Dan Hinckley, Author at Go Fish Digital

How to Change Your Location for Local Search Results – The Always Up-To-Date Guide

Dan Hinckley — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 13:00:09 +0000

Over the years, Google has improved it’s algorithm to include search results that take into account the geographic location of the user performing a search query. This powerful aspect of the search engine ensures that when someone in Miami, Florida searches for a “Pizza Restaurant”, the results Google returns show options for pizza restaurants in Miami and not some other random location.

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How To Change Locations In Google Search

Like most digital marketers, we work with business and organizations that have locations in many different geographic locations and have to regularly report and review search results and Google autocomplete suggestions for search phrases that matter to our clients. Historically, Google allowed users to set their location for search results in an option under ‘Search Tools’ on the search results page. We noticed over the past few months that Google was periodically removing this option for users and discovered on Monday that they have removed it completely.

Without the ability to quickly set a location for Google search results, it becomes extremely difficult to report on search results and autocomplete values in geographic locations across the country. Part of our efforts to find a solution to this problem directed us towards a Moz article that outlined a way to set your geographic location with a URL variable. While we found this approach to work, it was cumbersome and didn’t solve the problem of viewing Google Autocomplete suggestions in different geographic locations. So we set off to find another way.

After additional research we discovered that the power to set our geographic location and to view both local search results and autocomplete suggestions was available in Google Chrome. To set your geographic location, follow these steps in Google Chrome:

While viewing a Google Search result, right click on the page and select “Inspect Element”
This will open the Chrome Developer Tools that we’ll utilize to help set different geographic locations. Next, select the Sensors TabNote: If the sensors tab is not visible, you need to enable it. To do so, click the icon with 3 dots aligned vertically and then More Tools and Sensors:
Click the Geolocation Dropdown and set Custom

The next step requires that you open a new tab and load Google Maps. We need to get the latitude and longitude for the location you’d like to search from. In Google Maps search for the city and state of the location you’d like to get local search results. Once you perform the search in Google Maps, look again at the URL and you’ll see the latitude and longitude for your desired location.
Return to the tab with Google search results and scroll down to the Geolocation section we enable previously. Enter in the latitude and longitude you identified from Google Maps. Be sure the ‘Emulate geolocation coordinates’ option is selected.
Next, refresh the Google Search result page.
After the page has reloaded, scroll to the bottom and click Update Location (Note: It may say ‘Use Precise Location’). This should then set your geographic location to where you’d like to see local search results in Google. You can also enter in search queries and see Google Autocomplete suggestions based on these steps.

We have tested this multiple times and with a number of different search queries and it seems to work 100% of the time. It does take a few more steps to view search results in different geographic locations than what was offered by the previous interface that Google provided but it is the best option we’ve discovered to have local search results and autocomplete suggestions for different locations across the country.

How to Change Your Location for Local Search Results – The Always Up-To-Date Guide is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Using Social Media For Proactive Reputation Management

Dan Hinckley — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 20:43:18 +0000

It’s our pleasure to again work with Keri-Ann Baker on an article that recently appeared in the print magazine Journal for the American Water Works Association. The article focuses on how social media and timely communications can help your Online Reputation Management efforts. We originally worked with Keri-Ann in a piece that covered reputation management of utility companies.

Breaking the White Paper Cycle – How to Time Social Media to Positively Influence Your Utilities Online Reputation

The increased use of internet technology has resulted in the rise of social media by planners, local governments, the general public and of course water utilities. Social media has become a major platform for consumers to voice their thoughts, praise and complaints to businesses and utilities in the public sphere. The general public has by and large adopted the use of social media as it provides real time information about everything from the weather, trends, traffic and public projects and meetings. For example, the Federal government uses social media platforms to announce emergencies, employee work day cancelation, and policy announcements.

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Social media provides information to the general public in a timely manner with limited costs and allows all to communicate and comment on this information. From a utilities perspective social media allows utility companies to proactively communicate with its customers and the public at large. Social media engagement offers many benefits, but these benefits can also be mismanaged exposing water utilities to negative social media attention.

Timing Your Message To Maximize Its Effect

In the past, the scientific, utility and governmental community has engaged in the “whitepaper cycle” as a means of responding to criticism concerning its projects, events or controversial positions. In an world of instant information, the white paper approach is slow and the relevant information often reaches the general public after all momentum related to the whitepaper is lost… The “whitepaper effect” paralyzes a utilities’ communication about the issue until each and every piece of information is thoroughly vetted in a cumbersome peer reviewed process that can last weeks, months and in some cases years. Often, at the end of this “whitepaper cycle” the general public has already obtained and disseminated information related to the topic of the whitepaper from various social media sites and water utility companies loose the opportunity to positively influence the conversation with data and scientific information. Utilities must break this cycle by anticipating criticism and designing a strategy to prospectively address this criticism in the current real-time information world we live in.

