Sierra Web Marketing Blog

Basic Small Business Website Tips

2009-02-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

Measuring success is easier than you think.

The Secret Is Out; As Many As You Can Find

2009-01-24T19:01:00.000-08:00

Building web references.
I do this already but now the crowd has caught up!

Nice article.

New Post, Yes I have Been Negligent Here

2008-10-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

Relying On Print Yellow Pages? Most Local Customers Turn To The Web!

This post by Greg Sterling tells the entire story.

SEO, SEM, SMO & Baseball?

2008-06-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

Marketing Pilgrim Andy Beal offers a smart baseball analogy to the SEM game.

Local, Targeted Ads, Are You Ready?

2008-04-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

DID YOU KNOW?

The Kelsey Group forecasts that $5 billion of locally targeted, small-business advertising will move online by 2009--

Is your business being left behind?

Search Engine Land points us to a recent study on Yellow Pages usage statistics.

When Someone Bids Your Business Name

2008-04-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Someone bidding on your name or trademark? SEOptimise covers the issue in this article as it pertains to major brands in the UK.

The subject is timely as it pertains to my local clients and what I see occurring in the local space in general.

Talk to any small business owner and watch their reaction when they see or hear a competitor is bidding on their name or business. Someone like Sony or Apple can send a legal team to Google's door to fight back retailers from bidding on their products. A local plumber, roofer or glass repair business doesn't have the resources or know where to start.

Google offers this page for a general discussion on trademark abuse. Basically the business owner is urged to take direct action on the infringing party.

"...the advertisers themselves are responsible for the keywords and ad content that they choose to use. Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites."

So they advise the offended to talk to the offender. This is a touchy area. If your competitor has the brass to advertise using your personal or business name, effectively stealing your business, you are not in the greatest mood when you pick up the phone.

Who needs this headache?

What happens if the offending party tells the offended to blow off?

One tact is to have an attorney draw up cease and desist letter. The advertiser may simply cite Google's own Terms of Service and say too bad.

Another angle is to fight fire with fire and bid on the offenders business name, key services or products.

Yet another is to hire an online marketing specialist to deal with the issue.

A simple test to determine if a competitor is bidding on your personal or business name is to search Google for all of your identifiers. If you see your competitor's bidding on your name or business service don't panic. In some cases the business may not even know they are doing it.

In my experience it's an even split between business owners and unscrupulous marketers taking advantage of the lack of a competitors understanding of the process. So put your shotgun away and call in the virtual gun.

The link is above.

Consultation is always free.

.

Microsoft's Open Live Small Business

2008-02-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Open Live Small Business site offers you "Everything You Need To Grow Your Business Online".

*Create your own professional Web site—for FREE

Microsoft Office Live Small Business makes it easy to create a professional-looking Web site for your business. Sign up and you’ll have everything you need to get started – including free Web hosting, a custom domain name, e-mail accounts, e-commerce, and more.

*Attract Customers

Reach new customers and stay connected to existing ones

Microsoft Office Live Small Business has easy-to-use, affordable online marketing products to help get your business noticed. No long-term commitments or costly up-front fees mean you’ve got nothing to lose but potential sales opportunities.

*Manage Your Business

Stay on top of your business with simple online tools

Managing and tracking information isn’t easy when you’re busy running your business. But powerful online applications can help you organize and access sales opportunities, contacts, project schedules, documents, and more. So whether you’re in the office or on the road you can stay on top of your business."

Visa is a site sponsor/partner in a promotion called Business Break Though, Presented by Visa where businesses can sign up for a shot at 10k worth of consulting. Talk about paying for a lead.

Visitors will find slick, well produced videos offering small to medium businesses previews of their services. The videos show consultants visiting businesses that either lacked a web presence, marketing plan or sufficient technology infrastructure.

Microsoft partner consultants of course can sell you solutions to get your business on course.

Slick, very slick.

Read the New York Times take.

.

Small Business Marketing & HP

2008-02-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

I was reading Mashable this morning and noticed a sponsored add by HP pushing small business marketing. Clicked over and landed on Small Business Trends, an SMB marketing blog operated by Anita Campbell.

The site is a success judging by the amount of readers (137k) and all the comments or suggestions posted on the tips page by celebrated personalities in the online marketing realm.

The tips page sponsorship by HP is smart, marketing on a marketers site. They expose readers to HP computers, office supplies, copies etc.

I'm not a fan of full site or even dedicated special event page sponsorship. I understand the idea from HP's point of view however when a site is 'owned' by a particular brand objectivity is automatically questioned.

If this site was fully sponsored by someone like Idearc's Superpages I would not be able to point my clients to advantages offered by competitors.

Once I take a dedicated sponsorship I become a blogger for them, not an objective agent for my clients.

On the other hand life would be simpler.

Biggest Growth in Online Advertising Will Be Local

2008-01-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

Jupiter Research reports found local display and search advertising have found life on the Internet and are leading among all online advertising categories for significant growth;

" According to the US Online Local Advertising Forecast, 2007 – 2012, released by JupiterResearch, local advertising will increase by 13 percent from 2007 to 2012, faster than online advertising as a whole, of which a 12 percent growth rate is anticipated during the same period. But it will be local display and search advertising that are poised to make the biggest impact."

"At this point, most local advertisers are not marketers and do not have the time or resources to manage, let alone optimize, online advertising campaigns," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "Although search is increasing its impact on the local market, it still demands a degree of sophistication unavailable to most local advertisers."

Our unofficial research tells us that at least in our local geographic area businesses are unaware of online advertising options.

The venue is not part of the "common culture" among small business yet.

Many are being introduced to the concept by the same people that put them in the Yellow Pages for $1,000 to $4,000 per month and are now trying to sap them similarly online.

Wikia Search

2008-01-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

Jim Wales and his Wikia crew released Wikia Search (alpha) early this morning. No surprise some pundits downgraded the search site immediately. Hard to say what they expected.

The search pages will take some time to form but the social element is inviting. Wikia Search is a social search site where search and the social elements are intertwined. Facebook and MySpace are social networking sites that have little or nothing to do with search.

The interesting aspect of the Wikia Search is people on the network determine what search results are pertinent.

It's an open palette where the participants have a say in the site. Everyone is an editor, not just a profile.

The implications for local will sort out over time. Like Facebook, every business owner should be able to have a personal profile filled out. If you own a pet supply store in Dallas or a used book store in Bakersfield you can place your local footprint on the search results pages. Once there befriend everyone with your local profile keywords, work the network.

If Wikia Search finds widespread acceptance, early adopters will be rewarded for getting involved in from the start.

Here is a quote from Jimmy Wales,

The idea is to have a community controlling all the editorial functions
of search, the functions that are normally done behind closed doors.
There will be many things that users can do, publicly, to rate urls,
guide the spider, blacklist, whitelist, etc.

These things all rely upon having some notion of "trust". In a wiki,
the activity of users is more intimate and conversational, and trust
emerges through dialog and debate. In this context, clicking to rate a
url, there is much less need for dialog and debate, and so it seems
unlikely to me that solely through that process users could come to know
each other well enough to really judge who is doing good (or bad).

The social graph provides a more explicit look at that. Plus, it's fun. :)

--Jimbo

WeBuildPages Tools Go Behind Pay Wall

2008-01-02T15:17:00.001-08:00

Can't say I blame Jim Boykin for doing it but just the same what I admired about his business was his decision to share openly such cool tools.

Here is what he had to say about the decision to take down the cool tools;

"I was able to get Aaron Wall, Andy Beal, Bill Slawski, Jim Gilbert, Cameron Olthuis, Neil Patel, Shoemoney, Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Lee Odeen, and Stuntdubl, and myself, to create training videos for this program. I’ve also decided that most of the We Build Pages Tools should no longer be public, but should be included in the internet marketing ninja program as a free add-on to the program. I also put in a bunch of our private SEO tools into the program as well.

The price is $2995/year. To me, the video training is well worth that investment, as well as the tools are well worth the investment, so together I think it’s a pretty good deal. Yea, many won’t be able to afford the cost, but that will keep the program a bit exclusive."

The Online Marketing List

2008-01-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

Much marketing wisdom within.

Google Knol; Opportunity For Local?

2007-12-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Knol, (short for unit of knowledge) will invite authors on any topic to provide content to Google.

According to Google expect the following;

"Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

Once testing is completed, participation in knols will be completely open, and we cannot expect that all of them will be of high quality. Our job in Search Quality will be to rank the knols appropriately when they appear in Google search results. We are quite experienced with ranking web pages, and we feel confident that we will be up to the challenge."

I'm interested on the local take.

Is there opportunity for local business within Knol? On first view plenty. Do you know your local real estate market? Post it up, link to your real estate site and invite comment.
Local commercial painters or wedding photographers can take to pen and start talking.

Arborists can write about care of regional trees and trimming requirements. Caterers, whip out the calender and start writing.

If we know anything about Google we know they love scale and this means opportunity will present itself at the neighborhood level.

This is a great move by Google and proves again why they are the leaders in search and online marketing.

Google Enlisting College Students To Sell AdWords

2007-12-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

Google today announced an innovative local marketing challenge designed to spread the word about AdWords to local business.

Student groups will receive US$200 of free online advertising and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns. They will outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess their results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing.

It’s a great chance for students to gain practical, real world online marketing experience whilst getting all the excitement of competing with other students from all over the world.

What a great idea. This is a win win for all parties. Local businesses that sign on will see what they have been missing in the digital marketing space and students will learn how to craft marketing campaigns for small business.

Yale University Keyword Modeling Study

2007-12-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

Oliver J. Ruiz, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Yale School of Management authored this keyword modeling study. Professor Ruiz uses and hotel chain for his study.

It's long and detailed but worth the read if you are into the subject. My initial takeaway is confirmation of what I have found in managing keyword or PPC based campaigns. When dealing with multiple keywords for a service or product there can be no precise measurement of effectiveness per keyword or keyphrase.

This is where many clients get confused about pay per click. It's easy for the small business operator to understand the need to advertise on a TV or radio advertising spot or even a print yellow pages ad because it's traditional. While ROI is not easily quantified it's tried and true, safe though expensive.

Web based advertising is still new and is being sold to them primarily by the same guys that used to sell them old media spots.
If a small businessperson were to read the Yale modeling study above they might come away with skepticism and that would be a shame. For the small to medium business it's the surest way to get above the fold.

Local Online Ads To Double In 2008

2007-12-08T06:01:00.000-08:00

Search Engine Land quotes a Borrell Associates study of local online ad sales projections for the upcoming year.

"Local search is expected to grow from roughly $2.5 billion currently to $5 billion in 2008. Borrell expects local video to roughly triple from just over $400 million today to $1.27 million next year".

Other highlights from the Borrell Report;

The three largest categories are Autos, Jobs and Real Estate.
Dramatic rise in video for local business.
Average local business spend was $299 "per location" in 2007. (Range, $18,000 high end to about $100 low end).
Independent online ad specialists will be in high demand.

Reviews, Your Key To Clickthroughs

2007-12-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

Greg Sterling posts documentation on the importance of reviews at Screenwerks.
It's an education process getting small business to catch on to the importance of reviews.

Send us a note, give us a call, we have solutions.

No Bubble At Sierra Web Marketing

2007-12-04T08:14:00.000-08:00

When is my 7 figure buyout offer coming?

Hulu Is Fantastic

2007-11-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

I got into the beta for Hulu.com.

I'll say it right now, TV is about over. I see the future and Hulu is a preview of how we will watch TV. Real time TV was dead for me when I got Tivo but Hulu is almost the final shot to the heart. I'll still need live TV for football and live news events but it's really a matter of time before that is streamed as well.

Yeah I know I wrote a similar thought when I looked at the Joose earlier this year. I never followed through with Joose, for all I know it is still stuck in beta. I thought the idea was innovative but the interface was stodgy and the content was very limited.

