TVS Internet Marketing, LLC.

Websites, SEO, and PPC for Small Business Websites

Carmen Rane Hudson

29 Blog Topic Ideas for a Roofing Blog

by

blog-topic-ideasEarlier this week I talked about the many things that customers want to see from a contractor’s website. If you read that post you know how important blogging is for any contractor.

But you may still be floundering about just what you should talk about. Here are 29 ideas–not blog posts, but ideas that you can use to generate lots of blog posts–for a roofing blog, to serve as an example of just how many options any contractor has.

1. Pro and Con Posts

Talk about the pros and cons of different roof types. Or talk about the pros and cons of different roof coatings.

You could also talk about the pros and cons of different ways to clean your roof, the pros and cons of patching a roof vs. replacing it, and the pros and cons of attempting to do roof work yourself.

Since a bit of cursory research tells me that there are about 10 types of roof that homeowners can choose from, this type of post will at least give you 15 posts, or nearly two month’s worth of content.

2. Posts About Stuff that Endangers Roofs

Right off the top of my head I can think of trees, moss, and algae for 3 more posts. There’s also insufficient ventilation, which can cause a roof to rot from within, offering 1 more post. Another quick search gave me ice dams for one more.

3. Posts About Common Roof Problems

Posts that address punctures, leaks, moisture, and blistering are all options. Depending upon how you handle this you could create multiple posts for these topics, but you get at least 4 posts out of addressing them one by one.

4. Posts About How to Inspect Your Roof

You could devote at least one post on how to inspect your roof and how often it should be done in order to maintain your home’s health. You could probably do another post on why homeowners need to inspect their roof.

5. How-To Posts

You can get a lot of mileage out of how-to posts: how to patch a roof, how to put a band-aid on a leaky ceiling, or even how homeowners can do their own roof (they won’t, they’ll call you).

A very fast scan of “how to” + “roof” over on You Tube got me 21 topics before I got out of the first page, or almost three month’s worth of content. This topic would also include how to be safe while doing any of these DIY projects.

6. Posts About the Lifespan of a Roof

This is probably only good for one post that covers all of the different roofing types, unless there are mitigating factors that can make the roof last longer, in which case you’ve got 2 posts.

7. Dumb Crap People Do to Their Roof

Ahh…theoretically this topic could be infinite, but you can probably choose your 8 best stories for a solid month of content.

8. Stuff Related to the Roof

Here you can talk about gutters, soffits, fascia, and flashing, just to name a few topics. You could theoretically branch out into anything having to do with any of those topics, but let’s just call it a solid 4 posts per related topics for a total of 16 posts (2 months of content).

9. Posts About Roof Support Problems

Since my research turned up 5 categories of roof support, let’s be conservative and say that you can get 5 posts out of this topic, one for each category. As a roofer, you may be able to think of way more than 5.

10. What New Homeowners Should Know About the Roof

Many of your readers are either purchasing or living in their very first home. Up until this point nice maintenance men have come to take care of all their problems whenever they put in a phone call. That means there’s a lot of things they haven’t thought about when it comes to their roof. You have the opportunity to help educate them. We’ll call this 1 post.

11. The Roof as It Relates to Buying or Selling A Home

Both buying and selling bring their own issues when it comes to the roof. The buyer needs some good questions to ask the home inspector. The seller has to know how much work to put into the roof before attempting to sell. 2 posts.

12. The Costs of Repairing, Patching, or Replacing a Roof

Of course, every house is different and you still have to go out there and give each homeowner an estimate. But homeowners want to at least see some price ranges so that they’ll know if they can afford to even begin having the conversation with you. 1 post, or 3 if you can think of a way to structure it that devotes at least 250 words to each scenario.

13. Advances in Roof Technology

Theoretically you could put together infinite posts on this subject. A quick glance over Google News can tell you if there’s anything exciting or fun.

But for the sake of argument we’ll say that you might find 8 cool things in one year to blog about. 8 posts.

14. Solar Panel Issues

You may not be a solar expert, but solar panels definitely have an impact on the roof. You could talk about how to install the panels without damaging your roof, how to prep a roof for solar powers, damage prevention once the solar panels are on the roof and how solar panels get attached to the roof.

