Moz Local’s New My Business Console Tool

Behold, My Business Console, a new feature created by the engineers at Moz that will make importing locations from Google My Business to Moz Local even easier!

Why the Added Feature?

If you’re like our Local SEO experts here at digital marketing agency, Tandem Interactive, you’re familiar with uploading Google My Business locations to Moz Local via the CSV upload process. For bulk submissions, you would simply export the CSV file from your Google My Business dashboard and upload to your Moz Local account. However, this process was extremely hands-on and therefore prone to errors.

How it Works

Starting this week, users can import bulk listings from Google My Business by selecting “Import Listings” via the “Add Listings” button. This feature will link your Google My Business account and Moz Local account, making it easy to add or remove managers in bulk or by individual location.

Using My Business Console

Start your free user experience by heading to the My Business Console homepage and selecting “Connect with Google”. After you enter your Google My Business login credentials, you will be able to view each location you are owner or manager of. For every location you own, you’ll have the ability to manage who is able to edit location information and remove anyone you no longer want to have manger access.

Furthermore, you’ll also be able to add a manger to two or more Google My Business locations by simply selecting the desired locations and clicking the “Add” button.

To add or remove a manager on all of your business locations, head to your “Business Accounts” within My Business Console and add or remove a person there. This will keep you from having to go into each location and grant or take away manager access individually.

At our online marketing agency, Tandem Interactive, we agree this feature will come in handy especially when a person joins or leaves an organization. 

How to Remove “Permanently Closed” from a Business Listing on Google

Are you having trouble with your business listing being marked “permanently closed” on Google? This is actually a fairly common problem, especially for local businesses that have relocated.

So, what is a business owner to do when its customers are faced with an ugly, red sign on Google that reads “permanently closed”? Our South Florida digital marketing agency, Tandem Interactive, has put together a set of tips on how to remove “permanently closed” from a business listing on Google.

Tip #1: Update your business name, address and phone number in your Google My Business dashboard to reflect current contact information.

Tip #2: Search for and claim duplicate listings. This tip is often overlooked by clients who don’t understand why their business is showing as “permanently closed” on Google when they’ve already updated their verified Google My Business page. It usually means there’s ANOTHER listing that Google is pulling search results from. So, claim all duplicate listings of your business and update with the current address.

Tip #3: Contact Google My Business and ask their support team to mark an old location as “moved”, which is a new feature that is available. Local SEO experts suggest reaching out to them via Twitter for a faster, more effective response. By doing this, an old listing will eventually disappear from Google Search and Maps; and Google will implement a 302 HTTP status code that will redirect customers to a new location.

For more information on managing your local business listing on Google and how you can optimize your business’ opportunity in Google Local Search, contact trendy online marketing agency, Tandem Interactive, today.     

Best Practices for Local SEO in 2016

With the majority of people turning to mobile devices to perform their searches, local SEO has become more crucial than ever.

Find out how you can enhance your local SEO efforts in 2016 from Fort Lauderdale online marketing agency, Tandem Interactive:

1. Geo-tag your images on Google My Business – Google My Business (GMB) now has a feature that allows you to tag the location of an image you upload to your GMB page. Many businesses have reported receiving great results from doing this.

2. Prepare for voice search – More people are becoming comfortable with using voice search on their phones, such as Siri and Google Now. In 2016, be sure your local SEO marketing agency is using voice-friendly keywords to prepare for the future of voice search.

3. Use an address in the area you are attempting to rank in – Even if you don’t have a physical location in that area, use a virtual office or mail forwarding service to claim an address in a desired city. For example, if you run your business from your home in Jacksonville, Florida but want to target customers locally in Miami, find a virtual office in Miami that offers mail forwarding services and obtain a unique address from them.

4.  Pay attention to your site’s Direct Data – Google is constantly improving on its ability to give people exactly what they are searching for. For example, if a person is searching for a hair salon, they will most likely want to know prices, hours of operation and services provided. Therefore, Google is going to show results for hair salons that list all or most of the pertinent information customers are looking for.

5. Acquire and respond to customer reviews – Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your Yelp and GMB pages. Businesses with 4 and 5 star reviews have greater authority and better local search results.

