What is the Google Beacon with Chris Burres and Matthew Bertram #434

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebResults. My name is Matt Bertram, your SEO magician. Check out the shirt. The SEO magician, science is magic that works. I like that. That is actually absolutely true. So, I'm back. I was gone last time. Welcome back, Chris. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was a good trip. Tell us about it. I was up in New Jersey. It turns out that I'm actually a ninja. Really? Yeah, a ninja and a magician. I'm actually a ninja. This is a ninja magician. So, I'm not talking like internet marketing ninja or whatever. True ninja. Our bobblehead for this. The true ninja. So, I took a video with my twins, Alan and Kaylee, on Thursday morning, and I was trying to convince them that I was a ninja. And I told them, I said, look, if I happen to show up someplace that there's no possible way I could show up and totally blow your mind, will you believe I'm a ninja who can use the force? And my son immediately goes, the force isn't real. And I'm like, okay, okay, we can take the force out of the equation. Would you understand that I am a ninja if I show up in this place? And he's like, no, not really. So, no Jedi, but maybe ninja. Maybe ninja, right? So, what I did is I drove my, because my wife and kids were going on this trip, they already had it planned, and then I bought a ticket on the same plane. So, I drove them. I dropped them off. I parked the car, right? They didn't know I parked the car. I got on the plane that they were on, incognito. I got off the plane that they were on, incognito. I got into the brother-in-law's car that was picking them up. I hopped out of the brother-in-law's car and said, hey, welcome to New Jersey. And they lost it. I'll post the videos up on Facebook. Yeah, you

recorded the whole thing, like the series. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty awesome. It's pretty cool. So, it turns out that now my son believes I'm a ninja. So, that is really cool. So, it's good to be back. Apparently, last time, it was a one-hour podcast, and I think you participated in half of it. I had a meeting, and I left, and they just kept going. It was awesome. It's like when the cats are out, the mice will play, right? Yep, yep. Very cool. Hey, we are broadcasting live here from Houston, Texas. We do have a tip. So, our tip from our previous podcast is... When creating landing pages, have a clear call to action. This is the most important part of your landing page. Now, there's a bonus tip. A bonus tip. Okay, yeah. Make sure the landing page design matches the rest of your website, and you spelled website without an E. Sometimes you've got to... It's special. It's fast. You've got to be typing faster. So, yeah, a call to action is one of the most important things on your landing page. There's a number of others, but if you don't have a call to action, like why are you even bothering sending them there? Yeah, what's the point, right? Don't send them there. Send them someplace else where there's actually a call to action, and you can generate some value from it. So, we're going to add in our kind of resources section... Right. ...our landing page checklist. Right. So, everybody can get a copy of it. You can download it. So, check that out. We'll have that posted this week. Very cool. Yep. Very cool. So, that is our tip. Subscribe, follow. Boom! I don't know. I think that was probably too long for the videos that get out there. Listen, remember, we are filming live here in Houston, Texas, and Matt and I, we are your... Results Rebels! I want to jump into this review. The review... The title is Clever and Inspiring, A Must Listen. This is from N. Paulson.

Punch in the face to you, Mr. Paulson. Matt and Chris's interviews are concise and compelling. Truly allowing the listener in on what feels like a personal conversation with some of the most successful minds in SEO. Absolutely recommend listening and subscribing to SEO Podcast Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. Punch in the face to you, Mr. Paulson. Appreciate it. Yeah, we love what we do. That's just... Apparently, it comes through to 99.99% of our audience. Well, you know, we do want to apologize for the sound discrepancy sometimes with the volume. So, we're working on that. So, we took note on that. Yeah. So, apparently the music, the intro and extra music were a little bit louder than the audio. Yeah, and that happens actually on a lot of podcasts. I have to turn it, like, way down and then I turn on... Way up. Yeah. So, we're working on that and that happens on a lot of podcasts. So, we hear you and we're working on it and we will have a new studio soon. Yes. New studio. Are we going to have a live studio audience? Is that something... Well, I mean... We're going to put events out there. It'll be a co-working space. So, like, I mean... People will show up. Yeah, we will have hundreds of people there. Very cool. If you're coming back again, you're probably interested in the tips that we're giving to you. You might be interested in five online marketing mistakes that can take your business and how to avoid them. That's actually not on the resource page yet. Okay. We've already created the logo. I think it's up. But if you're catchy, you've got to refresh. Okay. You've got to refresh. Yeah. There might be some cash out there. Yeah. Also, just go to resources mini guides. Yeah. Mini guides. And we've got a ton of stuff in there. Yep. Yep. We got the... Yeah. Yeah. Today... So, what we're going to talk about today is a beacon. Maybe you've got one of these in there. Yeah. This is

