Episode 29 – How To Leverage Local SEO w/ Guest Wendell Jordan Jr.

Episode Description:

In this episode we take a deep dive into one of the most under-utilized SEO strategies available to small business – LOCAL SEARCH! Google has put a ton of work into local search results to ensure people get the best results when searching for local products or services. From voice search, local SEO, local content strategy, and more, Wendell offers his expert advice on how to navigate the digital landscape when thinking local first!

Connect with Wendell Jordan Jr.

Website: Jordanmarketingconsultants.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendell-jordan/

Book at Chat w/ Wendell: https://tidycal.com/wendell

Action you can take right now:

The goal of this podcast is to provide marketing and service insights, but also to provide actionable items that can occur right away without much thought. This episode explores how you can take action with the data you’ve collected in your business.

1) Perform a social media audit. How do you appear in search results? Is your address correct? Phone Number? Do you have pictures of your business? Are they current? Is your list of services still accurate?

2) Have you taken control of your Google listing?

3) Take a look at your website content – is it hyper-local? Are you targeting LOCAL SEO in your content? Make changes right now! They maybe very subtle – but make sure your content matches with your local market.

After-Show Thoughts:

Of all the things we discussed, voice search content strategies caught my attention more than anything. I remember creating a registration system for a client many years ago. At the time I was disappointed only about 30% of the clients used the platform in the firs year. In my mind everyone preferred using the web, but I later found on many other businesses had similar conversions on their websites. A decade later those numbers hover more around 70%. When thinking about voice search content creation and optimization, I can’t help but feel it’s likely only a VERY small percentage of users currently search via voice with Siri, Alexa, or Google. I myself never think to ask Alexa about anything local, it’s usually just an “order this… turn on kitchen lights… what time is it.. set alarm” that is the extent of my Alexa conversations.

Optimizing content for voice search just means thinking about how someone might look for something using their voice vs. how they might type something in a search bar when searching the web. In a google search for example someone may type “mechanic near me”, but a voice search might sound like “who are the best mechanics in my area?”.

I’m not suggesting building out an entire content platform just for voice search, but keep this in mind when creating content and see if it can be shoehorned into your existing strategy.

Episode 29 Transcript:

00:00:00 Justin

I live about 60 miles north of New York City in Dutchess County and our local Chamber of Commerce has a sang think local 1st.

00:00:09 Justin

Yet when you look at the landscape of digital marketing, nobody is thinking local 1st and it is a huge huge missed opportunity in today’s.

00:00:20 Justin

Episode we’re going to jump into how you can boost traffic to your website by thinking local first, that more coming up on the marketing and service.com podcast.

00:00:37 Justin

Second, hey, this is Justin Varuzzo from marketingandservice.com the podcast to help you build your business by creating incredible customer relationships.

00:00:52 Justin

I hope you enjoy this episode.

00:00:53 Justin

If you do, please take a moment to follow or subscribe and if you want to do me a huge favor.

00:00:59 Justin

Leave a 5.

00:00:59 Justin

Star review it means a lot to me and it keeps me motivated and keeps me.

00:01:02 Justin

Making these episodes.

00:01:04 Justin

Also, I’d love to.

00:01:05 Justin

Hear from you hit me up on marketingandservice.com Facebook page. What marketing challenges are you having with your business?

00:01:11 Justin

What would you love to learn more about?

00:01:13 Justin

Let me know and I’ll make these episodes just for you.

00:01:18 Justin

On today’s show, I have invited Wendell Jordan junior to join me to discuss thinking local 1st and how to tackle local SEO.

00:01:30 Justin

Wendell is an expert at local SEO and he has his thriving SEO business based out of San Antonio, TX.

00:01:37 Justin

But he is a New Yorker at heart, before we jump into this interview, I want you to consider a few things to keep in the back of your mind as you listen.

00:01:47 Justin

Almost half of all Google search results right now is local search, and the goal of Google is to always provide the answer to the question that you ask, or to provide the resource that you are looking for.

00:02:03 Justin

And if you search something on Google like McCann.

00:02:07 Justin

The goal of.

00:02:08 Justin

Google is to find you a mechanic based on where you are traditionally speaking in the world of C.

00:02:14 Justin

Oh, you would be having this global competition so when someone types mechanic you are the mechanic who shows up first in the search results.

00:02:21 Justin

The problem is is if you’re that person who has succeeded and now you’re driving.

00:02:27 Justin

All this global traffic to your website for a mechanic, but you only serve 100 mile radius somewhere in califor.

00:02:33 Justin

Yeah, that’s not going to be helpful for the person in New York, so Google has really, really worked hard to push and to refine local search.

00:02:43 Justin

It’s going to use your location data on your phone.

00:02:46 Justin

It’s going to use your IP address to determine your approximate location.

00:02:50 Justin

If you’re on a desktop and there’s all these things that they can do to figure out.

00:02:54 Justin

Approximately where you are, if not exactly where you.

00:02:57 Justin

You are and in doing so they hope that when you search for mechanic that you will get a list of mechanics that are very close to you and that can serve your need.

00:03:07 Justin

Problem is, is most mechanics don’t realize this is a thing, so they’re not building out their website to focus on local SEO.

00:03:14 Justin

Instead, they’re hiring these bigger companies that do digital marketing.

00:03:18 Justin

That are doing these broad global strategies to try to boost you to the top of the search results, but it’s not always that helpful in a local search, so without any further ado, let’s jump right into the interview.

00:03:31 Justin

Hey, today we have Wendell Jordan junior on the show.

00:03:34 Justin

He is a passionate and dedicated professional in web designing and the digital marketing sector.

00:03:39 Justin

He has ten years of experience in sales and marketing and currently is the owner of Jordan Marketing Consultants, a digital agency focused on high ROI marketing solutions.

00:03:50 Justin

Jordan and his expert team.

00:03:51 Justin

Promote businesses with compelling digital marketing strategies and deliver measurable outcomes in real time.

00:03:58 Justin

I’m really excited to have Wendell here today because we want to talk a little bit about local SEO.

00:04:03 Justin

I know it’s a theme that’s come up on this show quite a few times over the last six months, but it’s something that I think a lot of small businesses miss out on, so I’d love to hear Wendell’s expert advice on this topic. Wendell, welcome to the show.

00:04:16 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yes Sir, thank you.

00:04:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I I appreciate the introduction.