6. Update your local listing – Build your business’ online credibility by taking the time to complete a local SEO audit of your company to determine where you currently stand as far as listing consistency and completion. Software, such as Moz Local, makes this process easy and can be done for as little as $84 a year. Once you complete your local SEO audit, prepare a schedule to begin fixing any incorrect, inconsistent or missing listing information. Every listing should have the exact same name, address and phone number of your business.

7.  Make sure your site is mobile-friendly- Although our online marketing firm doesn’t consider this a “new” local SEO effort, there are still businesses that have yet to update their websites to mobile-friendly status. These businesses are significantly losing out on local visibility.

8.  Maintain presence on social media platforms – If you haven’t already, incorporate social media engagement into your local SEO strategy in 2016. Try to interact with your audience on a regular basis, whether it be twice a week or twice a month.    

Google's 100 Most Expensive Keywords: How Geo-targeted Long-tail Keywords Could Be Your Bread Winner

Businesses large and small typically are aware that bidding on the right keywords is the key to a substantial ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and in return, increased revenue. However, what are the right keywords for your company and can you even afford them? SEMrush (with the help of Google) was able to determine the top 100 most expensive keywords on Google, and 78% of them were all in the “legal” category. So how can your small legal firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida rank at all? Since the price of a keyword mostly depends on how often it is searched, if you are a small business owner it can be easier for you to dominate a different variation of that keyword.

For example, one thing that Tandem Interactive focuses on when it comes to keywords is LOCATION, something that we call geo-targeted keywords. A location specific keyword can target your area and allow you to rank highly for your industry in your designated area. According to Google, 73% of online activity is local content. When it comes to geo-targeting, it is best to use long-tail geo-specific keywords in order to rank for your precise location.

Some long-tail geo-specific keyword examples for businesses in Florida are:

Hurricane Shutters Sunrise Florida

SAT Prep Class Boca Raton Florida

Pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida

In order to rank for geo-targeted keywords you have to think like a consumer. Thinking like a consumer is one of the best tactics you can use for nearly any part of your SEO and PPC campaigns. If I live in Florida and I am in downtown Fort Lauderdale after a night of partying and I want pizza, I will most likely search in my phone for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale”. Whatever the case may be, I am typically not searching for your company’s name.

Keep in mind that your website will also play a part in your ranking in search results. If your company has a well-established website it will organically rank better. If your website is new you can expect it to be one of the very last results. “Pizza Fort Lauderdale” yields 12.4 million results. So if you are a smaller and newer pizza restaurant and you are located in the heart of downtown it is easier for you to rank for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida”, which yields less than 500,000 results instead. You want your keyword to still be something that locals would search, but also specific so that it is easier for you to rank in a category that yields less results.

Once you have searched Google to find which geo-targeted long-tail keywords would be best for your company to rank for, Tandem recommends that you keep an eye on your website’s analytics to see if your geo-targeted words are increasing traffic. If your new keywords are increasing traffic through your PPC campaign, find out where that traffic is coming from and then focus more pages and blog content around those keywords to help your organic rankings.

Check out SEMrush’s One Hundred Most Expensive Keywords on Google:

5 Ways to Dominate Local SEO

 If you are not optimizing your business locally, chances are you are missing out on exposure while your competition scores customers. As smart phones continue to play a larger role in our mission to search for local businesses, it is less likely that we will be cracking open our Yellow Page directories. With that being said, local search engine optimization should be an important piece of any company’s marketing strategy.

Tandem Interactive has a few tips to get you started:     

1. Get Your Google My Business Page Created and Build it Out - You may think customers don’t run to Google+ for local business information; however, when searching for a specific business or service, this is often what results on a SERP (search engine result page). You want to keep your Google My Business page updated with correct contact information and posts about what is going on in your industry. Also, acquire reviews! These are not easy to come by, but if you can get them - the more visible your company will become.  

2. Create Your NAP and Stick With It - Your Name, Address, and Phone number identify your business and should be as consistent as possible. Each mention (known as a “citation”) on a local directory or website, is a feather in your business’ cap, as long as it is a relevant directory or site.

3. Good or Bad…Respond to Reviews - Consumers respond to both great customer service and businesses that are proactive about negative feedback. If a customer leaves a positive review, thank them for their support. If a customer is unhappy about your services, publicly apologize and try to rectify the issue, it could lead them to gain respect for your company.

