Yelp Is In Australia

A Quick Introduction To Yelp

Yelp is a review site that has been operating in the US since 2004 and as of the 30th of November 2011, it is in Australia (smh article).

Consumers use it to find information on local businesses, events and special offers. This allows you as the business owner to reach out to your local community and can put Yelp to work for you by building exposure for your business, monitoring reviews of your business and services, as well as researching your local community by reading other reviews to see what consumers want, like and don’t like.

Why Use Yelp For Local SEO

Yelp should be part of your local SEO strategy from now!

Yelp is one of those websites that has been around the block a few times and Google trusts and pulls the reviews left by the Yelpers (that is what the cool kids like to be called that leave reviews on Yelp) to your Google Places page for your business.

This adds content and often keyword phrases that you want to rank in the search results to your Google Place page, giving Google a better indication of when they should display your listing to searchers.

Time To Get Some Reviews

Firstly, you need to join Yelp and create a personal account, now you will be able to create a business account.

A few ideas to help get you some reviews:

• Tell people in your social media worlds and other online communities that you have a business profile on Yelp and you would love them to leave a review
• Email your database asking for them to leave a review
• Ask your current clients to leave you some kind works
• If someone sends you a testimonial, send them a link to your Yelp business profile and ask them to leave the testimonial as a review
• Add a link from your email signature to your Yelp business listing
• Place a sign up in your business telling people to look for you on Yelp
• Offer discounts and make announcements on Yelp to help encourage Yelpers to use your business and leave reviews

Please keep in mind that Yelp is brand new in Australia and we are not sure if it will gain traction like it has in other countries. That being said it does not hurt being an early adopter of this free service.

You can read more on Yelp in Australia at:

• mUmBRELLA – Community search site Yelp launches in Australia
• Dynamic Business – Yelp Australia to promote local businesses

When was the last time you used Bing over Google? Hard to remember isn’t it!

So how should Bing get back in the limelight? Joining forces with one of the world’s most influential musical icons, Jay-Z should do it! There was a little something in for Jay-Z as well, this campaign helped build buzz around Decoded (available on Amazon), Jay-Z’s book that was about to hit shelves.

Watch the video to see what they came up with, it is pretty cool.

The Outcome

Bing

• They have aligned themselves with one of the world’s most influential musical talents
• Became part of the culture in the pop and hip hop worlds – WOW!
• An 11.7% increase in visits
• Entered the global Top 10 Most Visited Sites for the first time
• Earned 1.1 billion global media impressions

Jay-Z

• Facebook followers grew by over 1 million
• Decoded hit the best sellers list for 19 straight weeks
• Media coverage from all the major sources and influences across all mediums

The results are pretty amazing for both parties involved, but I don’t think I will be making the switch to Bing, will you?

Want to know more about Bing and Jay-Z joining forces, here are some other articles from around the blogosphere:

• Trendland – Jay-Z “Decoded”: Amazing Viral Marketing
• This is not ADVERTISING – Bing – Decode Jay-Z
• Encoderpr – Inspiring Case Study: Bing’s BIG Transmedia IDEA with Jay-Z
• Engaging content – Droga 5 Decoded Campaign with Jay-Z

As I am writing this Yahoo Site Explorer is still alive, but unfortunately Yahoo Site Explorer will pass away peacefully.

Yahoo Site Explorer - We Miss You Already!

From all the people that have loved spending time with you over the years, we cherish the link data thta you gathered for us when others like Google couldn’t be trusted. For that we thank you and godspeed!

Other thoughts and announcements:

• Search Engine Land – Yahoo Site Explorer Closing Down
• Yahoo Announcement – Site Explorer Reminder

So what is everyone using now, any recommendations, Open Site Explorer or other paid tool recommendations?

After meeting the Automatician, John Ford (@iamjohnford) at WordCamp Gold Coast, you quickly get that Automatic, the folks behind Jetpack, are really in the business of making life easier when it comes to running a website.