You can also talk about caring for solar panels since they become a related issue once they’re up there. 5 posts.

15. Anything You Wish Your Customers Knew

Every business I’ve ever encountered has dumb things customers do over and over again, and roughly 30 questions that every customer always asks. Your blog is an ideal place to address these issues.

For example, you could talk about what customers should do in order to prepare for your visit, whether or not they can live in the home while you’re working on it, and anything you can think of to make the experience smoother. I’ll only credit myself 3 posts here, but if you actually do get 30 questions you’ve got 30 posts.

16. Anything Customers Need to Know About Cleaning the Roof

When to clean the roof. How to clean the roof. Why they need to clean the roof. Why they shouldn’t use pressure-washers.

Since “how to clean the roof” might have been covered in the how-to section we’ll call this 3 posts.

17. Anything Related to How Storms Affect a Roof

The roof takes the brunt of most weather related conditions. You can talk about what to watch out for after a severe thunderstorm, a hurricane, a tornado, and a severe snow storm. You can also talk about how to prepare a roof for a drought. 5 posts.

18. Roof Ventilation Issues

You can talk about choosing the right roof ventilation, preventing problems with roof ventilation, what roof ventilation does for the roof and the basics of what any homeowner needs to know about roof ventilation. A roofer might know still more things that homeowners should know about roof ventilation issues, but we’ll call this 4 posts.

19. Timing Issues Related to the Roof

Examples include when to repair or replace the roof, and whether or not you can get service in winter. 2 posts.

20. Roofing Products

Products could include ladders, gutter cleaning attachments, roof cleaning tools, and shingles. You could write up reviews, talk about what homeowners should look for in each product, and even talk about any products that are a waste of time.

You can also give specific instructions for using each product, especially if there are safety considerations involved. We’ll be conservative and call this 6 posts.

21. Checklist Posts

I can think of 2 checklists off the top of my head: a checklist for winterizing a roof and a checklist for spring cleaning the roof after the snows go away. You may be able to think of other useful checklists.

22. Hanging Holiday Lights

You’ll want to save these for December, of course, but let’s face it…lights are mostly hung on or near the roof, giving you every right to talk about them on your blog.

You can talk about hanging light tips, you can talk about hanging light techniques, and you can talk about hanging light safety. You can talk about how to hang your holiday lights without damaging the roof.

If you’re feeling ultra ambitious you can drive around town and spend a little time taking pictures of some of the coolest light displays on roofs all over town. You can probably do this once a week clear up till Christmas before it gets old.

Total posts: 8, enough to carry you from post-Thanksgiving clear up until Christmas without breaking a sweat.

23. Problems With Various Roofing Materials

Since individual roofing materials can each present specific problems you can talk about any roofing materials that your company uses. If you use all of them, you can get at least 10 posts out of this by talking about anything from cracked and broken tiles to the way that little granules break off of asphalt shingles to clog up gutters.

24. The Roof and the Environment

There’s probably actually a ton of material here, but I can think of 3 topics off the top of my head: green roofing options, energy efficient roofing, and the new trend towards creating “living roofs” with strips of sod.

You can talk about what each of these options are, and you can talk about whether or not they’re a good idea. For example, a carpet of grass on the roof may make homeowners feel like hobbits, but will they experience big problems or special concerns later?

As a result, we’ll call this 6 posts.

25. Naughty Contractors

You can devote these types of posts to spotting roofing scams and showcasing photos of crappy roof installations you find all over town. You can also tell homeowners how they can tell whether or not their contractor has done a good job on a roof (add pictures of some of your own installs).

The bad roof photos will need explanations of why the installations were so bad. We’ll say you can find 4 of those, which means you get at least 6 posts out of this topic category.

26. Story Time!

This topic involves taking before, during, and after pictures of installations you’re actually doing. Tell the story of you and your team hard at work in the field using a photo diary.

Did something cool, funny, or strange happen? Make sure to include it. If the homeowner’s spider monkey got out of his cage and crawled up there to run off with your hammer you’ll get a ton of mileage out of sharing the tale.

