Local Business 20/20 – A Vision For The Future With Ted Bigham of Kow Abundant
Conversation with Ted Bigham
Rough Transcript By Temi.com
Neil Howe: (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the show. This is your host, Neil Howe, the trust factor radio and I, I’m doing a special, a local business 2020. Uh, we are heading into the year 2020, but, uh, we also want to talk about the vision 20/20 for the future and what that means for local businesses. So I, I’m interviewing and having discussions with some local marketers that I have been talking with over the years to give their opinion of what is most important moving into, uh, this new decade. And today I have Ted Bigham on with me, uh, from Kow Abundant. Ted, welcome to the show. Thanks. No, I appreciate you having me. Well, for our audience, give them a quick 32nd background into yourself, uh, your company and how you got into this business.
Ted Bigham: (00:58)
Yeah, absolutely. So 30 seconds. Start the clock. Um, I own a Kow Abundant in Columbus, Ohio. It’s an SEO company that focuses on Google ads management, SEO management and social media management. And we PR, we focus primarily on local businesses. So we want to help local businesses. All we can, we have a number of different verticals that we, that we work on. Um, and we just love helping, uh, local, local people and kind of bringing, uh, more to the community as well.
Neil Howe: (01:31)
Well, awesome. That was just 29 seconds. You got? Heck yes. Nice. All right. Well local business is definitely where it is. They form the back bone of the whole GDP and they’re putting people to work there selling stuff. Uh, you know, we really want to help out the local businesses as much as we can. Um, so briefly, Ted, give me, give me the kind of explanation of what local SEO is and how it differs from a regular just organic SEO.
Ted Bigham: (02:10)
Yeah, so that’s a great question and I think the answer is kind of in, you know, the products that the local businesses are selling and how the large companies like Google and many others, um, look to local businesses to answer the questions that people have. Um, you know, when people do searches, they’re looking for maybe the best fish sandwich or best, uh, you know, local plumber, things like that. And Google does really rely heavily on local business to answer those questions. And that’s where it is very important to have a great website that’s user-friendly, um, that has good content is up to date. Um, also has, you know, backlinks as well as internal links. Um, you know, to other pages on your site. There’s just a lot of optimization that you can do as a local business owner that hopefully will kind of get into today.
Neil Howe: (03:05)
Yeah. And I want to break a lot of these things down and talk about them individually. Uh, but what you said, Google, you know, w we’ve got to understand that and I just watched that video that you sent me about the, the top websites in the world. And I always knew Google was number one and it has been for quite some time, but I didn’t realize just how much bigger they were than the likes of YouTube and Facebook. Uh, uh, they have 80%, 88%. I think of the, the market share when it comes to search. So, you know, it’s, it’s a, a word that everybody knows, uh, and McDonald’s is the brand. Uh, which means search. So
Ted Bigham: (03:50)
yeah, it’s amazing how, um, you know, obviously big these sites are around the globe and you never really know until you see those kind of statistics, how big like Facebook is versus Google and YouTube even. And you know, you think Amazon’s in there too, but actually Amazon’s not even in the top 10, which is amazing to think about. And so many people use that service obviously. Um, but Google is really a powerhouse when it comes to search. But remember, um, so it was AOL, you know, years ago. So things can change and do change, but Google definitely has a headstart on like voice search and uh, some other incredible technologies. Uh, so there’ll be here for at least a little bit.
Neil Howe: (04:38)
Mm. Well, you know, we are familiar with, uh, many of the top websites, but watching that video, it really does open your eyes into, you know, these sites that are just coming up. We think a YouTube, I think, I don’t know if it started, but really started getting prob prominence and I think it was about 2006, which is not that long ago. And, and same with Google. I think it was only 2005 when they just kind of exploded onto the market. But, uh, in recent years we’ve had a Facebook as well come on up and now Instagram as one of the top websites in the world. And you know, I w I want to talk about some of these things in social signals and how important they are for ranking. Uh, once we get into, you know, some of those ranking factors.
