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out in the local pack? And

1:00

is the local pack even a

1:02

thing anymore? Today I'm chatting with

1:04

local SEO expert Greg Clifford about

1:06

the latest advice. So stay tuned. My

1:09

name is Kate Thune. I'm the head

1:11

chef at the recipe for SEO success

1:13

and online teaching hub for all things

1:15

related to search engine optimization and digital

1:17

marketing. And as I said, I'm here

1:19

talking with Greg. Hello, how are you?

1:21

How are you? I'm good. No, it's

1:23

been a long time since we saw

1:25

it. I think last time we saw

1:27

each other was at Yost's conference? It

1:29

was. And that was like almost two years ago

1:31

now, right? Oh, it was. But wasn't that fun?

1:34

That was such a good conference. Such a blast.

1:36

And I actually didn't fly home until

1:38

Sunday after the conference because I had planned

1:40

on bringing my wife with me and spent

1:42

in the weekend and answer day with my

1:44

wife. And she decided last minute, she didn't

1:46

feel like coming. So she stayed like coming. So

1:48

she stayed home. So she stayed home. I had a

1:51

lovely little weekend in Amsterdam. I actually

1:53

hung out with a couple of people

1:55

that I met at the conference. And

1:57

we went to some museums and stuff.

2:00

It was a blast. It was so

2:02

good, and I bought my son with

2:04

me and we had a week, we

2:06

had time in Amsterdam before and then

2:08

he came to the conference. You were

2:11

so lovely to my son. I just

2:13

remember one bit, we were on a

2:15

bus. We were at a bus for

2:17

a very long time, just talking crap

2:20

at the back of the bus and

2:22

that was really fun. It was just

2:24

a real giggle, wasn't it? It was

2:26

really good. It was such a fun

2:28

conference, such a good group of speakers,

2:31

a really fun time. Yeah, I love

2:33

it. Awesome. Hopefully we'll get to see

2:35

each other at another conference in the

2:37

future. Hey, look, let me tell you

2:40

who Greg is. I mean, he is

2:42

the definitive person on local SEO, so

2:44

I'm super excited that he is here

2:46

today. He is the chief operating officer

2:48

at Search Lab, a boutique marketing agency

2:51

specializing in local SEO and PPC. He's

2:53

one of the most in-demand speakers in

2:55

digital marketing and automotive conferences all over

2:57

the world, with dynamic movie theme theme

3:00

theme tactics and information. He's got over

3:02

20 years online marketing and web design

3:04

experience and his expertise in local SEO

3:06

has helped countless businesses gain more visibility

3:08

in local searches. Greg graduated from Southern

3:11

Methodist University with a BA in cinema

3:13

and communications and has an obscure movie

3:15

quote for just about every situation. Fun

3:17

fact, Greg has faces from at least

3:20

23 movies tattooed on him. Oh my

3:22

goodness! Oh my gosh, that's a really

3:24

outdated fun fact and that's how you

3:26

can tell we've been chatting this long

3:29

about getting me on the podcast? How

3:31

many more have you got? Oh my

3:33

God, six more. Okay. Well I can't

3:35

see any of them. There's not on

3:37

his face. So you're saving the head?

3:40

for like someone special like Harrison's cord.

3:42

I was going to not ever do

3:44

my head or my face or my

3:46

neck and I still today say I

3:49

won't do my head or my face

3:51

or my neck. I've seen some amazing

3:53

tattoos on head face neck but I

3:55

just don't think they look good there.

3:57

No it's a challenge isn't it and

4:00

you know I don't know it's interesting

4:02

I've only got I've got a little

4:04

penguin on my wrist and I've got

4:06

a lizard on my bottom which is

4:09

a very amusing story. because when I

4:11

got really overweight it became a gigantic

4:13

crocodile and now it's gone back to

4:15

being a little gecko again but it's

4:17

very blurry and I've never seen it

4:20

so I don't really think about it

4:22

but there you go if you ever

4:24

need to identify my corpse there's a

4:26

visit on my bottom what are weird

4:29

things to say at the start of

4:31

a podcast what am I talking about

4:33

Greg we're going off at a totally

4:35

different direction than I expect my corpse

4:37

good god well look Let's move on

4:40

from corpses to the big question. Is

4:42

local SEO dead? Ha ha! See, I

4:44

can turn anything into a segue. There

4:46

you go. I like that segue. It

4:49

was clever, wasn't it? It was good.

