Travis Van Slooten

This website (and my business) focuses almost exclusively on local SEO and how to use it to your advantage. However, Pay-per-click (PPC) is another strategy to consider for more visibility and sales online.

PPC is all about driving paid traffic to your website by short, succinct ads that appear along with the organic search results in any customer’s search.

You do not pay for the ads unless someone clicks on them. So if the target keyword has a CPC or “cost-per-click” of $1, and someone clicks on the ad to visit your website 100 times, then you would pay $100 for your advertising costs. If they only clicked 50 times, you’d pay $50. Of course, a truly effective ad and website are turning a good percentage of those clicks into sales, creating an investment that should, theoretically, pay for itself.

SEO and PPC have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a look at them.

Organic SEO

Advantages of SEO:

• 85% of all of the clicks that a customer will ever make will come from organic, or SEO based, search results.
• Customers trust organic search results more, to the tune of 86% of all customers. However, this data is slightly skewed by the fact that many customers honestly can’t tell the difference between paid search results and organic search results.
• The return on investment is typically higher since SEO based content tends to pay for itself and because it generates the majority of your traffic.

Disadvantages of SEO:

• SEO can be very time-consuming and requires on-going maintenance. This is especially true now that Google is measuring “freshness” for SEO purposes.
• SEO can be a tough nut to crack. You can do your best to provide updated, unique, and interesting content that is keyword focused and still have difficulty appearing where you need to appear in those organic search results. Local search techniques help this to an extent, but SEO is just never entirely going to be in your control.
• A simple change in Google’s algorithm can wipe out your organic traffic, and thus your leads and your money, even if you’d managed to do well on a previous algorithm. It can take months to retool your site in a way that lines up with the new algorithm.
• If you’re in a highly competitive marketplace you might find SEO to be an uphill battle where you have little to no chance of getting on the first page.

PPC

Advantages of PPC:

• PPC provides almost immediate results. If you have an AdWords account with Google already, you can have an ad up and generating clicks to your site within a few hours!
• If you use keywords with “high commercial intent,” or “buying keywords” then 50% of your visitors are likely to actually buy through PPC, vs. SEO traffic which generates a lot of people who are merely “researching.” This factor makes PPC especially important for those who are selling products online.
• You can make immediate updates to PPC campaigns, and use split testing to see what’s working and what isn’t. There’s far less guess work involved.
• PPC holds its place on the Search Engine Results page so long as you’re paying enough to keep it there. For the most part, you have full control over your “rankings.”

Disadvantages of PPC

• Many customers quickly develop “banner blindness.” Some customers routinely ignore ads to the point where they no longer even see them.
• PPC can become very costly, especially if you make mistakes with your campaign or are in a highly competitive niche. The legal niche in a large city, for example, can cost as much as $50 for a single click to your site!
• You are at the mercy of other companies that might be able to outbid you on keywords. As soon as they do, PPC may no longer be cost-effective.
• There is a slight danger that your competitors may attempt to harm you through a series of fraudulent clicks to run your ad costs up.

SEO vs PPC – So Which Is Better For Your Small Business?

In spite of the pros and cons of both methods the reality is, in an ideal world you would do both. In fact, the two strategies work very well together. For example, you can use data from your PPC ad campaigns to discover which keywords actually drive “buying behavior” in your customers and which generate the most response. You can then use that behavior to tweak your SEO campaigns in a way that focuses around the most useful keywords, preventing you from having to guess.

Using both strategies also means that you have a back-up that continues to generate leads and traffic if one strategy fails. If PPC becomes too expensive you’ll already have your SEO in place to keep generating traffic and leads. And if your website loses rankings in another round of sweeping algorithm adjustments you’ll still have your PPC to bring in leads and traffic while you adjust your SEO campaign.

Getting customer reviews is one of the most important things you can do for your business for a couple reasons.

First, they can help with your Google+ Local rankings. All things being equal, if you have more reviews than your competitors, your Google+ Local page will outrank their Google+ Local pages.

Second, a steady stream of positive reviews reassures customers. Visiting any new business is a risk. Reviews provide proof that others have had a good experience with your business, reassuring customers that they are likely to have a good experience too.

Of course, it’s all fine and well to say: You need customer reviews! The real question is – how do you get them?

Ask Your Customers for Reviews

If you want your customers to give you reviews you’ll have to ask for them. You’ll need your customers to take two basic steps. First, you’ll be asking them to either log into an account or to create an account on a site that allows customer reviews.

Second, the customers will need to write a brief review. You can reassure your customers that the whole process will take less than 5 minutes.