Ted Bigham: (05:33)
Yeah, I mean, talking about those sites, um, the video we’re talking about is from data is beautiful on YouTube. YouTube is the second most popular, uh, site in the world, which is amazing. It’s more popular than Facebook. And I actually recently, Facebook has been losing traction, um, which is kind of interesting. It’s been losing visitors and Instagram has been gaining. So Instagram is really neck and neck with Twitter. Um, in fact, one of the kind of, there was a recent, uh, Twitter tag today was Instagram was down. So then people go over to Twitter and that, that was just kind of funny. But in terms of the websites, popularity, like I said, Amazon’s not even in the top 10, but obviously there’s a lot of transactions that go through Amazon and, um, Google is definitely the powerhouse here. And, uh, YouTube is surprising li, um, in a solid second.
Neil Howe: (06:32)
Mm. Yup. Um, people want to get information and a video is becoming the way to get it. Uh, which is another lesson for local businesses out there. If they’re not putting, uh, content out on those platforms, whether it’s YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, uh, that’s where the eyeballs are. That is where people are hanging out. So you want to make sure that your content is delivered on those platforms as well.
Ted Bigham: (07:04)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Neil Howe: (07:07)
Well, let’s look at, uh, the local search, uh, a little bit more deeply. Um, local is generally there. There’s a few different things when we think about local, first of all, uh, if I’m driving to a new city, which, you know, I took a tour of the East coast over the summer. I spent a couple of months just traveling up and down the East coast, which is great. Very nice. Yeah. But when I got to a new area that I didn’t know, you know, and I’m hungry, um, you know, opening my phone and doing a voice search, uh, for, you know, best burgers near me, uh, tell me how I can optimize my local website for that kind of customer.
Ted Bigham: (07:59)
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. Um, voice search is one of the keys for future SEO in particular moving into 20, 20, and even beyond, um, you know, voice search is up 9.5% from 2018 according to e-marketer and, um, 55% of households are expected to own a smart speaker by 2022. I don’t know if that will come true. Maybe it will. Who knows. Um, I, I have, you know, like an Android phone, so that’s, that’s kind of a the speaker I have, but I do know quite a lot of people obviously have these like Alexa devices and, um, you know, there’s Google devices, Apple devices that are these smart speakers. And the whole reason behind this is because I’m like, why they’re doing it is that it’s a faster vehicle to sales because phone calls can convert 10 to 15 times higher than web leads and they also convert 30% faster than web leads.
Ted Bigham: (09:01)
And when you’re using like a smart speaker voice search, that really is a driver for usually like a call, somebody I’ll say like, you know, call a local restaurant or order takeout or whatever it is. Um, oftentimes it’s trying to say like, well, I know I want Chinese food. And just like you mentioned, if you’re in a new area, it’s like just, you know, call a good restaurant. Like I want some good Chinese food or something. Um, and that’s really, that’s really like the power behind those kinds of searches and to be optimized for it as a local business is really important. Um, so when you’re optimizing, you know, the data that it pulls when people look up best reviewed, best burger, right? Like you said, that data’s often pulled from like Yelp or it could be, um, Google reviews. So you wanna make sure you’re getting a lot of consistent and good reviews for your business on Google, on Yelp.
Ted Bigham: (10:01)
Um, you want to make sure that the data that is on there is, you know, accurate up to date. And if you can for like bonus points, try and have your customers mention this is the best burger or like say mentioned, mentioned your burger, mentioned your experience. I mean it even helps I tell restaurants all the time to leave like a little card in with their orders saying if you like us, review us, you know, um, just so they think about it and do it quickly, make it easy for them. That’s, that’s really a great key is make it easy for your customer to leave a review.
Neil Howe: (10:37)
Right. And reviews are so important. In fact, I think Mara said that they account for about 15% of the overall ranking, uh, on the map reviews. And it is the rate, the rate of the review and the amount of reviews that you get and a time period. So maybe you’ve got, you know, 50 reviews. You went out and you asked all your clients to review you and you got 50 reviews, which is great. That might be more than everybody else in your, in your market. But if you stop getting reviews, um, it’s going to count against you. And the companies are getting reviews even slowly, but they’re continuing to get them are, uh, may rank above you. So you have to continually, uh, get reviews from your customers. And like you said, give them away to make it as easy as you can.