00:04:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s always weird when people read the bio ’cause it’s like, yeah, I guess that’s me, right?

00:04:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I guess I have been doing this for 10 years now.

00:04:26 Justin

Yeah, 10 years.

00:04:28 Justin

I’m sure you learn a lot about the local CEO space, so maybe you could talk a little bit about how you got involved in this and a little bit about your company.

00:04:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And how I got started.

00:04:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It was purely by accident.

00:04:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I started off with a different agency with a close friend of mine and.

00:04:42 Wendell Jordan Jr.

He asked me if I wanted to sell.

00:04:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Some websites and.

00:04:45 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That that’s really how this process got started.

00:04:47 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I started reaching out to small businesses over the first year or so.

00:04:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It started getting to the point where we had enough business so I had to start helping with it with the design piece.

00:04:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I started learning different things about design and it was all via WordPress, but I never wanted to learn anything about SCO.

00:05:02 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Again, you think this is a few years ago now or many years ago now, so I see it was much different, right?

00:05:07 Speaker 3

Sure is.

00:05:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It was way more mystical and you know, maybe you got it.

00:05:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know it just didn’t.

00:05:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It didn’t feel like something I wanted to do.

00:05:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I enjoy selling rum over time him and I decided.

00:05:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

To go separate grass, separate ways.

00:05:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And I’m I started.

00:05:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Jordan consults, right?

00:05:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And Jordan consults.

00:05:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Was this one stop shop where anybody did you know anyone who needed designing graphics?

00:05:29 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Whatever it was, I was going to take it because the money was green and I did that for some years and realized that I had nothing.

00:05:33 Speaker 3

Right?

00:05:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, succinct in my process.

00:05:39 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So I took a step back.

00:05:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Started looking at what other agencies were doing.

00:05:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Started looking at what other businesses were doing, even if it wasn’t in in a digital marketing space, right?

00:05:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Just for my own customer experiences and I realized that for me personally as a customer, I don’t want to get my haircut where where they could change my tires, right?

00:05:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like that’s really not my thing so.

00:05:58 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Why do I? Why did?

00:06:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I create a business like that, right like?

00:06:02 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That doesn’t make sense so.

00:06:03 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I I started changing things up and Jordan marketing consultants was a lot more.

00:06:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Of a focus name, right like Jordan, consult the true intention was to just get in where I fit in.

00:06:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I wanted to actually be more consultative with that business than even even getting into design, and wanted to actually offer sales advice to people.

00:06:22 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But what I’ve learned just to say as a small side note, there’s no one to this day.

00:06:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

No one has specifically asked me well.

00:06:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Can you help me sell something or this never happened?

00:06:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It may want me to sell it.

00:06:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But they never.

00:06:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Asked me to help them do it.

00:06:34 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But Jordan marketing consultants came about when I realized that I really needed to get focused and we started revamping our content, revamping the way that we describe ourselves.

00:06:42 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So I I still consider myself a digital marketing consultant, but my focus is local business.

00:06:47 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We do WordPress web design.

00:06:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Uhm, and our CEO approaches local SEO SEO and we do social media management and of course well I shouldn’t say of course, but we also manage the WordPress websites as well in House.

00:07:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So like we do have a, we do have a a WordPress management.

00:07:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We’re not saying we do email marketing, we’re not building funnels or anything like that like even when it comes to the conversion.

00:07:09 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Of our websites.

00:07:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s a much different approach than, say, building you know 10 or 15 landing pages and seeing how that.

00:07:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Works out.

00:07:15 Justin

Sure, and I’m glad you brought that up because I I think it’s really important that people know at a local level.

00:07:21 Justin

So those things become exponentially less important, right? Like you don’t need to have 100 landing pages when you’re dealing with a small community, and obviously there’s a lot of businesses there’s you know construction companies, the dentists you know, local mechanics you brought up like there’s so many businesses that simply have a local presence.

00:07:42 Justin

And you’ve got two schools of thought.

00:07:44 Justin

You have a lot of business owners that say, well, I’m just local like I only serve this small community or I just serve my town.

00:07:51 Justin

I don’t need to be on the Internet, I don’t need to worry about it.

00:07:54 Justin

I don’t care because I’m not serving that national audience and that’s a huge mistake.

00:07:58 Justin

Of course, then you have the other people who say, yeah, yeah.

00:08:02 Justin

You know, I I really I want to be on the Internet.

00:08:04 Justin

I think this is great.

00:08:06 Justin

They hire one of these national companies.

00:08:08 Justin

To to buy SCO when they don’t even quite understand what that means.

00:08:13 Justin

I always say, well, how much?

00:08:14 Justin

How many gallons of SCO do you want today?

00:08:17

Right?

00:08:17 Justin

But what what will happen is that they hire these companies that treat them as if they are one of these national sales organizations that are looking to build funnels and email.

00:08:26 Justin

And all this stuff that really doesn’t help drive.

00:08:29 Justin

And convert traffic to the local biz.

00:08:31 Speaker 5

Right?

00:08:32 Justin

And one of the things maybe we can jump right into is the first thing is to talk about locally optimized content on your website, because I think one of the great things that you’re offering here is that you can create the website and you can offer the consulting and the guidance on the content that goes on that website, because we both.

00:08:52 Justin

Know that so many of these companies will say, yeah, yeah, we’ll do everything we will build.

00:08:56 Justin

The website then they build basically a framework and say OK email us all the content.

00:09:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So the irony is, I was that that that’s what I was for years, right?

00:09:05 Wendell Jordan Jr.

For years, the only thing I really wanted to.

00:09:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Do was websites.

00:09:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I didn’t really care about the content, be honest.

00:09:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean, I, I didn’t understand at the time how important content was, so I would make that exact statement like hey, are you providing the content you know?

00:09:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And more often than not people?

00:09:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Business owners are proud, right?

00:09:22 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So they we’re ’cause I’m a business owner too.

00:09:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We don’t like to say, oh, I should probably let you do it right.

00:09:27 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So they would give me content sometimes.

00:09:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Man I we could.

00:09:31 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Have all of the podcasts about the.

00:09:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Terrors of of of.

00:09:34 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Of in in house content from a small business owner but.

00:09:37 Justin

Anyone who’s ever built a website for a client is shaking their head right now and knowing how frustrating and difficult it can be to extract content for you.

00:09:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Man, you know when get the content like right you get the content and it’s.