There are several different ways to ask, but before we dive into the specifics I want to give a few words of warning.

On some of the sites that your customers can leave reviews, it is against their policies to actively solicit reviews. Google and Yelp have such policies.

Here is my opinion on these policies. They are primarily put in place to prevent businesses from buying fake reviews and to prevent businesses from paying customers to leave reviews. They don’t want you to email a customer with an incentive like this: Leave us a positive review and we’ll take 25% off your next visit!

Such an incentive could potentially lead to a flood of overly positive reviews. This doesn’t look natural because it isn’t natural. These customers are only flooding your business with reviews because you’re paying them to do so!

A sudden flood of reviews (especially if they are all positive) is a major red flag to these websites. They’ll likely get flagged as fake reviews and ultimately removed. You will have wasted your time and your customer’s valuable time.

The best way to “solicit” reviews without violating these policies is to simply ask your customers if they would leave a review for you AFTER the transaction is completed. Don’t provide a monetary incentive and don’t lead the customer by saying, “Please leave us a POSITIVE review.” Instead, say, “Please leave us a review.”

You also want to solicit these reviews as the transactions are completed. Don’t wait several weeks and then suddenly ask 100 customers to leave you a review. The response rate will be much lower than if you got them immediately and if you do get a sudden influx of reviews, they’ll likely be flagged as I mentioned earlier.

O.K., enough about the warnings. Play it “natural” and you’ll be fine. Now let’s talk about the different way you can get more customer reviews – without violating any policies.

If your customers are particularly Internet savvy, you or your employees can email them to make the request with instructions on how to leave a review for your business. Make sure you personalize each contact by using the customer’s name. Otherwise the customer is likely to get annoyed, which means they’ll ignore your request.

Another technique would be to give your customers a printed handout. This works best if your customer physically visits your establishment, but you can also slip a handout into products that you ship to them or include it with the invoice you give your customers.

You’ll need a lot of these handouts as the response rates will be low, but you don’t really need the response rates to be super high.

Your handout or email should either walk the customer through the step-by-step process of writing the review, or it should offer a diagram of the steps. Don’t assume your customers will understand what you need them to do.

You could also try contacting customers through social channels such as Facebook, but don’t ask them to leave reviews there. Facebook is “behind closed doors” so Google can’t read any reviews on Facebook. Instead, direct them to Google or Yelp or wherever you want them to leave you reviews.

Devote a Section of Your Website For Reviews

Customers probably visit your website more than once, so it’s a good idea to devote a page on your site where you can direct them to sites where they can leave reviews. Add clickable pictures to your Google+ Local page and your listings on Yelp or CitySearch and any other site you want them to leave you a review. This will remind customers to leave the review while making it very convenient for them to do so.

The other bonus to this method is that it encourages potential customers to read reviews left by past customers. If you have a lot of positive reviews, this will work to your advantage! Glowing reviews can be your best sales tools.

Handle Negative Reviews Effectively

Bad reviews are actually pretty rare. The vast majority of the customers who write reviews write positive reviews. However, bad reviews do happen, and it’s important to handle them correctly.

The best way to handle negative reviews is to tackle them head on by responding to them openly. Make a genuine effort to fix the problem. Sometimes, the negative reviewer will come back and revise the review, but at the very least other people will see your response and know that you take customer satisfaction seriously.

Once you respond to the negative review, work extra hard to get more positive reviews. As you get more positive reviews, the bad review will eventually be pushed “out of sight” by all the positive reviews.

Negative reviews are a great opportunity to tweak your business for the better. If reviews repeatedly bring up a problem then you should probably take it as a sign that there’s a real problem that needs to be addressed. This feedback isn’t always easy to hear, but it can be very valuable to making your business a long-term success.

You do have recourse if you think a review is phony, or if it crosses the line with profanity and personal attacks. Usually sites that allow customer reviews give the business owner the option to flag, or report, inappropriate reviews.

Success Tips

• You’ll need more reviews in bigger cities and markets if you want to stay competitive. However, 12 reviews is a good early target.
• Aim for a steady stream of reviews instead of a whole bunch of reviews at once. It’s good to gather 1-2 reviews per week, so don’t worry if the vast majority of your customers don’t respond. You only need a few customers a month to respond.
• Never pay for reviews or offer incentives!
• Never set up a laptop or computer at your location for the purpose of soliciting reviews from customers. These “review stations” might seem like a convenient method, but it will backfire. Google logs the IP address of each review and if all of the reviews are coming from your IP address Google will believe the reviews are fake — even if they’re not. Customers also won’t appreciate feeling pressured.
• Never instruct employees to write reviews for you. Again, Google logs the IPs and will likely consider these as fake reviews.
• Never ask your friends or family members to leave reviews unless they have actually done business with you.
• Never tell customers what to write. Only ask them to write a few sentences with their honest opinion. Don’t put any pressure on your customers!
• Respond to good reviews too! Offer your thanks for your customer’s positive feedback and support. It gets you engaged with your customers and leaves people with positive, warm feelings about the interaction.
• Let your customers decide which site to leave their reviews. Don’t try to force them to use a specific site.

