#SEOPodcast 282 - Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses

Episode34 min2015-08-21

Multi-location businesses wreck local SEO by neglecting per-location website pages, unverified Google My Business listings, inconsistent NAP citations, missing local content, and unmanaged reviews, according to Search Engine Land.

Cover art for #SEOPodcast 282 - Local SEO for Multi-Location Businesses
Key takeaways
consider 92% of consumers use the internet to find a local business

About this episode

Welcome to the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes, hosted by E-Webstyle! Join us this week as we talk aboutUnderstanding the Different Types of Analytics GoalsLocal SEO for Multi-Location BusinessesWebsite Issues That Ruin Local SEO

Questions this episode answers

Why does every business location need its own website page?

Each location page should carry that location's address, phone number, staff photos, and unique content about the surrounding community. Without dedicated pages, search engines cannot connect the site to specific local searches, and duplicate content across locations prevents any of those pages from ranking.

What is NAP consistency and why does it matter for local SEO?

NAP stands for name, address, and phone. Every mention of a business across directories is a citation, and inconsistencies, such as different abbreviations for street or varying phone formats, confuse search engines and hurt local rankings. The hosts recommend using the USPS website to confirm the official address format and applying it everywhere.

How should multi-location businesses handle Google My Business?

Every location needs a verified Google My Business listing. Until a listing is verified, the business owner cannot correct wrong phone numbers, hours, or categories that Google may display. After verification, businesses should also claim the custom URL for branding and sync the listing with other Google products like YouTube.

What is the best way to get positive local reviews without risking negative ones?

The hosts recommend a structured customer survey process through a third party rather than mass email blasts asking for reviews. This approach surfaces unhappy customers privately so the business can resolve issues first, then follow up for a positive review once the experience has improved.

In their words

ensuring your website, your Google My Business, your citation and reviews are all taken care of on a per-location basis will deliver strong results and in most cases, will deliver strong results in most cases

Charles Lewis

if you are serious about local visibility, then you must also get serious about local reputation

Charles Lewis
Terms defined in this episode
NAP consistency
Name, address, and phone kept identical across every online directory and citation, including matching abbreviations, punctuation, and suite number formatting.
Citation
Every mention of a business around the web, which may feature all or part of the NAP, according to the article by Marcus Miller at Search Engine Land.
Google My Business
A Google product businesses must set up and verify to control how their information appears in Google Search, Maps, and Google Plus.
Local content
Content specifically created to target a local area, such as a blog post about a service job performed in a named neighborhood, including geo-specific keywords and photos.
Read the full transcript (6,248 words · 31 min read)

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. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 282. 282. Right after 281, it just feels like... Before 283. I've got to tell you, I'm hungry. Hungry? Two ways. I'm actually starving because I didn't eat lunch yet. Me either. It's about 3 o'clock. 3. Is it? 3. 46. It's late. So I'm hungry. You're hungry. I'm also hungry to do a podcast. I know. We missed like three weeks of doing a podcast. You know, you start jonesing for that, oh, I've got to talk about SEO. There's things happening. It's still happening. There was an algorithm that happened. There was a lot going on. And just due to vacations and summertime and transitioning from school to summer and new hires and everything else, we've been out of pocket for a minute. And we're back. All right. As always, there is a tip from our previous podcast. And that tip is when content marketing, understand the different types of goals you have. Yeah, exactly. Anytime you're doing any form of internet marketing, in this case, content marketing, you usually set a goal, right? And so the key is, or the problem most people have is that they don't understand what that goal is. Maybe your goal is to, I don't know, increase your social media activity. You want more followers and more likes. Or maybe your goal is to guide someone down a path where they request a free quote or a consultation. Whatever your end goal is, make sure your content marketing speaks to that goal. It drives people down that funnel. So if your goal is social media engagement, then your content should use words like follow us, like us, and highlight the benefits of being social with you guys. Or maybe your goal is a consultation or a phone call. Then your content should highlight the benefits of contacting you and the reason

