When you're a small fish in a sea of competitors, getting noticed by search engines is never easy. If you're a car dealer, local restaurant, real estate agent, lawyer, doctor, etc., you're not only competing with hundreds of other businesses just like yours, but when it comes to link-building, everyone is trying to pick the same low-hanging fruit.
Strong content that attracts natural links can really help break the mold of low quality directories, blog comments, and spammy article marketing, but where do you start and how do you stand out? The world only needs so many mortgage calculators. I'd like to offer a few tactics to get you moving (and thinking) in the right direction.
Car Dealers (Tactic: Positive UGC)
Many companies are afraid of user-generated content (UGC). They imagine the worst – negative comments, brand-bashing, customer service horror stories. Although that fear is often overblown, it's easy to sympathize. It is possible, though, to use UGC and still control the message.
Let me illustrate with a story. In the late 90s, my parents bought a Saturn. Back then, Saturn was known for their unique buying experience – when you signed your paperwork, they took your picture, posted it on the wall, and the employees all came out and cheered. It was a little odd, admittedly, but it was definitely a memorable experience.
Why not use that same approach online? Find your brand evangelists - ask your customers to submit photos of themselves with their cars, for example. This type of positive UGC has a number of advantages:
- You'll tend to attract brand loyalists.
- People will link to their content on your site out of vanity.
- You'll create natural testimonials.
Restaurants (Tactic: Positive UGC)
This is another spin on the car dealership idea. If you're a restaurant, you have to deal with reviews. They can really make or break your business, especially now that there are entire companies dedicated to flooding the internet with positive (or negative) reviews. Why not ask for feedback in a way that naturally spins positive? For example, add a feature to your site where you ask people to post pictures of their favorite dish from your restaurant. No one has a bad favorite dish – the haters will naturally exclude themselves. Meanwhile, the brand evangelists will love seeing their photo posted online and will naturally tell their friends.
Real Estate (Tactic: Local Interest)
Real estate websites and even blogs have a tendency to be generic – they talk about why it's time to buy, how to find a decent interest rate, etc. This information, done well, is fine, but it's hard to stand out when you're saying the same things that 1,000 other realtors are saying.
Why not focus on the local angle? Think more broadly than just real estate – talk about the highlights of the neighborhoods you sell in. This could be everything from the best schools and local tourist attractions to talking about your favorite local restaurants. Don't be afraid to get a little personal, and you'll tap into a few advantages:
- You'll show you know and like the neighborhood you sell in.
- Local content will naturally attract local links.
- You'll naturally highlight the reasons to live in your neighborhood.
Lawyers (Tactic: Local Expertise)
Lawyers, like realtors, face the problem of how to say the same things as everyone else and still sound unique. Again, focus on your own niche and the local angle (assuming you're a smaller office). Highlight local stories that show how the law impacts your area – this could be everything from crime stories to civil suits. Discuss these stories in the context of your practice. You could even have fun with it – talk about weird laws in your state or city, for example. The advantages?
- You'll show that you're up to date with current laws and events.
- People will see that you understand how the law impacts them.
- Local interest stories naturally attract local links.
Don't Be Afraid to Get Creative
If there's a theme here, it's that you can't be afraid to start getting creative, even if you think you're in a "boring" industry. Think about what got you into your business in the first place – there's always a story, and the more you put your own spin on content, the more authentic and unique it will naturally become. Say something that no one else is saying, and natural links will create themselves.
"Hundreds of cars" image provided by ShutterStock.
I often reflect along the lines that good ideas are everywhere but what is missing is action. For those with enough courage to take action, actually delivering a result is the next hurdle. The benefit to such a great article like this is that it may inspire some to start thinking and it will also inspire others to go do something. Both are wonderful as a starting point. Sometimes that is all we need.
What I might have added to this post are the scenarios describing the possible avenues to make these ideas reality. Getting the restaurateur or the lawyer excited is necessary because the next decisions will be difficult. For example, what changes, if any, need to happen on the website in order to make this happen? Who is going to write out the strategy as well as the limits of success and failure? Who is going to do the work, manage the costs, take the time or expertly guide the process?
