Understanding brand pay per click vs non-brand paid search economics has been one of the core best practices provided to all of our SEO clients since our inception. To drive a paid search program to its target metric, it is critical to evaluate its success excluding the effect of the sales and cost associated with sales on our client’s trademarks and domain names.

We believe that when users search for a clients or brand by name they will most likely that client’s site with or without a pay per click ad campaign. These are ‘lay-down’ orders, not driven by search advertising but by other marketing initiatives, customer referral and the power of our client’s brand. PPC Ads should not be credited with these orders, nor can PPC control the volume of traffic on these terms.

We believe focusing your pay per click efforts on competitive non-brand search phrases is critical to driving incremental sales cost effectively.

For manufacturers, the brand/non-brand distinction is different. In these cases the brand phrases are in fact competitive, as you compete against your distribution network for sales. Nevertheless, watching the behavior of this class of terms remains important as they will convert differently than general product category related search terms.

Need Local Traffic? Automated SEO Tool

We will make the most of Google’s Local Business Search Listings for your business. Let our SEO Management Team create a killer listings in Google Local for every business location you have. Why? As the screenshot below illustrates, Google Local can and often will dominate what’s seen above the fold?

Let us Add Your Business to Google Local Maps

With Web estate like that, you can gather large amounts of traffic if you can list prominently for targeted keywords. With this as our goal, let’s take a dive into how to enhance your Google Local listings?

How Our SEO Management Team will set-up or claim your Ownership Instantly

Google will add listings to their local results without any user submissions. It takes some creative work to pull it off, but it can be done. With that said, we will check and see if your business is already listed in there. If so, we need to claim ownership for you and create revisions and verify all of your contact information.

We Encourage Honest Reviews

As a local business owner, you need to understand that local search is a viral or socially driven tool. The more reviews and feedback users provide, the more likely Google will be to promote your listings. Consider reviews on local search to be similar to PageRank for organic listings. It’s not the main ranking criteria but there are enough similarities to suggest there is a connection. As the cliché goes? If there’s smoke, there’s fire.

So – Just how can you go about encouraging reviews on Google Local? First off, start by simply asking your customers or clients. You will never get anything if you don’t go out and ask for it. While asking a customer helps, motivating with an additional discount at the register can work better. Reward their positive reviews with a coupon, savings or free promotion.

These are just some random thoughts, but I think you get the idea. You need your customers to give you solid reviews, and by giving them something in return, you will accelerate that entire process.

Look Beyond Google for Online Business

Google’s understanding of local search results reach beyond the information you provide directly to them.

For example EveryMenu.com is a source for local restaurant information, and Google will show these sources in a listing. In a similar fashion, SuperPages can often be found providing data where Google is lacking.

Our team will study your industry in other cities and try to research what tools and data sources are out there. We then check on the “Details” tab of full listings to see where data could be pulled in from. In most instances the listings that show up on Google are on the partnered site verbatim.

Since I’m throwing out clichés to help make some points, let’s quickly use the saying “You need to spend money to make money”.

There are third party services such as ReachLocal and EveryMerchant.com that specialize in local search listings and their optimization. You of course pay these providers, but in return they’ll get your listings up to par with the competition and even provide some clear reporting on how effective your listings are.

Another up and coming platform we use is EverySalescall.com that charges only for calls your business receive.

Affordable Local SEO Service $299.00

We Create and Update Your Business Listings in Google Local

Okay, once we establish your account up, its time for our team to get to business and start creating and editing your listing in the local maps. Here are some of the processes, steps and services we provide to keep in mind on an itemized level:

• Business Titles: We use common business names, not official ones that no one would recognize. when we can, we, integrate a primary keyword or phrase that people would be searching for. An example of a poor listing I came across was for “David Allan Klein PC. ” — It should have been “South Jersey Litigation Attorney David Klein”

• Addresses: You would be surprised at how many listings we’ve seen where Google tells us that a business is being displayed in an approximate location. I’ve seen restaurants on lakes, hotels in residential neighborhood, and a car dealer inside a military base. We do not rely on directional indicators (N, E, S, W, etc.) We spell out things like boulevard, street, avenue and others. We will be as descriptive as possible, and check to make sure the location is plotted accurately and correctly.

• Web Pages: We connect your business to the right URL. That said, many listings go without a URL being connected to them despite the fact that they exist. This is yet another reason you need us to manage and verify your connection to the business!
• Phone Numbers: We add in all the phone numbers that make sense, we also introduce call tracking numbers to on accounts that are one a pay per caller plan to measure the results. A good example of a technique we use for phone number management is to organized some restaurants to have a main line listed for business purposes, another for take out and delivery, and another still for an automated reservation system. Adding them all in will only help to educate a consumer and help make things easier for you once they want to do business with you.
• Categories: We feel these are vital to your business listing success, and we update them wisely. We do not assume things are good as suggested either. In fact, we test out how different categories will impact your listings over time, and our team works to implement the best approach across the board.
• Hours & Payment / Photos: We have a rule of thumb here? We overwhelm Google. by adding in a gallery of photos and will be as descriptive as possible in these areas. If Google has to retain that data for you, you can be assured that they’ll want to push their users to it.
• Custom Fields: We encourage our clients to get creative and play around with this. Upload menus, sales and specials, seasonal rates or coupon codes? The options are only limited by what you can think up and add in!