Ted Bigham: (11:32)
Yeah. Um, there’s a, uh, Google review link generator for example. A white spark does that, so you can just go to white spark, look up like Google review, white spark and it will create an easy link that, uh, you know, you can send out to people on social and all that stuff. And, uh, you know, remember according to Google, 20% of all searches are voice searches. So it is growing. And I mean, that’s, that’s definitely a lot of searches. Um, but it’s very positive to me as a, as somebody who supports local businesses that, um, Google is investing heavily in local business because, you know, it’s, it’s about as much as 46% of voice searches are for local stuff. So they’re definitely invested and you know, Google and these big companies in supporting local business because that helps their bottom line too, which is very makes me happy. Basically. You know, like I do, I just don’t want to see, um, you know, uh, just be Amazon or you know, just the big companies. I want the local guys to win too. And, um, that’s really important to make sure that things are optimized because it’s, it’s good to have, you know, somebody fighting in your corner basically. Um,
Neil Howe: (12:56)
right. Yeah. So, so let’s look at the local search because, uh, like you said, the local business is really where these companies, Google, he specially is putting a lot of time and effort and it all, all is revolved around their map and the location. So, you know, just like in real estate, location, location, location, that is what is really important to Google, uh, for them to give the best results depending on the location of the searcher. And you know, what we’ve gotta realize nowadays is that most of these searches, uh, from a local perspective are being done on a mobile phone from somebody that is, you know, I, they’re needing something right, right away. Uh, or at least as growing. I’m not sure if it’s a more than the desktop.
Ted Bigham: (13:49)
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, from my, uh, customers, local customers, you know, I see. Generally the trend is like 65 to 85% of searches are mobile based. So that’s a big number. And it surpassed desktop, you know, for the local businesses that I work with probably as of, um, last year, um, definitely in to 2019 it was like, now it’s mobile and as soon as Google put that initiative to where it says mobile first indexing, which you’ve seen like on all, if you have a business website, they send you emails and say we’re doing mobile first indexing for your, for your website. That really helped propel mobile as well cause they prioritize the mobile experience and you know, the sites that have better usability, better mobile experience will be the winners. Um, so optimize for mobile. Absolutely. Cause I, I’ve even seen, um, tablets gain market share now as which in the past for a long time they were just kind of low percentages, maybe three or 5% at most. But recently I’ve seen as high as 15% for tablet use, which is pretty large. Um, and I think that’s growing as well. So people are kind of moving away from the conventional desktops, even other than, you know, the people that might be working in an office or a cube or whatever. Um, and then they get bored and they browse and you know, they’re looking for take out and local stuff and all that. So.
Neil Howe: (15:23)
Right. And it’s dependent, it’s dependent on the kind of search as well. Obviously if you’re looking for a local restaurant or something that you need immediately, often times it is on the phone. If it’s something that you need to do a little bit more research on, it might be a, a desktop. If you’re looking for a doctor or a chiropractor or something like that, you might do it from the comfort of your home on a laptop. But I, I’ve got some stats here. 80% of internet users, uh, own a smartphone and they’re accessing, uh, the internet via the smartphone as a 70% of mobile customers who find a business online will act within one hour, which is really remarkable. And that those are the people that are out and about, they are doing a search, they’re needing a raise, a response right away so that they can take action. And that action oftentimes is just to pick up the phone and call the business to make an appointment or to, uh, purchase something. They can order 16% will use a mobile phone exclusively. And that number is, uh, going up to, you know, probably 20% in the next a few years, which means they’re not using a desktop at all. So definitely mobile is the way forward.
Ted Bigham: (16:45)
Yeah, the absolutely, I mean mobile is definitely, I mean, everybody has a smartphone. Like you’re saying, 80% of these users have a smartphone and you know, that it’s just ubiquitous. I mean, a smart phones are everywhere and now it’s kind of moving toward more voice because I think people are getting more comfortable with these technologies and with that comfortability there, they’re starting to push the little microphone button and ask questions and then it’s also, you know, integrated in the cars and all that stuff. So it’s, it’s easier also then to use voice search than, you know, to necessarily type stuff. Um, and I think it’s just a direction moving forward. Uh, video is still very important, you know, to get your message out there. Um, and then podcast two podcasts are great, um, for businesses to, to look into and use and they’ve been more accepted by traditional media and large media.