Hulu contains content from Fox, NBC and others, both old stuff and new. For instance I was cruising the Hulu library and found the pilot episode of St. Elsewhere. I liked that show but never caught episode 1.

The Hulu player delivers a clean image with an intuitive control panel. I did not intend to do a complete breakdown here but if people wish to get an invitation all they have to do is follow the link above and sign up and wait. The earlier you get signed up the faster you get in.

As for advertising it looks like big brands are filling the spots but in time I can see local targeted ads to individual profiles.

As I was looking over the site and finished watching the episode of St. Elswhere it occurred to me that Youtube is over. Don't get me wrong, I like stupid pet tricks and amateur comedians plying their wares as much as the next guy. "You Are a Pirate" is a kick, my kids love it.
But now that a site exists that offers first run proprietary content of shows I really like I say sayonara Youtube.
I almost feel sorry for Google. As they say it's all about the content.

Every Business Should have a Facebook Page

2007-11-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Whether you are a social networking butterfly or not you have to have your business "listed" on Facebook.

The interface is simple, the benefits as yet are unknown but you have nothing to lose by adding your business to Facebook.

I'm still studying the Facebook SocialAds platform. For now it looks like big brands are getting an early foothold. Unquestionably local business will have a place to lay out their wares.

MySpace Invades LookSmart's Space

2007-10-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

MySpace will take residence in the "LookSmart Building" according to BizJournals.com;

"Los Angeles-based MySpace made a triumphant entrance into San Francisco last week at the Web 2.0 conference, throwing a bash at SFMOMA and announcing that it was opening an office in the city with about 200 employees.
While the company did not disclose the location of its new offices, it has signed a letter of intent to take about 35,000 square feet at 625 Second St., according to sources. MySpace, part of Fox Interactive, ...... ."

This is an interesting development. LookSmart leased all 130,000 + square feet of the building in 1999 for a ten year term. From the beginning the building has been a bane for LookSmart dragging almost $400,000 dollars a month from their dwindling coffers. Earlier this year LookSmart announced the building had been sublet IN FULL, helping to stop the bleeding.

How can the full building accommodate the MySpace mob? It's possible a few of the startups occupying space have gone belly up but it's possible too the primary occupant, LookSmart may be readying an exit themselves.

Let's examine the evidence. LookSmart has been selling off and dropping sites steadily over the last year. They shuttered Zeal with no explanation. They sold NetNanny for a song. Grubb was pushed over to Wikia for an undisclosed sum (guessing zero), and they just recently closed Wisenut.

Before Wisenut was closed they pulled the Dave Hills inspired vertical search sites.
The 180 vertical search sites are now folded into FindArticles but they are hard to find. Most of the subdomains are completely closed down registering 404 type messages.

Evidence exists suggesting they are in a deal of some sort with General Atlantic Partner property Network Solutions. Vortal.com (owned by NetSol I believe) houses the 180 vertical sites using the original LookSmart material. (under different URLs)

Combine the information above with the fact CEO Hills, CTO Grubb and CFO Simonelli (already past his announced departure date) have all quit and a picture of the future of LookSmart is unfolding.

It is interesting to note Dave Hills has a very nice severance that includes a sales position with the company. He is required to put in just short of one day per week, (15% of his work week) selling AdCenter etc. Interestingly, anything he sells he retains some residual payment. He will make more in this part time gig than he did as CEO and it's believed he still holds approximately 750,000 shares.

Early in the summer LookSmart retained the services of a Sand Hill Rd. venture capital law firm paying them in shares. This is documented in SEC forms that can be accessed from LookSmart's investor relations page.

LookSmart's job board has been downgraded. No more call for technical personnel. They are looking for sales and support people.

So will LookSmart's 200 (+ or -) employees move out to make way for the 200 MySpace folk?

SFGate.com wrote about the MySpace move to San Francisco Oct. 15 and did not mention the address though they knew the exact neighborhood.
Is LookSmart that far under the radar of everyone but a few shareholders?
If something is afoot I credit the LookSmart employees for maintaining the code of silence.

Absolutely nothing official or otherwise is coming from LookSmart lately that can shed light on what's really happening inside the big brick building.

Shareholders must resign themselves to guessing.

Update;
Valleywag linked to this post with an interesting take on the MySpace move into the LookSmart building.

Apparently LookSmart is moving from the fourth floor to make way for MySpace. In the LookSmart conference call Nov. 7 interim CEO West announced a 25% reduction in staff. He also announced the sale of Findarticles to CNET.

While the company remains fodder for bloggers and old SEO's with a grudge the company finds itself in the best condition since MSFT dumped them.

The company will have $57 million in the bank after the Findarticles deal closes which puts the value of the company at $2.46 per share. The stock trades at $2.40 as of Friday.

The company is valued below cash on hand. As it stands LookSmart has NO value! Of course it does but how do you value the company? On the publisher side AdCenter powers IAC's ASK.com, Reed Publising, Mainstream Media and others. In 2006 CEO Hills announced Facebook leased AdCenter but it's hard to gauge if it's been put to use in the new FB ad platform.
We know they are working closely with Wikia, interim CEO West mentioned in the conference call the two are actively working together. Currently LookSmart display ads are showing on selected Wiki's. On the advertiser side they serve ads to a variety of partners.

West announced they have several new AdCenter clients either signed or in the pipeline that will bring in six figures.

The biggest fish out there is MySpace who announced last week they are working on a self serve ad platform.
Hmm, seems awfully coincidental LookSmart is moving out of the fourth floor to make room for them.
I light of all of this LookSmart (LOOK) was upgraded to BUY by Craig-Hallum following the earnings report.

So LookSmart is moving . Not out of their building, just down a flight or two.

Search Marketing For Small Business

2007-10-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times runs a piece today concerning small business migrating to online advertising.

"Take Eddie Ugalde, 33, who runs an eco-friendly carpet cleaning business in Altadena. He started spending $1,000 a month with ReachLocal in March and got such a dramatic response from the search campaign that he moved Right Away Carpet Drycleaning out of his home, grew from two employees to 10 and bought a distribution business. He recently increased his monthly ad purchase to $1,500."

My small business friends, it really is that easy. All it takes is a commitment to growth and a willingness to break away from the hold your YP rep has on you.

Email us from the link on our main site. Let us help you GROW your business.

LookSmart Deactivates Wisenut.com

2007-09-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

The index had not been updated for some time and traffic hovered around the 30,000 rank of sites worldwide for some years now so it's no real surprise that LookSmart shuttered Wisenut.

The "About Us" page offers the following message;

"We're sorry, but this site is no longer available.
Please visit www.looksmart.com to learn more
about other LookSmart products."

This action follows the sale of Grub.org to Wikia, the closing of Zeal.com with no explanation, the "fire sale" of Netnanny.com and the most recent removal of the vertical search sites.

As mentioned in the post below LookSmart revamped their home page this week. They demoted search to a tiny box lower left of the new page that returns results from their Findarticles site.

In other LookSmart news today Board president Ted West was promoted to (interim?) CEO. Along with compensation details was a healthy dose of verbiage including this quote;

"If during the term of your employment, there is a “Change of Control” event and (1) you are terminated without “cause” by the surviving corporation within twelve months after the Change of Control, or (2) you voluntarily resign for “good reason” within twelve months after the Change of Control, then all of your unvested Option Shares shall vest and become immediately exercisable." SEC Filing

I understand this is standard disclosure on SEC documents of this nature but it seems to me the company is polishing the fuselage for parking in a different hangar..

Disclosure; I own shares in LOOK but have no contact with anyone in the company and any speculations posted here are only that, speculation.

Update: Mashable and others caught the news 4 days after the fact!

New Look For LookSmart

2007-09-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

LookSmart has revamped their home site with a cleaner, more direct message to advertisers and publishers. Take a LOOK!

Gone from the home page are the verticals search sites developed under the former CEO David Hills. There is no reference to FindArticles either. Last week LookSmart revealed the vertical search sites have been "folded" into their FindArticles index.

You can find the 180 vertical sites throughout Vortal.com, a Network Solutions site under the umbrella of web property giant General Atlantic.

I find the new look of LookSmart more appealing. It speaks to the heart of their business model, providing private label ad and publishing solutions to others.

It's apparent too that they are now deeply involved in display, something already being seen on Wikia.com, their recently announced ad partner.

PPC For Grocers Works, Cereal Case Study

2007-09-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

Adtech, a majority owned subsidiary of Advertising.com points to this case study that cites how proper targeting of Kellogg's Special K increased sales volume. Please read the excerpt from this older press release.

"Frankfurt, Germany – 22nd January 2007. The French survey NetImpact 3 bis has proven that online advertising has positively affected the sales of the fitness cereal Kellogg’s Special K in the supermarket. Firstly, advertising increased the sales volume in the retail business. Secondly, banner & co generated new customers for Special K in stationary trade.

Participating on the implementation of the advertising impact study were the online advertising provider ADTECH (www.adtech.info), the IAB France, the advertising customer Kellogg’s and the market research company Marketing Scan. Within six weeks, from mid June to end of July 2006, ADTECH delivered the online ads for Special K on numerous French websites – Advertising.com, Alice, Au Féminin, Benchmark Group, Doctissimo, France Télévisions, Hi-Media, Lagardère Active Publicité, Lycos, MSN/Windows Live, Orange, Régie Obs, Skyrégie, TF1 Publicité, Voyages SNCF, Yahoo!, Zefir Web.

Via geographical targeting, the ADTECH ad server adjusted the cereal banners in a way that only internet users from two French towns – Angers and Le Mans – got to see them. The market research company Marketing Scan had installed test panels in these two towns and was in connection with all supermarkets in the area. To compare the sales figures control data was collected twelve weeks before the virtual campaign and six weeks afterwards..."

Did you know?
"ADTECH is a leading international digital marketing solutions company. The company's flagship product is the Helios IQ ad serving platform. It enables web publishers to manage, serve and evaluate virtually any kind of online advertising campaign including display, video and mobile formats. The Helios IQ ad serving platform differentiates itself via its scalable, enterprise-class infrastructure and publisher-friendly tools, providing publishers with increased efficiency, reliability and ROI for their online advertising business.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, ADTECH is an independent and majority-controlled subsidiary of AOL's Advertising.com division. Globally, ADTECH AG works with customers in more than 25 countries."

Attractive, Affordable CUSTOM Websites

2007-09-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

As marketers for small to medium business we are pretty good at what we do. Website design is a separate skill and we do marketing better than we design.

As such we have teamed with WebsitePros.com, who offer attractive, affordable CUSTOM websites . They offer the best, most affordable price points we've seen.

Take a look at their pricing and sweet design options.

Oddest Headline Ever

2007-09-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

Mashable posted this headline to an article today:

FireAnt Joining Odeo at SonicMountain

I can happily say I don't know OR care what any one of the above does alone or in combination with each other.

This is a little liberating for me because honestly reading news of the alphabet soup of start ups and angel backed ideas has worn me out.

It's far easier (but not easy) to follow trends and news involving Local Search Marketing.

Domaining Slowing Down

2007-09-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

If you are holding domain names hoping someone will email you with a big offer you may have to wait awhile longer. DNJournal hints that sales are slowing. My reading of their weekly sales listings have been pointing to this for a few weeks now.
I hold a few very nice names and have sold almost a dozen over the past few years but offers are not to be had.
I guess it was only a matter of time.

For Sale

DEUTSCHBLOG.COM

LOCALINTENT.COM

LOCALATTORNEYS.INFO

LOCALSCHOOL.INFO

NEEDLEFREEINSULIN.COM

WEBSCIENCEDEGREE.COM

WEBSCIENCEUNIVERSITY.COM

VOICETOBLOG.COM

Branding, Nice Tips

2007-09-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

With an entire week dedicated to Local Search Search Engine Land today talks about branding done on the cheap.
I wish SEL was pushing their local search expo every week, some very useful information for the local search marketer has come from their pages since Monday.

