Speaker 1: 0:54

Hello and welcome to SEO is not that hard. I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of the SEO intelligence platform, keywordfupoleasercom, where we help you discover the questions people ask online and learn how to optimize your content for traffic and authority. I've been in SEO and online marketing for over 20 years and I'm here to share the wealth of knowledge, hints and tips I've amassed over that time. Welcome back to SEO is not that hard's me here, ed Dawson, as usual, and today I've got an interview episode with Daniel Molina from redpalmus. He's the CEO there and he's an incredible expert in local SEO. So this, this episode, is really focused on local SEO.

Speaker 1: 1:30

It's not something that I've done a lot of myself with people. It's not. You know. I've done a occasional bit of local SEO, but I wouldn't consider myself like the expert on local SEO, and that's why I wanted to get Daniel on, so he could talk us all the way through a local SEO. I could ask all the questions I got and hopefully you'll come away learning something, just like I have. So, without further ado, let's head over to the main interview between me and Daniel Molina. I'm here with Daniel Molina from redpalmus, who is a local SEO expert, and I've basically got Daniel on so that we can talk all things local SEO. Local SEO is not something I've ever done in anger hugely myself, so that's why Daniel's here. So the first question I've got for you, daniel, is if you are looking at local SEO, why is local SEO important and what kind of people is local SEO important to?

Speaker 2: 2:24

Yeah, great question. Thank you for having me on the show. So local SEO is very important for a lot of the trades. If you have a hair salon, if you're a restaurant right, if you're a company trying to provide a service to someone in a local geolocation, then obviously you want to try to figure out how you let Google know where you're at, versus, like product sales, that was kind of international or national brands. Don't care where you are, you know that's a different mindset on how you do SEO, for that, right, that's going to be what I share with you today. It could obviously cross, could definitely apply on both sides, but there should be some of it that's going to be more specific to local SEO.

Speaker 2: 3:08

And so why it's important is that Google is obviously using algorithms based off of IP address of the person looking for a uh, you know, a service, and so that's going to be useful. Okay, if you're. For instance, I'm in Hawaii, um, the Island of Oahu, so if I do a search for, like, let's say, a plumber, then my IP address is pinged into Kailua, if I'm not using a VPN, um, so Google knows I'm here, but then that's it, right, and then Google is going to find out, ok, well, what page should I serve up to that person looking for a plumber in Kailua, hawaii? And then and that's the conversation today Right, like what?

Speaker 2: 3:45

Why Google would choose someone that's a localized brand or a localized company versus a bigger brand. That is probably not going to be as impactful for that person and that user Right going to be as impactful for that person and that user Right and so. So it's important to try to grab local customers, and if you're not doing it, that you're missing out. If you're just only doing PPC Angie's list or Angie's or e-local or all these directories and ads, which is not wrong with that, it is a way but you're missing out on, probably 70% to 80% of click-through was people using organic search versus paid search, right, and so it's very important.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Yeah, I can see that. So essentially, it sounds like most of the marketplace for local services is via Google Local, based by the sounds of it.

Speaker 2: 4:36

That's the kind of numbers we're looking at yes, exactly, I mean you know, when you, when you think about most people on their mobile device when they're looking for the trades, then, um, they're just searching I need a plumber near me, or hvac company or best you know hair salon in the area, whatever it is google. I mean people are starting to become savvy to know that Google knows where they are. So it's not anymore where you say plumber in Honolulu, hawaii, right, those terms where you put the actual city in the search are becoming less and less used. From the data that we see with the tools that we use, it's mostly plumber near me, hair salon near me, best hair salon, those kind of terms. Because, again, the consumer has been trained and now know that Google knows where they're at.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Okay, right, so you don't actually specifically, we're not going to look at targeting those specific terms around where you're at. The key thing is just like, I suppose, essentially telling, telling google where you are, what the areas you cover are. So is that is, would that be right? So you've got to spend as much time looking at making sure that's what google knows, right?

Speaker 2: 5:47

and so on. The actual website as the seo practitioner right there's. There's never an external professional. When you say I'm an seo professional, well, what do you? What did you master the old way of SEO? Right, because every year Google is doing something new you have to be practitioners Right.

Speaker 2: 6:06

We're always practicing with the right thing. And so, to answer your question, is we have to tell Google by using content of where we're at geolocation. By using content of where we're at geolocation, the customer is not searching geolocation but we do have to create content where there's city pages, where there's blog content that has cities in it, to let Google know. Hey, we're not just writing content for anybody looking for a water heater or a hair salon or a restaurant. We're actually trying to get our content to be targeted to geolocation. So, google, we're in Honolulu, hawaii, or if you're in Dallas, fort Worth, texas, we're going to write plumbing content around Dallas, fort Worth, right, that way. So it's not keyword stuffing, it's not putting plumber near Fort Worth or plumbing near Dallas every other word. Obviously, google has the ability to know that you're trying to cheat the system, but there are ways that you can actually create content on your website that's topical, right, whether it's plumbing, whatever it is that you could put a city here and there to let Google know. Okay, well, you know, if someone's looking for a plumber in New York, they're not going to really want to be on your blog because your blog content is more localized to Fort Worth, not New York, right?