Outlining the paths to the goal and then helping the client make the best decision separates the consultants from the business partners. If we can take it upon ourselves to recognize great ideas and share the excitement, then let's also take a moment to mentally jump across the river on alligator heads. Our clients as well as our own success relies on the thinking, doing and ultimately delivering a result. We have to reach the other side.
Guilty as charged - coming up with the ideas and actually believing in them enough to sell them to your clients and walk them through the process are two entirely different matters. I've gotten better about that over the years, but I admit that some mornings I have a "great" idea, then I think about pitching it to the client, and within 30 minutes have given up before I started.
I think we have to evolve beyond telling people to "build great content," one way or the other. I absolutely believe in content - I don't think it works without marketing, but I think having something that stands out to market is the difference between night and day. The problem is we say "build great content," smile and nod at each other and then go home. Meanwhile, our customers have no idea what that really means. We definitely have to step up on that front.
Yeah! What Mike said! Forget about my comment above using the soiled baby diaper. If I could get away with it, I'd somehow paste my avatar on top of Mike's and take credit for this comment. Unless you get buy in for the idea, the idea might as well be in a sealed box on the bottom of the sea for all the good it will do. (I really don't know why I keep throwing in these awkward analogies. I can't seem to help myself. Might be time for a 12 step program for me)
These are some great examples! Extraordinary content is absolutely essential to achieving 'natural links'... however it must be backed up by marketing. It doesn't matter if you have the best content if nobody in the web can find it.
No argument there. The biggest thing I find with small business, though, is that you have to have something to market. If your site is a 4-page brochure, you can do all the marketing in the world and the impact will be minimal. People just don't care about a business card on the web (and more than they do a business card in their pocket). So, you have to be willing to put effort into both - build out the content worth marketing and actively optimize and market it.
And even harder than creating the prize winning content, is convincing the DM (decision maker) that there brochureware site is useless and that it needs to be changed more urgently than a babies diaper that has been used at both ends (thought you might appreciate that analogy Dad Pete)
Hmm...have to comment on the Car Dealerships and UGC....and purchasing of phony reviews by same. My blog piece on this is located here, where a couple of months ago, I did a monitoring for this kind of suspected PHONY reviews being posted in various channels (link to that blog piece is here ).
From what I saw, there is rampant use of same in that channel. Car Dealers must be pitched IMHO by firms offering to post glowing 5-STAR reviews for their dealerships....and they buy same. A quick look down my blog page shows that not only are these culprits in the Car Dealership channel....but digging thru the review listings made by these PHONY reviewers, show that they also work in other channels, like hottubs, kitchen remodelling, credit fixing farms, etc etc.
This kind of plain jane lying is paramount to the issues that one finds in UGC....and till there's a way around same IMHO, this waters down both the authority and trust that we searchers use to judge whether a search link is WORTHY of a click...or not!
Sad. Hate this. But it's becoming more and more prevalent....all over the web.
:(Jim
Yeah, unfortunately, it seems to be getting pretty bad, even on the major review sites. Until there's a way to really determine quality and authenticity, people will game the system. Google's Local algos are still a couple of years behind the main organic algo in some ways, and spam is a bit easier to get away with. It's changing fast, admittedly, but there's still a lot of cheating.
Solution for phony reviews scam (to an extent) is 'common sense'. If a review is too good to be true, take it with a grain of salt. If 20 people have positive opinion and one has extremely negative opinion, then neglect that negativity.Other than that you can always ask your friends and relatives. But yes businesses are going to abuse this reviews system even more in the future unless someone can verify reviews in some ways.
I am a lawyer, so I appreciate the understanding and advice. I do feel like I must be saying the same thing as everyone else over and over. It is good advice to just put more information about my local (Atlanta) knowledge of the area and my own personal slant on issues that are hyper local. Thank you.