Enter Jetpack 1.2 and some of the super cool new features:

• Subscriptions – The biggest addition to Jetpack  in my opinion. Now you can easily add  a widget to your sidebar that allows visitors to subscribe to your site, WordPress will automatically send them a notification. Additionally, visitors have the opportunity to subscribe to a post after leaving a comment so they can keep up-to-date with the conversation. Nice!
• Sharing – Not a new feature, but has had LinkedIn and Google+ added to the options.
• Shortcode Embeds – Again, not a new feature, just a few extras added to make life easier on you.
• Extra Sidebar Widgets – RSS links, Twitter and Image Widgets.
• plus a few other little additions.

At the end of the day, if you are not running Jetpack, you should be! If  you are, make sure you update Jetpack  to keep your WordPress powered site in the now!

You can read the official announcement at Announcing Jetpack 1.2 or follow the discussion over at WPCandy – The Jetpack plugin version 1.2 is all clear for take off.

Your Man Reminder app has been created for a very serious problem, with the use of some fantastic digital marketing.

For example; they have leveraged YouTube and other video networks to promote the app with the hope that the video will “go viral”. At the time of writing this post, the video has had over 940,000 views in approximately 20 days – that is pretty impressive.

Here is the video, Warning: Partial nudity and 6 packs.

The Your Man Reminder app itself also ticks all the boxes that we listed here – 5 App Marketing Tips For Your Brand & Business. The app gives a fun side to a very serious problem by attractive guys reminding and encouraging women to do self-checks or go and get a checkup. Additionally, the app also gives you reminders for doctor’s appointments and important facts about breast cancer.

Breast Cancer was the most common cancer among Australian women, accounting for 27% of all cancer diagnoses and was also a leading cause of cancer-related death in 2007 (Source: Australian Government – Cancer Australia). Early diagnosis is critical to reduce the death rate and using digital technology can play a major role.

Resources

• Your Man Reminder – App Store
• Breast Cancer Statistics – Australian Government
• John St. – The Digital Agency in Toronto that is behind the campaign

Marketing your business, brand or service with an App is very popular at the moment with the boom of the smartphone and tablet markets. This trend is not going to go away for sometime as devices continue to develop and change the way we consume information.

To give you a little food for thought before you jump in and create your App, here are a few points that we think you need to fullfill with your App before you release it to the marketplace.

1. Super Useful – Your business App should make life easier for your target market. Determine information that they desire on a regular basis and give it to them. For example, if you are a holiday destination you might want to provide them weather reports, accommodation and activity specials along with suggested places/things to do while on holiday.




2. Interactive – If your target market can interact with your brand and business on their phone you will form a relationship with them and increase brand loyalty. Nike have a great example of this with their App called NikeWomen Training Club. It lets users customize their workouts, access videos, and invite friends to compete.




3. Entertaining – Make your App amuse people, again you will build brand loyalty by allowing your target market to feel good about your brand by entertaining them. Coca-Cola has a great example with their spin the bottle iPhone app. A review on the Apple’s App store says that he and his roommate use the iPhone app every night to decide who takes out the trash.




4. Mix it up – The more birds you can kill with one stone the better! Why not do the same for your target market with your App. Kraft’s iFood Assistant suggests recipes, lets users upload their own and share them with other users, you can then create a shopping list to make sure you get everything you need for your new found recipes.




5. Free is loved by all – The App industry can make a developer some pretty big pocket change, but for now you are better off considering the development costs as a marketing expense and giving the app away for free. If you try and charge people even a dollar for it they will hesitate to purchase it and you could miss a new potential life long consumer. Give it away for free and you will increase your chances of your iPhone app going viral within your target market.

This post has been revisited and re-posted. Originally posted on the 9th of November, 2009.

In the past week the big G has added some interesting new features and services to Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, so let’s take a quick look at what they are doing.

Site Health – Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools is still an under used free tool by most small business owners and their new feature, Site Health, should be pretty handy. Google is obviously pretty excited about this new feature has they have redesigned the Webmaster Tools user interface around it.

