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How to Track Your Local Rankings in Google

Monitor where your business stands in search results.

Want to know where your business stands for the best keywords in Google?

After all, if you’re a veterinarian in Vancouver, and you’re working on your local marketing… don’t you need to know where you show up for keywords like “Vancouver veterinarian” - and how those standings are changing over time as you work on your website? 

Otherwise, how do you know if your efforts are actually working?

That’s where rank tracking comes in! A rank tracking tool will monitor the position of your website and your Google My Business listing for keywords you select throughout time. 

Now , rankings may not be the only indicator of success, and they may not be 100% accurate since Google customizes the rankings of the pages in their SERPs for each user. But they are a helpfu l baseline to see relative changes, and you’ll typical see ranking changes before you see changes in traffic and leads.

Rank Tracking Services

Our Internal Tracking

If you sign up for any of our SEO services or Analytics plans, we’ll monitor your rankings for you for a minimum of 3 months (but oftentimes longer) - either through our agency dashboard or through BrightLocal. Which system we settle on internally will depend on the project and what all we’re doing together.

If we’re not actively working together on SEO, you can pay for our rank tracking a la carte for $50/mo (which also includes setup of your Google Analytics property, and updates if their technology changes, as it has with GA-4.) Or, you can pay for another service like BrightLocal directly (discussed below.)

BrightLocal

Brightlocal costs $29/mo for their lowest plan currently, and gets you rank tracking and more. It also has a 14 day free trial.

We recommend this as the top rank tracker for local businesses, because it includes both organic and local rankings.

(Organic rankings are where your website ranks with your website pages in search engines - local rankings are where your GMB listing ranks within the “local” section of any search results.)

WhiteSpark

WhiteSpark's local rank tracking costs $25/mo for their lowest daily rank tracking, and focuses specifically on where your business stands in search results, without the additional tools. 

Other Alternatives

Other rank trackers that include local rankings tend to be significantly more expensive, with RankRanger coming in at $79/mo for its cheapest plan. 

There are some rank trackers which are cheaper, for example Serprobot is significantly cheaper at just $4.99 per month for its low est plan - but you will not be able to see where your GMB listing ranks in local results , which is pretty essential for anyone working on their local listings.

Is it possible to do SEO without rank tracking?

Sure, you can try to improve your local visibility and market your local business without rank tracking. You can see your website traffic stats with Google Analytics, and your GMB listing stats in your GMB dashboard. 

But you won’t be able to monitor results as well as if you were tracking rankings and knew what was happening with your visibility.



If you’re serious about your growth and actively working to increase your visibility in search engines, sign up for a rank tracker today!

source http://www.harvestlocalmarketing.com/blog/how-to-track-your-local-seo-rankings

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Harvest Online Marketing Is Now Harvest Local Marketing

Announcement: We have rebranded!

We have officially rebranded Harvest Online Marketing as Harvest Local Marketing.

This has been a long time coming!

It is still the same company and we still offer the same great services to our clients - but the added benefit here is clarity about who we serve and what we do. We focus on helping local businesses grow through digital marketing that gets them found in their area.

You'll notice that harvestonlinemarketing.com now forwards to harvestlocalmarketing.com.

I still personally provide ecommerce and automation consulting, but all of that will be offered exclusively at hannah.digital now instead of being listed here.

We hope you enjoy the new name!

source http://www.harvestlocalmarketing.com/blog/harvest-online-marketing-now-harvest-local-marketing

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Harvest Online Marketing Is Now Harvest Local Marketing

Announcement: We have rebranded!

We have officially rebranded Harvest Online Marketing as Harvest Local Marketing.

This has been a long time coming!

It is still the same company and we still offer the same great services to our clients - but the added benefit here is clarity about who we serve and what we do. We focus on helping local businesses grow through digital marketing that gets them found in their area.

You'll notice that harvestonlinemarketing.com now forwards to harvestlocalmarketing.com.

I still personally provide ecommerce and automation consulting, but all of that will be offered exclusively at hannah.digital now instead of being listed here.