00:09:47 Speaker 3

Right?

00:09:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You get the content and it’s.

00:09:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

A paragraph and a half.

00:09:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yep, and they look at you like so now you.

00:09:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Can make 6 pages right, right, no?

00:09:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

How would something?

00:09:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Do that again.

00:09:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

In gaining the knowledge, you know that I have and and some of some of the other people that work here with me.

00:10:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Now when we start looking at local businesses, we’re looking at what the local customer is looking for.

00:10:09 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That that’s really what that that localized content is.

00:10:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, Once Upon a time when you would look at a website and it still exists today, but Once Upon a time when you looked at a website.

00:10:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You would see all of these pages, especially if it was a landscaper or mechanic, right?

00:10:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And it serves a few areas.

00:10:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You’ll have location specific pages, but it’ll be duplicate content, right?

00:10:27 Speaker 3

Right?

00:10:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So you’ll go to the.

00:10:31 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, I mean, I’m here in in Houston so friends would is a place, right?

00:10:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Pearland is a place and you can even say just Houston as a whole.

00:10:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So when you’re looking at those places, you know it, but it’s duplicate content, something that we try to be sure of is is, even though you may be servicing these different areas with the same services, we have to make sure that we cater.

00:10:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The content a little bit different because those locations tend to be different, right?

00:10:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Even if you’re and I know you’re.

00:10:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

In New York.

00:10:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Guy which by growing up I’m a New Yorker, right?

00:10:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’m I’m in new Houston, but.

00:11:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, being.

00:11:02 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Being living in Queens, the dynamic is completely different than, say, living in the Bronx, right?

00:11:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like the the wear and tear believe it or not, is going to be completely different depending on what it is the landscaping.

00:11:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Company has a.

00:11:14 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Totally different conversation with Eastern Long Island than they do a Brooklyn right.

00:11:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like, you know, like the the lawns are different, the needs of service.

00:11:22 Wendell Jordan Jr.

They’re completely different, so we want to make sure that we understand what the customer is.

00:11:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know what, what that customer experience is and what they’re actually going to be looking for when we’re talking about what local content looks like, because even even though.

00:11:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

No one has reinvented the wheel on changing brakes.

00:11:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The people that you service is going to be different depending on where you are.

00:11:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know in your specific city.

00:11:43 Justin

Right, of course.

00:11:44 Justin

So I, I think a good suggestion on this in terms of optimizing content.

00:11:49 Justin

If I have this right, would be you know you had mentioned Brooklyn?

00:11:53 Justin

If you’re a landscaper in Brooklyn, there’s a big difference.

00:11:56 Justin

If you put a piece of content on your website that says, hey, we are the best landscaping company in.

00:12:02 Justin

New York versus we are the best landscaping company in New York City versus we are the best landscaping company in Brooklyn and I think that’s a great tidbit.

00:12:14 Justin

So if people, if you’re thinking about your content strategy and you are a local business, hyperfocus that content on.

00:12:22 Justin

Your locality, keep it specific.

00:12:24 Justin

Don’t say New York City if you don’t mean New York City because like you said, most landscapers.

00:12:29 Justin

If you’re not familiar with the New York area.

00:12:31 Justin

If you’re a Brooklyn landscaper, like you said, there’s no way you’re doing landscaping in Manhattan, and there’s no way you’re doing Eastern Long Island, even though geographically they’re not that far apart.

00:12:38 Speaker 5

Right?

00:12:40 Justin

It can take an hour to get 5 miles in New York City, so.

00:12:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Exactly exactly now, the other part to that too.

00:12:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When you talk about strategy and the reason why we enjoy what we do is because we the one of the first things we do, is understand what your locality truly is.

00:12:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like you, you just said it perfectly.

00:12:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We’ll keep to the New York example and I’ll jump over into a Houston example, but.

00:13:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re looking at Brooklyn right, and you’re looking at, you know just the the entire Bo or Brooklyn.

00:13:09 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re, let’s just say, can RC versus Williamsburg.

00:13:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Those are opposite ends of the borough, right?

00:13:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And even if you’re looking at at Queens, you know where I’m from.

00:13:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You’re looking at Jamaica versus white stone?

00:13:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, like you said, if you’ve got three houses in Jamaica.

00:13:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And six houses, and.

00:13:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So that eats up your entire day when you in fact could have been.

00:13:27 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You could have done an additional four or five houses without the transport, so maybe you’re Jamaica best landscaping company, right?

00:13:30 Speaker 3

Right?

00:13:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like maybe you’re white stones.

00:13:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Best landscaping company.

00:13:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Maybe you’re you’re the go to person for can RC yeah, because now you’re you’re becoming focused and maybe we want to branch out.

00:13:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And say my neighboring Brooklyn is not as good as queen, so I’m gonna use a Queens example so Jamaica, you know, like maybe you’re a St.

00:13:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Albans or you’re a laurelton or you’re a Rosedale, right?

00:13:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But even if you’re Rosedale, maybe you’re in eastern long.

00:13:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Island right or or?

00:13:58 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I guess technically it’s Western island, but you know what I mean.

00:14:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like you know it’s something where you’re straddling borders.

00:14:03 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But it allows for you to start to create, you know, a wider circle without making the circle this big, right?

00:14:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like we still want to keep the circle.

00:14:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The circle focused, right?

00:14:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That’s one of the most important things.

00:14:14 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When you start talking about.

00:14:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Being able to look at an actual return on your investment when you when you start doing SCO, let alone local SCO.

00:14:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

’cause who are you talking to?

00:14:23 Justin

Yeah, that is that is great, great advice.

00:14:25 Justin

Alright, so if we take this so we we have a content strategy now we design our beautiful website.

00:14:31 Justin

Next would be maybe a Google business listing.

00:14:35 Justin

I’d imagine right?

00:14:36 Justin

You want to link this to to your website.

00:14:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right, so Google My Business is the thing that I tell every business owner.

00:14:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You don’t need me for you don’t need anyone for this is always my my giveaway.

00:14:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Don’t let anyone call you and tell you they’re from Google and you need them to claim your Google My Business listing.

00:14:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Those are scams, yeah, but that that Google My Business, I mean as a business owner it gives you free free analytics even if you don’t know how to set up anything it it gives you how often you come up in search.

00:15:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’ll tell you how often people are calling.

00:15:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

They’ve actually grown.

