Adventures in Local Marketing

"If you build it, they will come," right? Haha, no chance. Fostering a truly respectful, supportive, and helpful community full of brand advocates and topic experts is no mean feat—and even harder when you're entering a competitive arena or starting from scratch... but the results, both emotional and statistical, speak for themselves when you get it right. We spoke to Women in Tech SEO's Areej Abu...

We often forget that, in local business, local SEO and general SEO are all part of the same whole. Your site needs to be as optimized as your Google Business Profile, but how often do these strategies really speak to one another? We spoke to Amsive Digital's Dayna Lucio for the lowdown on how, particularly in more complex business models like franchises, it's crucial for SEO and local SEO to speak...

With a deluge of AI-spun content hitting the web today, it's never been more important to ensure you're working with real experts on your brand publication. Host Claire Carlile is joined by George Nguyen from Wix to discuss how to develop content hubs for brands that want to build their authority and expertise—no matter the vertical. What you will learn in this episode: Examples of brands with fan...

Once your brand reaches a couple of dozen locations, the local search tactics you need to employ to grow further only get more intricate and complex. Host Claire Carlile is joined by Elizabeth Rule from Sterling Sky, to discuss what needs to be in your gameplan when working with a growing brand. They cover what to consider when acquiring another brand, the importance of getting the right informati...

Storytelling plays a crucial role in implementing memorable and effective marketing strategies that stand out from the crowd. Host Claire Carlile, is joined by Melissa Popp, to discuss how storytelling can connect brands with their local audiences. They also cover the importance of authentic and unique content, how to get buy-in from various departments, common content creation shortcomings for SM...

In this month's BUMPER EDITION of Adventures in Local Marketing, Claire speaks to AI and search expert Dr Marie Haynes about all (and we mean all ) things Google and  AI. We cover how Google Gemini will underpin all of search going forward, dive into the Google API leaks, and take a detour to learn about a surprise meeting at Google I/O... It's the longest episode we've ever released and for good...

In this episode, Claire chats to Leadferno's Aaron Weiche about how adopting a conversion-focused mindset can benefit agencies and their clients alike. Listen to learn: Why businesses often struggle to identify conversion events The importance of making a business easy to work with Why agencies should prioritize reporting on leads and conversions The role testing plays in optimizing conversion fun...

In this episode, Claire speaks to Julian Hooks, principal SEO consultant at Advertising Commissions and Senior Manager of SEO at Asurion, about the importance of customer-centricity in an industry obsessed with chasing the latest SEO trend or ranking factors study. Listen to learn: Julian's five-point guide to a customer-led strategy How to use customer insights and pain points to understand and s...

In this episode, Claire speaks to Near Media's David Mihm on the obstacles and opportunities that lie in wait when dealing with Google Business Profiles for multi-location businesses. Listen to learn: Why bulk verification can be such a struggle for enterprise businesses The best approach to managing local SEO between HQ and branch levels A two-level training framework for local SEO and enterprise...

In response to the findings of BrightLocal's Brand Beacon Report 2024, this episode sees us speak to enterprise expert Steve Wiideman about all things multi-location SEO. In this wide-ranging and tactical nugget-filled conversation, Steve covers the challenges and opportunities available to multi-location SEOs today, and shares his proven processes for working with brands. Listen  to learn: Steve'...

In this episode, we speak to Google Business Profile *Platinum* Expert, Marketing Metrology 's Stefan Somborac, about what it's like to volunteer to help, and most importantly learn from, local businesses posting in the Google Business Profile Help Community (what a mouthful!) Listen to learn: Why the new EU reinstatement process forms part of a "perfect storm" for GBP managers worldwide What acce...

Schema might not be a ranking factor, but that doesn't mean you can leave it in the 'to do' pile. In this episode, structured markup master Crystal Carter lifts the lid on all things schema: Why it's not as scary as you think it is Why it's business-critical for some industries What to do (and not do) if you receive a schema warning How to use a CMS to get schema sorted quickly and easily How to v...

