WebProNews

Category: LocalSearchPro

LocalSearchPro

  • Google Makes Deal With Local Publishers In U.S.

    Google and The Local Media Consortium, which is made up of 800 newspapers and 200 local broadcast outlets from 41 member companies throughout the U.S., announced a strategic partnership, which will see Google providing the consortium’s members with ad products.

    The consortium will launch a private ad exchange powered by Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange technology. Additionally, members will have access to DoubleClick for Publishers, and the option to run AdSense ads on their sites and Google Custom Search-powered search results.

    “The Local Media Consortium represents the best of what the web has to offer in terms of content and engaged local audiences,” said Laurent Cordier, Managing Director, Americas Partnerships, News & Magazines for Google. “We’re looking forward to working with their leadership and members to build on this partnership and help grow the businesses of valued newspapers and news stations from across the country.”

    “By partnering with Google we are able to bring Google’s digital tools, technology and sales opportunities to all of our media members and our advertisers across the country,” said Patrick J. Talamantes, President and CEO of consortium member The McClatchy Company. “The vast size and scale of the Consortium’s collective audience makes this kind of partnership possible with one of the world’s top digital companies. We’re excited about the possibilities of this partnership.”

    Consortium member sites account for 10 billion monthly ad impressions, 2 billion page views and 240 million monthly unique visitors.

    Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

    Image via Google

  • Yahoo And Yelp Partner On Local Listings

    Well this is interesting. We were just talking about how Yelp is growing like a weed, and seems to be unstoppable. We were also talking about how Yahoo is looking for a way out of its partnership with Microsoft, and wants to build its own search technology again.

    Now, Yahoo and Yelp are reportedly joining forces to help Yahoo improve its local search results. According to the Wall Street Journal, the partnership was unveiled by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer at an employee meeting on Friday, and will see Yahoo incorporate Yelp listings and reviews of local businesses into its search engine. The feature will be rolled out to users within the coming weeks.

    In other words, if your business is on Yelp, you’re about to see even more visibility for your reviews, whether they’re good or bad.

    Last week, Yelp revealed that its cumulative reviews had grown 47% from the same time the previous year to 53 million, and that mobile engagement has been up dramatically since it added the ability to add reviews from the apps. Average unique monthly visitors grew 39% to 120 million.

    It will be interesting to see if Yahoo makes similar partnerships for other types of search results, which could ultimately make it less dependent on Microsoft’s Bing. Search in general is already moving further away from pure organic results as the main point of focus. Look at how Google continues to push them down. And let’s not forget that Yahoo and Google aren’t exactly the bitter enemies you might think. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has even expressed interest in a partnership since Mayer took over as CEO.

    Image via Yahoo

  • Can Search Improvements Make Pinterest More Valuable To Businesses?

    Can Search Improvements Make Pinterest More Valuable To Businesses?

    Pinterest is becoming a better search engine, and it’s likely only getting started.

    Have you ever used Pinterest specifically to search for something? Do you think it is capable of providing helpful results for certain types of queries? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    This week, the company announced the launch of an improved recipe search experience. Recipes are one of the most popular verticals on the site, so this is a great place to start with the search improvements.

    “Now when you search for ingredients, say whatever is in your fridge, you’ll see a collection of relevant recipes as well as filters, such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and paleo,” a spokesperson for the company tells WebProNews. “For example, if you search for ‘avocados, black beans and bell peppers,’ you’ll see recipes for quinoa salad, pork tenderloin with red bell pepper chili rub, and black bean quesadillas.”

    “This is the latest update to more useful Pins, which uses structured data, such as ingredients, cook time and servings, to display more information right on the Pin,” the spokesperson adds. “All recipe search results will show this rich information. Food is one of the most popular categories on Pinterest, and the new recipe search makes it easier than ever to find meal inspiration from some of the best recipes on the web, and plan great dishes tailored to your tastes.”

    “More Useful Pins” is an initiative the company launched last May. It added more info for product pins (pricing, availability and where to buy), recipe pins (cook times, ingredients, servings) and movie pins (content ratings, cast members, etc.).

    You can see where this stuff would serve to make Pinterest more efficient as a search tool.

    The new recipe improvements stem from the company’s acquisition of Pinterest-like recipe site Punchfork a year ago. Punchfork CEO Jeff Miller has led the development of this new product.

    It’s easy to see Pinterest expanding the strategy into more verticals. Travel, Local and Articles come to mind, given some of the announcements the company made last year.

    In November, it launched Place Pins, which show details like the address of a place, phone number, etc.

    Pinterest Place Pins

    In March, Pinterest announced its acquisition of Livestar, an app that helped people find local recommendations from friends and others. The product was shut down, and the engineering talent became part of the Pinterest team.

    In March, Pinterest launched redesigned article pins, providing more info like headlines, authors and story descriptions.

    Article Pins

    Search is a popular way to monetize a site, and the more Pinterest expands as a search tool, the better this tool could be for advertisers.

    The Wall Street Journal has an interview out with Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann. Asked about Pinterest’s business model, he says, “It will be getting them to discover the things they want. And it may be a product that they buy; it may be a service that they use sometime down the line. But it’s not purely transactional.”

    Earlier his month, Pinterest announced that it acquired VisualGraph, an image recognition and visual search company, consisting of two people who have joined Pinterest’s engineering team. Both have experience at Google. Kevin Jing began working for the search giant in 2004, and helped build some of its first machine vision applications. David Liu interned at the company, as well as at Facebook.

    “The acquisition of VisualGraph will help us build technology to better understand what people are Pinning,” a spokesperson for Pinterest told us. “By doing so, we hope to make it easier for people to find the things they love.”

    “On Pinterest, millions of people are curating and sharing billions of Pins everyday,” said Jing and Liu. “And these Pins are more than just images — they link to contents that can inspire and enrich people’s lives. We are excited for the opportunity to combine machine vision with human vision and curation, and to build a visual discovery experience that is both aesthetically appealing and immensely useful for people everywhere.”

