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These 5 ways can help improve your PPC lead quality
Online leads are not all equal. The quality of those leads ultimately matters in driving meaningful business outcomes.
Focusing on high-quality leads in your PPC campaigns increases your return on investment for your marketing dollars.
Additionally, improving lead quality allows salespeople to focus on more promising opportunities, streamline their sales process, and cultivate a loyal customer base.
Here are the tools and strategies you can employ to drive better leads and more ideal customers to your doorstep:
Key 1: Teach Google what a good lead looks like
Google’s ad bidding algorithm is a sophisticated system determining whom to target and how much to pay for a click.
The algorithm considers many factors, such as the bid, the ad and landing page quality, the expected click-through rate, and other historical performance data.
The better quality data you can provide to Google, the better the algorithms will do your bidding (literally).
You can do this by providing Google the following:
- Clean conversion tracking, depending on what clean means for you.
- Customer lists that are filtered for your highest-quality customers while meeting the 1,000-user threshold.
- Conversion values for designating more highly profitable leads from others.
Positive feedback loops
Algorithms like Google’s ad bidding system are designed to continuously improve performance by leveraging a feedback loop. This loop allows the algorithm to learn from past decisions and adjust its strategies for better outcomes.
When the algorithm receives accurate and high-quality initial inputs, it establishes a strong foundation for this learning process. The algorithm can make increasingly precise bidding decisions as it refines its understanding of user behaviors and preferences.
Fueled by the right inputs, this positive feedback loop results in more accurate learnings and better bidding decisions, enhancing campaign effectiveness and improving return on investment.
Key 2: Don’t neglect offline conversion tracking
One of the best practices for improving your PPC lead quality is offline conversion tracking or Enhanced Conversions for Leads.
Offline conversion tracking in Google Ads lets you link online ad interactions with offline actions, like in-store purchases or phone orders.
Doing so better informs Google’s bidding algorithms on what and who to optimize for increased profits and offline sales.
Here’s how it works:
High-quality lead data curation
Compile your online leads that generated revenue offline with an average volume of 30 or more per month and an average lag of 90 days or less.
Consider creating a database of all of the high-quality leads generated, whether they purchased or not. This is recommended because we aim to inform Google of the ideal lead candidates and to generate more of these, whether they become customers or not.
Integration with CRM or database
Next, integrate your offline data with Google Ads. This can be done by collecting and associating a Google Click ID (GCLID) with your leads.
Alternatively, consider using Enhanced Conversions for Leads for less technical and more streamlined implementation.
Ideally, you will have an automatic upload of this data into Google Ads regularly. If you use Salesforce or HubSpot, Google Ads has an easy and direct integration for uploading these offline sales conversions.
Attribution and reporting
Once Google matches the lead with the originating click ID, it can attribute the ads, keywords, campaigns, etc., that drive these valuable offline actions.
You can see reporting on the associated metrics like conversion value, conversion rate, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
Identify optimization opportunities
This data lets you understand which keywords, ads, or campaigns drive the most valuable offline conversions.
These insights will help you to make informed decisions about budget allocation, keywords, ad creatives, and targeting to optimize your campaigns.
Key 3: Exclude low-quality lead sources
Once you can identify what is generating your best-quality leads, you want to use these insights to pull spending away from your low-quality lead sources.
Audience demographics such as age and household income levels will come to light.
For example, you could discover that conversions are from 18- to 24-year-olds but not revenue. Use this discovery to exclude those age demographics from accruing ad spending in your campaigns.
Placement exclusions
Regularly check your placements report for low-quality websites, apps, and YouTube channels where your ads showed.
This can be tedious, but it will allow you to exclude placements that do not align with your brand or match your targeting. This is a great strategy to exclude low-quality lead sources.
Turn off demographics expansion
If you use demographic exclusions to improve lead quality, it is crucial to understand that Video Action campaigns using optimized targeting will ignore these exclusions.
Be sure to submit a request to your Google rep for whitelisting to turn off the demographics expansion.
Key 4: Attract high-quality leads who want to do business with you.
How good is your brand at attracting your ideal prospects, and does this high-caliber lead want to work with you?
If you're facing challenges in attracting quality leads to your brand or would like to improve overall, start by evaluating and enhancing your brand strategy.
Consider refreshing your brand identity, including your website, ads, logos, and colors. Be sure these are all effectively resonating with your desired customers.
Revisit your target audience and ensure your brand's messaging aligns with their preferences and needs. Clarify your value proposition, highlighting how your brand addresses users’ specific problems.
Last, embrace personalization to connect with different segments of your audience and resonate more deeply.
Examples include personalized landing pages, dynamic website content based on the visitor’s preferences and behavior-based retargeting ads.
Key 5: Disqualify leads before they reach a salesperson
I learned this from Perry Marshall, who has a story from John Paul Mendocha about “racking the shotgun,” and it’s about applying the 80/20 rule to your prospecting.