You are right Peter, being creative is the key in this business. Businesses are afraid of user generated contents cos people write more shit than the positive reviews, sometimes to deliberately sabotage the competitor's business. I think for the type of businesses you have mentioned, UGC in the form of reviews on Google Places page and review sites like yelp, trip advisor etc are more beneficial. This is because citations from these sites help rank in local business listing. Also people tend to believe more what others (third party sites) have to say about you than the reviews on your own site. So what i would have done to promote a local business like say 'car dealers in southampton':
1. Look for dealers in Industry vertical like the one who deals in car accessories, car repair, car wash, car paint etc and exchange links with them or look for ways to get links from their sites. Submit the site to local yellow pages, business directories and car directories. In this way i can get lot of local links which will help me in ranking high in local business listing or local search results.
2. Give incentives (discount, gifts, special offers) to the clients to leave positive reviews on Google place pages.
3. If the competion is tough, i would have looked for car dealers in north of england or in wales or scotland and find ways to get links from them.
I haven't said anything new here but i had to say this cos i don't believe in the paper theory 'Local content will naturally attract local links.' If this was true we SEOs would not have been in the business in the first place. Companies would have just hired content writers and achieved top 10 rankings. What people look for before hiring a local business is acessibility and credibility. Is it worth hiring? Is it near to my place? Can i trust it? Top ranking in local business listing and lot of positive reviews is all that you need to get a local client. So i wouldn't spend my time in anything else.
The irony to me is that, while I completely understand why UGC makes businesses nervous (losing control of the message, etc.), the practical reality is that you have to get noticed before that information can help or hurt you. So many people are worried about going out on a limb with their content when the worst thing that actually will happen to them (and most of us) is that no one will care. Everything we hear about "Branding" is centered around big brands - the rest of us have to bite and crawl our way to any kind of notoriety.
the worst thing that actually will happen to them (and most of us) is that no one will care
I just heard someone (can't remember where now) echo that exact line Pete. The context was about someone who was staying silent because they didn't want to say the wrong thing and have people think poorly of them, and the silent persons friend told him that the sad reality was that nobody was likely to think about the person period, much less think well or poorly of them.
Negative comments aren't all bad. They demonstrate integrity and transparency. If you respond quickly and positively, they can work in your favour.
Try incentivising people to create quality content, or even impartial reviews. Content providers and reviewers could be offered an incentive for participation.
I agree with you. Negative comments can also make an assessment of strengths and weaknesses of the company while being an open door to a discussion between the customer and the company. How can we improve things? How to change the customer is satisfied?
I think one negative review which takes away your client's business is worse than no review.
I'm with you on this Ben. The reality is that there will always be some good and bad in reviews. When reviews have zero bad and nothing but gushing good, I think that on a subconscious level, the reviews can feel plastic and ring false.
I do Internet marketing for a car dealership so i was excited to see something specifically targeted in that area. A lot of dealers are already having customers submit photos of themselves. However, the (in my opinion) ideal place to do this is on Facebook. Customers feel more comfortable uploading content here so you may have a hard time getting someone to agree to posting a picture on your website. This means that I will have to come up with another strategy to garner some links hm...
Great point - go where your customers are, and for the average consumer, that might mean supplementing your efforts on Facebook. I won't claim my idea was original, but I think there are a lot of variations that you see companies trying. For example, have loyal customers submit stories of the best road trip they ever took in one of your (or your customer's) cars. I don't think you have to be a mega-brand to do this. With a bit of effort to reach out to customers and a relatively inexpensive contest, you could get some nice content and publicity for a reasonable price.
Hey Pete, thanks for the reply! I agree that this is a great way to get some customer interaction and UGC for our dealership. I hope you didn't think I was saying your idea was unoriginal, we need all the suggestions we can get.
We have over 10,000 links pointing to our site already but to be honest with you, I have no idea where a lot of them came from. From investigating in Webmaster Tools they look like they come from sites that are only around to exploit SEO techniques to generate some traffic and potentially make some ad dollars. What we lack is a chunk of high quality links so that is where I will shift my focus.