Assuming you do at least one roof installation a month we’ll call this 12 posts. You don’t want to do this all the time, but a once-monthly post about what you’re doing is really great content.

In addition, if you attend any trade shows or home shows you can blog about those, offering you 2 more posts from this category.

27. How to Choose a Roof Contractor

This is sort of one of your very few “gimmie” posts where you get to spend the whole post talking about what makes a good contractor and how you meet every one of those criteria. Use this one only after you’ve generated a few months of great content with other stuff. You get one of these.

28. Community Events

Theoretically this is an infinite category, with some caveats. First, you probably don’t want to let this category take over your blog.

However, once you stop you have to devote at least 1 blog post a month to it or the lone community event posts look weird.

Third, it’s best if the events are related to what you do in some way. So you can post about the home show, you can post about your local hardware store’s free class on how to hold a hammer, you can post on the first time homebuyer’s class, and you can post about the summer camp that teaches kids how to be contractors. You don’t want to come out of the blue and post about the 10K run unless you or your guys are competing in it.

The exception to this rule is charity stuff: you can almost always post about charity events without really hurting anything, just as a way to forward the interests of your community. However, it’s stronger if the charity event has some tie-in to what you do.

See Small Business Search Marketing’s Post: The #1 Problem With Local Blogging and Local Content before you try this stuff.

However, assuming you find 1 blog post a month to do on community events: 12 posts.

29. Answers to Specific Customer Questions

Q&A posts are great, so if you get specific customer questions that don’t fall into the “30 questions everyone asks” then you can devote entire blog posts to answering them. This requires you to really keep your ear out and to pay attention when you talk to your customers.

This might happen six times a year so we’ll call this 6 posts.

How Many Posts Did We Come Up With?

175 posts.

That’s 87 weeks of content. So there you have it roofers. You have no excuse not to start a blog on your website.

Of course, if the thought of writing 175 posts over the next 3 years fills you with dread you could always contact us to talk about our blog writing services.

Either way you now know that blogging, for a roofer at least, is a perfectly viable proposition. I’m thinking of doing these for other types of business, so please let me know if you’d love to see more of this type of content in the comments section.

Publisher or Authorship: Which Should A Small Business Website Use?

by

small-business-websiteLast week I talked about Google Authorship. In that post, I promised I’d talk about publisher this week.

Since they’re so similar, I’ve decided to devote most of this post to evaluating the benefits of using one or the other for your small business website.

What’s the difference between the two? Google Publisher just attributes the work to the entire organization instead of to a single person.

The markup is almost the same. You use rel=”publisher” instead of rel=”author.” (If you like that HTML stuff. I don’t, so I use plug-ins).

However, the visual results between Authorship and Publisher are different. On authorship, you get a small box next to your content on the search engine results page that shows your picture. With publisher, a large box shows up to the right hand side of the search results page.

That box contains a business photo, a map, your address, your phone number, and a list of everyone who ever +1’d your site on Google+.

So which should you use? It depends. Ask yourself the following questions.

How Many People Create Content for Your Business?

If you’ve got 10 people creating content for your business and you want all of that content to feed into your business’ reputation, and not their individual author reputations, then Google Publisher is the way to go.

Who Is Your Brand Built Around?

If you’re trying to build a brand around you as the owner of your business then Google authorship makes more sense. Contractors billing themselves as “your hometown electrician,” for example, might wish to keep their name and face out there for people to connect with on a more personal level.

Do You Need or Want to Use Both?

It’s actually possible to use Author and Publisher at the same time. This would make sense if your business puts out a lot of content, but if you, the owner, are also trying to build yourself up as an Internet expert in your niche. Otherwise, just pick one or the other.

Just make sure you choose at least once of the two. Otherwise, you’ll have a lot of trouble ranking in the very near future, and that’s straight from the horse’s mouth:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.” – Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, as reported by Tech Crunch.

No business owner wants irrelevance, so I can’t stress this enough: you need to jump on board one of these two trends right now.

