Local Search Tools

Local search got a bit more popular & over the last year there was some pretty cool tools that made their way into the local search space.

Citation Building/Tracking

1.WhiteSpark Local Citation Finder


This powerful tool queries Google for citation sources (business name, address, and phone number mentions)  across deep Google search results and a list of competitors. You can even store your searches and check off citations as your build them.

2. SeOverflow Local Search Tool Kit



The Local Search Tool Kit dives into Places Page data to give you the exact citations that your competitors have, review counts, and a lot of other data for comparison across the top 7 listings. It’s a great way to see the citation list that has definitely been nabbed by Google as a trust source. This is also the bomb diggity for checking out competitors on a key phrase.

3. Customized Google Search



While not a tool you would expect, the search results give you a great citation source for tracking your own business data. You can see what citation sources have been indexed in Google (and which ones are the most authoritative) by doing a custom NAP search using Parenthesis and plus signs (p.s. Parenthesis and Plus Signs would make an awesome band name if anyone is looking).

Review Monitoring and Posting

4. MyReviewsPage.com



Yup…Monitor the reviews being left about your client/company on the major review engines. While Google can scrap most of them, you can see it before they do. Email updates and an easy user interface + a wordpress plug in. Doesn’t get much better for SMB reputation management thanks to Don Campbell.

5. Getlisted.org



David Mihm’s Getlisted.org has been the biggest tool in local search. The company has gone beyond just an application, and has become a conference series for training SMB’s across the US. Getlisted.org’s tool will walk a person through the entire listing process from claiming major profiles on Google, Bing, Yahoo, to monitoring reviews left about the company. This is a great one-stop-shop for a local business looking to get their feet wet in local search. Just make sure you hit up a Local University Event while your at it.

6. ReviewBiz



This tool from BrightLocal.com makes navigation to the multiple places for customers to leave reviews a breeze. Simply choose the review sites you want your drop down button to include and set it to display your business page. BrightLocal has a slew of tools coming out over the coming months and I have to say that they are going to be a company to watch in the local search tool space. Great ideas, and great design. A deadly combination.

GEO-Tagging Tools

7. Geo Sitemap and KML Generator



Keyhole Markup Language is the way to speak local to search engines and nothing speaks trusts like KML data. Couple that with a geo-sitemap pointing to the file and you have the ability to point search engines to your exact location and build some major trust/prominence. While coding this yourself would be a nightmare, this tool is a very easy 3 step process.

8. Paneramio



Geo-Tagged images will continue to be a growing user-generated field of local search and right now Google scraps Panoramio pictures for Places profiles. Hmmm…. I wonder why.

Google Places and Maps Tracking Tools

9. MapTracker



Yes. This is my own tool that tracks Map rankings up to 70 positions deep.  You can track generic keywords based on a location or location + generic words. The tool is built for search marketers who want to be able to get quick email reports of ranking movement daily, weekly, or monthly and the dashboard gives a quick overview of your average ranking position and how many keywords are in the top 7 listings. It is free, I am proud, and it is my first attempt into the world of tool building.

10. Authority Labs



Authority Labs is the best quick access, at a glace, SEO Keyword Rank Tracking system I know of. It works perfect for taking a daily look across a mass amount of domains. What A.L. does that many SEO tools need to do is add elements of universal search.

While AuthoirtyLabs doesn’t go to deep into local search rankings, they will display a map symbol on keywords that bring up a 7 pack, and also give you the local pin letter position you are in. While I would like to see this tool expand for more local search information, it is a great start and a great tool that I use a lot.

Credit: SEARCH ENGINE JOURNAL

Social Media & Reputation Management Tools

Social Media & Reputation Management Tools

Brand and online reputation management has become a growing concern for a lot of companies because of the multiple ways people can interact with each other online. People now are communicating via blogs, forums, discussion boards, wikis, Q&A, and video sites.

Do you know what people are saying about you? Online reputation management consists of tracking your brand and reacting when necessary. Sometimes it's tedious. But brand monitoring can save you from a potential disaster. It can also help you proactively join conversations around your topic area, to get your brand name out there.

With unless number of social content sharing sites out there, it can be hard to manage what people are saying about you and your brand.

Radian6
Overview: Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Tool
Price: starts at $600 per month
Free Trial: No, Webinar Demo Only
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Radian6 Overview

Alterian SM2
Overview: Social Media Monitoring and Analysis with SM2
Price: Limited Trail & SM2
Free Trial: Y, Up to 5 Keywords, 1000 results
Web/Software: Software-based
Demo: Trial and Demo

ViralHeat
Overview: Social Media Monitoring & Analytics
Price: $9.99/month – $89.89/month
Free Trial: Y, 7 Day Trial
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: ViralHeat Video Tour

Jive Software
Overview: Engage Social Web | Social Brand Management
Price: Contact to Inquire
Free Trial:
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Jive in action: Video Demos

Spiral 16
Overview: Social Media and Web Monitoring 3D Virtualization
Price: Contact to Inquire
Free Trial: N, Schedule a Demo Only
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Schedule a Demo

BuzzDing!
Overview: Online Reputation Management and Social Media Monitoring
Price: $14/month – $199/month
Free Trial: Y, 7 Day Trial
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: BuzzDing! Tour

Trackur
Overview: Social Media Monitoring Tools & Reputation Management
Price: $18/month – $377/month
Free Trial: Y, 14 Day Trial
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Trackur Overview

