Online Reputation Management, Local SEO, Google Maps in 2013 - Q & A and Discussion

I have not found a thread of this type. I got Reputation Marketing Blueprint which really motivated me.. so I went out and landed my first offline client! This is so huge for me! I have spend the last few weeks reading and researching local SEO. The big thing is that I don't have a ton of money to blow on stupid software (that usually doesn't do what it's supposed to do anyway), and much of the information that's out there is either false or wrong.

I'm learning this business is HIGHLY competitive and there are a ton of blackhatters out there. I have learned a lot by studying my competitors and trying to reverse-engineer their tactics. You can learn a ton by studying SEO firms, plastic surgeons, and lawyers.

Anyway, I'd like to share the things that I learn as I learn them and hopefully get some help from others who now more about ORM than I do.

I think it would be helpful for all of us to compare notes and help each other out. There are so many changes as to how things work since Panda and Penguin updates that there is a huge opportunity for all of us here.

I have some questions and ideas, but I'll put those in separate posts.

Come on in and join the discsssion!

That's sprague right? He has some good stuff though he is full of shit sometimes when he talks about NLP.

Subscribed, been doing local seo for clients for more than a year now. Also just landed my first orm and social media client a week ago - we pursued orm + social media instead of local seo cause the clients targeted keyword doesnt have enough searches to pursue. Looking forward to share some ideas.

I have been looking for good keywords for my client where local listings are showing up on the first page of Google results. There are a bunch of software programs, (many of them are associated with WSO's), but I have yet to find anything good for KW research. There is so much bad advice and bad ideas out there. I wonder if any of these "experts" actually do local SEO.

Let's say I live in Hollywood, California. I have a client who is a psychotherapist who lives in Beverly Hills. The experts say that if I want to see Google local results, just type in"KW+Location", so I type in "psychotherapy Malibu, CA" and get my results. The experts also tell me to put this KW in the GKT to estimate search volume. Sounds good, right? WRONG!

There are some problems with this. If I type in "psychotherapy Malibu, CA" from my home in Hollywood, I will get different results than if I type in the SAME EXACT query while standing in Beverly Hills. It will be different for people in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, etc. I drove around with my smart phone to check this out and the results were very different from place to place. You can change your search location on Google by clicking on "Search Tools" underneath the search bar. The strange thing is that my mobile phone can give me different results than my computer even though they are both doing the exact same query in the exact same location.

The next HUGE problem is that many many people don't search for "psychotherapist Malibu". They will just type in "psychotherapist". Depending on the local business type and location, this will still return local results. The problem is that, again, those results are MUCH different than if you typed "KW + Location" If you don't believe me, try it. Make sure your Google location is set to your city. Go to Google and type "Plastic Surgery + your city name" Now do a query for "Plastic Surgery" in another tab. Now compare the results. In most cases, they will be different. Sometimes the difference will be so drastic that one query returns 7+ local results while the other one returns none.

Estimating Traffic:

I saw some guru who recommends first picking KW's with at least 10,000 broad match and then adding the city name before and after those results, then selecting KW's that have 1,000 plus broad matches. The problem is that Malibu isn't a very big place and you will find very few "Malibu + (anything)" searches.

My solution (any input or ideas would be helpful). I pick all the Location + Keyword ideas I like (e.g. "Psychotherapy Malibu") and put them in the Google traffic estimator for (with unlimited budget) and see the estimated impressions for those keywords. Then, I take the location non-specific keywords (e.g. "psychotherapy) in the traffic estimator. This time I limit the results to Malibu and surrounding areas. I add the two results together to come up with my estimated number of impressions. It's going to be hard to estimate CTR until I have actual data, but so far, that's the best I have come up with.

Thoughts?

Stevejohns,

Congrats on your new gig! Do you mind sharing what field your client is in? IMHO, if their main keyword doesn't have enough searches to be viable, then it's a worthless keyword. Maybe you can talk them into changing it.

fad3r said:

That's sprague right? He has some good stuff though he is full of shit sometimes when he talks about NLP.