The 19 Things Customers Want from Contractor Websites

by

contractor-websitesThere aren’t actually a lot of contractor websites out there. Over half of normal businesses don’t have websites, and in the contractor arena I’d estimate that the numbers are a lot higher. I believe only about 25% of contractors have websites, just based on some searches that I’ve done. Later I’ll run a more precise case study, but for now I want you to realize that you can get a competitive edge by having any kind of website.

Now I want you to consider the kind of competitive edge you could have if your website actually delivers the things that customers really want to see on contractor websites. Ready to find out what that is? Awesome, cause here’s a great big list.

1. Information on How Much Your Services REALLY Cost

I know you can’t give a precise price without an estimate, but your customers would love to have some kind of idea. Price fear is a major reason why you’re not getting the call.

At least give your customers a price range, and some sort of idea on what your prices are based upon. This helps you too. If your minimum prices start somewhere around $5000 for a 1200 square foot home, for example, then you won’t waste your time handing out estimates to lowballers who are trying to get away with paying $2000…or less.

Worried the strategy won’t work? Don’t be. Copyblogger featured a pool contractor who used this very strategy and got awesome results from it.

You can explain your prices without selling on price. You never have to say “We offer the lowest prices in the industry” or anything like that. A simple “How Much Will I Pay?” answer on a FAQ will do nicely. You can add a disclaimer that every job is different at that time.

2. Photos of Your Work

Customers want to know that their home is going to look awesome when you’re finished with it. Photos are one of the easiest ways to convey this.

Before, during, and after photos achieve several things. They give customers a chance to picture themselves with their finished kitchen or brand new fence.

They also eliminate customer fears that you’re going to come in, trash their house, do shoddy work and stick them with a big fat bill for the privilege. I know you would never do that, but you already know that customers have heard many horror stories about contractors. So put their mind at ease and take great photos the next time you’re out on a job.

3. Proof That You Know What You’re Talking About

Blogs aren’t just places to park keywords. They offer positive proof that you know what you’re talking about.

They give you a chance to speak directly to the customer. You can blog about anything even remotely related to your services.

And again, it helps you. Just think how many times you answer the same 30 customer questions over and over again. Well, those 30 questions are begging to be turned into 30 blog posts. Voila. Now you can spend less time answering those questions and more time doing great work.

4. A Clear Explanation of What Makes You Different

Why do people shop around on the Internet in the first place? They want to understand what their choices are.

If your website doesn’t explain why you are different then they’ll move on. Why should they hire you over any other contractor out there?

You can do this through the words on your website, through a video, or whatever, but make sure it gets done.

5. Information on How You Treat Your Customers

Customers need to know that you care about them and that you’ll treat them well. Reviews and testimonials are a perfect way to do this.

A review with nothing more than a name is the least effective. A review with a photograph is somewhat more effective. A video testimonial is the most effective of all.

You’ll have to decide where to invest your money and energy of course, but if you get reviews, thank you notes, or testimonials that aren’t already posted on other sites like Yelp then you’ll want to showcase them.

If you don’t want to duplicate your efforts you can use a Word Press plug-in to display reviews from Yelp so that you get good review mileage from both your own website and your Yelp page. I haven’t found a similar plug-in for Google+ Local reviews, but I’ll keep an eye out.

6. An Easy Way to Contact You

Guess what? Your customer may not find you during your normal business hours.

The customer may be browsing your website at 11:20 pm. But he or she might want to get the business of scheduling an estimate out of the way.

Make sure you have a good contact form ready and waiting for the customer to use. You call them back--preferably the moment you get into the office the next morning.

7. An Emotional Connection

I touched on it when I talked about the pictures, but let’s talk about it again. Customers need to make an emotional connection with you, your business, and, most especially, what you can and will do for them.

Darren Slaughter covers this in a nice vlog post: Who Else Wants To Know How To Close More Estimates?

While I don’t agree with his assessment that you don’t need sales skills or closing skills (as a former sales rep myself I can’t help but think that meeting objections, asking for the sale, and good presentation skills are just vital no matter what) I do agree that you need to paint a great picture. And you need to do it before you’re in front of the customer.