4:51

It was good. It was good. Let's

4:53

not answer that question really because I'd

4:55

love to start with the absolute basics

4:57

to be honest. What is local algorithms

5:00

at play? And when most people talk

5:02

about SEO, they mean optimizing so that

5:04

they show up better in Google's traditional

5:06

algorithm, but Google's local algorithm works differently

5:09

and includes additional signals. And basically the

5:11

difference between the two is with the

5:13

traditional algorithm and regular SEO. If you

5:15

rank number one, you rank number one

5:17

everywhere across the globe. With local SEO,

5:20

if you rank number one, you only

5:22

rank number one in a specific geographic

5:24

area. So it's more for the easiest

5:26

way to think of it is if

5:28

a business does face-to-face business with customers

5:31

in one particular geographic area, what they

5:33

actually need is local SEO, not regular

5:35

SEO. Yeah, I think that's really important

5:37

that people understand that there are different

5:39

bits of the algorithm working towards different

5:41

goals and different bits of the algorithm

5:44

shooting different part businesses. I guess the

5:46

problem is for a lot of, you

5:48

know, especially these days, lots of people

5:50

don't have a shop front business. Now

5:52

I would argue that really you can

5:54

game it, you can cheat it, but

5:57

at the end of the day, low

5:59

cholesterol is for people. that you could

6:01

physically go and meet, you know, that

6:03

have a physical shop friend. Yes, you

6:05

can have a service area in all

6:07

of that, but if someone is typing

6:09

in, bookshop, you minor, and suddenly a

6:12

digital bookshop in New York comes up

6:14

in the results, it's not satisfying the

6:16

user query. Do you agree with that?

6:18

Yeah. It's 100% about user intent. The

6:20

example that I usually use to explain

6:22

how the local algorithm works is pizza

6:25

delivery, because everybody... Understand, everybody's ordered a

6:27

pizza at some point in their life.

6:29

Whether or not you are a business

6:31

owner or have worked in a business

6:33

or done anything with digital marketing, everybody's

6:35

ordered a pizza. So if you're at

6:38

your office location, let's say you have

6:40

a brick and mortar storefront and you're

6:42

there, and you search just two words,

6:44

pizza delivery, you get a list of

6:46

all the pizza spots right there by

6:48

the office, but then you could go

6:51

home and do the search at home

6:53

with the same two words. and get

6:55

different search results. And it doesn't really

6:57

occur to you that that's odd because

6:59

clearly you need pizza delivered from somewhere

7:01

nearby and Google has satisfied the intent

7:04

of your search even though you didn't

7:06

specify Pizza near me or Pizza Dallas

7:08

or Pizza Sydney or whatever. Google knows

7:10

where you're located by your IP address

7:12

or your cell phone signal or whatnot.

7:14

So it can constrain those search results

7:16

to your physical location even when you

7:19

don't specify. And it makes sense that

7:21

you're going to get different results in

7:23

different areas because you need the pizza

7:25

delivered from somewhere nearby. So that's the

7:27

easiest way that I think you can

7:29

explain how local works because everyone understands,

7:32

all right, cool, I need a pizza,

7:34

let me get the pizza from somewhere

7:36

close. You don't want to order a

7:38

pizza from the other side of the

7:40

country because that guy has a better

7:42

website. Yeah, it might take quite a

7:45

long time to arrive. But a few

7:47

things I want to dig into there,

7:49

let's talk about intent and what we

7:51

type into the search engine. So people

7:53

would generally think that a local search

7:55

would come up if you type to

7:58

location or the ubiquitous near me. There's

8:00

a few pizza restaurants called Pizza Near

8:02

Me, thinking that's going to make it

8:04

work better. But as you said, Google

8:06

is now intelligent enough and sophisticated enough

8:08

to know that certain words, search queries,

8:11

even if there is no local intent,

8:13

deserve a local result. I'd say locksmith

8:15

is one emergency plumber, pizza delivery. You

8:17

don't even need the location word there

8:19

for Google to work it out, right?

8:21

Exactly. And that's basically because Google has

8:23

access to... I don't even know what

8:26

the number is. Some ridiculous number that

8:28

our brain can't even comprehend of search

8:30

results and what's happened when people have

8:32

done those searches. And Google can tell

8:34

by, you think about what you do.

8:36

If you do a search and you

8:39

don't get what you're looking for, you

8:41

add more words onto your search query.

8:43

So you may start with pizza delivery

8:45

and if you get something wrong, then

8:47

you're like, pizza delivery near me or

8:49

pizza delivery, my town or whatever. Google

8:52

can see all of that over time

8:54

and so Google has figured out which

8:56

verticals and which types of business truly

8:58

have local intent even when people don't

9:00

explicitly state that in their search query.

9:02

I love that. I think that's right.

9:05

People are more likely to add more

9:07

words to their search query than they

9:09

are to click through to the second

9:11

page or even to scroll to the

9:13

bottom of the page. So we're very

9:15

impatient people. I guess the other factor

9:17

is most people realize now that Google

9:20

is mobile first and you might have

9:22

a statistic up your sleeve as well

9:24

as those tattoos happen on mobile phones,

9:26

which is another indicator, right? I don't

9:28

really have a stat because it's kind

9:30

of different. It's different in different parts

9:33

of the world. It's also different for

9:35

different verticals. So I work with a

9:37

lot of car dealerships just because for

9:39

13 years of my career, I worked

9:41

in agencies that only worked with car

9:43

dealerships. And, you know, a car is

9:46

typically the second most expensive purchase that

9:48

someone makes in their lifetime. So people

9:50

do a lot of research before buying

9:52

a car. All right, yeah. So it

9:54

depends on the vertical, yeah. Yeah, people

9:56

might start on mobile when they're kind

9:59

of asking some simple questions. But when

10:01

you get further down the funnel and

10:03

you're about to buy that car or

10:05

that truck or that SUV, you want

10:07

to see the big photos online. So

10:09

people tend to swap over to desktop,

10:12

even if they started in desktop. But

10:14

for other things, like I'm looking for

10:16

a locksmith, I'm probably on mobile because

10:18

I'm probably locked out of my car

10:20

or my house and I'm not sitting

10:22

there at a desktop computer. You know,

10:24

if you're looking for a hospital or

10:27

a doctor, a lot of times that's

10:29

an immediate use. I need this right

10:31

now. I've got to go find this

10:33

right now. I'm looking for a restaurant.