not Google Checks. This is about check size, right? I was like, hey... Google sent us a bunch of checks. No. Google Creditor. That is not what that is. It's actually a Google Beacon. We're going to talk about Google Beacons today and why you may or may not want to use them and all the ins and outs of that. For all you YouTubers out there, check it out. So, each week we run a contest. And the contest has two components. One component is, did we get a review in the previous week? The answer is, yes, we did get a review. All right. We also have, did we get 10 shikos? A share, a like, or a follow. And when you give us a shikos, there's a particular sound that you should hear resonating in your head. And that sound is, shikow! And so, when you do a shikos and you hear that sound shikow, if we get 10 of them and we get a review, then we actually push the part where we tell you exactly how to leave us a review to the back of the podcast, I mean, to the end of the podcast. We are moving that to the end today. So, punch in the face to you for all your shikows. Yes. Then we get that. Matt and Sen, if you would like a website analysis, a comprehensive website analysis, just go to ewebresults.com and click the website analysis. Yeah, we're over on, we're at $150 value, right? And then we have a slide-out. Yeah. We're all over the place. Yeah. It's all new and faster as of today. Yes. So, yeah, I know Matt was like, this is great. Our website is down. I'm like, it's down for a reason. We took it down because we're making it faster. And they're like, okay, that's acceptable. All right. So, let's jump into this. Maybe you got one of these in the mail the other day, right? So, if you're watching YouTubers out there, thank you for watching on YouTube and subscribing. Maybe

you got one of these, right? And it says Project Beacon. It actually has the activation code right up there. And then you open it up, and we actually had to tear through this section, and out comes this beacon that Matt was showing earlier. This is a beacon. It's a blue, B-L-E, or a blee, or bly. Well, you know, I mean, they're based on everything on UK, so I mean. Bly. Yeah, blah. Blimey. Blimey, it's a beacon. UK listeners, let us know how to say it. So, it's Bluetooth Low Energy, right? So, it's a device that they say will last for years. You need to go in, and you set it up. And walk them through the setup. How complicated it is. So, it was incredibly easy. Very easy. There's like four or five questions, and I think half of the questions were because they were asking the questions about the process. So, I was going to get a bottle of water to sit down to go through this process, and by the time I got back, Chris was like, it's already set up. I was done and away from the desk. I was like, what happened, Chris? What are we doing? It's done already. Yeah, because it was really like two questions, and then a bunch of questions about how hard or easy those two questions were. How did you find this two-question process? I've found it incredibly simple and easy. In fact, there are more questions about the process. Anyway, so that was great. We got this. We actually got this a while ago, and really kind of didn't do much with it, didn't think much about it. Like, we're kind of excited when Google sends us stuff. And then, this week, we got an email from a client that was like, hey, I got one of these beacons. What do I do with it? Is it like, where do I, like, what do I do with it? We're like, we got one too. Good. We need to look into that. So, we decided