Ideally, you would disqualify folks before they click on your ad, costing you money. You can apply these other techniques after excluding your low-quality lead sources.
Use price as a disqualifier
Some prospecting strategies include concealing the price. I recommend using it as a disqualifier. You will likely prevent the leads from entering your funnel who cannot afford what you offer.
Disqualify leads with your online form
If displaying your price doesn’t make sense, use your online form to ask a qualifying question about the budget or how much they plan to invest. Doing so allows you to route leads with more profitable follow-up tactics based on their response.
Urgency is another qualifier that can be asked online, such as how significant is this problem they are trying to solve? One way would be to ask for their timeframe.
Alternatively, they can rank the importance of finding a solution from one to five.
Disqualify leads over chat
Similarly to the online form, use chat to help disqualify potential leads just as much as you would try to convert them. Ask the same qualifying questions to identify if your solution doesn’t fit their needs.
Bonus key: Get targeting feedback directly from salespeople
One bonus point for improving your PPC lead quality is getting targeted feedback directly from salespeople.
As PPC marketers, we tend to work in a black box. Getting insights directly from salespeople can help inform our targeting and exclusion strategies.
Not only can this make our direct campaigns more profitable, but sending through more highly qualified leads improves the results for the salespeople, increases retention, enhances your brand reputation, and reduces wasted resources.
Increase lead quality to increase your resources
Improving lead quality can significantly impact a business across various aspects. This impact will be more significant if most of your leads come from PPC sources.
Ultimately, focusing on lead quality can lead to more efficient resource allocation, better customer relationships, increased conversion rates, higher revenue and overall business success.
7 Email Design Best Practices for 2023 - Email Marketing
Let's talk email marketing - We’ve put together a list of our favorite email design best practices to help you increase open rates, drive conversions, and grow your customer base in 2023.
Research shows that in 2019, roughly 294 billion emails were sent worldwide every day. That figure is expected to reach 347 billion by 2023.
Yet many of these emails remain unread, or even worse – unopened. They get marked as spam, deleted, or completely ignored.
That’s why a well-designed, attractive email is essential to drive engagement and conversions. From the moment an email appears in your reader’s inbox, you want them to feel compelled to click through, even after just a glance. Beautifully designed and informative emails result in greater ROI and fewer unsubscribers.
To make the most of these best practices, follow along in your Team Debello-Magnetic Leads account and create your own stunning email content. Don’t have an account yet? Create one today!
Magnetic Leads free plan includes access to, email templates, unlimited contact storage, email marketing automation features, and more.
1. Nail your email marketing basics - email marketing
First impressions count for a lot in the world of marketing, and your emails are no exception.
You can spend all the time in the world crafting compelling email copy, but if your envelope content doesn’t hit the mark, it’s unlikely that your target audience will engage much. (That means low click through rates.)
Your envelope content consists of three key elements: sender name, subject line and a preheader. These are the basic foundations of effective email marketing. Without them, your body copy doesn’t stand a chance of holding its own. No one seems to want to use the preheader, why, because most 3rd party email tools cant create one, OR, you just didn't want to, but its really part of email basics to use it.
Sender name
We’re considering sender name as an element of email design. It’s a hugely influential factor when it comes to open rates and is arguably even more important than your subject line. Why? Because it’s inextricably linked to trust.
The first subconscious question readers ask themselves when scanning their inbox is ‘Is this genuine?’ Your contacts generally look at the sender name first to determine whether the email is spam.
The best way to reinforce trustworthiness and brand recognition is to incorporate your brand name into your sender name.
This could mean opting for your company name on its own, or personalizing it with an employee’s first name, for example, ‘Sarah at Team Debello’ Including a name can be an effective way to engage your readers on a more personal level.
Many larger companies use a distinct sender name to differentiate departments, products, services, or types of emails to reveal key information about the message itself, for example, ‘Team Debello-Magnetic Leads News’ or ‘Team Debello-Magnetic Leads Automation.’
The most important thing is to make sure your sender name displays a real name, whether it be the company’s name or an employee’s name – not just an email address.
Subject line
Aim to make your subject line relatively short (to avoid being truncated) but as informative as possible to capture your reader’s attention. This means highlighting the most important information that you want to communicate upfront. Users tend to only take a glance at the subject line, so you need to grab their attention with the first few words!
Based on the character limits set by various email providers, aim to limit your email subject line to 50 characters or less. In addition, be aware that mobile device users may see even less of the message.
TIP: Don’t overdo it with excessive capitalization, special characters, or punctuation. Not only will this kind of messaging compromise your reputation, but your email could also end up being classified as spam.