Google Shifts News Delivery Part 2

2007-09-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Again I'll venture off topic from the "local search marketing" scene to changes implemented by Google News over the weekend. The clearest example I have relates to how I report fire news from my hobby blog, Firefighter Blog.

Normally, up to this last Friday you could type in the name of a major wildfire into Google News and were presented with a couple of hundred news links from newspapers worldwide. Most of the links were to the same article licensed from UPI or AP, duplication was the order. Quaint but useless to read the same article from India, China and other points on the globe. This point was made beautifully in the screencast linked to in the post below.

Here is the immediate "new Google" news world I am seeing. Try a search for the 8,000 acre wildfire burning out of control in Henry Coe State Park in California named The "Lick Fire"....

Google News results for Lick Fire

You see the UPI story as well as 86 related stories but when you follow the link to the 86 related stories you really only see about 20. Among those results are only a couple from out of the area and most are unique, written by local journalists.

This would cause me to alter my reasoning Google will kill local journalism if this is the way they are headed. Indeed if this is Google's intended path local journalists will be rewarded on the new look Google News. Before this weekend local news sources were buried by larger dailies like the Houston Chronicle and Washington Post as well as the Chinese new agencies.

For purposes related to Firefighter Blog there may be a down side. Normally I am successful posting about a fire event and having Google index the blog content on their blog search engine quickly. For some time now I have been able to trump local newspapers on Google Blog SERPs on these incidents.
Now two quick (and relevant) posts on the Lick Fire have drawn blanks. Google has strangely decided to ignore Firefighter Blog altogether. If you want Google Blog Search results for the Lick Fire you are served up near useless information for the keyword phrase.
Embarrassingly you see little but X-rated blogs related to licking and some odd blog posts about the Lick Fire on Flickr and even (gasp) MySpace.
Approximately two weeks ago I noticed Google Blog Search results showing local television news station stories about the Zaca Fire.. These were clearly not blogs, not even in the same category and I wondered how Google missed that. Now I believe they were tests.

So my conclusion is if this holds Google will downplay blog results in favor of pushing local news on the main Google News pages. This would be going backwards in my opinion. Blogs are only now finding their feet as contributors to breaking news events. My logs show a definite hunger for blog coverage of news events.

I am not drawing any hard conclusions just yet, what I am seeing may just be further testing by Google. If this is the way it will be in the future it looks like the local journalist will get top billing by Google. If so that's a good thing for newspapers and their employees. It will also force bloggers of good intent to keep up best practices to invite return readers.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out too.....

One Foot In The Grave; Local Journalism

2007-09-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know this subject has nothing to do with local search or search engine marketing but there is a game changing event occurring in the way news is delivered. Google has changed their stance on how they present news.

This very well constructed video, (screencast) tells the story about Google's new approach to delivering your news.

Local newspaper websites worldwide will suffer. As for the print newspapers they are dead but just don't know it yet. I quit reading my local newspaper two years ago. I don't need the liberal bias with my morning coffee and it's far more comfortable to sit at the computer to scan for news that matters.

Donnelley & Yahoo Partner For Local

2007-09-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Caught this on The Kelsey Blog;

"R.H. Donnelley announced today that it will partner with Yahoo! to give its advertisers a more substantial presence on Yahoo! Local. This will come in three flavors.

From the release:

Featured Listings — Sponsored listings with guaranteed placement on the first or second search results pages for broader exposure in a specific geography or category
Enhanced Listings — Sponsored listings that offer the ability to add a detailed business description, photos, tagline and coupons to create greater online visibility for businesses and enhance their appearance within organic results
Yahoo! Maps Business Listings — Sponsored listings within the context of a map-based view"

Smart for Yahoo and Donnelley, bad for the individual who is looking to get a Yahoo! Featured Listing with little competition as Yahoo! is working hard to fill every vacant sponsored spot.

When Bob the carpet store owner goes to place a featured listing on Yahoo! Local he will be jousting for one of the top three spots with big ticket advertising clients from Donnelley and SuperPages .

If you are a small business and you found your way this far you know you must expand your Internet footprint to stay with or rise above your competition. It's confusing as no blueprint for doing it right exists.

Your options are as follows:

You can place your money with an IYP rep from R.H. Donnelley or SuperPages or your local print directory sales rep and let them guide you. (the same guys who have been roping you onto their print books since the beginning of time).
You can learn the search marketing angles yourself. Cut out the agents and reps and have some fun learning this fascinating end of the market. (do you have the time?)
You can hire an independent marketing agent to educate and guide you through the Internet marketing maze. (and save you a ton)

Option #2 is the best if a person has the time. Option #3 is the best if you want your business represented across the board, with a full presence on all the local directories, search engines and review sites. Option #3 also brings you a full time one on one Pay Per Click practitioner dedicated to making your business grow.

Yahoo Local Gets Makeover

2007-08-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Yahoo performed a makeover on their local search site and it's for the better.
They improved the maps, made reviews more prominent and in general modernized the site. The single best bargain in the local search marketing space is the Featured Listing.

If you don't already occupy one of those spots please consider if it fits your plans and then get into the rotation.
If you need help we can guide you for no charge.

Jobs At Google, Starting Pay $40 Per Day

2007-08-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

In truth the work detailed here is worth closer to $100.00 per business. I fully understand what Google trying to do but Mumbai factory workers make more for less work.

" As a Google Business Referral Representative, you'll visit local businesses to collect information (such as hours of operation, types of payment accepted, etc.) for Google Maps, and tell them about Google Maps and Google AdWords. You'll also take a few digital photos of the business that will appear on the Google Maps listing along with the business information. After the visit, you submit the business' info and photo(s) to Google through your Local Business Referrals Center, and we'll pay you up to $10 for each listing that is approved by Google and verified by the business.

All you need to be a successful Business Referral Representative is a passion for helping local businesses succeed, a love for the Internet (some knowledge of Google is great, too), and access to a computer and a digital camera."

Realistically a person could probably knock down three or four in a day. Factor in time on site, 1/2 hour per business (if the merchant is not busy), gasoline at $3. per gallon and and least 1/2 hour to input each business correctly which includes coordination with the merchant for verification and it really is working for tip money.
Not even minimum wage when it's all said and done.

A VC View of Video Ads

2007-07-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

VC blogger and (recovering) entrepreneur David Stern on his blog The Commute offers insights on the emergence of video advertising and small to medium business, (SMB). David is also keen on small business as they see online advertising.

"...Even though we consistently hear how wonderful Google is for the SMB market, the lion’s share of the SMB advertising spend isn’t online. For them, Google is still a mysterious black box. For them, online marketing still isn't tangible enough to adopt right now as a compliment for or replacement for their current more traditional spend. This is an emotional objection, not a rational one, clearly. But it is real nonetheless. This class of advertiser does already advertise in the Yellow Pages and many of them have done a local television ad or two. But for them, it is more important to be able to SEE their ad run, or certainly see their ad run on something that is accessible and known to them or something like it. It is an emotional response, full of vanity, and fear. Having something tangible is important and it is the gating factor for many in determining whether to advertise online. .....

I believe video advertising has the promise of being able to lure not only the early adopters of online advertising, but also and more importantly, the largest portions of local SMB advertising dollars, the portion that has resisted text-based online advertising, online. I believe that this is the next big trend in advertising that has the potential to produce venture scale returns for investors...."

He's right about Google being a black box for the small business advertiser, they can't find Google on their own and even when they do get to the platform they see the directions but can't read them, it's braille or Russian.
Those who have maneuvered through the obstacles in rare air enjoying little competition. My job is translating the braille on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Superpages for small business and opening their eyes to "this other one half" of the advertising pie.

VC's like David point their firm's money to businesses focused on delivering the product that will bring his firm the best return. The term "follow the money" comes into play here. As David and the venture capital people point to the direction of the future those of us providing service to small business must take note. MediaPost's article on the growth of video advertising supports David's view with exciting figures.

"ONLINE VIDEO AD SPENDING WILL register its greatest year-over-year growth in 2007--rising 89% to $775 million, forecasts eMarketer. Even more significant, the researcher says, the growth rate will remain near or above 40% through 2011, when video ad spending will reach $4.3 billion.

Next year (2008) will be a watershed for online video as more than 50% of the U.S. population--155.2 million people--will be watching it, eMarketer forecasts."

The only directions the SMB operator needs for video is show them where it will be seen and tell them how much it will cost. again, early adopters will be richly rewarded. Where does the small business go to get started? Turn Here is a good place to start.

The Venture Capital people are not in the business of placing the SMB online. They seek out the companies providing the platforms and distribution channels. On that front I have one company in my portfolio in that arena, Roo. (RGRP.OB)

Definitive Online Marketing Blog List

2007-07-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Power 150 Online Marketing Blog List is the most comprehensive online marketing blog list on the web. Other marketing blog lists I have seen are generally biased and the assigned blogs are in many cases added to curry favor or to raise the list organizer's own status.

Not this one.

About the list Author Todd Andrlik.

Industry News; Digg.com Chooses Microsoft For Ads

2007-07-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know this has nothing to do with local search but as our business evolves to providing blogging services the scope of what I watch is widening. As such search industry news relating to blogging tools and shifts in industry winds become more important to follow.

Digg is in the blogging tools arena. Used correctly Digg.com can bring a ton of traffic to a site.
In Digg.com news, Microsoft will serve ads for Digg. This seems to be another loss for Federated Media who may yet still be a part of the site delivering ads on some side pages.

With the apparent loss of Wikia to LookSmart and now Digg you have to wonder how badly the scandal brought to light by ValleyWag.com in June and summarized by the NYTimes, (who uses use the word payola) when describing the practice employed by FM and some of their Bloggers hurt their reputation.

Update; FM Responds

Quick News On The Local Search Front

2007-07-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

Local.com (LOCM) buys PremierGuide for a fire sale price of $2 million.

"Premier has directories on over 350 sites including Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., GateHouse Media, Inc. and Washington Post."

Valley Yellow Pages goes digital in 2007 with the launch of MyYp.com. I have to say this is a terrible debut for the company already late to the digital table. The search is clunky, the layout is terrible and look at this messy page. It looks like they simply scanned their own pages. Simply amazing this is the best they could come up with. Disappointing frankly and makes me think they should consult with the people at Local.com?

Wikia Chooses LookSmart AdCenter, Tech

2007-07-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

I've been busy with clients and my hobby blog and also following my investments and this one caught my eye.

Wikia Chooses LookSmart ad Serving Platform for management display and text based advertising.

TMC Net writes;

"Wikia will use the ad platform to grow and manage both display and text-based advertisers in its wide-ranging collection of communities. Breaking new ground for LookSmart, Wikia is the first implementation of the company's ad technology for managing and serving display ad units which utilizes CPM-based pricing...."

""We did a lot of due diligence to find a flexible and intuitive ad serving technology that nets the highest revenue and yield," said Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia. "We discovered in the process that LookSmart's platform and services not only provide dynamic optimization of both our advertisers and backfill networks, but the white label aspect of it fits perfectly with our brand strategy.""

The market has not caught wind of the significant impact this news will have on LookSmart stock.

Recall it took almost a week before the market became aware of the patent news that shocked Local.com (LOCM) stock awake.

Update: After cruising Wikia I attempted to place an ad and was directed to Federated Media, who currently sells banner ads for Wikia. I wonder if FM will continue to feed Wikia or will this LookSmart contract place them on the sidelines.

Hyper-Local Backfence Closes Down

2007-07-06T13:56:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Land reports Backfence is closing down;

Quote from Backfence (Reston community site),

"Backfence Says Goodbye to Reston
We are sorry to announce that Backfence (insert city)will be ceasing operations within the next few days. We have been honored to have been members of this vibrant local community over the past several months. Thank you for your interest and participation in Backfence. Hopefully, we'll see you around the neighborhood.
Posted by Backfence; updated 07/05.."

Shame really, perhaps they are a few years ahead of their time or maybe expanded too quickly?
The failing underscores how hard it is to break in to this genre. It seems more and more social networks giants like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace will form and define local community in cyberspace. Given that I do believe spots like super hyper-local Fresno Famous will always find a corner in the room to hang a hat on.

