612 - 208 - 6584

LocalMN logo

Yeah, I'm social...

Localmn and Snap Communications Search and Social Seminars – Coming to You in 2012

December 20th, 2011

Jan 3 Update: We have a potential initial event venue at the Minneapolis Marriott West. We’ll also be contacting a few trusted people if case you want to side-volunteer with the return of promoting your niche local web/social business. If you receive a humble Twitter mention from us, that’s why. More on this below and the event date(s) are TBD.

————————————————————————-

Not new news, but over the past few years local and social search has made an overdue mainstream surge for local businesses. With that said, there’s still a void. At the very basic level we see lots of this:

And not always a lot of this:

Notice the difference?

Claiming your Google Places page is just one, free, tiny example of what local companies can do to boost their visibility and it’s also arguably the first things recommended.

So, in 2012 Barb from Snap Communications and myself will be offering local search seminars in the Minneapolis-St. Paul areas for interested companies, groups and industries.

We’re not just talking about Google Places. The seminars will include both local strategies and tactics for the following:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
  • Local Listings (Google Places, etc.)
  • Web Analytics (Google Analytics)
  • Social Aspects (Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.)
  • Online Reputation Management

We intend for these seminars to be fairly similar to the wonderful and low-cost LocalU local search format, meaning they’re more for educational purposes and less about sales pitches. We also intend to customize these seminars to audience industry.

These could be anything from attorneys to restaurant owners to specific professional groups or associations. We’re seasoned (old) and have seen it all.

Interested? Great! Just contact us per the phone number up top or at pjahn @ localmn.com.

OK, back to the good stuff.

One thing we will be doing for each seminar is pre-selecting an attendee to come on up live to fill out and claim their full Google Places profile. It’s one thing to talk about how important this is, but showing and going through the exact process and hiccups (yep, there are a few) is something we really hope resonates with attendees.

Here’s just a partial image of the Localmn Google Places page:

Regarding the seminars, we highly encourage attendees to bring a laptop and/or tablet. We want you to take notes for things you can do on your own. Smartphones are also encouraged as we’ll be having Twitter hashtags, plus we encourage attendees to take pictures of slides or anything else they see interesting.

Another thing we’ll be doing is showing real-life examples of how local companies are using social media to help boost their brands, and eventually, sales.

The half-day seminars would include our 2-ish hour seminar of local online marketing concepts you can do on your own. For the next two hours, we’re planning for us and other niche consultants to hang around to help your online presence on-the-spot. Niche consultants could provide information about:

  • Foursquare
  • Websites built on WordPress
  • Responsive web design
  • More to come

We have a few people in mind for the above niches and will be contacting them soon. With that said, if you’re a expert in a particular niche and would like to volunteer, just let us know.

There will be nominal attendance prices TBD as we plan to keep these more educational oriented and less of sales pitches. We will be giving our awesome niche volunteers subtle pitches as they would be helping out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Are you part of an industry that would like to learn more about all of the above? Just let us know.

Are you a local venue that would like us to pay you money to host these events? Just let us know. If you have free wifi and enough AC outlets or extension cords for attendees to bring their laptops to plug in, especially let us know!

We haven’t come up with a creative Twitter hashtag for these events yet. Have one for us? Again, just let us know. We’ll give you all the credit in the world.

More to come and locally yours,

Barb and Paul

Tags:
Posted in Local Search, Minnesota Business, Search Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Search Trends and Behavior on Responsive vs Mobile Design

November 29th, 2011

Last Monday I had the chance to interview Clint and Dave from ThinkCRE8IVE regarding responsive design and its future. Dave also laid down the basics in a blog post late last month.

Talks and searches for mobile design has been around for years. Responsive design is a somewhat close kin although the search habits for both type of phrases couldn’t be more different.

Using Google Insights as a gauge, I decided to check out search trends and habits for some phrases. Here are the two main searches:

And…

The numbers in both examples are relative, but it’s interesting to see the differences. Mobile design type of searches have been fairly constant since 2004 with a spike in 2011. Has mobile in general been fairly popular since 2004?

Response type of searches have been nearly non-existent to really surge in 2011. I admittedly haven’t heard of these type of searches until HMTL5 and CSS3 became hot topics in the design world around 2010-ish.

I’ve always considered mobile search a kin to local search with m.dot sites, and response a kin to usability on different-sized devices. Looking at the examples above, I’m still going with that.

With that said, what are your thoughts? Mobile m.dot sites have been around for awhile. Should people continue with this or abandon them to design by response?

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

ThinkSEM Launches ThinkCRE8IVE – Interview with Clint and Dave

November 21st, 2011

Update: ThinkCRE8IVE is now on Twitter as @ThinkingCRE8IVE.