We hope you enjoy the new name!

source http://www.harvestlocalmarketing.com/blog/harvest-online-marketing-is-now-harvest-local-marketing

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Benefits of Google My Business Listings

Benefits of Having a Google My Business Listing

Learn how GMB can help your business and get you more customers.

If you're a local business owner, you've certainly heard of Google Maps, now known as Google My Business. 

Why you need to be on Google My Business

There are so many benefits to having a Google My Business listing. 

Did you know that Google can tell when someone’s search has local intent, and because of it, they show local businesses at the top of search results? In fact, as of 2018, Google said they estimate 46% (!!!!) of searches to have local intent, meaning that 46% of people searching on Google are actively looking for a business or place near them. [Source: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-46-of-searches-have-local-intent-26529.html]

On top of that, more and more people are searching from their mobile devices and in Google Maps. This means you need to take advantage of the free advertising Google My Business gives you, because having a listing set up for your business means you can show up in all of these searches!

So here are some of the main benefits of having a GMB listing set up for your business. If you don’t already have it set up, here is how to get your business on Google .

GMB Listing Benefits

1. Mobile map searches - many consumers actively use the Google Maps feature to find businesses nearby. Google populates this section of their search engine using data from GMB.

2. Local intent searches (3 pack results) in organic search - even if a customer is simply going to Google.com and typing in a keyword, Google will often show what is called a “3-pack” of local businesses at the top of the organic search results page. This is also populated by GMB!

3. Free visibility - showing up in these areas means your business is getting FREE advertising in search engines. Yes, they will show your business without you paying anything, if you’re properly optimized!

4. Branding & reputation management - Your GMB listing includes so much more than your basic business information. You can add photos, descriptions, and services to enforce your branding, and they also display reviews of your business which impact your online reputation and trust in the eyes of local consumers. 

5. Organic website improvements - Having your GMB live and optimized actually helps your own site rank, too, when they are both properly optimized with consistent NAP and interlinked. when they are interlinked properly. Because of the Possum update in 2016, Google evaluates content on your website to decide when to show your GMB listing, and I believe this happens vice versa as well. So you can improve the visibility of both by having them both set up. 

6. Increase customer engagement - With listing features like table booking, posts, menus, etc, your customers can engage with your listing on Google more than any other directory. And because Google is the biggest search engine out there, that’s important. 

7. Business accuracy and updates - Your GMB listing makes it easy to keep customers up to date on hours, contact info, specials with posts, etc - anything that they may need to know about coming in (or not.) 

Clearly, getting your listing up and optimized is a boon for your business. If you haven't already done so, start today so you can start impressing and capturing more customer attention!

source http://www.harvestonlinemarketing.com/benefits-of-google-my-business-listings

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Best Website Platform for Small Business [2020] | HarvestOnlineMarketing.com

4 Best Website Builders For Small Business in 2020 Compared (Pros and Cons)

So you want to build a website for your small business, but you're not sure which platform is best to host and build your website on. I get it! There are so many options and the ones that are best for you really depend on your specific business and what kind of resources you're willing to contribute to launch the perfect website for showcasing your services and products.

I am writing this comparison from the perspective of a  small business owner that wants to get online easily without paying massive development fees , and wants to choose the best platform for them from the start instead of having to jump around. This angle is largely focused on service based businesses, as that's who I tend to work with most often, but I will also touch on my recommendations for the best e-commerce platform. 

Before we jump into the details, you should know that  we can build you a website on any of the recommended platforms here. You  can  book me directly for a VIP Visibility Intensive to have your custom website built on any of these platforms ,  or hire my team to build your small business website on Harvest Builder .

Best Small Biz Website Platforms Summarized

Don't need to read the full comparisons and just want a quick answer to the best website builder/host for your small business? Here you go:

1. Self-hosted Wordpress: best for business owners who do   want to maintain their own server or are okay consistently paying someone else to, are comfortable with a learning curve, and are comfortable handling Wordpress errors as they come up. 