More On Local.com (LOCM)

2007-07-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

The stock market finally took notice of the patent award announcement on June 25th due to a blog post on Seeking Alpha on June 29. The stock responded by rising roughly 80% .

Today the company announced they were awarded an additional patent that may hold a deeper meaning for the financial future of the company and indeed all paid local search.

Pay attention to the last line below;

Quotes from Local.com CEO Heath Clarke via From Sys-Com Media;

"In our view, the burgeoning free 411 marketplace is being underwritten by a variety of advertising supported models. Our patent 7,200,413 is directly related to a referral advertising model such as pay-per-click or pay-per-call listings, which are delivered to consumers as a result of an enhanced directory assistance inquiry or local search, where the results can be provided to consumers via many mobile channels, including voice," said Heath Clarke, Chairman and CEO, Local.com.

"Our recently announced patent 7,231,405 was related to the methods used to deliver our highly relevant organic search results. Patent number 7,200,413 is complementary to our local search patent in that it provides us with intellectual property coverage for what's now a widely accepted monetization method -- pay-per-referral -- within the directory assistance marketplace. Local.com believes that ad-supported directory assistance is the future of 411 services in the U.S., and we look forward to working with a variety of companies to deliver innovative new products and services to the marketplace," continued Clarke. "We encourage directory assistance and free 411 companies that are interested in using our intellectual property to enter into licensing agreements with Local.com."

That could be industry changing. The stock responded today by moving up another 55% as of this posting.

Oddly none of the prominent local search marketing industry writers have chimed in with opinions on this second patent yet.

Local.com Announces New Local Search Patent

2007-06-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know how it came to be that I find reading local search patents interesting. This patent issued to Local .com contains some interesting passages and pretty fantastic claims;

"Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) have been used in web sites that provide some local search capabilities. Such conventional web sites organize information according to location and store it into a relational database. Online yellow pages, such as Superpages for instance (www.superpages.com), store local business information in a relational database and utilize SQL language for searching. The database contains business name, address, and telephone data. The web page content of a business is not searchable since it is not stored in the relational database. Thus conventional services such as online yellow pages are not a true local search engine."

Small business isn't served well by the major search engines, paticularly the way Google Pagegank measures the value of a website.

"Other conventional systems provide a ranking of search results in relation to the user supplied search words. Ranking web pages is an important part of conventional search engine operation. As an example, a typical user tends to provide one or two keywords to a conventional search engine. As a specific example, the keyword "java" by Google returns 65,800,000 web page hits. The same keyword "Java" by Yahoo returns 53,900,000 records. There are so many hits with conventional web sites that a user is unable to realistically visit the web pages of every one of such hit. Using conventional search engine technology, any web document containing "java" will be included in the hits. The first hit of Google is http://java.sun.com. The first hit in Yahoo is http://www.sun.com. Both Google and Yahoo provide results that indicate java is a programming language from Sun Microsystems. However, the word java has many other meanings. People that are not familiar with java programming language would be surprised at the search results. The reason why do Google and Yahoo rank the java programming language first instead of a coffee shop is because of the ranking algorithm used by these web search engines. As an example, a ranking system called PageRank is considered the foundation of Google. U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999 entitled "Method for node ranking in a linked database" described a page rank system used by Google. The entire content of U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999 is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. The PageRank system calculates recursively the rank score of web page by looking at its linked web pages--that is, those pages that link to (i.e., that contain a hyperlink that reference the URL of) the page being ranked. A higher ranked web page has a higher weight in the ranking equation. Because of the way in which the PageRank algorithm operates, some companies hire so called search engine marketing experts to build web pages linked with each other to boost the score by increasing the number of remote web pages that reference a particular companies web site.

For a small business's web site that has only a few sites linked to it, or for businesses that do not have the money to boost PageRank by search engine marketing experts, search engines that use page ranking provide results that contain the small business site referenced deep into the search results, often resulting in consumers missing those small business sites. Since the small business web site's PageRank is low, even if it can be searched by a traditional search engine, the results indicating the small business web site will be hundreds of pages away in the search results. Embodiments of the invention significantly overcome this problem using a unique ranking system that incorporates geographic location as well to rank a page based on other pages of other sites that are local to the page being ranked.

Another system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,540 entitled "Method and system for providing a web-sharable personal database", the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein, details a system for providing a web-sharable personal database with proximity searching capability. The system described in this patent is not a local geographic based search engine. Instead, it focuses on create a personal database and stored address information in database. Furthermore, it did not address the challenge of mixing the power of conventional search engine with geographical awareness."

I confess I don't know how this makes Local.com any more important than it was yesterday. What is clear is Local.com feels the heat from the Geomas lawsuit.
For the record I like Local.com. I use it and I root for it, I even own some stock. I like the David v. Goliath stories in life, cheering the underdog.

Google Pay Per Action Will Change The Game

2007-06-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Google Pay Per Action (CPA) being expanded according to Google;

"Google announced today the worldwide expansion of its pay-per-action advertising beta. Pay-per-action is a new pricing model that allows advertisers to pay only when a pre-defined action is completed on their site, such as when a user makes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter, or completes any other clearly defined action. Since the initial launch of the pay-per-action advertising beta in March 2007, many advertisers who have used the new pricing model are pleased with the opportunity to have more ways to promote their products and services online."

Click fraud concerns will all but disappear for merchants adopting the CPC model. (CPC defined)

A key question for adopters is how much are you willing to pay for a fairly qualified lead, one that has at the least given you their phone number or email?

Mark Cuban's Message To Newspapers Unheaded

2007-06-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pointing to an 8 month old Blog Maverick post by Mark Cuban where Mark talks about the power of local search advertising with Google. His message to the newspaper people is one I have pondered more than once since I formed this business. I'm amazed Cuban formed such visionary conclusions considering he is not in the local search business.

"Which leads us to Newspapers/Local Media companies. Whether you are a standalone newspaper, or a local media conglomerate with Paper, TV and more, the one thing you have without question is a salesforce. A salesforce that goes out into the business community and sells them on the benefits of advertising on your properties. The job of each salesrep, when done well, is to create a return to the customer that exceeds their investment. Of course its not always easy to define that return, but the salesrep hopefully has a close enough connection to the customer that they can evolve the strategy to fit their needs.

The "touch" methods of selling for local media, as opposed to the "self service purchase" of Google Adwords and its competition have been viewed by some in the Web2.0 world as a disadvantage. I think it creates an amazing opportunity to pull one from the Google Playbook.

"There are couple certainties in the advertising world today.
1. Google isn't going to send a salesrep to visit, or have an inside salesrep call on the local 5 store pizza, dress, toy, laser surgery, dentist, whatever chain of stores. You are.

2. Some percentage of those small to large localized businesses you call on will have a website and of those, the vast majority of them will have no idea how to properly use web services like AdWords or AdSense to either generate foot or phone traffic (the 2 Fs of brick and mortar) for their businesses or make some money from advertising.

3. Local traffic is worth more per click through than national traffic is.

Which creates a phenomenal opportunity for your company. Just as Google arbitraged its selling ability between its ability to monetize traffic and AOL and Myspace, why not use your sales force to arbitrage the ability of your salesforce to sell locally and all the Google Adsense/Yahoo/MSN networks to sell locally ?

You are already selling display and classified ads for the paper, or commercials for your TV station, why not expand that effort to include Search Engine Marketing? Why not hook up with a local SEM expert and make that a service that you offer to your customers ? There is very little chance the local Pizza chain or Body Repair shop knows how to use SEM correctly and those that try more often than not waste a ton of money trying to figure it out. Why not offer it up as a service, even if they don't buy ads for your newspaper or TV station ? In otherwords, you put yourself in the position to become the dominant force for local advertising in your markets, NO MATTER WHAT PLATFORM those ads appear on.

Why not buy a media planner that specializes in your market ? Or put together the resources to compete with them ? Selling locally is a core competency. Optimizing advertising in a comprehensive campaign is a skillset that all local businesses need and many don't know how to find."

My experience with my local newspaper has been cold, actually they view me as the enemy. I'm not of course. McClatchy, Fresno Bee, call me I have some great ideas!

All Major Search Engines Use Geo Locators

2007-06-18T08:41:00.000-07:00

We know this but the local merchant doesn't. Local search guru Greg Sterling summarizing his recent Search Marketing Now webcast includes this question and answer from the webcast.

Q: If I search for a "dentist" with out any geo qualifiers, it is my understanding that the search engines now use the IP of the router to deliver results (businesses) within that region. True?

"Yes, all the major search engines are using IP targeting to serve ads when they can sufficiently identify the computer's location and they "infer" the user is conducting a local search. It's a fairly safe bet that queries such as "dentist," "lawyer," "plumber" or "sushi" are local because they are typically "fulfilled" locally. Google, for example, will serve a mix of local and non-local ads in such situations. And on Yahoo's Panama platform, local ads, with local content, will potentially get a higher quality score than more “generic” national ads."

The webcast was informational and well worth an hour spent. Honestly Greg could have filled 2 hours easily I feel. So much happening in this space.

I highlighted this particular question because I when I present this issue to prospective customers they are generally surprised and often express doubt.

New Facebook Feature; Facebook Polls

2007-06-11T07:32:00.001-07:00

"Facebook Polls lets you pose questions to other users and rapidly delivers results."

"Facebook Polls are an easy way to get quick answers to your questions. Facebook Polls allows you to ask detailed questions, target them to specific user segments and receive real-time responses. You can target Facebook users based on gender, age, school, location, or profile keyword." Facebook Polls FAQs

I'm imagining how small business can design polls for both local brand development. Target the local college network with polls/questions like.

How Do You Prefer Your Pizza?

1. Loaded Combination
2. Thin or Thick Crust
3. Large for Under $10.00
4. 30 minute delivery
5. Call 555-5555

We are beginning to see what Facebook means by sponsored listings.

New Google Page Layout Results In More Local Searches

2007-06-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Google Maps (Local) up 20% since Google implemented "Google Universal Search."

FaceBook To Yahoo!, Rumors Round 2

2007-06-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

Mashable is first out of the gate with talk of the second round of rumors that Yahoo! is talking to Facebook.com about a buyout. Rumor has it he turned down 1 billion from Yahoo! earlier in the spring but if Yahoo! ponies up 2 bil. will Zuckerberg give in?

Would Rupert Murdoch sell MySpace for 2 billion today? Not a chance. As Facebook builds out their "Marketplace" by adding contextual sponsored ads and giving national and local advertisers access to individual profiles and networks earnings will soar quickly.

Their approach to delivering ads has been measured. So far there are no user revolts or e-riots caused by the system wide display ads supplied by Microsoft and there won't be when the sponsored ads show up.
My guess is once members see how relevant the local targeted ads are the ads will be viewed as more a service than advertisement. Facebook won't make the mistake MySpace made allowing Google to broadly deliver AdWords. I have never been served a relevant contextual ad on a MySpace page amazing as it seems. Facebook will be all about relevancy and if they deliver the right ads to the right demo their earnings metric will shake convention.

This subject is important to me because I have clients who will want get in front of our local University network base. If my pizza client could buy into select FB networks or profiles their spend goes up as do my revenues!

Zuckerberg will eventually be forced to feed his angels, surely some are pressing for a quick turnaround on their investment now. At some point the SEC will require financial disclosure, (the reason Google's IPO was forced) but that is some time away.

Mark would be smart to wait for the cards he has on the table to play out. If his earnings double from the rumored $150 mil. to $300 mil. and they IPO'ed and netted a GOOG like market cap. it would be near $12,000,000,000. If earnings triple?
Yahoo! knows this.

Mark Zuckerberg is redefining social networking before our eyes and his vision is only now being realized. I'm rooting for him to hold out as long as possible.

Local Online Advertising Growing At 31% Clip

2007-06-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

Borrell Associates published data on the growth of local online advertising.

