According to Forrester Research, as much as $500,000,000 in offline spending was influenced by the internet in 2007. Comscore notes that 89% of buyers do research online before making their purchase offline. This is not news. Take a look at this article on offline spending from 8 years ago and another from ClickZ from 4 years ago.

The tracking of website conversions for Local Search has always been difficult and all online marketers know that their efforts result in many, many more leads, phone calls and sales than they are given credit for. How to track these conversions was a hot topic at the conference and ROBO gave us all a shared perspective through which to talk about it. Coupons, sophisticated call tracking and tracking URLs give us powerful tools with which to measure offline conversions, but they still leave a huge gap in the numbers.

Small businesses, in particular, who often rely almost exclusively on Yellow Pages advertising, seem to be the hardest to convince of the value of online marketing. This is incredibly ironic when you consider the lack of that advertising channel’s tracking capabilities.

It’s estimated that 50% of businesses have yet to get a website up and running. This most definitely gives the advantage to their competitors that do.

The presenters, most of whom are not regulars on the Search Marketing conference circuit, brought passionate, fresh perspectives to topics that the mainstream SEO world isn’t even addressing, yet, and moved from being attendees in one session to speakers in the next. The small conference size and the way it was set up had everyone sharing information and mingling in a way I have never before experienced. I met another brilliant person everytime I turned around and was totally impressed by Third Door Media’s willingness to recognize that some of the very best people in this space are under 30 years old.

Unfortunately, we probably have to wait a year for the next Local Mobile Conference. The good news is, if you promote brick and mortar businesses online, you have a whole year to plan to attend it. The information you’ll get will undoubtedly help those businesses prosper and make you a hero.

Here are some insights from bloggers who attended the event:

Don Campbell-Small Business Marketer

Bryson Meunier-Mobile SEO Blogger

Andrew Shotland-Local SEO Guide

iPhones have changed the game for Mobile Search. It’s almost like the battle between the two types of video formats (Betamax and VCR) back in the day, except in this case neither of the players (dotmobi domains and mobile-friendly web design) won out over the other. Instead, a shiney new player galloped out of the Apple Labs to send every other possible contender into obscurity. While the iPhones are obviously far from perfect, they hold a better promise of giving us much more of what we want from a mobile device than anything else out there - a seamless internet experience.  All other phones are now playing catch up.

The first people who bought automobiles suffered all kinds of unexpected mechanical failures and were no doubt subject to humiliation from their neighbors who clip-clopped by giggling in their reliable horse-powered carriages. I hear similar joking whispers about the iPhones and their weaknesses. I don’t care. I still want an iPhone. Even if you don’t want one, yet, you WILL want one soon.

Some of the questions I asked myself were:

What percentage of traffic comes to our sites through Google Maps compared to the percentage of traffic from blended search?

What kind of traffic comes through Mobile Search and Mobile ads?

What ppc tactics work best for travel clients?

I was pretty surprised by the answers. If you’re attending the Local/Mobile Conference, attend the Case Studies panel to hear them. Otherwise, follow one of the live bloggers who normally attend conferences and sum up the presentations online.

I know from my own responses that many of the answers are things we’re pretty darn confident about, some are simply well-considered opinions and some are nothing more than wild guesses. But when consolidated together, the results represent the collective opinions of 20 SEO’s who eat, sleep and breathe Local Search. Short of Google and Yahoo! handing us their Local algos on a platter, this is about the best we have to work with in the Summer of 2008.

The panel recommends these factors as the top 3 ways to rank well in Local Search:

• Claim your business listing.
• Have a Local Business Listing street address in the city for which you want to rank.
• Place your Local Business Listing in the appropriate categories.

I’m not going to give any more away because I’d like you to read the whole survey.  For other takes on David’s project, check out Sage Lewis’s video on The Definitive Local Search Ranking Document, and the comments on the survey at Sphinn .