By implementing everything outlined here, you’ll be well on your way to a number of customer reviews online that will help with your Google+ Local rankings and your business overall!

This is the final post in a series of posts I’ve written on Google+ Local (a.k.a. Google Places). The first post I explained what is Google+ Local. After that I outlined the 4 pieces of the Google+ Local puzzle. Finally, I provided an overview of how to set up a Google+ Local page.

In this final post of the series, I’m going to walk you through how to create and optimize your Google+ Local page.

The first thing you’ll need to do is visit Google Places and you’ll be taken to the main login page. Click on the “Get started now” button.

You will then be prompted to enter your Google account information. Once you do that you’ll be taken to a screen where you have to enter the official telephone number for your business.

Once you enter your telephone number, Google will search to see if a page exists. If one doesn’t, then you’ll be taken to the entry fields.

Now you would think filling out the information fields would be pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, it’s not as straightforward as you would think. If you don’t fill out some of these fields correctly it can have an adverse effect on how you appear to customers, and how you rank on Google.

First, the screenshot of the Basic Information fields. Then I’ll explain what to enter in those fields.

Company/Organization
Google wants you to use your legal DBA. If your business is “John Smith Dentistry, Inc.,” then that’s exactly what you’ll want to put in this field. Do not put anything other than your DBA in this field.

Street Address
It’s best to spell out all elements of your address (Street instead of St. and North instead of N.). Use the second field for your Suite# if you have one and don’t abbreviate Suite either.

Description
The purpose of the description is entice potential customers to contact you or visit your website. Write something that is compelling and don’t keyword stuff it!

The easiest way to write the description is to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” It should also include a local search term or two while focusing on specific benefits.

Example:

We have offered teeth whitening to our patients for over a decade. Call us today to improve your smile!

Category
You can choose up to 5 categories. Start typing in any terms that seem relevant to see what Google suggests. The categories that Google suggests are Google’s default categories. You want to use as many of these as you can first. Then for the remaining categories, you should create custom categories that fit.

Always strive to have five categories but make sure you’re not just repeating the same category in different ways (i.e. Painter, Painting Company, Painting Contractor – these are all the same so pick one).

Also, when you use custom categories, use categories that match the keywords your customers are searching for. For example, if during your keyword research you discover that most people search for “Painting Contractor” instead of “Painting Company,” then use “Painting Contractor” as a category.

You can do keyword research for free by using Google’s Keyword Tool. You’ll want to start your research by using terms that you believe your customers would use to find your products and services.

If you are a dentist, for example, you would start with terms like “dentists” “dentistry” “dental clinic” etc. Look at the results returned in the Google keyword tool. Which terms get the most searches?

What other terms does Google suggest are similar – and how many searches do they get? Make a list of the terms that are the most relevant to your business and that get the most searches and use some of them in your description and categories.

Side Note on Categories:
When you create custom categories, be sure you follow the “is not does” rule or Google may flag your page. For example, use “Sedation Dentist” as a category instead of “Sedation Dentistry.” The latter category is something you do.

Once the basic information is completed, you’ll have the Service Areas and Location Settings fields.

Service Areas
This section is critically important! If you serve customers at their location, such as a service-based business, you MUST select, “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations.” In addition, you MUST select, “Do not show my business address on my Maps listing.” If you don’t follow these rules, you run the high risk of having your page removed!

If you are a service-based business, be sure you take advantage of the “Distance from one location” or “List of areas served” options.

Next up are the Hours of operations.

Hours of Operations
Be sure to specify your hours of operation so your customers know when they can contact you!

Finally, we have the Payment options, Photos, Videos, and Additional Details.

Payment Options
You’ll want to specify what forms of payment you accept.

Photos
Photos are very important! They give your business “personality” and it reassures customers that your business really exists. You can add up to 10 photos. Try to include as many pictures as you can – 10 is ideal. Include photos of:

• Your products – especially food photos if you own a restaurant
• Your customers interacting with you or your business
• Your storefront
• Your business sign or logo

Videos
Google+ Local pages currently don’t support videos. Videos were supported before the transition from Places to Google+. If you have videos, I still recommend you upload them so when Google supports them again (which they will be doing soon I imagine), your videos will already be in place.

