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Part 5: 45 Local SEO Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them by Miriam Ellis #389

Ep. 38929 min2017-09-26

Local SEO content and social media strategy requires platform-specific targeting, guideline compliance, and a value-first approach, with social signals accounting for only about 7% of Google ranking factors.

Cover art for Part 5: 45 Local SEO Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them by Miriam Ellis #389
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Key takeaways
learn to be helpful, generous, entertaining, empathetic. And with all of that, you can win loyalty for your brand.

About this episode

Welcome back! Join Matt and Chris as they discuss more “out-of-this-world” SEO tips this week on episode 389.

Questions this episode answers

How much impact does social media have on Google search rankings?

According to a Moz pie chart discussed in the episode, social media factors account for only about 7.24% of Google ranking factors. The hosts warn that if businesses are spending 35 to 45% of their ad budget on social, they may not be getting proportional SEO value from it.

How should small businesses allocate time on social media?

The hosts cite a statistic that 43% of small businesses spend more than six hours a week on social media. They caution that time may not be effectively spent unless businesses first identify the right platform for their target market and commit to genuine community engagement.

In their words

modern customer service must include social media listening and responsiveness.

Host

if you're really out there and you're just putting sale after sale after sale after sale, it's a problem. You don't really want to do that.

Host

43% spend more than six hours a week on social media. So this is where small businesses are spending their time. Is your time effectively spent, right?

Host
Terms defined in this episode
Shiko
A share, like, and follow combined, used by the hosts as a shorthand for audience engagement actions across social platforms.
Guideline non-compliance
Violating a social media platform's rules, such as Facebook forbidding the use of personal timelines for business promotions, which can result in account bans.
Social media listening
Monitoring social platforms for customer messages and mentions so a business can respond promptly, treated in this episode as a required component of modern customer service.
80-20 rule (social media)
A content balance where 80% of posts bring value or engage the community and only 20% are promotional or sales-oriented.

Full transcript is being added.

Matthew Bertram, host of The Best SEO Podcast
Matthew Bertram
AI keynote speaker · Owner & CEO, EWR Digital · President, ModalPoint

Matthew Bertram is an AI keynote speaker, creator of DIG™ (Digital Information Governance), and owner and CEO of EWR Digital. He helps energy and industrial leaders win visibility in AI search (GEO and AEO), is President of ModalPoint and CMO of the Oil & Gas Global Network, hosts The Best SEO Podcast, and has authored eight books including LLM Visibility. More about Matthew Bertram.

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