Email subject line A/B testing is a handy Team Debello-Magnetic Leads feature that can help you drastically improve your email open rates. This is your chance to entice your prospect to open and click, so don’t waste it – use data to determine which subject line works best!
Preheader text
Preheader text is the short snippet of text immediately following the subject line when viewing an email in the inbox. Preheaders add valuable context to your subject line and can also boost your open rates.
Your subject line and preheader text should work together to start telling your readers a story. If you don’t customize it, it will read as the text that first appears in your email, which could be ‘View this email in your browser’. Now that wouldn’t give a great first impression, would it? Get customizing!
2. Design your emails using visual hierarchy
As consumers, we tend to follow predictable patterns when engaging with content. Visual hierarchy is a powerful email design best practice that marketers can use in emails to exploit these tendencies.
Employing visual hierarchy not only allows your email content to be scanned and understood easily, but it also helps to direct your reader to the most important elements of your email.
Let’s take a look at two email layouts utilizing visual hierarchy…
Email layouts
First, the Z pattern is an effective way to get subscribers to read through all your email content. (Or at least more than they otherwise would.) This strategy plays on patterns of eye movement. Reading left to right, we have a tendency to jump ahead when engaging with content.
As marketers, we can capitalize on this tendency by dispersing particularly eye-catching content throughout the copy. This way, readers are less likely to get bored part-way through.
Second, the inverted pyramid email layout is another strategy to consider. As you’ll see in the example below, this layout works by broadly catching readers’ attention at the top of the email before narrowing their focus to a call to action, product feature, or whatever the primary goal of your email is.
Whichever layout you opt for, your content should be arranged to tell a story that guides your reader toward the action that you want them to take. Email design aspects such as placement, size, color, contrast, and fonts all play an important role in establishing visual hierarchy.
Optimize your CTAs
Now’s a good time to discuss optimizing your CTAs. As you’ve seen in the examples above, there are CTA buttons placed strategically in accordance with the email layout.
This strategy helps boost click through rates. Laying out your content to figuratively point toward a call to action is like giving your contacts a gentle nudge.
As well, the text on your CTA buttons should be specific and to the point. If you’re promoting a new product line, you could write something like, “explore our new collection.” If you just launched a promotion, try something along the lines of “save 20% on shoes.”
Phrases like “read more” or “learn more” are better suited for lower level CTAs.
Some final tips on email layout:
Here are some additional factors to consider when mapping out your content:
People tend to place more value in objects that are larger, so consider displaying the most important information as larger blocks, in bigger fonts, or in heavier weights.
Elements higher up on the page are perceived as more important too, so start your email with the most important information.
Contrast is key, especially for readers who are scanning your email. Important elements, like your call-to-action, should generally stand out from the rest of the email.
Separating sections with white space allows the reader to understand where one element ends and the next begins. This helps to communicate information in a clear, organized, and attractive way.
NOTE Great email layout is also vital for accessibility. It’s important to make your email easily readable for all contacts, including those who are visually impaired. Don’t forget to include descriptive alt text for any images and make sure the background color of your emails allows for ease of reading.
3. Use an email template - email marketing
For those of us who aren’t experts in graphic design, using an email newsletter template is a great way to get started creating beautiful emails.
Email templates will help give your content a professional looking structure and speed up the design process.
As well, be sure to use responsive email templates. This means templates that automatically convert the content layout to be viewable on desktop, tablets, and mobile devices.
Your email marketing tool should have some type of drag and drop editor. This lets you create content without having to know HTML or code. Once you’ve selected a template, all you need to do is rearrange the design elements the way you like and add the email copy.
Now, to make the most of a template, you’ve got to go a bit further than replacing the placeholder text with your copy. Templates are a great foundation for effective email design. But moreso, they’re an opportunity for your brand image to shine through.
Don’t feel obligated to stick to a template’s design features. In fact, we recommend changing anything that isn’t consistent with your brand image like the background color or the fonts, for example!
To build a sense of reliability and trust with your audience, your email campaigns should be consistent in terms of design. This means sticking to a color scheme, font, heading structure, and a consistent email footer.
Email marketing design doesn’t have to be only for the big guys. Businesses of all sizes can create a brand image for their email campaigns. For inspiration, check out Coolors.co. Their site lets you experiment with different color palettes. Perfect for discovering your brand colors!
4. Add images where they add value - email marketing
Another email design best practice is using images where they add value.
Now, you may be tempted to flood your email campaigns with all your latest product photos. While photos are a great way to break up your email message and make your content a bit easier to digest, there’s something to be aware of.
Put yourself in the shoes of the email recipient here. Sending emails with too many photos, infographics, or illustrations can result in a few scenarios:
- Emails taking a long time to load;
- Issues in displaying the content;
- A vague and unfocused message to your audience.
To avoid these pitfalls, be sure to always ask yourself what kind of value an image adds to your content.