" Local online advertising, approaching $7.5 billion, is growing 31.5%, but traditional media companies are struggling to keep up with Web sales. Some have seen growth slip below 20% as they scramble to maintain share. We gathered revenue data from over 2,800 local online media properties for this report." Purchase full report.

More coverage at The Kelsey Group Blog

(Image: Borrell Associates)

Next To Email Local Search Most Popular

2007-06-04T11:06:00.001-07:00

Piper Jaffray & Co. 2006 Online Media Survey

IYP Sales People Hitting the Streets

2007-06-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

YellowPages.com joins Citysearch in beefing up local sales reps so reports The Kelsey Blog.

"TKG estimates the sales offices will have between 20 and 25 field sales reps and between 8 and 10 telesales reps. With field sales earnings averaging $70,000 and telesales reps average earnings around $55,000"

They are coming buy to support these salaries local merchants can expect some some hard sells coming there way.

This will make independent search marketing services like mine more attractive to local merchants. Those reps are not agnostic, Citysearch reps will be pushing the IAC product and the YellowPages.com people will be pushing their single site. An "independent" like me can offer the full range of local search options placing clients where they are best suited.

Multiple directory submissions, judicious use local targeted PPC, site development and consulting is my business. I can afford to charge less for my full suite of services for less than the YellowPages.com guy or gal will charge for most top category placements.
I was approached already by a very slick YellowPages telerep. Though he was preaching to the choir (and knew it) he was undeterred and convincing.
His persuasive manner was impressive as he quoted user stats and neat demo information. Only $400. per month for a top three spot for my category. Ouch! Didn't he know people go to Google? We had an interesting conversation.

Same tactics as the print now employed online. Local business will embrace the independent alternative!

Yahoo! Answers As a Marketing Tool

2007-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

Nice piece by Pablo Palatnik on Search Engine Journal covering Yahoo! Answers. As it so happens last night I was doing a search on SAT scores and the results on this Google search revealed how much Google appreciates Y! Answers.

I have not given much thought to Yahoo! Answers for some time, actually since they rejected a question I posed back when the product was released, but it's time to rethink the potential of the platform.
I added a button to my sidebar to remind me to use it!

Revisiting Jim Boykin's Blog

2007-05-29T16:20:00.001-07:00

Jim Boykin updated the "Favorite Post's" section of his blog. Within those posts is content that helped earn Jim his elite status in the search blogging community.

Recall I mentioned back in April how Jim's blog is a must read. As you know Jim operates We Build Pages.

No one in the industry is as transparent as Jim and I for one appreciate the way he shares his fee structure and list of services. He has helped our business appreciate the value of our work.

Need A Logo Or Button?

2007-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mashable posts a comprehensive list of logo and button makers.

Food Fight; Carl vs Jack

2007-05-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

Ok it's a bit of topic but kind of fun.

CKE Restaurants Inc who own Carl's Jr is suing Jack In The Box over new television commercials they say misleads customers into confusing Carl's Jr. Angus hamburgers with meat from a cow's anus.

"The suit was filed in federal court in Santa Ana, California.

CKE argues in the suit that the commercials falsely imply that Angus beef burgers come "from the rear-end and/or anus of beef cattle by creating phonetic and aural confusion between the words 'Angus' and 'anus.'"

You wonder how the CKE lawyers got this by the company Board. You have to think the suit may be a stunt as well. Or not.

The other day one of my two teenagers declared he had not had french fries in a long time so we loaded up and drove through the local Carl's Jr. He and his brother ordered up large combo's but instead of the large drink I told the microphone to just give them a medium drink.
(yeah I'm a mean Dad)

We pull up and the teenager at the window handed me these gargantuan sized drink cups. I asked if they were medium and the kid assured me they were. No one needs that much soda with a meal, not in a day or in a week, trust me.

So it got us talking about the people who would order the large drink. Our conclusion supported the reason for the CKE lawsuit. A good portion of their customer base are ignorant.

Anyone who orders a 1,500 calorie combination meal with a 44 oz. soda might believe Carl's hamburger is cow butt if they heard "Jack" say it. Forget that Jack is a clown, he's as good as real to some.

What's funny about this lawsuit is thinking about the actual litigation. They will have to prove harm and that means trotting out actual cutomers who believed Jack! Can you imagine the theater? I can't wait.

In the meantime I hope Jack In The Box continues showing the commercial.

Mini-Cities Franchising Local Directories

2007-05-26T11:41:00.000-07:00

Mini Cities.com is selling franchises to people interested in owning a hyper-local community directory. Franchisees will seek to attract local businesses to advertise on their community directory.

Sounds simple enough but possessing a pretty template with some neat graphics won't make success for the franchisee automatic.

Having a stand alone community directory to invite local merchants to advertise on is nice in theory but convincing a plumber, roofer or dentist to put a percentage of his or her marketing budget on such a site is tough work.

Judging by the franchise and set up fees Mini Cities charges, the franchisee will have to pick the merchant's wallet pretty clean for him to get a sponsored link or image ad.

Read Mini Cities franchise info;

"The Mini Cities franchise is a very low overhead franchise with no inventory and no high cost leases. The franchise fee ranges from $15,000 - $40,000 and overall startup costs are between $27,000 - $53,000 (this number includes costs for salaries which can often be avoided). Mini Cities provides initial training, marketing materials, and start up marketing for each directory launched. Mini Cities also offers ongoing support for our franchisees."

I wonder how many people looking to start a web based business will look bite. Anyone who does faces the same challenges local oriented search marketers face but with an added burden of having to convince the advertiser that your (single) site will deliver.

If you are not Google you cannot promise traffic to any degree. To that end it looks like Mini Cities may well have an agreement with Google. Take a look at all the pages Google has chosen to index from one of Mini Cities example sites. Pretty decent for a relatively new site, over 2000 pages and the first 40 results are fully indexed. A mix of indexed pages and supplemental results follow. Pretty good for a site registered in April 2006. Compare that love to ILoveNewportBeach.com results, a similar site with more history.
Hmmmm.

I wish all those buying into the program good luck, they will need it no matter how nice Google treats their site. On the surface selling local businesses on search marketing looks easy. The statistics support the trend, small businesses are putting more money on the net and the costs are substantially less than traditional marketing like newspaper, TV, radio or Yellow Pages. Most importantly the customers are using the Internet to search for local services!

Even so it's a tough sell. The local merchant has to be sold on the concept and the product. To the average local business person search marketing is the great unknown. They want to be there but they don't know where to start. Your job is made more difficult because traditional marketers pushing newspapers and Yellow Pages have pushed and pushed and worn the local merchant down. They don't like you before they ever see you. Finally, your pitch better be good because you are only going to get 30 seconds before their eyes gloss over. Save yourself the trouble at that point and politely excuse yourself.

Yahoo! Shuffles Search Results, I'm Gone

2007-05-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

My main site SierraWebMarketing.com is not to be found but thank God I have a blog!

Yahoo! search results for "Sierra Web Marketing" returned this blog, a widget and a Yelp review.
Yahoo! is showing a YSM ad I took out under my name as a keyword so they know I exist. I used to show on the results pages but now I'm gone.

Yahoo has always liked my blogs and that's a good thing. They have long favored my Firefighter Blog, more so than Google who hosts Firefighter Blog on their servers.

Social-Local LocalGuides

2007-05-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

LocalGuides.com hit the ground running with the kind of fanfare you can't buy, (really), here, here and here wow!
Now that the heavy hitters introduced the product lets have a look at the site.

I see it as a combination of YellowBot, Yelp and Bebo or MySpace. I'm still trying to figure it out and I confess confusion. I opened an account and searched from the home page for "Fresno" and it brought me to a page with a brief city bio and some sites they call "starter guides."

The starter guide for Fresno Furniture Shopping sent me to a page with lists of Fresno furniture stores on a portal like page. The page results appear auto-generated and while the algo did some decent guessing it stumbled on one of the sub-categories "dining sets." When clicked it sent me to a popular Asian-fusion restaurant here in town.
I understand the intent of Local Guides is to have humans (guides) intercede and make every category relevant but for now at least in this particular case there's a bug.

The local search results are provided by SuperPages which is fine but when you click a link from a search result you travel to SuperPages.com to get to the business information.
Example; The restaurant search results for Fresno brought up a comprehensive list of Fresno restaurants but when I clicked Toledos Mexican Restaurants I was sent to SuperPages instead of the restaurants website.
This is unlike any local search directory or IYP I've used and may turn people off with the extra step. It gives the site an appearance of being a proxy site for SuperPages.

If they could get the kind of user base Yelp enjoys the site could get traction. My concern is the steps required to get information. I may not consider it a first choice local search site like Local.com or YellowBot.com and it's not a pure review site like Yelp so what will drive me to use it?
I don't have an answer. AmericanTowns.com, DiscoverOurTown.com, Outside.in and others in that genre have failed so far to persuade me to visit often.

Best wishes to the crew at LocalGuides. It will interesting watching their progress.

New Google Maps Page Layout

2007-05-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Check out the new page layout on Google Maps. Google has de-emphasized the maps, moved the sponsored listings to the right under the (smaller) map and dedicated more space to the listed businesses.
The previous layout was claustrophobic and only showed a handful of business listings per page.

This new layout is more in line with other local search engines, easier on the eyes and much more inviting. Good job Google!

Facebook Classifieds and Sponsored Listings

2007-05-14T07:46:00.000-07:00

Post your classified ads on Facebook! Mashable reports Facebook's classifieds are now open. From my area there are two classified ads running but I expect the page will fill quickly. What caught my attention is the "Sponsored Listings" links on the classifieds pages.

This venue will be valuable to local advertisers. I look forward to seeing their self serve ad center. In the meantime we'll test the classifieds and gauge the response.

It's not a Craigslist killer but that's not the intent. It looks like Facebook is constructing a market place with the user's interest in mind, not necessarily the bottom line. Very refreshing.

Great read on the subject by Muhammad Saleem of Pronet Advertising.

Update: I emailed Facebook regarding when their sponsored ad links will go live and received this response;

"Our Sponsored Listing section is not currently available. When it does
become available, you will be able to create a listing that you can
place in networks other than the one(s) you currently belong to for a
fee. Please keep an eye out for this feature in the next few weeks.
Sorry for any inconvenience in the mean time.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,"

This will be interesting. Pay to advertise your classified ad elsewhere on the site or will (outside) advertisers be able to open a pay per click account?
Facebook has licensed the tech to do it (from LookSmart last summer) so I assume it will be an open system for all advertisers. LookSmart's AdCenter now supports geo-targeting as seen here on their tech partner NBCSearch.com's advertiser center.
The stage appears set for buying PPC ads on Facebook. Pizza venders everywhere are (or should be) rejoicing!

Bill Gates Signs Yellow Pages Death Cert.

2007-05-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

Bill Gates presented the company's Strategic Account Summit this week and the software visionary offered his vision on the future of search.

As usual Greg Sterling has the best summary of the presentation.

I love this quote about print Yellow Pages;

"Yellow pages are going to be used “less and less.” Gives plumber example: “Presentation you’ll get will be far better than what you’ll get in the [print] yellow pages.”

Yellow pages usage “among people under 50 will drop to near zero in the next five years.”

I'm sending this one to my clients who keep insisting they need to continue paying the Y.P's thousands per year.

Mashable: Build A Brand Through Social Networks

2007-05-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

It does serve to get a name out quickly. Zero to sixty on the net on record time. Mashable's Kristen Nicole explains how social networks can help build a brand. The "secret" is out now, it's a tactic we use.
Kristen offers some great sites to consider including a couple I've not considered.
I would offer a couple she did not mention.
DiscoverOurTown
American Towns
More social networking and review sites to consider here. (on the sidebar)

City Focused SEM vs. National Local SEM

2007-05-07T08:26:00.000-07:00

Greg Sterling wrote a very nice article on Search Engine Land today covering SEM (search engine marketing) for SMB (small, medium business). Greg names some leading local SEM companies and defines the collective service they provide in part.