    This technology should only help Pinterest improve its search experience.

    Danny Maloney is the CEO and co-founder of Pinterest analytics firm Tailwind. He tells WebProNews, “Pinterest is more of a discovery engine than a search engine, but I believe visual search could be a hidden gem of the Pinterest business model. Just as with Google or Bing, search on Pinterest tends to indicate users have a strong commercial intent. In many cases, search traffic over time leads revenue generated from pins to occur later in the pin’s life, even if it sees a good deal of viral sharing soon after being pinned.”

    “The acquisition of VisualGraph brings a couple of very talented engineers to Pinterest’s team,” he says. “I suspect most of their work is yet to be done, but the principle of Pinterest being able to understand images the way a human brain might is very powerful. Such capabilities should unlock better search results, improved content recommendations for users and an ability to organize and understand content at a much deeper level. Businesses will use this technology just by participating in the platform, as it will help their content surface to an increasingly better targeted audience.”

    Maloney says he expects the next steps in the evolution of Pinterest’s promoted pins ad product to come this year (which appears to indeed be the case based on what Silbermann told the Wall Street Journal). He thinks we’ll see the Pinterest ecosystem become “much richer” as third parties continue to build value-added tools that help businesses adopt the platform.

    “And of course, I expect deeper innovation on the consumer side, from continued localization bringing Pinterest to new countries to improved search and discovery capabilities and innovative new ways to organize content,” he says.

    Pinterest itself is only gaining momentum. It appears that it is not just a fad at this point. Content sharing to Pinterest increased by 58% last year, surpassing even email, according to a report from ShareThis (via MarketingCharts).

    Do you see significant business opportunities with Pinterest? Specifically with Pinterest search? Let us now what you think.

    Images via Pinterest

  • Blekko Launches Izik For Smartphones, Adds Local Search Feature

    Blekko has just launched a new smartphone version of its mobile search product izik, which until now was only for iPad and Android tablets.

    The app, now available in Apple’s App Store and in Google Play, tries to emulate the tablet experience, while adding a local search element lacking from that version.

    Blekko’s director of product management and design, Daniel Swartz, tells WebProNews that a smartphone version of izik has been the most requested feature. The tablet version, he says, sees users spending 12 minutes per session, and averaging 1.6 queries per session, with 70% of its user base being returning users.

    People use tablets more for content, while they use their smartphones on the go, Swartz says, which is why izik for the smartphone is getting the local search (or “What’s Nearby?”) feature. It gives you eight categories to find nearby places: Banks, Bars, Cafes, Gas, Grocery, Health, Movie Theaters, and Restaurants.

    izik smartphone

    izik restaurant search

    Izik restaurant

    The feature is not available for izik on tablets, but will be eventually.

    Blekko first launched izik back in January to bring a more tablet-friendly and visual interface to the search market. The app debuted in the top free reference apps on iTunes.

    Blekko launched a redesign last month at blekko.com utilizing the API it built for izik.

    When asked why the company chose to go with a different brand for izik, rather than just sticking with blekko, Swartz tells us there was no real concrete reason, and that they just wanted to try something different.

    Earlier this month, news came out that Blekko both reduced its staff, laying off eight people, and raising a new $6 million round of funding.

  • Foursquare Adds More Menus, Continues to Become a Better Tool for Local Search & Discovery

    Foursquare Adds More Menus, Continues to Become a Better Tool for Local Search & Discovery

    Over the past year or so, Foursquare has been going through a major transformation – well, at least a major improvement. What they’ve been doing is making both small and large tweaks to turn the focus of the service toward local search and discovery. A company that started as a simple check-in app is now competing with the likes of Yelp, Google Places, and Urbanspoon.

    You may recall a major app update last month with a stated goal to “reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app.” Then, a few weeks later, Foursquare completely redesigned their location pages to make them more photo-rich and informative. If you have increased traffic to your location pages (which Foursquare does) and want to continue to tout yourself as the go-to place for information on locations, you have to keep making those pages better.

    Today, Foursquare is taking another step in that direction with an expansion of menus on restaurant pages.

    “It’s a Saturday night and you’re meeting friends for dinner. You’ve narrowed the choices down to two popular Italian spots – but how to choose? Starting today, you’ll see more menus in Foursquare, so you can decide given what restaurants have to offer. In addition to SinglePlatform, we’ve also partnered with Locu (a company that shares our mission of helping restaurants and local businesses connect with customers),” says Foursquare.

    Locu is a web-wide menu platform founded in 2011. Last year, it received $4 million in Series A funding, fyi. Foursquare has partnered with SinglePlatform on their menus since the launch of the “Explore” feature in January of 2012.

    Right now, it’s just menus for restaurants – but Foursquare says that will eventually grow into price and service lists for a variety of businesses. That includes hair salons, gyms, dry cleaners, etc.

  • Foursquare Redesigns Location Pages in Its Bid to Become a Leader in Local Search

    Foursquare knows that more and more people are visiting their location pages on the web. Back in October of last year, Foursquare launched a huge redesign of foursquare.com, and a big change to the way the site works: Non-members were allowed to use Foursquare’s “explore” feature.

    By opening up Foursquare’s data trove to everyone, they made a pretty big statement: We’re a big name in the location search game, and we want to challenge the likes of Yelp, Google Places, and Urbanspoon.

    Now, Foursquare is continuing to revamp itself with a new redesign of location pages on the site. They’re more photo-rich, informative, and indicative of a company who is seeing increased traffic to said pages.

    Here’s the current (old) pages design:

    And here’s the new design for location pages on Foursquare.com:

    What you’ll notice immediately is that photos have been given a much more prominent placement on the page. Also, the map has been moved from directly under the location name to the right-hand corner. In the new design, all of the pertinent information is front and center – the address, hours, rating, phone number, price, etc.

    Plus, all of the “similar” suggestions on the right-hand side have been given photos and ratings.