Including a few high-quality photos of your products, spotlighting a team member, and using an explanatory infographic are typically great ways to include images in your email campaigns.
By contrast, stock images or excessively large files are great ways to get your readers to click on the unsubscribe link.
5. Use interactive content in your email design
Interactive email design is a powerful way to boost engagement by enabling subscribers to interact with content without ever leaving your email.
Interactive elements create a sort of gaming experience within the email that not only reduces barriers to engagement, but also provides a better user experience as subscribers can interact with content without the need to follow links or click through to your site. This is key to generating high intent clicks within your email.
Take a look at this example of an embedded survey in an email from Bellroy:
Here are some exciting interactive email elements to consider in 2023:
- Animated buttons and call-to-actions
- Hamburger menus and search options
- Product carousels
- Rollover effects to showcase products and offerings
- Offer reveals
Accordion features to make your emails more compact - Add-to-cart functionality
- Polls, surveys, and user-generated interactive content
Of course, you’re going to need skills in HTML and CSS to be able embed such interactive content into your emails using an email editor.
NOTE When you design interactive elements, keep in mind that not all email clients may display them correctly. You may need to create segments for email clients (Gmail, Apple Mail, etc.) to ensure optimal user experience.
6. Feature user-generated content in your email design
The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer Report found that 68% of consumers said trusting brands is more important today than ever before.
More often than not, people trust peer recommendations over brands. So why not let your customers have a say in your email content?
What is user-generated content?
User-generated content (UGC) is any piece of content that has been created by the end-user. This includes product reviews, customer feedback, photos, and social media posts.
Incorporating these elements into your email is an effective way to tap into social proof and reinforce your brand’s credibility and reliability. Highlighting real people brings a two-way dialogue into your emails that helps humanize your brand.
Through skilful targeting and segmentation, marketers can streamline the UGC experience by delivering personalized content, like reviews or Instagram posts, based on email subscriber interests and behavior.
Including relevant buyer endorsements across the email journey is a powerful method to drive conversions. Here’s an example of it in action:
7. Get personal with dynamic content
As we move into 2023, you can expect to hear less and less about B2B and B2C marketing and more about H2H – human-to-human marketing.
One of the biggest trends we’re seeing in email design is a move away from the one-to-many generic approach in favor of personalized one-to-one emails based on customer behavior.
Features like email automation, lead scoring, and segmentation mean content creation can be tailored to the individual like never before, resulting in the most dynamic, innovative, and subscriber-relevant email design to date.
What’s more, email personalization goes even further than using contacts’ first names in the greeting. We’re talking about dynamically changing entire sections of content based on a user’s interests and behavior, such as personalized product recommendations, offers, abandoned cart emails, and customer surveys.
For further reading, you may like the articles below!
5 Email Marketing Benefits for New Businesses
Quick fixes to improve your website conversion rate
Local SEO Checklist
Local SEO is definitely not new in 2022 but it does continue to grow in importance–if that even seemed possible. Nearly a third of consumers search for a local business online every day, and almost 50% of all searches on Google are for local information.
Just look at these local SEO statistics:
- Google Maps searches for “curbside pickup” grew 9,000% year-over-year
- Searches containing “local” and “business” grew more than 80% year-over-year
- Nearly 80% of smartphone searches for local businesses lead to an offline purchase
- Local searches lead to purchases 28% of the time
These stats show that if you don’t have a local SEO strategy in 2022, you’re missing out on local searchers looking for businesses like yours.
To help, I’ve put together this handy 13-point local SEO checklist featuring the top areas you can optimize around to get found by local customers in your area, and I’m sharing some actionable tips and examples to help you get started.
Local SEO checklist
By checking off the items in this local SEO checklist, you can increase your chances of getting found for relevant local searches while driving more (potential) local customers to your website.
Keep reading, or skip to the checklist item you want to learn more about below:
- Solid website
- Structured data
- Local keywords in web content
- Optimized title tags + meta descriptions
- Keyword-rich blog content or FAQs
- Claimed + optimized Google Business Profile
- Good reviews (with responses)
- Consistent local listings
- Local backlinks
- Social media strategy
1-4. Create a solid foundation with your website
You can’t have good local SEO without a solid foundation to build on. And your website is the most important component—without a great website that adheres to SEO best practices, no amount of optimization is going to get you the results you want.
Make sure your website includes the following:
- Mobile-friendly or responsive design. Google now indexes the mobile version of your website over your desktop version, so this is a must for local SEO.
- Fast page speed. Page speed is an increasingly important ranking factor—plus, searchers will leave a website if it doesn’t load quickly.
- The right URL structure. The way your website is structured matters to both searchers and search engines. Make sure you have an easy-to-navigate site with a clear path for users to take from the moment they land on your site until they become a lead. (You should also submit your sitemap to Google to help here!)