Ted Bigham: (17:44)
I mean, like Netflix has a podcast, comedy central, you know, almost every major network. Um, NBC, ABC have podcasts for their popular shows. So when years ago it was like, what is this podcast thing? The same thing applies with these technologies. They’re starting to be well adapted and well-used. And, uh, I do think for the most part, local business owners understand this. And because I get all the time, every day calls from people, you know, saying, I need to optimize my maps listing, I need to optimize, you know, a website or, or all this stuff. How, how do I do that? You know, like, maybe I’m not on Google or it’s not looking right, but I know that I need to do this because a, I mean, all my customers are using their phones or ordering food that way. So it’s, it’s just moving that, that way even faster.
Neil Howe: (18:36)
Right. And a, they’re hearing this information on a podcast like this, you know, they’re realizing that this is where, uh, the future is, this is where they need to optimize. If they don’t want to get left behind. So there are, are coming to you and saying, Hey, I need help with maps because I believe maps is the way of the future. That’s how we get found in, uh, the local area. So Ted, help me out with my map listing.
Ted Bigham: (19:06)
Yeah. And, and with that, you know, local businesses they want to optimize. So I do recommend using services like a Yext is one, uh, most local, you know, there’s different services out there. Um, some services that work with SEO companies that, that enable voice search and work with Alexa and optimizing, you know, Google maps and, um, Apple maps and all those different areas are very important. So I do recommend using some type of local citation is what it’s called, service. Um, to make sure that your map listings are, you know, where they should be. And, um, you know, if you go to my website, there’s a free SEO audit and you can enter in your name and, uh, we can figure out like basically what your local citations look like. Um, but yeah, I would, I would definitely recommend doing any kind of local citation, um, update because there’s just so many services out there.
Ted Bigham: (20:09)
And GPS, I work with a client, um, uh, like developers in Columbus, Ohio and they have, you know, new developments that aren’t even, they, they make the streets so they, they don’t even have streets yet on Google map because they haven’t taken new pictures yet. So we work with another company that is based in Cincinnati and they take pictures, they have their own Google cars and they’re able to add the actual street views and locations onto the Google map, which if you rely just on Google, that can take a year. Some have said two years, like a long time. So that is really amazing. And you know, I remember when they first started with me there, the company was, was saying, um, you know, anyone that Googled their, their business, their property, we just went to a Chinese restaurant because that was where, what Google said where they were located with some random Chinese restaurant, not far from them, but that’s not, you know who they are. It’s great if you want to take out, but it doesn’t quite, you know, really for them. Uh, so like aligning all these things is very important. Um, and making sure people can find you easily and not get frustrated because we, we rely so heavily on these technologies that when they do, you know, fail or not work, we get very frustrated. And that’s like, it’s so frustrating when you’re like Googling something and your drive there and it’s closed. Oh man, that is just heartbreaking. You know?
Neil Howe: (21:50)
Well, that, that’s when Google my business kicks in because a, what I’ve heard and the statistics that are coming out is a searchers aren’t even making it to the business website anymore. They’re strictly getting their information from the Google my business page and they’re making decisions based on that because really it’s got everything that you need. If you click on a listing in Google, my business is going to tell you the hours of operation you’re going to get driving directions to that place. You’re instantly going to see the reputation of the place based on the reviews and the comments. And people are reading those comments. They’re looking for, uh, I think nine comments. They will read actually nine comments or more on your Google my business page before they actually make a decision to call you. So people are doing their research but they’re making decisions from the Google my business listing instead of actually going to your website, which is really interesting.
Ted Bigham: (22:57)
Yeah, I’ll say with the exception possibly of, uh, menus. Um, some restaurants have menus or you know, quite a few, but a lot of times you’ll have to still go to the website for like a restaurant menu. Um, and then they also use, you know, uh, Uber eats and all those other services as well for delivery. I actually am on the board of a restaurant technology group in Columbus, Ohio. And we focus on this stuff and we work with large organizations, um, you know, even, uh, like triple lay and other businesses that we try to, um, help as well. And so these, uh, these, uh, businesses, you know, really need help with, uh, optimizing on their menus and picking, they don’t know really what to do. You’ll, you might’ve seen it in a local restaurant, they can have like five tablets cause it’s kind of a mess still.