10:35

I probably want to go to a

10:37

restaurant for dinner. At some point soon,

10:40

I'm looking for a dry cleaner. Some

10:42

point soon, I'm going to go to

10:44

the dry cleaner. So Google's figured out

10:46

these types of businesses. and we'll just

10:48

automatically default to that local algorithm. And

10:50

then use your geolocation on your phone

10:53

to tailor it as well. And you

10:55

know, there are stats around that say

10:57

that, you know, X percent of local

10:59

searches result in a visit to the

11:01

store within the next few days within

11:03

the next few days. And I've noticed

11:06

that 70-something percent of local searches result

11:08

in a visit to the store within

11:10

two days. Because they're checking this in

11:12

a minute, your Google business program. not

11:14

keeping your opening hours up today, you

11:16

know, that someone has actually gone to

11:18

the effort of finding them out, then

11:21

they turn up and you're actually closed.

11:23

We'll come back to that, because I'd

11:25

like to talk about SERP features that

11:27

are unique to local SEOs. So once

11:29

Google's decided that you've got local SEOs,

11:31

so once Google's decided that you've got

11:34

local intent, there are certain features that

11:36

you've got a very specific, one lucky

11:38

business might get the knowledge graph panel

11:40

and the side as well. How can

11:42

we appear there? So the local pack

11:44

is on mobile, it's the map with

11:47

the three results underneath on desktop. It's

11:49

the map to the right with the

11:51

results to the left. Most people assume

11:53

that only shows three businesses. It actually

11:55

shows more than three. So below the

11:57

three businesses listed, you can click, it'll

12:00

either say more places or more locations,

12:02

depends on what part of the world

12:04

you're in. When you click that, it

12:06

takes you a page called the local

12:08

finder page that looks just like Google

12:10

Maps. But it goes beyond the top

12:13

three and it shows you everything in

12:15

the local area that matches the intent

12:17

of what you searched for. So that's

12:19

the first big thing. That's the kind

12:21

of indicator that the local algorithm. And

12:23

it's also at the top of the

12:25

search results on mobile and desktop because

12:28

Google understands most of the time when

12:30

you're looking for a local business, you're

12:32

going to want to go there. So

12:34

you want to have that visual indicator

12:36

up high in the search results to

12:38

let you know that it's nearby. And

12:41

then that is all your placement there.

12:43

And what shows up is based off

12:45

of that knowledge panel that you just

12:47

mentioned, that's actually called your Google Business

12:49

Profile. A lot of people still call

12:51

it Google My Business because it was

12:54

called Google My Business for like 13

12:56

years. They changed the name of a

12:58

year or so ago. Have you done

13:00

like Google Places, Google for business, Google

13:02

Plus Local, Google Plus Local, Google Plus

13:04

Local for business. It's been all kinds

13:07

of just silly. It's one of the

13:09

Google Google's gonna Google. Google likes to

13:11

change the names of things for no

13:13

reason other than like, hey it's a

13:15

new product because the name has changed,

13:17

right? But yeah, so that that panel

13:19

is actually not the same thing as

13:22

a normal knowledge panel because it's got

13:24

all of that additional local business information

13:26

in there. So it's gonna have photos

13:28

of the business, it's gonna have street

13:30

view, it's gonna have a Google map,

13:32

little widget there. It's gonna show you

13:35

the name of the name of the

13:37

business, the operating hours, It's going to

13:39

show you the category. And you can,

13:41

if you're not going to dig into

13:43

the code or use a plug-in, you

13:45

can only see the primary category, but

13:48

there's up to 10 category slots that

13:50

you can fill in. It's going to

13:52

have a questions and answers widget. It's

13:54

like a community discussion feature. It's going

13:56

to have Google posts, which are basically

13:58

kind of free. ads that you can

14:01

display on your profile. It's going to

14:03

have your customer reviews, which are absolutely

14:05

huge in your review score. So it's

14:07

got all these other elements. And then

14:10

it's got things called justifications, which are

14:12

little tech snippets that will pull out of

14:14

your reviews or out of Google Post or

14:16

whatever to display on your profile as well.