Speaker 2: 7:23

And so there are ways, yes, for us practitioners to create content where there's schema content, which is the content behind the code, behind the blog. It's just Google saying, you know, hey, give me a quick markup of what your page is about, the author, all that stuff, and it's called schema markup. Um, so there's stuff in there, this alt tags, which is just information behind the images. So let's say, if I take a picture of the dallas um, you know skyline and then I tag alt tag, say, hey, this is a dallas skyline and we're a plumbing company in dallas, then google knows, okay, they're plumber and I'm obviously the content that we put on the page, the title page, there's all kinds of things and I won't go into that yet If you want me to go to the technical side, but there's a lot of stuff that we do on the website to let Google know we are a company in Dallas versus just a plumbing company that anybody in the United States needs a plumber, pick us right.

Speaker 2: 8:17

There's two different ways. So, yes, a hundred percent, localize that content. However, the, the user, the customer, is not going to be like, plumber, a plumber in dallas, they're just going to say plumber near me yeah, okay, cool, so there's obviously the, there's the content side there.

Speaker 1: 8:30

Is there anything else? Is there any other ways we tell google, like this is where we are? So let's say, if we're starting at, you know, we're a plumber site, we're a local plumber, we're setting up, we're gonna, we've created our website is there? Is there anything we have to do? Do we need to register with google? Is there any ways of any tools we can use that helps google along with that process?

Speaker 2: 8:52

Oh, yeah, a hundred percent. So Google actually has Google tools, web tools where you can index your pages. So once you create a website, it's kind of letting Google know hey, we're here. Right, google already indexes pages, but you can actually manually index. So when we launch a site, we actually manually index each page. So it's a hey, google, crawl this page, right, and it's a free tool. It's not, you know, it's literally Google web tools and you log in like a Gmail account or whatever, and you actually could tell Google go ping my website, we just launched it, index it for me.

Speaker 2: 9:23

Now is Google going to index it? I mean, most likely, yes, but sometimes it doesn't, and then sometimes you got to do it again. But you can see it's processing and then they'll tell you hey, yeah, we indexed your page, and so that's one way to do when you launch a site is to is to manually index your page. Another way to do it is to make sure if you're a local company and there's a place they're going to or or you know you're trying to show up locally, is to get a Google business profile. So there's a directory. It's the best directory out there, better than Yelp, better than Yellow Pages, better than all these other directories. I say better than Yelp. If you're a restaurant, you got to be on Yelp, right? Yelp is better than Google Biz Profile. But when it comes to everything else, google Biz Profile pretty much wins. When it comes to pest control, plumbing trades, maybe even hair salons, google is probably going to be the best bet, uh, but yelp is trying to have that market share, right, so they're spending dollars to be the top directory to you as well.

Speaker 2: 10:25

But put it on yelp, put it on google's profile, put it on map, put your address on map, um, uh, I mean apple maps. Put it on every directory. That's important, right? Not, you know, there's probably like 200 different directories. Um, there's a company called yextcom, that's y-e-x-tcom. You could I mean it costs money for that but if you go there, it actually tells you what are the major directories. So then you type out your information, um, your, your services, your address, your phone number, your url, everything all one time. And then next thing goes, reaches out to all those directories and there's about 60 to 80 of them that you want to be on and then it fills it out for you. That way you're not creating a new account for each directory that takes time right.

Speaker 2: 11:07

It's more of an automated way to make sure that your directory is synced with the information. So that way let's just say you have a new photo you want to add.

Speaker 2: 11:22

You way, let's just say you have a new photo you want to add. You have to go to 80 directories and add that photo, or you change an address. That's I mean talk about. That's a lot of work, right, right? Well, with yaks, you literally just make the update, hit sync and it sends it up to every directory that you synced with and like that. That's important, because then google is gonna be like oh, google's gonna be like this is the address to this company and they're in Dallas and they provide all these services. So they're going to go to your website first. Okay, what services you have? Let's say it's a plumber. Oh, look at all this stuff about plumbing services. And they have the city, dallas, and they have the address, dallas, they have the area code, dallas, with a phone number, okay. And let's look at the directories. What are directories saying about this company? Oh, wow, look at, they have 60 directories that are, you know, important. You know, like, like said Yelp, google biz profile, and it has Dallas, it has plumbing services and it has all these reviews about plumbing Awesome, all right.