Ted Bigham: (23:57)
And we are in, in the adolescence of many of these technologies still I would say voice search is out of the toddler stage and into adolescence now. So that’s better. There’s still a lot of room to grow. Um, but we’re getting much better at it. And, uh, you know, Google and, uh, just even Apple, you know, many of these companies are doing so well and constantly improving. Um, but we’re going through some growing pains still. So just make it easy for customers. That’s the best I can say. And particularly, um, with like online payments, you know, if you sell anything online, make it easy for customers, have different ways of paying, uh, you know, PayPal and other options. It’s, you know, uh, basically like 32% of millennials use PayPal or they’re comfortable with it.
Neil Howe: (24:51)
Right. And I have a Venmo that’s a, a new app that a, a lot of businesses have started using as well.
Ted Bigham: (24:59)
Yeah, Venmo is another popular one. Um, I think I, you know, I’ve, I’ve used Venmo with friends and stuff like that before and uh, you know, it’s, it, it’s another one of those, uh, payment payment type apps that works really well. And I mean, 67% of millennials prefer to shop online as well. So we’re comfortable now, you know, with buying stuff online and, and using PayPal using PayPal or Google pay or whatever. The one thing I will say with businesses, it’s kind of like Apple charges an additional fee for Apple pay. If you’re a business, you need a developer account, which is 99 bucks a month. Google pay, you can usually integrate for free. PayPal, you can usually integrate for free. Um, so that’ll be interesting moving forward to see if that hurts it. Um, you know, I’m not sure, uh, I, I think it will, Apple will be pretty well, you know, they’ll, they’ll do okay because of their market share, but after a certain point, um, you know, they can only ride that wave so long. Um, but obviously in 20, 20, you know, for local businesses, um, payment optimization is very important. And, uh, that that’s really, that’s really a big one is you know, e-commerce transit transaction with multiple payment methods and optimizing for mobile.
Neil Howe: (26:26)
Right? Yeah. It’s obviously, uh, the, the easier you can make it for a business to collect money from a customer or client and the better it is going to be. But, uh, I, I want to touch on a couple of things here, Ted. First of all, this, uh, Bert algorithm, which is one of the largest algorithm updates that Google has had for a while as has just being released. Uh, how much do you know about that?
Ted Bigham: (26:56)
Hmm. I know a little bit about it. I mean, I’ve read, you know, just the, the minor things with, um, a search engine land and you know, search engine journal and stuff like that. Um, obviously it was a, it’s a big update whenever they do updates. Um, whenever Google does updates, I generally take them a approach where all of my SEO is w a what’s called white hat SEO. So it’s old tried and true techniques, you know, back-linking making sure you have good content. It takes long term work to, to make a good website. And it’s just like building your business, you’re building your business online. So when there are updates, it’s not so much a big deal. Um, I know what needs to be done anyways. Uh, but there are, you know, certain updates. I think like the last update really hit medical and, uh, really, uh, put a lot of businesses, um, that were kind of doing more shady medical stuff out of the, uh, running, which is great. Um, but with, with Burt, um, you know, I still need to know more about it, I guess.
Neil Howe: (28:08)
So, yeah, I think, um, you know, with these updates are really shows you what Google is trying to do. And with Bert for the, the limited information that I know about it, it’s really trying to understand the search query better. And I think it relates to what we were saying before with the voice searches. You’re starting to see a lot more, uh, long tail searches, which are, you know, extended search phrases of, you know, usually if you go to the computer and you type something in, you might do something very broad and basic like a house cleaner, uh, something like that. But with the voice search, um, you might be a little bit more detailed. And the Bert algorithm is really trying to figure out exactly what, uh, the searcher is trying to say. And it is getting better at, uh, interpreting those voice searches. So I think what that means for, from my perspective is you really want to try and optimize for these long tail or extended phrase, uh, searches on your website. And that ultimately is through content marketing and having good content on your site.