they should do it. Absolutely. All right. So that is our tip from podcast number 281. We are broadcasting live in Houston. And please remember, we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers. You got it out there. I tried to. You did. Yeah. You still did it, actually. So we've got a good article for you today. And that article is. Man, the top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses. I thought this was important. Yeah, because we got a couple new clients who have multiple locations. I was punching the face to my ship and about to move to another location. And so this article is for you guys because this is something we'll be talking about over the next couple of weeks anyway. So punch in the face to Marcus Miller and the guys over at Search Engine Land. We'll dig in a little bit later. Excellent. If you're in a position to, you have some sort of device, you're probably the device you're listening on. What you should do is tweet now. And they should tweet. Tweet hashtag SEO podcast. This is number 282. Be sure to tag us in it at eWebStyle at bestSEOPodcast. That way we can follow you back and do all of our social networking stuff. Cool. So you know that we're running a little quote unquote contest. That if we get more than 10 likes or followers or whatever on any one of our social media platforms, then we'll skip this section. I'm going to make an executive decision and include this section since we missed a podcast. Missed three. Whatever. We did have a huge jump in our best SEO podcast followers. I know. I didn't even complete following everybody. It's like 80 years. I was following for the last hour. Yeah. I just stopped. I said, okay. We have to get back to work. Unlooshed one of our social media guys on that Twitter campaign. And it's working. So if this is the first time you've listened to this podcast, hi. Welcome. Thank you for tuning

in. Howdy. Howdy. If you've listened to this podcast before, then you know what I'm going to get into probably. What I'm going to get into is how you could help us out and leave us a positive review. There's all sorts of places that you could leave us a positive review. One of the really good ones that we would appreciate is our G Plus local page. 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 Google plus or slash G plus or slash G plus. All of those. We'll take you to our G Plus local page. And we ask you to do three things. Two things. It used to be three. It used to be three. They got rid of one. So now, first and most importantly, leave us that review. Hopefully that review is five stars. Then after you leave that review, put us in a circle. That way we can put you in a circle. You can share some content with us. We can share some content with you. Excellent. If you have an iTunes account, you tend to listen to iTunes account and listen to us on iTunes, then you can do us a favor. That has three steps. Go on to iTunes. Step one. Create an account. Step two. Thank you. Write a review. Step three. It's only three steps. And we really would appreciate it if you made that review five stars. Next, on Facebook. Facebook.com slash eWebStyle. You go there. There's a couple places to write reviews. One of them is the main. I think there's actually a review button. Write a review. Make it. Put it on a wall. Five stars. And then there's also like an app over on the left. You can find that and put it there. Don't use that one. In fact, we should take it off. We will take it off. And finally, this is actually, we should have put it first. It's preferred now. Stitcher. The

easiest way to get to our Stitcher, our podcast page on Stitcher is to go to our website, e-webstyle.com. And over on the right bar, you will see a Stitcher. Click there. Click write a review. And again, make it. Five stars. Thank you so much. And while we're talking about kind of all these platforms, we love it when you haunt us, stalk us, harass us. And you can do that all sorts of ways. One of them is facebook.com slash e-webstyle or youtube.com slash e-webstyle or twitter.com slash e-webstyle and finally instagram.com slash e-webstyle. I almost forgot that one. Did you notice? Yeah, I was waiting. This is my patiently waiting stage for the four profiles. We are missing one. Hey, if you're a PHP guru or a WordPress extraordinaire dude or dudette, we're probably looking for you. Go ahead and submit an audio resume. 713-510-7846. If you want a free website analysis for you, your website, a client, something, just go to our website e-webstyle.com. You will find our free website analysis form. Fill it out and we'll get to that. If you're in a rush, make sure you call us or follow up with an email. Kind of haunt us a little more aggressively or stalk us a little more aggressively so that we can get that done. Now, it's time for our favorite segment of the day, the algorithm cataclysm. By the way, I had to do a little more work there. I saw the camera's a little more sturdier. A little sturdier. Like, oh, it's a little tighter. Cataclysm, wasn't that cataclysmic? Yeah, it was like, eh. Tremors. Which is probably applicable for this type of cataclysm today. So, it wasn't named. Right. It wasn't Panda or Penguin or anything like that. But Google did confirm that they made an algorithm update. Okay. And so, according to the guys over at Search Engine Journal, Google confirmed that this was a core search algorithm update, really just focusing on the quality. Matter of fact, Google, I mean, Search Engine Journal coined it the Google quality