2. HarvestBuilder : best for service providers and business owners who don't  want to deal with hosting and servers,  don't   necessarily want to build their site themselves, yet still want the DIY customization of a quality website builder once its live, and would prefer to have a direct support on hand (me & my team!) vs a big company support maze. 

3. Squarespace: best for consultants, entreprenuers, and business owners who don't  want to deal with hosting and servers, but  do   want to build the site themselves, and are okay with paying someone else to do updates when they don't feel like it, or prefer the Squarespace community and support system. 

4. Shopify: best for business owners who will have a heavy emphasis on ecommerce products. Shopify is the best, easiest, out-of-the-box solution for a DIY ecommerce site for your small business - and even if your site is somewhere else, their cart can still be used to sell products from your SMB website on any other platform. 

Website Builders Comparison Chart

To see this chart on your mobile device, just tap and slide to the part of the chart you're interested in.

Website Platforms to Avoid - Free/Lacking

Before we jump into platform specifics and comparisons, there are a handful of website platforms I would strongly urge you  not  to use. These are any free platforms where your features are limited (meaning you'll have to move later anyways, doubling the amount of time and effort you put in, instead of doing it right the first time), or where the out-of-the-box functionality of the platform will impact your visibility negatively.

The website platforms I personally do not recommend using  are  Weebly  and  Wix.

Why? Because after 10 years helping businesses increase their visibility in search engines, I can tell you Weebly and Wix are  not  set up to get you the best visibility for your effort. I know their ease of use is very attractive, but I have never seen a high performing website on either of those platforms, and instead see massive gains in search engine visibility when moving from one of those platforms to any of the 4 recommended above. 

If you are desperate for a low cost small business website and just need to get a page up, I would instead recommend the website platform through Google My Business ,  as long as it's used with a custom domain. And I would only recommend that until you can afford a higher quality platform.

So, which recommended platform is best for YOUR business? 

Let's jump into features and comparisons for the website builders I would recommend.

Which platform is best for  you  depends on a few key factors that you need to ask yourself. 

Which resource would I rather put towards my online presence - time or money?

Of that, how much time or money  am I willing to personally input to maintain the website?

What type of business do I have  and therefore what type of website am I trying to put together?  (local service based business, consultant/entrepreneur portfolio, blogger, ecommerce store)?

With those questions in mind, here are the best business hosting platforms I can recommend with their pros and cons, and why they might (or might not) be the right fit for you.

Self Hosted Wordpress

Are you comfortable learning a technical website platform, dealing with website errors, cpanels, FTP connections, and performing maintenance yourself? Then Wordpress might be a great platform for you!

When set up correctly with speed optimization and site-architecture/crawl optimization in place, this is a very customizable website platform. Wordpress as a platform is free, and your only ongoing platform costs are to the host of your choice. There are even great front-end page builders like Thrive Architect to make the design process more straightforward.

When done yourself, this can be a  low cost  but  high learning curve/time-intensive  option to get set up.

When built by someone else, this can be a useful way to get online at a low monthly cost, as long as the web designer knows how to optimize it for you and as long as  you can maintain it yourself (or pay someone else to when issues come up.)

PROS: Highly customizable, large online community, many plugins since it's one of the most popular platforms.

CONS: Too many features/bloat for what most businesses really need, typically the least secure website platform out there (and dealing with a hack is NO fun), have to stay on top of maintenance and updates (which might break your site) by yourself, or pay someone else to do it - usually an unpredictable cost.

Use Wordpress if you're not scared of tech, or of paying someone who can handle the tech. If you just need a small business website though without extensive custom features, a website builder might be a better option for your business long term.

Harvest Builder

Do you want all of the perks of an optimized Wordpress website (high visibility, great user experience, easy to update content), without the tech headaches? Or do you want done-for-you website updates and changes  included in the platform fee,  and with an easy, intuitive website builder to make endless changes yourself to your heart's content?

Then a site built on Harvest Builder might be the right choice for your business. 