14:18

So it's a really rich, robust first impression

14:20

that you get to make with your

14:23

potential customers. And it's really important. that

14:25

you optimize the heck out of that

14:27

profile because that's how you show it

14:29

more in the map pack. Having a

14:31

well-optimized profile following best practices allows you

14:33

to show up more often in that

14:36

map pack. I wanted to get into

14:38

that little bit more. So the map

14:40

pack, obviously Google has dropped a pin

14:42

in its head and where is the

14:44

center of a certain area? And then

14:46

there's concentric circles around it. And one

14:48

would think the closer you are to

14:50

the center of the circle, the higher

14:52

you're going to rank in that local

14:54

pack. Obviously you can buy Google ads

14:56

now in that pack as well. Is

14:58

that true? Because you know... Often the

15:00

ones that are ranking in the top

15:02

three are not closest to the imagined

15:04

center of the circle. So what other

15:06

things influence your position in those? Because

15:08

yes, you can click to the next

15:10

ones, but no one's doing that. Greg,

15:12

are they? It's the top three or

15:15

nothing. So what can we do to

15:17

improve our chances of appearing in that

15:19

top three? That center of the circle?

15:21

The SEO nerdy term for that is

15:23

the centroid. That pin that Google

15:25

drops in the geographic center, which

15:27

typically everyone assumes will be downtown

15:29

if it's a metro area, but

15:31

it's never downtown. It's the geographic

15:34

center. It's basically like you said,

15:36

Google draws a circle, drops a

15:38

map pin in the center, that's

15:40

the centroid. And in the past,

15:42

the closer you were to the

15:44

centroid, the higher you ranked. So

15:46

if you were lucky enough that

15:48

your business happened to be very

15:50

close to that centroid location, you

15:52

would outrank everyone. Google started to adjust

15:54

that over time. And now it's a

15:57

lot less about the distance that you

15:59

are from. the Centroid and it's more

16:01

about the distance that you are from

16:03

the search results. So Google knows your

16:05

location, Google knows the locations of the

16:07

various search results, but it's not just

16:09

location. And a lot of people get

16:11

confused when we start talking about anything

16:14

related to essay. You're like, oh, it's

16:16

all about your content. And people like,

16:18

well, I've got better content than everybody

16:20

else. Why don't I rank? Well, I've

16:22

got better content than everybody else. Why

16:24

don't I rank? Well, because it's also

16:26

about customer reviews. We'll have more reviews

16:28

than everybody else. Why don't I rank?

16:30

Well, it's about your business profiles. It's

16:33

all the different factors, obviously. But a

16:35

big part of it is that proximity.

16:37

How far is the search result from

16:39

you when you're doing the search? But

16:41

it's also optimization. It's the website and

16:43

how the website's optimized. customer reviews. So

16:45

it's all of those factors and the

16:47

micro factors on each of those areas

16:49

that are going to affect. your visibility

16:51

there. Yeah, it's like a, it's not

16:54

a Venn diagram with three circles. It's

16:56

like 36 circles and Yagaki is in

16:58

the middle. Let's talk a little bit

17:00

about Google business profile. So you mentioned

17:02

a big list of all the elements

17:04

and for those listening, you can head

17:06

to the recipe for SEO and get

17:08

a full checklist of all of those.

17:10

One of the big things that comes

17:13

up for a lot of people is

17:15

the photos. You have an option to

17:17

have as many photos as many photos

17:19

as you like and often you get

17:21

stuck. for example, I took this business

17:23

off over from someone else. And for

17:25

a very long time, despite me doing

17:27

exterior shots, even getting my customers to

17:29

upload exterior shots, a really old... exterior

17:32

shot from an old review was the

17:34

hero image and it's taken so long.

17:36

I just checked it this morning and

17:38

it's gone and I'm so happy on

17:40

this podcast to be able to say

17:42

that. It's still in a little tiny

17:44

wrap-up with the five mini ones but

17:46

the main images change. Is there anything

17:48

we can do about that? Because obviously

17:51

we can delete our images but we

17:53

can't delete customer review images. You know,

17:55

you would think Google would make it

17:57

a little bit easier when they let

17:59

you edit every other element of that

18:01

business profile. And Google very much says,

18:03

hey, this is a customer's first impression

18:05

of your business. And it's really important

18:07

that you have a great first impression

18:10

yet. You can't choose which photo is

18:12

going to be displayed as the primary

18:14

photo for your business. Now there's a

18:16

lot of stuff online where people will

18:18

tell you if you want to hack

18:20

it, you can do these. Follow these

18:22

steps here. You could do this thing

18:24

over here and it'll influence it. And

18:26

it's not reliable. It doesn't really work.

18:29

Unfortunately, there is no way to select

18:31

what your primary photo is going to

18:33

be. Also, unfortunately, you can only get

18:35

rid of photos that you uploaded. So

18:37

customers or even non-customers, they don't even

18:39

have to do business to be able

18:41

to do it. They can upload. a

18:43

photo along with the review. If they

18:45

do that, that photo gets added into

18:48

your gallery of images. But they can

18:50

also just be at or even near

18:52

your location and pull up your business

18:54

profile and add a photo to the

18:56

gallery there. If someone does that and

18:58

the algorithm decides that that's the picture

19:00

it wants to display, but you don't

19:02

want that picture there, the only way

19:04

you can get it to change is

19:07

to track down who that person is.

19:09

Tell them what's going on and... pay

19:11

them to remove it or ask them

19:13

nicely to remove it and then hopefully

19:15

they will but you know also people

19:17

don't always use their real name on

19:19

their Google profile and depending on the

19:21

business I could come into your bookstore

19:23

and buy a book and you wouldn't

19:25

have my contact information. Yeah don't do

19:28

that. Don't be putting pictures of your

19:30

bum up on my Google profile Greg.