- Internal links. Linking relevant pages of your site together can help Google and searchers find information on your site.
5. Use structured data
Structured data is a standardized format of code that you add to the backend of your website to provide information that can help Google and other search engines decipher your content and what your page is about. This is often referred to as Schema markup.
You can add Local Business structured data to give Google information about your hours of operation, what your business offers, your reviews, and more to help you show up better for relevant local searches.
6. Identify and incorporate local keywords
Speaking of local searches, it’s important to know the types of local searches you want your business to rank for in local searches. The best way to do that? Conduct local keyword research to build your keyword list.
Keywords are the words or phrases that people use to find information on search engines. By targeting specific keywords as part of your local SEO strategy, you can increase your chances of appearing for those searches.
You want your keywords to be related to your business, your products or services, and your location so you can target searchers in your area. Here are some examples of good local keywords for a plumber:
- Best plumber in Anaheim
- Anaheim plumbing
- Plumbing company Anaheim
Examples of local keywords from WordStream’s Free Keyword Research Tool.
You should also identify some long-tail keywords, which are longer and more specific phrases customers are using to find businesses like yours. You can use these phrases to create valuable content that will drive more traffic to your website from search engines. Here are some examples of long-tail keywords for a plumber:
- How to fix a clogged drain
- What to do if my toilet is leaking
- How do I keep my faucet from dripping
Your keywords should be included in your title tags, meta descriptions, and on-page content for your website but can also be used in your Google Business Profile and social media profiles, which we’ll talk more about later.
7. Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
Once you know that your website is in good shape and you have a strong local keyword list, you can start optimizing for local searches. One important way to do this is by optimizing the title tags and meta descriptions for each of your web pages.
Title tags are the HTML code that shows the title of the page—this is also what shows up in search results.
Your title tags should be between 50-60 characters long and include your target keyword and potentially your location (depending on the page).
Meta descriptions are the HTML code that shows under the title of a page in search results to give users a better idea of what content to expect on the page before they click.
Your meta descriptions should be between 50-160 characters long and include your target keyword and a description of the content on the page.
8. Consider a blog (or an FAQ page)
Expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness are three key ranking factors Google looks at to determine whether or not the content on a website will be useful for a searcher. Creating regular content in the form of a blog can help you exponentially in these areas. A blog gives your business a place to showcase your expertise and authority while keeping your website consistently updated with fresh, keyword-rich content.
Plus, you can use the content you’re creating for your website throughout your marketing. For example, you can share links to your posts on your social media sites, feature your blog posts in a regular newsletter, and create more in-depth downloadable content to capture web visitors’ information like their email address and phone number.
If you already have a blog for your business, make sure you’re creating content that is keyword-focused (this is where that long-tail keyword research comes in handy!). If you don’t already have a blog for your business and you want to start one, you can do keyword research, use tools like Google Trends to find out what people are searching, and even ask your customers what they might want to see from you. (You can also check out this guide for how to start a business blog!)
If you don’t think you have the time or resources to maintain a business blog (it does take time and planning), you can still create helpful keyword-rich content in the form of an FAQ page. An FAQ page can provide answers to commonly searched long-tail local keywords while also giving search engines and searchers valuable information that can help you rank or win business.
9. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile can help you get found in local searches happening directly on Google Search and in Google Maps. Google Business Profiles contain a ton of information that can help customers take action (like calling your business or getting directions!) right from your profile. Plus, they’re typically the first batch of results that show below ads for any local search.
The first step here is to make sure you claim your Google Business Profile. You can now do this directly from Google Search! Simply:
- Search for your business on Google
- Click into the result for your business and click “Own this business?”
- Then follow the prompts to claim the page
If your business isn’t already listed on Google, you can add it:
- Go to business.google.com
- Click “Manage now”
- Click “Add your business to Google”
- Then follow the prompts to add your business
Make sure that you verify your Google Business Profile after claiming or adding it so you can make changes to the page as needed.
Once your listing is claimed, you can take steps to optimize it. Multiple components of your Google Business Profile can give your local SEO a boost, so this is an important step.
Here are some crucial ways to optimize your Google Business Profile for local SEO:
- Make sure all information is accurate. It’s important that your hours of operation, business website, business phone number, and address are correct (and consistent with other listings—which we’ll talk about more later.)
- Fill out all the sections. It’s best to add as much information as possible to your Google Business Profile so you can present the best picture of your business to prospective customers.
- Add the right business categories. Many SEO experts believe the primary category you choose has the most impact on your local search rankings, so choose wisely! (You can also change it later if needed.)
- Upload relevant pictures. Google allows you to add a number of pictures and suggests including your logo, a cover photo, the interior and exterior of your building, your team, and action shots of your team at work.
10. Manage reviews (and get more!)
Reviews are another important local ranking factor that your business can’t (and shouldn’t) ignore. Nearly 90% of people read reviews for local businesses—and search engines want to give the people what they want. Which is clearly: reviews.
