SEARCH ENGINE NEWS/PLANET OCEAN- ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL LOCAL SEARCH TRAINING COURS
Attention Web Designers & Search Marketing Pros:
The entire Advanced Professional Local Search Training Course is now available for purchase!
If There’s Any One Place That ‘Brick & Mortar’ Businesses Need Your Help, Its Local Search! — by Stephen Mahaney
Planet Ocean’s Local Search Book
Why? …because Local Search is now the new Yellow Pages! And if there is one word that describes how Local business owners feel about Local Search, it’s…
Confused!
But can you blame them? Of course not. In light of all of the hoops that Google makes them jump through, how else could they feel? But, that’s exactly why they need YOU.
It’s almost funny how so many people have already forgotten how important Yellow Pages was to local businesses. But a few of us who are a little older, (ok, yeah that’s me), remember how vitally essential Yellow Pages has traditionally been to a businesses’ success… and how the most successful businesses paid a king’s ransom for premium Yellow Pages positioning!
And people have forgotten how those who sold Yellow Page ads made serious money! Back in the late 80’s I recall being jealous of two friends who made well over $100,000 a year, every year for more than a decade, selling this vital service to local businesses. And, although today’s $100K doesn’t buy as much as it used to, back in those old pre-internet days I can assure you it was something to brag about (like making $2-250K today).
The point is that Yellow Pages was able to charge so much money for this vital service that they could pay their salespeople huge commissions. And, that’s because business paid HUGE premiums just so they could be found by their customers.
In that sense NOTHING has changed!!
You see, the value of anything, business-wise, is always based upon the return it will yield. And, back in the days before Local Search killed Yellow Pages, the most successful businesses bought expensive ads because they knew that prominent positioning translated into ROI. Having the largest display ads located in the very best strategic locations within the Yellow Pages directory became a critical element to their revenue stream. Today that function belongs to Local Search — today’s critical element to the brick & mortar revenue stream!
Therefore, brick & mortar businesses have no choice but to optimize their presence in Local Search. As such, many are willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get strategically well placed and stay there! This means that…
…their only good option
is to hire someone like YOU
who knows how to get that job done!
Never before have I seen such an easily targetable opportunity as finding business whose positioning within Local Search sucks so bad that they need to hire someone to fix it. Seriously, prospecting for clients is like shooting ducks in a barrel – E A S Y.
You know in advance that they need your services and they know that without your help their business is doomed. It’s a perfect marriage…a classic symbiotic relationship. As a matter of fact, you’d have to be pretty bad at sales to not be able to close a fairly high percentage of these prospects.
And, ironically, the harder Google makes this, the better the opportunity for you because it becomes increasingly impossible for brick & mortar business owners to manage it themselves.
And here’s the best part, just like those Yellow Pages sales people who got paid easy-money-commissions year after year for simply renewing their clients’ ads,
YOU too can be paid month after month, indefinitely! …for simply maintaining your clients’ Local Search presence.
Because, remember? …Google makes it complicated. They’re always changing things. And that spells job security for you.
So now I hear you saying, ‘but that means I have to keep up on what’s changing’ …to which I answer ‘yes you do.’ And that’s why we’re talking.
About The Course
This past June (2013) we completed a specialized training course that taught 35 Search Marketing and Web design professionals how to prospect this market, sell this service, and optimize Web sites for Local search. We called it The Advanced Professional Local Search Training Course. And we recorded it all in an online video-type presentation so each participant could log-in and study the material right after it was presented live, thereby converting it to knowledge and expertise. We captured everything–screenshots, lectures, examples, and Q&A’s.
There were four sessions—three of the training sessions ran a little over an hour each with Q&A’s at the end, and the fourth with Q&A only that also ran a little over an hour. In about five hours total we covered a lot of ground. Here’s a look at the topics that were covered…
Advanced Tactics for Local Search — To rank at the top in Local Search Results, you must first identify each of the ranking components and understand how they fit into Google’s algorithm. Once you’ve done so, you’ll find optimizing your Web strategy for Local Search to be far more intuitive. Therefore, we’ll start by:
* Analyzing the Local Search Results
* Identifying the current Local Search Algorithms
How to Influence Local Search Rankings will be the focus of the next segment for obvious reasons. Here’s where we’ll cover the nuances of:
* Geographical Location,
* Prominence,
* Relevance
* & Reviews
Review Strategies are critical to Local Search. And, although it’s good to have lots of reviews, it’s even MORE important to focus on where your reviews are located and who wrote the review.
* Why you need reviews
* How to get more good reviews
Providing Geographic Context — Google uses a variety of elements to determine a company’s geographic location. By providing context that is wide and various, you dramatically increase the likelihood of ranking well for many different types of searches within a specific geographic location.
