Local Reporting Gets More Robust

The future looks very very bright for local search, and I am extremely happy to see that Google’s Local Business Center (LBC) dashboard will be more versatile in the very near future.

The local dashboard currently only shows impressions and view counts,  and is very limited in keeping historical data or trending. It doesn’t show which search phrases are attracting local search traffic either, but all of that is about to change. Check out the video beyond the jump to learn more:

Top Additions to Google Local Business Center

• Graphical Impression and View Counts (akin to Google Analytics)
• Driving direction requests by view count that tie back to the Zip Code or City, State driving traffic.
• Top Search Queries triggering Local Maps

Now that’s what I call progress! Please read my related articles to find out more about designing a website optimized for local search,  other factors related to local search. I don’t toot my own horn much, but I am one of two Canadian Local Search Experts invitied to David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors 2009, which is the definitive guide to learning about what makes local search tick, so go check that out too.

Canadian SEO is Not the Same as US SEO

The chart you see above shows a normal distribution. Let’s assume for a second that this is the normal distribution of all the US search volume inclusive of short tail and long tail keywords. Now, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Canada’s population is about 1/10th of that of the States, so naturally there’s some changes in proportionality. In simple speak, we get less of everything, as the normal distribution curve is essentially squashed by a factor of 10. 

While we’ve got the same population as…oh say.. California, we do have differences in the way we search too. For example, there are far less long tail queries in Canada than there are in the States. There’s a couple of reasons I can think of as to why this disparity exists and a few of them are:

• Lower total inventory of goods and services. A prime example of this is in the retail goods market, where Canada has far fewer available items than the US does. Lower inventories = lower long tail searches for products and services.
• Thinner Geo-Centric Marketing – I notice that in the States there’s a lot of categorization by counties, and/or semi large neighbourhoods. Search trends in Canada still hover heavily around generic keywords, or major cities. For example, there are close to 6+ cities that comprise the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) yet, search volumes for each individual city are fairly low when compared to ‘ Service + Toronto’ based searches. Research from existing local clientele in a various industries prove that people as far away as 50-60 kms from the downtown core of Toronto still end up searching Toronto based terms rather their individual city based searches.
• Sparse E-Commerce Sites and Less Vendor Choices: I could count the number of truly e-commerce enabled sites off the top of my head, as in general, e-commerce in Canada is underdeveloped. This status quo regarding e-commerce creates unique opportunities for vendors, and frustration for customers at the same time.

Of course, then there’s the issue of French SEO, which is a whole different ball game. For example, one general consideration for all my Quebec based clients is having a bilingual SEO’d web site and often ranking them for both English and French keywords. 

How to Rock Canadian SEO

1. Get your spellings right – We spell words differently like favour, colour, cheque, airplane, amortize etc. Here’s some help on getting Canadian spelling correct.
2. Keyword Research – This is a no brainer,  but you can’t use the same keywords for a Canadian audience as you do you for the US audience. We don’t have zip codes, and while we do have postal codes, no one searches in the fashion ‘ drycleaner M3C1A8′…
3. Research Cultural Differences – Google trends and insights happen to be handy tools for determining ‘synonym searches’ – For example, while Canadians and Americans alike look for ‘car rentals’, the Australians prefer to search ‘car hire’. 
4. Rock a .CA domain if possible – This is an issue of nationalistic pride and SEO benefit. Having a .CA domain name can boost conversion rates, increase trust, and generally separate your site from the dozens of US competitors trying to advertise in the Canadian market place.
5. Know the Difference Between Quebecois French and the French of France - To the rest of the world it may be the same, but to Canadian SEO’s in the know, the keyword research tells a very different story between searches for Quebec based goods and services, as compared to similar searches for France.
6. We use Google.ca for Almost All Searches – But you already knew that right?…

The past few months have been incredibly busy as I’ve been growing my business, and expanding my reach to local clients and those in the States alike. That hasn’t changed my focus for this blog one bit, so expect actionable, detailed advice on search marketing as always. In the near future I plan to add a massive resources page for all things SEO/SEM related, and also grow this blog horizontally to add more resource segments. To be the first to find out as to when all of this happens, sign up to my RSS feed today!