SMX Local/Mobile Conference - I’ll be presenting on Chris Silver Smith’s panel on Case Studies in San Francisco in July. If you’ve never attended this conference, you’re really missing out on the bleeding edge of Local and Mobile Search.

Local Search Rankings Survey - David Mihm sent a ranking survey out to Local Search SEO’s with the intention of creating a document similiar to SEOmoz’s famous ranking factors survey from last year. He’s compiling it now and intends release it on June 12. I’m excited to see how my opinions stack up against other industry experts.

Universal Business Listings - UBL will soon include a WebCard with listings on their service. This is best described as an online business card in the hCard microformat.

Back up and think about it, not from an Search Engine’s point of view, but from the point of view of the human searcher. A query indicates a person is looking for something among the search results and they will click on the listing that holds the most promise of delivering the answer they seek.  

The purpose of your listings is to entice searchers to click on them and go to your web site. Your listing competes for that click with all the other listings and sponsored ads on the page. Your page title and description are copy you publish on the web to promote your online goals. So, if you aren’t thinking of them as ads, you should be.

Here are a few examples of page titles and meta descriptions that don’t do a very good job soliciting searchers:

You get much more space in your page title than you do in an AdWords ad title, which can give you the opportunity to do a fine job of both Search Engine Optimization and selling your click to the searcher. Google currently displays no more than 70 title characters in their SERPs, but err on the cautious side with 64 or less to avoid truncated page titles. A safe number of characters to use in the metadescription is 165 or less.

Here are examples of the title and description doing double duty as honest optimization and effective ad copy:

Do you prefer this one?

Or this one?

Enough said?

So, check all of your listings in the SERPs. It’s easy to do by using the site: command in the Google search bar, with your URL instead of mine, of course:

Check your competitors’ listings, too, to learn what you can from them.

Make note of which ads should be improved and get to work rewriting your organic ad copy now!

…a service that allows you to enter your critical business information one time and have it posted to all the major Online Yellow Pages, Search Engines and 411 directory assistance.

Their tagline is “Enter your business once, be found everywhere.”

I discuss the reasons you need to participate in a program like this in my article “Why You Need a Local Business Profile“. Please take a few minutes to read it if you’re unfamiliar with the concept.

The differences between UBL and some of the other providers of this type of service:

It’s very low cost, making it affordable and practical for even the smallest business. The fee is $30 for the first year and $19 for annual renewal.

Your listing will not be auto-renewed or charged to your credit card every year. They feel it’s important to review and update your information at least once a year. This policy ensures that their data is fresh. In my opinion, once the local platforms catch on to this, they will give UBL preferred status and their info will begin to trump the info of some other sources who are content to automatically take your money each year without knowing how current the data in your profile is.

Universal Business Listing data does not create a web page (mini website) of that information. This saves them money, which they pass on to you. If this is a service you would like to have, then try some of the other providers listed in the article I refer to above.

They are a repository of business information for the industry.  Period. They will not sell information about you to others or publish it online themselves. All approved directories may access their data at no charge.

They enable your mobile phone numbers to be listed in 411 Directory Assistance. Some business people can work from anywhere and move around a lot. This eliminates their need to have a land line that will forward calls to cell phones.

UBL was just started in January 2008. I believe some of it’s unique benefits will attract many small businesses - and agencies representing small businesses - to provide clean, fresh data about them across the internet.

Displaying incorrect data and map points can cause a great deal of inconvenience to someone who drives to a local enterprise’s location only to find they are closed, don’t carry the products for which they were shopping, have moved or have perhaps even gone out of business. It’s a matter of trust and if searchers cannot trust the information a website gives them, they will look for another source.

The best source of information about a local business is the merchant. This is why nearly all sites involved in Local Search encourage business owners to claim and verify their listings. Nearly all of them permit all merchants to create or edit a free basic listing on their site to insure they have accurate and current data.

However, the shear number of valuable Local and social websites out on the internet where an owner can have a business profile is already overwhelming and is continually growing. Just keeping up with the new sites is a big job and, if something about your business changes, updating all of those profiles is a daunting task. So what do you do?