Speaker 2: 12:07

Now let's look at social media. Let's look at Instagram. Let's look at Facebook. Um, you know TikTok, when TikTok was alive? I think it's still alive, but you know, you know. Let's look at now your social media platform. What is your social media saying about this company? They're also Dallas, and look at all these IP addresses pinging them that are in the Dallas area. So those three things are going to help Google know where you're at, look at your website and then obviously know how to categorize you at a geolocation as a geolocation.

Speaker 1: 12:36

So is that essentially? Is that, is that what will be known as citations? Some of those exactly citations yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so even if you don't get a direct link as if the company name and address and that kind of thing are mentioned in direct to the right Google kind of like puts the dots together and goes all right, this, this is a company that's being referred to, even if they're not necessarily being linked Obviously. If they're linked, that's even better, would that be?

Speaker 2: 13:01

right, right, right. I wouldn't say it's a heavy lifting Like, obviously, the way I look at SEO is a pie chart, and so there's pieces of the pie that you got to fill out, and the biggest piece of that pie is going to be the content on your website how your website is built good quality, right. Mobile device is a good, you know, is it a lightweight, fast loading all that stuff, right, and so. So that's the biggest piece of the pie. Then you got reviews, which is a big piece of pie. Then you got citations, which is also a piece of that pie, right. So citation is probably maybe eight to 10% of your results, right, making sure that everything's the same um, and there's no um confusion, brand confusion on all the different citations. So google looks at that, right.

Speaker 2: 13:41

But I wouldn't say like, if someone says, hey, we're gonna get your directories on order and and that's all we do, that's not gonna rank you, it's just part of the piece, it's part of the plot, right, and so a better, a better illustration is it's imagine, a, a 100 puzzle pieces, okay, and really Google has like 200 different things you can do.

Speaker 2: 14:00

You just can't do it all. But what you're trying to do is put that puzzle piece together as much as you can so that Google can understand and see the picture of what you're trying to convey. Whether you're a plumber, electrician, a restaurant, a physician, whatever it is, you're trying to paint that picture. So the more puzzle pieces you could put into together, then Google will say, oh, I know what you guys are, and so that's what citations reviews, right, maybe the website has 10 of those puzzle pieces, right, citation maybe has two pieces of that, and so the clearer picture you give to Google, the more they understand what you do, what category and then how to rank you. Right, if you are the best plumber and you have the best reviews, your website's awesome, then Google wants to put you number one. But if you can't paint that picture to them, then they're going to ignore you.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Okay, cool. Now you mentioned reviews. Now, that's obviously an important thing, but it's a bit of like what came first, the chicken or the egg. To get reviews, you need I presume you need a business profile for people to leave reviews against. Um, so what when? When someone's starting off for the first time, how, what are some sort of tips, strategies that they could employ for getting reviews? Because obviously, when you brand new, no reviews, how do you encourage reviews? How do you get that going?

Speaker 2: 15:22

Yeah, I would definitely start with Google Business Profile, I think Yelp. I don't know if they changed it, but you can't ask for reviews, which is stupid to me. They don't like that. People ask for reviews for Yelp, However. Google wants you to ask for reviews. In fact, they say Google wants you to ask for reviews. In fact, they say we want to ask for reviews. Copy this link, send it to the people. So there's no way to fast track it, because Google has the ability now, where they're filtering reviews based off of spamming. So if you say, hey, let's just say you live in a household and there's like three or four different phones there, hey, all of y'all write a review right now. Now google has the ability to find that out and then they'll just not post your review right.

Speaker 2: 15:59

So you can't do it that way. Nor can you hire back in the day what they used to do, which is black hat tactics, or hire people in india or the philippines to just write a bunch of reviews and then they're overnight.

Speaker 2: 16:12

They'll get you know 150 reviews and they only been open for two weeks and then they would cheat the system and actually rank. But Google is obviously got a lot better. This is like 10 years ago, right Back, I would say even longer. Google's got smarter about that, right, and so the way you get reviews is literally asking Right, getting your staff to ask reviews.

Speaker 1: 16:41

You know, if you want to say, hey, we'll give you 10% off if you review us right now.

Speaker 2: 16:43

Or hey, we'll give you this tech, this $10 Starbucks card If you review us and show us to us right, get creative with how to get reviews, because reviews are going to be very important. I started a home service contracting company here in Hawaii I'm called mono home services, and we had zero reviews, right. But we know SEO, we know how to do the content and social media, but we had to start one at a time, right. And now we dominate our area because not only do we have good content and we're the topical authority with our SEO and content, but we also have reviews to back up that right. So Google is ranking us, and so there's no fast process If you try to cheat the system, and so there's no fast process.