Additional Details
These fields haven’t shown in a long time. Google simply doesn’t display them any more so why they are still there is anybody’s guess. There are some in the local SEO circles that believe Google still uses the information you enter here in determining when your page shows up for a local search.

To that end, it doesn’t hurt to include professional associations, brands you carry, and anything else that is relevant to your business.

After you enter all the information outlined above, click on the “Submit” button and you’ll be taken to a screen with a message that your page needs to be verified. In almost all cases, you will be given only one option to verify – by postcard.

Put your name in the attention field and submit the form and you’re done! Your postcard will arrive in less than 10 days. When it does, log back in to your Places dashboard and you’ll see a box next to your listing where you can enter the PIN code found on the postcard. After you do that, you’ll have officially claimed your listing!

Success Tips

There are some tactics you’ll need to avoid if you want to be successful with your Google+ Local page.

• Avoid listing your business in a city if you are not physically located in that city, even if you are very close. It may be tempting to try to get your business listed in a bigger city if you are located in a suburb of that city or a small town near that city, but it won’t work. Google will penalize you by potentially shutting down your Google+ Local page.
• Don’t use fake or virtual addresses. Google doesn’t like it (i.e. can potentially ban your page), and your customers don’t either. If they can’t find you, they can’t do business with you.
• Make sure you have just one Google+ Local page for each physical location you have. As mentioned before, if multiple listings exist for a given location, have them deleted by Google.
• Make sure your phone number is local. Don’t use toll free numbers.
• Make sure your address is spelled and capitalized correctly, using standard formats. Use your 5 digit zip code, not your zip+4. “Suite” should always be written out, not capitalized as Ste.

There you have it. It shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes to fill out your Google+ Local page properly and have it fully optimized!

Previously I answered the question, What Is Google Places (a.k.a. Google+ Local)? I then followed that post up with the 4 pieces of the Google+ Local Ranking Puzzle.

Today I’m going to provide an overview of how to set up your Google+ Local page. Again, this will just be an overview. In a future post I’ll provide step-by-step instructions on how to create a Google+ Local page from scratch.

Setting up your page consists of three basic steps.

Step 1: Create a Google Account

You should create a separate Google account for your Google+ Local page. Don’t use the same account that you use for your AdWords or Gmail. This allows you to keep your business life separate from your personal life.

It also allows you to give others access to your Google+ Local page if necessary without having to worry about someone seeing your personal information via your Gmail account. It’s easy to set up a Google account. Just visit google.com/accounts. Fill out the required information and follow the prompts. You’re done!

Step 2: Make Sure You Have a Physical Address That Can Receive Mail

Google only allows one Google+ Local page per PHYSICAL location – and each location must be a valid mailing address. You cannot use P.O. Box addresses either because Google doesn’t accept them.

You’ll also want to avoid using virtual addresses such as those offered by the UPS. Even if you get away using a virtual address, eventually Google will catch on that the address being used isn’t a real physical address of your business and will shut down your Google+ Local page!

Step 3: Create or Claim Your Google+ Local Page

If your business has been around for a while, chances are good that Google has already created a Google+ Local page for you. It creates a page by obtaining information from your website and other websites on the Internet. If your business is brand new, however, you’ll have to create a new one.

To determine if you have an existing page, go to Google Maps and type in your business name. If one of the search results is your business, a page already exists. In addition, when you go to Google Places to begin the process of creating your page, Google will prompt you for your business telephone number. It will then search to see if a page already exists.

Don’t just rely on the telephone search, however. Be sure to search on Google Maps as well because there may be duplicate pages for your business.

Side Note on Duplicate Pages:
If you find multiple listings of your business, you’ll want to claim only one of them and then contact Google via their troubleshooter to have the others deleted. You want only one listing per physical business location. Having duplicate listings wreaks havoc on your ability to rank well – not to mention it creates confusion for your customers.

If a page already exists for your business, then you need to claim and optimize it. If a page doesn’t exist for your business, then you’ll know you have to create one from scratch.

Whether an existing page exists or you need to create one, you’ll have to prove that you are the actual business owner by going through a verification process. This entails Google sending you a postcard with a PIN.

Once you get the postcard, you log into your Google+ Local dashboard and enter the PIN. This process is called “claiming.” You “claim” your page by going through the verification process. Once a page is claimed, no one else can claim it and you have full ownership and control of it.

In a future post I’ll walk you through how to properly build and optimize a Google+ Local (a.k.a. Google Places) page from scratch.