Local Media Marketing Trends - #SEOpodcast 254

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. I am Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. That picture's looking really clear today, kind of clearer than usual. If you guys are tuning in and actually watching this, let us know if the picture's clear, and we will not explain it, because we can't tell you why it's actually clear if it is. As always, this is podcast number 254. We have a tip from our previous podcast. It is, give options like repeating a previous order and guest checkout on your cart to increase overall purchases. Yeah, you definitely don't want to restrict people in how they purchase. Or worse, you know, give somebody, not give somebody a feature that they're accustomed to getting. You're ordering pizza or something that you kind of maybe get periodically over and over again. The option to log in and see your previous order and get that is extremely beneficial. I do it all the time with Jimmy John's. Yeah. Right? And so you want to... Repeat, exactly. Give people those options. And maybe some people don't have the time to register. Maybe they don't want to register. And so let people check out as a guest. Yeah. It's completely fine. At the end of the day, they still bought something. Yeah. So give people those options, man. Yeah, some people really value their privacy. Exactly. I don't want to give you all my stuff. Although I'm going to give you all my stuff. I just don't want you to store all my stuff. Although I know you're actually going to store all my stuff. I just don't want to say I know you're storing it. You know what? I just don't want to enter a username. Exactly. I mean a password because usually the username is email. So, you know, allow those lazy people to, you know, do what they want. Please remember, we're broadcasting live from Houston and we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers where our mantra

is. Don't be a douche. By the way, when I say friendly local neighborhood, I really mean in the 83 different countries we've been downloaded in, not just here. Yeah, we mean your friendly local neighborhood. Exactly. If you can and you have some sort of device, we'd like you to tweet and Chuck will run you through what we'd like you to tweet. Just to tweet exactly what you see behind us if you're watching, right? If you're not watching, then tweet this. Hashtag Best SEO Podcast. That's incorrect. Hashtag SEO Podcast. Be sure to tag us in it. At eWebStyle. At Best SEO Podcast. This is number 254. Woo! And so, man, we're moving on through them. Yep. So, yeah, do that for us that way we can follow you back and do all of our social networking stuff. If this is the first time that you've listened to this podcast, welcome. Thank you for joining us. We'll get to the meat of the podcast really soon. Yeah, set aside about 30 minutes, you know, get a cup of coffee and... Enjoy. And tweet, by the way. You should also do that. If you've listened to more than one podcast, please do us a small favor. We ask you to do four favors. I've been saying three for quite some time and actually mentioned four. I'm saying four. One of them is real simple. Well, it actually has three steps. And that's go on to iTunes, create an account, write a review. Please make that review five stars because we really like five-star reviews. We'll read them all, but we really like the five-star reviews. Next, you could go on to Stitcher.com. Yeah. Find our podcast. And didn't we find some easy way to do it? Or are you kind of with a really smart idea last time? I forgot it. Anyway, do Stitcher.com space SEO podcast and we'll probably come up. I don't even remember what it was, though. It was brilliant. You should go back and listen to the last podcast to figure out the easiest

way to get to our Stitcher page. Or you could just Google. Oh, yeah. Go to ewebstyle.com and click on Stitcher. Oh, there you go. Yeah. It's right there. That's pretty easy. It's in the sidebar. Yeah. Please make that review five stars. We got a new Stitcher review, so I'm pretty excited about that. Okay. Next, you can go to our G Plus local page. And we've made it really easy to get to our G Plus local page. All you have to do is go to e-webstyle.com slash Google Plus. Or slash G Plus. Or slash Google Plus. Or slash G Plus. Google Plus. We got them all. Yeah, G Plus and G Plus. I've got to be honest, I wasn't paying attention. And then I got confused, and that's because I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, Google Plus spelled out, and then Google Plus with the plus sign. With the G and the plus. And the G plus. And then, yeah. Cool. So go on there. I think I said that they were. Three things. Yeah, there's three things. I can neither confirm nor deny, because I actually wasn't paying attention. That is bad improv, by the way. There are three things that you can do when you get to our G Plus local page. Chuck, what are those? Man, do us this favor. First off, give us that five-star review. Five-star. And then after you do that, man, put us in a favorite circle, and give us a plus one. Excellent. The other place you can leave a review, and we'd love it if you would do it, and you can actually leave questions and haunt us and stalk us. We'll talk about that in a second. On our Facebook.com slash e-webstyle page, you can find a place to write a review and add a review there. Or send us a question or a comment. We got a comment. I don't know if you... Yeah, I got a question. Move called in. I don't know if you... Remember, I sent you that comment. I don't know if