    Foursquare Web Engineering head Mike Singleton told The Next Web that Explore usage has double in the past two months. He also said that there are now some 50 million unique visitors to the site every month. Plenty of those are coming from non-members, who just happen to find Foursquare as a service to look up location information.

    And that’s exactly what Foursquare wants.

    The new design has yet to hit the web for all users, and we’re expecting an announcement from Foursquare in the near future. Foursquare knows that its future is in recommendations and detailed, competitive listings for all web users – not just check-ins and badges for members. This is what the company has been moving toward for the past year (remember that massive app update earlier this month?) and this is simply another step in that evolution.

  • Foursquare 6.0 Launches As a True Local Search and Recommendation App

    Foursquare has been improving their service in the hopes of “moving beyond the check-in” for some time now. Today, they’ve released the all new Foursquare version 6.0 for both iOS and Android. With this update, search and recommendations (what Foursquare calls “Explore”) is now a bigger part of the experience than ever.

    Here’s how Foursquare describes all the changes they’ve made to the app:

    With the new Foursquare 6.0, we’re crunching all our data to show the best of what’s nearby, anywhere in the world, the second you open up the app. To help you discover all this, we totally redesigned the Foursquare app into four main sections. Here’s what you’ll see:

    Search is now front-and-center at the top, so you can quickly find what you’re craving, or see things like trending places (in real-time) and top picks. Below that, you’ll see a map with nearby friends and interesting places highlighted. Tap on the map to expand it so you can see great places around you. After that, we show you the best things at that moment – our top personalized recommendations, along with your friends’ check-ins around the world. And, at the bottom, we have the new check-in button, for when you want to share and remember the places you go to.

    Gone are the three tabs at the bottom of the screen that graced the previous versions (friends, explore, and me). Explore and your friend feed is all contained in the main feed, with search front and center. This is your “Home” screen. To access your profile and history, to-do lists, and more – just swipe right.

    “Our goal with the new Foursquare is to reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app, and help you find exactly what you’re craving,” says Foursquare.

    And to that end, Foursquare has completely redesigned both their iOS and Android apps to help achieve what the company has been working toward the last couple of years – moving beyond the check-in.

    You may have heard that phrase a lot in reference to Foursquare in the past year or so, and with good reason. Foursquare launched back in 2009 with a focus on check-ins – and that’s about it. You checked in, earned some points, and maybe unlocked a badge. Yes, the app had a small social networking element to it – in that you could track your friends’ check-ins and see how you stacked up on a points leaderboard. And yes, you could browse nearby places. But in 2009, nobody would have called Foursquare a “local search” app. And they certainly wouldn’t have called it a premier place for “local discovery.”

    Like I said before, Foursquare hasn’t just launched version 6.0, with its heavy focus on local search and recommendations, out of the blue. There has been a long march to this new vision of Foursquare. Let’s look at that march, starting about a year ago when Foursquare unveiled the “all new Foursquare.”

    That update brought a completely redesigned friend feed to the mix – with larger photos, more information on tips, comments, and the ability to “like” individual check-ins. But the real work was done on the Explore tab. Foursquare integrated even more of their millions of data points to give users a better idea about what was going on around them, and why they should frequent nearby locations. The Explore tab began to notify users of nearby specials, “top picks” that ranked venues on the popularity in the Foursquare community. They added new categories to search like “food,” “nightlife,” and “trending,” all of which relied heavily on you and your friends’ past check-in data.

    “This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint, it’s a whole new app. And, as such, it’s just the beginning. We’ve got lots more coming…” said Foursquare at the time.

    Shortly after that, Foursquare updated their app to improve the map and give it even more search categories. Then, they introduced a new kind of rating for venues – a number between 1 and 10 that is based on user likes. Later, they added a “recently opened” category to the Explore tab. A few weeks after that, location pages were improved with larger, highlighted location photos. In the past couple of months, Foursquare crammed even more recommendations onto the Explore tab and bolstered the info on venue pages.

    See what I’m saying? Foursquare has made tons of small tweaks leading up to this new Foursquare, one that truly looks and feels like a culmination of Foursquare’s true goal of becoming a top local search and recommendation engine to compete with the likes of Yelp, Urbanspoon, and yes, Facebook.

    Of course, Foursquare isn’t abandoning the check-in. The check-in is one of the metrics that powers the service. Without it, the whole recommendation engine falls apart. That’s why you’ll see an ever-present check-in icon front and center at the bottom of your feed at all times.

    To survive, Foursquare cannot simply be about the check-in. It has to be more. This update shows that it is more – a lot more. But whether or not users recognize this is left to be seen. You can grab the update today in the App Store and Google Play.

  • Google Maps for iOS Gets Google Contacts Support, Local Category Search

    Google Maps for iOS has just received its first major update since launching back in December. Today’s update brings a couple of new features that will make it easier for users to find people and places inside the app.

    Version 1.1 now allows you to search you Google contacts inside the app. When you sign in, you’ll be able to see all of your friends’ saved addresses – even if they aren’t stored on your device.

    The update also adds category searches for locations, meaning that you can browse local bars, restaurants, etc. within the app.

    Here’s the full list of what’s new in v1.1:

    • Search your Google Contacts; sign in to have your saved addresses show up when you search for friends and family by name.
    • Quickly search for local places by selecting popular categories such as restaurants, bars, cafes, gas stations, etc.
    • Choose between Kilometers or Miles for your preferred distance units.

    Google finally launched a native iOS maps app back in December after Apple booted it from iOS 6. Considering how ill-received Apple Maps was, it was no surprise that Google Maps for iOS took off, topping 10 million downloads in just two days.

    You can snag the update right now on iTunes.

  • Local Search Is Where Facebook Could Quickly Take A Stab At Google

    On Tuesday, Facebook unveiled Graph Search, and I’ve been doing little but reading and writing about it ever since. There’s one conclusion I’ve drawn about it so far, above all else, and that’s that we have no idea how big this thing can really get.

