Google Sponsored Local Places Listing and SEO- Unknown Secrets of SEO E-Webstyle Number 54

Hi, and welcome to the Unknown Secrets of SEO Podcast. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of the Unknown Secrets of SEO Podcast. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. And this is Paul Hanson, sales manager of eWebStyle. I'm going to put the mic over closer to you because... Hi, and welcome to the Unknown Secrets of SEO Podcast. I've got to turn that off. All right. Having a few technical difficulties this morning. Good Friday. Happy Good Friday to everyone out there. So what we like to do in our podcast, as you frequent listeners know, is we like to cover what we covered last time. And last time we covered a whole bunch of things. It was a whole gamut of stuff. So many that I couldn't tell you what it was. I glanced at our... We keep a tech sheet for the last podcast, which was Podcast 53. And nothing's sticking out. And I remember we were all over the place, and it was actually a really high-energy podcast. Google Sponsored Links. Google Sponsored Links. So we did discuss that. We're going to discuss that a little bit more today. Actually, we're going to discuss my... Was it an hour? Maybe 45-minute phone call with Google that I had yesterday? Oh, yeah. So we'll be discussing that. That'll be pretty interesting. And so you are, remember, although it's a little dysfunctional this morning, you are listening to the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. That is because of you. You are potentially actually watching. Hello. Watching the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes, which would kind of make it a videocast. And we do broadcast the video of this live when we record the podcast. That is on Fridays at 9.15 Central Standard Time. This is Good Friday. And it is actually a Good Friday. So the only reason we are the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes... I don't know how many more times I can say that quickly and articulately... ...is because you guys are listening. We really appreciate you.

We really appreciate and enjoy giving back to the SEO community. And you guys can actually give back to us. And more than just viewership, you can actually stalk us. On Facebook, Twitter. Facebook, Twitter, Ustream, YouTube. Paul's a little bit under the weather. Here in Houston, I don't know if you guys have ever been in Houston or in this type of time of the year, there is a yellow sheen on pretty much everything. So we're going to say that Paul has allergies to the pollen that is... They say if you've never had allergies before and you moved to Houston, if you're ever going to get them, you're going to get them here in Houston. Oh, I definitely do. Like a Mack truck. So you can follow us on Twitter, E-WebStyle. Actually, you go to Twitter.com slash E-WebStyle. There is no dash in that. Or you can find us on Facebook. The easiest way to find us on Facebook is to go to E-WebStyle.com slash Facebook. That will forward you to our Facebook page. We still don't remember what to call it. Is it a group? Is it a business? Is it whatever kind of page it is? But we do know there you can become a fan. It's a fan, right? I said it confidently. They're changing it to like. Okay. You can like us. The become a fan link. I just read this like yesterday. Oh, it can be like. I'm changing that to like. Like. I like this. I like this. So you can get on Facebook and eventually tell everyone you like us. In order to catch the video cast, again, live Fridays at 9.15 Central Standard Time, all you need to do is go to E-WebStyle.com slash Ustream. And we also do cut up these videos, put them on YouTube, and you can find the easiest way to find that page, again, is E-WebStyle.com slash YouTube. I'm trying to rush through this because we've got a lot of good information. Um, I think that's it on that. How about a little news?