update. And the message from Google's page says, this is not a Panda update. As you know, we're always making improvements to our search algorithms and the web is constantly evolving. We're going to continue to work on improvements across the board. And so, what they did was really make an improvement on the algorithm itself. How it's indexing, how it's presenting information. But it hasn't, they haven't named it. It's not supposed to adjust any rankings. Right. That's what they say. Yeah. And so, we haven't noticed anything. The guys from Search Engine Journal didn't point out anything. So, we'll call it the quality update. Normally, they say it'll only affect 1% and then it turns out to be like 8. Or, no, it turns out to be 100%. Because I don't know if any of you guys watching right now, I know when I log into analytics, my not provided is everything. Yeah. Everything's not provided. And so, it's not just some. Yeah. It's not 3% like they said two years ago. Or, 10% when they say it last year, it's like 98% of everybody's logged into Google. So, it's all not provided. It does highly encourage you to run a PPC campaign. Interestingly enough. Exactly. So, speaking of Google, this was in my news. Oh, yeah. I saw it. Google is hiring an SEO manager. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I'm going to send you some of the memes. They got these crazy memes from all type of SEO people about that. Like, really? Google hiring. So, you need to hire someone so you can rank higher in your search. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the comments that I saw said they were just kind of looking to have a compare and contrast of strategies or whatever. And so, frankly, maybe it's a Matt Cutts replacement type thing. Possibly. I don't think so. Although, it was pretty low level. I think it's more of just a tactic to figure out what we're really doing. Right. So, they hire one, let them work on it and say, oh, this is

how they're optimizing now. Right. And write an algorithm to change all the data. All I've got to say is whoever this new SEO manager is, he really should listen to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. Next, remember, you know Prime had their big, excuse me, Amazon had their big Prime sale today. Apparently, it was a big hit. They said it did better. They said it did better than Black Friday. I heard others. I heard a lot of people, like, with regard to the sales, meh, meh, meh. I don't need that. Yeah. It was a whole bunch of products that no one really needs is what I heard. One of the Google Automated Drive cars was in the first accident that caused an injury. There were actually three people in it. Apparently, all of the accidents that the Google Automated Drive cars have been in have been rear ends, like all of them. Okay. Which is interesting. It's weak. I mean, because this is online, so if it's buffers, I don't know how that works, but maybe it just offers connection and stop moving. Oh, so that's what I was thinking. And so I'm like, oh, that's, well, that's a problem. It's driving too slow in a, you know, a 90 mile or speed. Oh, is there no 90? I need to slow it out. 70? Yeah. The whole description was a car in front stopped, a car in front of it stopped, the Google car stopped, and then the car behind, the Google car didn't stop. And so it sounds legit, at least that one. And then finally, I thought this was awesome. The spam email level, so the, the level of spam in your email is at a 12 year low right now, 50%. And, I almost get a lot of mail. So, that's why we use Google Apps. We're like, what spam? I literally, I don't think I see spam. Well, I'll go, I'll visit my folder periodically, just to make sure nothing went in there, because apparently form submissions tend

to go there. Oh, yeah. So, I'll check spam periodically. But that's, that's the news that I got. We got a little bit of news. All right. So, dig this. You know, Facebook released the, the, the Messenger. Right. Right. Now, they just opened it up, so you don't even have to have a Facebook account to use Messenger. Oh, wow. Yeah, if you have a valid phone number that's in the US or Canada, then you can use Messenger. Okay. I thought that was a great move for Facebook, to get more people using a particular product that's not on their platform, that'll likely lead people to their platform. Right. I wonder if you could have, if you haven't registered your number with your Facebook account, could you have two instant Facebook Messenger? Probably so. Interesting. One personal and one with your number. Right. Interesting. Perhaps. And then my other bit of news is that, so, so Google lost their long-term, long-term search partnership with AOL. Okay. Remember, AOL was always displaying Google search results. Right. Anytime you did a search on AOL. So, they actually, AOL partnered with Bing. So, now those results are coming from Bing. More importantly, which I think was a good move for Microsoft and for AOL, Microsoft was allowing AOL to control all of their ads. That are on it, yeah. Which is, ironically, a swift kick to Yahoo, because Yahoo was in charge of that at first. Right. So, you know, Bing drops Yahoo, wants a new partnership with AOL, and shifts it over there. AOL will take it, yeah. Yeah, so, Yahoo, that kind of sucks for you guys, but, you know, there was nothing new. Yeah. Just saying. There was just nothing new there. It's almost football season, though. So, I'll be back. Don't close. Yeah, I'll be making sure fantasy football is still up and operational. Cool. And that's all my news. All right. So, you notice, no tear tattoo. It usually doesn't happen after we take a week off, and it didn't happen this time. We got an

