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June 10, 2016 by

Google My Maps Marketing And SEO Strategy

Benefits Of Using Google My Maps

One of the more unique tools offered by Google in recent months is its new “My Maps” functionality.   The ability to use for real world marketing, online marketing, SEO, boosting your YouTube videos, boosting awareness of your website’s (or other web property’s) images, inner pages and posts, and “Tier 2” link building is impressive.

 

What Is “My Maps”?

Unlike regular Google Maps, which promotes specific locations such as your corporate headquarters or store locations, this tool enables you to make an indefinite number of “maps” which you can customize and use to show the public several aspects of your business.   For example, you can create a custom My Maps map of:

  • Cities where your customers or clients are located anywhere around the world
  • Specific locations where you may have been a public speaker
  • Locations where you have been an exhibitor at trade shows
  • Event venues where you have performed or had your products (or services) used
  • Any other way you can think of displaying relevant geographic information in a visual manner rather than a simple list

 

Why Should I Consider Using This My Maps Method?  What Benefit Can It Give Me To Make My Phone Ring Or Otherwise Grow My Business?

These are great questions!

Since this is a Google-owned property, which you can access using your Google account that you likely already use for YouTube/Gmail/Docs/Blogger (Blogspot) blogs/etc., you will easily be able to create many of these maps.  The benefits are many, including the flexibility to highlight subsets of your business such as “Client Locations In 2015” (and you can do another My Map for a previous year like 2014) or some of the benefits mentioned earlier.

In terms of online marketing and SEO benefits, you surprisingly can get more benefit out of these My Maps than you may realize.  Here are some specific things you can do with these Maps:

  • Most people don’t know that these My Maps can rank on their own in the search engines, much like a YouTube video can rank on its own.  Be sure to do proper keyword research and put the keywords in the correct My Maps fields
  • In the description field include your business “NAP” (for citations) and your phone number, if appropriate
  • In the description field link to your website, your social media properties, and any other web properties that make sense to promote (e.g. a press release distribution account central location, YouTube channel, guest post that features your business favorably, etc.)
  • Embed optimized YouTube videos in the specific map marker locations to help with local SEO for videos
  • Embed optimized (including geo-tagged) images in specific map marker locations
  • Link to inner pages on your website (or other web properties) which are relevant to the geographic area defined by the map marker
  • Much more

 

What To Do With These My Maps Once They Are Created?

You can do several things with these custom My Maps, both with the direct link and using iFrame embed code.  You can:

  • Embed the My Maps iFrame code on your website, blog or other primary web property
  • Share the link to the My Maps URL on your social media properties
  • Share the link in any e-mail newsletter you have
  • Make a QR code to the specific URL and share the code on print materials at trade shows, business cards, or other marketing done in the real world
  • Have the iFrame code get embedded on third-party web properties to send traffic to the My Maps page
  • Many other ways to market the link to the My Maps page (URL)

 

If you would like help on creating, marketing, getting search engine marketing benefits, or getting real world benefits from these custom Google My Maps then you are welcome to contact us.   We can help you gain more exposure to the My Map as well as promote your website and other web properties.

 

Examples Of These My Maps

Here is an example of a My Map for an optometrist in Dallas who wanted to promote the neighboring businesses near his office location:

 

Here is an interior designer based in Dallas, listing the nearby cities and suburbs where she has clients:

 

 

Here is a DFW real estate agent who lists some North Texas new neighborhoods where the home builders are offering incentives for prospective home buyers:

 

Here is a Map of client location history for a defense attorney who specializes in health care fraud cases such as those pertaining the False Claims Act, CLIA, Medicaid billing, anti-kickback and similar medical industry situations:

 

Here is a My Map featuring some of the locations of a commercial modular construction manufacturing company’s recently completed projects across the United States:

 

And here is a ranch and farm real estate broker’s My Maps listing of counties and towns featuring recently sold ranches and agricultural properties in Texas and Oklahoma:

Filed Under: Backlinks, image marketing, lead generation, link building, local marketing, Mobile, my maps, QR code, SEO, video optimization, youtube Tagged With: ,
July 30, 2014 by

Local B2B SEO And Other Marketing Using YouTube

I want to give thanks to Greg over at Search Simplicity for inviting me to contribute to his blog on search engine optimization (SEO) and other search engine marketing (SEM) topics.  The topic of this article is about using YouTube videos to rank in the organic results for local business-to-business (B2B) keyword phrases.  It also touches on other methods of getting traffic to the YouTube videos which may have a longer-term benefit besides just organic rankings:

 

In the article I reference a Dallas-area client who runs a digital marketing agency.  They use technology, art, video and other media to create unique experiences for their clients.  This is the sub-niche of marketing called “experiential marketing” or “disruptive marketing”.  They wanted some help with both local B2B and national B2B keyword phrases.  Here is the video they gave me which first showed up on Vimeo but now is also on the company’s official YouTube channel:

This is a more advanced version of local B2B, as I was able to include it on an optimized press release here.  This video is now ranking for one the company’s desired “Dallas” phrases.

For more traditional local B2B keywords, such as the “Fort Worth parking lot repair” example mentioned in the Search Simplicity article, the video currently ranks well in the search engines for the phrase.  It is not a terrific quality video, but it shows a typical walk-through of what a repair job might look like in Tarrant County.  Here is the URL:

 

If you are interested in more about using online video (YouTube, Vimeo or other) for local B2B marketing then you are welcome to contact me with your questions.  Thank you for your interest and you are welcome to share this article with those whom you think may find it to be relevant and of interest.