19:32

I know that that's something you're thinking

19:34

of doing. It'd be great. I actually

19:36

had a really fun presentation that I

19:38

did years and years and years ago.

19:40

talking about a bunch of things that

19:42

were broken with with at the time

19:44

it wasn't called Google Business Profiles but

19:47

with the I think it was Google

19:49

Plus Places or something at the time

19:51

but a bunch of different elements were

19:53

broken because they just rolled out the

19:55

new interface and what One of the

19:57

things that I went through is I

19:59

showed all of the just awful pictures

20:01

that were showing up for various businesses

20:03

that did not match the business whatsoever.

20:06

And it was really funny because all

20:08

these businesses were basically complaining to Google,

20:10

I need to change this and Google

20:12

is like, sorry. Yeah, not gonna do

20:14

nothing. Let's move into talking about the

20:16

other information. So we've talked about opening

20:18

hours and I really think it's super

20:20

important to stay on those, you know,

20:22

you know, go in, you know, even

20:25

if you're like. you're closing the shop

20:27

on Saturday because you're sick, you know,

20:29

update that make sure you have all

20:31

the public holidays in there, obviously you

20:33

have your phone number, your address, questions

20:35

and answers I love, and I'm not

20:37

saying this is a hack, but it's

20:39

a cute thing to do to maybe

20:41

ask some people you know to ask.

20:44

good questions like hi Kate do you

20:46

have a book club at the bookshop

20:48

why yes yes we do Greg and

20:50

it's wonderful so you can see some

20:52

questions and answers there because they're you

20:54

know they're gonna show up and that's

20:56

a great thing to do you recommend

20:58

that is that too sneaky yeah you

21:00

know you don't even have to ask

21:03

other people to see those questions you

21:05

can just ask them of yourself I

21:07

always feel a bit I feel that's

21:09

too evil Greg I figured at least

21:11

not evil at all Google actually encourages

21:13

you to do it do it okay

21:15

The way to think about it, and

21:17

this is key, it's just like an

21:19

FAQ page on your website. Let's use

21:22

your bookshop as an example. Is it

21:24

realistic to expect that any person that

21:26

gets to your website that might have

21:28

a question is going to go right

21:30

to your FAQ page, read through the

21:32

40 questions and answers there to see

21:34

if a similar question has been asked

21:36

answered? No. People want immediate answers now.

21:38

They're not going to do that with

21:41

your question and answer section on your

21:43

Google business profile either. But it's really

21:45

cool how Google built it. Because as

21:47

you are typing your question in, if

21:49

a similar question has been asked and

21:51

answered in the past, Google will auto

21:53

complete your question as you type it

21:55

and pop an answer up onto the

21:57

right side, mid typing of your question.

21:59

So that person that is getting that.

22:02

immediate answer. They're getting an answer faster

22:04

than if they were talking to you

22:06

on the phone or faster than if

22:08

you had an AI chatbot on your

22:10

website because talking to you or talking

22:12

to any sort of AI system they're

22:14

gonna have to complete their question before

22:16

they can get an answer and this

22:18

they're getting an answer before they're even

22:21

done putting their question in and that's

22:23

why the Q&A section is so powerful.

22:25

I love it. I mean, look, I

22:27

could talk to you about this all

22:29

day. I just want to cover a

22:31

few more features in the Google, my,

22:33

sorry, see, I still do it, Google

22:35

Business Panel, and then I want to

22:37

come back to the organic sort of

22:40

main sets. Obviously, you can add products

22:42

and offers and all kinds of things

22:44

like that. One of the contentious areas,

22:46

obviously, is the reviews, and one of

22:48

the things that the first thing when

22:50

I got the bookshop was I went

22:52

through and I answered all the one

22:54

star reviews because the one- Go first

22:56

and read the one stars. And what's

22:59

really important is how the business responds

23:01

to those one stars. If your rage

23:03

typing replies saying, you are never a

23:05

customer of our shop, I know this

23:07

is you, Maureen. I know this is

23:09

you, Maureen. I love it. It's great

23:11

drama, but you shouldn't do it. So

23:13

how you reply to the negative reviews

23:15

is important as how you reply to

23:18

the positive reviews, right? I would say

23:20

it's more important. Because like you said.

23:22

People don't go and just sit there

23:24

and browse through the reviews to see

23:26

what might be there. They're going to

23:28

go immediately and look at your bad

23:30

reviews because it's the same thing. You

23:32

go shop on Amazon, you don't go

23:34

read through the hundreds and hundreds of

23:37

thousands or whatever of positive reviews. You

23:39

might read a few. You might read

23:41

the AI summary of what the people

23:43

say. But you do click over and

23:45

read the bad reviews and start reading

23:47

the bad experiences that people had think

23:49

about you go look for a restaurant

23:51

You're gonna look at the bad reviews

23:53

see if people had hair in their

23:56

food or whatever So responding those bad

23:58

reviews is key because a you want

24:00

to make sure that it's clear to

24:02

future potential customers that you care about

24:04

giving good customer service and that they're

24:06

going to have a good experience at

24:08

your establishment and B, that they understand

24:10

that if things do go wrong, you

24:12

will care and try to make sure

24:14

that they still have a great experience.