Google looks at your reviews, including how many reviews you have, when determining your rank for specific searches. Certain keywords or phrases within your reviews can also help (or hurt) your performance in local search results.
And, having a higher star rating can also help you in local search—when a person conducts a search containing “best,” Google will only source businesses with a 4.0 star rating or higher.
All this to say that it’s extremely important to make sure you’re getting good reviews!
You can get Google reviews by:
- Asking your happy customers to leave you feedback
- Including a link to your Google Business Profile on your website
- Including a link to your Google Business Profile in customer emails
- Sending an email survey
Once you have reviews, the work doesn’t stop. It’s also important to respond to reviews. Google lists “Manage & respond to reviews” as a way to improve your local ranking on Google.
11. Keep your local listings consistent
Local listings are a huge component of local SEO. Listings show up in local search results and can help your business get discovered on specific maps, apps, or sites (as well as search engines), so it’s important to have your business listed on the top local listings sites.
But it’s even more important that your business information across all those sites is consistent. Search engines want to make sure they’re showing searchers the most accurate and useful information. They do this by using signals from across the web—if they see that all the crucial information about your business (specifically your Name, Address, and Phone Number—AKA NAP) is consistent, then they have a high level of trust that they’re showing the correct information.
However, if they find conflicting information or inconsistencies, they have a lower level of trust and may not show information about your business on the first page of search results (or at all 😱).
This is why it’s important to add local listings consistency to your local SEO checklist. You want your business name, address, and phone number listed the EXACT same across every directory—including Google Business, Yelp, CitySearch, and more.
An example of consistent vs. inconsistent Google Business Profile listings.
12. Build local backlinks
Link building remains an important SEO tactic. And local link building can boost your business’s SEO by sending signals to search engines that other local sites find your website authoritative and trustworthy.
Here are some ways to build local backlinks:
Manage local listings. We already touched on the importance of local listings, but these provide built-in backlinks to your site.
Guest posting. Guest posting allows you to build your business’s credibility by sharing useful posts on other websites/blogs to reach your target audience. Many websites accept guest posts with links to your brand website and brand mentions. Aim to get your posts published on authoritative websites in your niche and neighborhood.
Sponsor local events. Aside from being a great way to support your local community, sponsoring events brings publicity to your business, guarantees valuable links to your website on the event page, and can earn your business media mentions. All of these boost traffic. To sponsor local events, start small and don’t limit your idea of sponsorship to funding. You can sponsor events by donating snacks to attendees (if you run a catering service)—don’t be afraid to think outside of the box!
Local digital news sites. Don’t underrate local newspapers. A 2019 survey showed that local newspapers remain, by far, the most significant providers of journalism in their communities. Write press releases to be published on local news sites or talk to reporters and supply them stories relating to your business. You can even become a columnist in local media and publish regular commentary on brand-related topics.
13. Use Social Media to add some juice as needed
It may not seem intuitive to include social media marketing as part of your local SEO checklist, but hear me out. It can actually benefit your business’s SEO in a few different ways.
For one, social media sites like Facebook and Instagram give you opportunities to include your business address—which can act almost like their own little listing sites.
Plus, social media sites routinely show up in local search results for your business name, so by managing profiles across social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can give your business more real estate on search results pages when a person searches for your business.
It’s also important to remember that while search engines are still the primary place that people are searching for businesses, they’re increasingly open to finding new businesses through social media. So by investing in a social media marketing strategy, you can increase your chances of getting found in multiple channels by potential customers.
Check all the boxes for your local SEO checklist
Local SEO is a valuable addition to your marketing plan and is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to your website and get in front of local searchers.
Here’s your 2022 local SEO checklist:
- Have a mobile-friendly or responsive website
- Test your site speed
- Use SEO-friendly URLs
- Create internal links with locally-relevant anchor text
- Add structured data
- Identify and incorporate local keywords into your web content
- Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
- Write keyword-rich blog content (or FAQs)
- Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile
- Manage reviews (and get more!)
- Keep your local listings consistent
- Build local backlinks
- Use social media
For more information on any of these topics, you can always reach us here!
Google knows what you type, watch, and say — unless you take these steps
You might laugh thinking about all the random Google searches you’ve done over the years. Imagine someone getting access to that list, and you might instead shudder in embarrassment.
Did you know your entire Google history is accessible online? If you’re signed in, a snoop can poke through it all. Tap or click here for steps to password protect that page and your private info.
There are, of course, ways to keep your searches private. Tap or click for some clever methods, including hiding your activity from your internet service provider and wiping your browser sessions.
When you rely on Google and its services, though, you know many things are being tracked. Here are three you can stop.