The concept is simple, they take your business information and plug it into search engines and directories. Pay per click is a central component and each has a variation on the theme. I have reviewed a few of these outfits in the past, spent time on each of the sites and have formed an opinion on most.
My objective reaction is they all provide a nice service but lack the one thing required for best practice local SEM, they are not local themselves.

When RH Donnelley purchased LocalLaunch.com last year it signalled the bureaucratization of the genre. YellowBook, SuperPages and Websitepros joined suit. Greg reasons Google, MSN and Yahoo! may take interest in one of the remaining local oriented SEM firms listed.

It's all one in the same to small business owners. Be it Yahoo!, ReachLocal, or Natpal the local business person reasons they are all the same, far away, confusing and impersonal. Greg points to Office Live, Microsoft's SMB website building product. I would love to see how many SMB's are finding their way to adCenter from the site building center. How are they learning keyword bidding management, are they following the tutorals? Most likely not to the scale the SEs need.

I've yet to meet a small business owner that understands the nuances of PPC. Those that have made their way to AdWords never got to the memo on geo-targeting. Will adding an SEM boutique help Google or Yahoo! help the small businessman? I don't know but my guess is it won't. Not because they won't offer a valuable service but because small business needs to be sold on SEM personally.

The relationship between local search marketer and client must be personal to attain the best results. Set and forget will not do, I'll argue someone in New Jersey cannot efficiently run a search marketing campaign for a florist in Sacramento California.
The best person to run a search marketing campaign for the Sacramento florist is a marketer in Sacramento. Ultimately this is where search marketing for small (local) business is headed.

Consider these facts in helping understand the scope of small business;

"Census data show there were 5.7 million firms with employees and 17.6 million without employees in 2002 (and 18.6 million without employees in 2003). Applying the sole proprietorship growth rates to the nonemployer figures and similar Department of Labor growth rates to the employer figures produces the 24.7 million figure. Small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the 24.7 million businesses, as the most recent data show there are 17,000 large businesses.

That's a whole lot of small businesses and arguably an unlimited base of advertising clients. While it's still very early in the SEM for SMB game I suggest the future is at the ultra-local level.

What will we call them?

Mom and Pop SEM
Super Local SEM
Hyper Local SEM
Neighborhood SEM
City Focused SEM
Backyard SEM
Hip pocket SEM
Regional SEM services

An perfect expample of city-focused SEM is LocalMN.com. Owner Paul Jahn states on his FAQ page he accepts clients from outside Minneapolis I don't think he would mind being characterized and city-focused. I consider my company Sierra Web Marketing in the same category though I am more Mom and Pop at this point.
We'll soon see more Sierra Web Marketing and LocalMN.com "regional SEM" shops come online. At the moment we are a very small group.

More UGC Sites Favored By Google

2007-05-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I highlighted some of the User Generated Content (UGC) sites Google now favors as an enhancement to listings on Google Maps.
Today I noticed a few more including;

Mapufacture.com (GeoRSS Aggregator)
Booking.com (Priceline Property)
VResorts.com (Virtual Tour Aggregator)
XSWeb.com (Resolves to Global Assistant)
SFInj.com (Hotel Info Aggregator)
Smugmug (Photo Site)
Road Runner (Google Search Partner)
RCI Destinations (Timeshare Reviews)

Added to the sites listed previously;

VirtualGlobetrotting.com
Platial.com
Wik.is
Navitraveler
Travelandleisure.com (not really a UGC site)
Propsmart.com (real estate)
Raditz.net
KeyHole.com (Google property)

It's a little confusing trying to figure out what Google considers User Generated Content but it is clear they like mapping sites. Major partners like AOL (Time Warner) get considerable play as well.

Digg Bows To The Dorm Room Taliban

2007-05-02T12:12:00.000-07:00

I read with interest about the latest uprising by the Digg Nation. Digg.com founder Kevin Rose blogs this morning how he weighed his options over allowing proprietary HD-DVD code to be posted on his site.

One man against the horde, what was he to do? Good thing he doesn't have any 6th Century Buddha statues at the company headquarters!

N.Y.Times New Page For Small Business

2007-05-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

NYTimes.com today unveiled a new page in the their business section for small business. The NYTimes.com new Small Business section is a very nice portal full of general and specific topics helpful to new and seasoned small business operators.

NYTimes.com press release offers;

"The new Small Business section includes weekly columns and features from Times journalists and trusted third party sources, including AllBusiness.com, Inc. Magazine and SmallBusiness.org, as well as a comprehensive Resource Center guide for readers seeking information on specific topics like management, innovation or legal issues.

"This new section will help small business owners make better decisions, work smarter and keep up with the latest information related to their field and business community," said Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager, NYTimes.com. "Advertisers have long been asking for ways to reach the small business community and now we've given them a powerful new platform that aggregates all of the great reporting we do in this area as well as carefully selected partner content."

It's A Minefield Out There

2007-05-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

According to Forbes.com in an article titled "Condemned To Google Hell" online diamond merchants MySoltaire.com and Skyfacet.com lost ranking and business due to violations of Google's rules of the ranking game.

Skyfacet apparently paid someone to optimize the site for $35,000 and the SEO firm foolishly duplicated content, a big no-no and Google banished Skyfacet from the front page results which is the same a shotgun blast to the stomach, you're dead.

Mysoltaire.com suffered from a different malady;

"Amit Jhalani, the site's vice president of search marketing, says he figures that cost his business $250,000 in sales, and he says he still doesn't know why the site's pages got Google's thumbs-down.

"So many of the rules are vague," Jhalani says. But he admits that he tried gray-area tactics like buying links from more established sites to juice his traffic. "For a small site like ours, you have to stay right on the edge to compete with sites with bigger budgets," he confesses.

Jhalani says he removed the links that may have offended Google, but the site remained in Google's gulag. Jhalani wrote Google asking the search engine to reappraise MySolitaire; nothing happened. Since Google ranks sites partially by the quality of sites that link to them, he painstakingly contacted every site that seemed to be of low quality and linked to MySolitaire, asking them to remove their links, sometimes even sending cease-and-desist letters. Finally the site returned to Google's main index last June, though Jhalani has no way of knowing just what finally caused Google's algorithm to forgive him."

Cease and desist from linking? Amazing. Can you potentially be sued for linking to someone? This would open a whole new can of worms that goes against the intent of the Internet I think.

I doubt Google intends or intended for it to come to this but has it?

My takeaway from the Forbes article is this.

Follow Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Don't buy links.
I'm not charging enough if others are charging 35k for that kind of service.

Maps Are For Travel, Not Local Search

2007-04-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Chris Linnett writing on SEL today offered the thought; "Imagine Local Search Without Maps". I have. Not daily or even weekly, well maybe weekly or whenever I use Google Maps.

Chris writes;

"........Similarly, I may need someone to repair the lock on my front door that is old enough to qualify as ancient. Well, local search is about discovery as well. I do not need to see where all the locksmiths are on a map; the locksmith is coming to me. But by providing me the tools to narrow my search of locksmiths by such variables as services offered, brands of locks, pricing, customer feedback, and more, I may be able to discover just the one my neighbors rave about for older locks..."

I don't need to know where the plumber starts his day. I don't need to know where the tree trimmer keeps his chipper.
And it's not just me. When I present Google Maps to clients I get quizzed to the importance of being listed there. Typically they say "do people really use this?" I assure them people do.

I think Yahoo! has it about right. Take a look at how Yahoo! treats maps as related to local search. Try the same search on Local.com. Note how the maps on both sites are tucked away nicely on the side. My new favorite local database is Yellowbot.com, it's clean and the data, mostly supplied by Localeze.com is fresh. The map bears the confusing* "got peeps" slang under the nicely sized map on the right side but otherwise this is how a local search site should look.

Confusing as in how do I convince an attorney client this may be a site to keep an eye on for advertising purposes down the road. Most professionals don't follow contemporary street slang. The Urban Dictionary defines "Got Peeps".
It's not pretty!

Inexpensive Website Solutions From SiteKreator

2007-04-27T18:08:00.000-07:00

Many small businesses I approach with marketing proposals don't have a website. Those without a website generally fall into three categories. Either a relative is helping them, they paid someone who builds websites and it's still in progress or they don't know where to start. They all believe "getting on the web" is expensive. It's not.
I blogged about solutions from Yahoo! Local awhile back and briefly touched on web hosting solutions from SuperPages.com. Both fit the bill for most small outfits and come in under $20.00 per month.
Another simple website solution provider is SiteKreator.com. Of the three I prefer SiteKreator.
The designs are simple, clean and affordable. Packages run from $7.95 to $39.95 monthly and offer "unlimited" pages. Simple editing caught my eye. It looks as easy as Blogger which means even moi might feel comfortable at the controls.
No further need for bugging your teen nephew or the friend of a friend to put together something in spare time. Definitely no need for the local bakery to pay thousands for a simple layout.
Those days are gone.

Got Rid Of Adsense For Awhile

2007-04-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

I had to remove AdSense from the blog. Google was sending ads that had nothing to do with material written on here or on searches made by me. The lifestyle oriented questionaire they have been pushing for a couple of weeks now might be deemed as offensive by some.
The last thing I wish to do is offend current or potential clients.

MySpace Appealing To Advertisers

2007-04-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

From AdWeek.com via Yahoo!,the MySpace profile for Adidas Soccer has over 83,000 friends much to the pleasure of Adidas and engineered by their ad agency Carat Fusion, a division of Aegis Group.

"Figuring out how to befriend consumers is top of mind these days, as MySpace and Facebook loom ever larger in the daily lives of young consumers. According to the Carat Fusion-MySpace research, social networking users spend 11 hours online per week compared to 9.4 hours watching TV. Non-social networking users watch TV 11.5 hours and spend 8.7 hours on the Web. While social networkers still watch TV, 68 percent said their favorite time to visit social networks is during prime-time TV hours in the evening....."

Regarding MySpace, Sarah Fay of Aegis Group says;

"It is more than a media opportunity. It also shows, she said, that advertisers need to take a leap of faith with social-network programs that some of the extra "momentum effect" will not be quantified for every campaign."

Bottom line, it works and it's not difficult to implement.

Google Maps Now Displaying UGC

2007-04-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Google Maps is now including UGC link options for searchers on the bottom of local search results.

See user-created content New!

On first look some of the sites Google considers include;

VirtualGlobetrotting.com
Platial.com
Wik.is
Navitraveler
Travelandleisure.com (not really a UGC site)
Propsmart.com (real estate)
Raditz.net
KeyHole.com (Google property)

Google also favors pages saved by users of their new My Saved Pages, part of the new MyMaps feature.

How to take advantage of this;
Map your business on Virtual Globetrotting (if it can get by the editors). Join the Keyhole BBS groups. Have your friends and better customers or clients get a Google account and save the map to your establishment on Google MyMaps.
Get accounts at Wik, Platial and the other sites mentioned.

Adding user generated content follows the addition of reviews to Google Maps results earlier this year. Google is favoring what users think about local business, museums and tourist spots etc.
UGC (user generated content), local community and review sites play a big part in marketing your local business. The news today affirms our belief and provides another tool to assist our clients in gaining search share in the categories.

Also on the subject of UGC, how does user generated content size up for advertising purposes? BlueLithium Labs came out with some interesting figures on how UGC ads convert vs. non UGC.

Other Bloggers posting on the topic;
Helen at NonLinear
Greg Sterling at Screenwerk

New Design For Google Blog Search Results

2007-04-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

Google Blog search results page now sports a design similar to Google web search results. Notice too how Google has inched blog results closer to sharing the search home page. Blog search is first up for choices on the drop down menu under "more." How long before blog search gets home page positioning? It seems unlikely it will come at the expense of "Images", "News", "Video" or Maps" (local).
Maybe Google will have to expand the vertical search options tabs?

Update: I am seeing the old Google Blog Search page design on some searches. The link above still directs to a page with the new design.

