Avni Shah, director of product management for Google, said this in a post, “Based on careful thought about the future direction of Place pages, and feedback we’ve heard over the past few months, review snippets from other web sources have now been removed from Place pages.”

Google has been under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after TripAdvisor, Yelp and CitySearch complained that Google used their content without consent. Google has denied it has participated in any anti-competitive practices and has not been accused of any wrong doing by the FTC. However, after removing the content from “other web sources” Google Places showed a decline in the number of reviews for some local businesses.

Originally launched in April 2010, Google Places was designed as an upgrade to the business listings displayed in the standard search engine. Google Places posted review excerpts from other sites and then created an average review score for the business listed. Now Places will only show reviews written by Google users and according to Shah the “rating and review counts reflect only those that’ve been written by fellow Google users.”

This change is likely to have a negative effect on local businesses who are working to improve their Places ranking or to earn a spot in Google Places for a new location or business. The once popular practice of researching citation sources of competitors via their Places page is now no longer available.

With the help of an experienced internet marketing firm, like Qiigo, it is possible to recover from this setback and still have a strong and dynamic Google Places page. To learn how Qiigo can assist your business with improving your Google Places positioning and all your SEO needs, contact us today at (888) 673-1212.

Click here to read Rick’s article “SEO and PPC are Among the Most Measurable Channels” from Direct Marketing News.

Or click here to view a PDF of the DM News article – DM News article.

As one of only 40 companies invited to this exclusive event, the Partners Meeting brought together some of Google’s largest search marketing clients for a day of learning and thought sharing.

The days agenda included a look at Google’s Ad Innovations including:

• Hyperlocal Distance Information
• Click to Call Cell Phone Extensions
• Mobile Ad Sitelinks
• A look at various AdWords Measurements trends and developments
• Developments in Display Advertising
• Developments in Search Marketing including the 1+ Button

We are very excited to have been invited to participate in this exclusive opporunity and look forward to sharing what we have learned with our clients.

With a focus on Myers’ two main categories of business, stair glides and ramps, Qiigo was able to immediately impact his call volume. Myers started seeing an increase of as many as 4 calls each day. By qualifying those calls, he has seen an increase in closed sales over the last several months. “Our March numbers were up 50% over February, April was up 25% over March, and we are on track to have a record month in May thanks to the SEO work Qiigo has done,” says Dave Myers.

Driving business to his local site was an important objective for Myers. His clients want to work with someone who has a local presence, someone who is rooted in the local community. By emphasizing his local website and phone number, Qiigo was able to start generating calls for Myers right from the start of the campaign. With the volume of calls increasing exponentially, Myers has even added staff to ensure that phones are answered at all times. 

“I am 100% pleased with the work that Qiigo has done and I look forward to expanding my efforts with Qiigo shortly,” says Myers.

• 80% of visual content to be digested through digital devices by 2015.
• 5 billion people to be active on the web by 2020, up from the 1.9 billion active on the web at the end of 2010.
• 10 billion mobile subscribers by 2020, up from the 5 billion mobile subscribers in 2010.
• 53 zettabytes of digital information projected to be created by 2020, as compared to the 800 exabytes created at the end of 2010.

According to David Shapiro, Google’s director of small business marketing, “Mobile will be bigger than desktop in five years.”  He also pointed out that “Mobile searches grew five times in the last two years.”

He went on to explain that searches are the “web’s killer app,” with mobile and search functions becoming increasingly integrated.  Shapiro explained that one-third of all Google mobile searches have local intent, with consumers searching for information related to where local businesses are located, what products they carry and what their hours of operation are.

Initial steps toward local search optimization should include:

• Claiming your company’s listing on online sites. Essential sites to claim your listing on include: Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local.  Here are few to help:
  • Google Places
  • Yahoo Local
  • Bing Local
  • Best of the Web Local
  • Superpages
  • Citysearch
  • InsiderPages
  • Yelp
  • Local.com
  • Yellowpages
  • Hotfrog
• Embrace social media to promote your brand, interact and engage with your customers and promote your website.  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the obvious social media choices.
• Explore the use of location based marketing sites such as Foursquare and Gowalla.