Uh, I. Google, China. Well. I'm getting sick of it. Well, and we can still talk. We have mentioned this before, but the iPad is supposed to be coming out this weekend. It's not out yet? Yeah. No. As much as they talked about this, I got figured it was out. Yeah. No, it's coming out this weekend. And one of the points that, we were talking about this yesterday, one of the points you made, which was pretty interesting, like, why do you think the iPad isn't going to make it? The keyboard. The keyboard. Well, here's. Or lack thereof. Here, I looked up news today, and here was interesting statistic number one. I don't know. I just made it number one. Touch screen phones have the edge. So, touch screen phones ranked 40% higher than phones with a keyboard. I definitely agree with that. You've got a touch screen phone, haven't you? I selected that phone just because it had a touch screen. So, maybe that'll translate into the PiPod. PiPod. Yeah, but. PiPoPod. I don't need a phone like this. He's holding up a magazine. I don't need a phone this big. I mean, this phone, like, the phone is just that big. That's just too much. Yeah. That is true. I did read an interesting article. It was saying that you could replace some features, and, you know, when you're getting, you know, when you're getting really down to work, you know, it's probably good for kids. It's going to be phenomenal for kids, because I actually read that they're going to market it to schools a lot. They're really, which is why, I don't know if anyone else ever saw this, which is why Google, excuse me, Apple started to do away with its adult nature apps. Because they're going to market the iPad. Are you referring to the baby shaker? I forgot about that. Like, two or three weeks ago, they started just doing away with all the adult-related apps, because they're saying, we're going to market this to schools. We want this to

be the item that's in school. Educational item. Wow. So they started to clean out all their, they started to clean out the app store. Well, so in that case, whether an iPod will replace a laptop or not is irrelevant, because it's going into a place where they don't exist. That's pretty cool. That's pretty smart. Other pieces of news, I got two quick things about Microsoft. I'm really kind of bored with news today. Microsoft Office for free. Yes, when you get your laptop, you'll have a stripped-down version of Word and Excel. Part of the reason it's stripped-down is item number two, Microsoft was re-suing, a Toronto company sued them, because they didn't want to include XML features that the Toronto company created in Excel, so that's why it's stripped-down, because they lost their lawsuit. Actually, no, it's stripped-down, because, you know, that's stripped-down. And I've got to read this quote. So I'm looking through, you know, you're always looking through other web designers in Houston or whatever, and there's one web designer who literally said, we ain't going to lie. We can probably find, you can probably find a trained monkey who will build a website for cheaper than we can. And all I've got to say is, if you're hiring a trained monkey, your budget should probably be increased a little bit. And we'll just leave it at that. Oh, and I do want to give a shout-out. We're going to exceed Geno time limit here. I want to give a shout-out to whoever is listening to us in Lisbon, Portugal. Hello! Hello out there! If I spoke Portuguese, I would try. I can say this. Obrigado to everybody that listens. Obrigado! All right, awesome! It's the only word I know in Portuguese. It's our multilingual one-word show. Thank you very much. That's it. It's the only word I know in Portuguese. That is good. But since we're kind of giving shout-outs right now, let's talk to, this is a great question. Again, we love your questions. This came in. Look, it's addressed directly to

podcast at e-webstyle.com. It came in. We love it when you send us messages. We will give you a link, love. In this case, we've got, it's from Andrew Martinu. And he starts off, and this is another accolade. I've got to read this. I want to start off, this is Andrew, not me. I want to start off, bless you. I want to start off, he didn't say bless you. That was me, just to be clear. I want to start off by saying that your podcast is not only extremely informative pertaining to search engine marketing, but also very comical and attention-grabbing. I look forward to listening to every podcast for the knowledge and insight that YouTube give each week for free, I might add. So, wow. Andrew, thank you very much. That is a great testimonial. And he goes on to ask for a job. I'm just kidding. He says, he talked, he just got his BBA, Bachelor in Business Administration, and he didn't study SEO, SEM in depth, but he was very interested in it. And his question is, to us, is if we have any advice on how to break into the SEO market, what he's finding is that employees that he's applied to seem to care more about actual experience than a high GPA and genuine passion for the growing industry. You know, and we talked about this kind of briefly, and Paul, what's our thought on that? Who cares what you work to school for? Wow, you're like Simon Cowell today. Your degree isn't anything. I mean, pretty much. So, it's like in this industry, it's what, like I think you said it best yesterday, is what can you do. For me today. Today. Today. Like, what can you get done? How quickly can you get it done? So, Andrew, we're not trying to squelch, you know, squash your desire. I think a high GPA is a good sign of some things. I think that a genuine passion for this industry is obviously great. And if you've got that passion, eventually you're going