email. This one was from Tom Morks with InsurgentPublishing.com. Insurgent. He kept it simply. You're right. Insurgent. Did I say Insurgent? Anyway. InsurgentPublishing.com. And he said simply, keep it up. Thank you. Keep it up. Punch in the face to Mr. Morks. Next, on Facebook, we've got one from, I and I spoke with her today, actually meeting with her next week, from Abby Cantoner, England, and it is, Just started listening to you guys and really enjoy the topics. I like how you expand on each of the articles in the meat section with your own examples and ideas. Keep it up. So, maybe she's related to Tom. Keep it up. Keep it up. The theme here. Punch in the face to Abby. I told her that I'd give her a punch in the face. That's a good thing, and she's probably aware of that now. Absolutely. Yeah. She knows that that's a good thing. And next, we've got Arbel Martin, and it was also five stars. Favorite podcast to listen to and some awesome people. A must if you're into internet marketing. Thanks, guys. So, wow. This is going really good. Well, she was supposed to say, keep it up. Yeah, I know. Keep it up. Come on, Arbel. Get on track. Punch in the face to Arbel, to Abby, to Tom. That's pretty awesome. We've got one more punch in the face. This one goes to Karis Chains. Hit us up on Twitter, at Chains for Men. He says, at E-Web Style, love the podcast. Just started listening. Going on to iTunes now to give you those five stars. All right. Appreciate you. Punch in the face. Thanks for tuning in. By the way, we didn't check iTunes today for reviews, because we found some in other places. So, that probably will come up next week. And I believe that's the potatoes of our podcast. Time to get into the meat. Man, so like we said earlier, man, excuse me. I want to give a punch in the face to Marcus Miller, and we're at Search Engine

Land. Posted this article, the top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses. And this is important, because as businesses are growing, we deal with a lot of businesses who are franchising now, coming up with different models, and things of that nature. And so, conquering local SEO for multiple locations is paramount. It's extremely important. And unfortunately, for big businesses, big brands that have hundreds of thousands of locations, it's an extremely daunting task. You need staff to do that. You need staff just for that. And he kind of goes into that in the article. And so, he starts off by asking the question, well, why is local SEO so important? Which is a great question. And he says this, consider 92% of consumers use the internet to find a local business. 92% of consumers use the internet to find a local business. So, I'll add this to it. Consider mobile searches, and I'm pretty sure mobile is included in that, but the changes that are happening to mobile, the series, and the Google Nows, and the voice searches, everything's local. Matter of fact, Google Now defaults to near me. Right. Right? Whatever you ask. Is it a pizza restaurant near me? Car wash near me? Gas station near me? All of those are local searches. And so, your site has to be optimized for that type of information. Right. Your Google Plus page needs to be in sync. So, you can actually rank for those type of searches. So, that's why local SEO is important. So, his first one is website issues. And we're talking about the top five issues wrecking your local SEO for multi-location businesses. Website issues. He says your website is the center of your online marketing universe. You need to get the basics right there and then work out from there. And he's absolutely right. At the end of the day, and I preach this over and over again, the website is the foundation. All your social activity, all your local activity, everything you do is to get people to the site.