All of these techniques work together to enhance the local search optimization of your site.  However of these three techniques, claiming your local listings on search engine sites can most quickly and significantly impact your ranking results.  When claiming and validating your local listing, you are taking control of the data that is seen online.  By taking control of your listing, you also prevent others from claiming your listing.

When claiming your listing, pay special attention to:

• Business Name. Be specific when identifying your business name.  Include the full name of your business.  However, if your company is just named “Qiigo”, consider adding a descriptor that includes keywords.  For example, enter “Qiigo Search Engine Marketing”.  Don’t be tempted to stuff your business name listing with keywords, but do add them when your business name is too vague to deliver adequate search results.
• Location/Address. The search engines place significant impact on your business address when ranking results.  Be as detailed as possible, including latitude and longitude information.  Don’t know your address’ latitude and longitude coordinates?  Find them here.
• Category. Choose the category that best describes your business.  If one category doesn’t exactly fit, test several over a period of time to determine which category garners the best results.
• Reviews & Ratings. It never hurts to ask!  So ask! Ask your current customers to go online and review your business.  Provide them with the link for easy access.  Good reviews and ratings not only help your ranking, but also drive new business.
• Citations. These are mentions on other sites about your business.  In Google Places, they can be found on the “What People Are Saying About” page.  This is another case of the more the merrier, so work on securing citations from many sources.

With these areas completed, you will be well on your way to improving your local search rankings.  The more complete you can get your profile the better.  It is also recommended that you claim your website and submit it to primary local providers listed above.  The time and effort you put into these tasks is bound to pay off in improved ranking results.

These numbers come on the heels of record numbers reported by the IAB for the first half of 2010.  First half ad spending numbers were up 11.3%, or $12.1 billion, this year.  Search engine marketing spending was the primary driver of these record numbers.

The record growth in online advertising revenue has been attributed to the high return on investment marketers continue to receive from their Internet marketing campaigns.

The Internet Advertising Bureau is a digital advertising industry group which counts approximately 500 media and technology companies that sell 86% of Web advertising as member.

• Online ad spending rose 11.3% in the first half of 2010 as compared to 2009, reaching $12.1 billion in the first half of 2010.
• Second quarter spending for online advertising alone was up 13.9%.
• Search advertising accounted for 47% of all spending making it the largest segment of online ad spending.
  • Growth in this segment reached 11.6% and totaled $5.75 billion in the first 6 months of 2010.
• Display advertising also increased over 2009. 
• Spending increased 15.9% to $4.36 billion with banner ads remaining the largest segment of display advertising during the first half of the year.
• Spending on lead generation and email both decreased with lead generation spending dropping 11.8% and email spending dropping 19.5%.
• Classified advertising rose 13.1% during this time.

• Know the difference between SEM and SEO.  SEO, search engine optimization, is the process of increasing traffic through organic search results.  SEO is extremely valuable and offers significant long term results for your business.  SEM is the form of internet marketing that increases traffic through paid ad placement.  Also known as PPC, these paid ads are seen on the right hand rail and at the top of your search engine results.  Each time someone clicks on your PPC ad, you will pay a fee to the search engine.
• Know the value of PPC.  PPC advertising does net positive results from consumers.  According to a 2009 Engine Ready study, the conversion rate from PPC advertising is 2.03%, compared to 1.26% from organic advertising.  Additionally, consumers visiting your site through PPC links will spend an average of $117, as compared to the $106 spent by organic search consumers.
• Know how to pick your keywords.  Picking keywords isn’t as easy as just choosing your name, your competitor’s name and words related to your product line.  Do your research.  Talk to your customers; find out what people search on to find your site before you select your keywords.  Less refined keywords will increase your cost.  A little research will help you to get the most bang for your buck.
• Use the tools available to help you.  When choosing keywords, don’t overlook the value of tools like Google’s Suggestion, Google Trends, SEM Rush, EBay Pulse and others.  These various tools provide information on popular keywords for your business, historical data on keywords, keywords on the rise and other information than can help you to select the best combination of keywords for your PPC campaign.
• Make them want to click.  As with any ad campaign, your PPC campaign must have compelling copy.  Keep it clean, to the point and error free.  Don’t forget to include discounts, promotions or other offers to draw a searcher’s attention.
• Don’t be afraid to say no.  It can be hard to “turn away” potential business.  But with PPC the key to maximizing your budget is to only pay for those clicks that are likely to turn into sales.  Don’t be shy about only including prospective customers and excluding those who don’t meet your customer profile.
• Don’t forget the landing page.  There is nothing more frustrating for a shopper than to click on a PPC link only to end up on a page that has nothing to do with the product they wanted.  Minimize customer frustration and improve conversion rates with quality landing pages.  For the best results, it is vital that your keywords, ad copy and landing pages all work together.
• Strive for a top quality, quality score.  The quality score is used by search engines to determine the order of paid links on a search page.  This means that search engines are watching to see how much value you provide to your potential customers.  If your keywords closely correspond to your products, if your click through rate is good and you have good quality landing pages, your quality score will rise.  It is important for search engines to provide their customers with quality results.  Provide their customers with quality and the search engines will reward you with higher placement.
• Follow up research is essential.  As with any ad campaign, you must do your research to determine its success.  PPC is no different.  However, with PPC you can track as you go.  Use Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics to track your results and see how your keywords are working out.  This will help you to know when to make changes and refine your keyword selection.

