Online%20Marketing%20201:%20Local%20Search%20

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Online Marketing 201 Local Search Social Media
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Learning Objectives

• After this training you will
• Understand what local search is, and how to
  register in local search engines
• Know what social media/Web 2.0 is, and why you
  need to be involved
• Understand how to leverage social media to
  encourage volunteering
• Be able to measure your success from local search
  and social media activities
• Understand how blogs work, and know how to start
  a blog

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The Web Has Changed

• Monologues are over, no more Ill publish and
  put it out there and youll consume and you
  better not complain!. It is now a dialog.
• - Avinash Kaushik, Occams Razor

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What is Web 2.0?

• Web 2.0/social media refers to a perceived second
  generation of web-based communities and hosted
  services such as social-networking sites, wikis
  and folksonomies (also known as collaborative
  tagging , social classification, social indexing,
  social tagging ) .
• These sites aim to facilitate collaboration and
  sharing between users.

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What is Local Search?

• Why Local Search?
• More online searchers are looking for local
  information volunteer in Camden, NJ
• Local search results are displayed FIRST in
  search engine results
• Recommendation engines get more traffic than your
  site Yelp.com has over 4 million visitors per
  month

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Local SearchBuilding Links from your Friends

• Start off by getting links from your friends
• Convention Visitors Bureaus
• Traditional Media Sites - newspapers, radio, TV
• Local city guides (search city name city
  guide)
• Local Business Associations - Rotary, Kiwanis,
  Chambers of Commerce, etc.

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Local SearchGoogles Local Business Center
Sign in, create a listing, Google will mail you
code, input code, youre done!
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Local SearchYahoo! Local
Sign in, create a listing, input the code, youre
done!
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Local SearchTrueLocal.com
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Local SearchLive Search Maps
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Local SearchLive Search Maps

• Go to the Local Listing Center
• Click on Help in Bottom Right
• Click on Local Listing Add a Listing
• They will send you a letter with a verification
  code
• Input the code
• Youre Done!

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Local SearchInsider Pages

• How http//www.insiderpages.com/advertiser/sign_u
  p.html

• Tell your story! Add photos, special offers
  coupons, and a "message from the owner". Update
  hours, directions and contact info - it's ALL
  FREE, takes only a few minutes, and drives more
  customers to your non-profit.

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Local SearchCraigslist.org

• Over 30 million visitors/month
• Volunteer section
• Community events section
• Confirm posting via email

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Local SearchKudzu.com

• 447,621 visitors/month
• List your business on bottom of page

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Local SearchZVents

• 444,864 visitors/month
• Event posting

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Local SearchEventful

• 564, 445 visitors/month
• Can post events groups

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Local SearchYelp.com
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Local SearchYelp

• Do a search for your organizations name and zip
  code to find out if youre already in Yelps
  system.
• On the bottom of the search result page, youll
  see a red button titled ADD BUSINESS which leads
  to a simple form where you can add your business.
• Keep an eye on your reviews, but be restrained in
  firing back responses.

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Local SearchMerchant Circle
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Local SearchMerchant Circle

• It offers a set of online marketing tools
• These tools include
• web page/landing page with a blog
• newsletter-sending capability
• Coupons
• Traffic reports, and more.
• Simply click join now and youre off and
  running!

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Local SearchSuperpages.com

• 8 million people/month
• Listings provided to
• About.com
• Lycos

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Social MediaIdealist.org

• 269,110 visitors/month
• Post events, campaigns, volunteer opportunities,
  etc.

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Social MediaFacebook

• 34 million users
• Create group profile, post events, join local
  networks

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Social MediaFacebook

• Heres how to get started with Facebook
• Create a personal Facebook account
• Join your regional/city network, invite your
  friends, organizations volunteers in your
  database
• Create an event (on the left navigation). Make
  sure to pick which network to broadcast it to.
• You can either use Facebook's guest list feature,
  or put the 1-800-Volunteer.org URL address for
  the volunteer opportunity in the "Description"
  field to track folks who have signed up.
• Very simple. You've just reached out to a portion
  of
• the 34 million users that use Facebook.

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Social MediaGather.com
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Social MediaGather.com

• Register as an individual
• Create your nonprofit as a group
• Invite your friends, encourage writers you know
  to join, contribute send their earnings to you
• More detailed information here.

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Social MediaMeetup.Com

• 2.5 million users
• Search in your area
• Join existing groups, or start a group
• Post your projects/events

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Measuring Success

• Increased number of visitors from social media
• Number of comments on your posts/blog
• Set up Google Yahoo News Alert for your Brand
  name
• Position of Brand Name number of mentions in
  Search Engines
• Number of Volunteer Referrals/Sign ups

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Learn More

• Search Marketing for Nonprofits
• http//SearchMarketingforNonProfits.wordpress.com
• Exhaustive List of Social Bookmarking Sites
• http//mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-
  2/
• Social Media Today
• http//www.socialmediatoday.com
• The Original Signal Web 2.0 blog
• http//www.originalsignal.com/
• More Local Search Sites
• http//blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060831-0904
  09

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Joining the Blogging Community
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So You Want to Start a Blog

• Approximately 120,000 blogs are created every day
• A blog is a website that needs to be promoted, or
  it wont be found.
• Technorati currently states it is tracking over
  112.8 million blogs
• What do I want to get out of maintaining this
  blog?

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Pick your Tool

• Blogspot.com
• Easy to use interface, need to add Google
  Analytics
• Wordpress.com
• More advanced options
• Can create pages as well as posts
• Can host on your website
• Comes with watered down analytics
• LiveJournal.com

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What are the Elements of a Good Blog?

• Optimized for Search Engines
• Has an About page will help convert more new
  visitors into loyal readers.
• Has social media links under each post
• Has an RSS feed using Feedburner
• Displays a blog search tool

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Promoting Your Blog

• Your blog is a website everything you learned
  about search marketing applies!
• Post content using keywords tags frequently
• Submit to directories
• http//www.stuntdubl.com/2006/01/16/blog-promotion
  -tools/
• Build Links
• Measure!

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Keep the Conversation Alive

• Create an editorial calendar for your posts
• Start a dialogue with bloggers in your niche
• Ask someone to guest-post on your blog
• Thank your readers
• Participate in the comments on your blog posts
• Stumped for Ideas? Brainstorm list here.

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Measuring Blog Success

• New vs. returning visitors, length of stay
• RSS Subscribers
• Conversation Rate Number of Visitor Comments /
  Number of Posts
• Citations people who link to your blog

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Blogging is a lot of work! Dont just blog for
the sake of blogging.
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• Questions?
• Katherine Watier
• Watier Creative
• Nonprofit Search Marketing Consultant
• 301-793-6121
• katherine_at_watier.org