we're going to talk about that one today. Oh, yeah, I'll address that. You mentioned that. Cool. And that's really all of that. The way you can haunt us, stalk us, harass us, all of that good stuff. Facebook.com slash e-webstyle. YouTube.com slash e-webstyle. Twitter.com slash e-webstyle. Instagram.com slash e-webstyle. There seems to be a pattern. Yeah. It's pretty consistent. You'll notice we don't mention our G Plus Local page because it's not Google Plus Local Google.com slash... Yeah, it's going to be plus e-webstyle SEO. But then it has to be like, yeah, the easiest way, we already covered that. If you are a PHP expert or a WordPress extraordinaire guru and you'd like to work with us, we'd love to hear from you. Yeah, call us. Call us. There's an audio resume process. The phone number is 713-510-7846. We have a referral program. If you have a referral, you send them to us. They're SEO. They pay their bill because we just don't do carpet cleaning. I'm just letting you know. And they pay their bill. We will pay you. Get a free website analysis on our website. We had somebody call about one today, right? Go ahead and go to e-webstyle.com and you will see our free website analysis form. Fill that out and we will get a website analysis to you. We have our favorite. Eventually, yes. And if it's pressing and you really are about to make some decisions, go ahead and give us a call. We'll bump it up in the line. That's what we've been doing lately as we're trying to get caught back up. And now for our favorite segment, the algorithm cataclysm. Oh, yeah. I almost fell over. Yeah, yeah. So, we've got a few different algo cats today. More than one? More than one. Okay. Yeah. Actually, three. Okay. A few. Three is the number today, isn't it? Apparently, huh? So, this one here is actually kind of big, I think. It was a new search update. Okay. But it affects, it's affecting search results, which is why we called

it algo cat. Right, right. But it's not a named algorithm per se, but they did say that they're going, they're releasing an update that's going to downrank piracy sites. Okay. So, all of these sites out here that are, you know, illegal downloads for music and movies and games and things like that, they're changing their updates to target these specific sites and derank them. More importantly, well, not more importantly, but also, they're also applying the same technology to the, I wrote it down. I just didn't want to have to read it. The autocomplete section. Okay. And so, you know, suggested searches and things like that. Those will also stop showing pirate-related sites. Oh, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. Right? Why would we remove it from search and still let you search it? You know what that really means? You know the old joke, the best place to hide a dead body? Second page of Google? Yeah. Right? So, that may no longer be true, because if they're downgrading, and it doesn't say they're pulling them out of the listing, it says they're downgrading. So, you may move from page one to page five, and people looking for pirates, and stuff, will visit page five, or ten, whatever. If they're looking for something free, they have time. So, it may not be a good idea to hide a dead body on page two anymore. Yeah. I just wanted to throw that out there. So, other aggo cat. Bing. Bing ads. So, you know, they already had a pretty good partnership with Twitter, and so now, they're showing Twitter followers in the search results page. So, you search for eWebStyle. Okay. And our ranking comes up next to our listing. On Bing, it will show you how many Twitter followers we have with our eWebStyle account. Oh, okay. Cool. It's kind of cool. Right? If you want to know the influence somebody has, you know, or maybe the amount of Twitter followers or Twitter engagements, maybe you're actively engaged on Twitter. Right. So, that's important to