Harvest Builder is our internal platform, and it's like Wordpress and Squarespace had a baby. I believe in this platform so much that this website you're reading right now is built on it . 

It is more SEO-friendly than Squarespace out of the box, and more intuitive, easy to update, secure, and optimized than Wordpress. It has all of the features a small business needs without extra bloat, SEO or security issues, or constant maintenance. 

Even non-technical business owners can log in to make changes if they want to, but the platform also includes 1 set of changes per month - so you can update your website as often as you want at a predictable cost. You get the optimization of Wordpress and the ease of Squarespace.. without ever having to touch your website again if you prefer not to.

We don't offer fully Do-It-Yourself plans (yet), but a site on HarvestBuilder is an  affordable and low-time-intensive way to get online quickly, with a website that does everything you need it to (including blogging.) Your startup costs range from $99 to $600, depending on whether you want a templated or custom site, and whether you want my team to build it, or you want me to build it for you in 1 day (this would be done through a VIP Visibility Intensive directly with me.)

PROS: Optimized out of the box, predictable cost, your level of hands-on time is completely elective and up to you, there is no server maintenance, and the interface is incredibly intuitive. 

CONS: Because of the concierge/direct support, and done-for-you nature of maintenance and website changes, this  is slightly pricier than other site builders like Squarespace, where you are on your own or have to hire outside help.

Use HarvestBuilder if you're a service based business that needs a reliable, beautiful website - without banging your head against the wall, spending hours learning new technology, or dealing with hiring unpredictable outside help.

Squarespace

Are you a public figure, consultant, or entrepreneur who needs to get online without managing your own hosting, and need to stick to a smaller budget, but you are pretty hands on and are okay with hiring outside help when you need it? 

Then a Squarespace website might be the right choice for your business.

It tends to lack the bloat and security issues of an un-managed Wordpress website, while having a pretty intuitive design editing interface. Its visibility is not *perfect* out of the box because of some platform quirks (for example, navigation links don't point to the canonicals of each page - which in layman's terms means the internal linking they use gives less value throughout your site, in Google's eyes) but if you don't want to learn Wordpress and are okay being pretty hands-on, it is a great site builder to get started with (and eons better than Weebly or Wix.) 

With a little time and effort, a business owner can build an effective Squarespace website that won't need constant technical babysitting. 

However, there is no hands-on support offered here. If you want your website updated or changed, you'll either have to do it yourself or find someone to hire, often at an unpredictable cost. 

PROS:  *Mostly* optimized out of the box, very affordable, no server maintenance, easy to build a nice looking website yourself, can hire out hands-on help if you don't want to do it yourself, more secure and easier to learn than Wordpress. 

CONS: The platform fee only covers hosting and basic support - Squarespace plans don't provide monthly content/design updates. 

Use Squarespace if you're a public figure, artist, consultant, entrepreneur, or professional that is totally okay with being hands on on a regular basis and learning a new platform - but perhaps wants to avoid the deeper technicalities of Wordpress editing and maintenance.

Shopify

Do you need to build an online store for your business, with the store functionality being its primary purpose? 

Then a Shopify website might be the best hosting platform for your business.

Although Shopify can be pricy, I've found it has the best balance between functionality and features without having the excess number of moving parts that can constantly break in a Wordpress or Magento e-commerce store.

Another factor to consider with Shopify is that if you want to sell some  products but keep your website on another platform, you can use their  lite plan  to take advantage of their shopping cart without hosting your full website on their platform. To do so, you simply add your products to your existing website in whatever manner you prefer, and then link to Shopify. 

So you get the benefit of an excellent, bug-free checkout, without having to worry about cart security issues like you might on Wordpress, and without the constant development costs/nightmares of Magento. 

The blogging functionality is not quite  as good as any of the above builders, but if your priority is e-commerce, then the trade off is likely worth the switch. 

PROS:  You can easily launch an online shop in a day with Shopify, and you don't have to worry about PCI-compliance yourself, because they have a built in cart. It's much more optimized than other e-commerce platforms, it's secure, and it has a large community behind it for hiring third-party help and adding plugins and apps. 