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Yea, I have a bunch of Sprague stuff and some other guys too. I think many of the other people out there are just ripping off Sprague though. There are so many changes, but content is hard to find. Let me know if you have anything good (or know about anything good).

I have been racking my brain to come up with enough keywords to generate sufficient search volume for my first local SEO client. What's the best way to target multiple keywords? Okay, so if he is a psychotherapist in Malibu (I'm not really in Malibu), there isn't enough volume with: therapy Malibu, Malibu Therapy, Malibu therapist, etc. I want to add entirely new KW groups like "Marriage Counseling" and "Depression Therapy" etc. I have seen that many competitors come up for these results in very different KW clusters.

So some questions:

What's the best way to do this?

Do I stuff his G+ profile with all these KW's and then put a section for each one on his website?

Should I build a separate profile for each area (marriage counseling, grief therapy, etc)?

Should I build multiple separate websites and link them all to the same G+ profile?

Thanks!

You can try SEO for local, but ultimately your guy is wanting "quick local sales." TV Ads, Local Newspaper, and Theater promotionals with psychology and sales copy should be fine. You can work with trying to "viralize" him online. Your online approach could be geo targeted on Adwords for his location while you build up "review" sites about him in case people search on Google.

Everything else is up to you.

therage said:

You can try SEO for local, but ultimately your guy is wanting "quick local sales." TV Ads, Local Newspaper, and Theater promotionals with psychology and sales copy should be fine. You can work with trying to "viralize" him online. Your online approach could be geo targeted on Adwords for his location while you build up "review" sites about him in case people search on Google.

Everything else is up to you.

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No, he doesn't want "quick local sales". he is looking long term. Again, what's the best way to target multiple keyword groups?

Also, how do I target outside his city? The city is too small, but if he's in Malibu, how do I target Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, etc? I mean.. he only has one office. It's hard for me because he has a reputation at stake and I can't risk doing any blackhat crap.

I am also looking into getting into this business.
I wish I could help you, but you appear to know more than I do so I'm not sure I could contribute. But I would love to learn more from this thread or anybody who has experience in this field.
Keep this updated, if you don't mind. Where are you at now? It's been 10 days or so since your last post - have you made any progress or discoveries?

Additionally, if you have any resources that you could point me to, I would be happy to look into them. You can PM me or post them here, either way.

PS - I would also be happy to Skype you, or even just communicate via PMs. If you're willing - let me know.

Art

Go read a lot of SEO ebooks made from Warriors. They are very knowledgable. There is a site that uploads tons of Warrior ebooks for free. If you wanna know the site pm me

@OP (and a few others) I don't understand why you are in such a rush to get clients if you don't even have the tools or knowledge to render the campaign...

You're going to be the one needing ORM when your client writes negative reviews of you not being able to do the work.

How do you guys feel about having a website? I feel like all services are very customized to each individual business, so having a website to display packages could be unnecessary and difficult to do (in terms of deciding what to put, for reasons stated above - not that the actual action is difficult).
Then again, it may add credibility to your business. If you're asked if you have one, saying you don't may imply that you aren't a legitimate business. Though I don't see much wrong with being a freelancer...
Similarly, do you guys offer specific packages, or do you customize them based on the budget and needs of the customer? Social media presence, email lists, ranking in all search engines, etc...

Also, I've heard that Google Places changes the results you see when you search for something depending on where you search from. For example, if you search "Dentist in Long Island, NY" in Long Island NY, your results will be different than if you search for the same thing in Pittsburgh, PA. This seems like it would present a problem when outsourcing or doing non-local business. I'm sure there are ways of dealing with it, but I don't know if everybody knows this (or even if what I read was correct)
Just a thought, not incredibly pertinent to me at this time.

the_demon said:

@OP (and a few others) I don't understand why you are in such a rush to get clients if you don't even have the tools or knowledge to render the campaign...