you, to deal with a company that's also actively engaged. I think we only have our website linked to one of our Twitter accounts. We should probably link it to both. Probably so. Interesting. Well, it's linked to our main one. And lastly, Google's still testing the mobile-friendly notifications. Okay. So now, if you search a site, and I didn't see, I only saw it on some searches. I didn't see it across all of them. But if you search certain sites in that search result page, Google is going to show you, if you're looking at it on a mobile device, that this site is mobile-friendly, this is not mobile-friendly. And so, you know, that will influence your decision. I think the takeaway from that is, first off, from all three of those, make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. Yep. Make sure that it works well on a mobile device. Yep. That the usability of it from a mobile device is actually there and it's functional. So, and then in regards to the being ads, showing Twitter followers, yeah, sync your counsel with your website. Make sure that all that's in place. And so, that way, they can effectively know how many Twitter followers you have. Exactly. Right? Assuming it's a kind of bigger number. Exactly. You may not want to advertise that you have one Twitter follower and that you never tweet. That just doesn't seem like to be... Might not want to put that out there. Not want to put out there. All right. So, we have a little bit of news. I thought this was pretty cool. MasterCard is partnering with Zwipe. I don't know if you saw this. So, it's a non-contact credit card, right? So, you just wave it in front of it. But it has a fingerprint identifier in the card. So, if you wave my card, nothing can happen. I wave my card, something can happen. It's a big bit. Yeah. It's kind of cool. Zwipe. Zwipe. Great name, too. Another word that begins with Z. You know, you always got

to have more of those. Google's seeking a permission for ultra-high-speed wireless. So, this is kind of in parallel with their ultra-high-speed wired, you know, one-gig transfer rate fiber. Fiber that they're going up. Yeah. So, they're thinking that it might... First, they got to do testing, right? They're going to do testing in California, of course. And then that's loud. Yeah. And then, with that testing, they're going to... They provide high-speed internet to the area. Then, with the Wi-Fi, that's going to allow them to take care of those people they haven't run actual copper to yet. Okay. Yeah. I'm trying to wait to figure out what the benefit was, other than having just really fast-ass wired internet. So, if you're in a neighborhood, it hasn't been wired yet, you know, you can get that ultra-high Wi-Fi connection. Well, and then, you know, I was sharing with my wife the other day that, you know, with, you know, the more technology being used in vehicles, and now how the new cars, especially those new Chevys, that come with... With Wi-Fi built in? Yes. That's kind of cool. Well, and I think you're going to have to be on some sort of network, eventually, for these cars to start driving us and taking us places and doing those things. And so, them, you know, investing in super-speed Wi-Fi, you know, and things like that, I believe, create the foundation for it. Yeah, you really don't want your car as it's trying to figure out where to go buffering. Yeah, you don't want that, you know. Then you get, like, rubbernecking due to buffering. What is that guy doing? I don't know. He's just surfing the web because his car is buffering. That's hilarious. Yeah, he had a bad network. He forgot to pay his bill. Google rejects 58% of right-to-be-forgotten submissions. I just thought that was interesting since we mentioned the right-to-be-forgotten. They had some $600,000 or something. Requests that they get, and they're like, half of that, nope, you don't have the right, apparently. We are not going

