TWIM: Building a Local Presence, Using Google Images to Boost Sales, and Driving Traffic from Pinterest

Happy Tuesday!

This week we're covering factors to help build local presence, how a Google image search can help with customer acquisition, and how your business can use Pinterest to drive traffic. We also look at the ranking elements of a successful 'Contact Us' Page, and new integrative features between Facebook and Instagram.

Three Factors to Consider When Building a Local Presence

Studies have found that nearly half of all Google searches are local. As local search continues to grow, Pratik Dholakiya takes a look at three factors to consider as you build your presence.

Factor 1: Voice Search: More emphasis is placed on long-tail keywords and hyper-local searches. Focus your SEO more on a conversational tone. Write content that focuses on the who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Factor 2: Customer Sentiment. Building a local presence is all about playing to the trends of the area. Your business needs to be monitoring online conversations and interactions surrounding local keywords. This will help to understand how a person can interact with your brand and content.

Factor 3: Consistent Reviews.
Local reviews are some of the most powerful variables in your SEO strategy. Most consumers will make a purchase based on opinions they find about a product or service. If you want to build up your local presence, you need have a system in place to capture and display reviews on a regular basis.

How To Use Google Images to Drive E-commerce Sales Before Your Competitors Catch On

Google has created a new way to acquire customers and most businesses may not even be aware of it. The removal of the “View Image” feature in image search means you can now try to rank for the front page of Google image search to get organic traffic. It’s been discovered that 72% of shoppers browse images before making a purchase. By focusing on the SEO of the images on your site, you have the opportunity to rank for an image that can actually result in a conversion.

Here, Neil Patel looks at four ways you can begin optimizing your images to rank well. One example is optimizing file names and alt tags. Make sure that your images have descriptive file names and tags for Google to be able to crawl them. Alt tags allow Google to be able to “see” your image. If you don’t use an alt tag, all it knows is that it’s an image by the “.jpg” and that’s it. Read on for more tips!

How to use Pinterest to Drive High-Volume Traffic on Auto-Pilot

93% of Pinners use Pinterest to plan purchases. If your website has a blog and you are consistently putting out content, you should consider using the platform for traffic and content promotion. Jessica Fosters looks at ways to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your site.

First, do a bit of discovery. You’ll need to explore the platform to understand if your content is a good fit. Start by doing a basic search for popular categories—does your business fall into one of them? Next, search for your topic and compare the displayed results to what your business is publishing and determine if they are aligned. Lastly, look at the suggested topics and consider if these terms will help your SEO strategy. Once you’ve determined if Pinterest is right for your content, get creating and optimizing your content, profile, and pins! Read on for more of Foster’s tips.

The 10 Best Ranking Contact Us Pages on the Web

When designing your webpage, you may not be giving your Contact Us page much thought. In reality, that page serves as a gateway to your business. This all-important page should be visually attractive and written well and be cohesive with the rest of your site. Chuck Price looks at 10 of the best Contact Us pages that rank and compares them.

Bear in mind that these are large brands and when doing your own competitor analysis, you should be searching within your industry and niche. After comparing the brands Target, AT&T, PayPal, IKEA, Verizon, Dropbox, Box, StubHub, Uline, and Active Network, Price identifies three similarities. A Contact Page should clearly provide contact details, provide a good mobile experience, and every element should function properly. Having clear contact information establishes trust, making text easy to read and forms user-friendly, and testing every interactive element will go a long way to making a page rank.

Facebook Tests New Way to Cross Post Content from Instagram

While both Facebook and Instagram have remained separate for the most part, Facebook is rolling out new ways to integrate the functionalities of both platforms. One can only assume that by making it easier for a user to share their content between the two social networks, this will help boost the content that is posted on Facebook.

In this latest update, Facebook is giving a user the ability to post their content from their Instagram account onto Facebook while using the Facebook app. The ease with which to post could see a jump in content…if a user is already posting on Instagram, why not share it on Facebook too? In addition to content, Facebook allows businesses to access an integrated Messenger, inboxes, and advertise a campaign on both Facebook and Instagram. Given the popularity of both the apps it makes sense for Facebook to cross-pollinate their content, however, with concerns surrounding their privacy regulations, they should proceed with caution.