Templatizing Link Requests Doesn’t Matter Without Targeting

The purpose of outsourced SEO isn’t to JUST have cheaper costs, it’s also to make sure your folks on-site aren’t driven crazy by mundane and repetitive tasks. That said, the job of your outsourced SEO is ‘TO DO’ and NOT TO THINK – Thinking is your job.

I received some link exchange spam today, and was really surprised at how many points outsourced SEO’s could improve at, and if they did, their success rate would go up phenomenally. Here it is:

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A System Ready To Be Gamed for Cheap

Lot’s of speculation has been created around Google’s introduction of SearchWiki, which is  their mandate for users to create their own so called ‘private‘ google experience, effectively allowing customization of search results. Now, when you’re logged into your google account and turn on SearchWiki, you can have the awesome liberty of having results you found hidden on the 8th page show up higher due to your vote. Furthermore, your family, friends and the entire world will be able to see your preferences in voting up or down search results.

There is an inherent problem with all social platforms that rely on mass aggretation of popular opinion – the votes can be gamed. Call it back scratching, vote buying or whatever you will, it’s damn easy to get on top of any social network if you’ve got the right contacts, or have enough money to spend. This is a harsh reality, and while I believe that any successful social media user should contribute real value to their community, that does not change the fact that many top users influence stories regardless of real popularity to go ‘hot’.

When Search Gets Social

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I believe Google is incorporating the same features that Wikia offers to see if a social signal in aggregate can be significant enough to put less weight on the section of their algorithm with less weight. This is in line with any new social media site – they all want user engagement and activity, other wise the site would essentially be dead.

My predictions include a bevy of forum thread over at DigitalPoint Forums (Google this) that offer the following (and in true digitalpoint engrish):

• 100 Vote + Comment on SearchWiki – Improve Google Ranking in 10 Days (sic).
• All unique c-class ip and proxy located all over the world.
• Manual submission by dedicated team.
• Report provided at end of work in excel format.
• Giving away 5 free review copies – Please PM me…

With automated gmail account creation, and many a webmaster holding thousands of aged account, I do not see why such a service wouldn’t show up? From a usability standpoint, I like the simplicity of the SERP results. With so much modification from Firefox extensions as a result of being a savvy netizen, I really didn’t want another bunch of vote up/down buttons. As a marketer, I see this a something I will be keeping a very keen eye on. I for one, will not take part in SearchWiki, and if you’re thinking the same way I am, you won’t either.

Comment Spamming SEO’s is Just Plain Stupid

I think we can all agree that Online Reputation Management is important, both for big brands and for up and coming companies. While sifting through my spam comments (I check to see if there’s any legit ones caught by Askimet), I found this archaic comment spam from not, one but two different IP’s leading to the same destination url – in this case widecircles.com (you don’t deserve a link, but this post will rank for your name!).

Wide Circles is a ‘Social Media Marketing‘ platform as per their website, but they clearly arent’ paying much attention to their link building efforts. Commenting on blogs is still enough to rank in some low competition niches, but the ease of commenting should be accompanied by some prior prudence. Something along the lines of:

1. Don’t comment where you can be called out for being overly promotional or spammy
2. Don’t be stupid enough to look for links on a competitors blog, or dropping your own links in.
3. Don’t be daft enough to think that spamming SEO’s of all people wont get you into ORM issues.
4. Make your comment relevant to the blog post you’re commenting on (Duh!…)

For all I know they may offer a great platform, but if they are outsourcing their SEO then they should probably work with a provider that knows what they are doing.

Conclusion

There are many times I’ve thought about putting together massive SEO programs that follow a checklist of tasks and handing it over to an offshore outsourcing agency. Stuff like the above is exactly what tells me not to take that decision every single day I think about scaling SEO in volume. It’s about time that folks who still think that the template : ‘hi, nice post, very informative’ <drop link> need to think twice before spamming. In the end, it’s not the (so called) SEO that suffers the most – it’s the client.

Wide Circles, if you’re outsourcing, take my  $0.02 and fire your SEO provider or agency.