So Many New Social Sites/Tools

2007-04-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

More social/web2/community oriented sites coming online. No one knows which of these new sites will catch on or offer value to a small business. Our practice is to put client links on as many of these sites as is practical. If one out of every 5 or 10 become favored by Google or Yahoo! then the effort is worth it.

Todays sampling of new sites with social implications is Menuism.com. Menusism's tag line, "Menuism is a social network around restaurants and dishes that helps you find better food in the US and Canada". Restaurant owners will want to pop a link here and point preferred customers to hit the site with objective reviews.

Next up are sites brought to light by Greg Sterling are a couple of newspaper owned sites TribLocal.com and NeighborsGo.com. Chicago or Dallas residents may make use of these two.

Another site with intriguing implications for real estate is YourStreet.com. StreetAdvisor.com is another in this space. I posted on StreetAdvisor awhile back. My real estate clients (with one exception) saw the potential for StreetAdvisor instantly.

Who Turned On The "I Need A Blog Switch"?

2007-04-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I fielded three phone calls from folks looking to start a blog. Real estate, community board member and a close relative seeking to promote a family event. I think it's great. One common trait among those looking to get into it is how confusing the software appears to them. As simple as Blogger.com is to use it is daunting for many.
The community board member decided a blog was not the best idea once she realized it would be visible by anyone in the world. (requiring registration for users was not an option)
The family member was sent to Blogger and she is up and running. She hasn't figured out hyperlinks yet, we'll get to that today.
The real estate company is finding competition in their niche has a head start so their battle for views in the community will be a test.

Calendar Oddity On May 6th

2007-04-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

At Three minutes and Four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May This year, the time and date will be
02:03:04 05/06/07.

This will not happen again in our lifetime.

Rich Site, Poor site, Everything Else Falls In Between

2007-04-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit humbled after viewing the blog design for Cooking With Amy, which sports a brilliant use of the Blogspot platform. The design is credited to Cat Batacan. Amy runs this blog for a total of ZERO dollars for hosting or domain costs. Wow.

Contrast this with Conde Nast's business property Portfolio.com and the $125 million price tag for that site and associated pages. Battelle posted on the news earlier today.

Conde Nast probably could have hired Cat for oh say........ $1,000 per page across the board and saved Uhhhh $124, 500,000 or so, ya think?

Yeah I know there is more to it but come on.

Thanks for the inspiration Cat and Amy. More of our clients want blogs and we are in the learning phase of blog design and content development.
We won't copy but it's tempting.

Another Mousetrap

2007-04-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Reading today the news and interesting columns on SEL I found a profiled sponsored link to Firefactor.Coffeecup.com. The company lures you to a "free firefactor mini-report" for your website so I thought I would give it a spin. I inserted one of my blogs into the form and waited the 10 minutes they suggested it would take to have the report sent to my email inbox.
Once the "report" arrived I clicked back to the site to get the information. Surprisingly I had to insert my password. I had no account (didn't know I needed one) so I could not access the report. There was no ready link to open an account to view my report.

There was however information on how I could upgrade for a full report for a fee. I felt misled when I was directed to the pay account page.
All I wanted was the free report but I was expertly herded like a sheep to the trough to a checkout stand. It seems anyone signing up for the "for fee" service will get a broad website report and submission to various search directories and engines. I won't go far into that mess here but generally companies that promise submission to dozens, hundreds or thousands of search sites are looking for easy money.
Be warned submission to many of these sites may invite email and solicitations that could drag out for months. Agents for many of those sites will hound you to "add on" for special placement on their self proclaimed important "niche" websites. Neither your business or web profile will be enhanced by submission to sites like iKenya.com, EnlacesBolivia or Szukaj.com. (resolves to Ebay by the way)

There is NO substitute for manual insertion to key directories and search sites.

After some searching I did get to the account page. They sent me a password and I got to look at the report. Some good, some bad about my site but it all led to a push for the upgraded version. The optimization packages they offer may be top grade, I don't know. I can't speculate on that side of their service. I'll assume they provide OK options for people who click through for those services.
I sense some tricky marketing tactics that prey on the unsuspecting and it makes my job harder.

Every client I talk to is brand new to advertising on the Internet. They see it as confusing, complicated and expensive. As a search marketer one of my main tasks is to unmask the confusion and make the process less complicated than it appears. Small business has had it with traditional marketers (yellow pages, newspapers, radio etc.) who long held a vise grip on client accessibility. It would be too easy to obfuscate or misrepresent opportunities for business owners.

I am not an old media marketer but suffer from the reputation old media marketers built. Too often when I mention to a prospective customer what I can do for them I see the glossy eyes, the blank out. They have been continuously assaulted by smooth talking YP and radio people for years.
Marketers in this new media don't need to obfuscate, misdirect or skew data and facts. It is not necessary.
When I see confusing marketing strategies I know my job will not get easier and understand fully why marketers are loathed.

Must Read Blogger Jim Boykin

2007-04-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

There are many search marketing bloggers I consider to be daily "must reads" that include Beal, Odden, Sterling, Sullivan, Baker, Wall and Schwartz, (sounds like a law firm) but one that sticks out is Jim Boykin's Blog.

No one in this space is as transparent. Jim's business website We Build Pages is a virtual gold mine for link and page building information. Jim offers somethings very few do and that is a look at his rates. It's rare to find a business in this industry that lays out the their fees for services. He doesn't treat the subject as a state secret and I appreciate it.
Anyone with a desire to understand link building, page building or blog building should visit Jim Boykin's Blog and get the feed for their reader.

Google Voice Local Search

2007-04-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

This is BIG! Google Voice Local Search was launched today in Google Labs.

Google states;

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

"Using this service, you can:

search for a local business by name or category.
You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza".
get connected to the business, free of charge.
get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say "text message".

And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests."

How important is it to be listed on Google Maps?

New Tools

2007-04-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

Topix.com is "Calling All Editors".

About editing on Topix

Topix Editors are an elite group of users that post interesting and relevant articles to share with their communities. Editors receive special tools enabling them to find and promote stories on pages that are read by millions of users. Editors can even post their own original articles and photos.
Anyone with a passionate interest for news in their community is encouraged to submit an application.

As location editor you (along with roboblogger) are a gatekeeper for articles and help keep spam out of user forums. Being an editor could act as a great tool for real estate agents who need to keep the pulse of particular locations or markets.

YellowBot (beta) is a new Internet Yellow Pages play with a friendly and inviting interface. You can submit a business which is great. One negative is the GenX phrasiology used throughout the site like "off the heezy" for business ratings or "got peeps" indicating spots on a map. Their demo's must indicate like minded hip urban twenty-somethings or perhaps they really believe such slang is mainstream.
I don't know or care what "heezy" means so I won't use their ratings system. I will suggest clients submit their business but most are there already because Localeze is the bus. info provider.

Finally Microsoft Office Live offers a free website and supporting tools. Christine Churchill has a great review on Search Engine Land.

Blogger Adds Video And News Modules

2007-03-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Score one for Google Blogger! Blogger now allows Blogger bloggers to add a "videobar" or "newsreel" to the sidebar or footer of a Blogger blog.
Users of Blogger (new) simply click "Add A Page Element" under "Customize", and the new options will be obvious. You can name your search bar or video strip and instruct Google which news or video keywords to display results for.

Big Blog Directory caught it too and posts this graphic;

Yahoo! Simple Website Solutions

2007-03-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! Small Business hits a clean triple through the gap with the introduction of a simple and inexpensive webhosting and site building feature.
It's a definite improvement on the free website offering that is nothing more than an information page.

This product plays into the hands of smaller businesses unwilling or unable to employ full service website design firms. Over a decade into the world of website building it is still a minefield for small businesses looking for an trustworthy site designer that does not charge an arm and a leg. I have heard enough horror stories lately to represent that overpriced designers are still laying in wait for the uninitiated.

I intend to introduce this solution to my clients looking for easy and inexpensive website options. SuperPages has a similar offering with monthly charges in the $15.00 range. I have not studied the program but the templates look clean and the price is right.

I also noticed this interesting item on the new Yahoo! site building page, a submission option to Yahoo! and Google. Yahoo! has no direct submission option. Their site submission is normally $299.00 and that does not guarantee inclusion.

Google + Box For Business And Stocks

2007-03-21T19:31:00.000-07:00

Small business will be happy to know if your address is correct and listed on Google you may soon see a "Plus Box" asociated with your listing.

Google Blog explains;

"Whenever you see the plus box icon - - click on it to see the additional rich data expand below the original search result. With Plus Box, you'll get a visual snapshot of related information, so it is faster and easier to find exactly what you're looking for.

"You won't see this feature yet for all businesses, but we're working hard to increase its availability. If you're a business owner and would like to see something like this associated with your website, here's how to get your information to us."

Google points to this page and how the plus box looks attached to a restaurant listing.

Are you listed on Google Maps, their local search engine?

Spam Gets A Pass, Honest Postings Get Limbo!

2007-03-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

I noticed the mention of Boorah by Greg Sterling today on Search Engine Land and sort of congratulated myself for being a few days out front on Boorah with a passing mention the other day. I like to keep up on news and plug myself and my clients into every possible opportunity early. You never know which new business model will become a hit and gain link favor on Google.

I decided to take a look at "Boorah" related blog posts and could not find my page anywhere. That's OK since this blog is not intended for popular consumption but I am a bit irritated that this SPLOG piece of garbage is near the top for the keyword.

I really don't mind that 3/4 of the posts here go straight to supplemental on G, the blog is indexed well enough on Yahoo!, enough that it satiates what vanity or ego I have attached to this page. What is amazing is honest efforts put forward get passed over in favor of splogs.

Oh and Google, please remove the word verification, this IS NOT a splog and whatever I post here ends up benefiting you. I am about attaching clients to you!
End rant!

Clickfraud Killer, Pay-Per-Action From Google

2007-03-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

Google introduces a Pay-Per-Action program in beta. I'm anxious!

Here are the highlights;

First, create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site.
Then set the amount that you're willing to pay when this action is completed.
Finally, install conversion tracking code on your website so that we (Google) can verify when an action has been completed.

Beta sign-up page.

Physician Report Cards On Local.com

2007-03-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

It looks like Local.com teamed up with Healthgrades.com, a physician profile website. Healthgrades looks like it has a very comprehensive database. On a search for "dr" "95123" (San Jose), the search returned results for over 15,900 doctors. Physicians should be doing some searching on the site to see what is being said about them and then tasking their office staff to fill out a profile page.

The Power Of Digg

2007-03-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Loren Baker digs Digg. His Search Engine Journal article about Gmail storage made the front page of Digg.com. The front page ranking attracted more than 24,000 unique visits and over two dozen comments on SEJ.
Digg is fickle, you never know what will catch or what Diggers like. Digg's front page or "most popular" stuff is generally from pop culture, bizarre news or interesting images. Loren enjoyed the benefits of an article that was really "dug".

Disney Using ASK As Part Of Web Revamp

2007-03-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Disney's new interactive vertical Family.com is part of the entertainment giant's online makeover. The web search is powered by ASK while the 1,000 links to Disney-recommended community sites is put together through a Eurekster Swicki.

ASK/IAC also got the local search contract as Citysearch returns local search queries.

Yahoo! still delivers search results for home base Go.com but you have to wonder if ASK will take over all search duty for Disney as the interactive roll outs continue.

It might be time to take a more serious look at ASK Sponsored Listings. If they continue to gain big wins it will pay to be in their system.

Fantastic List On "Link Attracting"

2007-03-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

CornwallSEO produced a comprehensive list for those looking for info on "linkbaiting" or "link baiting".

I prefer to call it Link Attracting. Simply, it's having your site linked on or embedded on another site. Within the links on the list above are many hints and clues about how to attract or invite more links to your site.
In the area of local search there are more sites accepting links than ever before. There seems to be a hunger for business links by some of the hyper-local/city/community oriented websites.