    Mark Zuckerberg made it very clear that this is the “very early” version of the product, which is only in limited beta to begin with. The company is rolling it out slowly, and will improve on it in time. To me, the biggest potential that Graph Search holds, in terms of making a real mark on the search space, is what lies in the Open Graph, which accounts for a huge chunk of the web (all of those sites that have some kind of Facebook integration). That goes beyond what happens in your News Feed, or on your timeline.

    Even out of the box, however, we’re seeing signs that this could make a major dent in the local search space. Think about it. People arguably go to their friends for recommendations about local businesses than they do for any other kind of query. This is why Google has made such a push for social in its local search results. First it was that Hotpot thing, and then last year, they even went so far as to make the switch from Google Places to Google+ Local. You have to be signed into your Google account to review a business, and with Google’s social search features, Google will show you when you happen upon a result that one of your Google+ connections has engaged with.

    While this is all great in concept, it’s severely lacking in execution on Google’s part, most of all, because Google+ does not have the kinds of connections that Facebook has. Naturally, that’s where the world’s largest social network comes in. That’s what they have. That’s what Facebook does. They connect people, and have done so for over a billion users. You’re far more likely to find meaningful (to you) opinions on Facebook than you are on Google+, and especially at the local level. Your everyday friends – the friends that you live close to and work with – are on Facebook. These are the friends that are going to the stores and restaurants that you are likely to visit.

    Furthermore, the businesses in your town are far more likely to have Facebook Pages than Google+ pages (as well as the “likes” from local residents that are associated with them). No wonder Facebook is calling on businesses to optimize their Pages for Graph Search.

    Restaurants nearby

    Zuckerberg opened up Graph Search’s introduction by saying that this is not web search. He doesn’t want us to think that Facebook is really going after Google with this product, and in many ways it is not (at least not yet). People aren’t suddenly going to go to Facebook Search to find everything they want to know. However, when it comes to seeing what the people they actually know think about businesses they’re actually thinking about checking out, Facebook automatically has the more relevant results. The results may be incomplete because you can’t rely on all of your friends to “like” everything they actually like (Danny Sullivan made some great points about this), but the results must be more relevant than Google’s for those looking for their friends’ opinions, simply because their friends are present.

    There’s nothing Google can do about this problem, short of a deal with Facebook (which it could find a way to get if it wanted to badly enough, from the sound of it), or people magically abandoning Facebook for Google+ (and that’s not happening anytime soon either). In some circles (no pun intended), Google+ might be able to fit the bill. If you work, for Google, for example, you know a lot of people on Google+. For the rest of the world, I’m not so sure.

  • Google Adds Store Interior Photography Access To Local Search Results

    Google is now highlighting its indoor photography for businesses from search results pages, making the imagery much more visible to users.

    Businesses who have been able to participate in this get the added bonus of letting customers browse their store before actually getting them in the door. Let’s hope they like what they see.

    Google said in a Google+ post, “Ever wonder what the inside of a business looked like before visiting? Google Search just made it easier to find Google Business Photos – which allows you to virtually walk-through a business with Google Street View-Technology. Just click the “See Inside” image on Search to enter the business and walk around as if you were there.”

    Indoor Photos from the serp

    Google started taking photos of store interiors back in 2010, then officially announced Google Business Photos last year.

    “Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, you can’t always judge a business by its exterior,” Google said at the time. “Interior photographs are a great way to show potential customers what your business is really like. By enhancing your Place Page, business photos will help your business stand out above the competition and get discovered on Google. Millions of users will be able to visit your establishment from the comfort of their own homes, or preview it to help them decide on a visit. Best of all, it’s free!”

    Of course, the Place Page concept has changed a bit over time, with the newer Google+ Local interface.

    You can see the new functionality in action here.

    About a month ago, Google added indoor maps to the desktop version of Google Maps after availability on Android devices. With the feature, users can view floor plans for some airports, department stores, malls, etc.

  • Googler Offers Search Marketing Tips for Small, Local Businesses

    When it comes to online advertising, Google is king. When it comes to search marketing in particular, Google has no peer. While nearly every major company in the U.S. has now invested advertising dollars into internet marketing, smaller businesses can easily run into roadblock if they don’t have the expertise or personel to implement a successful strategy in this brand new world of marketing.

    Having trouble implementing a successful digital marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments.

    This Wednesday, Bright Park, strategic partner development manager at Google, spoke to a crowd of small business owners at a sales conference in Lexington, KY. The conference was sponsored by local NBC TV station affiliate LEX 18, a Google strategic partner that offers digital marketing services to local businesses. WebProNews attended the event, and was able to speak with conference attendees about how they are incorporating digital marketing into their sales strategies.

    The presentation comes just after Google CPC was shown to have fallen in the third quarter of 2013. In fact, current online advertisers may be diversifying their ad spending to social media or other search engines, such as Yahoo Bing. This makes the potential customers Park was addressing all the more important.

    Park, whose work focuses on business development for Google’s Channel Sales Team, highlighted the growing importance of online marketing for small businesses, gave some tips on how to improve small business search marketing, and provided some insight into the opportunities and challenges Google faces with bringing small businesses online.

    Park began by providing some statistics on just how quickly the online world is growing, such as the fact that 5 billion people are predicted to be online by 2020. “From the dawn of civilization to the year 2003, mankind had created a total of five exabytes of data,” said Park. “Now, in the year 2012, it’s estimated that five exabytes of data are created every two days.”

    Pointing out that mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, are now becoming ubiquitous, Park showed how search traffic often spikes when live events happen on television. “In short, if you’re advertising on television, you have to be discoverable online,” said Park.

    He stated that this paradigm – the connection between TV and internet searches – is what Google calls the “zero moment of truth.”

    Park pointed out that while past “zero moments” might be found in a storefront or television ad, people are now heavily researching their purchases online. “Four out of five consumers go online and research products before they go buy them,” said Park. In the course of such research, potential customers are going to use search, and Park encouraged small businesses to make sure they find the right message.

