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choicesarehard · 3 years

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I keep my streams about Wolf Bride light-hearted. It’s been a hell of a year, and I think we all need a space where we can laugh together. But part of responsibly consuming problematic media is being aware of where it fails. And that’s why I think it’s important to talk about Morgan, and Wolf Bride’s troubling depiction of blindness.

Morgan is one of the first Love Interests in Choices to have a canon disability. She is representation many players with disabilities, like myself, are eager for. But like any form of representation, writing a blind character requires research. A quick google search will lead you to numerous visually impaired voices who outline the tropes and stereotypes that harm their community. Wolf Bride has included nearly all of them.

signal boosts are appreciated

Not All Blind People Wear Sunglasses

Morgan is shown wearing dark sunglasses from the moment she appears on screen. And there are certainly blind people who wear sunglasses — particularly those who (unlike Morgan) can still perceive some degree of light and dark, and experience painful light sensitivity. But no context is ever giving for Morgan’s use of sunglasses. In fact, they aren’t even addressed for four chapters.

[ID: Two screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box over a forest background, and reads “You glance at Morgan, and are surprised to see the dark glasses still covering her eyes.” The second features a labeled image of her sunglasses, placed over a black background, with a selectable button that reads “What does Morgan look like without these?”] What follows is a scene Pixelberry could have used to provide insight into an assistive device the sighted community may not be entirely familiar with. They could have touched on degrees of visual impairment, or why some blind individuals need dark lenses while others don’t. They could even have explained that for some individuals with visual impairments, dark lenses make tasks like reading or navigating dimly lit spaces harder. Instead, and far more troublingly, MC is given the option to ask Morgan not to wear them anymore. And depending on your choice, the book is coded to remove the sunglasses from her sprite in future scenes. This reduces an assistive device to a fashion choice, something our MC can wish away if they don’t find it attractive. And that isn’t okay.

Unusual Eyes

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a forest background that reads “With a start, you realize her pale eyes aren’t looking at you, aren’t seeing you, aren’t seeing anything.” The second features Morgan’s sad sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “...I’ve been blind since birth.”] Morgan has a customizable sprite. But regardless of the ethnicity you select for her, she is depicted with pale blue eyes. And that troubles me. Because the stereotype that all blind individuals have cloudy, distorted, or unusual eyes is pervasive and harmful.

Even when it isn’t tied to another harmful trope — the blind character as mystical seer or psychic — this stereotype create an expectation that blindness is something that always manifests in a visible way. And for millions of blind individuals, that isn’t the case.

And while cataracts, trauma to the eye, and corneal infections can all cause the clouded effect most of us recognize from media, none turn your brown eyes into blue. Heightened Senses

Another common stereotype in media is the blind character who’s remaining senses have become heightened as a compensatory mechanism, often to a supernatural degree.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features Morgan’s surprised sprite in a forest setting and a text box that reads “I guess I sort of...feel things. Like the place on my cheek where the branch blocked the wind.” The second features Morgan’s neutral sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “I can smell the dew on the leaves, and the moss on the bark. Can’t you?] Individuals with visual impairment may learn to rely on their other senses to navigate the world around them. But they do not suddenly gain the ability to sense the location of a branch based on wind patterns, or to accurately throw a dart at a carnival game ballon based on its smell.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a carnival background that reads “Pop! Pop! Pop! Three darts fly through the air, striking their targets.” The second features the white MC with straight blonde hair. Her sprite is surprised, and beneath it is a text box that reads “So you did that by smell, too?]

This trope may seem harmless — after all, it gave us Daredevil, a beloved blind superhero — but it contributes to the unachievable expectations we often place on real-world individuals with visually impairments. And that isn’t fair.

Of course, we all suspected Morgan’s abilities were due to something other than heightened senses. And that in and of itself is a problem.

Magical / Supernatural Abilities

To the surprise of no one, Morgan exhibits these unusual abilities because she is a werewolf. But choosing to give a blind character magical abilities should only be done after asking yourself some challenging questions. As visually-impaired Tumblr user @mimzy-writing-online explains:

Your blind characters don’t need a magical ability that negates their blindness. [Ask yourself why it’s so important to you to give them one]. If it’s because they can’t do all the things you want them to do without it, then should you really have written them as blind in the first place?