Ciao Peter,
glad to see you again on here and with such a useful post.
The content tactics you suggest are indeed useful:
Another content tactic can be to realize fast packed but useful "How to Guides", and better if exportable in other formas (doc, pdf, video) and embeddable.
Local sites (but also eCommerce sites) can receive just positive advantages in offering them to the public. For instance, flowers about, cooking about, handcrafts about sites and so on can stand out with them.
When you're talking about "brand evangalists" - people who will go out of their way to support you - I think a key idea here is to connect with them and get them to connect with each other. Marry the two factors Seth Godin talks about to create a Tribe (cause + connection) -- if someone is already willing to "go out of their way" and post rave reviews, then why not connect with them and encourage a second round of praise?
On a local level, this idea of creating a real community out of your UGC contributors could be taken a step further. An email would be nice. An invitation to drinks would be even nicer... (or whatever you see is appropriate).
This is a concept I've included in my YOUmoz post https://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-definitive-guide-to-awesome-web-content and explains why conversation and connection will help websites in this this situation.
Great post: 'Content Creation' is definitely trending here on SEOmoz!
Definitely write original content and make it specific to your industry and business. Write something noone else has and personalise it and it will make your content stand out over the rest.
I think that one way to stand out is to create a video and post it to your blog. A very small percentage of blogs seem to use video and Rand has mentioned that video is one of the best opportunities in SEO right now. The video could be involve sharing a tip or discussing useful resources. For SEO purposes, adding a transcript to the video is usually a good idea.
The reviews aspect is very interesting, particularly when you consider the effects on big brands like Amazon.
As well as the language used to encourage people to write positive reviews (and rate them as 'helpful'), ordering them is also important. At Amazon, it seems like the positive reviews are more frequently found at the top of the review list - partly naturally, and partly from careful use of language and functionality.
As many people's reading pattern is to read the first few reviews (and then often mark them helpful), if you have a product with a lot of reviews then it's easy to get the good ones show near the top and have more people finding them helpful - thus reinforcing the cycle. Most reviews tend to have something 'helpful' about them, and from the customer's perspective it looks like people agreeing with the original author.
This approach does rely on having a rating system for your (on-page) reviews, but it could be used to good effect I think.
- Jenni
I would suggest to add an online guestbook to the content. That is easy to implement on every homepage and is - apart from reviews - a great way to gain UCG.
Petra
Hey Algo, do you mean the kind that people just fill their name and city in? I would have thought that that would be too old school.
Have you had success with that? I'm not criticizing at all, but rather I'm amazed that it's still being found useful.
Besides providing content, this UGC also helps build trust and bring potential customers. Whenever I want to purchase or use any paid service online, I often check for reviews by people who have already use those products or services. This helps the users as well as the website in the long run. Negative reviews or comments also helps the website if they are genuine as they will know what they are doing wrong and correct it. All in all UGC has many advantages.
Great post Dr. Pete,
It is a truly unusual company who will focus on marketing their message truly to their buyers and feeling brave enough to truly let go of all of their control when using social media outlets. So many of our companies are run by fear, and their fear may sometimes be the only things holding them back. I know it is a rare business that willtry some of the tactics that you have listed, but many of these idease willdo way more for them then some of the traditional marketing efforts.
In New Media and on our own personal blogs we often talk about website optimization and to get your business known and really connect with your buysers, I agree that it is imperative that you use a variety of tactics for your different groups of'buyers' A simple YouTube testimonial video or comment on your Facebook sites from users and their personal comments may be viewed as a much more truthful source than our own marketing efforts. And so if a company truly wants to be successful and have great content and communication...they me\ay need to relinquish a little bit of their control and get Social!The widevariety of tacticsuesd andamount of valuable content can do a lot in terms of content and SEO!
Dr. Pete,
What would you do for a Financial Planner? Would it be similar to one of the professions listed in the article?