to break into it and it doesn't matter. What I would probably recommend that you start doing is you make a blog of some kind and you start actually making sure that in the more competitive the subject matter of the blog, the better. And make sure it's on the first page. So, if you go to somebody and say, look, you know, not only do I have a good GPA so I know how to learn quickly and do stuff, I've got a passion for this industry. My passion is so deep that I started this blog. And maybe the blog is a subject that ultimately you don't really want to keep doing. You just want to have this blog out there and then optimize it and get it on the first page. And you can say, this is what I'm doing, right? Because I recognize that, you know, SEO isn't about book learning per se. You know, a lot of the things that we talk about, I think a lot of the value that we bring to the SEO community is kind of how do we think about things. It's not like, okay, now your keyword is this, insert keyword in title three times and insert keyword in first sentence once. And, you know, there is nothing specifically systematic about it. It's a lot of processes and it's a lot of thought processes. In fact, one of the things we're going to talk today about is keywords. And keywords has, you know, everything to do with logic and very little to do with systemization. And we'll see that here in a second. So, take it up another level and do something on your own. And what that will do is give you, you know, when you're, give you a leg up. When you're in and interviewing, what you can do is you can talk about, you know, this is what I'm doing. I'm so passionate about this. Because you can say you're passionate and you probably are. You're listening to this podcast. But if you've got something tangible

and say, look, this is what I'm doing. This is what I've been working on. Just give me a chance because what I've done for this, I can certainly do for your company. And if somebody knocked on our door and said that, and, you know, that's real experience that you can create on your own. And given the timeline with Google, you can do that in two months. Now, I know you're probably looking for a job maybe a little bit before two months. But if you end up accepting a job that's not really your passion, first off, that's a nightmare. I understand you may need to do that for money. But, you know, advice, just do it for money and understand that what you're going to do is create and do some SEO and bring some tangible evidence of your passion for the industry to whomever you're speaking to. We would love to talk to people who have actually stepped out on a limb on their own because that's a huge sign. Here's a piece of advice. Listen to a podcast. I'm not going to say which podcast. Some podcast. Some podcast and learn as much as you can about search engine optimization and impress people with your knowledge. I do all the time. Not really, but I'm going to say that. You actually impress people around the world with your knowledge. So that's whatever you do, don't start a podcast. Yeah, seriously though. At least not about search engine optimization. And it better not be more entertaining than ours if you do, okay, and less informative. Both of those I would support 100%. All right, so let's talk about the conversation that I had with Google. It's going to be a little bit of a discussion into frustration. It's going to be a discussion into the fact that the salesperson, I don't, at one point I did actually, I try not to do this in these situations because I always, I remember my dad was an, is an Air Force colonel. So it's pretty high ranking

in the military. And I remember every now and then in these situations, it was so embarrassing. He would pull out, I'm a full bird colonel in the Air Force at the grocery store trying to get more better, more better, trying to get better service. And I'm like, really? Like, this guy doesn't care that you, he doesn't give a crap. That's pretty awesome. You did it more than once. Flip that out there, okay. And so I try, you know, I'm on the phone with him and I'm trying to explain some things to him because he doesn't understand. And I'm trying not to, like, pull rank or whatever. And at one point I said, look, you know, the reason that I'm able to, I'm trying to explain this to you, I understand this industry. I am one of the hosts of the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. This is what I do for a living. And so here it goes. As we mentioned, two last podcasts maybe or four podcasts ago probably because it was before we interviewed Ken. So four podcasts ago, which would be podcast 50, I think. In podcast 50, we talked about Google-sponsored local ads. And Google-sponsored local ads is where you can pay $25 and they'll put, like, a little yellow Post-it next to your Google local listings. So that we're all on the same page. If you go to Google, just Google.com, not Google Maps, not Google Images, not Google anything else, go to Google and type in lawyer, comma, Houston, you'll see a section. And it's usually between five and ten businesses that are in the Houston area. In this case, they're lawyers because you typed lawyer. In that, you'll be able to see a couple. And apparently, this program, they're only doing in San Jose and Houston. Interesting collection of cities. And you'll see this little kind of yellow Post-it and then a highlighted, faint highlighted sponsored ads. And it's supposed to make it pop out more and then you click it. And I told you four podcasts