that we wanted to do a podcast today about the beacon, this beacon project. And we're like, yeah, we're like, just, we're busy. So, we were like, we've got to make time for this. This is important. Yeah, yeah. Like, and we want to stay on the cutting edge, so we want to do a podcast to let you know what we're finding out. So, what might you ask is a beacon? And a beacon is kind of the best example that we've seen steadily. And, in fact, Google has kind of given it some of the nicknames or surnames as it relates to the beacon, related to, like, lighthouses. Right? So, a lighthouse is out there. It's kind of scanning data. So, it really is emitting some data, and your phone can pick it up. Right? Yeah. And so, when your phone picks it up, it's a much more precise way to understand where you are. So, imagine you're in a mall, right, and you're walking through the mall, and say one store, well, first off, let's say there's no beacons. Okay. Google and your device know you're in the mall. Right? Okay, yeah. And they know within about 11 feet. Okay. If there's reception in the mall, how often have you been in a mall and they're like, there's no reception? For some reason, I feel like Lowe's and Home Depot, there's really no reception. They want you shopping. They want you, yeah. They don't want you, it's called showcasing. You go into the store, look at what it is, and then go, I'm just going to buy it on Amazon. Yeah. They don't want you price shopping. They want you checking what's at the other store, if you're in Lowe's, at Home Depot, or vice versa. But, so, imagine you're in a mall, and you don't have signal, but there's a beacon there. So, now your phone, and the beacon is actually transmitting some data. So, it's not just saying, hey, you're here. It's transmitting some data. So, hey, you're here. And now, your phone understands exactly

where you are. So, that's kind of amazing. Yeah, it's a little creepy. That's amazing, and creepy. So, the really good example is if you saw Minority Report. Yes. It's a really good movie. Uh-huh. And, in Minority Report, they show, like, these custom ads that are showing up as people, right? So, yeah. I think that that, what is it? Not virtual reality, but augmented reality. Augmented reality, yeah. Right? So, you'll wear the Google glasses, and then you'll see, like, coins, and you'll be like, oh, what's, you know, new coffee is just rude. Right. Perfect example. No, Pokemon, yeah. Yep, yep, yep. So, with Pokemon, you can imagine, hey, maybe a beacon is not just a place where you can find coins or find more Pokemon. I think they were called, what were they called? They were, like, training centers? Training centers, right? So, then you could have, like, a more refined one, and so you have to be a lot closer to it. So, anyway, you get the idea. In the mall, it's a lot harder. Now, if every store had these beacons, then your phone would know exactly what store you're at. Right? Yeah. And you can define how far the beacon broadcasts, the farther it broadcasts, the shorter the battery life. But it really is low Bluetooth energy, so it doesn't really matter. The technology Google is calling Eddystone. So, Eddystone, if you know what an Eddy current is in, like, a river or a stream, is where the water just kind of circles, so you can identify where you are. And then, apparently, you were saying that it's a lighthouse. It's a lighthouse in the UK, yeah. In the UK. So, that's kind of the... There's two, it's, like, double... Double meanings, right? Double meanings, yeah. And then, I don't know if you guys know this. I probably knew it, but didn't kind of register with me. Okay. The iBeacon was put out by Apple quite some time ago, and apparently, it hasn't really been adopted well. I think, they think mostly because

it only works on the iPhone. Well, so the thing that I think about when I think of beacons is the beacons that broadcast text messages when you walk by them or drive by them. Right, right. It's like those, like, random ads you get of, like, 10% off when you go near places. I think, really, for, like, venues. Yeah. Like, concerts or conferences. Like, I think beacons have... A lot of value. Yeah. So, Apple came out with this iBeacon. Nothing's really happened for it. It works in an Apple store. Yeah, that's true. It works at major baseball league stadiums, right? I didn't even know that. I haven't... Don't go to that many games. And I don't have an iPhone, so it doesn't really work for me. So, that's the technology, kind of old school. Now, it's coming out. There's lots of beacons. It turns out you can buy... Yeah. You can go on Amazon. You can buy beacons, and they can do certain things. One of the things that you would need to do to take the absolute most advantage of the beacon is to actually have an app that's already on the user's phone, right? So, because then your app could be listening for beacons, and when it sees, hears those beacons, now it could react in very specific ways. Already, it can, like, pull up a URL. You can kind of train it to do those types of things. Ask for reviews. So, imagine... Could you build a custom list from a beacon? You can build all sorts. Yeah. It's just... Imagine how you would like to interact with somebody's phone when they're at a particular physical location, right? So, what if you went in, like... So, okay. So, say you're a veterinarian. Right. Just go put a beacon at, like, low... Or at, uh... Just drive one out there. Petco, Petco. That's interesting. You know, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of applications for this outside the scope of... So, it wouldn't surprise me, because one of the caveats to you...