00:15:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Google My Business to the point where you can actually send messages inside of the Google My Business.

00:15:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Portal as a customer.

00:15:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So now you can.

00:15:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You can converse with your with your with your process.

00:15:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Say directly on Google My Business platform.

00:15:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So you want to make sure that all of your information is accurate on that.

00:15:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Google My Business page. I was I was making this this example earlier and we’re going to put the content out probably next week, but we we found a really good article that that stated 67%. We have a 67% drop off in contact.

00:15:42 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If your business information isn’t accurate, yeah.

00:15:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And so many businesses you know and there is some statistic that tells you how many businesses are truly inaccurate.

00:15:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Oftentimes, because businesses don’t know they’re inaccurate.

00:15:51 Speaker 3

Right?

00:15:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So you get into that.

00:15:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Google My Business.

00:15:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You claim your listing is.

00:15:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Your 123 Main St Ste A. Be sure that that’s what people see when they’re looking for you, because it is the difference.

00:16:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re in a strip mall, if you’re wherever you want to, make sure that that that your address is specific to truly where you are, make sure that your your phone.

00:16:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’m excuse me, your hours of operation are accurate, right?

00:16:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

There’s nothing worse than looking on someone Google Page driving across town, only to find out that the pizza shop close is closed on Sundays, right?

00:16:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

There’s nothing worse than.

00:16:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That you know and.

00:16:26 Justin

Yeah, and then you never want to go to that pizza shop again because you’re frustrated and angry.

00:16:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Ever leave?

00:16:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right, ever, ever, and I’ve had that happen to me a few times and.

00:16:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

As the marketer, my statement is always the same, but their Google my.

00:16:39 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Business listing said that they’re open today.

00:16:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right, like that’s always my.

00:16:42 Speaker 3

Right?

00:16:43 Justin

Yeah, and I think I think it’s really important to mention for small business owners.

00:16:48 Justin

Google creates these listings on their own, so even if you don’t create your my Google listing, Google will create it for you and you will not have access to it until you claim it and validate it.

00:17:03 Justin

So this is something you want to really try to be ahead of the curve on you do.

00:17:08 Justin

Want to wait for Google to do it?

00:17:09 Justin

Because one if you don’t own your listing then you don’t have control of your listing so the last and the worst thing you want to happen is that you don’t do this.

00:17:20 Justin

Then someone calls and says, yeah, so you got a couple bad reviews on on your Google listing and say well I don’t even have a Google listing.

00:17:25 Justin

I don’t even know what you’re talking about and now you can’t even respond to these.

00:17:26 Speaker 5

Right?

00:17:29 Justin

Bad reviews for a couple weeks until you validate and prove that you’re the owner of the business and all.

00:17:34 Justin

These things so it can be if you’re not in that position, be a very frustrating experience to try to wrangle control of your own business reputation from Google.

00:17:34 Speaker 5

Right?

00:17:45 Justin

So yeah, definitely get out there and get that started first thing so you don’t have to go through that later on.

00:17:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yes, Sir.

00:17:53 Justin

So talk a little bit about backlinks so we’ve got our website now.

00:17:58 Justin

We’ve optimized it for local SEO.

00:18:00 Justin

We’ve created our beautiful my Google listing where we have our hours.

00:18:05 Justin

We have content.

00:18:05 Justin

We have pictures of our business, write anything to make it, you know legitimate and and make it look professional.

00:18:13 Justin

Tell me a little bit about how backlinks work and what they are so.

00:18:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When we look at SCO, Backlinking is is timeless.

00:18:22 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean, it’s one of the the most story.

00:18:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like you know it it it.

00:18:27 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It dates the Internet, right, backlinking?

00:18:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So when you think about backlinking from a local SEO space.

00:18:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know that Google My Business is is technically a back link your Facebook page, your all your social accounts are going to be backlinks.

00:18:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Your Yelp is going to be a backlink.

00:18:42 Wendell Jordan Jr.

A backlink essentially tells search engines that.

00:18:45 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You are creditable that you are credible for what you say you are right, whatever that thing may be. Now you have the backlinks that are just going to give you authority asabc.com

00:18:58 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right whatever that whatever yourbusinessis.com. But then you also have the more specific backlinks that are going to go and dive into. Let’s just say the local.

00:19:06 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Paper right?

00:19:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re able to get an online article that that that that says something about how great of a landscape.

00:19:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You are for the greater Bloomsburg area, right?

00:19:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

How great you clean concrete right?

00:19:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like how how great of a power washer you are.

00:19:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, like those are the the local backlinks that you really want to look for.

00:19:25 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The on the opposite end of that spectrum, which you really got to be careful about, is looking at the free or.

00:19:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Low cost backlinks.

00:19:35 Speaker 5

That are a.

00:19:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Global backlinking system right?

00:19:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Which is more of a of an SEO, not a local SEO piece, right?

00:19:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

’cause backgrounds from Australia did not help you if.

00:19:43 Speaker 3

At a local level, right?

00:19:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You’re you’re at a local level.

00:19:45 Speaker 3

Yeah of course.

00:19:46 Speaker 3

Yeah, Yep.

00:19:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The Australian backlinks don’t help you as easy as they are to get right.

00:19:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

They’re they’re, they’re just not going to help you.

00:19:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So as you’re talking to any agency or even someone who’s just doing your backlinks.

00:19:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You want to know how.

00:19:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Local are they now granted?

00:19:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Depending on where you are in the country and you know what that population looks like that backlink, maybe you know you may have to do a 50 mile radius in order to really get scope on that right?

00:20:09 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Because I’m in the 4th largest city, I want to say New York is like one or two, right?

00:20:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So like for us it’s easier, whereas if you’re like you know, Little Rock, AR the locality.

00:20:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Of your backlinking and being able to.

00:20:22 Wendell Jordan Jr.

To get some local access or local attention, it’s going to be a little different, right?

00:20:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So you’re going to have to pull together quite a few cities in order to be able to.

00:20:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Kind of make that.

00:20:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Work for you, but the go ahead.

00:20:31 Justin

Right, so so to break this down into a non technical perspective.

00:20:36 Justin

Essentially what we’re saying is we want other local organizations to have links to our website and our content on our platform.

00:20:48 Justin

And that makes a lot of sense, because that’s almost the same thing.

00:20:52 Justin

And the key word you use, which is a great great word, is validation, right?

