The second Dutch Search Marketing Thursday organised by the IAB was this time in the very center of the Netherlands, Utrecht. The Search Marketing Thursday – organised quarterly – would bring us a Local Search Business Case and a SEO site clinic.

Local Search Business Case – Boatcompany Lovers Canal Cruises Amsterdam

For some time now has Onetomarket been supporting the online campaigns of Rederij Lovers Canal Cruises. There are numerous of ticket sales points and hop-on-hop-off locations in Amsterdam for Lovers Canal Cruise company. A local search campaign was started to add these locations to Google Maps. The results for these campaign are very promising and show a high return on investment.

Traditionally speaking there is a golden rule that 50% of your marketingbudget spending is immeasurable. You just don’t know what happens with your money. For boatcompany lovers – together with the launch of a new website – was an important step to take extended use of various online marketing channels. Using web analytics software it was now possible to measure the earnings from your marketingbudget spendings.

By using a Local Search campaign we were able to reach the following goals for boatcompany Lovers.

• increase visibility in the search engines
• sell more tickets via online booking system
• reduce costs (online system linked to backoffice, thus reducing paperwork)
• earn to spend

Step 1: Registering with the Local Business Center

The most important step is registering your business with the Google Local Business Center. With just a few storefronts this is not something that is very difficult to do. Its the first step towards a highly optimized Google Maps profile which will help you get better rankings in the Universal Search results.

Step 2 : Measuring campaigns and take actions

When creating your campaigns it is very important to think about results. Results will stay unclear when you are not able to measure your online campaigns. In case of a local search campaign it is wise to use URL tagging. I’ve written an extended tutorial on local search tracking

Step 3 : Choosing the right landing pages

After a while you will be able to see in your web analytics package what the behavior is of your website visitors. With a Local Search campaign it is often unclear what the user intent is. Is he searching for a way to buy something online, get in contact or in search of some driving directions? After a while you will be able to determine the way of your visitor and send them to the correct landingpages.

Step 4: Aim for conversion

Sending your visitors to the right landing pages can be done in a way that they will be more likely to reach the end of your conversion funnel. As long as the user experience is positive and the right landing pages are chosen it will increase the conversion rate, as it did in the example of this business case.

Step 4: Enjoy the results

Local Search campaigns, like a regular SEO campaign does not have running costs like cost per click. The results on your ROI are very positive. The investment costs are relatively low and on the long term when ranking factors are all good it will provide long-lasting profitable results.

Starting a Local Search campaign

Starting a local search campaign is very important when you have physical locations for your business. storefronts, shops, ticket offices, hotels, restaurants, service centers, etc.

The advantages:

• Quick start
• low costs (no cost per click)
• higher visibility
• high ROI

Important with every online campaign is to measure correctly. Especially with a local search campaign this is of great importance. Apart from online conversions there is also offline conversions that will probably see an increase due to local search optimization. But how do we know if these offline sales were brought by online efforts? You can use a unique phone number for example to communicate on your landing pages for your local search campaign so you have some better understanding where your traffic or sales are coming from.

Remember that 40% of all search queries are local. Enough reason to start directly with your Local Search campaign!