Ted Bigham: (29:30)
Absolutely. So, I mean with bird, Google is continually making these strides toward voice search and the conversational language. That narrative is inherently dent, inherently different than when you’re just typing something, you know, um, because you could just type, um, you know, plumbers Columbus, Ohio or wherever you are. Whereas if you were asking that through voice, you know, you would say like, I want to find the best plumber in Columbus, Ohio, right? That’s a conversation that’s different. So that’s a totally different search than the previous. And with Bert, it was really taking into account that move toward voice recognition. Um, and Google is making big strides toward, um, voice because it knows that, you know, it’s increasing and it’s like, you know, 9.5% a year increase in voice searches. So it’s constantly going to improve that. And Burt is, uh, is just kind of another step in that direction.
Neil Howe: (30:38)
[inaudible] well, uh, I think one in five star twos right now and that is increasing every day. It’s, uh, probably moving closer to two and five star cheese are, uh, local searches at least are conducted, uh, with voice. So it’s definitely something that is going to continue to increase over time. Um, all right. I want to touch on a few other things here as some statistics. Uh, contents. The average length for a top 10 result, uh, when we look at words on a page is 2000 words. Uh, I see a lot of websites out there that, uh, you know, have lots of images and you know, we don’t see as much flash anymore that Google is really frowned on on the flash. So we don’t like that and we want to get rid of that if we do, but, um, the average is 2000. And if you want to get into top three, you’re looking at 2,500 words on whatever page it is that is going to show up and that result. So, uh, content marketing is definitely something that we need to look deeply into. How do you get the content, uh, Ted from your clients to get on their webpages?
Ted Bigham: (32:03)
Well, that’s a great question and I think, uh, the answer is somewhat reluctantly. Uh, with many local businesses, they, um, you know, they should focus on their product. That and that is really the best thing is when you can focus on your product. Um, that that’s always the greatest thing because businesses don’t often want to spend all the time on content and everything. So usually in that, in that case I’ll just work with like blog writers and um, you know, people that will actually craft pieces for the web where we might do some, you know, interview or a piece on the owner or products that they’re doing. Um, a lot of the content stuff is really like that, that I at least focus on is social media based. So it’s, you know, updates on Instagram, Facebook, and that, that sort of world, that doesn’t necessarily translate though into the Google side.
Ted Bigham: (33:00)
If you’re just focusing on Google optimization. I mean, to have it 2000 word piece, you’re gonna need a writer. Like, I don’t see too many business owners, even when they supply me pieces, they’re probably like three to 500 words. And that’s like pushing it, you know, because they’re not writers. Like, unless you’re, unless you’re in the trenches. Um, you know, the last time most people wrote anything was in college and then, you know, they just, they just kind of stopped and they do their business. We just totally fine. Um, but 2000 words, that’s definitely a lot I think with, uh, with local local businesses and that kind of stuff. Um, I always try and push for blogs when possible, but I know that there’s still reluctance on many businesses to do that. That’s why I say just do a podcast or do video or do something you like, you know, um, and don’t, uh, don’t worry so hard about maybe the blog or whatever because eventually I think Google and other companies will catch up to whatever, you know, you love if you’re, you’ve seen it like in YouTube, these, these people that have been making videos for years and now they’re, they have millions of views, you know, like eventually the technology catches up with your passion.
Ted Bigham: (34:28)
So just do what you love.
Neil Howe: (34:31)
Yeah. Well that is great advice. You know, I’m a huge proponent, obviously of the podcast and being able to sit down and just talk out your message. Uh, you know, like you said, it’s hard to get a business owner, a local business owner, especially to sit down and write about their business. But if you can catch them for 30 minutes, they will talk for 30 minutes nonstop about their business because it’s what they are passionate about. There are services out there, there’s transcription services where you can get that conversation captured and edited and you can get content for your website there. Uh, but I think that is, you know, one of the starting points is just having a good interview, um, and being able to talk at length, uh, about specific areas of your business. No one, one of the, one of the big words that I see on all the websites that are talking about Google and ranking for 2020 is branding.
Neil Howe: (35:36)
Um, and I think branding is just, if you look at the local searches now, it’s sometimes very hard to get on the organic listings because, uh, you have sites like home advisor and uh, yell and Angie’s list and Alignable and all these different, uh, directory, uh, websites that are showing up on, on the front page and they’re not really given to the local business a chance to show up organically. Uh, you know, I’ve seen anywhere from five to even all 10 of those organic listings taken up by big brands. And I think Google really loves brands and because they have a authority and they, you can’t really fake a brand. So I think we’re moving towards a, in the local market as well as trying to develop a brand for yourself by getting your business name out there as, as many times as you possibly can. Uh, what do you have or what can you do that would help, uh, a local business brand themselves? We have an in to 2020.
