Website Promotion is not Voodoo

SEO experts are almost unanimous in their agreement that customer reviews play a crucial role in boosting visibility and rankings in the local search results. So how can you use this information to leverage local search rankings for your own business?

In a previous post, we discussed how a pro-active approach to customer service and feedback can boost your business reputation online. Positive reviews are a sign of trust, and that carries a great deal of weight in search rankings. Happy customers are an excellent source of positive feedback and reviews.

For online businesses that depend on customer reviews to improve visibility in local search, social media engagement has become even more relevant with companies like Yelp giving reviewers the option to seamlessly broadcast their Yelp reviews to Facebook and Twitter.

According to the official Yelp blog, any photos that reviewers upload to Yelp.com will also be included when sharing reviews for that business via Facebook Connect. Users also have control over which reviews they want shared and which ones they don’t.

This is the slide deck from my presentation at Local Search Summit “Using Facebook & Twitter to Drive Local Leads” this afternoon.

We had a great crowd and I enjoyed the heck out of putting this slide show together. I was trying to position some real tactics in using Twitter for local business.

I’m hopeful that it was tactical versus theoretical and I look forward to your feedback.

Please, please, please ask questions and let me know what more you’d like to know.Fireproof trailer

UPDATE: At the suggestion of Terri Troncale I want to invite submissions for non-profits as well. Please, please – fans, recommend your favorites! I’m really happy to have the businesses self-submit but I want to get rid of these iTunes cards

Also, my original limitation on location was because of driving distance to http://socialsouth.org. Please submit anyone, anywhere using Social Media to drive sales, membership, contributions, or any trackable outcome.

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Twitter Bird - Tweet, Tweet, Tweet

Let’s get one thing straight right here: I’m not above buying your love. (Just ask David)

I’m proud to announce that I have been asked to take part in a new Local Search News site http://www.localsearchnews.net/.

And, my first post is live!

Barnacle SEO Image

In this post I argue that with a judicious application of Barnacle SEO

even the smallest budgets can have an impact on small business website promotion.

Small business owners are generally a frugal lot.

Of course there are some who’ve got the budget to invest heavily as long as they see a return, but what about those who don’t?

I’ve been so busy with the turn of the year that I forgot to mention that I had a rare opportunity to contribute to Mike Blumenthal’s Loci 2008.

For those of you who don’t know, Mike is THE authority on Google Maps and Local.

I’m very proud to have been asked to take part and would gladly do it again!

My contribution is here, excerpt follows:

Search Influence has been in business since 2006 but 2008 is the year I realized there is a community of like-minded folks and engaged with that community.

I spent last week traveling including a visit to San Francisco for SMX Local Mobile.

All I’m saying is I don’t know why more of you weren’t there. As far as I’m concerned this was a big time win for anyone in attendance. I got some great tips from the speakers and an equal amount of good stuff from the attendees, some of which will be the focus of future posts.

I had the pleasure to sit on a panel with 3 really smart guys: Gib Olander , Michael Jensen