EQUTE — So your search engine rankings are number one, your paid ads have been tweaked to perfection and the traffic is rolling in — now what?

The guys over at Fathom SEO have some good tips about local search that most people don’t immediately think of — their Google maps ranking.

There are several tips to get the most out of your free Google business listing, and as mobile mapping becomes more prevalent, map rankings will become more and more important.

First, create a niche for yourself, think about what your customers are going to search for like you would with search. If it’s a liquor store for example, think about how your business really is different from competitors. Make yourself a category called “create your own six pack,” “wine experts” or “imported beer.”
Second, give map searchers a reason to come. If they’re just looking for a six pack of beer, they’re going to choose the closest liquor store. But if you give them a coupon right through the map, they’re more likely to go the extra few blocks.

The guys at Fathom SEO said it was a great place to show off too. Put up your great BBB rating or local media best-of award.

Put up videos and pictures, let your customers take a virtual your of your store. Replace those videos periodically detailing your new deals or specialties. Got a new wine that nobody has heard of? Make a video and tell your prospective customers all about it.

Encourage customers to write reviews, the more real reviews you have the better it looks and it will help you stand out even more from your neighbors.

Make sure all your contact information is correct, it sounds like a no-brainer, but a transposed number is easy to miss and could cost you a visit. Check your links and make sure everything is user friendly.

Check the analytics for maximum results. You’ve likely already done plenty of local keyword research (or should have) but maps are a little different. Use the dashboard of your Google business listing and the insights data map to check where people are getting their directions from. If your local store is between a big fishing spot or stadium, see where the people are coming from. If they are already driving by, why not show them your coupon and get them coming in.

With more people searching for businesses through Google maps alone, it’s high time to work on your listing and bring more people in.

EQUTE — Judging when your key search terms will come up just got a lot easier with Google Insights.

Google has gotten into the prognostication business with its new Trends tool. They have a quite exhaustive research paper on the topic for anyone who really likes math and graphs. But it boils down to Google using past results and search patterns to determine what people will be searching for in the coming months and years.

Marketers can use the tool as a good way to see what kind of keywords and ads they want to run in the future. For example, pretend we have a Minnesota gardening company staffed with gardeners and stocked with all the gardening tools for a hobbyist.

Google Insights Graph

With Google Insight, it’s easy to see that gardening searches skyrockets in April — one doesn’t even need Google to tell them people are interested in gardening in the spring, but what Insights does well is tell us how the searches have changed. Sure gardening searches will jump in April, but Insights can give us insight into what marketers should be targeting with their articles, keywords and ads.

Google Insights Graph

For instance, this graph shows the search results for gardener. While it’s a subset of gardening and a key part of that gardening business, it seems the grim economy has more people doing their gardening on their own. But insight also gives nice related searches below, vegetable gardening, for example, is up 110 percent from the same time last year and flower gardening has dropped somewhat.

Google Insights Graph

This is where Insight needs some real knowledge to back it up since it’s formula doesn’t factor in other societal issues such as the bad economy. Perhaps Google is predicting the economy will bounce back in 2010 and people will give up on their victory gardens. That’s unlikely, but it still shows when growing veggies will be a popular thing to search for.

All this can really help bring customers to the store or to the Web site efficiently. Marketers can tone down their gardening adds in the winter and get their SEO friendly articles ready for next season. Especially in a down economy, it’s crucial to get some baring on where search will be going. Businesses can tailor their entire business plan to fall in line with how people will soon behave.

For instance, the gardening company could put out articles offering vegetable gardening tips instead of flower gardening tips and put off hiring new gardeners or serve ads that offer the cheapest gardening.

Maybe the gardening shop can serve ads offering a class taught by those gardeners with nothing to do. A “grow your own veggies class” at the store could burn up the local search ads and bring people to the store.

While it’s not a be-all-end all forecasting tool, Google Insight does give a good visual representation of how search volumes will stack up in the future, giving physical stores and online advertisers another piece of their game plan.