You're going to be the one needing ORM when your client writes negative reviews of you not being able to do the work.

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Here is an idea, add something of value to the thread or gtfo. No cares for your negative attitude.

Jumbo_Refill said:

Here is an idea, add something of value to the thread or gtfo. No cares for your negative attitude.

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Actually he has a very valid point that I completely agree with.

You wouldn't advertise yourself as a plumber if you didn't know how to do the work, so why should this be any different?

Sometimes its better to just tell the client "look there isn't any valuable seo traffic to target so I can't and won't take your money for that"

I've actually done this twice, while it may seem like you're talking yourself out of a job believe me you're not!

Trust is one of the most important factors in developing a good long term relationship with your clients, by telling your client the above they know that A. You're not out to scam them B. You're not desperate for the money C. You can be trusted!

This will open the door for you to say "While there is no seo traffic have you ever considered [insert other marketing method/s here]"

Use your imagination and explore every possible avenue that could bring customers to your clients.

Most importantly know what you're doing!

trubnut said:

Actually he has a very valid point that I completely agree with.

You wouldn't advertise yourself as a plumber if you didn't know how to do the work, so why should this be any different?

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I never said he didn't have a valid point, but if he isn't going to contribute to the thread in a productive way, there is no point saying it.

Jumbo_Refill said:

I never said he didn't have a valid point, but if he isn't going to contribute to the thread in a productive way, there is no point saying it.

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What are you contributing? I gave him a valuable piece of advice so he doesn't get himself in over his head and makes sure he can walk before he trys running so that his business doesn't go down hill. Obviously, you're not savvy enough in business to understand that... It's called Business 101.

... and fuck your sugar coating shit, that doesn't make money. I'm trying to help him not get his ass sued, what are you doing?

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A real friend tells their friend when they are making a mistake and shows them how to improve. They don't tell their friend to go down a path that's going to cause their business to collapse or get themselves sued or in other legal trouble.

the_demon said:

What are you contributing? I gave him a valuable piece of advice so he doesn't get himself in over his head and makes sure he can walk before he trys running so that his business doesn't go down hill. Obviously, you're not savvy enough in business to understand that... It's called Business 101.

... and fuck your sugar coating shit, that doesn't make money. I'm trying to help him not get his ass sued, what are you doing?

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A real friend tells their friend when they are making a mistake and shows them how to improve. They don't tell their friend to go down a path that's going to cause their business to collapse or get themselves sued or in other legal trouble.

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I'm not trying to say that you should sugar coat anything. But telling someone that they shouldn't do something because they don't know what they are doing(to an extent) is horse shit. You don't know what he knows so there for are unable to judge what kind of risk he runs. Anyone doing anything runs a risk of something, some times you have to roll with it and fix mistakes as you go. If everyone was so afraid of risk that something bad might happen, nothing would get done. Now I am not saying charge full speed willy nilly, but he knows better then any of us what he is able to provide and what he is not able to provide.

A real friend doesn't try and stomp on their friends goals. If I am not mistaken it is not the friends job to decide what direction their friends take. While I agree that you should have their best interest at heart, you should also be supportive with what they want to achieve and give advice where it is wanted. Instead of shitting on other peoples aspirations, maybe trying constructive criticism would suit your goal more appropriate.

"Dude you suck dick and you will be sued because you are fucking stupid and don't know what you are doing so don't bother with that."
Yup, sounds like a good friend there...

There are times to say hey -- what your doing is stupid, do you want someone reading the manual while they do brain surgery on you? Or fix your fridge, plumbing, car or anything else?
Telling someone they need to learn more before they lose their shirt is not stomping on dreams, its offering a different path -- one that leads to (hopefully) more success.
If you dont have the tools or knowledge, buy a domain and seo it. A lot of the warrior stuff is junk BTW, although some is good. Read more here, and try it. In a few months you have the basic skillset to success. Would it not be a good idea to outsource this first job and use it as a learning experience?
Congrats on the gig, and good luck