YOUR APPS ARE WATCHING EVERYWHERE YOU GO UNLESS YOU CHANGE THIS SETTING
1. Every email you type
Google scans the contents of your inbox, from receipts and private messages to medical documents and bills.
The handy Smart Compose setting even allows Google to scan your emails as you type them. It's an AI-powered feature that tries to help you write faster. It helps finish common phrases. "Let me" becomes "Let me know if you have any questions."
Although it's useful, it means Google is watching what you type as you type it. You can turn Smart Compose off. Here's how:
- Open Gmail.
- Tap the gear icon in the upper right corner for Settings.
- Select See all settings.
- Choose the General tab near the top of the page.
- Scroll to the Smart Compose section.
- Turn Writing suggestions off by clicking on the circle next to it.
- Scroll to the bottom and click Save Changes.
It’s worth noting: Google still has access to all the content in the emails you send and receive. If you want to stop that, you need to switch to a privacy-based email inbox.
2. OK, Google, are you listening?
Despite what Big Tech companies say, smart assistants often listen more than you intend. The reason is simple: Sometimes, your device hears one thing you say and interprets it as the wake word.
You can always turn Google Assistant off if you’re not using it.
How to turn off Google Assistant on Android:
- Open the Settings app on your phone. Then, scroll down and tap Account Services.
- Tap Search, Assistant & Voice. Then, tap Google Assistant.
- Tap on Assistant. Then, scroll down to Assistant devices and tap Phone.
- Tap the Google Assistant slider to turn it off.
How to turn off Google Assistant on iPhone:
- Open Settings > Privacy.
- Locate the menu labeled Microphone and tap it.
- Find Assistant in the list of apps and toggle the green switch to the off position.
- Go a step further and shut down every device that might be listening. Tap or click for steps to tell Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and others to butt out.
3. And then there are the videos you watch
After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web. And, of course, it is owned by Google. That means the company knows the videos you watch, the comments you leave, and who you interact with.
Clearing your YouTube history is simple. Head to My Google Activity, select YouTube History and switch the toggle to Off.
Be warned: YouTube will still track your search history. On the YouTube History page, you will see a section that says Filter by date. To the left, tap on the small down arrow next to Delete. A box will pop up and you can clear out your searches. Confirm by hitting Delete and you’re good to go.
7 BRILLIANT WAYS YOUR SMART PHONE CAN HELP YOU GET THINGS DONE
Check out my podcast "Kim Komando Explains" on Apple, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast player.
We think of our gadgets as helpful tools that make our lives easier, but they can also be turned against us. The data your devices collect is so valuable it could be used against you in a criminal trial, requested by police or even bought by the government through a data broker. I sat down with technologist Bennett Cyphers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who reveals all the secrets you’re losing — and which devices do the most stealing.
Listen to the podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for my last name, "Komando."
What digital lifestyle questions do you have? Call Kim's national radio show and tap or click here to find it on your local radio station. You can listen to or watch The Kim Komando Show on your phone, tablet, television, or computer. Or tap or click here for Kim's free podcasts.
Copyright 2021, WestStar Multimedia Entertainment. All rights reserved. By clicking the shopping links, you’re supporting my research. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products I believe in.
How to Delete a Yelp Review
You know the feeling. That sinking feeling. You see you’ve got a new review, you pull it up expecting to see good things, and then bam! It’s a one-star bombshell. And then the disappointment grows when you realize the poor feedback has been shared on Yelp.
With over 31 million app users and millions more web visitors, Yelp is a platform with a high level of visibility. A poor experience amplified on Yelp can have immediate fallout and impact your bottom line.
Yelp’s own research suggests that 90% of Yelp users make a purchase within seven days of visiting the platform, so you’ll need to act quickly to protect your business.
So can you delete a Yelp review? The good news is that ‘yes it can be done’ (mostly), but with a caveat that users can’t do it themselves. It takes a little work and know-how, so either skip straight to the steps, or read on to find out more about bad reviews and the Yelp platform first.
Why You May Need to Remove a Bad Review
Whether a review is a fair assessment of a customer’s experience or not, any poor review is potentially problematic because peer feedback is so intrinsic to the modern decision-making process.
Today’s consumers use reviews to:
- Create shortlists of businesses to buy from
- Compare and contrast potential product/service providers
- Decide between businesses offering the same thing
- Weed out businesses that may provide a disappointing experience
Consumers reading positive reviews are more likely to interact with that business—by visiting the website (31%), traveling to the business location (17%), or contacting the business (12%).
Conversely, negative reviews make 92% of consumers less likely to use a business. Removing fake or malicious reviews can therefore have a very tangible real-world impact.
Yelp and Fake Reviews
The Harvard Business Review says there is a “large and thriving market” for fake reviews. Given that reviews not only influence consumers and sales figures but also search engine rankings, it’s no surprise that they’re big business.