to forget you or forget you with regard to forgetting you. Price Waterhouse employee fired because of Comcast. Did you read about this? Dude's name is Conal O'Rourke. He works for Price Waterhouse. He's not even actually an auditor. But he was having billing nightmares with Comcast. And this is not a big surprise. Comcast is notorious for billing problems. We've got one client who has two Comcast accounts, and they continue to apply their payments, despite the notification on the check, to the one account. And the other account goes down regularly. So it's not that big of a surprise. So Conal has billing issues, like three years' worth of billing issues. He's calling or whatever. He suggests that Comcast researched and figured out that he worked for Price Waterhouse and then reached out to Price Waterhouse to get him fired. Yeah. And Comcast says that he invoked the Price Waterhouse name while he was talking to him. He actually called the Comptroller. This is the person under the seat of O. Yeah. He escalated, escalated, escalated, escalated. And then they're saying he name dropped. And then when he name dropped, they called the Price Waterhouse to say, hey, you got one of your employees name dropping to try and get his bill ironed out. Which is pretty bad. Yeah. I mean. It's a little douchey. Really douchey. Comcast, you know, so you get another bad tick on my book. Should he have mentioned it? No. Yeah, douche on his part as well. But he made a mistake. Just fix it. Yeah. Like, just fix it. You don't have to try and get him fired or even let him know what they're doing. Because you screwed up. And he's, you know, maybe not the brightest, you know, sharpest tack in the box. That's interesting. Yeah, that's, hmm. Right? You can see parallels, whatever. He should have never, if he invoked the name, he should have never. I just don't think that people have time to research it. Like, Comcast isn't going to go research it. Let's find out where

he works for it. And do that, yeah. Dude, we know you said it, bro. Like, stop it. Yeah. So, all right. So, we have a little bit of reviews. The reviews. This one is from Anthony Cavins. Punch in the face. By the way, Anthony deserves, like, a couple, a whole p'tuf. But if you want to know what a p'tuf looks like, go on to our. I saw that tweet. Go on to our Facebook page. Yeah. And you will see what a p'tuf looks like. Now, we got a sound and a look. And that look is provided by Anthony Cavins. So, punch in the face to you. And he also wrote a review on our G Plus account. He said, on our G Plus local page, he says, Hello, I've been enjoying your show. I just discovered it this week, but I've already listened to 10 episodes. It was in a bit of a rut. I was in a bit of a rut with doing SEO on my job website, and I've been putting your tips to use. Thank you. Yeah, that's what's up. Punch in the face. Anthony Cavins. Okay, I bet that's my same tip I got here that's on Twitter, too. Yeah. And Cave. Yeah. It has to be here. Yep. And then the next one is on Stitcher. This is Terry Crosby. Remember, we go way back with Terry. Thank you for continuing to be. She said, 15 days ago, punch in the face to Terry. Terry, five out of five stars, so that's a five star. Thank you, Terry, review. Best SEO podcast out there. I've been listening to this podcast for years, and I always learn, smiley face. Man, that's what's up, Terry. Yeah, Terry. Appreciate that. Awesome. Why are we in the punch in the face mood? That one, yeah, goes out to Ant Cave. When he did hit us on Twitter, he said, I just discovered you guys. I look forward to digging through the podcast archives. Cool. And I hit him back. I said, well, look, today

is 2.54. Yep. So you got a lot of work to do. You got a lot of work to do. Exactly. I want to give another punch in the face to Anthony Rojas over at MakeMeBuyStuff.com. Wait, wait, wait. MakeMeBuyStuff.com. That's pretty awesome. MakeMeBuyStuff.com. So he called in, and we're going to do a webinar on his site, but he asked a question. Okay. His question was, how can he tell if his site has been penalized or not? Okay. That's a great question. Anthony, great question. So really two ways. First, you have to kind of figure out what type of penalty, right? So if it's, let's say, a manual penalty, meaning that Google has manually blocked your site due to maybe some thin content or some bad links or whatever it is, then that notification you can find in your Webmaster Tool Setup. Log in, you'll see the messages, and they will tell you why you've been manually penalized. However, if you check there and you don't see any messages, but you've noticed a decrease in site traffic, then you could be facing an algorithmic penalty, which is just your site being affected due to some algorithm change that Google made. And if that's the case, then you really want to go back and research when you noticed a decrease in your traffic. Then maybe find out the number of algorithms that have happened and when and what algorithm it was and what it did. So for example, maybe you noticed a decrease in traffic right around the time a penguin rollout happened. Then likely that decrease happened because you had bad links or something like that. Or maybe it was a panda rollout and you noticed a decrease. Then check your content and check those things. And so I would do that. You can search our podcast. I have to locate that one for you while we went through all of the algorithms. And that way you can know which one maybe affected your site. Your rap would cover that too, wouldn't it? Or at least some