Why? Because that's where your conversion happens at. That's where they can get on your remarketing list once they hit your site and everything else. They can subscribe. They can do whatever you want them to do once you get them to the site. So, it is the foundation. The problem is when we talk local SEO and multi-locations is that people either may not have any location pages. Right. Right? Which is, you know, if you have three locations, then you should technically have a page for each one of those locations. And what should you have on that page for each one of those locations? You should have, I don't know, maybe the office operation, maybe the address, or perhaps the phone number that's consistent for that specific location. Right? Maybe pictures of the management and staff at that specific location. You should have all of those things for each location. And each location needs a page on your site. Can't stress that point enough. Each location needs a page on your site. Absolutely. Or, more importantly, maybe you have those location pages, but they're not in the menu. They can't be found. Right? You have to search and find them. Oh, that's a horrible experience for people to be looking for a location that can't find it, only to search and then find it. Yeah. Make it easy to find. Or maybe the page you have created for this location is just poor quality. Right. Dupe content, same images, same stuff across the board. Then these pages don't even rank because they're dupe. Right? And so, you want to make sure that each location's page you have is consistent for that location. I'll take it a step further and say, make sure that that page is not only well-optimized and mobile-friendly, but that it has content specific to that location. Well, what kind of content, Chuck? I don't know, content like maybe the surrounding schools or maybe community events that happen in that area around that location, you should, number one, participate in those events and then

have that content, excuse me, on that page. And so, that way, that page has unique content relevant to the location. Right? So, number one is website issues. That's number one. Number two. Number two. When we're talking the top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses is the Google My Business page. How many people just haven't set it up or haven't verified it or haven't completed it or whatever the issue is? Matter of fact, Miller says, getting set up with Google My Business account is crucial to getting your business information visible in Google products like Search Maps and Google Plus. He's absolutely right. You have to go in, you have to verify it, you have to go through the process, either verify by phone or send a postcard or do something. Right. But you have to verify this page. It is extremely important that you verify this page. I'll take it a step further and give you a pro tip. Go ahead and take advantage of the custom URL that will happen or that opportunity will happen after you've verified it. Right. So, then you end up with Google Plus your company or your top keyword or whatever you're going to go for. Or it should be your company name. It's a great opportunity for branding. So, take advantage of the Google My Business is the only way. Well, I won't say the only way. But what you don't want to happen is someone to do a local search and your Google Business page shows because you have one. Right. Whether you verified it or not, you have one. And the information is incorrect. Right. The phone number is wrong. The hours of operation are incorrect. Or the category is not right. And so, the information that people are seeing for you is invalid. And you can't change it until you verify that page. So, Google My Business is important. You must set that up. You must verify it. And then update it. So, I'm going to do slightly off-topic and very similar. And this

is one of our clients. They actually had a YouTube on their website. And if you haven't verified your YouTube account, you end up with only three options for the thumbnail that displays in the static webpage. Right. And this particular client hated the options. They were either unrelated or they were an unflattering picture of her or just a bad image of pre-construction instead of post-construction. And so, we actually had to go in and verify the account so that we could upload our own specific thumbnail. So, verifying any of the Google products is a step you need to take. Well, and here's another pro tip since you brought up YouTube. Yeah. The benefit to first verifying your Google Plus page and then verifying your YouTube channel under that Google Plus page is, number one, it makes them in sync. Number two, which I probably shouldn't share this, but I will because I love you guys. When you do that, that allows you to create external annotations on your YouTube video that you can link back to your site. That is a pro tip. Man, people ask me that all the time. Oh, Chuck, man, how did you get your video to link back to your site at the end? By the way, video guys. Video guys ask this question. And it's easy because I verified my Google Plus page and synced it with my YouTube page and then used the same domain name. And so, now, at the end of my YouTube video, I can create an annotation or a link back to my page on my site. By the way, if you don't read between the lines, I can't create an annotation on a YouTube page somewhere else. Nope. It's got to come back to things that have been verified. Exactly. So, that's another reason you want to verify your Google My Business page and, of course, set up your other Google products like YouTube and Google Plus with it. And verify those. And verify those. Number three, we're talking top issues, wrecking local SEO for