As a real-life example, data cited as part of a 10-month study of restaurant reviews suggests that Yelp filters out about 16% of reviews as ‘being fake’ with its own algorithm. That leaves a high proportion of risk for local business owners in that industry.
Yelp also says that it is a “community-driven site” and doesn’t take the removal of third-party content such as images or reviews lightly. It also says it won’t take sides in factual disputes.
Clearly, it’s not a cut-and-dried process, so the best thing to do is to approach the review as genuine, whilst also looking for any evidence that it’s fake or malicious.
1. Responding to bad Yelp reviews
The temptation will be to rush in quickly with a strongly-worded reply. Resist that temptation!
Poorly worded review responses can quickly create a negative impression of your business and put other customers off using you. In the worst-case scenario, they could also go viral, creating exactly the kind of publicity you don’t want for your business.
You’ll need to keep a cool head, and show that you’ve tried addressing the bad review in a constructive and professional way.
- If you have a record of that customer, try connecting with them offline to fully understand the issues that led to the poor review.
- If you can’t find contact information, leave a (very) polite reply thanking the customer for their feedback, assure them that you wish to investigate further, and invite them to reach out so that you can work towards a resolution.
For a genuinely negative experience, this should impress the reviewer with your commitment to putting things right, allowing you to ask them to update (or even delete) the original review to give a more balanced opinion.
We’ve put together an article on dealing with negative reviews like a pro.
2. Deleting a malicious Yelp review
If the above fact-finding mission fails, then take comfort in knowing you’re now in a stronger position to report the review to Yelp as being false, defamatory or malicious in nature.
Yelp has clear guidelines governing reviews left on its site. It specifies that reviews:
- Should not be exchanged for payment
- Should be based on the reviewer’s own first-hand experience
- Should be factually correct
- Should not be based on previous brand interactions
- Should not be promotional
- Should not represent a conflict of interest (leaving a positive review for a friend’s business or a negative review of a competitor for example)
Start with “Should be factually correct”. Collate as much information from your business records as you can, including your documented attempts to address their concerns as genuine.
See if you can prove that the review has a clear conflict of interest, such as a review left by a disgruntled former employee or a competitor.
Highlight any examples of inappropriate material, such as threats, hate speech, or harassment—either in the original review or in subsequent communications.
You can now skip to the step-by-step process of requesting a review removal from Yelp.
3. Deleting a fake Yelp review
As noted above, fake reviews are big business in some corners of the internet, and they’re a pain to investigate if there’s no genuine information to cross-reference within your business.
Instead, make a strong case for removal by gathering evidence to present to Yelp:
- Dig into your client records to verify that they’re not a genuine customer. This shows that they’re in violation of Yelp’s requirement that all reviews relate to that person’s own experience of your business.
- Take a look at how many other reviews that person has left and for what businesses. A brand new account with just your review is a strong indicator that it’s fake.
- Study the language and tone of the review. Is this mirrored on other reviews posted at the same time? If so, it could be a part of a wider fake review campaign.
- Check if you have a series of other bad reviews, posted at the same time but by different usernames. This is a common tactic used by fake review spammers.
Once you’ve collected enough evidence of fakery to present to Yelp moderators, you’re ready to submit your request.
How to Get a Yelp Review Removed
Here’s the nitty-gritty of how to remove bad reviews from Yelp—and always keep in mind that the more evidence you can present here the better.
Step 1 – Claim your Yelp business profile
If you’ve not done so already, then the first step to remove Yelp reviews is to claim your Yelp business profile.
This is easy to do—go to Yelp For Business and follow the steps outlined. This Yelp blog post also provides more detailed instructions if you need help with this essential step.
Step 2 – Log in and find the review
Log into your Yelp business account. From your dashboard, navigate to “Reviews” and then scroll down to find the review you’re asking Yelp to remove.
Step 3 – Go to the “Report review” button
You’ll see three dots to the side of the review text. Click on those dots to pull up a menu and from there, select “Report review”.
Step 4 – Complete the form
Select the most appropriate reason for requesting the Yelp review removal, and complete the form with as much information as possible. It will then be reviewed by the platform’s Moderators.
Step 5 – Be patient!
Now comes the hard part…the wait! Yelp will inform you of the outcome of their investigation, and in the event that the Yelp review is removed, the original author will also be notified.
This process can take up to a week, but either way, you should be notified of the result. If you don’t hear anything, then contact Yelp directly with your case number to try and secure an update.
What if the Yelp Review Isn’t Removed?
Yelp may not uphold your complaint. If that’s the case, then the negative review will remain on your profile.
While this is frustrating, your best course of action is to learn what you can from the feedback so that future reviews will be more positive.
Our complete guide to building positive reviews is packed with tips, strategies and advice to help you do just that.
Got any tips on how to remove reviews from Yelp? Let the community know in our comments section below.
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