol - Insider Pages - Magic-Yellow Hotfrog - Mojopages - Switchboard - HopStop - Demand-force - Kudzu - MojoPages Metromix - Yellowbot - ShowMeLocal - Chamber-of-Commerce - LocalPages - YellowMoxie - Phonenumber - Best of the Web Local - Yellowise - GetFave - Tupalo - ZipLocal -EZLocal - CitySquares -USCIty - LocalDatabase

4 Local Listings Are Very Important The graphic below breaks out the listing fields that generated the largest increases across five major verticals. Businesses in these verticals should pay close attention to ensure that they have these critical fields complete. Where to List Your Business The first thing you should do is a quick search on Google using your business name. Visit each local directory listing to claim and update your business information such as your business name, phone number, address, hours of operation, and photos. Your business should always have accurate, complete listings on key sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yelp. But, those aren t the only sites you should be on; your business should be listed on ALL 55 of the largest, and most visited business directories in the US. In today s local SEO landscape, keeping an updated, accurate, and consistent local directory listing for your business is a must. If you are not sure what local directory listings are, then please continue reading. I will share with you what local directory listings are, where you should claim them, and why they are so important to the web presence of your business.

5 Although having a correct listing across the Internet will increase your traffic, it s not the primary reason. When listings are not managed by the businesses themselves, there could be errors -- publishers may have listings that were created by aggregating information fed by users of that publisher, or created by past employees over a period of time. These scenarios can create a huge gap in the accuracy of your business information and varies from listing to listing; your businesses address, phone number, website domain, even your business name. This will often result in your brand reputation suffering, and searchers becoming frustrated, moving on to one of your competitors. Listings In today s competitive marketplace, when it comes to information, people expect nothing less than precision, but that can be elusive when information about your brand appears in so many discrete destinations. What if you could not only ensure that info is consistent and up-to-date, but also utilize every place your brand appears online -- even places you don t own -- to create new opportunities for marketing and customer engagement? With patented technology and real-time update architecture, EBMS Location Manager Service analyzes, identifies, and claims your existing business listings across our unique publisher network, so all of your content is locked, synced, enhanced, and easy to update across every digital channel. Ask Yourself This?? Have you ever wanted to make a change to your business name? Example: Lector Jewelry. Let s say they changed their name to Lector International, then later expanded their name to Lector International, Watch, Clock, and Jewelry as they added services and new products to sell.?? Do you want to change or expand your business name??? Has your business ever changed locations??? Has your business ever changed its phone number, or added additional numbers? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you may want to embark on some local SEO citation remediation.

6 What is a Citation? A citation is any mention of your business out on the web, with or without a link. It can come in various forms: Company name by itself Company name & phone number Company name, phone number & address Company name, phone number, address & website link Even just the phone number by itself can be a citation. In order to qualify for a local business listing in any index, your business must meet certain criteria: Your business name or DBA must be listed Must have a local phone number that matches your city of location You cannot use a shared phone number, toll-free number, or call-tracking number Must have a dedicated physical street address You cannot use a shared address, PO box, or virtual office Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms in Google and Bing. Other factors being equal, businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations. Internet Searches With more than 87% of the entire US population on the Internet conducting 3.7 billion searches each month for local products and services, chances are your next customers are already online searching for you. Increasingly, these searches are being done from mobile devices.

7 And Now Apple Watch Brings All of These Services to Your Wrist! Apple introduced ios 9 the fall of 2014, the next piece of its local search puzzle, App Search, which will allow users to view search results on ios devices indexed from both the web and from apps even if those apps aren t on a user s device. Consumers will experience connections through ios 9 s web and app crawler, Applebot, which will show results through the iphone s personal digital assistant, Siri, the on-device search tool, Spotlight, and in its web browser s search, Safari. ios is aggressively taking on Google. Consider the following use cases that already exist: A Siri voice query for local information (e.g. bars ) brings up local results from Apple Maps A Spotlight search for local information brings up local results from Apple Maps, links to relevant installed apps and makes suggestions for new apps A local query in Safari, on both ios and Yosemite, suggests an Apple Maps listing in the address bar before ever launching the Google Search. Of course, there are plenty of non-local use cases as well. Apple is building a search engine baked into its operating systems. It is focusing on the content that its customers have shown to value most content within apps and leaving Google and Bing to duke it out over which wants to pay for the privilege of being back-fill. In many ways, optimizing for ios Search is no different than optimizing for Google Search: Make sure your content is accessible to the bots Understand and use keywords your target customers are searching for -- the more relevant and engaging the content, the more likely it is to show up. This last point is perhaps the key differentiator between ios Search and Google Search: instead of using back-links as its major ranking factor, Apple appears to be focused on user engagement both Public and Private. Times Are Changing Just a few years ago, folks opened their phone books to locate a service, and businesses purchased expensive Yellow Page ads. You d come home to find your new, heavy phone book waiting for you on your porch. You would call friends and family and ask them if they could give you a review on products, services, and professional firms Well, if you think those were the good old days, those good old days are dead and gone. If you would like to check to see how your business is listed, just go here and put in your business information, and our software will run a FREE Report for you.