Speaker 2: 17:15

If you try to cheat the system, google has things in place to snitch that out. And then, um, and you get in trouble. It's just a literally start asking um, you know, everyone has a mobile device. Hey, you know, do you mind if I text you real quick the link to our, our, um, our review will really help us out? Oh, no problem, they send it and usually most people are logged into their google account, so it just pops up on their phone and they can literally write five stars that this is awesome, right, so asking is going to be the best. Obviously there's automation, where you're finished with a job and it sends them a link. Uh, it doesn't get as much. Uh, I think it's like 20 percent of the times you get a review versus someone in front of you and you ask you're gonna, it's like 60 to 70 you get a review I've seen um places like coffee shops and stuff here in the uk where they have a qr code to scan.

Speaker 1: 18:06

So let's scan, yeah, scan the qr, which would just be the link to, to do the thing. Yeah, so so that that's probably another good way. So, essentially, yeah, just ask people up front, leave us a review and and if you can, if you make sense, incentivize them like so with discounts and things like that, is it so?

Speaker 2: 18:23

it's a way of doing that, because you got to think about it's costing you money to get that review. Say, it's ten dollars for a starbucks card, right, well, that ten dollars, if you all said in spit, let's say, a hundred dollars worth of reviews, well, the quality of those reviews and the ability to get ranking juice, that's invaluable, right, you're going to make that money back from the ranking that you get from getting those reviews right. So it's an investment. You're not wasting money. It's an investment and it's going to get you to climb up, you know the ladder of SEO, but not just Google business profile.

Speaker 2: 19:00

If you have a QR code, present Google, present Yelp and then present maybe another one, right, facebook reviews, right, I mean. But my opinion I would say Google business profile is the best to start if you want to rank. Google's not paying attention as much to yelp. You know reviews. So all of a sudden you got one review on on google but you got, let's say, 150 reviews on yelp. It's not going to help you as much if those 150 reviews are on google, this profile okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 19:33

So obviously reviews really important, would you say, because obviously, if you weren't doing local business and links become very important, would you, if you had to choose between reviews or links, would you and you're going, local is where you want. Would you go reviews over links, like?

Speaker 2: 19:53

backlinks. Yeah, ooh, that's a hard, and you are local or not local you're local, so you're you're doing local seo.

Speaker 1: 20:01

You've got your local site. You're a local contractor, a local shop, would you? You know you're you're going to spend time either on uh looking at getting reviews or looking at getting backlinks. Would would you be going for reviews for local?

Speaker 2: 20:14

that's hard to answer. It would be like saying, hey, I want to win this swimming race. Which one should I use? Should I use my arms or my legs? Yeah, like you can't use both, right if you really want to win.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Oh, you know, I'm just going to not paddle my legs, just use my arms. Yeah, it's just not right. And so you'll get phone. You'll move forward, but the speed of which you move forward is going to be determined on if you use both, and so I would say if I was on a budget or I couldn't really concentrate on reviews, I would definitely the backlink has some. Some. Some backlink used to be like the best thing. Then backlink sucked and Google says no more, I don't care about backlinks. Then now it's back in again. Right, having backlinks from good quality websites and you could rank with just backlinks and good content, without any reviews. Right?

Speaker 2: 21:08

And so I would say, if you wanted to start backlinks, it's going to be better. But once you're there and you only have two reviews. But then you think about it. If you're on Google, it gives you a three pack, right, we call it the map pack area. Well, you show up, okay, you're on page one Awesome. And you have three spots. Let's say your competitor has 500 reviews and the other one has 300. Are they going to pick you with two reviews? Are they going to pick the other guys? So half the battle sure is getting there. But then you got to convert. And if you have zero reviews and you got them from backlinks and the other, you know voodoo magic of seo, but no one's going to call you because you have no conversion power. And so that's what I'm saying. You want to have both, because not only will reviews help you rank, but also reviews will help you with converting.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Okay, cool. So you mentioned the local pack, the map pack. Do you need to be in Google business? Sorry, do you need to have a Google business profile to appear in that, or will Google work it out for itself if you haven't done your Google business profile?

Speaker 2: 22:12

Oh no, google will not create one for you. Okay, right.

Speaker 1: 22:17

So if you don't get your Google business profile, you're not going to be in that map pack. So it's really key. So I'd like to say the first step for anyone is to get that Google business profile.

Speaker 2: 22:26

then Right, you'll show up on the. So you got the map pack, which is organic, but then underneath it you got the old school of Google, which is the list of urls you can show up there that gets like five percent click through rate.

Speaker 2: 22:40

Yeah, so all the actions in that, that local pack basically, oh yeah, unless it's like uh, unless the map pack does not show up and it's, let's say, hey, um, you know they're looking up like a part, you know, like a part number or something, then the map pack's not going to show up, it's going to show you urls right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, interesting, interesting.