24:17

So it's not just about you care

24:19

about good customer service, it's you care

24:21

about your customers as well. And the

24:23

big mistake most people make is they

24:25

just write some generic response. It's like.

24:27

Oh, gee, I'm sorry, Jim, we strive

24:29

to give great customer service. My name's

24:31

Greg, I'm the manager. Can you call

24:33

me at 867-5309 and tell me more

24:36

about what happened? A lot of businesses

24:38

will answer like that and they think

24:40

it's the right thing to do because

24:42

a lot of reputation blogs and videos

24:44

will tell you to do that. That's

24:46

actually really wrong. Because to the general

24:48

public... It looks like you don't care

24:50

because they literally just typed out here's

24:52

my bad experience I just had they

24:55

told you turn around and put the

24:57

ball back in their court and go

24:59

well if you want me to fix

25:01

this you have to reach out to

25:03

me again and tell me again what

25:05

you just told me it's dumb yeah

25:07

plus most people understand with like your

25:09

bookshop they wouldn't expect that you would

25:11

have someone's contact information but with a

25:14

doctor an attorney car dealership a dry

25:16

cleaner even they know that if you're

25:18

doing business there that business has your

25:20

contact information and if you're in one

25:22

of those verticals where the general public

25:24

understands that you probably could call that

25:26

person why would you on the review

25:28

response go hey call me bro yeah

25:30

you should be on your review response

25:33

instead truly responding to what happened in

25:35

that situation and letting the general public

25:37

know how you tried to make things

25:39

right yeah Love it. And you know,

25:41

one of the issues that's going on

25:43

at the moment, and I know you're

25:45

aware of it, it's a known bug,

25:47

is that a lot of reviews are

25:49

disappearing and coming back? Is it any

25:52

update on that? Mine have all come

25:54

back, but it's... They're all coming back,

25:56

yeah. So if you're out... there and

25:58

you're listening or watching this, and you

26:00

still have some reviews that are gone,

26:02

they're probably going to be back very

26:04

shortly. It was a bug that happened,

26:06

it lasted for about four days, that

26:08

a bunch of reviews just disappeared. And

26:11

what Google eventually came out and said

26:13

was the reviews didn't actually get deleted.

26:15

They were still there. They were still

26:17

in the database as attached to the

26:19

business. It was actually a display problem.

26:21

So in the back end, the reviews

26:23

are still there. you know, a couple

26:25

of hundred fewer reviews than we're actually

26:27

there. So it was very easy for

26:30

Google to just say, oh, here's the

26:32

bug, let's put those reviews back. Google

26:34

does also remove reviews algorithmically because they've

26:36

been detected as spam and a lot

26:38

of times you won't be able to

26:40

get those back. But this bug thing

26:42

that just happened, you should have all

26:44

your reviews back from that. And I

26:46

mean, it does take a long time

26:48

to move the needed, especially as, you

26:51

know, we... It's taken us nearly 30

26:53

reviews to get from 4.8 stars to

26:55

4.9 stars. So, you know, it takes

26:57

a lot of, you know, how long

26:59

it will take me, it gets progressively

27:01

harder, I think. So how long it's

27:03

going to take me to get back

27:05

to the 5, even though we really

27:07

only have five negative reviews from four,

27:10

well, seven years ago. It takes a

27:12

long time to move the needle. You

27:14

can report reviews that you're unhappy with,

27:16

sometimes you have to report them, Yeah,

27:18

anyway, we'll stop talking about Google Business

27:20

there, because we could talk about it

27:22

all day. That is obviously all related

27:24

to your Google Business profile, which is

27:26

free, which you should invest in, which

27:29

you should take time in, which you

27:31

should make sure it's comprehensive and glorious.

27:33

But other than that, what can we

27:35

do on actual websites? Well, we'll go

27:37

through every detail, but on our website

27:39

too, you know, sorry, I'm babbling. to

27:41

a few of the organic results. Sorry,

27:43

so I've got, you know, I'm looking

27:45

right now on Google, we've got the

27:48

business panel coming up at the side,

27:50

we've got the map, and then the

27:52

first organic result is your site, and

27:54

that's my signs. Now obviously, Links help

27:56

here? Local links from local areas. Am

27:58

I right? Am I right? What about

28:00

content? So really the local algorithm, it's

28:02

kind of a different spin on everything.

28:04

Links still matter, content still matters, but

28:07

you do them differently with links. You

28:09

actually want to get links from local

28:11

businesses and local websites. You kind of

28:13

want to ignore everything that you've heard

28:15

on other podcasts or webinars or videos

28:17

or conferences or read about link building

28:19

saying you only want the big authoritative

28:21

sites that have a lot of authority

28:23

score, whatever the score is for whatever

28:26

tool you're using. In local, it's actually

28:28

opposite. You pretty much want the low

28:30

authority sites because the best link you

28:32

can get is a link from a

28:34

church. It's relevant down to a particularly...