You can do this with vivid imagery. “Picture this: in just a few short months the snow is coming down hard outside. You’re sitting in front of the fire, all toasty and warm. Then, you let out a yelp as an icy droplet of water slaps the back of your neck. You look up. Your roof is leaking! Don’t you wish you’d called ABC Roofing Company, Inc., to put a brand new, long-lasting, durable metal roof on your home instead?”

Your picture can be one that evokes discomfort (as in the example above), comfort, pride, pleasure–anything that helps the homeowner really see, feel, and even, briefly, experience the benefits of using your services. Once the customer has that brief experience in his or her head he or she will want it in reality, putting you that much closer to getting that vital phone call.

8. A Website They Can Read on their Mobile Phones

I realized today that I haven’t beat the mobile drum too hard, ever, on this blog. Truth is, mobile is the future. More people access the internet through their mobile phones than through their computers.

I haven’t beat it too hard because it’s such a no-brainer to me: you need to make sure that your web designer has put together a mobile-friendly site. If you’re doing it yourself then use a mobile-friendly theme (and since you should never use a free WordPress theme to represent your business that means your theme designer needs to make the theme mobile).

If your site is mobile-friendly and all the competitor sites aren’t you’ll also get a big boost in SEO if the customer searches you on a mobile phone. Google Mobile gives mobile-friendly sites priority.

9. A Pleasant Experience

This should also go without saying, but there are a number of websites out there which are missing the boat. What do I mean by a pleasant experience?

Your website should be free of any annoying auto-play background music (some people still do this), of any videos that you can’t pause or turn off (yes this happens–don’t auto-play anything, please), of loud, crazy colors or of anything that makes the site load up in a slow, buggy way.

All of those things contribute to “bounce,” which is how quickly a user says, “No freaking thanks” and leaves your website without reading a word. Bounce doesn’t just lose Google rankings (it does) but it loses customers as well. If people find your website a pain to use they won’t ever be convinced to use you and your services.

10. A Chance to Get to Know You and Your Team

If your customers never see anything other than your logo you are missing out on a huge opportunity to build trust. People do business with people, not with logos.

You can put up pictures of the team or short videos which simply introduce you guys and tell the customer a little bit about what they can expect when you come to their door. Do whichever you have the time or the budget to do.

11. A Chance to Learn Cool Stuff

A lot of the people who visit your website will be in the “research” phase of the buying process, so indulge them. Go ahead and teach them something.

Again, this is another reason why your blog is so important. Many people are searching for information before they’re searching for services.

Now, what happens when you provide cool information and an entertaining experience to people? Well, you’ll draw traffic from people who aren’t ready to buy…yet. Someday they will be ready to buy, and you’ll already have their loyalty because you gave away such awesome information for free.

12. Reassurance that You’re Part of Their Community

There’s a lot of emphasis on doing business with local providers these days. More and more people understand that local businesses contribute to their economy and make life better for everyone.

Feature community events and people on your blog to tap into this trend. Besides, doing this offers another benefit. You become more than just another contractor. You become the customer’s neighbor, and that makes a huge difference in who they decide to hire.

13. Information About Your Associations

This all feeds back into trust and community. Are you a member of your local Chamber of Commerce? Make sure customers know. Is there a local trade association that you’re a member of? Place that badge on your site as well.

Have you been recognized by other websites as a top provider? It’s fine to brag a little! Place the badges somewhere they will be seen (though don’t let them take over your site in an obnoxious way).

14. Information About Your Process

Customers want to know what will happen when you visit your home. If you do an intensive walk-through and needs analysis, ask a ton of questions about their home, and spend time making recommendations then tell them so! Help them understand what to expect when they call you.

Think about it. Some customers are hiring their very first contractor when they come to your website. It may be very scary for them. So do whatever you can to put their minds at ease.

15. A Nice Design

No, customers don’t want this consciously, but think about it. If your website doesn’t look very nice then customers will assume that your work won’t look very nice either.

I saw a contractor’s website once that was nothing but black text on a grey background, with strange navigation, no pictures of any kind (not even a logo) and very sparse information. Sadly, this website represented the only website that any contractor in his class had bothered to put up…but I still didn’t want to hire him under any circumstances.