Speaker 1: 22:58

So it's really key to get that that. That um google business profile, because they used to call it something else. Was it google my business? It used to be google my business.

Speaker 2: 23:07

It was called places google plus. Google can't figure out what they want to call each other. You know themselves, yeah, so you so that's, that's the important thing to note.

Speaker 1: 23:14

If you, if you're looking around at, if anyone's doing some research after this, you might find it called something slightly different. Yes, but the key thing is it's to appear. It's what makes you appear in that map pack and that local pack when a local search is triggered. So when Google says this query is, it determines is a local query. So it's going to start looking for local results to where it thinks you are physically located correct and I would start that immediately.

Speaker 2: 23:41

So if you're building a website and the website's not done, um, I would. I think google wants you to have a website, but you can post a google this profile without a website. But I would say, start that on day one, just get a profile and start asking for reviews and then, when you're long, when a website gets launched, then you could put that website url into your google this profile yeah, awesome.

Speaker 1: 24:02

So I've got a question now, for there'll be some places where they have maybe they cover more than one geographical area, so you can be a local business, but you might have two patches, so you might cover two towns. It actually might be your cities, it might be quite separate from each other, or you might have branches in various areas. Is there anything you have to do special compared to just trying to rank for one area for that? Is there anything you need to do with, say, google business profile or on your site to try and handle those situations? If you especially if you're successful and you stop branching out, how do you, how do you cover that?

Speaker 2: 24:37

You know that is a very great question and if you ask different people will give you different answers. And it's very difficult to give you a straight answer to that because I'm used to um google and it was like google places. I think google places google hated when you um had multiple google places addresses everywhere because you're cheating the system. So for every city you created google places. Then you show up seo wise and you go say stop, no, we don't want that. Now, if you are within a 10, 15 mile radius, you need to have one google places profile. Therefore, you need to consolidate all your places to one profile. Well, as of like five years ago or seven years ago, it was like you know what, you can have multiple, it's fine you know, and so so now you can have multiple locations.

Speaker 2: 25:32

Now, for instance, if um I don't know how it's in uk, but like um in dallas, fort worth, this is a big metroplex area and people know that. So there's all these little subsidies like plano, richardson, um, carolton, frisco, right, well, you could technically have a google business profile for each of those little subsidies. But if you do that, google wants you to have an actual address. So you got to have an address so you can't fake it anymore and you can't use a virtual PO box address or a virtual office. It actually has to have an address. So the way Google does it now is when you create an account, you have to record a video of showing you outside. You got to record outside the office. Show your truck If it's branded, it's better. Show the sign that says whatever company it is, walk in, show your office all continuously and then that's the way they approve you to have a citation for his Google business profile.

Speaker 2: 26:34

So it gets very expensive if you start trying to you know, release all these offices to have one. But I would say having an office in Fort Worth and having an office in Dallas makes sense. So having a profile for both if you service both and you can get an office pretty cheap in that area, maybe for 500 bucks or a thousand bucks a month. I don't know It'll be worth it because, yes, it is important and Google will show you based off of those geolocations, and then you can have one website or you can have two different websites. That's a whole other strategy, right? Do you have one website that two profiles go to, or do you have Fort Worth website? Has the Fort Worth Google profile and the Dallas has the Google profile?

Speaker 2: 27:19

For the Dallas, I am of the belief the way we practice is having two different websites, because you're going to rank better when you have a website that only concentrates in the Dallas area, right, it's going to rank better than a website that concentrates on both, because the companies that only concentrate on the Dallas area and they don't do Fort Worth Google is going to rank them more because they see that you've optimized it, where 100 pages are all about the Dallas area, versus 50% is Dallas and 50% is footworth, so it's kind of like saturated with both. Right, does that make sense? And so the more content that you can create about that particular area, you're going to rank better. And so it's hard. That particular area you're going to rank better, and so it's hard and there's more to it. But I would say, google allows you to have multiple Google Business Profile. However, you have to now get reviews for both and you have to now optimize both Right.

Speaker 1: 28:15

So it doubles your workload.

Speaker 2: 28:17

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But if you can afford it and you have, you have the staff to do it. Oh yeah, having multiple locations is better. Okay, cool. And not only we haven't talked about this but Google local services. I don't know if they have that there in UK, but on the local service ads it's based off of the geolocation and so if you service all of Dallas, fort Worth, but your location's only in Fort Worth, then you'll miss out on anybody in Dallas. But those are ads, it's just Google's different kind of ads.

Speaker 1: 28:51

Yeah, ads, we don't touch much on the podcast because it's like it's a completely different world paying for that traffic, traffic. So you know you have. If someone's interested in how to um, how to ppc or whatever for local, then um, yeah, I think I think, well, maybe get get in touch with daniel. If, uh, yeah, do you do? Could you guys do that?