of them. You may have missed one or two. I wonder if I write that though. That's like 2012. Yeah. But I think, remember, they've just been doing updates to those. Yeah. So even if it's been since 2012, most of what they've released has been panda updates and penguin updates. And I think you mentioned, you may not have mentioned penguin. No, I think you did. I mentioned penguin. I mentioned panda. Panda. So those are going to be the two major ones that you're going to want to figure out what iteration of those actually caused that problem. Definitely. Punch in the face. And I guess we'll be talking to him a little bit later. All right. All right. All right. That is the potatoes of our podcast. It's now time to get into the meat. Get into the meat of the podcast. Man, I really love this part here. So I was at Search Engine Land today. Wanted to give a punch in the face to Wesley Young. Wesley Young. Yeah. Wesley Young. Punch in the face to you, man. Great article. He posted an article, 10 trends in local media that every marketer must know. Okay. So not just internet marketers, every marketer. 10 trends in local media that every marketer must know. And yeah, just every marketer. Now, then he goes on to say, what do local marketers need to know as they prepare for 2015? And so this is the trends of what's going to happen next year. And as a marketing person who's focusing on local business, which you should be aware of. Right. Let's take it a step further. I say, since we're an internet marketing agency, let's look at this from an internet marketing perspective. Perspective. Perfect. And so number one, he says, consumers are increasingly dependent on mobile usage. I totally agree. He goes on to say, 35% of aggregate web traffic in the U.S. comes from mobile phones and tablets. So as an internet marketer, what does that mean? That means you should be creating mobile-focused campaigns. Whether you're

doing ads in PPC, like AdWords or AdCenter, or maybe you're doing social ads, Facebook and things like that, make sure your marketing strategy includes some focus on mobile because it's continuously growing. And then I would also encourage you to do social mobile activities. Right. A social mobile activity. Right. What is that? A Foursquare check-in. A Facebook check-in, even. That's a social mobile activity. Encourage those, especially if... Reward them. Right. Yes, especially if you're a retail business, where you have a place where people come and they spend time, and while they're there, they're shopped, they eat, they do something. Foursquare and a lot of the social mobile stuff is going to be extremely efficient and effective for marketing. I always like your story in Starbucks, when you were Foursquare checking in, they're like, hey, Mr. Lewis? No, that was, that was, that wasn't Starbucks, that was... Darn, I gave credit to a multi-billion dollar conglomeration. That was Red Robin. Red Robin, okay. That was Red Robin. Check-in on Red Robin on Foursquare, you get 20% off your meal. Done. And the store manager came and found me. That's cool. Yeah, I thought it was awesome. So number two, he says consumers use their mobile devices for payments, and they do, and this is growing. This is growing and growing and growing. And I think the key here is not only just for payments, but as a business entity, for accepting payments. There's a lot of PayPal here, and a lot of Squared, and a lot of that going on. And so, he goes on to say, he named such as O2 Wallet, or ISIS Mobile Wallet, hadn't ever heard of that one. Me either. Passbook, hadn't heard of that one. Square, familiar with that one. Dwala, used that one. Actually, PayPal competitor, they only charge $1. Oh, wow. No matter how much the amount is. Kind of cool. Level up. Go Wallet and Google Wallet, and then, of course, the Apple Pay. And so, you know, I think my message to businesses from an internet marketing