Sometimes, such as in the case of emergencies, a water utility will have no choice but to react to the emergency. However, there are ample opportunities for a utility to prospectively engage in social media activities on the positive attributes of its projects and/or services. The planning process for utility expansion, repair and conservation efforts provides a utility with the opportunity to control the message and positively engage its customers and the public. When a utility fails to plan for these social media opportunities it allows someone else to control the flow and timing of information and sentiment about its projects and services. The utility is then forced into a reactionary mindset instead of a proactively managed mindset. Water utilities need to move beyond the “whitepaper effect” which seems to essentially vary between response, hysteria, retreat into a whitepaper silence allowing everyone else to comment on your project while you remain silent. The timing of the “whitepaper” completely misses the opportunity to positively impact any meaningful change and often opinion and biases related to the topic have already been established. Going forward, utilities need to assess their activities and regularly transmit the positive activities to the public prior to any PR frenzy.

Establish a Social Media Plan

To gain back control of the way the public receives information and perceives your organization you need to establish a social media plan. Social media plans should include three major categories:

General Information – As the general public expects continual real time information, social media profiles should be structured to allow for consistent and accurate updates related to the utility. Outages, safety notices, or other information that the general public receives through other resources should be also communicated through social media accounts. This allows the public to receive information in real time and in a way they prefer to receive it, having a positive effect on how consumers view the utility company.
Custom Support – Phone support services are often viewed by the public as slow and outdated. The general public feels they receive better and faster customer service by voicing concerns on social networks. By offering customer support services through social media, utility companies can ensure that angry customers take their frustrations offline instead of voicing them loudly on social media. An unanswered social concern can quickly snowball into a reputation crisis.
Thought Leadership – By engaging with the general public through social media platforms, utility companies have the opportunity to help shape the way the public views and perceives the utility company and it’s activities. By providing supporting evidence, research, and other data through social media, a utility company can build social support behind it’s activities and strategies. This protects utilities from vocal minorities that would push the public towards different views on critical topic areas.

A social media plan that covers these three areas will help utility companies gain back control of the public perception of them and provide more control over topics that previously may have been supported with a whitepaper.

Conclusion

Social media will continue to grow by public and private utilities as it offers real time and cost-effective communication and is widely accepted a mainstream source of information. Social media allows a utility to engage their customers and importantly allows it to ¬garner support for its projects. In the future we expect to see utilities create websites entirely devoted to various projects or initiatives. Laws, which notoriously trail technology, are already encouraging a paperless approach to project planning and the online dissemination of information. At least two federal laws, “Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 1998”, and the “E-government Act of 2002”, encourage a paperless work environment and give legal effect to electronic documents. (See Social Media and Local Governments Navigating the New Public Square, by Patricia E. Salkin and Julie A. Tappendorf). Social Media will continue and the public’s expectation for timely electronic data will become the norm in the coming years. To break the “whitepaper cycle”, social media plans should be designed and disseminated in the public square. Social media strategies are cost-effective and also allows for the public to voice their concerns and more importantly for utilities to address concerns in real time giving the utility the opportunity to address small problems before the negatively impact the utilities reputation.

Dan Hinckley is a founding partner with Go Fish Digital. He practices in brand strategy management, IT consulting and SEO strategies. The combination of these skills sets uniquely position him to develop comprehensive strategies for SEO that span across branding and IT domains. He can be reached at dan.hinckley@gofishdigital.com, and https://twitter.com/dhinckley.

Keri-Ann C. Baker is an attorney with Lewis, Longman & Walker. Ms. Baker’s practice focuses on tribal capacity, administrative law, ports, airports and transportation, water, marine and coastal construction, and local government and technology issues. She can be reached at kbaker@llw-law.com, or https://twitter.com/KeriAnnBaker.

Be sure to contact Go Fish Digital below for more information related to Proactive Reputation Management.

Featured Image from Jason A. Howie.

This is Chapter 7 of our Online Reputation Management guide.

Using Social Media For Proactive Reputation Management is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Google Continues Push For Social Relevance

Dan Hinckley — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:38:06 +0000

A few months ago Google announced their response to the successful social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Google+ was instantly heralded as an improvement to the social approaches the search giant had previously attempted, Google Buzz. And while initial numbers for the growth of Google+ were astounding, the long term viability of a social network that competes directly with Facebook was still in question.

A few months have passed and its becoming more clear that Google+ is not the long term success that Google and its employees were hoping for. Pageviews and interactions on the site continue to fall and most recently it appears that Google is doing everything it can to push the product in front of more and more people. It is even beginning to feel like Google is getting desperate for social relevance.

Google +1 and Search Result Pages

Shortly before making Google+ available to the public, the company released a +1 button to allow site visitors to show their support and interest in sites that had content they approved. This approach was of course preparatory for Google+, but also a move to compete with the Facebook Like button that is found across the internet. Many questioned the value of +1, but it became clear how the service could offer value if Google+ itself was a success.