28:36

tight neighborhood level and it's typically pretty

28:38

hard to get a link from a

28:40

church website. It's not easy to do

28:42

that. So when you get it, it's

28:45

relevant down to a neighborhood level and

28:47

it's difficult to get. So Google really

28:49

rewards you for it. But churches don't

28:51

do SEO. So if you put that

28:53

church website through any sort of SEO,

28:55

it's going to say, oh, avoid this

28:57

link. You don't want to link. It's

28:59

a bad quality site. It's not. It's

29:01

a website that doesn't do a lot

29:04

of SEO, but that doesn't mean that

29:06

Google thinks it's a bad quality site.

29:08

So these link tools are going to

29:10

mislead you when you're doing link building

29:12

for local. And then from a content

29:14

standpoint, most people understand that with content,

29:16

you have to have content that answers

29:18

the questions that customers are asking. The

29:20

easiest way that I like to explain

29:22

it is that if you want to

29:25

show up as a search result when

29:27

somebody types in a phrase. into a

29:29

search engine, then you need a dedicated

29:31

page about that singular concept on your

29:33

site. And we're doing local, so it

29:35

doesn't have to be the best page

29:37

on the internet. You just need the

29:39

best page in the local area about

29:41

that topic. That's it. So that means,

29:44

let's say you're a business and you've

29:46

got five, you've got five different services

29:48

that you provide. But you're in. four

29:50

different cities. You're a franchise, so you've

29:52

got one website, but four locations and

29:54

four cities. That means your website, instead

29:56

of having those five service pages, you

29:58

would actually, how many, I said four

30:00

different cities, so you would have 25,

30:03

because the five pages on the main

30:05

menu of your site would just be

30:07

about each individual topic, but no location

30:09

information. And then each of those five

30:11

pages, you would rewrite so that they're

30:13

unique and useful. But then each of

30:15

those five pages you're going to have

30:17

in a little silo around that location

30:19

So let's say you're a locksmith in

30:22

Sydney You'd have those five locksmith service

30:24

pages all optimize around the topic in

30:26

Sydney the topic B in Sydney topic

30:28

C in Sydney Then you'd have another

30:30

one for Melbourne and another one for

30:32

Perth or whatever it would be so

30:34

you have to optimize for a singular

30:36

concept and singular concept is keyword phrase

30:38

location, one location, one keyword phrase. So

30:41

that's where it starts to get really

30:43

complex from a content play, because if

30:45

you're in multiple cities, whether you actually

30:47

have locations or you're just trying to

30:49

target nearby cities, that you service, you

30:51

start to have to create a whole

30:53

lot more content than you would doing

30:55

regular SEO. Yeah, and I think if

30:57

you're only in one location, it does

31:00

get a little bit easier. You can

31:02

have a really comprehensive contact page that

31:04

goes beyond just name, email, and whatever.

31:06

You can have maps on their local

31:08

bus routes, local milestones and areas. You

31:10

know, one cute thing I like to

31:12

do is talk about the cafe that

31:14

I like best to get coffee when

31:16

you're on your way to the bookshop,

31:19

you know. And you can be writing

31:21

round-up articles of 10 lovely things to

31:23

do in your minor, which is where

31:25

I live. Yeah, and I really think,

31:27

you know, people, oh, how do I

31:29

get these links? For me, because obviously

31:31

I'm so lucky now to have this

31:33

bookshop because it's letting me use all

31:35

my superpowers as an e-commerce, S-O, and

31:37

a local S-S-O on an actual business

31:40

myself. It's like the ultimate Petri dish.

31:42

The way that I found best to

31:44

build links is just to be a

31:46

really active member of the community. So

31:48

I'm sponsoring events, I'm denating vouchers, I'm

31:50

turning up at things, I'm getting mentioned

31:52

in the news, I'm getting featured on,

31:54

we just sponsored the local netball team

31:56

and they've given us loads of social

31:59

and loads of backings. It's not a

32:01

crafty link building scheme, it's just being

32:03

an entity in your local community. It's

32:05

doing all the stuff we used to

32:07

do. to get noticed in the community

32:09

before we had the internet and everybody

32:11

got shut their boxes and didn't want

32:13

to talk to you. Exactly. It's the

32:15

little signs in the local supermarket saying

32:18

dog for sale. It's that kind of

32:20

grassroots home grown stuff. It really is.

32:22

And that's the best way to do

32:24

it. And it's shockingly effective and so

32:26

many people freak out when you start

32:28

trying to do those things. You know,

32:30

a really cool thing that you could

32:32

do. And this is a little bit

32:34

more advanced. You mentioned the coffee shop

32:37

you want to go to on the

32:39

way of the bookstore. You can also

32:41

put up a blog post on your

32:43

blog on your website that is, these

32:45

are the five best bookstores in the

32:47

town that you live in, which seems

32:49

weird. But of course, you're going to

32:51

list your own as the best one,

32:53

right? But why would you list four

32:56

competitors? The reason being, you list those

32:58

competitors and they're going to see that

33:00

you got listed on your site. They

33:02

may link back to you, they may

33:04

not, who cares. When people start looking

33:06

for best bookstores in town, that becomes

33:08

a blog post that shows up. And

33:10

people looking for best bookstores aren't going

33:12

to only go to the local pack

33:15

and read the reviews there to see

33:17

what's best. They're going to look at

33:19

any of those round-up type posts. And

33:21

if you've got one and you've listed

33:23

yourself as number one, then that's potentially

33:25

a thing that you're going to get

33:27

to show up that they're not looking

33:29

specifically for you, but they find you.