00:20:56 Justin

Because in in regular real life, if if you said hey, you know I’m I’m thinking about I I need to get my and you get my driveway sealed.

00:21:04 Justin

And then every single one of your friend says, oh you, you got to use ABC.

00:21:08 Justin

They’re the best.

00:21:08 Justin

ABC is the best.

00:21:09 Justin

ABC is the best.

00:21:10 Justin

ABC is the best.

00:21:11 Justin

That’s that, Val.

00:21:13 Justin

So Google looks at that the same way and they look at the entire Internet and they say OK.

00:21:21 Justin

So the local newspaper links back to these guys as the driveway sealer and this website over here the Chamber of Commerce links back to this driveway sealer and let’s say a nonprofit.

00:21:33 Justin

Organization that this company works with links back to this driveway sealer and like you said, it creates that validation which is what Google uses to determine where you will show up and how prevalent your listing will be on their platform which is which is really, really good advice.

00:21:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Absolutely, absolutely.

00:21:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean you like you said, you break it down in a much more layman way.

00:21:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I get really excited and start talking about all.

00:21:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The technicalities of things.

00:21:58 Justin

Sure, sure no I I’m.

00:22:00 Justin

I’m the same way and I I’ve I’ve.

00:22:02 Justin

I’ve vowed to try to break things down simpler because we we all get used to a certain dialogue.

00:22:07 Justin

It’s easy to forget.

00:22:08 Speaker 5

Yes, exactly.

00:22:09 Justin

Let’s talk a little bit about the different ways that people can do a local search because the most obvious that most people think.

00:22:17 Justin

Is like all of us.

00:22:19 Justin

You open Google and you type in something you type in some type of search, some content you’re looking for, and at a local level you might say break repair shop near me, right?

00:22:29 Justin

And then you’ll see all these listings of the businesses near you.

00:22:32 Justin

But we discussed this a little bit before we started this interview that there’s actually some other ways.

00:22:37 Justin

The people search that aren’t so obvious.

00:22:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The funny thing when in it it’s something that that is become second nature for me.

00:22:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But when you think about how people find a business like you said, there is always the Google search and.

00:22:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Uh, what’s always a key thing that we can’t forget?

00:22:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Justin is Google has become like Kleenex, right where you know people people don’t really say it as much anymore, but you say you know it’s a facial tissue as a technical term, right?

00:23:04 Speaker 3

Right?

00:23:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So we should say search engines because as much as Google is the search engine, people still use Bing.

00:23:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Believe it or not.

00:23:11 Speaker 3

Yeah, Yep.

00:23:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Uhm, so you know, between search engines the other.

00:23:16 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Two keys are going to actually be map citations.

00:23:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Believe it or not, because if you’re looking for a physical business, you might not go to Google.

00:23:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You may actually go to your Apple maps right or your your Google Maps or Waze, or whatever navigation software you’re using.

00:23:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, if you’re.

00:23:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re a certain age, maybe you still have a garment.

00:23:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right, maybe you’re using your.

00:23:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Garment search your garment navigation.

00:23:39 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, but you have to be able to be fine.

00:23:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You have to be able to be searchable in those in those platforms.

00:23:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Believe it or not, and it’s not.

00:23:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Uh, instantaneous thing, you know, once the business is, their garment knows 123 Main St Ste.

00:23:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

8 right now.

00:23:51 Speaker 5

The the the the.

00:23:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Other one is is voice search right?

00:23:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And voice search is something that’s really started booming with all of the AI.

00:23:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And I gotta be careful.

00:24:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I just thought about this.

00:24:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I gotta be careful with the words that I use because I have one of these.

00:24:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Things in my house.

00:24:05 Justin

00:24:06 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And then we’ll.

00:24:06 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Hear it talking to us from the.

00:24:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Distance telling me it.

00:24:09 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Doesn’t know what I’m talking.

00:24:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, you know, but voice search.

00:24:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean, you know we, we know we.

00:24:14 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We say Siri.

00:24:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We say Google, we say Alexa.

00:24:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We say all of these different.

00:24:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Things that allow.

00:24:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

For us to be able to search, and sometimes we’re looking for which is always cool.

00:24:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

’cause I I don’t use it this way.

00:24:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Believe it or not, as much as I’m the guy who does this stuff for businesses, I never ask the.

00:24:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’ve never voice search anything as far as businesses go, but voice search.

00:24:34 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Has grown to the point where we’re now looking at tools that are specific to voice search to where when we’re looking at.

00:24:42 Wendell Jordan Jr.

At analytics we’re only looking at the voice search results, right?

00:24:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We’re looking at keywords specific to voice search, so when you’re when you’re putting together campaigns and it’s still not a prominent piece, right?

00:24:48 Speaker 3

Right?

00:24:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Because as much as it it’s it’s a growing space for search, there still isn’t enough data.

00:25:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The data is still very.

00:25:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Close guarded right ’cause there’s only a few companies that offer it and like to keep their right.

00:25:06 Speaker 3

Right?

00:25:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, like it’s so close target so.

00:25:09 Justin

Yeah, you definitely have that oligopoly of, uh, data repository’s. You know, like you and you already named the three of them. There’s there’s three of them that that probably make up 99% of voice search traffic.

00:25:12 Speaker 5

Yeah, right, right?

00:25:16 Speaker 2

Right, right, right.

00:25:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And and what I would say is I know Alexa and I don’t know if it’s an Amazon company, I think.

00:25:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It may be, but they actually.

00:25:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Have a tool specific for.

00:25:29 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You search for businesses and, well, it’s really for marketers ’cause it’s really robust and it’ll it’ll.

00:25:30 Speaker 3

OK, right?

00:25:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’ll breakdown competitor analysis and a bunch of other things.

00:25:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But again, there really aren’t.

00:25:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, some of the more common tools like, uh, semrush, oramas, they have this much data of everything else, and then only this part of it is local search.

00:25:48 Speaker 3

Yeah, very small.

00:25:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean, there’s our voice search, right?

00:25:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s a very small piece of it, so yeah, you know, but voice search is something definitely to be considerate of of what you want to be sure of is that, again, voice search is pulling from.

00:26:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Some of the more common directories and I always say this word wrong, so I hope I don’t get it wrong this time aggregators?

00:26:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yep, of of data, right?

00:26:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So there’s a few key aggregators of data, and then you have some of the big directories, right?

00:26:14 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So you’re being your Google, your Yelp.

