Well, I’m back from a two day quick trip to Cleveland and attending the #LocalU SEO Conference there offered up by David Mihm’s leadership over at getlisted.org! And what a trip it was, both the first-time drive to Cleveland on I-90 and the Conference itself.

You have to remember, that unless you do attend Conferences or Seminars in person, your whole on-line friendships will never ever be as “big” as they can be — hence the chance to attend this Google Places/LOCAL Conference was high on our list to meet online friends in person!  And we met a superb bunch of SEO types at the Conference itself as well as later over happy hour too!

David Mihm, whose blog has been on our Blogroll since we began, is the Seattle based SEO practitioner who offers up SEO both on a regular search basis as well as on LOCAL searches too. His annual Local Search Ranking Factors reports, compile results from 34 of the globes best SEO types and help rank the various algo items so that the rest of us can read/learn/research same for our own clients. His getlisted.org site offers up further research and learning opportunities — including being the host for the #LocalU Conferences that have been run. The one that I attended just on Wednesday past, was their #3 offering and they’ve got many more planned over the next few months too! My advice here is to ATTEND! Signup and get your rear into one of those seats to learn all you can about Local search opportunities….I did and I and my clients are happy already that I attended as David provided a solid tactic that I’d never ever considered before! I’m going to code same this weekend and install same for a client next week, so thanks muchly David!

Matt McGee, yes another Blogroll link on this site,  is one more person that I finally met in person at the Cleveland #LocalU conference. Matt is well known online for many various blogging and SEO domains – his Hyperlocalblogger.com site offers up info on working your locale for blog authority; his smallbusinesssem.com site offers up search marketing help for small business and his columns and articles over at searchengineland.com point out to all of us the varities of search engine characteristics that are always undergoing change! Matt presented on the whole Social Media area and how using various tactics can help achieve both better online reputation and help prove your online credibility in your own community at the same time! Thanks Matt!

Mike Blumenthal, another Blogroll link here too, is known the continent over as “Mr Local” was a third online friend who I finally got to meet in person which was really a great comfort to me. I’ve been reading Mike’s blog over at blumenthals.com/blog/ now for a few years and to meet this expert in person was truly a great thing. Mike knows Local, and his blog and his comment sections are chock’full of tactics, ideas, hypotheses, testing and reporting….can you ask for any better? I think not! This day, as some of the scheduled experts had to send their regrets, Mike had to “fill in” for a few and his approach to their material — as well as to his own, was a great capture by us Conference attendees! I learned much from both the “ABC’s of Local Search” as well as his own pointed approach to “Ranking your Business in Local Search!” too! Well done, Mike. Oh and an aside…Mike has a new iPhone and used it both in his presentation — he showed the power of Google via a mobile search and contacted a client in that manner in real time — as well as he used the iPhone all evening too…to constantly search for info on any topic we discussed! As both Mike and Matt pointed out, mobile seach is truly a coming item to pay big attention to….and that goes for us all, eh!

Other presenters there were just as complete and spot-on with their own presentations; we heard from a Bing Local Listing rep, Maryam Gholami who walked us through their Listing Center and from Anita Campbell, of Small Business Trends (who own bizsugar.com btw!) on how to prioritize your time when it comes to social media….as well as Geoff Karcher of the Karcher Group who showed the basics of search engine result marketing and how small business can improve their visibility too!

Great Conference? Yes! Did I attend thinking I’d learn a lot? Not really, we’ve been involved in SEO for 10 years now, and in Local for over 2 years…but I was MOST surprised that I did pickup quite a few great tips at the presentations. I really attended to put “a face” to join my own online friendships with the top Local experts in the country is the real “why” I went…but learn stuff I did!