In late 2007, ThinkSEM opened up shop offering pay-per-click (PPC) and other search marketing services. Since, owner Clint Danks has grown the business working with higher education, legal, hair salon and other industries. A big piece of their growth is the hire of Creative Director, Dave Dechant. Together, they make the big decisions. I’ve known them for years and wanted to pick their brains for an interview. They happily accepted.

Q1: First, in October you launched ThinkCRE8IVE to add web design and development solutions. How did that come about?
A1: We did have a design section in the ThinkSEM site but it was just buried given the other services that we offer. The name and site ThinkCRE8IVE came about to highlight the design services while keeping it under the ThinkSEM umbrella.

Q2: The spin and correlation with your 8 services and the infinity symbol is pretty slick. Can you describe this for our readers?
A2: It was actually accidental. The ThinkCRE8IVE URL was available and we just happen to offer eight design/development services. Then we noticed that when you place an “8” horizontally, it becomes the infinity symbol. This works great in the design.

Even though we have eight main services, our tagline is “Limitless Ideas, Endless Opportunity”, hence giving reason for the infinity symbol. It all just worked out and made sense on how the right-and-left brain clicks with each other.

Q3: So, what exactly is responsive design and why is it important?
A3: Technically, the three main components to good responsive design is a flexible layout that includes flexible image and media, and the use of media queries. For us, responsive design is creating a design that reacts instantly to every resolution in the wild. It’s important because it’s a great way to combat the plethora of new devices that come out every week.

Q4: In two years, do you think responsive design will be relevant?
A4: Not only will it be relevant, it’s going to boom in use and popularity. In fact, in two years if designers aren’t using this, they will be considered outdated.

Q5: Does responsive design make your day-to-day job easier or harder?
A5: Overall, it makes my day-to-day job much easier. Essentially, you’re creating one website that reacts differently depending on the user’s resolution rather than multiple websites.

Q6: Clint and Dave, you two are the decision makers for the overall ThinkSEM team. I’ve known Clint for close to seven years and Dave for two. You’re both tall and that’s about where the similarities end. With that said, how do you make things tick?
A6: Dave – I think we actually riff off each other really well because of our different ways of thinking. I might be working on something and Clint can see the same thing and provide a different point of view. Clint – I try to separate myself from the design aspect to give Dave the freedom to work as he wants. Dave’s in charge of all things creative to pursue ideas that may help benefit the growth of the company. His only downfall is that he’s a Packers fan. Dave – It’s not my fault that I like to follow winners.

There you have it! Thank you both for taking your time to answer these questions. We’re excited for a local company making big strides. Best of luck down the road.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Yellow Pages Opt-In & Opt-Out in Seattle and San Francisco | 2011

May 11th, 2011

Well, it’s yellow pages season again in Minnesota and Dex should be dropping off their three books within a week or two. A couple months after, Yellowbook will most likely follow suit.

This year there’s a twist. Both Seattle and San Francisco aren’t convinced the yellow pages have been honest in their own opt-out programs. Seattle adopted an opt-out program last Thursday and received 105,000 opt-out requests in the first five days alone. San Francisco went a step further and just adopted an opt-in program.

These two programs may or may not make it harder for the yellow pages industry to artificially inflate their circulation stats for their sales reps.

The yellow pages industry is against these measures, mostly because they have their own upgraded opt-out site. It seems slick so I gave it a try.

Easy enough. Here’s the next step.

This requires both an email and phone number. People may back out as this point. If you want to ensure your email and phone will be safe, see this post regarding entering your information. Note, I used my Yahoo email/Google Voice number and have only received a confirmation email. This is good. Here’s the next step.

This is nice. We can opt out of all four directories we receive each year. Next step.

Not the cleanest, but I did pass the first try.

As they mention on their site, you do need to sign up over 30 days prior to their scheduled delivery. I only signed up last week so I would still get the upcoming Dex books. This is fine. If I signed up over 30 days ago, I would still receive them.

Why?

That’s why.

The condo complex I live in has 521 units so they drop off the books in one centralized place. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t take out “one” for me. So, according to the yellow pages industry I’m a circulation stat whether I opt-out or not.

Here are a couple Q&A’s from the Seattle Public Utilities FAQ page regarding their opt-out program.

The yellow pages industry has had their own opt-out program since at least 2008. The Seattle and San Francisco regulations would have never happened if the yellow pages have actually honored their own opt-out programs in the first place.

The yellow pages industry also claims these regulations violate the 1st amendment of free speech.

Is Seattle or San Francisco guilty of violating the 1st amendment with these, or is the yellow pages industry guilty of the same thing by not honoring proactive opt-out requests by residences?