Site Health will highlight any problems Google has with your site in an order that they see as the most important. As the majority of us rely on Google to deliver traffic to our business, it is pretty good advice to take on board.

Read the full story on the official Google Webmaster Central blog.

Google Analytics In Real Time

One drawback to Google Analytics is there has always been a lag in having all of your data accumulated, but soon it will be in real time! YAY!!

Why so excited?

There are a few obvious benefits to having your data gathered in real time:

• Social media campaigns will be able to measured in real time, allowing you to learn, adapt and capitalise on how your social media circles react to a tweet, blog post or YouTube Video.
• Campaign tracking (this is the part that I am happy about) will be able to be implemented and tested to see if it is correctly implemented within minutes, allowing you to roll out your campaigns in full swing quickly while knowing the data is being collected.

Read the full story on the official Google Analytics Blog.

Google Analytics Premium

Google has released a paid version of Google Analytics. This will not be for everyone and Google has set the pricing to make sure of that. Not available in Australia currently, but to give you an idea of pricing it would cost you around $150,000 US a year. The good news is they are offering monthly billing!

So what do you get for your $$$ $$$

Here are a few examples of the new features:

• Processing Power – For example; If your site racks up to 1 billion hits per month (the standard account can only handle 10 million hits a month)
• Advanced Analysis Tools – More custom variable slots
• Dedicated Support – Dedicated account management with phone and email support 10 hours per day, 5 days a week

Read the full story on the official Google Analytics Blog.

Hope you make the most of their new features!

A referral is one of the best compliments a business can receive!

CoastSure Insurance Brokers have been in business since 1999 on the Gold Coast, but until now have not had an online presence. We were fortunate enough and excited to have one of our SEO clients, EIM Training, refer us to help get them started the right way.

The Goal

To develop a design that was produced by their marketing consultant (we tweaked it a little), in a format that would be search engine friendly and allow them to edit and add content to the site when needed.

The Tools

• WordPress [?]

WordPress is a blogging platform that has developed into a super powerful content management systems (CMS) for businesses of all sizes. As a CMS, WordPress is priceless, yet free to use and over 25 million people love it, including us!

• Thesis Theme Framework [?]

The Thesis theme framework adds a new level of flexibility to the WordPress platform and is a powerful tool for any website and business.

• Nivo Slider [?]

Nivo Slider is a jQuery powered image slider that will blow your mind!

This combination of website elements is like having a Super Hero in your website design and development tool box.

I love when new features are added to the AdWords system because you know they are just making a excellent business tool even more awesome!

So what is Conversion-aware Creative Rotation?

Besides having a super long name that is kinda difficult to say, Google describes it as a way to show off your money-makers!

To be honest, that is exactly what it does. CaCR lets you optimise your ads for conversions so you will need to be using Google’s Conversion Tracking with your AdWords. In other words your ad that converts to an inquiry, sale or desired action will be presented to your target market more often so you can achieve even more conversions. That is massive!

In the past, ads have been measured and optimised on your click through rate (CTR), an ad with a high CTR was considered to be successful as it was appealing to your audience and otherwise they wouldn’t have clicked on your ad right?

But the problem was, even a high CTR rate did not guarantee a high conversion rate, it was a pretty good indication, but not bullet proof by any means!

Thankfully with the introduction of CaCR, you can now venture out in to your target market with the ads that generate the most conversions and it is done automatically for you!

Possible problems with CaCR

In the past it was no secret that Google’s “optimise for clicks” feature determined the ad to show before an acceptable testing period between two or more ads. If the CaCR feature also favours an ad on conversion data before an acceptable testing period between two or more ads it will literally kill your AdWords campaigns so step carefully!

What it could do for your overall marketing

This new feature could help you further bridge the gap between the keywords that your target market use and the message in your ads that appeal and convert in to the desired action you want them to take. Use this information in the other forms of advertising that you do and you will greatly improve the effectiveness of your advertising.