* Creating and Distributing KML Files
* Geo-tagging media and feeds
Rich Snippets for Local Search — Consumers love enriched search result listings. You will learn how to add markups to your site which can influence Google’s Knowledge graph and trigger the kind of semantic search listings that site visitors are looking for. You’ll see exactly:
* Why you should be using Rich Snippets
* How to Implement Rich Snippets
Local Link and Citation Building — Once you know the importance of links and citations you’ll lean how to maximize the links that count most and leverage the established tools to get the job done in the most efficient way possible.
* Finding the Best Links & Citations
* Tools for Link & Citation Building
Data Cleansing — To ensure that Google gets your vital data correct, you must maintain a consistent online profile for the various search engines and data centers. Doing so will greatly improve your rankings in the Local Packs and on Google Maps. This section covers:
* Understanding the Local Ecosystem
* Discovering and Correcting Data Problems
* Tools to Use
Problem Solving in Google Places — As you’re probably aware, Google Places can be frustrating to say the least! Some listings are so tangled up it’s hard to know where to begin and then proceed without causing more damage. Here’s where you’ll learn the common dos and don’ts while troubleshooting the many thorny problems like: misplaced map pin, duplicate listings, and lost reviews.
* Thinking Like Google
* Maps and Mapmaker
* Places Troubleshooter
Adwords Express for Local Businesses — PPC for local businesses is getting easier than ever. You’ll learn all about the perks, the drawbacks and a couple of pitfalls to avoid like rattlesnakes in a sleeping bag!
*Quick & Easy Wins with AdWords Express
Google For Local Businesses — The line between Google Local and Google continues to blur. Sometimes a local listing is the same as a Google listing; other times they aren’t. This segment teaches you how to figure out which type of listing you have and what actions you need to take (or avoid) to complete the transition quickly and painlessly.
Even before the course ended we were getting comments like this…
The Training Course is Led by Local Search Expert Mary Bowling…
If you’ve been following SEN you know that Mary Bowling is our Local Search Expert. She’s also a well known and successful SEO Consultant who knows how to optimize every possible component of a company’s online presence to maximize Local Search visibility and outdistance the competition.
Besides leading courses for Planet Ocean, she’s also led Local Search Marketing courses at Search Engine Strategies conferences in Denver and New York City. And, she has been a panel moderator and speaker on the Convergence of Local, Mobile and Travel Search at Search Engine Strategies Travel Conferences in Seattle.
Mary’s no nonsense, content-rich approach to Local Search shows you the very same advanced techniques that she herself uses on a day to day basis to get her own Local Search clients strategically well positioned. In short, she’s the expert’s expert! We were fortunate to have Mary Bowling conduct this vital training course—and after watching the presentations, we’re sure you’ll agree.
The Cost — $595
To be fair to the 35 participants who attended this course LIVE, we can’t charge YOU any less that what THEY paid (as noted on the post-it note). But if you think about it, the value is the same anyway. You’ll be taking the same exact Advance Professional Local Search Training Course that they did except with one BIG advantage…
You’ll be able to learn at your own pace. You can pause, rewind, and even take a break when you need one.
And you’ll see and hear everything that they did (but edited to eliminate the coughs and sputters). AND to compensate you for being unable to ask questions LIVE, we’ll also give you…
BONUS #1: A FULL 30 days of Unlimited Fast Track Question access!
(a $49 per question value)
This means that, after completing the course, you can ask any question via email and one of our experts will have an answer back to you within one business day!
BONUS #2: 30 days Free Access to our MasterMind Group
(a $97 value)
This is our always on forum where Professionals like yourself who’ve done this and various other training courses meet to exchange strategies, solve problems and overcome everyday challenges in real time. When you’re part of the MasterMind, you’re never working alone!
Ask Yourself…
What would having a handful of clients who are in regular need of ongoing Local Search marketing and optimization services be worth to you? You already know there’s no shortage of qualified businesses who need your help. Now’s the time to take advantage of the opportunity that is waiting for you to grab it. Now’s the time to establish those clients while Local Search is in it’s evolutionary stages—while business owners are confused and before they entirely cut the cord to Yellow Pages.
Fill out the form below and get started on The Advanced Professional Local Search Training Course today!
Delivery Method
– After your purchase, you’ll see a View your orders link which goes to the Downloads page. Here, you can download all the files associated with your order.
– Downloads are available once your payment is confirmed, we’ll also send you a download notification email separate from any transaction notification emails you receive from coursesblock.com.
– Since it is a digital copy, our suggestion is to download and save it to your hard drive. In case the link is broken for any reason, please contact us and we will resend the new download link.
– If you cannot find the download link, please don’t worry about that. We will update and notify you as soon as possible at 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM (UTC 8).
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