Thanks,
joe
That seems like an area where a lot of people speak in broad generalities and/or have similar content (like basic calculators). One thing that might help you stand out is case studies. Obviously, you can't divulge client information, but you could anonymize it somehow or even invent case studies. In other words, show people specific examples of how your various financial planning approaches could help them over 5, 10, 25 years.
Great ideas that set me thinking.
I'm in the travel industry which is also mega competitive with so many of us selling exactly the same "products" so it's very hard to differeniate ourselves from our competitors.
Our Nile Cruise website, (www.nile-cruises-4u.co.uk) has a dedicated testimonial section that gathers reviews from past clients. But am I operating this to our best advantage SEO-wise?
As far as I can see the testimonials are great for potential clients looking to find out more about a particular ship but how can I optimise or change the way we use this content to benefit SEO-wise or have we set this model up in such a way that this cant' happen?
I love your posts Pete. They always have that quality "feel" to them.
I think all your ideas are excellent. The biggest challenge (as was commented above), is getting the buy in from the business owners. In my experience, owner apathy is a bigger problem than coming up with the ideas. I am so in need of getting a better brand of client.
Being in real estate, standing out among a sea of competitors who all look the same in the eyes of consumers, it can be a daunting challenge. However, being genuine and establishing authority online by contributing to the industry leaders has helped me tremendously. Thanks for posting such useful SEO information.
Dr. Pete, how could you forget your own clan!? Won't somebody please think of the Doctors!? ;)
In all seriousness though, any suggestions for surgeons who are just starting up a new practice after a long career with another group or hospital??
Well, I'm a research psychologist, so I'm not sure about our clan affiliation, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt ;)
I think, much like lawyers, a lot of it revolves around trying to showcase your own expertise. It depends a lot on your audience, though. Writing to a broad consumer audience to attract them to your private practice is much different than trying to brand yourself as a good hire by a new hospital, etc. I think that becomes more of a personal branding challenge.
I also imagine it varies a lot with the type of surgery, but one area I could imaging tapping into is personal stories from patients. Show (in a non-exploitative way, of course) how your work has benefited people on a real, personal level. Essentially, these are testimonials, but instead of 1-2 lines, find some great stories to tell.
I really like both the UGC ideas. I don't think there is enough of this going on, despite how simple and effective it can be.
Thanks for useful insights. Since have desinged many car dealers websites, this will definetely help us guide them for ways to interact with their users. Thanks again.
Excellent tips. That could bring fresh content to site, helo building trust, make a bound with users, attract natural links and social mentions, end lot more. Nice start to develope new ideas around this few, too.
Great tips, thanks alot...
The tip on the restaurants and the car dealership really blew me, that is surely the product of a very creative mind. Thanks!
Great post!
I've been looking into something similar for a local Landscaping Company that we are developing a website and doing SEO work for... We just started brainstorming different ideas on how to stand out from the rest, and have come up with some pretty unique ideas so far. It's good to see great examples from other professions as well!
You're right though, there are so many "fish in the sea" that you absolutely have to do something dynamic to separate yourself from the pack and gain that new business...
Great article it has given me a couple of nice ideas. Coming up with simple ideas to generate positive reviews is something i have not thought that much about - now i just need to implement them.
I also think that you need to mix up the on site stuff with reviews on other more established sites to drive traffic, then the on site stuff just backs up what the visitor has already read re-enforcing the positive messages. With regard to negative comments i think people should try to manage these obviously if someone is out to get you that's not good, but having a 100% track record always looks a bit suss to me - the tricky bit is managing it.
Great ideas. I agree with others here that you still have to go out and market the content once it's complete. But some of these ideas come with their own built in marketing strategies (like the car dealership idea), which is great.
Hi,
Unique post, I have never read an article on Content Managemnet that explains through examples to define your point. It is highly acceptable and easy to understand.
Content Management is highly effective tool for online business and traffic generation trick. by upgrading your website's or blog content you can not only rank higher on search engines, but you can effectively participate on interactive networks.
Nice work, Thanks for delivering your experience.