So, let's say you don't have a beacon, and you'd like to get one. You can actually go into Google and request one. Yes. It's not 100% that you're going to get one, but you're certainly not going to get one if you don't request it. Yes, that's true. Well, no, I'm just thinking, like, not the Google Beacons, I'm thinking the third-party Beacons, that pool data, right? Because it's pretty creepy, but I mean, also, you could push data or capture custom lists in different locations to use for, on the Google network, maybe for 540 days. Yes. Interesting. I don't know. So, yeah. So, you get the beacon, and what I was saying, at least with the Google Beacon, you have to have a physical location where people will visit you. Yes, that's true. And so, I'm sure that they have some kind of tie-up, look, you can't just take your eWeb beacon and put it at XYZ conference and, you know, collect data or hit people. Interesting concept, though, right? There's probably some way to do it. Well, you know, so the beacon does broadcast, like, ask you to leave a review. Right. Ask you to upload pictures. So, really broadcast links, because really, yeah, leave a review as a link. Yeah, and so, I mean, I think that that's, I think that that can really impact, like, your SEO or your Google My Business. Yep. I personally think, right, and I was scouring the internet for this, but I, you know, no one was actually claiming that it was going to, like, directly help SEO. Right. But I believe anything, and this is just, I'm going out on a limb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and, you know, so anything that you can prove. Hold on, go ahead and finish, and I'll decide if I'm going to go out on a limb with you. Okay, so, like, from what I see with Google is the more it can trust the data. Right. It's going to rank it higher, or that's going to be one of the ranking

factors. Right, right. So, if you're using a Google beacon at your physical location, and it can verify that. And people are actually showing up. And people are showing up. Then that would tell Google's algorithm, this is more true data. So, if someone was using a beacon versus someone not, I feel like you would impact your SEO, but, I mean, no one out there would actually, you know. I'm out on a limb. I'm halfway out on a limb with you, right? Because I think there's a lot of things that Google can do with some of their data, and maybe they're not using it to that effect. Like, they don't use social media. So, they don't. Hopefully, you're watching on YouTube with the air quotes. They don't use social media. So, I think that it's one of those things that maybe has an impact on not that much, but does come into account. So, think about it. If you've got just a cell phone store, and you've got two locations, Google kind of knows that people are coming in, because you can already see the trends of when is the best time to, when is the store most frequent in it, right? Yes, that's very good. What the beacon's going to do is make that data more accurate, because what if right next to it, there's an ice cream place, right? And if you've got the beacon, then you're, you know, that's going to be busiest. You keep showing shoes or something to, like, an ice cream parlor. Yeah. So, the beacon, so you've got one beacon in one cell phone store. You don't have a beacon at the other one. You're right. There's best, better quality data at the one with the beacon store. The other thing, so lots of different ways that they can be used. These are kind of pretty cool and sophisticated. Let's say you're at a bus stop, and it's not a bus stop that you go to frequently. You've got a beacon there. It can be shooting you the schedules, like,

hey, do you want to download this schedule? Okay, great. It can even be updated from another source, obviously not from your phone, and say, the bus is on time. You don't have time to go get that ice cream next to the cell phone store. You've got to stay here and wait for the bus. So, airlines, too, then? Yeah. Right? I mean, there's so many applications for this stuff. I think we're just getting started on a whole new, like, era. Fresh brewed coffee? Yeah. Hey, the coffee's just been brewed. You should probably come in after. Like, Krispy Kreme donuts or whatever, right? So, Krispy Kreme, you know, that's the big thing. Everybody loves Krispy Kreme donuts or fresh donuts, right? Some examples that we saw were, like, hey, you're at an auto dealer, right? And you're standing next to a particular car, and it's like, hey, you want more stats on the car. Oh, so really tight, tight, very tight. Like, so you're, like, almost, like, in a foot of the car. Yep. And then, boom, like, hey, we're giving a discount on this car. On this particular car, yeah. Or something. It's a showroom special. Very cool. So, there's a lot of things. And then, finally, you look at, so there is a thing already on AdWords. I think you have to be qualified for it, so not everyone's getting it, but conversion based on location, right? They've been talking about that. When they broadcast it, like a year ago. But not everyone is able to access it. So, imagine how accurate that gets with a beacon, right? So, now I was on the phone. I typed in ice cream store. I went to the beacon where the ice cream store was, and after I clicked the pay-per-click ad. And so, now Google's like, look, that's a conversion. And that's a physical conversion that it couldn't track before, or at least not that accurate. So, I was thinking about the QR a little bit more while you were talking. I'm like, you put the beacon,