perspective is to update your transaction technology. Don't force people to only be able to pay you in one way. One way, yeah. Give some options, because the more options you have, the more chances you can get paid. Now, it's can't backfire, right? We talk about the story with Jelly, right, and too many options, and so they don't do anything. You don't, you have to be clear and careful in how you present it. Yeah, I think that doesn't apply when you get to the payment side. When you get rid of the ticker. Because they've already made their decide. You've only given them a limited number of options. Go back and listen to a couple of our podcasts. We talk about this study regularly. And so, you've given them a limited number of options, so they aren't overwhelmed by how many options they have. They choose one, and now they're just figuring out how they want to pay. Like, the decision to pay has already been done. Now, you want to actually give them as many options as possible, because I don't, in my mind... You want to present them the right way. You also want to present them the right way. You also want to present them the right way. That's the point I'm making. Group them. Yeah, don't have, like, some long page of, like, Dwala and PayPal and, you know, Google Wallet and iPay. Yeah. Have them gruganized. And by most popular... Have them gruganized. Gruganized. Gruganized. Gruganized. Gruganized. And that's our word of the week. Let's see here. So, yeah, I said make it easy to pay, and I think about this, kind of like an Apple store. Right. You go to the Apple store, you purchase, there is no checkout counter. Yeah. Right? Whoever helped you will check you out right then, and so that's an improvement in how people can transact with them. Number three, he says local advertisers may have many tools available to connect their online and offline worlds. We talk about this frequently, and so I think the

key here for our internet marketers is just make sure you handle the basics. Right. And what are the basics, Chuck, in regards to online and offline worlds? Well, like, for example, receipt tape. If you have a physical establishment and you sell shoes, then on your receipt tape, maybe give people online coupons or a QR code on that coupon. So now they're in store, but they're doing an action that's going to bring them back online. And then you do vice versa. Right. Right? Maybe it's email marketing campaigns or something like that. Maybe you're Facebooking your followers and people who like you with coupons that they can print and do what with? Right. Come back in the store. Come back in the store. Come back in the store, yeah. Yeah, and so you use those things to keep that cycle going, offline and online. In-store, only coupon, off, yeah. Exactly. Online-only coupon. Online-only coupon. That sort of deal. So definitely take advantage of that because users are doing it. Number four, location-based targeting results and more promising customer leads. And we've just, duh, right? Yeah. This is one of those BFOs. You got blind flashes of the obvious. The obvious, yeah. It is what it is. People, especially in regards to local search, if I'm doing for searching for something local and then I'm getting a location-based result, that means that the result is where my locality is, then I'm likely going to convert. He goes on to say, display ads are customized using demographic data or other data in audiences like income, ownership, or age. And so I think from a marketing perspective, and we're talking about the trends going into next year, I think what you have to do is consider the options, right? When you got Foursquare really dedicating that, shifting that whole focus to local search, run ads there. And so that way, if they happen to be, I don't know, at the Walmart down the street from your place where you do oil changes and they're checking in at Walmart, you can

run your ad there, right? Because that's somebody who's driving, they're in the area, and they're close to you. And so take advantage of that. One of the things I put on here, or let's say a car dealership, I'm talking about demographic stuff, right? You realize that you can run ads based on location targeting. So maybe we're targeting a higher-end area, right? So all of your car ads are for Mercedes and Lexuses, and this and that. And maybe if you're targeting a lower-income zip code, then you're targeting a more cost-effective vehicle, Malibus and Impalas, things like that. And so you can set that up, and the key is doing it. Like Google AdWords gave you the tools, Facebook ads have the tools, Bing AdCenter provides these tools to target locations. You just have to take advantage of it. Spend a little bit of time. It's worth it. Or hire an agency. Yeah. Number five, the rise of wearable devices. And this is interesting because it goes on to say, wearable devices are changing business models and how they interact with consumers. And they are, slightly. I think it's going to take some while, a while to be widely adopted. I think that's ahead of the curve. Yeah. It's definitely ahead of the curve. But I think what you should start putting in place, especially for like, again, these retail businesses, places where people are walking through, they're spending time, take advantage of the fact that people might have more wearable technology. Good example. Let's say you were in, let's say, Dave and Buster's. All right. Some sort of recreation place where you can play games. And they normally use a card that you swipe and this and that. What if I could scan something with this barcode scanner that's on my watch? Right. Sort of deal. Yeah. Or maybe I'm walking through Walmart or Kroger, my favorite grocery store, and I need to find the lowest price on this. I can scan it with these devices. The fact that I'm wearing this device means it's more