16. Regular Updates

Again, this isn’t something conscious on the customer’s part. However, regular updates reassure the customer that you still exist, that you’re still in business, and that they’re not looking at some site from 10 years ago.

Leave the dates on your blog posts enabled, and make sure you’re making posts on a regular basis. This pays off because it tells the customer that you’re relevant and on top of things, which are two things that will make you stand out.

17. A Current Customer Area

Customers are looking for ways to make things more convenient. If you have a current customer area you might be able to offer that convenience.

What would you do in such an area? Give your customers a way to pay for their service online. Let them view their purchase history. Let them schedule additional service. Let them ask questions. Let them renew their service agreement. Give them an online copy of their contract to review, download, and print at any time.

Make sure customers know this area of your website is available before they are customers by explaining the customer portal on the FAQ or on the Customer Portal log-in page.

This area does, of course, take some web savvy that you might not possess. And you might not have the budget for it now. But it’s a nice “extra” to consider if your business model would support such a thing.

18. Live Chat Support

This is another “extra” that you can add if your business, time, and money supports it. You obviously need to have someone in the office who can sit and monitor the chat during business hours if you’re going to include this.

However, customers absolutely love being able to talk to people right on the site, even if it’s just to ask a quick question. It makes them feel as though you really care about their needs and as if you’re working hard to be available to them no matter what.

19. Calls to Action

This is actually another “subconscious” want. But you should make sure that there are calls to action on your website.

Customers live frenzied, stressed-out lifestyles. They really just want someone to solve their problems. They don’t want to think about anything too deeply if they don’t have to and they don’t want to sit and agonize over decisions.

By adding, “Call now,” “contact us,” “schedule an estimate online,” or other calls to action to your site you’re actually freeing them to just solve their problem. You’re telling them how they can take the step between that mental emotional experience (leaning back in their fresh new kitchen or enjoying the snug safety of a brand new roof) to the physical experience.

Your phone number alone does not help customers make that mental leap to actually putting in the call. Being told to do so does. It may sound weird, but it’s pretty basic psychology.

Travis and I can help you put together a website that gives your customers what they really want. Contact TVS Internet Marketing now to find out about our website maintenance, blogging, and SEO services and how those services can help you get more visibility and sales online.

6 Things You Should Do When Business is Slow

by

slow-business-dayWhat do you do when business is slow? Do you stare at the phone, wondering why it isn’t ringing today?

Do you call it an in-office vacation day and stare out the window? Or do you start to feel anxious and stressed out as you think about the dip in your revenue?

You could be using the time far more productively, engaging in these 6 activities which will reduce the number of slow days that you have to worry about.

1. Write 16 Blog Posts

Write 16 blog posts and schedule them out on Word Press. This gets you ahead on your blogging by two months, because you can schedule these posts to air twice a week and still see a pretty good upswing in your traffic.

2. Catch Up on Social Media

Schedule out updates on your social networks. Use Hoot Suite or a similar tool to get the job done.

You can also take about an hour to share other people’s content like crazy, and to reply to everyone you can. Social is about promoting others as much as yourself, and it’s a good idea to do this while you’ve got a block of time to work with.

3. Build Citations

Remember, citations are the fastest way to increase your local rankings. If nobody is doing this for you it can be a little tedious, but it will help you fill up a slow day.

Not sure where to start? Check out this Moz Blog post: Finding and Building Citations like an Agency.

4. Catch Up on Your Reading

Don’t pull out a novel, however. Instead, take the time to read other blogs from your industry, or blogs from related but non-competing industries. Good content marketing involves as much content consumption as content creation. Without this step you won’t have much to share, you won’t have any place to make comments and you won’t experience the sudden flashes of insight that allow you to share someone else’s work on your blog while adding your own take on the issue.

Content marketing is, at its heart, as much about joining a conversation as it is about writing a bunch of useful stuff. So plug in get inspired, and really participate in the online community. It matters.

5. Set up a Way to Keep Track of Your Community

Don’t just drop a comment without ever showing up again. You need to build stronger ties than that if you want your own website to endure.

