Google Local Online Marketing is an ongoing process. "You can't set it and forget it," explained Web Analytics Specialist Jill Nortman. "You need to be involved because the local online industry is constantly changing. Recently, social media sites are being indexed. Having a presence there is very important." Jen Miller, manager of www.Delta.com says a big breakthrough for her was realizing that online content and local marketing are actually one in the same. So when hospitality industry professionals are developing their Google Local Online Marketing campaigns because it makes sense that the more branded material that's out there, the better off a business will be.

Secondly, the panel acknowledged that being #1 in Google Local Online Marketing isn't always possible, nor is it everything in Google ads. "Being in the cruise space today, the #1 term you would want to rank for is the term 'cruise,'" Willie Fernandez, Director of Marketing at World Travel Holidays said. "However, from month to month, being #1 not only was causing them to reach their budget quickly but the word wasn't converting well. They decided to scale back and found terms that should have been #1 but weren't. They saw that their budgets were not being stretched out as much and they were finding those other words convert better."

Jen Miller from Delta adds that Google Local Online Marketing is competitive for one word phrases, but using two or three word combinations that convert or prompt click-throughs is a better Google Local Marketing strategy. Willie Fernandez adds that phrases like "Christmas cruises from New York" or "Carnival Cruises from Miami" have proved to be very successful. This is where web analytics and local online research comes in, the experts agree.

"For us, we want to have as many listings as possible on the results page," explains Jennifer Doss, an eCommerce Marketing Manager for Hat World and Lids. "About 54% of our search revenue comes from our organic listings and 46% comes from paid. Visibility in both increases our brand awareness." She adds that manipulating the landing page for higher-converting pages is crucial. A Google Local Online Marketing company can often set up a few test pages to see which factors convert traffic into sales. Michelle Stern, Client Services Director of iProspect, adds that her research demonstrated that 70% of web users will click on organic listings and 30% click on paid listings, so a good Google Local Online Marketing campaign really needs to harness both.

Hiring a copywriter through a Google Local Online Marketing company is a good idea. Industry leaders want to find someone who can get the keywords into the copy without sounding contrived. They want someone who can write a compelling piece that appeals to consumers' emotions, rather than pummels them with sales copy. Willie Fernandez said that bounce rates dropped and conversion increased 45% when they focused on user-centric terms and featured cruise reviews.

Google Local Online Marketing is all about content, first and foremost, but it's also about content distribution as well. "We need to get our content distributed," said Jen from Delta. "We launched a blog, and we use press releases and videos (YouTube channels). How do we optimize these areas? This is obviously important." Jill Nortman adds that you'll need to tag videos with keywords, include keywords in titles and take advantage of every opportunity possible. Integrating Google Local Online Marketing campaigns and offline campaigns can also work to drive traffic to the web as well, the experts agree.