Las Vegas is a name with a lot of meaning. Especially lately.

I had too much fun in Vegas, in my early 20’s, so in recent years, the idea of Vegas makes me think of late nights and hangovers. And this very strange encounter with Andy Dick? Which… is a story for another time.

For many of us, that’s the spirit of Vegas. Drinks the size of fishbowls. Sometimes literally served in fishbowls. Dancing. Poker tables and the ringing of slot machines. The THUNDER DOWN UNDER.

And of course, in the couple of weeks – Las Vegas has taken on the burden of unspeakable tragedy. No city wants that, no matter their spirit or style.

But speaking to todays’s guest, I saw a different side of Las Vegas.

Vegas is a place of history too. It’s an enclave of performers, but it’s also a bustling culture in its own right, with subcultures of artists and dancers. Today’s guest, Victoria Jones, is an active member of the Vegas Community, and the Tap Dance community, and she works to keep these two cultures intertwined.

So, if you feel like you’ve only heard bad news out of Las Vegas lately. Heck if you feel like you’ve only heard bad news in general lately, I think this episode will perk you up. I always enjoy interviewing someone with strong passion for their work, and Victoria’s passion for tap dance, and for Las Vegas, shine a new light on some old tropes.

You’ll hear how the history of tap dance is deeply connected to the history of African American performers, and to Las Vegas performers. How tap developed throughout the 20th Century, and we’ll also hear from Victoria about her own journey, from a kid dancing in her kitchen to the coordinator of a festival that draws tap dancers from all over.

Welcome to the Zip.

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What do you want to do when you grow up? As I get older, I’m beginning to think this is a question that many of us never answer. As long as there’s a tomorrow, there’s an opportunity to do something new, whether it be a career move, a promotion, seeking new friendships, or getting involved locally. Sometimes I imagine this vague future moment, when I’m a “grownup” – and all those pieces are fit together perfectly, with just enough time for everything I care about.

One day, right?

So today I’m speaking with a guest who’s reached her “one day.” Maybe not all the way – I’m sure she’s got more that she wants to do, but Diana Ferner is well on her way. I found Diana through her work at the St Louis Professional Women’s Association. Diana works at Edward Jones – a national financial services firm who is a sponsor of the St Louis PWA, as well as thousands more local organizations across the US.

See.. we’ve been busy with data at ZipSprout lately. Specifically, we’ve been looking at patterns among sponsor thank-you pages – you know, those pages that list everyone who gave money? We used a tool to look at those pages in aggregate, to record the domains that were linked to from those pages, and to count those domains.

Edward Jones is number nine on that list.

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We talk a lot about local giving at ZipSprout. But we haven’t spent as much time talking about the brands who already “get it” – who are going local, at scale. These are brands whose mission includes local giving. They don’t have a Forbes List, or an annual award, but we’ve run into them again and again, as we work to build a local nonprofit database.

About a year ago, we listed the Top 50 Corporate Sponsors in North Carolina, in a relatively simple blog post. But this post continues to be one of our most-visited pages via organic traffic. People are looking for information on corporate sponsorship. So we decided to release the list at a national level.

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SEO, like any industry, has its mainstays. Like, if you’re going to write an article on SEO 101 in 2017, you’re probably going to tell your reader to ensure that their URLs are set up properly, to double check that they’re using H1s and H2s and giving titles to their pages. And you’re going to drive home the idea of unique content creation. You can’t rank if there’s nothing to rank for, right?

But not every industry has the flexibility to follow these rules. And today, we’re driving down the rabbit hole of one such industry – automotive. Car dealerships, specifically.

And I’m curious how you felt when I said car dealerships. Like, what was the gut reaction? I think for a lot of folks, in the US, anyways, car dealerships are on par with, maybe cable companies and the IRS maybe? in the list of people we look forward to interacting with. But like cable companies, and even the tax folks for that matter, the experience is a result of a pretty regulated, and complicated system that no unique employee, or even location manager, has much power to change. Car dealerships have to work within the system established by the manufacturers, and by government regulations, or else. There’s not a lot of room for creativity when you’re selling someone else’s highly regulated product.

So what’s an SEO to do? How can you get creative enough to be “different” without standing out so much that you’re probably going to piss someone off?

That’s where folks like Greg Gifford come in. Today’s guest may need no introduction if you’re a frequenter of SEO conferences. Greg is one of the most prominent speakers out there, and for good reason. He’s incredibly engaging – and we’ll touch on that a bit in this episode. But Greg’s focus, his engine, if you will, is focused on the automotive industry. With 9 years experience in SEO for car dealer websites, Greg comes to us with an inside look at optimizing websites within a highly standardized industry. When Mercedes doesn’t allow certain words, and Honda doesn’t allow certain information in their car descriptions, you have to find interesting ways to differentiate car dealers.

Greg and I will talk about his perspective on the auto industry, and how he and his team at DealerOn encourage their car dealer clients to build their online presence. We’ll also hear about Greg’s team’s current data project, which will give auto dealers even better insights into how Google sees, and ranks, websites in their industry.

And, just as a final note, I’d like to point to Google’s role in this episode for a second. Because, really, they’re the backdrop against which Greg’s advice is placed. Google had to look at the auto industry and say “okay, these folks are different from plumbers and doctors and, you know, bowling alleys. We’re going to have to treat search results in this area a bit differently. And that, in and of itself, is cool. Whether it’s the result of human programming or machine learning, the idea that information in different verticals is actually categorized differently based on the characteristics of that particular industry, I don’t know, maybe I’m being a total nerd right now, but I think that’s pretty cool.

So let’s jump in to my conversation with Greg.

Welcome to The Zip.

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Lexi Mills’ career started with breaking and entering. Well, sort of. There were also firemen involved.

I heard Lexi speak at the Inbounder Conference, she was a presenter along with Lindsay Wassell, whose episode is a few weeks back, and a handful of other brilliant marketers. And Lexi’s presentation stuck out to me in particular because I remember that it was right after lunch, it was that time of day that everyone is a little bit sleepy, and I realized that they put her in that timeslot on purpose. Because Lexi woke the room up, for sure. She spoke about Clickbait content, and instead of rolling her eyes, like a lot of us do, she got excited. She was like ‘yeah, click bait works, and I use it to make clients and customers care about the bigger topics.’

I was impressed, not only by her examples, but by Lexi’s ability to see the world as it is, and do great work from there.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear how Lexi grew from a flyer distributor in Brighton to a PR and SEO consultant for brands all over the world, working on local, national and international marketing campaigns. Lexi and I will talk about why local marketing is more than just content – how attitude, and even sense of humor can give a campaign a local bent. We’ll also learn how Lexi comes up with good campaign ideas from some of her clients’ biggest problems.

And we’ll also talk about teams – how Lexi ensures her own employees stay creative, and how she sometimes fixes clients’ problems by helping them see their team members true value.

Welcome to the Zip.

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