In this episode, Near Media's Mike Blumenthal highlights the Google trends we should all be paying close attention to, discusses the evolution and importance of images in Google Business Profile, and introduces upcoming Near Media consumer research that could change how we look at searcher behavior. Listen to learn: What the future of Google Business Profile might look like Where to go to improve...

In this episode, Sterling Sky's Director of Innovation, Noah Learner, teaches us how to extract meaning when looking at cold, hard data, puts overpromising podcasts (who, us?!) in Room 404, and lays out his 5-point framework for local SEO testing and reporting success. Listen to learn: Where Google truly pulls its GBP performance data from The truth about impressions in Google Search Console Why g...

In this episode, Uberall's Krystal Taing shares her obsession with multi-location SEO, slings her pet peeves into Room 404, and delivers a rousing 5-point plan for scaling enterprise local SEO success. Listen to learn: How to overcome the challenge of building a local voice for each location while keeping the necessary things centralized at corporate. Why bulk uploading is key to scalability, even...

In this episode, we drill deep into the brain of Andi Jarvis, a self-confessed strategy nerd.   Andi is the Founder and Strategy Director of Eximo Marketing, a marketing strategy consultancy based in Belfast and Liverpool in the UK.  Eximo Marketing primarily works with established manufacturers who want to grow their business via direct-to-consumer.  Listen to learn: The difference between strate...

Welcome to Adventures in Local Marketing, the podcast for local marketers. In this trailer, we introduce our brand-new host, Claire Carlile. Claire explains what you can expect in the upcoming episodes, and why you should choose to take your next adventure with us.

Local SEOs have a love-hate relationship with link building.  We love links, but building them is time-consuming, manual, repetitive and ultimately has a relatively low success rate compared to other SEO tactics. Fortunately, Dani Owens is here to help. Dani has a wealth of experience building local links for a wide variety of clients and niches. In this episode, she reveals: The differences betwe...

Growing an agency is hard. There are so many things to get right and so many things that can go wrong.  Growth isn’t as simple as getting new clients on the books–and that’s not exactly simple anyway. You also need to focus on client retention, hiring and training staff, managing team workloads, creating efficient processes, and building and nurturing a winning culture–all while keeping a watchful...

We like to think of ourselves as rational people–our decisions are based on logic and facts. But the truth is that we’re all guided by biases that influence the way we think and act. Being aware of these biases can be extremely powerful in the hands of a marketer. After all, the very practice of marketing is to influence people’s behaviours–whether that’s encouraging someone to buy a product or si...

Adventures in Local Marketing is back for a second season!  Throughout season two, we're going to be branching out to cover a broad range of topics to truly help our listeners become a better local marketer. Amanda Jordan is our first guest of the season, and we have been lucky enough to hear her valuable insights on the local SEO issues of multi-location businesses. This is a topic we haven't had...

Is your Google My Business listing sending out strong trust signals? That’s the question Levi Williams-Clucas, SEO Specialist at StrategiQ, aims to answer in this episode of Adventures in Local Marketing. Levi views trust signals as a double-header. There are the trust signals your GMB listing gives out to potential customers – would someone buy from your business? And, there are the trust signals...

On this episode, we chatted with Colan Nielsen about how to build an effective, and importantly, unique local SEO playbook. Colan is VP of Local Search at Sterling Sky, and we tapped into his 11+ years of experience to find out the best ways to develop your own playbook. As you’ll learn, a playbook goes way beyond a simple checklist of actions to take. Your playbook should not only define how you...

Many agencies aspire to move upmarket and work with bigger clients – and for good reason. Bigger clients lead to larger retainers, better budgets, and impressive client logos to show off to prospects. But what exactly does  moving upmarket look like? And is working with big clients all it’s cracked up to be? That’s what I wanted to find out from Jordan Choo, Managing Partner of Kogneta – a digital...

We’re only a few weeks away from the rollout of Google’s Page Experience update and, while we don’t yet know what impact it will have on rankings, it’s undoubtedly something that needs to be on the radar of every SEO. As this is arguably the biggest change to Google’s algorithm we’ve seen in recent years, we enlisted technical SEO virtuoso, Niki Mosier, to get her expert opinion on everything wort...