00:26:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Depending on the type of business, right you?

00:26:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know you’re looking at like it’ll even go so.

00:26:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Deepest to look into like an angies list or a trip adviser.

00:26:24 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That’s those are all the places that or I shouldn’t say all.

00:26:27 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But those are some of the big places that some of these voice tools are pulling data.

00:26:31 Wendell Jordan Jr.

From I I.

00:26:32 Speaker 3

Right?

00:26:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Have a client he has an RV park.

00:26:35 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And I inherited him this this RV part I think is older than me in fact, but I inherited a website that was less than what we we would consider.

00:26:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know a good form, so we redesigned it.

00:26:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We did a bunch of stuff with him and just last week I realized that he does not have a trip adviser.

00:26:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But as an RV part, that’s a that’s a major citation, right?

00:26:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That’s a major back.

00:27:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know, and I’m talking to him, and he’s, you know we’re talking about backlinks and most other stuff.

00:27:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And I said, well, you don’t.

00:27:05 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Have a trip adviser and he was like.

00:27:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Really like yeah, but you know, like I inherited this, so some of the stuff that by my own mistake I assumed was already done, trip adviser being one of the main ones that changes how he’s able to be found on the Internet.

00:27:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Dramatically, you know, especially when you talk about, you know search, I mean our voice search.

00:27:21 Speaker 3

Yeah, big.

00:27:25 Justin

Makes a big difference.

00:27:26 Justin

Yeah, and I.

00:27:26 Justin

I think it’s worth noting that every.

00:27:29 Justin

Business should have some type of social media audit strategy, whether it’s once a week, once a month, but a scheduled time that happens on a regular basis.

00:27:43 Justin

Where you take a moment and look, am I in the places that I need to be?

00:27:47 Justin

Am I tackling the places?

00:27:50 Justin

That I’m at and and am I engaging with my customers, right?

00:27:54 Justin

So to jump to one other topic into local search is of course reviews.

00:28:00 Justin

Let’s say with with Google it would be Google reviews.

00:28:03 Justin

Of your business.

00:28:04 Justin

And as I kind of mentioned earlier, it sometimes people don’t even know that there’s reviews out there.

00:28:10 Justin

So part of this audit would be, hey, let me let me Google myself, let me Google My Business name.

00:28:16 Justin

Oh boy, there’s a bad review.

00:28:17 Justin

Let me.

00:28:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Buy in a private browser.

00:28:18 Justin

How am I going to respond to it, right?

00:28:20 Speaker 5

Using a private browser, do that impacts?

00:28:21 Justin

Right, yeah, private browser Incognito mode if you’re you’re in Chrome.

00:28:22 Speaker 5

Actually, yeah, right right, right, right, right?

00:28:25 Justin

Because yet one of the things and I’m glad you brought that up.

00:28:30 Justin

You think to yourself, how does local search even work?

00:28:33 Justin

And obviously a big chunk of that is when you’re on your phone, everyone knows where you are.

00:28:38 Justin

Google knows where you are, Apple knows where you are.

00:28:41 Justin

Your location is known to the world when you’re on your phone, so it’s very easy when someone is on mobile to say oh they’re in this exact location and then use that to give relevant information.

00:28:42 Speaker 5

Right?

00:28:43 Speaker 5

Yeah, right, absolutely.

00:28:53 Justin

Uh, and I if we go back for a second and take a look at that, the the importance of reviews and the things that again will give you authority, validation, authority and relevancy.

00:29:05 Justin

Those are kind of the three key things.

00:29:07 Justin

So let’s talk a little bit about.

00:29:10 Justin

Reviews and Google reviews.

00:29:11 Justin

As as a component of a my Google listing.

00:29:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So I’m.

00:29:15 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’m going to jumble that up with a couple of things that you mentioned as well.

00:29:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So, so first reviews are.

00:29:21 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I mean, they’re almost invaluable.

00:29:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know when I think of some of the people again, just solely as a consumer.

00:29:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When I think about some of the people that I talked to.

00:29:30 Wendell Jordan Jr.

About a product or service.

00:29:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The first thing they ask me or what are the reviews right?

00:29:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But I don’t even think and again this is so.

00:29:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s so weird to.

00:29:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Be in this space like as the.

00:29:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

As the as my business right as my profession?

00:29:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I don’t even.

00:29:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Care about reviews?

00:29:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

’cause I know reviews are subjective, right?

00:29:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you run a review campaign there are some softwares that actually re-route anything less than a 3.

00:29:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Which Google frowns upon.

00:29:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I don’t know.

00:29:55 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I don’t know if you know that, but.

00:29:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Google frowns upon.

00:29:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That that there’s a specific term that they use.

00:29:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Because they want authentic reviews.

00:30:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

No matter how good or bad they are right now.

00:30:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The other thing that I do want to tie in real quick, and then I’ll be a little more expensive.

00:30:08 Wendell Jordan Jr.

There’s another piece of content that it’s.

00:30:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s an article.

00:30:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We didn’t write it.

00:30:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But it it.

00:30:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s a great piece of information about how Yelp and Google are actually handling fake reviews because Google My Business has started to become.

00:30:19 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So prominent business owners are not only creating fake reviews for themselves, but creating fake reviews for their competitors, right?

00:30:26 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Because, you know, as much as it’s great for you to have a five star review, it’s even better for.

00:30:31 Wendell Jordan Jr.

John’s pizza shop to have a bunch of one star reviews, right? So you know Google’s starting to crack down and start trying to figure out exactly how are we able to verify that you even been to this location?

00:30:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But but when you when you start looking at reviews what you want to do is you want to put together a list.

00:30:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know an email list.

00:30:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Phone calls are cool, but you need to.

00:30:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Email and decide where you want the where you want the majority of your reviews to go.

00:30:58 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yelp is tricky.

00:31:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yelp still has a filter or buffer where if they don’t feel like it’s organic, they’ll hide the review.

00:31:06 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, they’ve done that for decades, but Google they don’t care how you get it, they’re gonna post it right.

00:31:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But you know, there’s there’s.

00:31:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

There’s depending on the type of business that you are.

00:31:16 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It may be more beneficial, believe it or not, for you to have people go to angies list or whatever whatever service space.

00:31:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Which are in where there’s a directory of your business, because as much.

00:31:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

As Google reviews.

00:31:29 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Are are very important.