4. Be Mobile-Friendly - Again, customers are likely searching for your business on their mobile devices, you don’t want to scare them away with an ill-equipped site.

5. Acquire Local Citations - The more accurate citations you have on other websites and local directories, the better your local search engine rankings will be. Use a local citation finder to optimize your efforts.   

Five Underestimated Strategies That Will Help You Rule Local

1. Social Activity - Even if you don’t get much engagement from your audience, be active on your social media sites. Share useful and up-to-date information OFTEN. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t get a ton of likes or retweets. Your commitment to your social page is counting for something. Trust us.

2. Be Trendy and Be Unique- Along with great written content, include creative features such as authentic videos and blog posts. Don’t pretend to be local; actually be local. Get involved in your community and share what you are doing on your site. Make it a company goal to become newsworthy for participating in your community and being different from competitors.


3. Expand Your Recognition- Don’t just strive to get local recognition, do your best to get regionally and nationally recognized. Acquire those mentions by going after publications that distribute across the country and/or region.

4. Get Your Owner/ Founder Involved in the Conversation- Connect with your audience on a more personal level by including reviews, stories, social mentions and experiences of the person or people that started your company. Consumers want to see the faces behind the company’s name and feel an association to the brand. Include pictures of owners and employees on your site.


5. Be Authentic- Create a Web site that exudes genuineness and effort.  Consumers like sites that are professionally designed, simplified, and include a sense of community, photos of clients, and ties to history and family.

If your company needs more direction when it comes to Local Search Engine Marketing, Tandem can always help!

Google+ Local can Kill Your SEO Strategy

Sure, everyone wants PPC and everyone wants content. After a while, you may be hassling your marketing agency on why you are not number one in Google yet, but how does your Google+ page look? The reality is, is takes a lot of time and patience to rank in Google organically via a content strategy. At the end of the day, your site’s fate falls in their hands. One of the best things that you can do, is build out your Google+ Local page.

Google+ Local is an extremely crucial element of your local SEO strategy, since it drives your company’s results on Google Maps.

Think about it: If I want to find the best Italian restaurant in Miami, Florida, and I search Google for just that, if your Italian restaurant does not have a Google+ Local page with reviews, you might not even show up in my results.

One of the biggest pitfalls for businesses when it comes to using Google+ Local, is thinking that you can just create your listing page and be done; never sharing and updating content, and never completing Circle Outreach. Without Circle Outreach, even if your posts are set to “public”, your reach will not be as wide as it could be.

When completing Circle Outreach, think of your consumer demographic. If you are an Italian restaurant in Miami, essentially you could add any Miami resident to your Circles; so search for “Miami Circle” and try to find some residents and maybe even business offices surrounding your restaurant, to add to your Circles.  Building out your Circles will allow the content that you share to reach those people, allowing them to share your content or +1 it if they choose. It will also create brand awareness for your company by word-of-mouth, or by people in your Circles converting into customers.

Using your page to create brand awareness: After you setup your Google+ location page, it is important that you do not forget about it. Updating it is part of what makes your page relevant and can drive reviews. If you are an Italian restaurant, make sure that your address and phone number are correct. Then, add pictures of your cuisine, share events that will be taking place there, add photos of the interior, exterior, parties, and etc. Create posts of specialty menu items and chef’s specials.  The more that you share, the more that the people in your local Circles will see, and the higher your chances of gaining customers who will leave reviews will be. When you share content, make sure that you include keywords that target your industry; you can even hashtag them in your posts. Another content sharing tip: share content from your Facebook or Twitter, so that you draw a following on there as well. 

Perhaps one of the most important Google+ Local practices for your business – encourage consumers to leave a review.  The reviews will show in Google search results and can convert online local search consumers into in-the-door customers. For even the most competitive industries, having a lot of Google reviews (that give you a good star-rating) WILL get customers in the door.

Example: Search Google for “personal injury attorney” and these are the results that you will see (in Fort Lauderdale, FL).

These results are not organic search results in terms of content, they are organic in the sense that they are Google+ location pages (Google Maps) and the location's Google+ reviews. These results, in a perfect world, are easier to result as a facet of organic results, rather than content oriented organic search results. As a consumer, you would most likely choose the attorney with the highest rating, from the highest amount of reviews.

Tandem Interactive can help build out your Google+ location pages, so that you receive reviews and get customers in the door.