And that’s the thing. Morgan isn’t actually written as a blind character, not when it counts. Morgan shoots bullets with accuracy, runs through unfamiliar terrain, and navigates moving objects with ease. She doesn’t use common assistive devices like canes or screen readers. Her sunglasses are discarded at MC’s request. The scientific papers that fill her research facility are not digitized for accessibility or written in braille.

Even her dreams, which should be reflections of how she perceives reality, look identical to Bastien's — which makes no sense for someone who has been canonically blind since birth.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapters Five and Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a scene from Morgan’s lucid dream. Set in a glamorous hotel, it includes visual details like twinkling lights, and patterned carpets. The color is tinted a grey-blue and the exposure on the image has been increased to an unnatural level. The second features a scene from Bastien’s lucid dream. Set in a forest, it shares the same tinted and over-exposed qualities as the first.]

Her blindness isn’t an integral part of her character. Instead, it’s a narrative device, paraded in front of the reader when it can further a central — and deeply disturbing — plot point. [content warning: discussion of discrimination and child abuse / abandonment ahead] Morgan Was Left to Die Because She Was Blind

And Jesus, what a plot point it is. In Chapter 11, we learn that Morgan was left to die in the woods because she was born “wrong, sickly, blind.” But the only canonical disability or illness she is ever shown to have is her blindness.

[ID: Three side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first two feature the white MC with straight blonde hair’s shocked sprite in front of a forest background. The first text box reads “I don’t understand...” followed by two dialogue options “Why was Morgan abandoned?” and “Is that what you do to full moon babies? Kill them?” The second panel’s read box reads “Just because she was blind?” The third panel features the old woman Noemi’s sad sprite, placed over a forest background. Her text box reads “If we know an infant will not survive, it is best to let it die quickly.”]

I...am frankly having a hard time thinking through the screenshot-induced fury to make a coherent argument here. To imply that blindness is an impairment so limiting that death is the only foreseeable outcome? That being born blind somehow makes a child “wrong”? The ignorance and prejudice shown in this scene is staggering.

But equally troubling is the response of the main characters to this revelation. Yes, in fiction, bad people sometimes do bad things. But Noemi isn’t shown to be a bad person. Neither is Bastien, who knew what his pack had been guilty of in the past, and even seeks to justify it to a limited degree.

Most shockingly, Morgan herself, who in the second screenshot below has just overheard that she was left to die as an infant because she is blind, isn’t angry or upset. She’s almost apologetic, still seeking a place within the pack.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first features Hispanic Bastien’s sad sprite in front of a forest background. The text box beneath him reads “It doesn’t happen often, Clara, but...” The second features white Morgan’s sad sprite in front of the same forest background. The text box beneath her reads “I didn’t mean any harm. Especially after...what I just overheard.”]

By introducing the idea that a child born blind cannot survive, let alone thrive, without superhuman abilities, and then failing to soundly and thoroughly refute that idea through the characters we identify with, Pixelberry is unintentionally perpetuating the same false beliefs that have led to real-world instances of infanticide for centuries. And that isn’t okay.

I don’t know where Pixelberry will go with the story from here. Perhaps in today’s chapter some of these concerns have been addressed...but I doubt it. In the meantime, I’ve also written to their support staff to express my deep concern and disappointment in the treatment of Morgan’s character. And I’d encourage you to do the same.

Will I continue to keep streaming Wolf Bride? For now, yes. My VIP subscription is already paid for, and frankly, I want to see Morgan’s arc through. I guess the small part of me that was excited for the representation is still hopeful the narrative can be corrected.

But I’ll be adding a content warning at the start of each stream for ablism, and that’s something I never thought I’d have to do. Screenshots courtesy of CrimsonFeatherGames on Youtube

#playchoices #pixelberry #choices vip #wolf bride #choices wolf bride #cw: child abuse #cw: ableism #anti-wolf bride

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multiracialmedia-blog · 7 years

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Hers for the Taking: I Don't Have the Luxury of Ignoring Rachel Dolezal

Rachel “I’m Black, bishes,” Dolezal keeps popping up to remind us how ubiquitous racism and White Supremacy are in our lives. Even with more urgent issues commanding our attention, her bold claims of racial domination run like an open app in the background, forcing our attention and draining precious energy we’d rather invest elsewhere.

Her recent headline-snatching-shenanigans include giving herself an African name, claiming she was financially destitute about to be homeless, bragging that her first Black husband couldn’t deal with her being “too Black,” and clarifying that she is Black, not African American. Now her memoir, In Full Color: Finding My Place In A Black And White World, is out, and she has books to sell.