Sizing Up Hyper-Local CitySquares

2007-03-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

CitySquares joins the growing list of hyper-local focused websites. The site focuses on Boston neighborhoods for now. CitySquares is cut from the same mold as "super-local" or hyper-local Outside.in and Backfence.
I spent some time on the three sites and compared their differences. I chose neighborhoods in cities where I have lived in or near for my "test drive".

The Outside.in neighborhood I looked at was South 6th, a South Tucson neighborhood known widely for authentic Mexican food restaurants. Chosing "restaurants" from the drop down menu brought no restaurants from the South 6th neighborhood or even that section of town. What a disappointment. Their salespeople could not sell a Mexican restaurant spot in a neighborhood only know for Mexican food? For my purposes the Outside.in "South 6th" site is somewhat useless.

Backfence.com is less neighborhood centric and more small city oriented for now so I chose their Palo Alto site. The front page has a search box nicely placed with relevant classified ads for houses for rent. "Top-Business" links are below the fold in favor of a "special sections" offerings above. I think this is should be reversed. If I live in Palo Alto or plan to visit the town I want to see restaurants, read reviews and news on points of interest, not articles about how to chose granite for my kitchen.

The CitySquares neighborhood I looked at is Brookline Village. I've never been there and know nothing about the neighborhood. The site is clean with inviting colors but the main column content is spaced too far apart. There are only 16 restaurants listed for the Brookline Village neighborhood. I'm not familiar enough to know if that represents all the restaurants in Brookline. It would have been nice to read a synopsis of the neighborhood on the front page. I should not have to visit Wikipedia to get basic neighborhood or city info.
Here is a partial list of Brookline Village restaurants from Google Maps and the same search on Local.com. Understanding these ultra local sites are not local search engines as such but there should at least be ready links to outside local search sites.

For my tastes I like the true neighborhood approach adopted by CitySquares. The choices for neighborhoods stares right at you as you enter the main site. I like it. As they grow and expand I hope they don't lose that feel.

I am excited about the potential for super, ultra or hyper-local platforms. Both CitySquares and Outside.in offer inexpensive opportunities for local businesses. Local business should pay to get in early and encourage reviews and establish a site presence before category competition wakes up and starts rushing the doors. This space will grow.

Google's Schmidt On Targeted Advertising

2007-03-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

Google CEO Eric Schmidt speaking to investors in San Diego said "We are just at the beginning of targeted advertising".

" Schmidt said about 90 to 95 percent of TV viewers are exposed to random ads. "It's a constant barrage of ads that aren't relevant; pet food for people without pets, baby products for families with out kids. Even a small improvement [in relevancy] would have a very large impact."
He said Google is exploring ways to better target TV advertising and leverage the fact that an increasing number of consumers have IP addressable set top boxes."

I've felt for awhile the (not too distant) future of TV advertising includes personalized super-local "AdSense" type spots delivered to my demographic for my personal tastes and needs. They will know from my search and spending habits I haven't been to Costco for awhile and maybe Sam's Club will bid to hit me up with an enticing offer to pull me from Costco. Abertsons grocery figures I feed a large family and that like most in my neighborhood I shop at SaveMart. Albertsons might bid up big to get onto my TV screen. If ads are local and relevant to me I might not Tivo through ads like I do now.

Think of the possibilities for local merchants.

Schmidt is telling us where they are going, I'm listening.

Update:Danny Sullivan reports Google is delivering ads to Concord California cable subscribers! That was fast Eric.

Kelsey Group's Five Year Forecast

2007-03-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

"Forecast Calls for Flat Print Growth"

The Kelsey Group's Global Print Yellow Pages, Internet Yellow Pages and Local Search Forecast was made public today.

Some bullet points;

"Global print revenues will be relatively flat for the period (CAGR 0.9 percent) — US$26.5 billion in 2006 compared with US$27.8 billion in 2011."
"Online revenues, by contrast, will grow a brisk 22.3 percent (CAGR) to US$11.1 billion in 2011. "

My read;

Print Yellow Pages will milk the categories they can while readership stalls.
As current Y.P. customers become aware of online options they will be flocking to Internet.

Natpal, "Serving Local Merchants"

2007-03-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

Greg Sterling wrote about Natpal recently. I took a look and found some positives and negatives.

From Natpal;

"Natpal.com was originally incubated at the Wharton School in Philadelphia, and is now headquartered in New York City. Natpal.com has developed an integrated approach to signing up and serving local merchants who are transitioning their marketing budgets online...."
"...Natpal, by 2009, will have a diversified product enabling businesses to effectively interact with customers via the web. Natpal's flagship product, adStation, will be offered globally as a web-based application, allowing businesses to automate and enhance their pay for performance advertising."

I like their before and afters customer website profiles. They do pretty decent makeovers. I followed some of their client testimonials and can't really see anything special local placement service provided. One client, Philadelphia restaurant is not optimized well for local at all. It's not profiled on any of the local search sites, local directories or IYP's.

Another profiled client, a small charter fishing company is not found on any variation of a Google Maps search. You really can't say you serve local business unless you cover the basics like Google Maps/Local.

I get the impression they are really gunning for the introduction of their "adStation" application. Maybe this product will distinguish them.

Local search marketing is a distinct specialty. Properly done it requires hands-on personal representation. The local landscape is too fragmented, too detailed with too many options for an automated service to cover.
Natpal will need a crew of trained search specialists to do the necessary work of customer relations and data input to become serious local search marketing providers. A look at their careers page shows they know this. Within one of the job descriptions we see some insight to their thinking.

"Industry Description:

Local Search is considered the new frontier in paid search marketing, the fastest growing area of both technology and advertising and the key driver of Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Over $100 billion is spent on local advertising in the U.S alone; to date, very little has transitioned online. A significant opening exists to devise, build, and monetize this opportunity within the next 2-4 years.

I agree the next 2 to 4 years is the time to build a local search platform. Once the herd starts moving it will turn to a stampede. Natpal should be ready!

Embarq Pushing BestRedYP.com

2007-03-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

Who is Embarq?

"Corporate Profile; Embarq Corporation (NYSE: EQ) provides a suite of communications services to customers in its serving areas. Embarq, which is expected to rank among the Fortune 500, brings common-sense ideas, reliable service and a renewed commitment to the communities it serves. Embarq focuses on offering its customers practical, innovative products and competitive pricing. The company has 20,000 employees and operates in 18 states offering local and long distance voice, data, high speed internet, wireless, and entertainment services."

UMmmm, I don't understand. Corporate speak is not my specialty so I went to the common man's place to find all answers under the sun Wikipedia!

"Embarq Corporation, or EMBARQ, was formerly the local telephone division (LTD) of Sprint Nextel. It is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EQ.
The company is the fourth largest local exchange carrier in the United States (below the Baby Bells) and the largest independent local provider, serving customers in 18 states and providing local, long distance and high-speed data services to residential and business customers. The Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan area is its largest market. [1] The company consists of approximately 20,000 employees.
Telephone directories for EMBARQ customers are published by R.H. Donnelley.
Approximately $3 billion in debt incurred from the Sprint Nextel merger was transferred to the new company. The company is estimated to have approximately $6 billion in revenues.
EMBARQ trademarks are the property of a subsidiary named Embarq Holdings Company LLC, commonly mistaken as the actual name of the publicly traded holding company, Embarq Corporation. It began trading on the NYSE on May 18, 2006."

Ahhhh that's better and now I understand the connection to R.H. Donnelley. Embarq owns BestRedYP.com and the online Yellow Pages site is published by R.H. Donnelley who last year bought LocalLaunch and are clearly moving into local search in earnest.

Why this ridiculous lead up? Well today I saw a Google AdSense ad on another blog advertising Embarq's BestRedYP.com. It seems odd Embarq is pushing their directory this way. Maybe they are taking the tact Local.com took when they jump started their local search engine in 2005. The company spent a ton buying traffic via AdWords and according to the company the marketing plan was successful. I can't imagine BestRedYP can catch the same wind as Local.com. The name is not catchy and the interface is old school, not intuitive and a bit clunky. I'm not saying it's not a good directory but I am suggesting it's not going to get bookmarked by too many.
Embarq is well capitalized so they can afford to test away. I can't see any benefit in placing clients there yet but I will keep an eye on the site and how it is being marketed.

"Juiced" About Joost

2007-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

Today Joost opened to beta testers. I signed up awhile back and now I'm glad I did. After downloading and installing the program I was treated to a view into the future of TV. I did not see any real bugs. Site navigation is well designed and the full screen option I tried offered acceptable resolution . I viewed an older National Geographic show and experienced a little lag but not much and I blame that on my computer not the Joost servers.

I have no idea what opportunities will open up for local or small business marketing but I have to believe there will be ways to get a local message in somewhere, maybe in sponsorship form or short (video) introductions?

From Joost to the beta testers;

"We need you to help us make Joost™ great. As a beta tester, you already know about our mission to build a television platform combining the best of the net and the best of conventional TV - and we need your help to get there. Get involved with Joost™ and help create the future of TV!"

If you can't sign up for the beta directly from the site I can send invitations.
Just hit me up with an email (mikemora at gmail).

Wikia.com

2007-03-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Wikia, the profit oriented project of Wikipedia founder Jim Wales is one to watch. Alexa rankings for the last six months show a move from below 6,000 to around 1,500 world rank today. In the U.S. it is close to breaking into the top 1,000. CNN profiled Wales' Wikia project and the money funding it. The article points out;

" More than 30,000 people have created nearly 500,000 Wikia articles in 45 languages. Collectively, the sites are attracting about 2.5 million pageviews a day, slightly more traffic than the website of the Los Angeles Times. Wikia's growth in pageviews, in fact, is a bit better than Wikipedia's was at the same stage of its development.

"So far, the traction looks great," Levine says. "Wikia can be three to five times bigger at the end of the year and then do it again. When you do that over a few years, you get to be pretty big."

So what will this new search engine offer marketers, specifically small business marketers? Wikia.com is in wiki form and therefore is made up of information provided by users. This allows small businesses to list their own business where they can enjoy reviews as well as being part of their local Wikia community. I searched for my area and found no listings of any businesses or links of any kind. Here is the page for my zip code. Since Wikia is so new it's likely most zip codes or neighborhoods are blank. Being first in may be an advantage if wikia lives up to its potential.
Take a look at the difference between Wikia's Tokyo page and Wikipedia's Tokyo page. Wikipedia's pages look stark compared to Wikia and you see ads attached to the Wikia pages, something I see as opportunity as time goes on.
Google loves Wikipedia and is showing some big time love to Wikia already.

I'll add that my kids use Wikipedia and their friends do as well. Most of the kids (teens) in their group prefer Wikipedia to Google or Answers.com. Google is too much and not enough and Answers is too polished, go figure!

Google Code - Updates: The Value of Google Gadgets

2007-02-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

Google Code - Updates: The Value of Google Gadgets

Bambi Interviews Greg Sterling

2007-02-28T12:56:00.000-08:00

Bambi Francisco of MarketWatch interviews local search expert Greg Sterling. Greg is the author of Screenwerk, a blog I consult daily.
Bambi asks some very good questions and Greg's responses are spot on as you would expect. I could tell he gave Bambi fairly basic answers understanding her audience is the investor set.

Greg offers how slow the merchant is to come to local search marketing, that Google's self-serve options are not grabbing their attention. When asked if local merchants will come to favor local video in 2007 Greg offers "maybe not this year".
For some reason the embed from Brightcove won't take, but here
is the link to the interview.

Google Video Ad Viewed In The Wild

2007-02-28T08:44:00.000-08:00

I've read about them, never seen one in action but today I viewed one and it's pretty slick. The ad can be seen on this Digital50.com page. The Google video ad is for Proximitymedia.com.

AdWords Click-to-Play about page.

Update; Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable and contributor to Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land was kind enough to inform me the ads have been around for awhile now. As much time as I spend online I am surprised I've never seen one before today. Barry provided me a
comprehensive list of articles from his archive on the subject of Google Video Ads.