accessible. And so I can use it for more things. So keep that in mind. Or maybe you're an event. Right. You just need to send notifications. Like we have a Lunch and Learn coming up. Tuesday. Yeah. Tuesday Lunch and Learn. And so maybe you want to send out a notification Monday evening that just makes my wrist vibrate because I'm wearing an Android watch. Yeah. Right. About my Lunch and Learn. So just keep in mind, we're a bit of new technology is coming and there are going to be ways you can incorporate it in your business. We should send out about 2 a.m., right? 2 a.m.? Is that a good time? Lunch and Learn. I'm not going now. Number six. Social media increasingly influences consumer decisions. That makes sense. He says 43% of social media users claimed they purchased the product after sharing it or liking it on Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter. Wow. 43%. I do not fall in that category. So I think I do. I mean, you're more social than I am for sure. I think I do. You know, I'm a Jordan head. Yeah. And so the last pair of shoes I bought, I definitely tweeted them on Facebook. Time to get these. Yeah. And then took a picture after I got them and shared that as well. Yeah. And so, absolutely. And then so somebody else may have liked them and said, oh, I didn't realize they were out and they start getting there. They're in that 43%. Exactly. And so I think with social media, the takeaway is, from a marketing company, is be social. Like, we scream that all the time. Yeah. But, and include ads in your social engagement. Like, that was the first point we talked about. So, you know, you think Zappos, great company, right? Yeah. You know, they visit their site, leave their site, and go to Facebook. Whatever shoe you were looking at, this is the first thing on your wall by the time your Facebook reloads. Yeah. Like, it's that fast. Yeah. And that's

for a reason, because 43% of people would likely convert. And so, take advantage of social ads, because social media is affecting people's purchasing decisions. Number seven, and I like number seven, consumers use, I didn't even know this is what it was actually called, consumers use digital personal assistance to find local businesses. And I was like, no, you don't. Who uses the digital personal assistance? Then I thought about it. Siri, Google, those are digital personal assistance. Assistants, yeah. You know, and so a lot of people use them. Yeah. More than you can think of. And so, matter of fact, 64% of users, such a service weekly with over 50% uses occurring while this user is on the go. Of course. Like, that's the best. That's why it exists. It's like, I'm driving, I should not be typing, need to go to Galleria, whatever, Cheesecake Factory. Close to Starbucks, please. Yeah. Low, cheap Mexican restaurant. People search like that using these type of deals. And so, I think the takeaway for us marketers is, how is your local search set up? Because since these people are on the go, it's a high likelihood that whatever personal assistance or voice search that they're doing is for something local. Right. For something that they're on the way to trying to get and they need it. They're about to convert. That's what they're looking for. So, I think the key is making sure that your site ranks well locally. That you have your local thing set up. If you're a restaurant, that you have it clearly identified on your site and Google Plus page what type of restaurant you are, maybe some menu items, maybe hours of operation, your average cost. And so, that way, when somebody's doing that voice search for a Mexican restaurant that has the best enchiladas off of Highway 59. Right. Right. Then, your information is compatible for that search query and you'll end up being a result. Take advantage of local search and keep, and I think this is a good time to mention conversational

content. Right. We talked about that a few podcasts ago about writing content that really speaks the way people talk. Best restaurant, Mexican restaurant off 59. It's not something we would have put in content. I wouldn't have typed that. But you would say it. Definitely. And so, keep that in your arsenal as you begin strategizing. Number eight, we're almost done. Consumers expect seamless integration and communication across their devices. They do. You know, Chrome does it well. You know, and I think, and that's a browser, but we're talking about consumers. And so, I think if you provide an online service, like, let's say like banking. Right. Right. Like, I love, I bank with Chase, I love Chase, and I love the experience. I think that's why. Because whether I'm on their site, on my desktop, or I'm in the app, or my phone, or I'm on my tablet, my experience is pretty much the same. Looking feels the same. Yeah. My experience is the same. I can find what I'm looking for really quickly. It's fast. It loads up quickly. It's secure and safe. And so, you know, that's becoming a norm. Right. Had I done with anything else, and that experience sucked, like, I don't know, Skyward. Ooh, Skyward. Skyward is a tool for, in Fort Bend, ISD that I can use to check on my kids' grades. Right, right. And schedules, and absences, and tardies. So, it's online and app? Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Right. And the mobile version sucks. Like, it's a headache. It's like, I will just wait till I get to my computer before I do this. Yeah. Not cool. So, we expect better. I expect better. Me too. Number nine. Local advertisers and businesses should take advantage of, I like this one, operational and transactional services. I was like, an operational service? Right. What is an operational service? Think Eventbrite. Right, right. That's an operational service. It's an operational service. They're providing an operation. You can buy the ticket. You can pay for it. You can have it emailed to you.