like, the size of the car. Yeah. So, you only show it to them if they sit in it, right? Yeah. Like, that's, and so you have all these different beacons. If they can do that with a fob, right? Yeah. You can't stand outside of your car and start your car. That's true. The fob actually has to be inside. So, that capability exists. I mean, just, oh, it's mind-blowing. It's endless. That's kind of crazy. So, in general, if you're, if you've got a beacon and you want to set it up, what we would recommend is that if you're more business to business, you should probably just be asking them to leave a review, right? So, if anybody who's coming here, they're getting a lot of value, whether they're kind of doing a live 15-minute call, a live profit plan, which doesn't happen that often, but if they're here- We've done them. We've done them. If they're here, and they tend to go a little longer when they're denied, right? Yeah, I know. You get more value if you come into the office. We've got to start. That's a pro-truck. Where's the clock? We've got a timer that ends with, ah. Sorry, your time's up. So, because they've hit that beacon and they're here, like, what we really want, new people who might tap, that beacon might tap, is really to leave a review, right? So, to kind of encourage them to leave a review. Lots of really cool things with that. It's a little bit scary, right? A little bit minority report. I'm kind of like, I liked minority report, right? I like what's going on there. I think in general, people do, too, because if you think about, I can tell you how many times I've had conversations about remarketing, right? Oh, yeah. And I tell them, it's kind of creepy, right? So, yeah, there's this kind of... But it's useful. Yeah, there's this kind of nodding that it's creepy, but there's also this, yeah, it's acceptable creepy. So, I was speaking last week at

the... You got a standing ovation, right? Yeah, I got a standing ovation. But I was telling people about it, and, like, after the event, they came up to me, and they were like, as you said that, I started deleting apps on my phone. I was like, they got you already. It's too late. It's too late. Yeah. They have access to your data already. So, it's kind of acceptable creepy. I think this is going to fall into that same line. Yes, for sure. Especially at first, it's going to be, oh, cool, the ice cream store knows that I'm over here getting a new cell phone, so I'm going to go get some ice cream. And, hey, I mean, you can have specifics. Like, if you've just walked by, hey, maybe you're getting a new cell phone. When you get a new cell phone, you get a free ice cream. I mean, I think there's so much you can do with custom lists and now tracking, and it's just mind-blowing, really. I'm so excited. I think these things, people think that they're going to catch on immediately, and there's this huge, huge lag time. I think people were telling me, my mom worked for Microsoft, right? She was just like- Cutting edge. Well, yeah, she was like, Redbox is no longer going to be around. They're going to stream it right to your TV. Right. And it's true. You can stream it right to your TV, but man, Redbox, I mean, I don't know what they're doing right today, but they're still all over the place, right? And people are still using them. So there's this huge lag time of technology and convenience and cost and that sort of thing. And I think, you know, we want to stay on the cutting edge here at eWebResults, and so, you know, we're going to be using it, and we're going to be encouraging our clients to use it. But I think if you didn't get one or you're not using it, you know, you're not, it's not passing