Mixero
Overview: Professional Twitter client for Windows, Mac, Linux and iPhone
Price: Free
Web/Software: Software-based
Demo: Mixero on Vimeo

Collective Intellect
Overview: Social Media Analytics
Price: Contact to Inquire
Free Trial: N
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Contact

Moreover Technologies
Overview: Real Time Market Intelligence
Price: Contact to Inquire
Free Trial: Y, 30 Day
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Moreover Technologies Demo

WhosTalkin?
Overview: Social Media Search Tool
Price: Free
Free: Y
Web/Software: Web-based

Lithium
Overview: Social Media Monitoring Tool
Price: Contact to Inquire
Free Trial: Y, 14 Days
Web/Software: Web-based
Demo: Lithium Tour

CONTACT US FOR MORE DETAILS

Next Generation of Digital Marketing

Next Generation of Digital Marketing

The evolution of search and social, and more broadly the interaction of the public at large with the internet and the available media online, is naturally of huge interest to all those that offers services in the industry.

As search engines continue to evolve and social media stretches its own boundaries, this set-up really tests the agility of a companies offering.  I’m predominantly working with clients, who are looking to harness their assets for greater visibility online, and maintain and develop channels that work commercially with them as a brand.

Now my title makes me an SEO specialist but in all honesty, I keep on thinking that the remit of ‘search engine optimisation’ is really being tested – especially as there is far too much cross-over with other channels…maybe something along the lines of an organic visibility specialist / earned media specialist would be a better way of describing what we do as SEO’s?  The future of SEO in my mind, given whatever budget, needs to promote access to the optimisation of all media and marketing channels for organic visibility…and shouldn’t be restricted to only websites and link-building.


This means that not only do each and every company out there create a huge competitive advantage in developing an agile culture and digital business model, but so too do the agencies that support them.  That should be a given but in all honesty, I really don’t think it is where it should be.  Are agencies struggling to keep up with all the changes that are occurring in the marketplace and the technologies and marketing opportunities at large?  Maybe, but I really think it needn’t be this way.  A solid grounding in training and development to encourage inquisitive and analytical thinking, and the subsequent support and promotion of a culture where the understanding of these opportunities should be held at the heart of every team wit ha long-term agenda in this sector.


I’ve been lucky enough to have had exposure to a wide range of SEO practice and strategies from around the UK and abroad, and I think that agility needs to be made into a much greater priority.  When was the last time your documentation, processes, ‘best practice guides’, reports, training and overall approach to SEO was revised to reflect the changes?   Every month or each year?  Maybe this could be an on-going process, whereby your team lives and breathes the development of better opportunities?  Old school management would put this sort of thinking down as the continuous improvement process, or Kaizen.


Without this sort of thinking, your team is going to be immediately on catch-up, and I know from speaking with many SEO’s in the UK that a number of specialist agencies are certainly not allowing their staff to generate this value – not only doing an awful thing by their staff, but also degrading the reputation of the industry.  And I for one don’t want the reputation for driving exceptional CPA’s, innovative ideas and resounding outputs to be lost to those with crumby management of their staff without any thought for the sector at large, the company’s reputation or the people that work for them.

Market changes to tested ideas to genuine opportunities

This isn’t meant to be a post saying that my SEO is better than their SEO, but simply to prompt you, as the reader, to answer the question: what are you doing for your team to promote the creation of ideas, the diligent testing of those ideas in order to develop their commercial proposition, and the presentation of those ideas as a genuine opportunity for the brand that you are working for online?  A big question, but a VERY important one!


How is this being nurtured within your team, your company and the industry at large?  Is it simply through reading case studies online, or are you creating your own case studies, your own ideas frm multiple channels in a much more proactive, fluid and expansive way?


The link-building team at MEC frequently astonish me with their ideas in creating new opportunities that have the direct or indirect result of building links, not simply recycling other people’s ideas – something I absolutely love to see – genuine ingenuity in the SEO industry.  It reminds me every day that it’s the best sector to work in!  How can we all encourage this development of testing, doing and promoting of how we work as specialists in the industry?

Evolving digital media from within

The evolution of search and social is vast, but just think of where it has come from: banner impressions to targeted, interactive display, paid search, SEO, social media optimisation, online PR, to ever-maturing channels such as usability, conversion rate optimisation, forms of semantic search, personalisation, integrated marketing planning and implementation, re-targeting, eCRM, optimisation of multiple offline media channels…truly amazing – there’s so much out there to inform what we will be doing in months and years to come.


As such, the shaping of marketing in the digital arena is going to come in so many different forms as each company interprets these opportunities in their own way, but this is only going to come from within.   This unique approach isn’t not necessarily a bad thing, though – it’s more important to encourage and celebrate this change and innovation after all, as long as those that are driving this innovation are developing these opportunities with an eye on the commercial value that they are going to serve – not simply to flog a poorly tested, planned and implemented ‘opportunity’.


I hope that those now entering this field are entering because they are energised by the opportunity that exist, and that companies that employ these folk nurture this energy in a way that shapes the next generation of digital marketers and the industry itself – in this ultra fast-paced, exhilarating and truly challenging environment to work in, it’s worth thinking about this today.  So, I’ll put that question to you again: what are you doing to nurture your team’s talent and create new value for the brands that you work with?

Next Generation of Digital Marketing