00:31:31 Wendell Jordan Jr.

They actually don’t affect how you’re ranked.

00:31:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Believe it or not, right? So even if you have no reviews or 1000 reviews, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to rank higher than someone who has less or more ribbons. That that’s not one of the key factors in ranking. But when you’re talking about validation.

00:31:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know you want to make sure that you set a number, decide how many reviews you want on specific platform, and then start getting new reviews.

00:31:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know somewhere else for myself and for George Margarita.

00:31:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So just probably our.

00:31:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Our hardest part is getting people to write reviews you.

00:32:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Know it’s.

00:32:02 Wendell Jordan Jr.

We we’ve got, we’ve got a few reviews on on on Google there’s a couple of other platforms that we use to gather reviews.

00:32:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

One of the platforms.

00:32:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s an awesome platform, but the review process is so long that we’ve lost like 2 clients to in the process.

00:32:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Not not, not as clients, but right they’ve been lost in the review process, but it’s just so long, yeah.

00:32:21 Justin

Yeah, they say they want to do the review, but should do.

00:32:24 Justin

It is so complicated that they did.

00:32:25 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right, yeah, like the review process is like 20 minutes.

00:32:26 Justin

They give up, yeah?

00:32:28 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, and I didn’t know until someone was like, hey, I just wrote you the longest review I’ve ever.

00:32:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Written in my life, I was like Oh well.

00:32:35 Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry.

00:32:35 Justin

It is, it is.

00:32:37 Justin

It’s really difficult to know and that kind of goes back to that.

00:32:40 Justin

Audit is just going around and taking a look on a regular basis and another theme that comes up on this podcast all the time is where are your customers.

00:32:49 Justin

You need to know where your customers are.

00:32:51 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Exactly, I’m sorry so the other thing too that I wanted to mention.

00:32:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When you talk about that audit so.

00:32:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

To to to kind of double down on that, you probably want to do it on a monthly basis.

00:33:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You just want to look to see where things how you’re sitting on on on your major platforms.

00:33:05 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You’re never going to be perfect on them all, but you want to figure out on major on your what you consider.

00:33:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

To be major, yeah the other thing too is every quarter.

00:33:13 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Take time and do a deep dive into that audit and decide if you need new imaging.

00:33:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Decide if if there’s any services that have been added.

00:33:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Decide if any services need to be removed.

00:33:23 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You know maybe we aren’t doing that anymore, ’cause that’s another thing to wear when you talk about a service based industry, you know.

00:33:29 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Sometimes you used to clean gutters as the land is the landscaper.

00:33:32 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right you used to do that.

00:33:33 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But you don’t do it anymore ’cause it?

00:33:34 Speaker 3

Yes, great.

00:33:34 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Just wasn’t lucrative, you know.

00:33:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And now people are called.

00:33:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Telling you about cleaning gutters, and that’s not that’s not what you do anymore, so definitely want to take a.

00:33:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Quarterly review and.

00:33:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Just look to see you know, have you?

00:33:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

If you’re if you’re a brick and mortar location, have you updated things inside the store?

00:33:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Do you have any awning?

00:33:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Is it still the same all in that kind of hangs to the left?

00:33:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

A little bit, you know, like those are all things that that you.

00:33:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Want to be thoughtful of as you do that quarterly?

00:33:55 Justin

And is your content dated?

00:33:58 Justin

I think we’ve all everyone in the world has gone to a website and it’s like, oh, great, here’s this new company.

00:34:03 Justin

And the last thing that was posted, it was, hey, we’re having an event and it’s four years old and you think she just left?

00:34:08 Justin

Wow, are they even in business anymore?

00:34:09 Justin

Did they forget?

00:34:10 Justin

But yeah, we yeah, and especially as a web developer.

00:34:12 Justin

I’m sure you see that all the time.

00:34:14 Justin

Uh, so yeah, it’s really really great advice to take a look at your website and your content, and is it still relevant?

00:34:17 Speaker 2

Is it normal for kids?

00:34:22 Justin

So the three keywords that I take out of our conversation today and local search is really authority, relevancy and validation.

00:34:32 Justin

And if you get those three things together.

00:34:34 Justin

And you do it the right way.

00:34:36 Justin

You will find that local search can be an incredibly powerful driver of business to your company.

00:34:46 Justin

And with that I would love to talk about this all day long, but we’re kind of running out of time here, so I’m going to jump into this.

00:34:52 Justin

What is the biggest mistake you’ve ever made?

00:34:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Biggest mistake ever.

00:34:58 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Being the one stop shop trying to do everything for everybody and never and never defining what.

00:35:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Hey, what I really enjoy doing as a business owner and be deciding which clients I really want to serve like now.

00:35:10 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’ll tell people no.

00:35:11 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I just told the guy no yesterday in fact, so that that’s the biggest part man is is knowing not being everything for everyone and defining what my customer truly looks like and being OK with turning away money.

00:35:23 Justin

That’s great advice, yeah, I think a lot.

00:35:25 Justin

A lot of businesses, especially when they get started, they they’re, they’re desperate.

00:35:28 Justin

They want to grow and they will take on anything and like you said you you eventually learn that you’re better off maybe letting some of those clients go and focusing on one one specific niche that you’re going to see some success in.

00:35:40 Justin

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

00:35:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Best piece of advice.

00:35:46 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Can it be more than 1 sure.

00:35:47 Speaker 3

Go for it.

00:35:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

OK so my the.

00:35:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The best piece of advice as I grew into being good at sales was everything is a sale and it sounds so cheesy and cliche, but everything is a sale is it’s.

00:36:04 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s relative to communication.

00:36:06 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And the same way that I want to communicate to iprospect is the same way I want to communicate to my girlfriend to my children.

00:36:12 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yep, to the bus driver right that the same level of care that you think about when you’re.

00:36:17 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Or communicating to the person that you expect to pay you.

00:36:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

It’s the same level of care you should have whenever you’re talking to someone, so that’s what I got from.

00:36:25 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Everything is a sale and it and it changed the way that I wanted to learn how to communicate and understanding that the other piece of of of advice that I would say was just as Paramount was man.

00:36:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Back when I was in the music.

00:36:39 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Space and this young lady.

00:36:41 Wendell Jordan Jr.

She told me you don’t need a lawyer until you need a lawyer ’cause we used to have these lengthy contracts and all this other stuff and we weren’t doing anything for her.