ago that he said our click-through rate for one of our businesses that is listed at this address is PatrickWanis.com. Quit smoking and lose weight. And he said that, oh, you're only getting a 5% click-through rate. And, well, we understand that a 5% click-through rate is actually not that bad. Certainly in advertising, you look at pay-per-click and they're desperate to get, you know, 1%. And so it was actually pretty good. And he wants me to spend money on that. I'm not going to spend it on that one because, again, if somebody is looking for weight loss hypnosis Houston, they're probably looking for a hypnotist in Houston. Patrick is in Miami and he sells CDs. So the conversion from somebody who's looking for a hypnotist to help them lose weight in Houston over to a CD, which is a tough sale, or over to a phone consultation because Patrick can do a phone consultation is also a tough sale. So I wouldn't spend any more money if anything lands on our lap. We'll do that. Then I started talking to him about eWebStyle. He goes, oh, you have another business. You got all excited. Yeah. How many more do you have? Maybe I can get lots of commission today. And so right then and there, I Googled Internet Marketing. And in your case, if you're not in Houston, you'll type in Internet Marketing Houston. And there's no local listings. None at all. So it's just organic results. No local listings. And you do that for any of the keywords that would be relevant to our Google local listing. No local listings at all. And so I'm trying to explain to him that, and I literally said this, you could sell me dancing naked women on my ad. Sold. But that was easy. You don't get to answer phone calls when they're trying to sell us stuff. You could sell dancing naked women on my ad sold. And if my ad doesn't show up, you have sold me no value. I've just thrown money. It's effectively like I've

experienced a dancing naked woman. I've just thrown money away for no reason at all. And so I'm trying to explain this to me. Literally, this took between 30 and 45 minutes. And one of the things that I was hoping he would say is, well, the reason there's no local listing is blah, blah, blah. Which I don't exactly know why there isn't a local listing. Why is there a local listing for lawyers and not for Internet Marketing or online marketing? People are just as apt, even though it's Internet-based, to want to actually shake hands and have a face-to-face conversation with their Internet Marketing guy as with their lawyer. So I don't know why there isn't a local listing. In fact, we were discussing there used to be. At least for SEO Houston, I swear there used to be a local listing. Yeah, so for SEO Houston, there was, and now it's gone. I don't know. Maybe the allergies took it away. Who knows? And that's actually scary, too. If they're going to take away your Google Local listings for your subject matter every now and then, then you're paying $25. Again, you have the Dancing Naked Ladies in the corner, and no one can see them. And it's pretty bizarre. What I was hoping he would say is, once you buy the sponsored ad, then we'll guarantee that Google Local will show up. And then you'll be in that list, and you'll have your little post-it-looking thing. Well, I found one of our competitors in the city of Houston, who is already paying the $25. I found it on Google Mobile Maps. I mean, just Google Maps. And so, clearly, that's not the case. They've already got a sponsored ad. They're not going to get on the front page. So, this was a very long conversation. It was pretty interesting, and kind of one interesting note. You can look up in your local business center, you can look up the number of impressions that your business local ad has had, and the actions. And in our