    What Park didn’t mention is that the rising cost of pay-per-click advertising may be driving current online advertisers to seek out alternative methods. A New York Times article published last week shows that as more businesses take their advertising online, the price of keywords has risen significantly. The report shows that while small businesses with niche markets can still succeed with relatively low costs, new businesses unprepared for the competitiveness of the search advertising game could end up draining their ad budget for little return.

    Park did, though, give a few tips for small business on how they can “win” that zero moment. The first tip was to put someone in charge of search marketing. Preferably, this is someone who knows the internet well, but Park admits that new world of digital advertising can be overwhelming. “Quite frankly, it can be complicated and time consuming to figure out a search engine marketing campaign,” said Park.

    Though Park didn’t state it directly, this is undoubtedly where Google resell partners such as LEX 18 come in, offering simplified online marketing packages for small business owners.

    Has Google successfully simplified search marketing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    Park’s next tip was for businesses to find their own zero moments. Park stated that a business can start this process by simply typing its name into Google’s search and observing what auto-complete suggestions pop up. These auto-complete results are based on data Google has about what people are searching for, and, Park stated, they can help businesses determine what potential customers are searching for.

    Park’s third tip was for businesses to answer the questions people are asking about it online by tailoring its online content, based on the auto-complete suggestions and other research performed in the previous tip.

    After his presentation, Park opened the floor for a question and answer session. A few of the questions dealt with Google AdWords, such as how businesses using Google’s main product can increase their AdWords quality score, become Google AdWords certified, or prevent click fraud. It quickly became apparent, however, that some conference attendees were only just beginning to understand search marketing. Many of the questions were about specific problems businesses are having with their organic search results or online reviews – not search advertising, which is Park’s speciality. Other questions, such as if Google has any services for word-of-mouth marketing seemed to completely miss the point of Park’s presentation.

    Not all attendees were at the outset of their forays into internet marketing, though. WebProNews spoke with Ashley Smith, a 26-year-old volunteer promotions leader with Quest Community Church in Lexington, about what she thought of the conference. “We’re really excited to start using Google AdWords in a new way to really maximize the potential of reaching as many people as possible,” Smith said.

    Smith stated that Quest already has a web presence, with online worship services, event schedules, and blogs, as well as a presence on Facebook and Twitter. It would appear that Smith and her colleagues already have a firm grasp of internet marketing. A quick search for “Lexington Church” shows that Quest is at the top of Google’s Places results for that search, with a number of positive reviews and an AdWords ad at the bottom of the results.

    As major enterprise begins to standardize its search marketing strategies and move on to social media marketing, Google’s push to educate small businesses about the necessity of online advertising will certainly be a factor in the continued growth of AdWords revenue. Judging by today’s conference, the internet giant certainly has an abundance of potential customers, but will have to work hard to educate small businesses that haven’t embraced the internet.

    Are Park’s tips helpful for small businesses? Let us know in the comments.

  • Foursquare “Reinvents Local Search” with New Homepage

    Earlier, we told you that Foursquare was planning a new homepage that would put the focus on search and open up their personalized recommendations to everyone – even if they aren’t a member of the Foursquare community.

    And now, the new Foursquare.com is live for everyone. According to the company, it will “reinvent local search” by allowing anyone to utilize Foursquare’s billions of check-ins and millions of tips – without having to sign up.

    “[W]e’ve been tweaking and improving the formula that supplies those recommendations, analyzing and re-analyzing our nearly 3 billion check-ins and 30 million tips to find the keys to the best recommendations. In fact, we even started running an experiment: without any check-ins, can we still provide the best local recommendations? Thanks to those 3 billion check-ins and 30 million tips (and a bit more magic behind the scenes), we’ve gotten really really good at it,” says Foursquare in a blog post.

    Even for a logged-out user, a search on Foursquare will yield plenty of results complete with tips, composite ratings, photos, and a map.

    foursquare logged out search

    “Foursquare doesn’t just hand you a one-size-fits-all list of suggestions. Even if you’ve never checked in, Explore still can make great recommendations based on a number of signals, like what’s popular in the neighborhood, new places, places that are trending at the moment, where experts go, and what’s popular on that day of the week. If you search for a bar, we don’t just tell you about great bars, but rather the best places you should go tonight,” they say.

    With this move, Foursquare is obviously going after other directories with tips, ratings, hours, and menus – think Yelp or Urbanspoon. The great thing about Foursquare is they can not only give you recommendations based on where you are, but they have an insane amount of data that they can use to give you the best choices based on what everyone else likes and recommends. Of course, creating an account, checking-in, making friends, and leaving tips will greatly improve the accuracy of Foursquare’s personalized results.

    But for the casual user who’s just looking for a great sushi place in a town they’re unfamiliar with, Foursquare wants to be the go to search engine. And this new interface puts them firmly in the conversation.

  • Google+ Local Searches For The Ryan Gosling Of Bathrooms

    Yes, you read the headline right. Following various Google Twitter accounts, you’ll often come across some interesting tweets. A few minutes ago, for example, Google Boston representing Google+ Local specifically, tweeted:

    Several questions immediately come to mind. For one, what is the Ryan Gosling of bathrooms? Secondly, why is Google+ Local searching for it? Why are they using a hashtag called #SexyBathrooms? What makes a bathroom sexy? Has anyone that isn’t associated with Google ever used the #SexyBathrooms hashtag?

    If you follow the hashtag, some of your questions are answered. Google+ Local is promoting a Zagat post: 9 Sexy Bathrooms From Restaurants Around the U.S.

    I don’t know what your’e supposed to do with any of this information, but apparently Google+ Local finds Ryan Gosling and bathrooms both to be sexy.

    Having viewed the Zagat slideshow, I’m afraid that I did not find myself aroused by any of the imagery they’ve produced. I guess that’s why they’re still searching.

  • YP Q2 Local Insights Report on Search Traffic and Ad Spending

    YP, a joint owned local publisher and ad network, has released their second quarter Local Insights report on the U.S. population utilizing data collected from the first quarter of 2012.

    The report features impressions from the network’s over 300 online, mobile, IPTV, and directory assistance publishers. Overall, the data represents close to 11 billion impressions.