The responses to Rachel are interesting. Many Black folks express how they are weary and ready to dismiss her—if only the media weren’t addicted to her human click-bait. In an ironic turn, Huffington Post ran an apparently serious piece titled, “Can We Please Stop Giving Rachel Dolezal A Platform?” while doing exactly that.

Even as Blackfolks drag her on social media, the deep sigh of racial exhaustion seeps through the Tweets, the memes and the hashtags. Nobody has time for Rachel’s foolishness beyond an increasingly annoyed, “Girl, bye!” followed by teeth-sucking, eye rolls, SMHs, and constant calls to just ignore her hoping maybe she’ll go away.

On the flip side, I’ve also seen Black folks who say they’re curious and are reading her book to find out more about her backstory and motives. And I’ve seen a number of Black people—mostly men—expressing support or wondering why she’s an issue. Which makes me feel the bitter sting of the Tweet that said, “How do you know Rachel Dolezal’s not Black? So many Black men are supporting her.”

Ouch! But it certainly rings true.

As a Mixed person, I share the anger, the outrage and the weariness. But I don’t have the luxury of ignoring Rachel and all that she symbolizes. While she claims to be Black it’s physically obvious that she’d never in a million years be mistaken or able to “pass” for a Black person born of two Black parents. While she claims Blackness as her desired destination, it is Biracial and ethnically-ambiguous identity that she’s trying to use as her passport and visa into all things Black.

When first confronted about her identity, Rachel cited one Black parent, not two, and repeatedly claims to be Biracial. She’s open about keeping her skin tanned or bronzed, and her hair looking as Mixed-Black as possible. So wherever she hopes to end up, she’s on my turf now. Though she’s dated and married Black men, mothered a Biracial child and tried to adopt her Black brother; though she holds a degree from Historically Black Howard University and has made a living repping Black causes, teaching Black college courses and styling Black hair, Rachel Dolezal is pimping the tragic Mulatto because she knows it provides easy entrée into the racial funhouse that seems to be her life.

I can’t brush Rachel off the way I’d like to because she is mining the fluidity of Mixed-race Ancestry and harvesting the physical ambiguities that I live with every day. I can lean to one side or the other, play with folks’ perceptions and even toy with claiming an identity that isn’t repped anywhere in my DNA, if I want to play that game. The life I’ve lived has earned me those rights. What does it mean that a Rachel Dolezal can simply lay claim to the challenges, nuances and abstract notions of my existence without ever having to pay the price of being a Person of Color in a White Supremacist society? Without having to ACTUALLY navigate ambiguity? Or any of the countless ways that Blackness and Mixedness are interwoven too tightly to separate from each other?

I’m not interested in Rachel’s reasons or rationale for her claims to Blackness. And I’m definitely not here for her as the poster child for some insane “transracial” identity. Many accuse her of being mentally ill and/or delusional. But she’s no dummy; she’s in full possession of her mind, and she knows exactly what she’s doing. I can’t predict her end game, but nobody can stop her from making these claims or from gaining a platform to do so. She’s dangerous because she’s not just a household name and a punch line; she’s the most painful kind of reminder that Whitepeople created their notions and policies around race to maintain their power and supremacy at all costs.

As if any Person of Color needed that reminder. As if we have the option to forget, even for the briefest moment of our lives. Her claims would be problematic at any time, but they have additional impact right now, when REAL Mixed-race people have a hard time inserting our voices into the public conversations taking place about our presence, our identities and our cultural choices. While most of America feels entitled to police our identities, Rachel comes along to remind Mixed and Black people alike of the power she wields—power we can neither diffuse nor vanquish. She’s the biggest most abusive Identity Cop on the block.

Those who accuse Rachel of cultural appropriation have got it all wrong. Her offense is far greater: she is colonizing Black and Mixed identity to feed her need for dominance, reminding us—even as she bleats that “race is just a social construct”—that it is White people who created the concept of race in order to build and sustain a nation upon the foundation of racism in service of capitalism. The fact that she feels justified in laying claim to Blackness—and is consistently rewarded for doing so—is the real message we have to heed.