Ted Bigham: (36:49)
Well, that’s a, that’s a great question. An interesting point that you bring up because how I kind of relate that is I often look the other way and I say pivot. If you’re a local business, the brands are going to beat you. You know, even if you’re like a realtor or if you have, if you’re a, I have a lot of businesses that are like handymen or garage door repair or um, you know, I’ve chimney sweeps, I have all different kinds of businesses. And so in that case, when people are looking up, even like chimney sweeps, they’ll see home advisor like at the top, right. So for them it’s really about optimizing for local and instead like chimney sweep near me or um, you know, say your city and then chimney sweep, stuff like that. You can, you can place at the top of the list there.
Ted Bigham: (37:40)
Whereas a lot of these bigger and sometimes longer tail, um, well sometimes other words can, uh, be just dominated by brands. So I kind of look at where Google is giving local businesses more wiggle room and that’s where, you know, they should focus. Um, because yeah, I mean you, it’s, it’s tough to beat out the big brands, but if you’re like a realtor and you look up, you know, Columbus homes, forget it, you know, like it’s going to be Zillow all day long or it’s going to be realtor.com or you know, but if you are trying to focus on, you know, a specific city and then realtor or like most home sales that you get, you, uh, based on your city, like you can do certain keywords and then write articles that help propel you there. So you just have, be smart about it and don’t just think, I have to dominate this one big word, you know, because that’s a fool’s errand really. Um, so be realistic in your expectations, your, you know, local businesses, uh, they can still gain traction, you know, um, in many other places. Yeah.
Neil Howe: (38:58)
Yeah. And it’s hard to get businesses to, uh, business owners to really understand that. What you just said there was though those [inaudible] big key words, like you’re, you’re broad keywords. Uh, it’s, it still goes with a 80, 20 principle. You’re three or four major keywords that you want to be ranking for is only about 20% of the overall searches, all these longterm, uh, long tail and, and different, uh, keyword extensions that, uh, you, you might put in after the broad search are, were stolen. The majority of the clicks to your website come from. So definitely need to optimize for all that. Well, Ted, I’m sure we could talk about this all day, but we got to bring it to a close at some the point I want to give you, uh, the opportunity to, uh, let the listeners know, uh, how to get in contact with you, uh, to get it to your website. If there’s anything that you have for them that might be helpful, uh, go ahead and let them know what that is.
Ted Bigham: (40:01)
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m go to cow abundant.com that’s cow abundant with a K a.com and sign up for my newsletter. Um, I do that every month. I have one coming out and I focus on the top questions, SEO questions from my clients and I publish that and people really get a kick out of that. It’s also got some fun, you know, memes and all that crazy stuff that happens. So it’s definitely sign up for that. There’s also a marketing ebook that is on my website. Um, that’s kind of focused. If you’re a newer business, it would be great to download with great insight. So a check cow, abundant.com follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that stuff. Uh, cow abundant [inaudible]
Neil Howe: (40:45)
excellent Ted. Well, I am connected with you and all your social accounts and I love the content that you put out and always stops me and gets me to look at it. So I personally advise anybody listening to go ahead and do that and for myself as well. You know, I believe very much, much in the interview as a starting point to get content out there. So if you are a local business and you want to be interviewed to get some content to start things off, you can contact me, uh, neil@anyilattheauthorityarchitectsdotcomoryoucanvisittheauthorityarchitect.com. Well, Ted, thank you very much for spending time with me today. Uh, I am looking forward to 20, 20. There’s definitely a lot to be done to optimize, uh, local business websites and I, um, we’ll be doing some more interviews like this local business 2020 in the future. So make sure you subscribe and keep an eye out for the other ones. Uh, Ted Begum thanks very much for [inaudible]. Thank you Neil. Appreciate it. And to our listening audience, if you like what you hear that like button and share and we’ll see you next time.
For more information about Ted Bigham and Kow Abundant, visit his site at https://kowabundant.com/
Click here For more Local Business 2020 Interviews