And lastly a personal thank you to those same experts, David and Matt and Mike and others too, who joinedup a bit after the Conference at Champs for some beers and then a smaller group for dinner!  The talk then was of a more ‘client-oriented’ subject matter — what works and doesn’t work for us on an individual basis. It was my luck to sit close to Mike at that dinner and listen/watch as he expounded on some of the varieties of Google’s local search algo….interspersed with iPhone lookups/and searches….Mike does love that iPhone, eh! And David, your true hospitality is both muchly appreciated and I will reciprocate at the next #LocalU I go to — hopefully you’ll offer up an Advanced segment too!

So….I await notice of the next fairly close #LocalU from getlisted.org and would comment that if you’ve ever considered ranking for the 600 million Google local searches that are done daily, you too should go to getlisted.org and sign up for notices of the next Conference….it’s really worth going, eh!

Other very knowledgeable SEO folks I met who attended were ~
• Jim Gianoglio of LunaMetrics in Pittsburg, PA….great fella who knows SEO, eh!
• Michael Feuti of ChannelNet of Dearborn, MI…another astute and well spoken SEO guy
• Craig James of story-cast.com….an entrepeneur who has his eyes on the horizon

UPDATE ~

Jim Gianoglio of LunaMetrics nicely just provided the following photos from the Cleveland #LocalU Conference and even of our ‘happy hour’ later too!

In this pix, we have myself (with the Peace Sign, eh!), next to me going left is Dave Jabas, then Mike Blumenthal, David Mihm, Mike Feuti, Anita Campbell and Mike McGee…all actively chatting on all things Google, eh!

In this pix, we have Mike Blumethal (in the yellow shirt) making a point to David Mihm and Anita Campbell! Go Mike Go!

And a shot of all of us at dinner later…thanks David! Great to sup with folks who live & breathe SEO, eh!

If you are a local Canadian business, there are a few business essentials you’ll want to take care of for the online world:

1. Website
2. Google Maps profile
3. Active social media

Let’s talk a bit about each of these for your local business.

Your website ~

Let’s assume that you run a carpet repair business out of Toronto. You want to make sure you are available when someone is searching online. With a website that is SEO friendly, you will be able to show up on all the major search engines, and as potential customers are searching for your services, you will have put yourself out there. It’s then up to your website to convert those visitors to leads. If you need help with your local online marketing, there is lots of help out there. I’m going to assume that if you are here, you likely know SEO, so let’s move on to maps.

Your Google maps profile ~

It’s likely that if your business has been around for any amount of time, that you probably have a local maps profile on Google. There are lots of things you can do to optimize your listing so that you can also show up in local searches. Keep in mind that local searches are becoming much more prevalent with smart phones, so you should definitely take advantage.

Here is an example of a local listing on Google:

Here are some tips to get your local listings rocking:

1. Claim your listing! When you claim your listing, you are protecting yourself from your listing getting hijacked later, and also verifying to Google that your information is accurate. They will be much more confident to show you as a result if they are confident that someone will answer when the number is called.
2. Categorize properly. Even if you have your keyword in your company name (ie. Toronto Carpet Repair Company), if you don’t properly categorize it, the search engines may never know what you actually do. Take the time and pick (or create) the proper categories.
3. Get your customers to leave reviews. The more active a profile is, the more popular your business will be perceived. Since search engines love popularity, you’ll reap benefits. Consider asking some of your customers to leave you a review.
4. Get people talking about you. Again, it’s the popularity thing. The more times your business is listed online (these are called citations), the more popular your business will be in the eyes of the search engines.

Social media ~

For your business, consider whether a Facebook fan page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, or any other social media profile will work best for your business. If you offer freebies, giveaways, and coupons, Facebook and Twitter would both be fantastic. Consider the promotions and amount of communication you are willing to put out, and weigh the profiles accordingly.

The more you are available and in front of your potential customers, and the more of a relationship you have built up with them, the better the chances that they will give you their business.

Extras ~

Consider pay-per-click advertising management services to get your business on the paid side of the search engines when your terms get searched. If you show up on the organic portion of the search, in the local listings, AND in the paid portion when someone types ‘Toronto carpet repair’, there is a synergy and a perceived boost to your potential clients. If they perceive you are well established and trusted, they will be more likely to give you their business.