Create a Master Business Profile

A master business profile pushes the information you provide about your enterprise out to dozens of sources of local data all across the web. While this service has been available for several years, it is just now gaining mainstream attention and, unfortunately many of the vendors who promote it don’t really understand it very well themselves. That’s why you need to know how it works!

You log into a database, where you input as much information as it will accept. This usually includes a logo image, address, phone and fax numbers, map location, a link to directions, a description of who you are and what you do, hours of operation, payment types accepted, special discounts and coupons, the services you provide, the brands and products you carry and anything else you may wish to brag about, such as memberships, accreditations, certifications, awards, etc. Try to fill your profile up with as much information as it will hold.

Then, at regular intervals, the service feeds the information from their database out to their partners, who consider them to be trusted sources. The partners update their databases at varying intervals, so it can sometimes takes weeks or months to see any changes you make to your master profile. The system is far from perfect. However, it is far and away a better option than trying to manually keep all your listings up to date.

In addition, the profile page that is created can serve as a mini website for small businesses with small online advertising budgets. Most profile platforms are built with SEO in mind and it’s not usual to see these pages ranking for hyperlocal and long tail search terms. Most also include some simple tracking that will tell you how many people visit the page and how they interact once there. Some also offer printable coupons and call tracking from the profile page to assist you in determining conversions.

Choosing a Service

• Register Local is a Local Launch product that I have used for 2 years for hundreds of clients with excellent results. They are part of the Kelsey Group of companies and are owned by RH Donelley, the original Yellow Pages provider, so they have a good understanding of small business advertising needs.
• Localeze is a long time player (in internet years) in the Local Search space. They have many valuable online partnerships and are a highly trusteed source of business information.
• Local Promote is a service of Local.com, one of the biggest independent Local Search Engines. They, too have widespread partnerships and plenty of trust within the industry.
• Universal Business Listing is an industry initiative that’s only about 6 months old and is designed to allow all business owners to participate in data distribution at a comparatively low cost. Unlike the other services I am familiar with, a profile created at UBL does not exist as a stand alone page on the world wide web. Therefore it cannot act as a mini website. However, it still makes your data available to important websites across the web. In my opinion, this service will grow nicely in usage and trust as more and more local businesses scramble to get on the internet.

Local.com claims a database of more than 16,000,000 local listings for enterprises all across the United States and 2 million more in the United Kingdom.  This information is gathered from business-to-business data providers, their partners and by harvesting it through crawling the web. Information is also provided by the merchants themselves and any business can create a free listing or claim and verify their existing listing. Listings can be updated at any time by logging in an making your own changes. This listing is rather basic and includes the address, phone number and a short description.

Local Promote

For a fee (currently about $50) you can enhance your listing by creating a detailed online profile through Local Promote. The web page you create about your business in this program can include your logo, a map and directions, your brands, products, services, specialties, certifications, accreditations, etc. You can also publish special offers, your hours of operation, methods of payment and up to 5 photos.  In addition, your Local Promote listing will appear above the basic listings on Local.com.

If you don’t have a website, your Local Promote profile page can serve as your online presence. Tracking calls resulting from visits to your profile page can also be enabled.

Local Promote also feeds your profile data out to websites, such as Google Maps Yahoo!Local, Superpages and many other places where people search for local business information.

Other Advertising

You may also purchase banner advertising on Local.com in various sizes that can be targeted by geographic location and category, such as Real Estate or Financial Services. An auction style pay per click system places your  ads within the search results, as well.

Business Directory Product

Local Connect allows you to put a local search directory on your website quickly and with no set up cost. It enables you to attract people to your web pages through searches for local business terms and to earn money by selling advertising in your directory and displaying ads provided by Local.com. Many newspapers are placing products like this on their websites.