8 Here are 17 of the hottest review websites on the planet in 2015: 1. Angie s List offers user reviews of businesses in your city 2. Bing Places allows you to manage your local business listing 3. Citysearch an online guide to businesses and entertainment in your city 4. Google+ Local 5. Foursquare helps keep track of where your friends check-in, and what businesses are nearby your current location 6. Hotfrog a business search engine that receives around 1.5 million visitors per month 7. Kudzu offers reviews, advice, and deals for local businesses 8. Local an online directory for local businesses, deals, and events 9. LinkedIn allows you to create a public Company Page for your business 10. Magic Yellow a business directory offering local business listings and reviews 11. Manta offers business listings for companies worldwide 12. MerchantCircle a local business directory offering reviews, deals, and advice

9 13. Superpages an online business directory offering local business listings, reviews, and advertising solutions 14. The Business Journal offers business news and advice 15. Yellow Page offers local business listings and advertising solutions for businesses 16. Yahoo LocalWorks offers listings and reviews for local businesses 17. Yelp customer reviews for businesses in your city For your local business listing to be successful, pay close attention to these listing attributes. Adding categories to your listings in local search engines may seem a trivial step, but it s actually very important. It s very, very important for you to claim your business listing in local search engines like Google Places. Local citations, -- mentions of your business name and location on other sites -- are key components of local search rankings. Our goal is to help you to succeed in your local business listings, and we ll start by building your local citations. Finding local citations in your city isn t an easy task. We ve compiled a list of the best places a local business can get citations based on your industry, or vertical. Taking this task on yourself is doable, but time consuming. A variety of negative outcomes can arise from the presence of duplicate listings which detract from your ability to rank well and win customers. There s a lot to do when your business changes locations, but if you forget about local search your customers may never find your new address. Is your business information wrong in Google Business Listings or Bing Local? Learn where they get their data so you can make sure it s right. Why Citations Are Important? Citations are defined as mentions of your business name and address on other Web Pages, even if there is no link to your website. An example of a citation might be an online yellow pages directory where your business is listed, but not linked to. Citations can also be found on local Chamber of Commerce pages, or on a local business association page that includes your business information, even if they are not linking at all to your website. Citations are a key component of the ranking algorithms in Google and Bing. Other factors being equal, businesses with a greater number of citations will probably rank higher than businesses with fewer citations. Citations from well-established and well-indexed portals (i.e., Superpages.com) help increase the degree of certainty the search engines have about your contact information and categorization. To paraphrase former Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green, citations help search engines confirm that businesses «are who we thought they were!» Citations are particularly important in less-competitive niches, like plumbing or electrical, where many service providers don t have websites themselves. Without much other information, the search engines rely heavily on whatever information they can find.

10 Citations also validate that a business is part of a community. It s hard for someone to fake membership in a Chamber of Commerce, or a city or county business index, or being written about in a local online newspaper or popular blog. When you do an Internet search for information on local trade services, retailers, and professional services, inevitably a large portion of them find their way to a local business directory. Many of these directories not only have substantial brands/marketing budgets to drive traffic, but they also do well in organic search rankings for important search terms. So even if you can t get your site ranked high for a specific search term, you can appear on the local directory site that ranks for that term. Citations and links from these kinds of websites can dramatically improve your local search engine rankings. Links and Citations Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Best of the Web, and other search engines find out about your business in two primary ways: 1. Visiting links that point to your website, and tracking sites where those links appear 2. Tracking citations of your business, and on which sites these citations appear The search engines use these two factors in determining how to rank a particular business. All other things being equal, the business with the most links from high-quality websites in your area like a Chamber of Commerce or a city government, and the most citations from high-quality websites in your area, will rank the highest. So, you will want to make sure to get your business name, address, phone number, and website listed in as many places as you can. Photos and Videos Engaging photos and video commercials have been shown to increase the number of clicks that a particular listing gets. Compelling videos and images can help you stand out in an otherwise flat playing field, and they will definitely help you when those pesky little bots come a-crawling.

11 Images and video commercials are a great way to show off your business. A Google+ Local business listing, Yelp, and other review sites with no photos will make your listing fall flat when compared to listings that have these useful tools. But, a potential customer may be more inclined to click through on your search results if there is a compelling photo. Recently, Google has increased the visibility of Google+ listing photos by displaying one for each listed business in their main search results. Choosing photos wisely, both a cover photo for your Google+ Local page and gallery-style photos on your Google+ Local photo page, is vital to creating an engaging experience for potential customers. Foursquare continues to be a growing local data provider, recently entering into a partnership with Microsoft to contribute to Bing s location and context layers on Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Yelp powers Bing s local search experience with their local data, and they have announced that they are partnering with Yahoo! And, this is just the beginning of things yet to come! We can create a call-to-action (much like an Internet ad, Facebook, and LinkedIn ad), which, when clicked, will drive users to a designated landing page. We will also create an About This Business description. Local listings are continuing to become more and more important in the overarching local landscape. Claiming, and actively managing, your local listings is more than just about lift, more than just about content control... It s about creating a consistent brand across the digital universe. Location, Location, Location Today, people are on the go, on their smart phones, on social networks, constantly seeking upto-the-second information to make local purchasing decisions. The velocity of technology keeps accelerating -- and its scope expanding -- which is why it s critical to be able to efficiently edit important location-based content across digital properties. With EBMS Location Manager Service, we can seamlessly customize and update content for each and every one of your locations, whether you have 2 or 2,000, across all your digital channels. Social Across the globe, people are creating local profiles, checking in, and posting and commenting every day. EBMS Location Manager Service allows you to reclaim your brand in the social sphere, especially at the local level. EBMS Location Manager Service instantaneously syncs and updates invaluable content, like store hours, a new address, or an important status update to whichever social networks your brand engages with. Analytics EBMS Location Manager Service has access to proprietary metrics for your listings. Gain a holistic view of your business, your customers, and ripe opportunities via data. Isolate and break down select metrics to tap valuable patterns with the comprehensive tool set. With EBMS Location Manager Service, you can track, assess, and adjust for increased reach and impact.