Speaker 2: 29:13

yeah, oh yeah, we get in touch with yes.

Speaker 1: 29:14

So if you're interested in ppc for for local, we won't cover it in the podcast, but just get in touch with daniel and obviously we'll do all his contact details at the end of the show. Um, so the next thing I want to ask you we've obviously touched like those, like you know where to get citations, where to get links, where do you know the google business profile, all those in yelp, etc. So when it comes to the content on the actual site, um, this is an interesting one for me because I'm wondering. I've seen different ways of doing it.

Speaker 1: 29:39

Some people seem to do sites that are very light on on what they are about. So if they're a plumbing site, for example, they might not talk much about plumbing. They can be very simple and say we're a plumber. This is the list of services we do. This is the list of. Yeah, there's the areas we cover and that can be it, and they in some cases seem to rank quite well. But then other sites I see the they will do a lot more content. That's sort of informational, sort of topical, so it's not relevant necessarily to them getting a client, but it's more about them demonstrating their expertise. What do you find works best. What would you recommend people to do? Is it competition dependent, so if you've got very low competition for your service in your area, you can get over a lot less? Is it as the competition ramps up, you need to do more content? How does it work?

Speaker 2: 30:28

Oh, a hundred percent. It is definitely depending on the competition, right, and so if you do your research, you do diligence and you look at the companies that are ranking number one, we'll see what they're doing right. Which is part of the SEO of what we do, is we look at the competition and then, based off the competition, is what you do. So, yeah, so maybe you can get away with this rights of kick butt service pages that are like twenty five hundred words, it's got pictures, it's got videos, it's got infographics yes, like that, that could be it, and you just rank just from that and then you just kind of blog every month, here and there, talking about different things.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Um, but then sometimes, if your other companies that have the same thing, then yeah, then start talking about products and you know, say, if you're a plumber, talk about different water heaters, what kind of water heaters are there? Um, you know, talk about, like, what usually breaks on water heaters and talk about, um, you know, like the the different parts in the water heaters. Because is the customer going to look for the different parts? No, but then, like to your point, google customer going to look for the different parts? No, but then, like to your point. Google is going to be like oh, this guy has like 50 pages about water heaters. They must be the authority. So therefore let's then show them when someone's looking for water heater repair, because not only do they have enough servers that they repair water heater, but they also have a lot of content that could be helpful to the customer if they want more information about water use. So yes it. You know it'll grow into that, right for sure okay, cool.

Speaker 1: 31:49

Now you mentioned there some of the key elements of a page that you would have. So you talk about videos and pictures and things like that. So what if you're advising someone to make it, to make sort of content that makes them stand out from everybody else? What are the kind of things that that, that and this is where we're sort of getting to conversion, the kind of stuff that when someone lands on the page okay, so you've done the work, you've got, you've got someone to your site what are the kind of things you put on in terms of helping convert that person to a customer, things like calls to action, all that kind of thing what? What are the key elements? I mean, I will vary between some of the different, you know, depending on what your trade, but what's the the kind of things that you'll be looking at and suggesting people think about?

Speaker 2: 32:27

yeah, when it. When it comes to services, um, specifically, uh, it's. There's three things I like to um, there's three questions I like to ask when we're designing a website are you affordable? Are you competent and are you trustworthy? Right, so are you affordable? You Are you competent and are you trustworthy? Right, so, are you affordable? You know you're too expensive. Are you competent, meaning professional? Can you get the job done? And are you trusted in the community? Right, and so when you answer those three questions in 10 seconds or less, then you have conversions.

Speaker 2: 32:57

What happens is a lot of people ask for marriage too soon. Hey, use us as a plumber, are you? Hey, come to our restaurant. We're the, we're the best. Well, you're saying you're the best. What are people saying? So, the value proposition, right, what you have to tell the story of why they should pick you, why should they go to your restaurant? Why should they go to your hair salon? Why should they go to your dentistry? No, why, and, and and. Just saying that you could help them is not going to convert. And so ask those questions to yourself and then provide imagery and content that then answers those questions.

Speaker 2: 33:31

So are you, um, um, so, are you affordable? Okay, are the coupons are there? Is it 50 off? The first service is the trip fee waived? Um, is the um 50 off a hair color? Um, you know, is it. You know free whitening kit, you know whatever it is like. What are you providing to them that is showing that you're affordable, right? Not every product and services are looking for a cheap solution. I'm not talking about cheap, we're just saying are. Are you affordable, right? Even you know people who are very successful. They're looking for a bargain, right, and so so answer that question what are you, what are, what are you offering me and what are you presenting to make you look affordable?

Speaker 2: 34:15

Second one is professional, which is easy these days, because most website look professional, they look clean, right, and so just make sure you have a uniform technician. You have a picture of your office. You have a picture of the best dish you have oh, that looks tasty, whatever it is. Make sure you look like. Oh, that restaurant looks good, or that physician looks clean, or whatever. That is right. So have that professionalism.