Contact Information for Local.com

Address: One Technology Drive Building G  Irvine, CA  92618                                                                                                                                                                                          Phone: 877-784-0805                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Email: clientservices@local.com

He evaluated them head to head on 11 factors and declared a winner in each area:

1. Keyword forensics - Word tracker
2. KEI effectiveness (competition) - Equal
3. Reports for purchase - Keyword Discovery
4. Projects - Equal
5. Historical research data - Keyword Discovery
6. Available languages - Keyword Discovery
7. Data base size - Keyword Discovery
8. Other data - Keyword Discovery
9. Related Keywords - Equal
10. Seasonally related data - Keyword Discovery
11. Industry keyword tool - Keyword discovery

Wordtracker came out on top in just 1 category. The tools were declared about equal in 3 areas. Keyword Discovery easily took the contest as superior in 7 features.

I found the results a bit startling and I imagine John did, too.  After all, he’s probably Wordtrackers biggest fan and has been for years. Like many SEOs I am often asked which research software I recommend. In the future, I’ll simply refer those questioners to John’s professional keyword tool comparision. Read it to get details about the evaluation and learn why Keyword Discovery won hands down.

The most obvious answer is “search” - they search for what they want and the most relevant answers are presented to them in the results. If they don’t find what they seek, then they refine their search or use a different Search Engine. It sounds simple and in theory, it is.

Search

However, only 10 truly savvy, undeniably relevant or somewhat lucky web pages will display on the first page of the Search Engine results. Depending upon your niche, you may or may not have a reasonable chance of competing with them. A ranking on the second or third page of the SERPs will bring some web traffic, but few searchers will venture deeper into the thicket and rarely will any explorers glimpse you if you’re hidden beyond page 3.  So what do you do?

Optimize, of course! Continually strive to get on that first page, in hopes that your website will at least make it on to page 2 or 3. Clear the searchers’s paths to you by  adhering to the most current SEO best practices. Place trail markers by regularly adding fresh, compelling content and leave signposts to your website across the internet by building good links to your pages in other places searchers may be looking. Again, it sounds simple and again, there may be obstacles. If all goes well, those looking for you will  eventually find you.

Discovery

However, not everyone is actively searching for your business, your products or your services. They may not have an immediate need for them or they may not know that you can fulfill a need they have now or one may have in the future. If they aren’t even looking for you in the online jungle, how will you ever be discovered? Currently, the most most well-trodden and clearest path to discovery is through the myriad of social websites that can lead potential customers to your online door.

The most notorious social hubs are MySpace, FaceBook and Digg, but there are online meeting places that cater to just about every niche you can imagine. Sphinn, WebProNews, SearchEngineGuide and SearchEngineWatch attract SEOs and SEMs who want to keep up with the people, news and discussions taking place in their industry. That group of professionals also has a strong presence on LinkedIn and Twitter. If you want them to “discover” your online business and, perhaps, visit your website, then it’s very wise to participate in the interaction taking place on those pages.

Introduce yourself to people by taking part in the discussions. Follow established etiquette to make friends and become an accepted member of the community by contributing things of value.

Nearly every online niche has a similar collection of social websites, In travel, for instance, their are active, vibrant communities on Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet and TravelPost, Skirt is aimed at women, Treehugger brings environmentalists together online and news hounds gather at Reddit, Topix and Newsvine.

Those who participate in inappropriate communities struggle to acheive mediocre results, at best. Spend some time searching for and discovering the social websites that attract people who are curious, concerned, even consumed, about topics important to your business. Once you find the right fit, you won’t have any trouble learning how it works, because it will be interesting and impactful for you. Remember your manners, try to help other people out and don’t be a loud mouth or a bully and you’ll do just fine.

Recovery search is when a searcher is looking for a specific business. They may or may not recall it’s name. If they do, it should be easy to find. However, this is not always the case. The name that a Search Engine or directory knows it by may be different enough than its commonly-used name to cause problems. What you know as Pop Miller’s Saloon may be Miller’s Saloon or P.J. Miller LLC to a Search Engine.