This means that you’ll need a place to store blogs that you’ve visited so that you can find a way to return and join the conversation once more. I like to use the Twitter Lists feature for this, but you could also create a special set of bookmarks, circle the bloggers on G+, add them all to Feedly, or even just keep a pen and paper list.

6. Pitch a Guest Post

Guest posts are one of the best ways to build backlinks for your business. A slow day is a great time to scout some guidelines so you can put together some ideas.

Sometimes it can take a lot of pitches to get the green light, so target 10-15 blogs at first. Sooner or later you’ll stroke gold.

Once you’ve put together a good relationship with a blogger you can even do multiple guest posts on the same site, becoming a presence that the other blogger’s audience responds to.

Does All This Sound Overwhelming?

These are great ways to spend a slow business day because they’ll eventually bring in more business. But if you hate to write or if you don’t feel comfortable with all of this relationship building then a professional webmaster and blogging service may be the way to go instead.

Sure, you won’t have as many useful things to do on a slow day, but all of these things will have been done for you…which means you may not have to worry about so many slow days!

5 Local SEO Blog Posts Worth Reading This Week

by

local-seo-blogIf you didn’t catch these great local SEO blog posts last week you might want to dig into them this week. Each of these posts has a wealth of excellent information for a small business owner who wants to be more visible online.

The first was Google Authorship for Your Plumbing or HVAC Business by Plumber SEO. While this wasn’t about local search per se it was a post that gave the Authorship program a distinctly local spin for contractors or other local business owners.

Authorship may well be feeding into Local SEO results as it is. That became abundantly clear when I read Linda Buquet’s post “Google+ Business Images in the Local SERPs – New and Hot for Local!” The jury’s still out on just where these images are coming from, but as I mentioned in yesterday’s post it’s time and past time for business owners to really get on top of their photo presence on the web.

Those who are interested in Local Carousel will want to pay attention to two posts. The first is A Heat Map Click Study for Google’s Local Carousel Results. Carousel took 48% of the clicks, so you can tell that this new development isn’t going away any time soon.

If you really want to get “deep in the weeds” on Google Carousel then you can take a look at Mike Blumenthal’s own round-up post, “Local Carousel Reporting from Around the Local Web.” There were a lot of neat posts on his list that were quite educational.

Finally, there’s “Small Business Can Still Have Big SEO Success.” Again, article from Search Engine Journal isn’t direct Google+ Local search advice. However, it is good SEO advice aimed squarely at small business owners who need to draw traffic from their immediate physical location, especially those in large city markets who may be competing with national businesses that have big deep pockets.

By the way, I’ve decided to do some sort of round-up once a week. It’s occurred to me that there are tons of people out there who are putting out some really smart work, and I’d like for my readers to be able to benefit from that work too. 🙂

Warning: Pictures are Now Even More Important to Small Business Web Marketing

by

In a previous post I talked about how Google Carousel is making it vitally important to add really good pictures to your Google Local listing and your website. A recent post by Linda Buquet has given me another reason to make it clear that photographs are vital to small business marketing.

Now it’s gone beyond adding great content to your blog and social media sites. And its gone beyond prepping for Carousel.

Even those businesses which are not currently involved in Carousel will need to take note of Google Local’s latest change, which places Google+ Local Business images on the Local Search Engine Results Page.

As with Google Authorship, these results make your business far more clickable. Observe how the photo makes the result “pop” right off the page. This is the same example and screen shot that Linda used in her post.

photos-search-results

There are a couple of speculations about how and why this is happening.

At least one of my tests showed me what appeared to be a clear case of a Google Authorship photo appearing on the local search results. Yet the photos Linda found appeared to have populated from the businesses’ Google+ Business page. It could also be that these companies are using Google Publisher, which is similar to Google Authorship and which I’ll take the time to cover next week.

But the takeaway here is that you need to have Google Authorship set up, you need to have good photos on your business profile, and you need to maximize any and all chances for these photographs to pop up wherever people might see them. It’s clear to me that Google is trying very hard to create a web that is far less anonymous and far more visual, and as a business owner you need to be on top of that trend.