multi-location businesses. Number three is citations and NAP consistency. NAP being name, address, and phone. He goes on to say, every mention of your business around the web is known as a citation. Citations may feature all or part of the NAP. And he's absolutely right. There have been times where you may see on, let's say, CitySearch, you may see eWebStyle with our address. Or eWebStyle.com and then eWebStyle. Yeah, exactly. Then you go to another directory and it says eWebStyle Internet Marketing with our address. And then you go to another one where we've actually addressed these issues. Right. But we see them all the time with other companies. And so, you want to make sure that at the end of the day, your profiles are consistent. The company name is the company name. The address is the address. The address, the phone is the phone. I mean, down to where if you use parentheses. In the phone number. In the phone number. Then use parentheses everywhere. Yep. If you use Sweet 106, then use Sweet number everywhere. If you use a pound sign or a hashtag, then use the hashtag everywhere. If you abbreviate street, then abbreviate street everywhere. The key is making it extremely consistent. Another pro tip for you guys. Search your address on a United States Postal Service website first. And then the address that they return with, they'll usually return and say, is this the address you're looking for? And it includes the zip and the other identifiers and the proper street abbreviation name. Take that one. Yep. And use that one. And use that one across the board. So, he's, yeah, and I added this. The same info on G+, on Yelp, Angie's List, and any other directory that your company name is mentioned on. Your name, address, and phone just need to be consistent. Period. Oh, that was number three. That was number three. Number four. Four. And we're talking the top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses. Number four is local content. And this is, a lot of

people forget about this. You were jumping ahead, weren't you? Well, I read the article. But local content is important. He says, throwing out clear location signals is easy when you have a single location. But when you're looking at businesses with hundreds or thousands of locations, then things can get a lot more complicated. And he's absolutely right. If you're a Burger King or McDonald's or somebody who has, you know, a hundred locations on this block. In this zip code. In this zip code, exactly. Then your local SEO is going to be a little bit more difficult. You may not have the proper resources to do it effectively. And so, we suggest some local content. Well, how do you come up with local content? What is local content? Content is, local content is content that you specifically posted targeting a local area. And so, maybe you were, let's say you provide a service. You're an AC repair guy. And so, you went to, let's say, Northwest Houston and replaced an AC with the, you replaced a Goodman AC with the train AC. Whatever you did. Right? That's your local content. So, you take that same process. You should take pictures while you're there. Yeah. Make you a blog post about, I don't know. Replacing an AC in Northwest Houston. Right? You got your geo-local tag there. You got your main keyword AC replacement there. And the content for that page is how you took out the Goodman, replaced it with a train. How you had to change out a filter and do some stuff with a coil and add a new blower. Whatever you had to do. Some before and after pictures. Some bullet items about what you did. Now you have a really quality blog post targeting a local area using your main key phrase. That you serve. That you serve. This is local content that's on your site. And so, now. Now, here's that other pro tip. You know, you want to blog about these services. After you've done this, share them socially. Share them

on your Google Plus page. Put these things where people can share them, where people can see them. More importantly, where Google can index them and see that, hey, this content is relevant to this site. It's on the same domain name. It's targeting a specific location. And now you have local content that actually supports your whole local marketing initiative. Not only that. I'll say this. For those who may not be providing services. Maybe you have a retail establishment and everybody comes to you, right? Then it's going to be in your best interest to get engaged in your community. Whatever's going on at the local school. Whatever's going on at the local church or the local grocery store. Have events at your location if you can. If you can and invite people out there. Or if the school is having an event, go support it. Go sponsor it. Go donate something. Yep. Why? Well, they'll likely mention you on their site. Which is, by the way, a pro tip to get a great link from an EDU site. Yep. Secondly. By the way, buddy up with the person who does the website. So that you can kind of guide how they link back to you. Exactly. Exactly. We're going to start charging out for the pro tip. But when you do that, then your name becomes part of that community. And so now when you create that local content that we're talking about on your site. You have some outbound links you can go to now. And more importantly, the people who read it can be like, I saw that event. I passed by. I seen the jumping thing out there. I saw those people. I didn't know what was going on. Wish I had it known. And you end up with a new subscriber or a like or follower or something like that. Local content can definitely help drive. Your local SEO. Excellent. Number five. Number five. Talking top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses. Number five. He says reviews and reputation. And he's