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Google eventually added a +1 button next to each result on their Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). The idea was that users would approve of the results by clicking the +1 icon if the page provided the information that they were looking for. But most recently it appears that very few people are engaging with the +1 icon on SERP pages. In fact, Google has recently started prompting users to click the +1 button when they return to the SERPs with a small tooltip that highlights over the +1 button and includes text like “You’ve visited this page 3 times. +1 it!”

In addition to pushing the +1 button on users of their search engine, Google also has done its best to draw attention to the Google+ link in the menu bar found on Google web properties. A few days ago Google was advertising the social network on its main search page with a large arrow pointing to the Google+ link. The advertisement coincides with the announcement that Google+ was now in open beta and available to everyone with a Google account.

Google has a dominant hold on the search engine market and it is clear that they are going to try and leverage those pageviews to propel themselves into a better position in the social networking market. So far it seems that their approach has short term validity but over the longer term users are drawn back to Facebook for social connections, Twitter for quick conversations, and LinkedIn for business connections.

Why Search and Social Don’t Easily Mix

Combining search and social is not an easy task, even for Google. I believe the reason for this is that people are not always interested in what their friends and connections have searched for on the internet. I know that I spend a lot of time searching for information and products that help me stay informed about the SEO industry. I can only think of one of my friends that would have any interest in the topics I’ve been searching.

Just because I found something valuable on a particular topic through Google’s search engine does not mean that my friends will find that same information interesting or of value. Even if they find themselves searching for the same phrases they may not feel that the result I +1’d was the best result for them. What has always made Google great is that its search engine allows users to find information that is helpful to them quickly and easily. Combining social features with SERPs may only confuse the process.

If Google is serious about establishing a social network, my suggestion would be that they do not try and squeeze into the market by leveraging (or some may argue compromising) their search engine. After all, we don’t see Facebook trying to create a search engine that competes with Google. Instead they focus on improving their social product which makes the gap between them and their competitor’s even larger.

Google Continues Push For Social Relevance is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

An Added Benefit to Local SEO

Dan Hinckley — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:22:09 +0000

Many small businesses across the country begin their SEO campaigns with dreams of being able to quickly rank for their market’s key phrases. Unfortunately, ranking on the front page of Google for phrases like “Jobs” or “Pest Control” means that you’re often competing with major brands or franchises who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on marketing efforts, including SEO. Small businesses often look at this challenge and decide to compete for more local keywords such as “Dallas Jobs” or “Virginia Pest Control“.

Local vs. General

General Keywords are essentially the market keywords. Often one to two words about any particular topic or industry make up a general keyword. These keywords do not include specific location modifiers. An example would be the keyword “Pest Control”.

Local keywords are often the market keyword plus a location. For example, if I was hoping to rank in the search engines for Pest Control assistance in Washington DC, I’d focus my efforts on ranking for terms like “Pest Control DC”, “Pest Control Washington D.C”., and “Washington D.C. Pest Control”.

People are more likely to enter General Keywords into the search bar when looking for any particular service or idea.

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The numbers in the table above demonstrate the true value of ranking for a general keyword. However, for many small businesses, of the general searches are not very important to rank highly for. For example, if you’re providing Pest Control services in Washington DC, you are not interested in individuals in Miami Florida searching “Pest Control”. You’re only interested in people in the DC area that search for “Pest Control”. Thankfully, there is a way for these businesses to quickly receive the benefits of ranking for general keywords when it matters most, which is when they’re searched for by people in your area.

Combining Location and General Keywords

Google and many other search engines understand the exact situation described above and have provided us a solution. When a user searches a general term that has local relevance, Google will provide back results that include the best sites for that term, and they will include the best sites in the users local area mixed into the results.

Lets compare the two screen shots below.

Search: Pest Control

Search: Pest Control DC

The first screenshot shows the results of a general search of “Pest Control” by a user in the Washington DC area. The results include a number of Pest Control industry leaders websites, but as you move down through the results you’ll start to notice that they include location based results. The top 10 includes results of small businesses and local area competitors for the general search term. This means that a local mom and pop shop can rank for the general search term for even very competitive General Keywords, which could be a huge driver of new business.

If we look at the second screenshot you’ll see that many of those local listings included in the ‘general keyword search’ are top ranking in the local keyword search. This further proves our point, that if you have strong local SEO, you stand a good chance of showing up for the general keywords when a user in your local area searches the term.

Conclusion

You may ask what this all means? Essentially, if you’re able to rank highly for local searches for your target keywords like “Raleigh Pest Control“, you should expect to show up in the results of individuals in your area that search the general keyword “Pest Control”. For many industries, focusing efforts on Local SEO will allow you to compete for the general keywords when they matter most, which is when people close to your business are searching for your services.

An Added Benefit to Local SEO is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.