    Here’s a look at the top search categories and also a look at which ones have shown the most improvement (Q4 2011 to Q1 2012):

    #12

    Lets also take a look at what they came up with in regard to where the dollars are being spent. The list below reveals the top ten areas combined for both mobile and PC advertising. As you can see, medical, construction, and legal make up the top three biggest spenders. Interestingly, real estate is at the bottom of the list.

    Here are the top 10 spending areas in local advertiser for PC and mobile:

    1). Medical (i.e., Dentists, Physicians & Surgeons, and Optometrists)
    2). Contractors & Construction
    3). Legal Services (used to be number one)
    4). Automotive
    5). Home Maintenance Services (i.e., Landscaping, HVAC, Maintenance and Cleaning Services
    6). Materials, Equipment & Supplies
    7). Financial Services
    8). Pet & Animal
    9). Moving & Storage
    10). Real Estate

    Now lets take a look at local search traffic as recoded by YP’s networks broken down by the most active cities. They provide the data for both mobile and PC separately, which gives us a nice contrast when you look at how the ranking played out between the two.

    Most active local mobile search cities in Q1 2012:

    1). San Francisco, CA
    2). Lafayette, LA
    3). Baton Rouge, LA
    4). Orlando, FL
    5). Columbia, SC
    6). Birmingham, AL
    7). Miami, FL
    8). St. Louis, MO
    9). West Palm Beach, FL
    10). Shreveport, LA

    Most active local PC search cities:

    1). Atlanta, GA
    2). Orlando, FL
    3). Miami, FL
    4). Richardson, TX
    5). Columbia, SC
    6). St. Louis, MO
    7). Tampa, FL
    8). West Palm Beach, FL
    9). Ft. Lauderdale, FL
    10). Birmingham, AL

    It’s interesting to see Louisiana state is so big on mobile search, I would have guessed California would have more cities on the list, especially near the top. I’m also a little bit surprised to see Florida and Georgia at the top of the list for local PC search. Again, I would have guessed California or even New York.

    In the next graphic, YP breaks search down by device and shows us the top mobile searches overall:

    #11

    And finally, the following graphic illustrates the mix of mobile devices on the YP network, and how they are contributing to search:

    So there you have it. That’s what local search and ad spending looks like for the first quarter of 2012 according to the YP local publishing and ad network.

  • Bing Tops Google, Ties Yellow Pages for Best Local Search

    Bing’s local search tool recently received a 500cc injection of good, wholesome vitamin Yelp to boost the quality of search results for local businesses. The Bing Local “Powered by Yelp” combo looks to go a long way in improving local search, especially as it continues to become available for more businesses and more locations. However, according to a recent study, Bing was already doing pretty good work before that Yelp team-up.

    Search Engine Land cites a new study by Implied Intelligence that compared 19 different local search services, including Bing Local, Google Maps, several services under the Yellow Pages umbrella, Foursquare, Yelp, and Mapquest. Implied Intelligence looked at criteria such as record coverage, phone errors, address errors, duplicate listings, and more with each service in 1,000 local businesses in the United States. Of all the services included in the study, Bing tied for the top spot with both Superpages and Yellowbook, both of which belong to the Yellow Pages collection of directories. Google Maps wasn’t far behind at fourth and Yellowpages rounded out the top five (SEL has bar graphs along with the full scores of the rest of the search engines if you’re interested).

    Implied Intelligence completed a similar study prior to this most recent one in which Bing actually ranked fourth behind Google Maps; Superpages and Yellowpages were ranked first and second, respectively. Comparing the two studies, Implied Intelligence deemed Bing the most improved local search service (at least among those included in the first study).

    Since Bing and Yelp just announced their new local search partnership all of five days ago, I’m presuming that the data in Implied Intelligence’s study does not include any of the “Powered by Yelp” results that are beginning to show up for local businesses. However, Yelp placed at the #8 spot on the most recent study and #6 in the first study. I’m deducing that the quality of Yelp’s local search didn’t diminish in the time between the two studies so much as two new services, Yahoo and Whitepages, were added to the second study and simply outscored Yelp, thus pushing it down a couple of spots.

    Of course, no single local search service is going to be the one directory to rule them all because if that were the case, this kind of comparison would be unnecessary. Still, in the shadow of this report, the question for Bing is whether including Yelp in its local search will actually devalue the search engine’s local results or if Bing will be able to maintain a top score among local search services. I would think that Bing’s search algorithms would be smart enough so as to not have the partnership actually result in an inferior quality but rather include from Yelp what Bing might initially have been missing. At least, that’s what my hope is.

    We’ve asked Implied Intelligence to confirm whether or not the Bing Local Powered by Yelp data was included in this study, but have yet to receive a reply.

    At any rate, that Bing was able to best Google in accuracy of local search results echoes what Bing’s VP of Program Management Derrick Connell recently said when comparing the two search engines. Speaking at a Q&A at SMX Advanced 2012 earlier this month, Connell made the claim that Bing was at least as good as Google in some aspects and possible better in others.

    This results coming out of Implied Intelligence’s study would confirm Connell’s claims.

    Update: According to Implied Intelligence, the tests on local search quality were conducted around May 15th, 2012, meaning the Yelp data wouldn’t have been included in Bing Local results.

  • Bing Gets Yelp’s Help to Provide Better Local Search Content

    Bing’s stepping up its search game today by adding some heavy artillery thanks to Yelp. The two companies have announced an agreement in which Yelp’s archives of reviews, photos, and other details will be used to surface content to Bing Local search users in the United States.

    The Bing Local search page will soon be displaying a “Powered by Yelp” tag on a page replete with details about a restaurant culled from Yelp’s website. Users will see recently submitted (truncated) reviews by customers, the general description of the business, the business’ overall rating, a map of the location provided by Bing Maps and other assorted information.