In another scenario, the searcher may only know a brick and mortar business’ location and not remember its name. This is when they must rely upon the search process to “recover” that information for them. This task becomes more difficult for the Search Engines when the business does not have a website or if the website is poorly optimized-neither of which is uncommon for a local shop, service person or tradesman.

Recovery also occurs when the searcher knows the business name, but wants to find additional information. Perhaps, they are simply looking for the phone number or address. This information is generally easy to find. Problems often occur when a business moves, changes its phone number or adds a new location, since the information can be slow to update online. Business owners  may also find it hard to correct inaccurate data about them that they find on the web.

Discovery search is when the searcher is seeking to fulfill a specific need and wants to find which businesses meet their requirements. In Local Search this need is within a specific location - a city or town or neighborhood or zipcode, typically. 

Other needs may be general, such as an auto repair shop. It doesn’t present much of a problem for the Search Engines to serve up results for a search like “auto repair Greeley”. But if the searcher wants to find a “factory certified Saab technician in Greeley”, that’s more complex. Add another parameter or two, such as a place that’s open on Saturdays and accepts American Express, and it gets even trickier.

There are ways to satisfy the needs of both recovery and discovery searches.  If you don’t have a website, you absolutely need to register with one of the many business data compilers and distributors to assure up-to-date information about your enterprise is readily available to the Search Engines.

If you have a website, then optimize its pages for local terms, brands, products, services, address, location, multiple locations, areas served, hours of operation, payment types and anything else you think searchers may query. In addition to good website optimization, register with a local business data provider, as well.

These data providers collect your business information from the best source - you. Then they feed it out regularly to many locally focused Search Engines, directories and shopping and social sites across the web. Each is a little different and nearly all claim to be the best. In reality, most of them appear to do pretty much the same thing.

If I had to recommend a couple, they would be Localeze, because of their experience and partnerships and because they are free for small business people to use. My other choice is Local Launch, which is part of the RH Donnelly empire of Yellow Pages-again for their time in the business and their industry connections.

For Local Search Engine optimization purposes, a tagline can also help immensely in conveying where you are and what you do to both the search engines and human visitors to the site. If your location or market area is important to your business, then this is critical information to give to the spiders crawling the text on your website. 

Some business names give both sets of users the location information they need right in their name.

Examples:

• Lakewood Ford
• Orlando Recording Studio
• LaGuardia Airport Hotel

 If yours doesn’t, consider creating a tagline that does. Keep it simple. Remember that its purpose, when used for Local SEO, is to clearly reveal your location and, if at all possible, associate it with your main keyword phrase.

Examples:

• Michael’s Motors-Lakewood’s Favorite Ford Dealer for 50 Years
• Peaceful Noise-Oscar Winning Orlando Recording  Studio
• Pine Cone Lodge - Closest Hotel to LaGuardia Airport.

Use the tagline along with the name of your business whereever you can. Then, wherever it appears, your business name will be associated with a location and a targeted keyword phrase. Searchers and robots will all thank you for making it so easy for them to identify you.

Localeze draws, verifies and enriches their data from:

• More than 4,000 telephone directories
• Web site crawls
• Authorized dealer lists
• Info provided by partners, such as cable operators, directory assistance sources, telephone companies, ad agencies, etc.
• Merchant  generated content

The information that Localeze provides to web searchers includes:

• Basic business information, such as address and phone number
• Products and services offered
• Trust factors, such as industry certifications, memberships, accreditations, awards and accolades from places like the Better Business Bureau
• The brands a merchant carries
• Business hours of operation
• Payment types accepted
• Business categories

Merchants may set up free accounts with the Localeze Merchant Profile Manager, where they can manage information Localeze has about them by:

• Correcting inaccuracies in their listings
• Enhancing the information Localeze has about them
• Optimizing their listings with keyword-rich text, including brand names, products carried and services offered
• Managing multiple listings and locations from one place

The benefits they receive by using Localeze include:

• The ability to have the correct information about their business propagate across the web.
• An easy way to update their data on many locally-focused websites from one place.