CONS: If you're hosting your website on Shopify and using a non-Shopify payment processor, they do add an extra percentage to the fee. The higher plan you're on/the more you're paying monthly, the smaller this fee will be (down to half of a percent.) However, I believe (anecdotally) that this fee is worth it for the checkout experience and lack of excessive development costs, because in comparison to Magento, it's unlikely the platform fees will outweigh the extensive development costs that would be required on other platforms. The blogging functionality is also lacking in comparison to the other platforms here. 

Shopify is my best recommendation for any small business that needs e-commerce functionality as core factor of their presence online.

Wix & Weebly

I'm not going to get into full comparisons of these website builder hosts here, because I honestly can't recommend them! I think using these platforms does a big disservice to any business that wants an ROI-generating online presence.  If you really can't afford anything else, using the Google site builder (linked at the top of this page) is still a better option than Weebly or Wix, because it should be considered temporary until you can afford to get on a more robust platform. Or, Wordpress can still be another low-cost option if you DIY it and are okay with getting around technical barriers.

Keep in mind if nobody sees your site, it's basically like it doesn't exist - which is why your platform is so important!

source http://www.harvestonlinemarketing.com/blog/best-website-platforms-for-small-business-compared

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How To Add Your Business to Google + Google Maps in 2020 | Harvest Online Marketing

How To Get Your Business On Google & Google Maps

Get your business listed in Google maps aka "GMB" to get more traffic and customers.

Google My Business allows you to manage your location's online presence in Google for free, across all of their platforms. It's one of the most important local listings, otherwise known as citations, for Local SEO. Basically, Google will send you customers for free through local searches, if your Google My Business listing is set up and properly optimized. 

This guide is going to show you  how to get your business listed on Google maps for free, step by step.

Benefits of listing your business on Google

Google is the #1 search engine in the world. So why does your business need to be listed? Because when you add your business to Google Maps, and people search for services in your area, your Google My Business (formerly known as Google Places and Google Maps) listing is what will show up in search results. This means you'll get more online visibility, calls, and foot traffic from having this listing show up in an optimized fashion. Imagine if you could show up #1 on Google maps - what would that do for your business?

How to Add Or Claim Your Google My Business Listing

1. Go To Google My Business

2. Click Manage Now

3. Enter Your Business Name

If your business already exists in Google maps, the listing will show up in the search and you can select and claim it. Make sure you search for your existing business listing here using any name variations you might have, because you don't want to create a  duplicate listing or cause NAP inconsistencies!

Make sure you’re using the exact name format you use everywhere else, since this is very important for SEO consistency and will impact your visibility later.

If your business isn't already in Google, this is where you can add it.

4. Confirm your business name

5. Select your primary business category

After your NAP information, this is the most important section of your business information. This is how Google will categorize your business, so it needs to be accurate and encompass all of your services. You can add more categories later. 

Start typing your main category, and see what comes up in the suggestions. Choose the one that fits best!

6. Add Your Services

Google may suggest some for you. You should add all of your main services here!

7. Designate whether your business has a location or not

8. Enter your business address

Make sure you’re using the actual address of your business in the city you want to show up in, and make sure you can receive mail here. It will be important for verification later. 

9. Designate whether you have a service area

10. Enter your phone number and website

11. Click Finish

12. IMPORTANT: Verify your listing

This will usually be done with a postcard. Your postcard should arrive within a few weeks, and  then you need to enter the code on the postcard into the verification section of your GMB listing.  If you don't verify your Google listing when the postcard comes in, it will never go live, so this step is very important! Sometimes if your business is established and there are already many references to your business name+phone number throughout the web, you can opt for a different faster kind of verification like a phone call.

Once you are done adding your listing to Google, it will become live after verification. After that, congratulations, you have successfully added your business to Google and can start getting free traffic and exposure from searches in your local area!

