Local U New Orleans: 14 Things You’ll Want to Know

June 25th, 2013 by Guest Author

About a month ago, my team and I attended Local U –
an online marketing seminar held at Tulane University. It was an extremely valuable, very energizing half-day! Various industry leaders in local SEO have dedicated their time and resources to helping small businesses learn the basics. It was more than worth the price of admission!

Not only did I take away a lot of valuable information, but I’ve already started thinking about how I can apply the topics discussed to help Audubon improve our online presence. I’m excited to put a plan into action and work with my team to make the website even better.

Below are my top takeaways from the day.  If Local U is coming to your city, I highly recommend attending.

Takeaways:

1. Does your website answer the top 10 most frequently asked questions that you hear from customers in your physical space/store?
2. Is your NAP (business name, address, phone number) easy to find on every page?
   

   This tiger needs a nap! Too bad this type of nap won’t help your local presence!

3. Remove all Marketing Speak.
4. Are you consistently blogging? (Tip: Top 10 FAQs make excellent blog post topics.)
5. Are you building links on your site to other reputable sites? Links are gold! Search engines move from link to link.
6. Content is not just text. Content is photos, graphics, video, reviews.
7. Future of online marketing is customer reviews. Do you have a review process built into your sales process – to both encourage reviews and deal with negative reviews?
8. When asked what do you do on Google, 46% say read customer reviews. Reviews are social proof.
9. If you are not talking about something on your site, you cannot rank in search for it! Create pages for what you want to rank for.
   

   It’s important to add enticing photos and videos. Who wouldn’t love to look at cute pictures of animals all day?

10. There is no single Google search results page. 50-200 different algorithms at work at any given time and results are personalized. We are all seeing slightly different results.
11. Rank for what you are best at, be specific!
12. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. What will users find there about you?
13. You cannot own or control Facebook. You can own and control your website. Your website is most important, at the heart of all your online marketing.
14. Emails must be readable on all devices. 42% of all mails are opened on a mobile device.

Lani McWilliams is the Director of Member Services & Ecommerce at Audubon Nature Institute. Audubon Nature Institute is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to celebrating the wonders of nature and educating their visitors about the natural world.