    Bing General Manager Mike Nichols said he expects that the inclusion of Yelp’s trove of information will help bring up-to-date, reliable reviews to users. “Enabling people to do more with search involves building a spectrum of features and data that people trust, and teaming up with Yelp is another important step in helping Bing deliver great value to customers,” he said.

    Yelp CEO and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman concurred, “We’re thrilled that established brands like Bing recognize the value that Yelp communities bring to the local search experience.”

    The new “Powered by Yelp” feature is said to go live today, but I haven’t been able to spot it in the wild with any of the Bing searches I’ve done (even by searching for the example used in Yelp’s example on its official blog). However, Yelp was nice enough to provide an example of what we can expect the new layout to look like:

    Powered by Yelp Bing Local Search

    If you don’t see the new Yelp-infused Bing Local search content today or even tomorrow, don’t worry: full U.S. availability is said to be coming within the next few weeks.

    Bing’s made some significant in-roads lately into making aspects of its search more social with the search engine’s recent three-column redesign that includes related content pulled from Facebook and Twitter familiars. The addition of Yelp to its Local search service should provide users with an even more relevant source information when looking for something more than the average generic blue link.

    Yelp’s having quite the prominent week this week. Today’s announcement of the Bing partnership follows Monday’s reveal that Yelp will be more deeply integrated into Apple’s iOS 6. With one more day left in the week, Yelp still has time to make another game-changing business arrangement before the weekend. Given the high-profile companies the website is rubbing elbows with these days, who knows what Friday could yield.

  • Local Search Platform Yext Secures $27 Million In Funding

    Yext has secured a new $27 million Series E round of funding. The company says it will use the capital to expand its platform.

    Yext is in the business of “Amazing Local Search Results,” with its PowerListings product promising to sync and enhance your business listings on over 30 sites. The company says it enables small and large businesses to quickly and easily update their business info, photos and specials from a central location. It currently syncs information for over 50,000 locations.

    The investment is led by Marker, a new fund launched by Rick Scanlon and Thomas Pompidou. The former founded Crescent Point Capital Group, and the latter is a partner at the firm. Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund is also participating in the round, along with existing Yext investors Sutter Hill Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and WGI Group.

    Based in New York, Yext was founded in 2006 by Howard Lerman, Brian Distelburger and Brent Metz.

    “Today is a watershed moment for both Yext and anyone who’s ever found wrong information about a business online,” said Lerman, who is also the CEO. “By enabling businesses to instantly update their listings, end users find up-to-date info on our partner sites. We are delighted to welcome our new partner Marker as we expand our platform to synchronize the world’s local information everywhere.”

    “Yext is solving a huge problem with the potential to serve over 20,000,000 businesses in the US alone. The company has a market-leading product, a proven management team, and sits in the intersection of local advertising and Software-as-a-service (Saas), two of the largest and fastest growing markets in the technology industry,” said Richard Scanlon of Marker. “We’re very excited to support their rapid expansion.”

    Local search and business listings have certainly been a hot topic over the last couple weeks, particularly with major announcements from Google and Apple.

  • Google Makes Some Local Search Adjustments

    On Friday, Google put out is monthly list of algorithm changes, for the month of April. We’ve taken a closer look at various entries on that list – there were over 50. Here’s our coverage so far:

    Google Algorithm Changes For April: Big List Released
    Google Increases Base Index Size By 15 Percent
    Google Makes More Freshness Tweaks To Algorithm
    Bi02sw41: Did Google Just Make Keywords Matter Less?
    Google Should Now Be Much Better At Handling Misspellings
    Google Tweaks Algorithm To Surface More Authoritative Results
    Google Launches Several Improvements To Sitelinks

    The list, along with the Penguin update and two Panda refreshes in April, is a lot for webmasters to take in. If local search is an areas of focus for you, you should find the following entries to the list among the most interesting:

    • More local sites from organizations. [project codename “ImpOrgMap2”] This change makes it more likely you’ll find an organization website from your country (e.g. mexico.cnn.com for Mexico rather than cnn.com).
    • Improvements to local navigational searches. [launch codename “onebar-l”] For searches that include location terms, e.g. [dunston mint seattle] or [Vaso Azzurro Restaurant 94043], we are more likely to rank the local navigational homepages in the top position, even in cases where the navigational page does not mention the location.
    • More comprehensive predictions for local queries. [project codename “Autocomplete”] This change improves the comprehensiveness of autocomplete predictions by expanding coverage for long-tail U.S. local search queries such as addresses or small businesses.
    • Improvements to triggering of public data search feature. [launch codename “Plunge_Local”, project codename “DIVE”] This launch improves triggering for the public data search feature, broadening the range of queries that will return helpful population and unemployment data.

    The first on the above list is interesting. Subdomains for various locales may be better idea than ever now. However, the implementation and delivery of content will no doubt be incredibly important. Here’s a bit about duplicate content and internationalizing.

    We actually referenced the second one on the list in a different article about how Google treats keywords. It appears that key phrases may carry less weight, at least for some searches. The local examples Google gives here indicate that this is particularly the case when you’re talking local.

    With regards to the third item, it will be interesting to see just how local predictions behave. It’s certainly something local businesses will want to pay attention to and analyze as it pertains to them.

    I’m not sure the fourth one will have many implications for most businesses, but it’s interesting from the use perspective, as Google looks to provide more data directly in search results.

    For some more insight into local search, check out this study from a couple months back, which attempted to identify local ranking factors.

  • Hyperpublic Could Help Groupon Compete With Google In Local Search

    So Google wants to enter Groupon’s turf? Maybe Groupon will just enter Google’s.

    Groupon has acquired Hyperpublic, a company that builds local databases for developers. Glancing at some of the projects that Hyperpublic has been working on, there are some search-related dealings.

    A message on the Hyperpublic site says:

    Today is an INSANE day! We are so proud to announce that Hyperpublic has been acquired by the rocket ship that is Groupon. This is a huge win for our team, our investors, and everyone who contributed to our company over the past two years. We set out to change the way people interacted with the local environment, and are pumped to continue that mission as a part of one of the fastest growing and most disruptive companies in the world.