The major resources available to your franchise system include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Social Media - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoogleBuzz, Blogs, RSS feeds
• Review Sites – Yelp, Kudzu, Angie’s List
• Web Portals  – Fran Gator, Solutions, Opp
• Trade Shows – IFE, Atlanta Franchise Show, Industry Trade Shows, Home Shows
• Policies for protecting your brand/marks

The Search Market

The Facts:

• 82% of US adults who conduct research online before making a purchase decision use search engines as a research tool.
• 40% of those conducting online research go to search engines first. Nearly equal percentages of respondents who use search engines to research products online use them to find a web site from which to buy (54%) or investigate where to purchase their desired product (53%)

Where Do They Click?

• 62% of search engine users click on a search result within the first page of results, and 90% of search engine users click on a result within the first three pages of search results. Statistics like these indicate that in order to be seen by the most searchers, marketers need to try to get their listings onto the first few pages of the search results.

The Future of Search Marketing

• Paid Search Marketing was a $8.6 billion industry in 2006 and it will nearly triple to $26.8 billion in 2011. Through 2011, spending for local online advertising will grow at a faster rate than either national advertising or total online advertising, making it a key growth area in a maturing Internet ad space.

Pay Per Click

Where Do They Click?

How SEO Works

While the industry recognizes 160 – 210 checklist items, we have put our efforts into 3 categories to make it easier for our customers: Content, Crawl-Ability Back Links

• Content, Content, & More Content
  • Ok, so Content is important  
  • Actually a well written, well planned page has more “SEO Value” than a just a page of words
  • Content is King
  • Targeting Keywords
  • Proper keyword density
• Crawl-Ability
  • This is the equivalent of Braille for your website
  • This is the more technical area of SEO
• Back Links
  • This is the equivalent of a reference in the real world.
  • Some “references” or links carry more SEO value than others
  • Relevance is important

 How Pay Per Click Works

• Catch Customers when they are looking for your Product/Service
  • Great Lead Generation Tool
• Only Pay when someone clicks on your Ads
  • Could Show Ad millions of times, but not pay a penny
• Use Custom Landing Pages
  • Increases likelihood of a “conversion‟
• Budget is Set on Daily Limit
• Track Everything
• On Average, a PPC Campaign will require 15 – 20 man/hours per month to run effectively
  • Blind Bidding Process
  • Specialized Software to manage effectively

 Market Forecast 2009-2014

 Helpful Hints/Lessons Learned

• Prioritize Your Efforts 
  1. SEO
  2. PPC
  3. Portals
  4. Shows
  5. Social
  6. Social Media
• Be sure Management is Engaged (Executive Sponsorship)
• Online efforts are a Strategic Business decision not a Technical Decision
• Develop Two Online Strategies/Plans: 1 for Franchise Units/1 for Headquarters
• If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.  Focus on ROI (Return On Investment) rather then Technical Metrics
• Focus on the efforts that generate the greatest ROI, otherwise you end up with “The Internet doesn’t work for our business.”
• Community will always trump Brand online.  Coordinate online efforts with your franchisees.  This will pay dividends to your concept for years.
• Get professional help.  Like off-line business, there is no substitute for experience.
• Develop System-Wide Policies & Distribute them to Franchisees
• Monitor Online Activity for Compliance