SEM & Digital Marketing Advice New Orleans, Louisiana | WSI

As a major search engine, Google has been the leader of the pack for quite some time and their constant innovations with things like Google Places are one of the big reasons why. From search to tools to advertising, the Google brand has expanded to unprecedented levels. And one of the most important changes Google has made in the last year has been with the changes to Google Local or Google Places as it’s now called.

By now I’m sure your familiar with the red pushpin on a map showing the locations of 7-10 of the businesses Google can find near the area you are searching for.  Here is a sample screenshot:

"pizza places Metairie LA" Google search results

You are also by now familar with the map which accompanies these markers:

Google Place Search

The Google Local tools recognize that to capture more regional businesses, there needs to be a simplified way to do it. Local businesses like ours deal with many challenges, from customer service, to product and service development and delivery to payroll. Because regional companies have so much to do, it is hard to focus on specific aspects of our businesses.

Google Local includes Google Place Search, designed to offer much more local content from regional advertisers. What this means for me is that I no longer have to spend my time trying to research and find local keywords, monitor the results, and modify bids for those keywords for my AdWords account.

Impact on Ratings & Reviews

The new Google Local format uses the location concept to find out what people are saying about my business in terms of reviews and ratings. These are two things I rarely had time to focus on in the past. This new tool finds all of that info for me so that I can use it to develop relevant Web content. I can also address the issues that I find by writing to consumers directly, which is something I used to have to pay a person to do for me.

Organic Positioning

The other aspect I really like with Google Local is that I can see the details that a local searching consumer is using to find my products and services. Google Place Search issues rewards to local businesses like mine with organic positioning when it finds complete and accurate content. For example, when it picks up a blog entry or article that I wrote, that info is considered and counts toward a higher placement by the search engine.

Since past attempts at organic positioning was something I wasn’t able to master, the new Google Local and Google Place Search has been a lifesaver in terms of leveraging the benefits of local SEO (search engine optimization) listing and placement. Now I can focus on continuing to build a richer rating and review level using these Google resources – which means my business will grow much more easily.

Google Market Finder is a terrific free tool designed by Google which allows users to take a look at local monthly search volumes for specific locations. It also includes the costs of targeting particular keywords in every market, including foreign ones. This has been very beneficial in terms of growing our business on a world-wide basis.

Find New Markets

The free Google Market Finder tool uses world-wide Internet search data to reveal the number of times that keywords are searched for, in 56 different languages. We use the tool to see where consumers search for our products and services. Then we evaluate the new potential markets by comparing the local search volume, estimated keyword price and the competition for each keyword in all markets. This is really helpful in planning our marketing budget for the best results.

Here is an example of how it works:

Let’s say your company manufactures a cool line of sunglasses and you are interested in selling them outside of the US.  And let’s say (just for example) that you had several Spanish speaking employees and could support new business from Latin America.

You could use the Google Market Finder tool to search this type of query, and the results would look something like this:

Translate Key Words

Now that you have identified the countries that had the highest search volume for the phrase “sunglasses” you could use the free Global Market Finder tool to automatically translate our keywords into the language of our choosing (in this case Spanish), for all of our new potential customers. Using the tool, we can also see where people are searching for our products and services. Then we can narrow it down to specific locations to target in our online marketing plan. For this reason alone, it is an invaluable service, since we are not fluent in other languages. We would actually need to hire someone to do these translations, which would be quite costly. By knowing where our target audience is, we can best take advantage of the world-wide marketplace to expand our business and take it to the next level.

Use With Google AdWords

Google Market Finder is particularly effective when combined with Google AdWords. The free Google Market Finder tool showcases all of the estimates of a suggested keyword bid, as well as the competition for each Google translation for that specific target market keyword. In this way, since we are already using a Google Adwords campaign, we can use the Google Market Finder to choose a precise location and language with which to display our ads.

Access to All Marketing Media

The Google Market Finder can be used as a powerful marketing tool to help reach our potential customers on a worldwide level. Used with ad formats such as search engines, mobile devices, video and TV, this tool is extremely helpful in targeting exact marketing locations to find the best audience for our business products and services.