What’s Different About Localeze?

• Localeze is free for individual merchants. Some other data repositories require payment for inclusion.
• Localeze is a respected provider of local business information for more than 50  websites which represent more than 85% of the market for Local Search.
• Localeze provides merchant data to some of the largest directory websites.
• Powers an “intelligent taxonomy engine” that can link brands with relevant search phrases and interpret related terms and categories.
• Localeze says their data is purchased and pulled by many Local Search providers rather than pushed out to them. This may indicate a preference for and trust in Localeze’s local business information over the data available from other sources.

The internet as a whole is the source most often used to find local business information. However, the print Yellow Pages is the single most used source. Ironic, isn’t it? 90% of the people they surveyed “still find print Yellow Pages a valuable resource”. As their primary source of nformation about local enterprises, 33% cited the printed phone books (both white and yellow), 30% choose the Search Engines, 17% go directly to the Internet Yellow Pages, 13% use local search sites and 7% have another means of finding that data.

Once people have found what they are looking for online, 8% did additonal research offline and 14% performed additional research online. 39% visited a business they found and 39% placed a phone call to a business. Nearly 80% those searching call or visit the business and 61% make a purchase!

If you’ve read very much that I’ve written, you know I don’t put much stock in statistics. However, if only half of these numbers are true, it still makes a very powerful case for making certain that you are well represented in all of the places online and offline where people are looking or information about your business.

SES conference czar, Stewart Quealey, and his crew of Dan and Fred made sure all the pesky little details were taken care of. Dan arranged for a nice venue, a well-arranged networking lunch and free WiFi. Fred kept everyone online and Stewart made everyone feel welcomed and well cared for.

If you’ve never attended an SES Training, it’s something you should consider. The class sizes are small, allowing a lot of interaction, questions and personal attention. They bring in instructors who are not only experts, but are really passionate about what they do and want to share their knowledge with students.

There are upcoming trainings in Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and San Jose. Check ‘em out!

Fellow SEO Carrie Hill and I learned it all the hard way while setting up blogs, optimizing them and training clients how to use them. Take advantage of what we learned and save yourself a lot of time and grief. This is a non-techie guide that everyone can understand. Thanks, also to Liz Hamilton for coaching us through the early stages of blogging.

The general opinion is that about half of these prospective buyers are still using the print yellow pages for local business information and the other half are trying to find that information on the internet. Therefore, the small business person has the challenge of balancing his/her advertising dollars between the two and must appeal to both types of shoppers.

Take Advantage of Free Listings

Your first attack should be on the free front. Google Maps, Yahoo!Local and Windows Live Local all offer free business profiles on their search platforms. Even - or especially - if you don’t have a website for your business, you absolutely need to be listed in these three places. They are a major source of business information for many internet searchers.

The most cumbersome thing about creating or updating a profile for your business is the verification step. All three will let you create an account, log into it and add and modify information about your business. However, before they will publish the changes, they’ll need to ensure that you are indeed the owner or representative of the business. Without this step, unscrupulous people could sabotage the online data about competing enterprises. Even on a small scale, this would cause chaos and a justified lack of trust in the information they publish.

Then, make certain you have a free listing in as many of the Internet Yellow Pages as is practical. SuperPages, Yellowbook, Verizon and the Yahoo Yellow Pages are all musts. Then, see if you can justify paying for an enhanced listing in the print version of whichever print Yellow Pages dominates in your locality. Remember about half of the Yellow Pages users are looking for you online, so allocate your advertising appropriately.

While this won’t cover the whole Local Search enchilada, it’s a great start and will zoom you ahead of many of your competitors.

Also read First Steps for Local Search

You’ll find lots of helpful tips on how to get your images and videos to rank in Image Search, Video Search and in the Universal Results.