Three Actionable Tips for Getting More Traffic

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Dan Taylor

1. Optimise your Google Places listing

With Google’s move towards showing more and more universal search results on their results pages, not having a properly optimised Google Places listing can mean missing out on free traffic. Admittedly you are limited on how much you can optimise for certain searches, in that the search needs to have a local element of it and your business has to be either located centrally in a city/town, or very close to where the user is searching from.

Tips for optimising your places listing

Claim it – you have to be in it to win it. If you don’t have a Places account set up then you have very little chance of appearing in the Places results (Google sometimes creates listings from local directories automatically). The good news is that setting up your listing is as simple as filling in a few details and clicking ‘OK’.
Use your actual business name – unless the name of your business is ‘Florists, Flowers Wirral, Liverpool, Chester, North West’ then don’t use that as your business name – ‘Flowers by Rachael’ is fine for the listing name. If you must, you can add your primary location in there: ‘Flowers by Rachael – Wirral’ but at the end of the day, think of what users would want.
Use the correct address – as mentioned above your business has to have a close proximity to the search that was made. However if you don’t have a bricks and mortar address there then don’t try and fake it. When you’re getting citations and listing your address on your website, you will need to have the address showing there so it may well confuse users if your shown address is different to your actual address. Google will also want to verify your address using a code sent out on a postcard, so actually having that address is essential.
Use at least one of Google’s categories – they are there for a reason. It’s fine to create your own category names but using one of Google’s predefined categories allows them to decide more easily if you are relevant for any given search.
Keywords in the description – Use the keywords you would like to show for in the description of your business. Do not stuff keywords here, but write descriptively about your business and the services you offer and the keywords will appear naturally.
Use pictures and videos – When setting up your Places account, Google asks you for videos and pictures. Take this as a hint of what they would like. Try adding pictures of your staff, some of the products you offer and your premises. Videos can be a little more complicated but you can create a short intro to your business in PowerPoint or Keynote and export that as a video. Upload it to YouTube and add the link in your places listing.

Optimising your website for places

Create landing pages – if you are targeting ‘Florists Wirral’ then it’s prudent to create a page such as http://www.example.com/florsts-wirral/ and send your Google Places traffic to that page. Have clearly defined USPs on the page as well as prominent calls to action so that users find the page useful and also have some content around the target keyword, too. Think of this page as a hybrid of an SEO page and a PPC landing page.
Link build to landing page with location based anchor text – build some links with the anchor of keyword + location. This will reinforce the fact that your business is relevant to both the keyword and the location.
Use rich snippets – Google uses schema.org to display rich snippets. The one you want here is at http://schema.org/PostalAddress and allows you to mark up your postal address so that search engines can read it and use it to help in your Places listings.

Building citations

Add your website to all business directories – directories such as http://www.touchlocal.com/, http://www.yell.com/ and http://www.citylocal.co.uk/are some of the biggest, but really, any directory you can get into will help. Some tips for submitting to directories would be:
Use your full business name exactly the same on all listings
Use your address exactly the same on every listing
Ask happy customers to submit reviews on your Google Places page as well as other review sites such as review centre, Qype and Yelp. Remember though that unhappy customers can also use these portals – but, if used correctly, responding to a negative review can also show your in a more positive light.

2. Blog often

Blogs, or short articles, can be a great way of targeting long-tail keywords i.e. keywords that get less than five searches per month. A well-written blog, syndicated via social media can have an almost immediate impact in the search results. If you can manage to blog at least once every work day then you are going to be ranking well for five new, long-tail keywords every week of the year.

Tips for blog writing

Try and get your target keyword into the title – but don’t shoehorn it in. The more of the keyword you can get into the title the better, but also consider the credibility of it. A user will spot a spammy title a mile off.
Consider how users will share your blog – the most common ways of sharing are Facebook and Twitter. For Twitter, consider the length of your title as users are limited 140 characters and that includes the title, link and your username. On Facebook, the first image on the page will be displayed next to your link. Make the first image descriptive and relevant to the post as well as eye-catching.
Consider your customers – what level of writing would your customers expect? For example, a blog on a law or insurance website would need a very different tone and level of research than a blog on a children’s toys website. In the above examples of law and insurance (as well as medical sites) you would also need to consider the legal standpoints of the issues that you are covering.
Get your blog proofread – get your blog proofread rather than proof read it yourself. The reason for this is that you will more than likely be blind to any simple grammatical or spelling mistakes that you have made. A fresh pair of eyes is likely to see things that you cannot.
Share, share, share – when you have published your blog share it on all the social websites that you can. Facebook and Twitter are a great start but don’t discount sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. These sites can provide valuable traffic and new users to your website.
Use Google Analytics for keyword research – if users are arriving at your site using keywords that contain ‘how do’, ‘why’, ‘where’ or indeed have a question mark at the end, treat this as a sign that people want you to answer these questions. Your blog may very well be the perfect resource to answer their queries.

3. Hang out where your customers are

I am not talking about stalking your customers in their own homes… well, in fact I am (almost)! If your industry has a forum or discussion board that is really popular, are you there? I mean are you answering questions, helping out. If not, why not? These are the cream of the crop of free, relevant traffic, where you have already built a certain level of trust with the user.

Tips for getting involved

Find out where your customers are. It could be sites like mumsnet.com, startups.co.uk or groups on the likes of Facebook. Join and commit to participating in these groups. Start small, join one or two and see if this is the right thing for you and then branch out later on.
Start in the ‘Introductions’ board – most forums will have one of these where you say who you are, your interests and more. Moderators will monitor these boards as well as established users, and it can be a great way of finding out who the board influencers are early on.
Set up your signature – most boards allow a link in your signature. Not all of these links are followable by search engines, but we are after traffic here, not just rankings. If you have been helpful to someone or provided some great insight to a group then the likelihood is that they will visit your website.
Don’t spam – seasoned board users will spot a spammer a mile off. When answering questions or helping out don’t always link to yourself – link to the most relevant resource you can find – if this is actually your site then great, but remember, using forums and discussion boards is about building your reputation as an expert. This won’t happen if you’re trying to trick people…
Ask as well as answering questions – and vice versa. Don’t be a one-way street, try and be a balanced and engaging user and everything will work out great. You will build some great relationships with real people if you just remember what the goal of your engagement with the site is.

http://www.elevatelocal.co.uk/ Dom Calisto

Nice write up Dan. Perhaps, on building citations, the telephone number should match the Places number as well, and if possible use the local area code not an 0800/0845 number. Hope this helps.