Mixed-race people in the USA know the endless stream of looks, attitudes, questions, challenges, and appropriations that come at us from all groups—those we share DNA with and others as well. We forge our identities against the constant pressure of everyone feeling that they have the right to TELL us what we are or aren’t, where we can or can’t go, how we either must or dare not identify, where we do or don’t belong. And Rachel adds bold, highlighted headlines to mock our experiences and mine them for her own benefit.

So Rachel plants her flag and lays claim to Biracial identity en route to her promised land of faux Blackness. And Biracial America regards her warily from the front lines of the endless battle to be respected for our perpetually complex truths, ambiguous exteriors and inconvenient choices.

I cannot ignore Rachel Dolezal because she would thoughtlessly destroy me to reach the destination that she has claimed as her rightful destiny. I cannot write her off because she is sloshing around in the world I inhabit, spewing her brand of supremacy and bulldozing the nuances we Mixed folks are given to build our lives on into the rubble of her disdain.

She is Miz Anne reincarnated for the 21st century whose sole purpose is to demonstrate that every aspect of our beings is fair game in her hunt to be special. She doesn’t want to be Black; she merely wants to rape and pillage and consume Blackness in her quest for the ultimate act of White dominance: reminding us that even her most bizarre claims are considered credible and attention-worthy.

I can’t look away because she so perfectly reflects everything about America. And America so perfectly reflects everything that is Rachel Dolezal: the entitlement, the presumption of superiority, the mining of every human Black and Black-ish crop on her plantation, upon which she so greedily feeds.

The irony is that, in contrast to her dogged claims to Blackness, and in spite of the indisputable fact that she looks Blacker than I do, Rachel Dolezal is the Whitest person alive, whipping us with her arrogance, chaining us with her privilege, and choking us with her contempt as she reminds us that every aspect of our lives and our beings are hers for the taking, reality be damned.

She is here to challenge my agency and mock my Ancestors. I know precisely the dangers and problems that Rachel represents. Which is why I simply don’t have the luxury of writing her off, averting my gaze from her grotesque masquerade, or ignoring the havoc she is only too happy to wreak upon my never-ending quest to be respected for my racial and cultural truths.

So I swallow my revulsion and recycle my weariness into steely resolve to keep her bizarre contortions in my line of vision at all times. I know she is wielding the weapons designed to destroy us, and I stand on the front lines to challenge and confront what she represents. Mixed-race identity might be the bridge she wants to use to cross over, but my back won’t be lowered or bowed to assist her journey in any way.

Hers for the Taking: I Don’t Have the Luxury of Ignoring Rachel Dolezal if you want to check out other voices of the Multiracial Community click here Multiracial Media

#In Full Color #Rachel Dolezal #TaRessa Stovall

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luongthuyvy · 4 years

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2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google

Posted by MiriamEllis

Image credit: Migaspinto

If you own or market a business location that makes a real-world community more serviceable, diverse, and strong, I’m on your side.

I love interesting towns and cities, with a wide array of useful goods and services. Nothing in my career satisfies me more than advising any brand that’s determined to improve life quality in some spot on the map. It does my heart good to see it, but here’s my completely unsentimental take on the challenges you face:

The Internet, and Google’s local platforms in particular, are a complete mess.

Google is the biggest house on the local block; you can’t ignore it. Yet, the entries into the platform are poorly lit, the open-source concept is cluttered with spam, and growing litigation makes one wonder if there are bats in the belfry.

Google comprises both risk and tremendous opportunity for local businesses and their marketers. Succeeding in 2020 means becoming a clear-eyed surveyor of any structural issues as well as seeing the "good bones" potential, so that you can flip dilapidation into dollars. And something beyond dollar, too: civic satisfaction.

Grab your tools and get your teammates and clients together to build local success in the new year by sharing my 3-level plan and 4-quarter strategy.

Level 1: Feed Google

Image credit: Mcapdevila

Information about your business is going to exist on the Internet whether you put it there or not.

Google’s house may be structurally unsound, but it’s also huge, with a 90% search engine market share globally and over 2 trillion searches per year, 46% of which are for something local.

Residents, new neighbors, and travelers seeking what you offer will almost certainly find something about your company online, whether it’s a stray mention on social media, an unclaimed local business listing generated by a platform or the public, or a full set of website pages and claimed listings you’ve actively published.

Right now, running the most successful local business possible means acquiring the largest share you can of those estimated 1 trillion annual local searches. How do you do this?

