Google Local Business Center

After July’s excellent turnout we urge you to register now for the September 30th ‘Web Wednesday’ clinic about using Google Local Business Center to get to the top of local search results.

Google Local Business Center is a free campaign product from Google to help make local searches for businesses and services more relevant. The clinic, which will start at 10am, will explain how to register properly as well as how to tie in a Google AdWords campaign. This will be a much less complex topic than AdWords so we should be able to wrap up the clinic by 11:30am.

We will also be able to answer follow-up questions to July’s ‘Web Wednesday’ on Google AdWords. If there are additional topics you would like to see covered in this or a future clinic, please contact us.

This clinic is FREE – please let your friends know and please register now.

Above is the video I made for Bostonist, where you can get the entire post.

A question to ask here is: when is the last time you attended or even heard about a such an open, accessible, and informal meeting with representatives from a company as large, pervasive (as in embedded/utilized/available/etc.), and important as Google? These folks from Google, execs and evangelists, engineers and public affairs managers, wanted to meet with actual users of their professional systems. This is a company that operates under a microscope, with no end of analysis and press coverage, who decided to go around these sources of broadcast information to interact with real people.

This was not a focus group or some kind of measured and cross-referenced experiment. This was an environment to have interesting and relaxed conversations, to hear frustrations, suggestions, and praise. This was an environment for no-pressure networking between people, local and out-of-town, Google and non-Google.

I have a hope that Google will be able to pull off these kinds of meetings across the country, and hopefully even back in Boston. Due to Google’s extreme popularity, I think that this might be difficult unless they are prepared to put a cap on the number of attendees. I personally couldn’t believe that the event was for real and that I managed to get in. I know that many people who attended this event are eager for the next one and would sign up for it as soon as they hear about it. Count me in – I can’t wait for it to happen.

I also have a hope that other companies would follow Google’s example and provide this kind of access, it’s in their own best interests, it’s proof of availability, and it’s proof of goodwill.

It was great to see enthusiastic representatives from area companies at this event: CourseAdvisor.com, SearchCompliance.com/TechTarget, HubSpot, and Transparent.

Knowing from my presentation that, as VP of Marketing, I manage several Google AdWord campaigns for Atalasoft, Diane asked me to speak to her class to give them an overview of the platform so this last Tuesday night I dropped by and ended up spending the evening with her class discussing mainly AdWords but also digressing into web analytics, and even Twitter.

I had prepared an outline (below) that was to cover about an hour of Google AdWords basics, but questions from her class led to us creating an actual campaign from scratch as well as answering business-specific lead generation strategies for their clients. The majority of her students asked questions, some of them asked several. I think the informal tone went well and I saw only a couple heads nodding by the end of the 3 hours that we spent together, and I don’t blame them. I can’t thank Diane and her class enough for their time, their patience, and their incredibly focused questions. [If any of the class reads this post, please feel free to email me with follow-up questions: tomdog "AT" gmail.com]

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- What are AdWords? AdWords are for Lead Generation – they aren’t really a part of the Traditional Advertising Mix. Your ads will only be presented to those who are looking for the specific keywords you are targeting. The size and format of the ads prevent any real branding.

- Are there other adwords options? Why go with Google AdWords? Google gets 58.9% of all search queries worldwide, they are distantly followed by Yahoo! at 22% and then MSN at 9%. Take care of the majority of search first – everybody is pressed for time, if you have the bandwidth to take care of these other lead generation venues, their priority is secondary.

- How can you connect AdWords to your business? You will be compiling lists of words that should be core to business. These are terms that shold be integral to the business and its customers.

- We’ve heard the term: Customer Centric. The premise of AdWords is as customer-centric as it gets because it is the customer who is in control, it is the customer who will be typing the words, as they perceive them, about their needs, as they perceive them.

- AdWords force you to think about the customer. Who are these potential customers? Where are they geographically/socially/domographically? How do these prospects talk about themselves, their needs, and the products/services they are interested in? Where do they hang out online? You will have to create customer profiles and customer roles.

- How to get started with Google AdWords:
Don’t be intimidated
You are in control
There is nothing that you can do that is “wrong”
You won’t spend any of your budget until you are ready to
The sooner you open up the interface and start a “fake” campaign, the better

- Start a New Campaign

- Placements vs. Keywords (Content vs. Search) = Do not do placements as a preliminary project

- Start With Keywords

- Choose via language (English I am assuming)

- Choose via location: you will be in better shape if you can do some geo-targetting of your campaign(s)

-Create an Ad:
Headline (25 char)
Description Line 1 (35 char)
Description Line 2 (35 char)
Display URL (35 char)
Destination URL (1024 char)

- Keyword Input (you will need to work closely with your clients to get their keyword list, this is their homework):
Put in your list and pay attention to the “suggested keywords” that appear in the right column
Add the appropriate “suggested keywords”
Pay attention to and review Match Types:
keyword     = broad match
“keyword”    = match exact phrase
[keyword]    = match exact term only
-keyword     = don’t match this term

- Hopefully the URL your ad links to will have some kind of action or goal on it: Product/Service Page, Newsletter Sign Up Page – you and your customer/client will need to find some way to measure the success of your ads [As you get more sophisticated, web analytics with conversion measurement should be employed]

- Don’t be intimidated. Just get started. Read as much as you can about the basics. Ask questions.

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For you Analytics freaks, the “official” Google Analytics blog has its first post today from one of their certified consultants regarding the set up of Profiles.

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If you aren’t a member of the HubSpot-sponsored ProMarketers group (available via LinkedIn and Facebook), you should consider signing up. They’ve organized a couple of events in San Francisco and Boston.