case, we had 64 impressions and 32 actions. That's exactly 50%. I was impressed with 5. Imagine what I'm thinking with 50. Well, that's actually pretty dang good. Yeah. Wow. What I'm actually thinking is, is they were looking for us specifically. So, they went to Google Maps, and they typed eWeb style. Or they typed eWeb, or most popular SEO podcast in Houston. So, they knew about us already, and they were trying to find us. And when they found us, of course, they clicked us. So, that's not rocket science. That's, you know, and what's the value? I don't need to highlight my ad for somebody who's looking for me in particular. So, I'm going to do that needless to say thing. Needless to say. And I'll say it. We're not going to be participating in the Google local sponsored ad. It's only $25. And, you know, I think we could figure some other better. Maybe Dancing Dekin' Chicks, we could throw away $25. I probably wouldn't spend $25 on that, though. Probably not. You know, I think it's actually, I think the sponsored ads, I think it's a, I think there is some value in it. Specifically what? Like, I think there is some value in it. I can't say specifically what off the top of my head I find valuable in that. But I do think that standing out on the first page is going to be a good idea. At some point, maybe not today, right now, but I think there is some value in it. I just don't think that the way that Google is approaching it is the best way to do it right now. I think it will be valuable at some point, just maybe not right now. Yeah. And, well, part of the value is we always kind of recognized in the yellow pages that, you know, a slightly different ad, however it was different, was, you know, had some advantage because it would stand out. And so having that little post-it and that little yellow highlight is going to stand

out. Now, when all five or 10 of them do it, because it's only $25, you know, eventually, you know what, I want to cancel my $25 because then I'm going to stand out. So you've got people adding them in it. And there's no contracts, unlike the yellow pages. So you can actually, you know, month to month, you can turn it on and turn it off. And, you know, you may play with that. The point that the guy on the phone made is, look, you know your conversion rate now. You could actually just pay $25 and see the conversion rate. So my needless to say may be wrong because it might just be an interesting experiment that we'll do just for you guys. And, in fact, we probably will do that. So we can say, you know. And if anyone else is listening, let us know and has actually taken advantage of it, let us know how it worked out for you or if you're in Houston or San Jose. Yeah, yeah. Let us know. You can send us an email at podcast at e-webstyle.com. I almost forgot. I got a little shout-out. Hopefully he's watching. A shout-out to David Welling. I met him last night at a concert. I went to a one-world concert. I think that was the name of it. It was just amazing. They actually had an Eastern European dance couple. They had flamenco dance. They had belly dancers. And it's a world group. And there was one scene. It was just amazing. I'll be brief. The guy that's playing guitar is an incredibly talented guitarist. And he's playing with an Indian guy on the tabla, which is the small little drums where you sit Indian style. And he looks kind of like a Pakistani Buddha playing these things. And they only move their fingers and make these loud noises. And it's rhythmic, nice noises, not just noises. Loud music. I don't know. It's just noise. It's just noise. Anyways, the concert was amazing. And David was sitting next to me. I

started talking to him. So he's actually a graphic designer. So hopefully he's listening in. David, if you are, great. And also, hopefully he'll come and see my show tomorrow night. I'm actually performing improv here in Houston tomorrow night. The next subject that we have, we're doing, oh, we'll have to blow through this one. So this example is two things. One, how we work here at eWebStyle, because this is a great story of how we do it. And two, the value of keywords and the value of having a company that knows what they're doing helping you in your SEO. So here it is. I'm talking to, it's actually a friend of mine who owns a window treatment business, shades and blinds and everything. And he came over and we're talking about his website, what he needs to do with his website. And we're talking from the perspective, if you're going to do SEO, here are the things that we need to do. About halfway through the meeting, Paul walks in, unprompted. So this is amazing teamwork that we have here at eWebStyle and hands me this page. And this page really changed the whole meeting that I had with him. So I probably didn't thank you enough for that. That's awesome. And the reason it changed the meeting, I don't know if you had a chance to glance at this or look at this, and you want to talk or you want me to just... Go ahead. Okay. So what was pretty interesting was, you can imagine the terms related to Houston... I'm still trying to remember, like, when was this? Like, when did I do this? When was that? Let me pat myself on the back and try to remember when it was. It was with, you remember Juan Paredes, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The window treatments. So, you know, the things that, the keywords that would obviously show up here are going to be Blinds Houston, Shades Houston, Window Film Houston, Solar Screens Houston, and the number one search volume is Shade