00:36:47 Speaker 3

Right?

00:36:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

But she was.

00:36:50 Wendell Jordan Jr.

She was an accomplished artist and she was like you’ll.

00:36:52 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Need a lawyer.

00:36:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

When you need a.

00:36:53 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Lawyer, I, I can’t remember exactly how she phrased it, but again, taking that and moving it.

00:36:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Throughout all the things that I’ve done in life, sometimes we become so focused on being prepared that we’ve done nothing.

00:37:06 Speaker 3

Right?

00:37:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Right?

00:37:07 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like like we’re so ready for everything, but we’ve never taken a step to get to something.

00:37:12 Justin

It’s that analysis paralysis.

00:37:14 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Yeah, right, and that was that was.

00:37:16 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Kind of where.

00:37:18 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I I mean, in in her and I.

00:37:20 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Retained a pretty good report for years, but.

00:37:25 Wendell Jordan Jr.

At that time, it actually stopped her from working with us because I was like.

00:37:29 Wendell Jordan Jr.

So I just need you to sign this contract and she was like we haven’t even.

00:37:34 Wendell Jordan Jr.

There hasn’t been a single note heard.

00:37:36 Speaker 3

Right?

00:37:36 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You’re talking about a contract, right?

00:37:38 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Like you’re being you’re you’re preparing for the worst and you haven’t even taken a step forward and that that that helped me.

00:37:43 Wendell Jordan Jr.

That helps me to this.

00:37:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Day, you know.

00:37:45 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I I’m I’m happy with with my process.

00:37:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

I’m always looking to make it better, but now I spend a lot less time getting ready to get ready and just.

00:37:54 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Walking right just just start going forward and then.

00:37:56 Wendell Jordan Jr.

As we see.

00:37:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Things we go OK, well, let’s let’s tweak this a little bit.

00:38:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Let’s change this.

00:38:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Little bit instead of having the document that no one signs because we haven’t gotten that.

00:38:05 Speaker 3

Far yet yeah, yeah.

00:38:06 Justin

I’ve I’ve seen that at a lot of different levels.

00:38:08 Justin

I mean, I’ve seen people service and they agonize over their logo.

00:38:12 Justin

They won’t even launch because they’re spending two months on a logo and it’s like, hey, listen, you make the logo.

00:38:17 Justin

The logo doesn’t make you right and you know you look at logos of like.

00:38:20 Justin

Giant corporations, and they’re pretty awful.

00:38:23 Justin

You know, McDonald’s it Nike?

00:38:24 Justin

It’s a check mark right?

00:38:26 Justin

And oh, that’s real.

00:38:27 Justin

Original in M for McDonald’s yeah and no one put a lot of thought into these logos.

00:38:31 Justin

I think when they happen they just did it and move forward and you figure it out as you go along.

00:38:36 Justin

That’s great, great advice and to go back about the everything as a sale.

00:38:40 Justin

My wife or nurse, but suddenly if it comes to like booking a vacation or something, she’s zig Ziglar when she starts breaking down.

00:38:47 Justin

Why I need to book this trip whether we have the money or not.

00:38:51 Justin

So yes, yes she ends up just.

00:38:51 Speaker 5

Exactly exactly, she’s gotta walk you, she’s gotta walk you.

00:38:55 Speaker 5

To the sales you guys just.

00:38:56 Speaker 3

He said.

00:38:57 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Hey, we’re going on vacation no no.

00:38:59 Wendell Jordan Jr.

No, you’ve had a rough week.

00:39:00 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Would be nice if.

00:39:01 Wendell Jordan Jr.

You could now you’re thinking about it.

00:39:04 Justin

The emotional connection, yeah?

00:39:04 Speaker 5

For expensive stuff right exactly exactly right exactly exactly, it’s everything you said.

00:39:07 Justin

Validation authority, yeah, that’s great.

00:39:11 Justin

Thank you so much Wendy.

00:39:11 Speaker 5

Everything you said yes, Sir.

00:39:13 Speaker 5

Yes, Sir.

00:39:13 Justin

I really appreciate you being on the show and how can people get in touch with you if they want help with this?

00:39:18 Justin

Because obviously it’s a lot to take on, even though you know we all know it’s easy to figure things out over a long period of time, but.

00:39:27 Justin

Most people you’re focused on your business.

00:39:28 Justin

You don’t have time to do all these things, you just want to hire someone who’s going to be able to help you out and and walk you through the process.

00:39:36 Justin

How do people get in touch with you, Wendell?

00:39:37 Wendell Jordan Jr.

The two best ways LinkedIn.

00:39:40 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Uh, you know, it’s me, it’s it’s this funny looking face.

00:39:44 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Wendell Jordan on LinkedIn.

00:39:45 Wendell Jordan Jr.

And then if you if you want to email me you can email.

00:39:48 Wendell Jordan Jr.

Me at Windle.

00:39:49 Wendell Jordan Jr.

At jordanmarketingconsultants.com you can also check out the website jordanmarketingconsultants.com.

00:39:55 Justin

Awesome and I will certainly put links to all of that into the show notes and on the website marketingandservice.com you’ll be able to review all those and connect with Wendell there as well.

00:40:06 Justin

And again, thank you so much for being here today.

00:40:09 Justin

I really appreciate it and I I had so much fun talking about local SEO with you.

00:40:09 Speaker 5

Yes, Sir.

00:40:15 Justin

Wow, what a great episode with Wendell.

00:40:18 Justin

I learned so much about local search and it it really is such a huge huge opportunity that so many businesses are missing out on because they’re not taking the time to create their content and to create their Google listing and to kind of build their strategy.

00:40:34 Justin

Around local search and it’s going to take a while for people to get ahold of this, but if you’re the first one to get it done, you’re going to have a huge jump start on the competition and this is something that if you serve a local market, you want to be doing right.

00:40:48 Justin

Now thanks so much for listening to the show again, like subscribe if you enjoy it.

00:40:54 Justin

Check out marketing and service.

00:40:55 Justin

Com I have show notes where I talk about episodes. My afterthoughts of episodes plus all the contact information for the guests that are on the show are all available on the episode notes on marketingandservice.com. You can also of course, as I said in the beginning.

00:41:09 Justin

Hit me up on Facebook on the marketing and service.com Facebook page. Email me at marketingandservice.com. Thank you so much for listening. I will catch you on.

00:41:21 Justin

The next one.