A follow up post will most likely occur regarding the non-marketing of the yellow pages opt-out website.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Did Seattle and San Fransisco do the right thing?

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Deleting Duplicate Listing Hiccup in Google Places

April 21st, 2011

Earlier today, I found a new hiccup in Google Places while trying to delete a duplicate listing. Well, it’s new to me. If you’ve had similar experiences, certainly let me know.

If you’ve deleted duplicate listings before, you’ve probably seen this:

Simple enough. Suspend the listing, have Google robo-call you the five-digit PIN, confirm it and you’re good to go.

This time something a bit odd happened.

After letting the front desk know that Google would robo-call with a five-digit PIN, I went back to hit the submit button. What popped up on the screen?

That’s odd. I haven’t seen this error before. The number was indeed correct. In fact, when I went back to the front desk they had the PIN already written down for me. Google not only robo-called once, but twice with the same PIN.

This was fine. We had the PIN. Upon going back into the places account where you enter the pin, this familiar image appeared.

This is great, but it’s missing a little something. Where’s this?

So, there’s no way to confirm the deletion. I did see a Marketing Pilgrim article this morning regarding a Google Places hotline being found. So, why not try calling this hotline? I did, left a detailed voice mail and as of this writing no call was returned.

I absolutely love Google for many reasons but am not surprised by all this. Google Places support is actually well-known to be as incompetent as the Yellow Pages Local Search Association’s opt-out program.

So, the duplicate listing sits, and probably will for quite some time. I’ll probably hit the “report a bug” button sometime just to receive a canned email ten days later.

This is the first I’ve seen this hiccup? How about you?

Tags:
Posted in Local Search, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Yellow Pages Association is now the Local Search Association

April 18th, 2011

This is interesting news, although not a big surprise. The Yellow Pages Association decided to replace the words Yellow Pages with Local Search. So, as of today they are known as the Local Search Association.

It’s not a big surprise to me because the term “yellow pages” is often thought in a menacing manner the more people who search online and don’t want the print books. I’d want to get rid of that term as well.

It’s interesting when I view their blog. Some of their posts are from those who have great credentials in local search including CityGrid Media and other association partners. Here’s CityGrid’s Neil Salvage on mobile and mobile payments.

Some of their posts are also from those whose expertise in local search is telling people that they should want to receive multiple print yellow pages a year.

Why do I say this? See what the newly-formed LSA President Neg Norton has to say on this informative Kelsey Blog post:

“He added quickly that this doesn’t mean the association will shift its focus away from defeating or overturning opt-in and opt-out legislation in San Francisco, Seattle or wherever else it crops up.”

This is local litter, the polar opposite of local search. Neg and co. knows this. Clean it up.

The cynic in me says the only thing they’re changing is their name. However, I’m sure they are adding more digital offerings just like they have done the last few years.

It does look like they’re assuming the role of online reputation management and social media gurus. In fact, just last year Superpages teamed up with Yext to offer their version of online reputation management.

One thing I notice is that Andrew Shotland from the Local SEO Guide is presenting about Google Places and SEO in Google’s post-Panda/Farmer world. It’s a good read and is really nice to see who I consider a trusted local search professional being represented.

Overall, I welcome the association’s name change. Any thoughts?

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Measuring Conversions in… Keyword Density Tools?

April 6th, 2011

Yesterday, I was digging into Google Analytics (GA) to find a group of organic search keywords that produced conversions (leads). This turned out to be an actual use for a “keyword density” tool.

Remember them? They’re the ol’ timey tools that tell you how often you should use your keyword phrases on each page. More on that below.

If you’re a seasoned search professional, you already know of similar tips. If you’re a MN local business owner/manager who has access to your GA, read on. It could be a fast way to mine your keyword/conversions data.

First, create a GA custom report such as “conversions (total goal completions) by keywords”. It could look like this:

It doesn’t have to be conversion by keyword. It could be whatever metric you’re trying to measure whether it’s a new lead, appointment made or dinner reservation booked.

Once you’ve made your custom report(s) you can run one and easily download it to an Excel file. I’m not going to use the list from yesterday to keep that anonymous, so I’ll use a fictitious group of keywords related to yellow pages which simulates a conversion. Here they are:

OK, if you’re not in search marketing, there used to be a lot of people who considered keyword density important by saying keywords had to be in page content “x” number of times.

There are many tools, but we found one called Keyworddensitytools that serves purpose for this experiment. Instead of using it for its intended use, you can copy the list of keywords that turned into conversions and paste them into their density tool. Note I have checked 2 words, 3 words and 4 words.

This is definitely a small sample, but you can use this to see how often the conversion comes in and most importantly, the percentage.