By feeding Google:

Website content about your business location, products, services, and attributes

Corroborating info about your company on other websites

Local business listing content

Image content

Video content

Social media content

Remember, without your content and the content of others, Google does not exist. Local business owners can often feel uncomfortably dependent on Google, but it’s really Google who is dependent on them.

Whether the business you’re marketing is small or large, declare 2020 the year you go to the drafting board to render a clear blueprint for a content architecture that spans your entire neighborhood of the Internet, including your website and relevant third-party sites, platforms, and apps. Your plans might look something like this:

I recommend organizing your plan like this, making use of the links I’m including:

Begin with a rock-solid foundation of business information on your website. Tell customers everything they could want to know to choose and transact with your business. Cover every location, service, product, and desirable attribute of your company. There’s no chance you won’t have enough to write about when you take into account everything your customers ask you on a daily basis + everything you believe makes your company the best choice in the local market. Be sure the site loads fast, is mobile-friendly, and as technically error-free as possible.

Create a fully complete, accurate, guideline-abiding Google My Business listing for each location of your business.

Build out your listings (aka structured citations) on the major platforms. Automate the work of both developing and monitoring them for sentiment and change via a product like Moz Local.

Monitor and respond to all reviews as quickly as possible on all platforms. These equal your online reputation and are, perhaps, the most important content about your business on the Internet. Know that reviews are a two-way conversation and learn to inspire customers to edit negative reviews. Moz Local automates review monitoring and facilitates easy responses. If you need help earning reviews, check out Alpine Software Group’s two good products: GatherUp and Grade.Us.

Audit your competition. In competitive markets, come check out our beta of Local Market Analytics for a multi-sampled understanding of who your competitors actually are for each location of your business, depending on searcher locale.

Once you’ve found your competitors, audit them to understand the:

quality, authority and rate of ongoing publication you need to surpass

strength and number of linked unstructured citations you need to build

number and quality of Google posts, videos, products, and other content you need to publish

social engagement you need to create.

As to the substance of your content, focus directly on your customers’ needs. Local Market Analytics is breaking ground in delivering actual local keyword volumes, and the end point of all of your research, whether via keyword tools, consumer surveys, or years of business experience, should be content that acts as customer service, turning seekers into shoppers.

Use any leftover time to sketch in the finer details. For example, I’m less excited about schema for 2020 than I was in 2019 because of Google removing some of the benefits of review schema. Local business schema is still a good idea, though, if you have time for it. Meanwhile, pursuing relevant featured snippets could certainly be smart in the new year. I’d go strong on video this year, particularly YouTube, if there’s applicability and demand in your market.

The customer is the focus of everything you publish. Google is simply the conduit. Your content efforts may need to be modest or major to win the greatest possible share of the searches that matter to you. It depends entirely on the level of competition in your markets. Find that level, know your customers, and commit to feeding Google a steady, balanced diet of what they say they want so that it can be conveyed to the people you want to serve.

Level 2: Fight Google

Image credit: Scott Lewis

Let’s keep it real: ethical local companies which pride themselves on playing fair have good reason to be dubious about doing business with Google. Once you’ve put in the effort to feed Google all the right info to begin competing for rankings, you may well find yourself having to do online battle on an ongoing basis.

There are two fronts on which many people end up grappling with Google:

Problematic aspects within products

Litigation and protests against the brand.

Let’s break these down to prepare you:

Product issues

Google has taken on the scale of a public utility — one that’s replaced most of North America’s former reliance on telephone directories and directory assistance numbers.

Google has 5 main local interfaces: local packs, local finders, desktop maps, mobile maps and the Google Maps app. It’s been the company’s decision to allow these utilities to become polluted with misinformation in the form of listing and review spam, and irrelevant or harmful user-generated content. Google does remove spam, but not at the scale of the issue, which is so large that global networks of spammers are have sprung up to profit from the lack of quality control and failure to enforce product guidelines.

When you are marketing a local business, there’s a strong chance you will face one or more of the following issues while attempting to compete in Google’s local products:

Being outranked by businesses violating Google’s own guidelines with practices such as keyword-stuffed business titles and creating listings to represent non-existent locations or lead-gen companies. (Example)

Being the target of listing hijacking in which another company overtakes some aspect of your listing to populate it with their own details. (Example)

Being the target of a reputation attack by competitors or members of the public posting fake negative reviews of your business. (Example)

Being the target of negative images uploaded to your listing by competitors or the public. (Example)

Having Google display third-party lead-gen information on your listings, driving business away from you to others. (Example)

Having Google randomly experiment with local features with direct negative impacts on you, such as booking functions that reserve tables for your patrons without informing your business. (Example)

Being unable to access adequately trained Google staff or achieve timely resolution when things go wrong (Example)

These issues have real-world impacts. I’ve seen them misdirect and scam countless consumers including those having medical and mental health emergency needs, kill profits during holiday shopping seasons for companies, cause owners so much loss that they’ve had to lay off staff, and even drive small brands out of business.