Speaker 2: 34:38

The website is really easy to use. It's intuitive, right, and then the trust factor is reviews is really easy to use. It's intuitive, right, and then the trust factor is reviews. You know, do you have reviews on the website? Do you have accolades and awards Best. You know restaurant in, you know the area, or you know you have you know five-star reviews and put the five-star Google review logo there. You know those kinds of things that come to say this company is trusted, right, bbb, which is better business Bureau here in the United States, and so whatever badges you have, that's coming from the community, where I could tell you that I'm awesome. But of course, you're going to tell me that what is the community saying about you? And so then have those three things before they scroll down, like have it all right there, you're most likely to convert.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Okay, cool. What works best in terms of conversion? Do you want people to call? Do you want people to fill in an email? Do you want people to fill in a form? What works best, do you think?

Speaker 2: 35:39

Yeah, it just depends on what service or product you offer For the trades. People want a phone call and they want a contact form, and so you got to make sure you have a contact form and then, obviously, a phone number. I mean, for a restaurant, it's probably going to be 99 percent, you better pick up that phone, you know, versus a contact form. And then you know, physicians, you know, might be a little bit both of call and then set an appointment. Hey, I need an appointment. What's the availability? Usually an online scheduler is going to be important, um, to have as well, like, let me see your schedule, can I book that? There's tons of companies that offer that. Um, some people like that too as well.

Speaker 2: 36:14

It's just going to be depending on service and and you know product. You know what do you have? Is it? Is it, you know? Does your product require a lot of support? You know, and where they need to talk to someone on the phone, or is it? You know better, you understand your customers more than anybody, right? Are they frustrated that they can't talk to somebody? You know? Do they not want to talk to anybody? Do they only want to fill out a contact form? There's those two, right?

Speaker 2: 36:38

That's hard to answer for everybody answer for everybody.

Speaker 1: 36:47

Okay, but I suppose the thing is to how, how, however, people are used to contacting you in your industry, in your trade, make sure that that's the clear call to action. So, because I've seen sites where where they look great but they haven't put a clear call to action on, like the telephone number is buried in the footer right and it's like that, if you, if you want people to call, have that, have that number big, front and center and repeated, you know, so that the people can't miss it. It's like that's the kind of thing, isn't it, basically?

Speaker 2: 37:08

So our site, for sure, we have it up top call now, call today, call action. And then as you scroll down, you know book today, call now. Scroll down. Yeah. Throughout the whole process of this story that we're telling throughout the whole site about uh services reviews, all that we're always asking are you ready to buy from us now? Have you seen enough to make us worthy of your call?

Speaker 1: 37:31

right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think I think there's just one. One final thing I want to ask. That's um about lead magnets. Do lead magnets work it well in the um, in in the local, for people with trades and that kind of thing? Because I use lead magnets quite a lot in the sites I'm working on and they can be really good for capturing people's details and then, obviously, remarketing to them. Do lead magnets work at the local level or is it specific? So like an accountant might say, offer a tax guide as a lead magnet, so yeah, so someone's looking for an accountant. Hey, get off your tax guide, put your details and then you've got something to remarket to. Is that a tactic that you see working, or is that again something that may be dependent on the kind of area we're looking at?

Speaker 2: 38:19

Yeah, I would say definitely in, like the restaurant business, hair salon business. I think it's good Like hey, you know, give us your email and your information and we'll give you 10% off of your next color or haircut or whatever. Or you know, we'll give you best product picks that we like for shampoo, whatever People are going to want that, because they're going to want to know the professionals. If you're giving them information that's valuable to them, then yes, for a restaurant it could be. You know we change our menu every two, three months. You know, be a part of our inside secret menu, secret menu special where only these people know this, that kind of like exclusivity, right? People like oh, I want to be about that club, you know you know what are they having over there.

Speaker 2: 39:06

Oh, they're a part of the exclusive club. You want to be a part of that, you know it's kind of like. You know it's kind of like master card when you have the platinum or the black card. It's like. You know, people like that sometimes when it comes to the trades. Don't contact me, you know the trade lead magnet is like. I just need you to fix my toilet. I don't want to get bombarded every month by your stupid email, right?

Speaker 1: 39:28

I wouldn't say lead magnets.

Speaker 2: 39:30

There's nothing a plumber can give me that I would want to be a part of your email list, right? So?

