We took a trip down to Santa Ana to visit our friends at JMD Marketing Group. Watch the video above to learn more about JMD and what they offer from beginning to end when it comes to Local SEO Services and Web Development. This video features Steve Wiideman and JMD President Jeff Driscoll discussing results-based SEO.

If you missed the last Internet Marketing Strategies for 2010 webinar we did on February 4th, we’ve posted it here for you to view. Local Search Engine Optimization is one of the main topics of Search Marketing at the moment. As stats fly in from the search engines, comScore, and other sources, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that many searches performed online or from a mobile device have a local intent.

In fact, according to DM News in 2009, 35% of all local searches do have a local intent. Google made some major moves in 2009 with their universal search results by including maps in non-geographic searches, launching “Place Pages”, and giving local businesses the ability to see data such as impressions, visits, directions viewed, and more. Local SEO is without a doubt becoming more of a necessity then a want, and in some cases can even be a business-killer.

Case in point, I have spending a great deal of my time working with the good folks over at Local Splash where I get to hear a lot of conversations between customer service and customers. I recall a conversation where a new customer signed up who had hired someone else to manage his local listings. He was in hysterics about his loss in ranking and was looking to us to restore it. My first thought was, “calm down dude, it’s just a local maps placement, not organic or paid search”. Well apparently he was #1 organically and he did have AdWords running, yet he was still distressed. As it turned out, he had been earning well over $10,000 per month from calls sourced from his local ad and he had the data to prove it.

The Customer Service rep passed the customer over to one the Local SEO Experts who optimized the customer’s categories, adjusted some of the business data, added attribution to prove that we were the ones making changes, then BAAM! within an hour the customer was right back at the top and a happy camper. I asked the rep who did the calibrations if he could do that for any listing, and the answer I got was “not all listings, but many of them”. Wow, now that’s awesome!

Take a look at the video above and learn how you can make some of those same changes to your business profiles on Google Local Business Center, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local to start getting higher placement in the maps sections of the search engine results.

Please do comment and ask questions below. We always answer.

Reputation is important to Google, but we all know that reviews can be faked, which reduce the ranking power of this known local SEO tactic. I believe it’s not the actual number of reviews that influence the ranking but instead it’s the click-through rate (CTR) created by the user’s trust of the business holding those reviews.

Think about it: You have 2 minutes to search and make a call, because like the rest of the world you have a life to live. In that first Google, Yelp, or online yellow pages (OYP) search you see 10 listings and one of them has far more 5 star ratings than the rest. Which would you choose?

Google has already admitted that the greater part of their paid search algorithm is Quality Score, which is most impacted by CTR. I also know from experience that CTR helps sustain organic ranking (not links or content, which are the factors that get you to page 1). Based on the pattern of what Google considers to be relevant to ranking, why wouldn’t CTR be just as important in local/maps ranking?

How to Get Business Reviews

There are a million and two ways to get positive business reviews. The easiest is to simply ask for them. Local Splash launched a webpage over the past weekend that offers businesses a template for creating their own postcard/review card, which can be stapled to receipts or handed out prudently to get the best possible reviews from happy customers. Visit Get Business Reviews to download the template and to see a list of all the major business review websites.

Rotating the review cards could help level out the distribution of reviews being performed and the cost can be whatever coupon/discount/offer you might already have in play in your offline advertising efforts.

Getting business reviews is one of many factors that could improve how much traffic a website receives as a direct result of higher ranking within local search engines and business directories. Be sure to also include your address on your website and do some research on competitors who are also being found where you want to be.

For more information on business reviews, visit Get Business Reviews, for more information on local SEO, take a look at the great content at LocalSplash.tv!

The Most-Used Local Search Engines

• Google Local Business Center (GLBC)
• Yahoo! Local
• MSN Live Search Maps

How to Get High Ranking in Local Search Engines

The simple answer to obtaining high placement in these results is that is there is no simple answer. Unfortunately, there are systems and data validation criteria that a local business must pass before high local rankings can be achieved.

Secret: The local search engines already know about your business, whether you are listed or not.

Why is Local SEO So Complicated?

So why then is it so complicated to do local search engine optimization? Because existing and being a good search result are two completely different animals. Local search engines use dozens, if not hundreds of different sources that influence the ranking. These sources should all validate with the data submitted by the local business seeking placement in the search results.

Additionally, each business niche has a number of directories or authoritative “Web References” that appear (in Google Local Business Center for example) under the Web Sites section of the local business listing. By calculating the frequency of these Web References, one can make an inference on which Web References matter to GLBC and other local search engines.

Then there are local business reviews which also play a role in ranking, but not exclusively. In Organic SEO, the magic formula is Relevancy + Popularity = High Ranking, or in English: Good Content, SEO, and CTR + Quality Inbound Links = High ranking. In Local SEO, however, the formula (in English) is High Frequency Web References + Positive Reviews = High Ranking.

Use a Leading Local SEO Company First

Still want to try this yourself? I didn’t think so.

Try Local Splash to get your feet wet with a local search engine optimization program that involves trusted data feeds, directory/visibility frequency, and positive user feedback. With thousands of current customers and a formula I’ve seen with my own two eyes, Local Splash is the perfect solution to perfect placement in local search engine results.

Click Here to Visit LocalSplash.com

The three principles to muliple local listings are simple:

• Get a physical address and (if applicable) phone number in each area
• Create links and content focussed on the cities you want placement in
• Submit your listings to multiple business databases

However, before you venture off on two months of manual implementation and submission, I strongly recommend considering the outsourcing alternative. I’ve seen conversion rates improve with better web design and content, I really have seen it with my own eyes.

If you are driving traffic, don’t have your 17 year-old nephew build your website (it is afterall a marketing tool, not a brochure), have an expert designer build your website with MarketingSherpa.com best practices. This way, once you get the traffic, you have a much higher probability of turning those visitors into clients, and Google will reward your new lower bounce rate with higher ranking as well.

STEP 1:

Do it right the first time, get your website up to par with all the fundamental SEO best practices using Digital Eye, the best web graphics and tableless web design firm I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Be sure to specify the need for city visibility based on the physical addresses (PMB or otherwise) to set the perfect landscape for local placement.

STEP 2:

Don’t blow an entire month manually submitting your business listings to thousands of databases with hopes of influencing Google Maps and Google Local Business Results. Especially when firms like Relevant Ads, a local search engine optimization company, has already built half a decade worth of datafeeds that are trusted by companies such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Yelp, Clush, Superpages, Localeze and InfoUSA. Be sure to create one Relevant Ads account for each business location to get the most from the automated datafeeds and monthly monitoring.

STEP 3:

Get others to help you sell your product using an Affiliate Marketing Service such as Sulut and/or Hydra Network.

Combined, and in sequence, this strategy will allow you to have a high-converting website, promenant local placement in the search engines, and will open the flood gates to affiliates who will sell your product for a commission.

By the way, if you aren’t already following me in Twitter, I’m at http://www.twitter.com/seosteve. Happy searching!