Honest local business owners don’t operate this way. They don’t make money off of fooling the public, or maliciously attack neighboring shops, or give the cold shoulder to people in trouble. Only Google’s underregulated monopoly status has allowed them to stay in business while conducting their affairs this way.

Outlook issues

Brilliant people work for Google and some of their innovations are truly visionary. But the Google brand, as a whole, can be troubling to anyone firmly tied to the idea of ethical business practices. I would best describe the future of Google, in its present underregulated state of monopoly, as uncertain.

In their very short history, Google has been:

The subject of thousands of lawsuits by global entities, countries, companies, and individuals

Hit with billions of dollars in fines.

A cause of employee protest over a very long list of employer projects and practices.

I can’t predict where all this is headed. What I do know is that nearly every local business I’ve ever consulted with has been overwhelmingly reliant on Google for profits. Whether you personally favor strong regulation or not, I recommend that every local business owner and marketer keep apprised of the increasing calls by governing bodies, organizations, and even the company’s own staff to break Google up, tax it, end contracts on the basis of human rights, and prosecute it over privacy, antitrust, and a host of other concerns.

Pick your battles

With Google so deeply embedded in your company’s online visibility, traffic, reputation and transactions, concerns with the brand and products don’t exist in some far-off place; they are right on your own doorstep. Here’s how to fight well:

1. Fight the spam

To face off with Google’s local spam, earn/defend the rankings your business needs, and help clean polluted SERPs up for the communities you serve, here are my best links for you:

Simple Spam Fighting: The Easiest Local Rankings You’ll Ever Earn

GMB Spam Fighting 101 – Get The Basics Down, Then Take Out The Trash

[2019] The Ultimate Guide to Fighting Spam on Google Maps

Fighting Review Spam: The Complete Guide for the Local Enterprise

Follow Mike Blumenthal and Joy Hawkins for frequent reporting on local spam, and keep tuning into the Moz blog.

2. Stay informed

If you’re ready to move beyond your local premises to the larger, ongoing ethical debate surrounding Google, here are my best links for you:

ClassAction.org publishes ongoing articles regarding class action litigation against Google.

@EthicalGooglers on Twitter charts employee/employer conflicts specifically at Google.

The Tech Workers Coalition is a labor organization dedicated to organizing in the tech industry, at large.

If you belong to a local business association like the Buy Local movement, consider starting a discussion about how you community can become more active in shaping policy and reach out to groups like the American Independent Business Alliance for resources.

Whether your degree of engagement goes no further than local business listings or extends to your community, state, nation, or the world, I recommend increased awareness of the whole picture of Google in 2020. Education is power.

Level 3: Flip Google

Image credit: Province of British Columbia

You’ve fed Google. You’ve fought Google. Now, I want you to flip this whole scenario to your advantage.

My 2020 local SEO blueprint has you working hard for every customer you win from the Internet. So far, the ball has been almost entirely in Google’s court, but when all of this effort culminates in a face-to-face meeting with another human being, we are finally at your party under your roof, where you have all the control. This is where you turn Internet-driven customers into in-store keepers.

I encourage you to make 2020 the year you draft a strategy for making a larger portion of your sales as Google-independent as possible, flipping their risky edifice into su casa, built of sturdy bricks like community, pride, service, and loyalty.

How can you do this? Here’s a four-quarter plan you can customize to fit your exact business scenario:

Q1: Listen & learn

Image credit: Chris Kiernan, Small Business Saturday

The foundation of all business success is giving the customer exactly what they want. Hoping and guessing are no substitute for a survey of your actual customers.

If you already have an email database, great. If not, you could start collecting one in Q1 and run your survey at the end of the quarter when you have enough addresses. Alternatively, you could ask each customer if they would kindly take a very short printed survey while you ring up their purchase.