33:31

The other big part of it is

33:34

with the rise of these AI-powered-powered search

33:36

systems. A lot of those will pull

33:38

that content and now if you get

33:40

an AI overview for the best bookstores

33:42

in your town, that AI overview could

33:44

very likely just pull that list off

33:46

of that blog post that you put

33:48

on. even though it's your own website,

33:50

that then lists you as the best

33:53

bookstore in town in the AI overview,

33:55

which would be amazing for you. Yeah,

33:57

well, you wouldn't believe it. That's what

33:59

our list to do. We're going to

34:01

do that. There's a large corporate bookshop

34:03

in the town over that's owned by

34:05

a big conglomerate, and we're in Indy.

34:07

So I'm determined, determined to beat them.

34:09

That's my sole mission in line. Oh,

34:11

awesome. It's amazing how much good SEO

34:14

you can do out of spite. I

34:16

just say that out of love is

34:18

good, spite is good as well. Look,

34:20

Greg, I could talk to you all

34:22

day. That was an absolute, we didn't

34:24

do any of the questions on our

34:26

list, but I feel that I was

34:28

really practical and useful for small business

34:30

owners wondering what to do, you know,

34:33

like really take advantage of like Google

34:35

business profile, some great advice around photos

34:37

and the questions and the reviews, and

34:39

then in the content, just taking a

34:41

really honest approach approach to it that's

34:43

relevant and useful, I mean, I mean,

34:45

I mean, I mean, It's not rocket

34:47

science, is it, Greg? But it's amazing

34:49

how many people get it wrong. You

34:52

know, it's really not. And that's one

34:54

of the things that I've been talking

34:56

about a lot lately is everybody's so

34:58

distracted with AI and chat GPT and

35:00

mid-journey for photos and all these other

35:02

things. They're trying to do all this

35:04

crazy new stuff and they're just forgetting

35:06

the basics of either you're a business

35:08

owner or you're a marketer working for

35:11

a business owner. What really matters is.

35:13

Do you're. Have the ability to solve

35:15

the problem that your customer is looking

35:17

to solve. This is literally the thing

35:19

that you're selling. You are selling a

35:21

solution. Whether it's a product or service,

35:23

you're solving a problem that someone has.

35:25

Do you have the solution to that

35:27

problem? And is it going to be

35:30

an easy transaction for that person? That's

35:32

literally all it takes to show up

35:34

well. Everybody's so worried about let's go

35:36

create a bunch of BS content with

35:38

AI or let's go do all these

35:40

other little silver bullety type things and

35:42

everybody forgets if you just do the

35:44

basics you're probably still going to win

35:46

anyway. That is literally the theme of

35:49

2025 on this podcast. Every guest I've

35:51

had on is like back to basics,

35:53

back to basics, ignore the... to a

35:55

degree, involve it, use it as you

35:57

want to, but it's not the be

35:59

all and end all. So thank you

36:01

for staying on theme with the podcast.

36:03

Greg, it's lovely to talk to you.

36:05

I so appreciate you. It's been too

36:08

long. I hope it's been too long.

36:10

I hope to see you. It's been

36:12

too long. I hope to see you

36:14

at an event very soon. If you

36:16

want to find out more about Greg,

36:18

I've included links to all his various

36:20

bits and buds and buds. Thanks. Thanks

36:22

for having me. So that's the end

36:24

of this week's show. If you have

36:26

questions about local SEO, head to my

36:29

I Love SEO group on Facebook. I

36:31

also wanted to tell you about my

36:33

free SEO challenge. It's called SEO SOS.

36:35

It will be kicking off again in

36:37

a couple of months, so head to

36:39

the website. Join that. It's completely free

36:41

and lots of fun. I like to

36:43

end the show with a shout out

36:45

for one of my lovely listeners, and

36:48

today it's Kaka Kaka Kaka. One, one,

36:50

one, one, one, one, one, one, one,

36:52

one, one, one, one, one, one, one,

36:54

one, one, one, one, one, one, one,

36:56

one, one, one, one, one, one, one,

36:58

one. Thanks Kate, learning so much from

37:00

this podcast. Thank you for taking the

37:02

time out to do this. Well, thank

37:04

you, Kakaka, one, one, one, one, one,

37:07

one, one, one, one, for listening. And

37:09

thanks to everyone else who's left us

37:11

a review. It only takes a few

37:13

minutes. If you have time, I would

37:15

super appreciate it. And we'll give you

37:17

a shout out on the show. So

37:19

don't forget to head to the show

37:21

notes for this episode at the W-w-w-w-w-w-the-the-w-w-the-w-the-w-the-w-w-w-the-w-w-the-the-w-w-w-w-the-the-w-w-w-w-w-w-the-w-w-the-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w

37:23

Yeah.