you by just yet, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Don't freak out about it. Uh-huh. Well, cool. So that's our discussion on Project Beacon. What we would like to say that is- How to get in touch with us. Yeah. Yeah. If you, well, we're going to tell you how to leave a review, how to kind of connect with us on social media. First, if you like this podcast and you like our podcast in general, we got another testimonial actually from Shira. Why don't you read it? We didn't read a testimonial. Let's read it. Why don't you read it? We read one at the beginning. Oh, we did. See, that's why I do it at the beginning. This one is, love you guys, found you all recently, and I'm learning so much from you guys. I have some proof how Yelp is just mostly robots clicking on fees. Yes! On fees. Wow. That's not good. And also, if you would love to be part sometime, if it makes any difference, my company is Calamar Designs. Let's talk next week. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah, we'll talk. Punch in the face to you. And then she also later said that the sound might be not syncing on Facebook. I don't know about that. Yeah, we got to work on that. We're going to tech this up a level to be a little clearer. You know. Get the sound balanced out. Get the balance, and we're going from our Market to Niches podcast, which we're launching. Yep. And so we've been really messing with the sound a lot. It is another podcast that we're doing. Yes. And it's about niches, like being hyper-focused on particular niches. So like pools and construction and plastic surgeons and plumbers and lawyers and all that sort of stuff. We're breaking it down to what we're doing in karate studios and hair salons and everything. And that's what we've been getting asked from a lot of our clients is, how does it help me specifically? Now, general SEO is great, but like, how is this going

to help me specifically? So we go into examples and that sort of thing. Very cool. Yeah. If you like this podcast, please share it with, I don't know, five people, 10, 100 would be good. Oh, cool. I think that's good. I like that. If you are looking to grow your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, go ahead and give us a call. I like that. 713-592-6724. If you have a referral for us, go ahead and send that referral for us. When we deliver amazing value to them and they pay their bill, we will pay you or donate money to a charity of your choice. Yes. So, so on the new website, there's a little, I guess you call it the technical term is hamburger. Yeah. Up in the right-hand corner. Okay. It always makes me so hungry looking at web pages. A data hamburger. But there's a client referrals. Yeah. Right. So, we pay 5% ongoing on anything you refer to. Ongoing. Ongoing. So, you could build a revenue stream there. A lot of our clients are 3, 5. Yeah, 3, 5. We have a couple, 7 clients, but mostly 3 to 5, 2. We're bringing on a lot of new clients all the time, but no, month over month, we'll pay you 5% of anything we take in. You put in their information. You put in your information. We do the rest. We do the rest. You track it. That's all you got to do. There's a comment box in case you want to like, maybe you want to kind of field it or be on the call or whatever. Yeah, but just know a lot of people are taking advantage of that. We appreciate it. Keep sending them our way. We're closing a lot of deals. We love you. So, if you want to send a referral or you're maybe a web designer out there and you're not doing the SEO or something like that, send it our way. We can work together for sure. All right. So, how

can you connect with us? Let's do, say, pinterest.com slash? E-Web Results. You could also go to ewebresults.com slash? YouTube. That tricking me. Facebook. Facebook.com slash? Best SEO podcast. Also, yes. Yeah. That works. E-WebResults.tumblr.com. E-WebResults.imgur.com. And then Flickr.com slash photos slash E-Web Results. And how do you do LinkedIn? LinkedIn is LinkedIn.com slash company slash? And there's no in? There's no in? No. Like forward slash? Okay. E-Web Results. All of those will take you to our. Or if you Google us, we're on there too. Profiles. We're on the Google thing. Just a little bit. Yeah. Every now and then. Yeah. Lots of lists. Best podcast. Yeah. That sort of thing. Right. Yeah. Well placed for phrases in the Houston area. Boom. Yeah. And that feels like it's it. Let's go to Carbot. Please. Yes. Please remember we were filmed live here in Houston, Texas at what is our 5999 West 34th Street. Houston, Texas. Again, 77092. We are the best internet marketing podcast on iTunes. That is because of all of you all kind of reaching out to us, connecting with us. And voting for us. Punching the face to you. On different lists because we are the best. Punching in the face to Shira. It's so awesome to be connecting with you guys and answering questions and delivering value. We really appreciate you. Until the next podcast. Podcast. I don't know if it's called podcast. Because it's time to party. Party. We've got a team birthday member today. Team and business partner. So we're going to be over at Carbot. If you're in Houston, head to Carbot. You can bump into the E-Web team. Until the next podcast. My name is Chris Burris. My name is Matt Bertram. Bye bye for now.