Imagine you’re marketing an independent bookstore. Such a survey might look like this, whittled down to just the data points you most want to gather from customers to make business decisions:

Have pens ready and a drop box for each customer to deposit their card. Make it as convenient and anonymous as possible, for the customer’s comfort.

In this survey and listening phase of the new year, I also recommend that you:

Spend more time as the business owner speaking directly to your customers, really listening to their needs and complaints and then logging them in a spreadsheet. Speak with determination to discover how your business could help each customer more.

Have all phone staff log the questions/requests/complaints they receive.

Have all floor/field staff log the questions/requests/complaints they receive.

Audit your entire online review corpus to identify dominant sentiment, both positive and negative

If the business you’re marketing is large and competitive, now is the time to go in for a full-fledged consumer analysis project with mobile surveys, customer personae, etc.

End of Q1 Goal: Know exactly what customers want so that they’ll come to us for repeat business without any reliance on Google.

Q2: Implement your ready welcome

Image credit: Small Business Week in BC

In this quarter, you’ll implement as many of the requests you’ve gleaned from Q1 as feasible. You’ll have put solutions in place to rectify any complaint themes, and will have upped your game wherever customers have called for it.

In addition to the fine details of your business, large or small, life as a local SEO has taught me that these six elements are basic requirements for local business longevity:

A crystal-clear USP

Consumer-centric policies

Adequate, well-trained, personable staff

An in-demand inventory of products/services

Accessibility for complaint resolution

Cleanliness/orderliness of premises/services

The lack of any of these six essentials results in negative experiences that can either cause the business to shed silent customers in person or erode online reputation to the point that the brand begins to fail.

With the bare minimums of customers’ requirements met, Q2 is where we get to the fun part. This is where you take your basic USP and add your special flourish to it that makes your brand unique, memorable, and desirable within the community you serve.

A short tale of two yarn shops in my neck of the woods: At shop A, the premises are dark and dusty. Customer projects are on display, but aren’t very inspiring. Staff sits at a table knitting, and doesn’t get up when customers enter. At shop B, the lighting and organization are inviting, displayed projects are mouthwatering, and though the staff here also sits at a table knitting, they leap up to meet, guide, and serve. Guess which shop now knows me by name? Guess which shop has staff so friendly that they have lent me their own knitting needles for a tough project? Guess which shop I gave a five-star review to? Guess where I’ve spent more money than I really should?

This quarter, seek vision for what going above-and-beyond would look like to your customers. What would bring them in again and again for years to come? Keep it in mind that computers are machines, but you and your staff are people serving people. Harness human connection.

End of Q2 Goal: Have implemented customers’ basic requests and gone beyond them to provide delightful human experiences Google cannot replicate.

Q3: Participate, educate, appreciate

Now you know your customers, are meeting their specified needs, and doing your best to become one of their favorite businesses. It’s time to walk out your front door into the greater community to see where you can make common cause with a neighborhood, town, or city, as a whole.

2020 is the year you become a joiner. Analyze all of the following sources at a local level:

Print and TV news

School newsletters and papers

Place of worship newsletters and bulletins

Local business organization newsletters

Any form of publication surrounding charity, non-profits, activism, and government

Create a list of the things your community worries about, cares about, and aspires to. For example, a city near me became deeply involved in a battle over putting an industrial plant in a wetland. Another town is fundraising for a no-kill animal shelter and a walk for Alzheimer’s. Another is hosting interfaith dinners between Christians and Muslims.

Pick the efforts that feel best to you and show up, donate, host, speak, sponsor, and support in any way you can. Build real relationships so that the customers coming through your door aren’t just the ones you sell to, but the ones you’ve manned a booth with on the 4th of July, attended a workshop with, or cheered with at their children’s soccer match. This is how community is made.

Once you’re participating in community life, it’s time to educate your customers about how supporting your business makes life better in the place they live (get a bunch of good stats on this here). Take the very best things that you do and promote awareness of them face-to-face with every person you transact with.

For my fictitious bookseller client, just 10 minutes spent on Canva (you have to try Canva!) helped me whip together this free flyer I could give to every customer, highlighting stats about how supporting independent businesses improve communities:

If you’re marketing a larger enterprise, a flyer like this could focus on green practices you’re implementing at scale, philanthropic endeavors, and positive community involvement.