A.J. Wilcox has been in love with Internet marketing for over 3 years. He currently oversees 400+ accounts as the SEO team lead at OrangeSoda.com. He loves cars and running, and staying up on the latest SEO news…and he KNOWS SEO, eh!

If you’ve ever wondered what the criteria might be, to see if you need to take advantage and use the Google LOCAL Maps SEO to gain  new clients or customers, then here’s a rationale that you can follow to see what’s involved.

To rank well in the Google MAPS area, or the LOCAL search engine comprises a set of tasks that must be accomplished in order to both be listed, and then ranked. But before you bother, here’s what you should know to see if this is the best way to gain that new traffic….but let me ask first, do you want new business? And if so, then this simple DIY blog post will help, eh!

Are you a LOCAL business, would be the first question?
That is, think for a moment as to where your own clients/customers come from. Do they live within say 50 miles of your offices? Or do they work within that 30-50 mile radius? Do you sell products or services that are consumed by those same clients/customers within that 30-50 mile limiation? If the answer to any of these is “yes,” then you run a LOCALLY oriented business.

Think of lawyers, plumbers, electricians and dentists. Think of plastic surgeons, autobody shops, funeral homes and all other businesses that find their clients/customers all come from the region surrounding their office locations. While the 30-50 mile radius is my own threshold, in some instances it’s much smaller say in cities with over 1 million inhabitants; and in some smaller regions that radius will grow to be 100 miles too. No matter what the radius of your marketplace, know that there is such a region around you and a simple check for addresses of say the past 12 months worth of clients/customers will show you the area upon which you draw new business.

Am I close enough to my city core to rank well?
Time was, when Google used the core of the city, it’s “centroid” as it became known to measure the distance from your offices to that centroid, to determine how well you would “rank” in the LOCAL search results pages. At least that’s what our numbers (and other SEO practitioners too) have shown in the past 12 months or so…a reduced reliance on that distance measurement. However for two smaller clients, in smaller cities (of less than 25,000) it still appears to be holding true, that the closer your office address is to that city centroid, the better you will rank. So, “location sensitivity” still appears to be a factor in the Google LOCAL algorithm, eh!

Do we even need a website to be found?
As odd as this question looks, it’s perfectly acceptable to Google, to rank businesses in their LOCAL Maps algo that do not even have a website, and there are thousands of such entried tucked away in their index. Think about it for a second as say a Pizza shop owner. You dont’ need a website, because all of your customers either call in for delivery or walkin for takeout. Websites market a companys products (or services) by offering up information to a website visitor and let’s face it, you can’t tell how good that double pepperoni and anchovie pie is going to be by a picture of same. So no website, but that does NOT mean that Google doesn’t know about you, hasn’t indexed your business in it’s Maps index and that you wont come up if someone types in “Dundas pizza” — because you will.

Go ahead, give it a try…do you see the #2 listing for Master Dundas 2 For 1 Pizza? I do, and yes, they do NOT have  a website.  They don’t need one and they still come up on the LOCAL search page! How’s that for an SEO ROI!!!

In summary, then…lastly, think about this as a valid Canadian DIY SEO strategy…

Clients and customers can come from anywhere to buy your products and services. If you go to the Google LOCAL Maps website there is a pretty easy methodology and DIY process to follow (which they’ve outlined nicely for you) to follow to get your business listed and verified. Many of you readers I know will have already accomplished this and yes, you’re gaining new LOCAL clients/customers from that signup. But some of you I know will not bother and that’s the real shame. You don’t need to be close to your city centre and you dont’ need to even have a website to gain traction from the LOCAL Maps rankings….so please let me ask one more time, you DO want new business now, don’t you? And dont forget we have our own CanuckSEO Whitepaper available to learn even more about using Google LOCAL Maps to market your business to local clients and customers too, eh!