State of Search

David Minchala, @daveminchala

2@daveminchala | #stateofsearch

It’s hard out here for

a local SEO

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wCvqMTTE_z0/TVy6YgbYkKI/AAAAAAAAFqs/1OEKdaEzmso/s400/Picture%2B1.jpg

3@daveminchala | #stateofsearch

A lot of clients come to us

with, er, baggage…

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DTJqn2pS4Rw/UFtn3s3eIrI/AAAAAAAAAGA/DHpi-H-8bVk/s1600/DSC02641.JPG

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Google MyBusiness Issues

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Reputation Issues

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Data Issues

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Anti-Competitive Issues

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And then everything else…

http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us

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Usually, there are problems here…

http://moz.com/learn/local/local-search-data-us

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Well, *somewhere* in here…

https://getlisted.org/static/resources/listing_time_to_live.pdf

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And this certainly doesn’t help.

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The Arsenal

Type Example Providers Value Prop

Link research &

diagnosis

OpenSiteExplorer,

MajesticSEO, LinkRisk

Find links you might want & links you

should stay away from

Webmaster

Resources

Google Webmaster Tools Find out if you have a search quality

problem; work directly with Search

engines to resolve them

Competitive

Analysis

SEMRush, Whitespark,

Google search

How are competitors doing & what

might be working for them

Citation research Whitespark, Synup, Moz

Local, Yext*

See how NAP is displayed on specific

publishers & push updates to them;

find new citation opportunities

Citation diagnosis Google search; listing

publisher websites

Find where else is bad/outdated NAP

data persisting (if you know how to

look)

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My problems:

Amorphous Problems

Inadequate tooling to size them

No clear starting point or path

Difficult to maintain visibility into issues

Poor feedback loop for work

Difficult to keep client engaged

Cross roads time…

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Get overwhelmed…

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/12/18359894_25cbbb0dcb.jpg

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…surrender to insanity…

http://www.tellhimhespele.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/man-kissing-pigeons.jpg

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…be Mike Tyson?...

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1108191/thumbs/o-MIKE-TYSON-PIGEON-EX-facebook.jpg

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…OR GO BEAST-MODE!

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My Spirit Animals

I need goals.

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Sweet Photoshop skills, bro.

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DUMB Objectives, SMART Goals

Example DUMB Objectives:

• Generate leads

• Make it easier to retain customers

Example SMART Goals:

• Ensure Google MyBusiness listing & Website are visible in front page search

results on Google and top 5 directories that are most important to the

client within 6 months.

• Reduce duplicate and erroneous listings to less than 50% of known, findable

listings in 3 months.

Example KPIs

• Rank position in Search Engines

• # bad listings found in Google search

Required reading: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-

measurement-model/

I need a method.

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Getting the lay of the land

Required reading: http://moz.com/blog/ultimate-local-seo-

audit

That’s a lot of work… I need

to make it efficient.

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First, go get this:http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/download/

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

Scrape Tickle Google and import directly into Excel

Start with this formula:XPathOnUrl("http://www.google.com/search?q="&UrlEncode($C$2)&"&start=1&num=100

", "(//h3[@class='r']/a)”,”href”)

Okay, Excel, go to this URL.

The URL has parameters that you can find in plain

english in C2 – encode it into a URL param, wouldja?

When you get there, parse the HTML and find this

particular <a> tag. It has links I care about.

And bring me back JUST the URL.

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

Scrape Tickle Google and import directly into Excel

Select the number of cells you want to populate with results (Hint –

use the num= URL param for Google search)

Press F2 to write/paste your formula into the top cell

Press shift+ctrl+Enter and…

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

Scrape Tickle Google and import directly into Excel

Bam! Er… wait…

In an adjacent cell, use this to clean that up:=LEFT((RIGHT(A2, (LEN(A2)-7))), (LEN((RIGHT(A2, (LEN(A2)-7))))-

LEN((RIGHT((RIGHT(A2, (LEN(A2)-7))), (LEN((RIGHT(A2, (LEN(A2)-7))))-

FIND("&amp", (RIGHT(A2, (LEN(A2)-7))))+1))))))

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

Scrape Tickle Google and import directly into Excel

That’s better.

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

Go to a URL, look for a string, and if it’s there, import directly

into Excel

Start with this formula:RegexpFindOnUrl("http://www.6pm.com/shoes", “free shipping”)

Okay, Excel, go to this URL.

And look for this string. If you find it, send it right back

to me. If not, return an error.

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Getting sh*t done in Excel

What we have now:

Framework for going to any URL and

Pulling in the information that’s there

Or Only pulling information we care about

All in Excel so we can spend more time on pulling out insights,

less time on getting what we need.

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With apologies to Mac users..

There’s not SEOTools for Mac. Sorry.

But…

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Import.io is the TRUTH!

https://import.io/

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Import.io is the TRUTH!

Make any of your listings into an API and check for changes daily,

weekly, WHENEVER.

HINT: This is a good thing to apply to your Google MyBusiness

listing ;)

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Let’s start an audit

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scraper/mbigbapnjcgaff

ohmbkdlecaccepngjd

Start at Yext to get URLs you’ll definitely want to monitor

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Getting the Listng URLs

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Searching Google for Bad Data

Phone number searches are my go-to. You’ll need to check

several versions.

I use RegexReplace for that:

10-digit phone Regex Replace result

2066022005RegexpReplace($A$2,"^.{3}","("&LEFT($A$2,3)&")") -->(206)6022005

RegexpReplace($A$2,"^.{3}","("&LEFT($A$2,3)&") ") --> (206) 6022005

RegexpReplace($A$2,"(^.*)","("&LEFT($A$2,3)&") "&RIGHT(RegexpFind($A$2, "^.{6}"), 3)&"-"&RIGHT($A$2,4)) --> (206) 602-2005

RegexpReplace($A$2,"(^.*)","("&LEFT($A$2,3)&")"&RIGHT(RegexpFind($A$2, "^.{6}"), 3)&"-"&RIGHT($A$2,4)) --> (206)602-2005

RegexpReplace($A$2,"(^.*)",LEFT($A$2,3)&"-"&RIGHT(RegexpFind($A$2, "^.{6}"), 3)&"-"&RIGHT($A$2,4)) --> 206-602-2005

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Starting to sound like a good

option…

http://www.tellhimhespele.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/man-kissing-pigeons.jpg

I’ve automated *a lot* of this

in Excel

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Enter a query, tell me if it’s a phone number or something else

Then press the button and …

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Put it all together & automate

Get a table of up to 300 citation sources where your query

string appears. And who’s likely providing that data!

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Put it all together & automate

Here ya go

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p44p6tkaa0eez79/automatedNAP

audit.xlsm?dl=0

PLEASE tell me how to make it better!

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Put it all together & automate

Me

@daveminchala

David.minchala@gmail.com

46@daveminchala | #stateofsearch