Earlier this month, marketers from around the world attended the latest LocalU virtual conference hosted by Local University.
Symposium topics were packed with local marketing tips from top experts, from dealing with fake reviews to SEO predictions.
Attendees engaged in lively discussions on Twitter throughout each session, highlighting the speakers’ most helpful and specific tips.
Below are key takeaways from each speaker and their respective sessions.
1. Customer first, Google second
Charlie Hunt, proof content
Image credit: LocalU.org“If you just write content for Google’s algorithm (without putting the user first), you’re going to drop out of the rankings.”
Include local IDs based on what your customers are already searching for. Whether it’s a neighborhood, county, city, etc.
Create a dedicated page for frequently asked questions from your customers. This saves you having to answer these questions over and over again.
Identify your unique selling point (USP). If you don’t know what these are, talk to your customer to identify them.
Image credit: Twitter.com, screenshot taken by the author in April 20222. One illegal review challenge equals 11 positive reviews
Image credit: LocalU.orgCurtis Boyd, The Transparency Company
Disputing fake reviews pays off. Illegal reviews are proven to be detrimental to your reputation and hurt your bottom line.
It is not our intention to remove legitimate negative reviews. The reviews it has gotten are good. There are no purchase reviews. Silencing real customers is neither good nor justified. That’s not what this is about.
Managers shouldn’t ask for company reviews unless they’re posted on Glassdoor. The top types of fake reviews are from vendors, business his owners, current employees, dishonest customers, third his parties and review his clusters.
Dispute fake reviews on mobile apps and desktop. Having data to show that a review is fake increases the success rate of removal by about 380 times.
If you are hit with a negative review cluster, we encourage you to use the GBP Help Forum to work with a Google Product Expert.
3. Work smarter with practical Google Data Studio usage
Image credit: LocalU.orgAmanda Jordan, RicketyRoo
Using GDS can reduce the amount of time spent reviewing data. Create local SEO reports that are easy for you and your clients to understand. There are a number of templates built to help you plug and play with your data.
“Use Data Studio to find and categorize keywords and find new ways to leverage the data they provide.”
GDS has many free connectors to help you integrate your data, including Google Analytics, BigQuery, Google Sheets, and Search Console.
Additionally, there are free tool connectors for GDS such as Ahrefs, ContentKing, DeepCrawl and SEMRush.
Use data controls in Data Studio. Data can be manipulated by date, visitor type, device type, and more.
4. Be strategic with spam
Image credit: LocalU.orgJoy Hawkins, Starling Sky
The rate of fake listings varies greatly by industry. Garage door repair, junk cars, and personal injury were industries with a lot of fake listings.
“87.6% of garage door repair listings were spam.
Fighting spam isn’t a long-term strategy, but it’s something you should pursue. Spam can always come back and Google doesn’t always enforce all guidelines.
If you have duplicate lists, don’t delete them. Merging the lists really helps with ranking.
If you’re in an industry with a moderate amount of spam lists, it might be worth taking the time to report it.
5. Only buy from people you know, like, and trust
Image credit: LocalU.orgMatthew Hunt, Automation Wolf
Use LinkedIn as a trusted source of information, not a stranger. Relationships are built on comments, not posts.
Spend 7 hours in 11 different interactions in 4 different locations to earn user trust and create opportunities to collaborate and sell with them.
Leverage LinkedIn with short-form content that users can discover. Then create long-form content (courses, webinars, etc.) that have some kind of interaction. From there, create a community of trust to keep users coming back to you.
Make sure you have a personal profile, not just a company page. Create a compelling and personal headline that showcases who you are and what you do.
The winning formula for personal headlines: role + expertise + values.
6. Dataless Content Leads to Bad Results
Image credit: LocalU.orgNoah Lerner, October 2nd
We build content based on client goals, collect data, clean data, and then create topics based on this data.
Market what is most profitable for you. During the onboarding process, be sure to ask your clients what their biggest source of revenue is.
Google has a hard time figuring out what to show. Therefore, it is important to be clear about what your content is about.
There is a big difference between Google SERP auto-suggest and Google Trends search trends. Auto suggestions are personalized, trends are not.
7. Proximity update makes proximity more important
Image credit: LocalU.orgJan Gilbert and Coran Nielson, Sterling Sky
The closer you are to a business listing, the more likely it is that your listing will rank.
With our neighborhood update, more business listings are now ranking thanks to the diversity of our map packs.
Keywords without locations were the most impacted.
Business name keywords aren’t as simple as they used to be.no keywords
Image credit: LocalU.orgStuffing as a strategy. Google is trying to balance his spammy GBP while allowing real business to rank.
Here are the top action items by surrounding updates:
- Focus on explicit keywords
- Create more GBP properties
- Use ads to retarget areas that have lost rankings or traction
- Pursue more diverse keywords to minimize damage
Image credit: Twitter.com, screenshot taken by the author in April 20228. SEO predictions help answer key business questions from stakeholders
Image credit: LocalU.orgAndrew Shotland, Local SEO Guide
The main questions stakeholders are looking for answers are:
- How much can you earn with this?
- how long does it take?
- What is the ROI?
SEO projections should consider the uniqueness and goals of each individual business. Don’t just make predictions using your own experience or your own data.
Accurate forecasting may not be a problem as long as you set reasonable expectations realistically. Don’t accidentally inflate your forecast to look good and get budget approval.
A good scientific method is the RICE score. (Reach x Impact x Confidence)/Effort = RICE Score.
However, an easy implementation or a high RICE score does not necessarily mean that you will earn a lot of money. Decide which is more important: high yield or high RICE score?
9. You have a duty to ensure that reviews are genuine
Image credit: LocalU.orgMike Blumenthal, Nearmedia
Businesses are responsible for how review platforms work and the actions of SEO and reputation management companies.
New FTC Business Marketer Guidelines include:
- No review gating
- No selected review display
- Positive and negative reviews should be treated equally
- Incentives must be explicit
Suppressing reviews does not work. Customers can see the difference between your site and Google reviews.
There is no need to publish offensive or inappropriate review content. Make sure your site publishes a clear TOS that describes the FTC guidelines, and publish anything that meets those guidelines.
overview
The LocalU Virtual Symposium focused on real-world updates impacting business and useful content tips for anyone with a physical business or listing.
For more session information, join the #LocalU conversation on Twitter to connect with speakers. You can also purchase instant access from your local university.
At the end of the conference, Local University announced its return to in-person events. He will be holding his LocalU Advanced on July 28th in Denver, Colorado. If you’re interested in attending, stay up-to-date with your local university.
Featured Image: MaDedee/Shutterstock