Finally, with the holiday season fast approaching in the coming quarter, this is the time to let customers know how much you appreciate their business. Recently, I wrote about businesses turning kindness into a form of local currency. Brands are out there delivering surprise flowers and birthday cakes to customers, picking them up when they’re stranded on roadsides, washing town signage, and replacing “you will be towed” plaques with ones that read “you’re welcome to park here.” Loyalty programs, coupons, discounts, sales, free events, parties, freebies, and fun are all at your disposal to say “Thank you, please come again!” to your customers.

End of Q3 Goal: Have integrated more deeply into community life, motivated customers to choose our business for aspirational reasons beyond sales, and have offered memorable acts of gratitude for their business, completely independent of Google.

Q4: Share customers and sell

Every year, local consumer surveys indicate that 80–90% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family. But I’ve yet to see a survey poll how much people trust recommendations they receive from trustworthy business owners.

You spent all of Q3 becoming a true ally to your community, getting personally involved in the struggles and dreams of the people you serve. At this point, if you’ve done a good job, the people who make up your brand have come closer to deserving the word “friend” from customers. As we move into Q4, it’s time to deepen alliances — this time with related local businesses.

In the classic movie Miracle on 34th Street, the owners of Macy’s and Gimbel’s begin sending shoppers to one another when either business lacks what the customer wants. They even create catalogues of their competitors’ inventory to assist with these referrals. In Q3, I’m hoping you joined a local business alliance that’s begun to acquaint you with other brands that feature goods/service that relate to yours so that you can begin dedicated outreach.

Q4, with Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, is traditionally the quarter in which local businesses expect to get out of the red, but how many more wedding cakes would you sell if all the caterers in town were referring to you, how many more tires would you vend if the muffler shops sent all their customers your way, how many more therapeutic massages might you book if every holistic medical center in your city confidently gave out your name?

Formalize B2B customer referrals in this quarter in seven easy steps:

Create a spreadsheet headed with your contact information and an itemized list of the main goods, services, and brands you sell. Include specialties of your business. Create additional rows to be filled out with the information of other businesses.

Create a list of every local business that could tie in with yours in any way for a customer’s needs.

Invite the owners or qualified reps of each business on your list to a meeting at a neutral location, like a community center or restaurant.

Bring your spreadsheet to the meeting.

Discuss with your guests how a commitment to sharing customers will benefit all of you

If others commit, have them fill out their column of the spreadsheet. Share print and digital copies with all participants.

Whenever a customer asks for something you don’t offer, refer to the spreadsheet to make a recommendation. Encourage your colleagues to do likewise, and to train staff to use the spreadsheet to increase customer sharing and satisfaction.

Make a copy of my free Local Business Allies spreadsheet!

Q4 Goal: Make this the best final quarter yet by sharing customers with local business allies, decreasing dependence on Google for referrals.

Embrace truth and dare to draw the line

Image credit: TCDavis

House flipping is a runaway phenomenon in the US that has remodeled communities and sparked dozens of hit TV shows. Unfortunately, there’s a downside to the activity, as it can create negative gentrification, making life less good for residents.

You need have no fear of this when you flip Google, because turning their house into yours actually strengthens your real-world neighborhood, town, or city. It gives the residents who already live there more stable resources, more positive human contact, and a more closely knit community.

Truth: Google will remain dominant in the discovery-related phases of your consumers’ journeys for the foreseeable future. For new neighbors and travelers, Google will remain a valuable source of your business being found in the first place. Even if governing bodies break the company up at some point, the truth is that most local businesses need to utilize Google a search utility for discovery.

Dare: Draw a line on the pavement outside your front door this year, with transactional experiences on your side of the line. Google wants to own the transaction phase of your customers’ journey. Bookings, lead gen, local ads, and related features show where they are headed with this. If Google could, I’m sure they’d be glad to take a cut of every sale you make, and you’ll likely have to participate in their transactional aspirations to some degree. But...

In 2020, dare yourself to turn every customer you serve into a keeper, cutting out Google as the middleman wherever you can and building a truly local, regenerative base of loyalty, referrals, and community.

Wishing you a local 2020 of daring vision and self-made success!

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2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google Theo dõi các thông tin khác tại: https://foogleseo.blogspot.com 2020 Local SEO Success: How to Feed, Fight, and Flip Google posted first on https://foogleseo.blogspot.com/ #FoogleSEO #luongthuyvy Nguồn: http://bit.ly/2QOVswR #luongthuyvy

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chauhuongtran · 4 years