12 Guidelines Adhering to the guidelines of any local or social platform is vital to avoiding unwanted penalties. In particular, it is important to read and comply with Google Quality Guidelines For Local Businesses in promoting your business. Violations of these guidelines can lead to drops in rankings -- or even removal from the index. Perhaps most importantly, the consistency of data published about your business across the web influences the «trust» search engines (like the ones Google has) in the validity of your business data. Ensuring that every online citation of your business lists your correct NAP and website address is crucial to your ability to rank well. Reviews and Ratings Reviews and ratings can persuade prospective customers who are looking for the goods and services you offer. While a bad review can encourage someone to hit their «back» button and perform another search, a good review can encourage someone to pick up the phone and call you! Because reviews and ratings are displayed in so many different ways across different search engines, there is some debate about how much reviews or ratings of a business influence its rank in search engine results, but reviews can definitely influence a potential customer s decision to choose your business. It s extremely important to engage all of your customers -- and especially to get your best customers -- to leave a review of your business on their preferred search engine or portal. Likewise, it s important to recognize when someone has left a negative review of your business. Reach out to that customer and find out why they had a bad experience with your company, and see if there is anything you can do to change their opinion of you.

13 GOOGLE WARNING! YOUR BUSINESS LISTING WILL HELP YOU PAGE RANKINGS On April 21st, 2015 Google announced that their Algorithm has been changed to reward mobile-responsive websites, and to downgrade those websites that are not responsive until they are made responsive. Check your website mobile responsive status here Contact us for your FREE Mobile-Responsive Quote or

14 In Conclusion Keeping up with changes in policy and the latest opportunities for promotion on the major search engines is the best way to ensure that your business is doing everything it can to be current and visible in local search. Your contact information must be in index-able text, not embedded in an image, Flash, or other format that search engines can t crawl. If you d rather not list your contact information on your WebPages, you should set up a clear «Contact Us» page, which displays your complete business name, address, and phone number (NAP). To strengthen the signals of your NAP, you may choose to encode it in schema, or markup code, that all major search engines agree upon and understand. Key Takeaways Enriching listings is a simple, powerful way for businesses across all verticals to increase impressions, views, and special offer clicks, which lead to increased in-store visitors. Rich listings also increase intent among visitors, who are better informed and have been exposed to additional marketing messages before walking through the door. For Yelp, listings with hours received 120% more page views. This is likely driven by the high percentage of searches on Yelp that come from mobile users (65%), who are more likely to convert immediately. Businesses that link to their Twitter handle and Facebook page from listings received 54% - 83% more listing views. Social profiles provide consumers another opportunity to engage with a business. Listings with rich content (photo gallery, videos, descriptions) received 45% 61% more listing views. Many businesses have this content on their website or social profiles that can easily be re-purposed for use in listings. Listings with enhanced content lists (menus, calendars, product lists) received up to 120% more listing views on average. For certain verticals (restaurants, beauty) lists related to the highest number of profile views. By adding a few simple pieces of information to their listings, businesses paint a fuller, more compelling picture for consumers. EBMS WILL FIX YOUR INCOMPLETE LISTINGS With ebusiness Media Solution s Location Manager and PowerListings, we can quickly and easily enrich all of your listings and start driving more business. Basic listing information is something most business owners know off the top of their head, but updating that information in listings for multiple locations across all of the sites that consumers search can be an enormous task. That s where EBMS can help. With EBMS Location Manager, you can seamlessly customize and update content for each and every one of your locations whether you have 2 or 2,000 across all your digital channels. EBMS will edit across all your locations at once, or edit specific locations. Our fully-automated PowerListings software allows us to update your business Geodata and promotional content on more than 100 map, app, search engine and directory partners including Bing, Facebook, Foursquare, Mapquest, Yahoo, and Yelp. We help businesses track their performance with exclusive analytics about their listings and customer engagement. EBMS is the fastest, and most effective, way to enrich your listings and start driving more business If you would like to check to see how your business is listed, just go here and put in your business information, and our software will run a FREE Report for you.

15 Click here to download our SEO ebook If you would like to learn more about how how our monthly SEO can work for your business give Jimmy a or contact support@etelligentseo.com