How to find the Conversion-aware Creative Rotation Feature

• Go to your Google AdWords account
• Choose a campaign
• Click on Settings
• Scroll down to the bottom of your setting and you will find “Advanced settings”

• Click on the “+” button next to “Ad delivery: Ad rotation, frequency capping” and you will see the below options

• Simply click on the radio button next to “Optimise for conversions” and then “Save” and you are all done!

That simple little 1 minute adjustment could save you a massive chunk of your budget and potentially increase your return on investment (ROI) tenfold – hard to say no to that!

February 24th, 2011 - Google applies what has been labeled as the “Panda” or “Farmer Update” to their algorithm.

Villages, towns, cities and entire countries start to crumble as anarchy spreads through the streets while at the mercy of the Google gods.

When Google tinkers with their algorithm that decides where to show your website in their results, it could costs your businesses rankings and therefore money!

The Farmer Update has done exactly that to a lot of massive websites. A large number of these websites are very heavy on content and are often utilised by businesses to boost their search engine rankings via link building with articles, eg; Ezinearticles.com.

The question you need to ask yourself..

What other online strategies can I implement to avoid being at the mercy of another Google Algorithm Update?

The answer..

Diversification with your traffic generation is the key!

Where to look for diversification

Google Adwords
The obvious answer is Google Adwords! Text based and/or banner ads can drive very targeted traffic to your site that is highly trackable. But you are still relying on Google and PPC prices are being driven up all the time so it can not be the start and end of your diversification.

Social Media
Social media marketing has been hot for a few years now and Google has come out and said that social media mentions will and is impacting on search engine optimisation. More importantly it will keep you connected to your community to your community. If you need help with social media, talk to my friends at Gold Coast Social Media.

Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of those traffic generation channels that has been around since the creation of the wheel and will continue to be around for a lot longer.

Video Marketing
YouTube.com is the second largest search engine in the world and people do go here looking for valuable content, it is not all just shits and giggles. Take a look at some YouTube.com user demographics.

Micro Sites
Building smaller sites based around a set of keyword phrases is great for holding another chunk of real estate in the search results and it is also a good way to build some specific links back to pages within your main site. If your main site gets dropped by Google, chances are your micro sites will still be ranking well for valuable keywords.

Offline Marketing
Offline marketing does still exist and it does still have its place in your overall marketing strategy! However, after our post on Tradies Jumping Ship on Yellow Pages Advertising I would not recommend spending a great deal on the Yellow dust collectors.

Brand Building
Building a brand within your community or target markets will keep the traffic flowing to your site.

Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is a touchy topic. If done poorly you are really just spamming your community and could harm your brand building efforts. If you do it right, you can add to a conversation and really provide some unique content to someones blog post. This of course can also drive traffic to your website and also build a link in some circumstances.

Ezinearticles.com Alternatives
Ezinearticles.com will still be one of the favorite article directories to help with your link building, but remember there a lot of other article directories that you can utilise. For example, PR directories, Squidoo, blog hosted blogs, eg; Blogger.com (also good for micro sites). National and local news websites will also take user generated content, this can accomplish brand building, link building and therefore traffic to your website from the one article.

In Summary

Do not panic, Google’s Panda/Farmer algorithm update is not the end of the world like you might have thought when you first started reading this article. There are alternative online marketing strategies and even offline to help you drive traffic to your website so you are not entirely reliant on Google’s rankings.

Further Panda/Farmer algorithm readings:

• WebProNews – Google Algorithm Update Casualties Speak
• SEOBOOK – Google Kills eHow Competitors, eHow Rankings Up
• Ezinearticles.com – Quality Matters
• WebProNews – Google “Panda” Algorithm Update – What’s Known & What’s Possible
• TED – The ‘Panda’ That Hates Farms: A Q&A With Google’s Top Search Engineers
• Search Engine Watch – Why Google’s Panda Algorithm Update Dropped Sites
• WebProNews – Google Panda Update: Lack of Consistency on Quality?
• Search Engine Land – Your Site’s Traffic Has Plummeted Since Google’s Farmer/Panda Update. Now What?