    Two years ago, huddled around a few borrowed desks in the offices of Lerer Ventures (thank you!), we decided to throw our hats into the fast changing world of local data and discovery. We talked about Groupon as a force that was defining our market. We are elated to join forces and to contribute to Groupon’s continued success.

    Thanks to everyone who helped us get to this point and special thanks to all of our investors and advisors. Let’s do this.

    Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

    Co-founder and CEO Jordan Cooper told the New York Times that the two companies spent several months negotiating the deal, and that Hyperpublic raised $1.15 million from Lerer Ventures, where Cooper is a partner, Softbank Capital,and others.

    Some of the company’s staff will go to work for Groupon. Apparently some will not.

    Evidently, the acquisition is a competitive strategy for Groupon. The Times quotes Cooper as saying, “The market that we’re playing in is one that Foursquare and Google are playing in. The better Groupon understands the people and local environment that they are trying to drive traffic to, the better they will do.”

    As you may know, Groupon turned down an acquisition offer from Google in 2010. The company has partnered with Foursquare, but Foursquare has also indicated it could partner with Google.

    Hyperpublic has had a few interesting projects in development. It’s unclear whether these will continue under Groupon. Hyperpublic Display “displays the deep data that Hyperpublic has organized in an easy to view format. Hover over people, places, and things to view their tags and locations. Add yourself and a few tags so others can discover you.”

    Iswhatimlookingfor “helps people find local places with 1 answer to their query. Often people just want to say what they’re looking for and be told where to find it, without having to sift through tens or hundreds of options.”

    Hyperpublic Search is for helping the user “Find the “best rock shrimp under $12 in the east village” or where to buy a “black leather dress belt” near the closest subway stop.”

    WiFi Locator “locates you and lets you know which businesses have free WiFi nearby.”

    These are all listed on the company’s site under “labs”.

    Change is in the air at Groupon. Beyond this, other recent developments include the launch of Groupon VIP, which will give hard core customers access to more deals for $30 a year, and a new personalization system that should serve customers more relevant deals.

  • Beyond Google Zeitgeist: A Lot Of Local Searching

    Google released its annual Zeitgeist this week. We covered this here, but here’s a video reminder:

    Today, Google Director of Product Management Johanna Wright took to the official blog to point out how popular local searches have been. “Looking at these lists, I was surprised to see that, from city to city, almost all the terms across all the lists were related to local news, education, civic services or entertainment and activities,” she says. “I wanted to take a minute to take a deeper dive into these specific local trends that you won’t see published in Zeitgeist.”

    These local trends?

    “In nearly every single U.S. city we looked at, the top ten local terms showed that people were using Google to find local news stations and learn more about educational organizations,” she says. “Searches for school districts, universities and local libraries made the list in ten states, from the Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis, MN to the Chicago Public Library in Illinois.Pittsburgh, PA was the most media-hungry city in Zeitgeist this year, with all of their top 5 terms related to local news stations, while in New York City and Houston, TX, no news sources made the top ten lists.”

    Another key trend was regional differences within states. 40% of terms for Orlando, FL, for example, were related to education, but in Miami, no education-related terms whatsoever made the list.

    Other major trends seen in different cities included heavy searching for local civic services, local unemployment and job-related queries. Other local-related trends in heavy searching included lotteries, amusement parks, sports teams, etc.

    The point Wright is trying to make, as best as I can tell, is that Google is an important tool for people looking for local information. I think that was pretty obvious already, but seeing the trends laid out does kind of emphasize this point.

    Why do you think Google keeps making all of these local-related acquisitions? Recent examples would be Clever Sense and Zagat. This is another reason why a Google acquisition of Foursquare might not bee too far fetched.

  • Google Adds Descriptive Phrases to Local Search Results

    Google has launched a new feature for Google Maps in the US and Great Britain. The feature displays a few words or phrases that attempt to describe what a place is known for.

    The phrases that appear are those most frequently used on the web in describing the place. Google does not say exactly where they come from, but that they come from sources all across the web, such as reviews, web pages, and other online references.

    Google says the terms can “help people quickly identify the characteristics that make a particular place unique. It’s like an opportunity to ask the business owner or its patrons ‘What’s good here?’ or ‘What do most people get here?’”

    “For example, if I’m looking for a place to relax and enjoy a great cup of coffee this weekend, I can see at a quick glance that Cafe Grumpy could be the perfect spot,” explains Google software engineer Manjunath Srinivasaiah. “Besides being known for their ‘latte’ and ‘great coffee,’ they have a ‘no laptop’ policy — exactly what I was hoping for since I’d like to unplug and take a break from work this weekend.”

    “Or if I’m planning to visit friends on the west coast and need to organize a night out, Rose & Crown could be an excellent choice given their ‘great beer selection’ and ‘trivia night’ games on site!” adds Srinivasaiah.

    Local Listing with descriptive terms

    The feature could be useful, but Google doesn’t say whether this also picks up negative terms or has a mechanism to keep information current. What if a lot of people use “lousy beer selection,” to describe a place, for example? Will this show up? If so, it could be damaging for the place’s reputation. In terms of staying current, what if that same place upgraded their beer selection?

    We’ve reached out to Google for additional information on this, and will update accordingly.

    Google says the feature will be available in Place search on Google.com and Google Maps for mobile soon.

    Update: A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews:

    The terms selected by our automated system are intended to help users quickly identify unique characteristics about a place for which a business is commonly known. They are phrases commonly associated with the business from various sources across the web, and since we aim to avoid an editorial bias on this summary of terms, we’re more likely to leave the phrase up rather than remove it.

    If a user wishes to flag a term for removal on legal grounds, however, our Help Center will guide the user through the process. We’ll review those complaints and take appropriate action when necessary.

    Regarding freshness, the terms will be algorithmically updated on a regular basis, but we aren’t able to share additional details. We encourage you and other users to write rich and descriptive reviews about the places you visit, and we’ll continue working to refine our system to surface the most useful terms.