absolutely right. At the end of the day, once people do finally find you, they're going to check out your reputation. They're going to look at your reviews. As a matter of fact, he says, if you are serious about local visibility, then you must also get serious about local reputation. Building a bedrock of honest, positive reviews from real customers on your Google My Business page and other local business review sites like Yelp help you stand out in the bustling local crowd. And he's absolutely right. I mean, we all have done it. You look up, you know, a service or product and you see two listings. One has five stars. Yeah. And the other one has one. One star. Before you go click on it. Ironically, you'll likely click the one star just to reread it. How are they so bad? Exactly. To enforce your decision to use the five star. Yeah. It sucks how humans work. Yeah. And we do that. But the key is making sure that you're not that one star review, that you had those five star reviews. How do you do that? Well, I added you proactively pursue positive reviews. Yeah. You've got to go after them. Kind of like link building. You've got to go after them. You have to be discreet with it. Of course, you don't want to blind mail everybody and leave me a review because you may end up with a whole bunch of negative reviews. Yeah. Well, I actually recommend against that. Exactly. Don't do that. We've got a service here called CSSR, Customer Service Survey and Reviews, where we actually contact our customers. We do a short survey that we brainstorm with those customers, which is a huge value add, right? And anytime a third party is contacting your customers on your behalf and asking them some intelligent questions about what did they do for that time, were they dressed appropriately, whatever the questions are, that's great. And you get that feedback. Additionally, we're looking for that positive review. So we'll actually push that client

gently to write a positive review for you. And then one of the kind of unsaid benefits about that is when we do ask that survey and this client maybe had a bad experience, this is our opportunity to, A, inform the client, hey, you got a bad, frustrated client. Maybe you didn't know. Maybe you found a frustrated client. Exactly. And number two, prevent them from writing a negative review. Yeah, you don't offer up. No. We don't offer them, okay, we're going to send you our review. Instead, it's more like you're going to be contacted by the owner. What's a good time for them to call you? And so now we're able to take that frustrated client who may have potentially left a negative review, spin them in a positive way, and then contact them again and go for a positive review later. Now that you've had a better experience. Exactly. So in summary, for the top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses, he summarizes by saying, ensuring your website, your Google My Business, your citation and reviews are all taken care of on a per-location basis will deliver strong results and in most cases, will deliver strong results in most cases. Building on this with rich local content and engaging the local ecosystem for each location will only improve things further. He's right. At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, it's not a one-and-done issue. It's not a set it and forget it. This is, you need to maybe hire some staff for this, apply some resources, hire an agency maybe. I like any web style. But you need to, local citations, local marketing, local SEO is extremely important and it's only going to grow more. And so you must stay on top of it because if you don't, you can be that one company that offers a great service, but online have negative reviews and a negative image. And or nobody finds. And nobody finds you. Exactly. So, man, punch in the face to my guy, Marcus Miller over at Search

Engine Land. The top five issues wrecking local SEO for multi-location businesses. Do a great article, punch in the face to you. We'll post the link shortly. Good stuff. Do we have any what news? I don't have any what news. No what news? What? All right. Well, so if you're looking to grow your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, the internet, call eWebStyle for increased revenue in your business. Our phone number is 713-592-6724. Just a reminder, if you have a referral, so somebody who's interested in internet marketing, you're not interested in taking care of them, or you're interested in your, no, that doesn't apply, that's called a customer. Send them our way. They pay their bill. We pay you. Remember, I'm on Blog Talk Radio, Creative Biz Ideas is the name of the radio show. It's live on Monday mornings at 730 Central Standard Time, so please tune in. We were filmed live at 5999 West 34th Street, Suite 106. We are the most popular internet marketing podcast because of all of you all, so seriously, thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Make sure you engage with us. Let's crank it up a notch the last half of this year. Until next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. Charles Lewis. Bye-bye for now. Balance check. Balance check. One, two. Balance check. One, two. One, two. Man, tell me what to do. SEO Podcast 282. Time to get it started. Please pay attention. Talking about local SEO. Don't forget to mention, this is Chris and Chuck, and we're back again. We missed three podcasts, but we still win. So pay attention. This is for the clothes. That's all I got. And this is how it goes. All right. All right.

This episode answers

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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