Filed Under: b2b, local marketing, video marketing, video optimization, video syndication, videos
May 28, 2011 by

YouTube Marketing and Optimization In Dallas

One of the most overlooked areas I see when helping local businesses in the Dallas, Plano, Fort Worth, McKinney, Frisco, and Arlington Texas areas is marketing their businesses through a video-sharing site such as YouTube.  While many businesses like focusing on pure SEO, e-mail marketing, and social media marketing on sites like Facebook and Twitter they neglect the one medium which can be used to enhance their efforts on all of those area:  video marketing, optimization, and syndication.

After talking with many business owners they appear to be scared to go on video, and they personally do not like the “Talking Head” videos they see all the time.  They also feel that video is costly and will produce a ROI for their efforts.  This is the furthest thing from the truth!

Remember that the job of a video on a site outside of your own website (such as YouTube) has one goal:  to “warm up” (“pre-frame”) the viewer to take the desired call-to-action you want.  If you want people to show up at your store then you must build trust in the video in order to entice people to show up at your store.  If you want someone to join a mailing list after clicking a link in the description field then you must build enough trust and incentive for the viewer to click that link.  Again, it is about making sure that the video always is adding value and building trust in your brand, expertise, and whatever else you want to promote!

This means that your videos, in order to build trust, do not have to feature you at all!  They can be:

  • Screen capture (walk-through) videos
  • Testimonial videos
  • Feature a spokesperson
  • Feature customers or employees showing the benefits of your products or services
  • Animation-type videos
  • Narrated slide show videos
  • Music slide show videos
  • Any other type of video which adds value and gives the viewer incentive to take the desired call-to-action

One of the biggest problems I have faced when dealing with business owners in the Dallas area is that they get entirely wrapped up in the “content” of their videos… and they forget the “structure” of why the video is being made in the first place!  That is to get the viewer to take the intended call-to-action.  Instead, many owners get excited about the “cool graphics” and production quality of the videos they have created.  When I ask them about how excited they are regarding the “structure” (system) to give those videos exposure then I usually get a blank stare.

If you are a business owner reading this then please remember that the “structure” you need to give your videos exposure is the TOP priority.  While great video content is terrific, and good quality videos will be shared (hopefully) with others who may be qualified prospects, you need to have a method in place to give your videos exposure.  The following four topics will give any business owner an edge in marketing your videos which are hosted on YouTube or anywhere else on the internet:

  • Video Optimization — Do your keyword research here!  Determine what people are seeking in Google and the other search engines as well as within YouTube itself.  There are 4 ways to optimize ANY video in YouTube; and there are additional features within the uploading process which can give you the ability to “leap frog” your competition, especially for a local keyword such as “Dallas Texas pizza”.  Also, determine if your YouTube channel is properly optimized.  If not, it could hurt your chances of gaining more exposure
  • Video marketing — Do you have a plan of driving quality links and traffic to both your videos AND your channel?  Remember that a television station’s goal is to gain as many viewers as possible, and they do this by promoting both their shows as well as their station’s identity.  You should follow this same process by driving quality traffic to your channel and your videos from sites outside of the video-sharing website.  For example, create a helpful article which gets syndicated through article directories AND also has the link in the resource (bio) box sending traffic to your video or channel.  In the worst case scenario, do you have a plan to buy cheap traffic which is at least somewhat qualified through Google’s Display Network Pay-Per-Click system?  This can boost your view count and help you leap frog your competition if you know what you are doing
  • Video Syndidcation — Do you, as the business owner or executive, have a plan to take full advantage of “syndication” tools?  For example, what are you doing with the RSS feed for your video site’s channel?  Are you embedding the video inside upcoming press releases, assuming that the video is relevant?  Do you have a social bookmark network created or outsourced so that very quickly you can have links being shared to the new content?  Do you have a blog created, with its own syndication capabilities, and a video sitemap so that you can get possible search engine exposure for your video?  Do you have a large e-mailing list to whom you can send the video, assuming that it provides value for the majority of your list?  If you do not have any of these then you are missing on a tremendous opportunity to syndicate your quality videos for little to no cost
  • Internal Viral Video Marketing Tools — The preceding three topics assumed that you never used the video-sharing site like a social network.  You, however, can gain tremendous traffic if you make the time investment to use YouTube as a social network for your video marketing efforts.  You can comment on people’s videos, gain subscribers and friends, leave video responses, create Playlists, and much more.  All of these are designed to give value the YouTube community, and you can generate a loyal following if you offer value in your videos AND in your interaction with your fans and subscribers

Finally, remember that good videos can be shared in several places.  You can share them on Facebook, Twitter, and niche-specific forums and social networks.  You also can e-mail the video link to your lists; and you can embed the video on blogs and Web 2.0 pages you control.

To reiterate, please consider investing time, money, and resources in video marketing.  The flexibility, ability to quickly gain a following, and ability to gain first page exposure in sites such as YouTube and Google are so powerful that it now must be a part of your marketing planning.  The flexibility allows you to reach multiple goals (social proof of your expertise, enhancing leads, new product awareness, etc.) very quickly and in a cost-effective manner.  These fundamentals apply for any video marketing efforts whether you are trying to reach a national audience or just a local one such as marketing your videos to those just in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

If you need any help with any of the areas of video marketing, optimization, syndication, or viral marketing then you are welcome to contact me.  Thank you for your attention and you are welcome to share this with any friends or colleagues you believe could benefit from the information.

Filed Under: video marketing, video optimization, video syndication