Eventbrite will put it on your calendar. Like, this is an operation part of our business. Right. If we're in the business of selling tickets and promoting events, then Eventbrite is a huge part of our operation. Right. And it's a service. And so, or you think about the Yelp platform. Another operational service. We gather reviews. We present these things. We do advertisement and everything. And so, consider that, that people are using these things. And so, a lot of times, people use them more for personal things, like keeping my calendar updated. Right. Eventbrite is different. I need to know all of my events. So, your users use these things as well. Take advantage of them. Right. And I think the takeaway from that is a lot of times, they're free. Like, Eventbrite doesn't cost to use it. No. Right. And so, if people are using it and it won't cost you, then it makes sense to open up that transaction, which is the other word, transaction service. Right. And so, they can take that payment for you as well. Another payment option. Yeah. And they do a great job. They do a great job at it. It's so easy. And what I was worried about, we threw an event, the timing was off, so we didn't have that many registrations. The refund process was 100%. I mean, it's just, they're doing things right. Exactly. They need to incorporate retargeting and remarketing. Yeah. So, they need to do that. We shouldn't have to add that. Set it up ourselves. Yeah. We should. Interesting. Huh? Maybe we can email somebody about that. And then, last one, number 10. Crowdsourcing and resource sharing products and services are increasing in popularity amongst consumers. So, crowdsourcing and resource sharing. I wonder, what does all this stuff mean? Think about things like Uber, right? Or Kickstarter. Airbnb. Airbnb was the example he used, actually. They allow consumers to rent out their homes and apartments while they're on vacay. Or you think about Uber, right? You just wasted and you need a cab or

you need to get a ride. Somewhere in your downtown. You know, you can, these are trusted sources. And they deliver on the expectations. And so, those things work. Those things work. And so, what you have to do as a marketer person for your business is be aware of those things. Right. These are trends that people are using going into the next year. They're only going to grow. They're only going to be used more. And so, it's up to you as a business and a marketing person to really incorporate those things. So, man, punch in the face to you, Wesley Young. Great article. Wesley. Man, 10 trends in local media that every marketer must know. So, I will say this, which he didn't say, but it's just kind of my gut instinct tells me that most of these newer trends, these are definitely millennials, you know, Gen X's and Y's who are doing these things. Right. You know, my mom doesn't voice search. No. My kids do it like they don't forget how to type. Instinct, yeah. So, yeah. If they, if it mis-cues something and it's the wrong word, they just start over. They just, yeah. They just erase it and start over. We'll try it a different way. All right, cool. Anything else? We've got word of the week. No, well, not really. I think I said one earlier. Gorgonization. Gorgon. No, group. What was it? Grouponized. Grouponized. I like that. And any what? No what news. No what news. All right. Well, you have been listening to podcast number 254. This came immediately after 253. Right before 255. Exactly. We are broadcasting live from 5999 West 34th Street, Suite 106, Houston, Texas, 77092. You guys have made us the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes. And I'm pointing to you, the YouTube guys who are watching us live, and then those people who actually watch our videos later, which you can get at youtube.com slash YouTube. So, until the next podcast, my name's Chris Burris. Bye-bye for now.