Next you’ll need to do some optimization for local search to be able to increase your visibility month over month. This includes adding more information to your listing, like photos, descriptions, and additional categories, and getting reviews on your new GMB profile. 

source http://www.harvestonlinemarketing.com/blog/how-to-add-business-to-google-free

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[CASE STUDY] 13 Client Leads in 24 Hours: The 4-Step Framework

Learn the 4 step framework we use that can help you start getting new client leads within 24-48 hours. source http://www.harvestonlinemarketing.com/blog/client-flood-framework

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[Video] How To Get More Yelp Reviews

Want more positive reviews on Yelp? This guide is for you. To see the accompanying blog with all of the review generation tips, please go to https://www.harvestonlinemarketing.com/blog/guide-to-get-more-yelp-reviews-online-unfiltered/

If you’re here reading this, you obviously already understand how important online reviews are to a business, especially a new business, and you want to know how you can get more positive online reviews for your business quickly, especially on Yelp since it’s the behemoth of local business review sites.

Yelp reviews frustrate many business owners due to their filtering algorithm, competition with local businesses, and negative reviews. Oftentimes positive reviews aren’t shown because they’re filtered out. We’re going to help you solve this! Just watch the video above to learn how.

[Video] How To Get More Yelp Reviews was originally published in Small Business Hacks: Marketing, Sales, & Entrepreneurship Blog by HarvestOnlineMarketing.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Small Business Hacks: Marketing, Sales, & Entrepreneurship Blog by HarvestOnlineMarketing.com - Medium https://medium.com/harvest-online-marketing-small-business-blog/video-how-to-get-more-yelp-reviews-d8458727f700?source=rss----e36daae1c30f---4

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Yelp SEO Ranking Factors

Have you ever wondered what are the major SEO ranking factors on Yelp? If so, you’re not alone — Yelp is the biggest local search engine with reviews (after Google) and yes, it has its own SEO and ranking algorithm for business listings.

Below we will dive into all of the SEO factors Yelp uses — and if you want to make sure you’re doing a good job at fulfilling these factors, you should check out our Yelp SEO guide to help optimize your small business profile.

Here are the SEO Ranking Factors that Yelp Uses…

REVIEWS: Everything from count, relevance, and velocity, to the strength of user profiles leaving reviews for you. Reviews are the #1 ranking factor for Yelp. They are believed to measure everything about your reviews, from how many you have, what services are mentioned in your reviews, how frequently you get them. They even measure the strength of the profiles leaving you a review — elite member reviews probably are counted as a more important ranking factor than reviews from other profiles, empty profiles, inactive profiles, or profiles with only one review.

Keyword Relevance of the Full Profile Just like any other search engine, Yelp is going to look at the keywords mentioned in your small business profile to decide what you should show up for in your area. This includes keywords in your reviews (as mentioned above), in your descriptions, in your business name, and in your categories.

Business Categories If you’re a pest control company and you’re not listed in that category on Yelp, then it doesn’t matter how many other ranking factors you have — you’re going to have more trouble ranking in their searches than your competitors who have their categories set up correctly will! Make sure that you’re listed in every relevant category you can for your business.

General Profile Completeness By having all of the areas of your profile filled out and optimized, including pictures, descriptions, services, categories, and business hours, you give Yelp more ranking signals to choose from when finding the most relevant business for someone’s search. One important ranking factor that many business owners miss is the service areas section. Not all profiles have this, but if you do, you need to make sure it’s filled out. This is how Yelp decides (after your physical address) what cities you should show up in!

Are there any ranking factors we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.. and if you enjoyed this post and think it will help your friends in business, please feel free to share it!

Yelp SEO Ranking Factors was originally published in Small Business Hacks: Marketing, Sales, & Entrepreneurship Blog by HarvestOnlineMarketing.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Small Business Hacks: Marketing, Sales, & Entrepreneurship Blog by HarvestOnlineMarketing.com - Medium https://medium.com/harvest-online-marketing-small-business-blog/yelp-seo-ranking-factors-1792cdd3e869?source=rss----e36daae1c30f---4