Keep in mind, the percentage denotes conversions from all 2, 3 and 4 word searches.

Depending on how much you’re targeting the term “yellow pages” they may be doing something right, or they may want to target the term more often. It does well in occurrences and percentage.

Here’s the same for 3 word searches.

And for 4 word phrases. Notice the long tail effect. None of the keywords have more than 1 conversion (kind of to be expected).

Note this won’t provide conversions for keywords phrases 5 or more words long so maybe there’s a better tool for this. I’ll tell you what though, it’s fast. Google Analytics itself provides most of this data as well, but this can be a neat tool if you really want to mine your data.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

San Francisco 1st to Adopt Opt-In

March 21st, 2011

This is a first. Congratulations to San Francisco to make yellow pages opt-in as noted by this tweet from San Francisco’s mayoral candidate, David Chiu:

I’m not sure how much their Facebook Event campaign helped but I’m sure it couldn’t have hurt. This bill certainly made other media attention as well:

Not everyone is happy about this:

Does opt-in hurt local businesses? Or, does it help local businesses who gets overcharged by phone book circulation stats delivered to places who won’t use them? The money saved could result in a job at that business.

I’m all for print yellow pages advertising. I’m not all for selling artificially-inflated circulation stats by delivering these books to abandoned homes, open businesses who clearly don’t want them, or delivering to homes and who have already opted-out without success.

Thoughts for or against?

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

New Yellow Pages Opt-Out Opportunity… Hopefully

February 2nd, 2011

This is nice. Apparently, there is a new site to opt-out of the yellow pages you receive. There have been ways for a few years, but apparently this updated site is different for two reasons:

  1. This one is an all-in-one spot to opt-out of all directories. (I thought they already had this but maybe I’m wrong) Here’s an example for the 55401 zip code.
  2. The print book folks say this one actually works. Opt-out has been available for a few years but so far the word hasn’t really gotten to the people who actually deliver the books.

Here are two tips when filling out the opt-out form since almost all fields are required:

  1. For your required email field, use a Yahoo address. I’m guessing their main reason your email is required is for confirmation purposes. If they also decide to use your email to sell you advertising, a Yahoo email is good at filtering out spam.
  2. For your required phone field, use a Google Voice number. I’m guessing their main reason your phone number is required is for confirmation purposes. If they also decide to use your phone number to sell you advertising, a Google Voice number is good at blocking callers.

Condemned homes unfortunately have no way to opt out.

Not sure what their condo and apartment opt-out policy will be.

I’m curious how many people will use this service. Although the opt-out site was slowed down considerably yesterday, I think the percentage of households who use this will be low for a few reasons:

  • Consumers may not want to provide their email or phone number (see tips above)
  • Some people just don’t care and automatically trash or recycle the book
  • Condemned homes and condo/apartments may not be applicable (see above pictures)
  • Some people young and old happily use the print yellow pages

As a consumer, do you welcome the opt-out site? As an advertiser, do you also welcome this? It’s at least a start to make circulation stats more realistic.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »

New Localmn Site Coming Soon

November 11th, 2010

It’s been two + years of thought and we’re now getting close to a new Localmn.com relaunch. We optimistically hope to launch and replace the current 2005 version before the 2010 calendar ends.

The new site will have a brand new look with more transparency and social features. The core of the site will remain the same. Let’s get people away from their computers and to your business door. Here is our new logo.

More on Dave below, he’s customizing some cool rotating imagery for the home page. Here’s a dummy pic. Funny, Dave.

We’ll be offering the same local search marketing as always, plus a few new features like local online reputation management, content strategy consulting (Barb), front-end design (Dave) and more.

Several have mentioned to make the new site more engaging. Personally, I’m not a social media guru/ninja/sovereign but I am a user. I’m transparent, too. So, there will be access to what’s up on Flickr, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, YouTube and of course this blog which will be finally integrated in the site (bye WordPress-hosted blog).

There will be serious talent behind the site as well. I’ve been lucky enough to have years of projects with Barb Prindle, writer extraordinaire and all-around very nice and organized person. There’s also a front-end developer/designer available for clients who need it. Dave Dechant and his site Face Your Design is a pretty dang good resume. He’s got mad skills making sites tick in both form and function.

Check out their sites. Maybe you just need writing or front-end developing needs.

A photo shoot for us three may happen next Saturday (site TBD – possibly the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden). We’ll have a couple somewhat regular poses to put on the site. We’ll also have a Flickr set and are planning for some creative fun! There may or may not be a field goal attempt using a yellow pages book. I have complete confidence this can be achieved.

Want to be creative and have fun next Saturday? Let us know!

More to come…

Tags:
Posted in Local Search, Search Marketing, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

« Older Entries