Houston. Not Shades Houston, because you actually install Shades, but people start by searching for Shade Houston. And I made the point to Juan right away. Okay, this is a really kind of interesting analysis. If it were Blind Houston, potentially Blind Houston is looking for other services, maybe services for the blind or blind organizations in the Houston area. But Shade Houston, unless it's maybe Shade Tree, can you think of any... I can't really even think of anything. They're just lazy people who aren't typing the S in Houston. So that's the number one search volume term. Interestingly enough, because Google, their keyword analysis tool, tells you what the competition level is for it, and it's zero. So no one in Houston is paper clicking or optimizing for Shade Houston. But it's the number one search term. So this changed the conversation with... It's interesting, right? Why? Well, I can guarantee you, somebody is going to be advertising and paper clicking. Yeah, soon. But it's the number one reason where you really need to know how to use these tools, when to use these tools. And again, this comes back. We talk about real estate is location, location, location. SEO is keyword, keyword, keyword. And here's a great thing where I'm able to tell a client. And he's actually considering using... He's hired a consultant to do some business plan for him, and that particular consultant has contacts and can get a website done for him. And I'm saying, you know, you can get a website, but then you've still got to come back to us and we've got to clean up whatever they've done for SEO. You should just start with us and let us, you know, take care of your website, do it properly, and then focus. And one of the things that we're going to do that they would never know to do is have a page or at least content related specifically to Shade Houston. And if you don't do that analysis up front, then you're, you know, you're swimming up a stream with

no paddle. No, there's no swimming with the paddle. I don't know. You're doing something wrong. And you should call us. Let's see. Do we have anything else here? I mentioned David. Yeah. So that's actually our podcast for today. It looks like we're actually right on time. That's pretty good. So again, you are listening to the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. I didn't tell you this. On Podomatic, two days ago, we were above Mr. SEO. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't see it. So just so you know what we're talking about, our actual podcast, that's the audio portion of this, is actually hosted on a website called podomatic.com. And you could do us a very small favor by going there, creating an account, and becoming a fan, and watching us, and following us on that. Mr. SEO is kind of, it's the first, it's the reason we're doing this podcast. Lots of accolades to him. He did a great job. He hasn't posted a podcast in two and a half years, something like that, for a very long time, which is part of the reason we say we're the most popular SEO podcast, because we're continually producing podcasts he no longer is. On Podomatic, because of his history and because he's one of the first podcasts, he was actually ranked above us in terms of popularity. So I know that sounds counter. He hasn't put out one in like two years. Yesterday I looked and he had moved up one and we had moved down one, which means we were in position one and he was in position two. And so that's, we're pretty excited about that. That's very cool. Take that. You know, it's, yeah. Boom. Boom. Mr. Bellestrino. He's got a jingle. And it's catchy. And it's annoying. Annoying. But good stuff, though. I'll definitely give him his respect. Very good stuff on search engine optimization. Yeah, so now what we're saying is ours is better, right? There's more. We've got a lot more content. We're producing fresh content. He's not talking about Google.

None of his podcasts talk about Google local sponsored ads. I can promise you that. Because it didn't exist. It didn't exist. So basically we're saying we're the bomb. We're the bomb. Yeah. We are the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. Please send us an email. Please follow us. Again, the people who go out, go to iTunes, create an account, and submit a review about us. We really appreciate that. If you're getting any information out of us, do whatever you can. Something, you know, spend like five minutes or something and give us a shout out somewhere. Post us on a blog. Give a link to us. You know, just help us out. Help us spread the word. We're internationally known and we're giving back as much as we can. And hopefully you guys are enjoying it and learning from it. That is the end of podcast number 54. This is the most popular SEO podcast on iTunes. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. And this is Paul Hensley. Bye-bye for now.