Speaker 2: 39:34

the trade is going to be a little harder. We do do email campaigns and we do. I'm seeing it rewarding. But the way we do it it's different. We don't email them a special every month. What we do is we email them a tip like a house hat tip, and it doesn't have to be about plumbing, it could be any tip. And then we also put in there three cool things you could do no-transcript uh, super bowl, um party. You know that now they're looking forward to your email every month, like they're giving me a house tack tip and they're telling me what's going on in my community and then, at the very bottom, then do a special. That kind of email is great, but it's harder in the trades to kind of do lead magnets yeah, and I can imagine I'm, as anyone I can possibly think of will be with plumbers.

Speaker 1: 40:34

If you have, like um, your boiler or your hvac or whatever needs an annual service, that you can sign up for an annual, you know, a reminder when your service is coming up, that kind of thing might be. But it's one of those things that, yeah, it's sometimes people. People can be a bit reticent sometimes to hand their information over, but yeah, I can see why a plumber will be a difficult one to get exciting stuff off all the time.

Speaker 2: 40:57

So they'll sign up for that. Yeah, they'll sign up for that. When you already do service, they're not.

Speaker 1: 41:02

They're not going to sign up for it if they haven't done service for you and just pops up on their page yeah, yeah, I suppose that's the thing where you're the plumber, you've gone around on the service and you say, hey, if you give me your email address, I can, I can send you a reminder next year. So that's like a it's not necessarily a website thing, but it might be. It might be a nice little business hack, uh, for people doing that kind of service thing. Yeah, cool, awesome. Well, that's been absolutely fantastic. Daniel, obviously you know so much about local SEO and there's so much you can help people. So what kind of services do you offer if people are interested in getting help with this and how do they get in touch with you if they want to?

Speaker 2: 41:36

Yeah, so you can go to redpalmus and we do literally A to Z marketing. We'll do SEO, ppc, facebook ads, social media ads We'll do. You know this, new people say we'll optimize your Google profile. Stay away from those people that you pay a thousand bucks a month and we just optimize your Google profile. That's not a service, because it's just you do it once and then you kind of do some stuff here and there, but that doesn't rank you only, so you got to be careful with that.

Speaker 2: 42:05

So SEO umbrella includes social media posts, includes optimization of the citations that we talked about, right, and it also includes content on your website. So we do that. We also do OTT, which is streaming platform ads. We do video marketing, which is huge for SEO too as well. We haven't talked about video marketing with tagging it right, the titles being the authority on YouTube. Youtube is the second most used search engine and guess who owns YouTube? Google, right. And so there's video marketing. So we do it all, we do it all, and so the only thing that we don't do is like TV and radio, like TV buys and radio buys, which is not streaming platforms, but we will plug you into those people.

Speaker 2: 42:46

But, yeah, we could definitely help you grow our best. The way you can look at us, it's like hey, daniel, we have $100,000 to spend on marketing per year. How should we spend it to get the best ROI and grow about 15 to 25% a year? Whether it's $100,000 a year or a million dollars a year or more, right, we'll help you manage the PPC SEO. We'll tell you exactly where to put that money, what the expectation is from those different buckets that you put it in, what's the anticipated ROI from those things, cost per acquisition, all those things.

Speaker 2: 43:16

It's kind of that. So we manage budgets versus we're just an SEO company. We like to be a part of your whole marketing arm and we're going to help you grow year after year after year, based off of what your spend is, and not all that spend goes to us. It's just we're just helping you consult on how you should spend that. Of course, some of that services will come to us, but some of that goes out to other places too as well. And so, yeah, repomus, you can find out more information brilliant.

Speaker 1: 43:39

well, thank you very much, daniel, been lovely having you on and, yeah, thanks for coming.

Speaker 2: 43:43

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 43:44

So that to me that was fascinating. I learned a lot about local SEO. I've got a lot of my questions answered, so I hope you find it as useful as I did. I'm going to put all the details I've had to get in touch with Daniel into the show notes, so just head there if you want to get in touch with Daniel or see his company's website and his portfolio. And that just that leaves me to wrap up and say until next time, keep optimizing, stay curious. Remember, seo is not that hard when you understand the basics. Thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

Speaker 1: 44:12

This is where I get to remind you where you can connect with me and my seo tools and services. You can find links to all the links I mentioned here in the show notes. Just remember, with all these places where I use my name, that ed is spelled with two d's. You can find me on linkedin and blue sky. Just search for ed dawson on both.

Speaker 1: 44:27

You can record a voice question to get answered on the podcast. The link is in the show notes. You can try our seo intelligence platform keywords people use at keywords people usecom, where we can help you discover the questions and keywords people asking online. Post those questions and keywords into related groups so you know what content you need to build topical authority. And finally, connect your Google Search Console account for your sites so we can crawl and understand your actual content, find what keywords you rank for and then help you optimize and continually refine your content and targeted, personalized advice to keep your traffic growing. If you're interested in learning more about me personally or looking for dedicated consulting advice, then visit wwweddawsoncom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO is Not that Hard.