Category: LocalSearchPro

LocalSearchPro

Google Panda Update Helps Local Search Results

As we continue to look at the fallout of the Google Panda update (more so since its international roll-out), we have yet more data to sink our teeth into.

Have you noticed an increase in local results since the Panda roll-out? Let us know.

CNET has now released some data, as it compiled about 100,000 Google results, testing Google.com in March, and then last week, just after the new update. The data reflects earlier reported data from SearchMetrics in terms of news sites benefiting and Demand Media’s eHow sliding.

One interesting element CNET’s data brings to the table, however, is that of Google’s localization and its relationship to the update.

“We also tested what happens if you connect to Google.com from an overseas Internet address. We picked one in London. We performed the same searches on the same day–the only variable that should have changed, in other words, was our location,” explains CNET chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh. “The results? Google engages in significant localization efforts, as you might imagine, with Yelp.com being the largest beneficiary by far.”

“In searches originating from the U.K., Yelp appeared only twice,” he adds. “In U.S. searches, by contrast, it was the ninth-most popular Web site, with both its topic and individual business pages weaved seamlessly into the main search results.”

SearchMetrics’ data did show yelp.co.uk as having a 29.59% boost in visibility.

Yelp picked up 45 first-page appearances for generic searches like “chocolate,” “cleaning,” “food,” “lights,” “laundry,” “tv,” and “weddings,” from a Califronia address, according to McCullagh, while Davidsbridal.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Walgreens.com also benefited in the U.S. from localization.

It’s not all just big brands though.

Local-based results won big too, based on CNET’s testing. Not just local locations for big brands or local businesses, but locally-themed results.

“For our U.S. tests, we used an Internet address near Palo Alto, Calif., which prompted Google to rank nearby businesses and municipal Web sites near the top of search results,” McCullagh explains. “The City of Palo Alto’s Web site appears in the first page of search results for terms including ‘adventures,’ ‘art,’ ‘business,’ ‘gas,’ and ‘jobs.’ PaloAltoOnline.com makes repeat appearances (‘budget cuts,’ ‘restaurants’), as do Stanford, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and Mike’s Bikes.”

It’s no secret that Google has put a great deal more emphasis on local in recent times, but it’s interesting to see how this is playing out in light of the Panda update, which was seemingly unrelated (based more on content farms).

We saw how news sites and video sites appeared to come out as big winners, but this research does seem to indicate even more wins for local.

The benefits to Yelp are interesting, considering the tension there has been between Yelp and Google, regarding Google Place Pages and their use of Yelp reviews. Google’s own reviews system – Hotpot – has now found its way into Places, and right into organic search results themselves.

If you’re interested in what Google has had to say about local search relevance factors, read this.

Google is also finding more ways to improve its local listings themselves. See the “open now” and local product listings, for example. Oh, and by the way, Google just launched Map Maker for the US, so users can add their “local knowledge” to the map.

Interestingly enough, as Google focuses more on local, the competition for local eyeballs is already heavily increasing. This is not just about search in the traditional sense. You have to factor in entities like Groupon, LivingSocial, Facebook, Foursquare, and others in these companies’ respective spaces (the lines between which are getting blurrier).

The more ways people obtain the information related to local businesses from sources outside of Google, the less they’ll need to search for that information with Google.

Are Google’s results better now? Tell us what you think.

April 23, 2011
10 Local Search and Social Location Resources to Have Your Business Listed In
You have a new business… perhaps a bar, a coffee shop, or maybe a GIS consulting firm! Regardless of the business type, if you have a brick and mortar presence then you need to get your business listed. This is particularly important if you’d like to have your business turn up in local search results from such services as Google Maps, Mapquest, Yelp, and the many other local search resources on the web.

Chances are good that your business may already be listed in some POI databases and directories, however, as the business owner wouldn’t you rather be charged with taking control of what information is being conveyed about your business to potential clients or customers?

The following are a few places where any business owner should start and make sure they have accurate and current listings.
1. Google business listings
2. Citysearch
3. Mapquest
4. Yelp
5. Navteq
6. Where
7. GoWalla
8. Foursquare
9. Truvo
10. facebook Places
For the business owner, taking ownership of listings within these directories is crucial. As the owner you want to maintain accurate and complete information within you listings. You should also want to monitor via social location services who is checking into your place of business, what they are doing and what they are saying about you.

Finally, if you aren’t claiming your business listing chances are good that the crowd is adding your place to these directories and the chances are good that inaccurate or incomplete information is being shared to your potential customers.

For complete information and links to the above-mentioned resources see this article 10 Local Search and Social Location Resources To List your Business

Originally published on AnyGEO
March 7, 2011
Google Lets You Search with Local Recommendations From Specific Friends

Google announced a new Google Maps feature today, related to the company’s recently launched Hotpot social recommendation product. Now, users can search Google Maps, and request results based on the recommendations of specific friends.

"Most of us know lots of friends, each with very different areas of expertise when it comes to places to recommend. With the recent launch of Hotpot, we made it easy for you to see your friends’ ratings and reviews listed right inside search results," says Hotpot engineer Daniel Yehuda. "While this is really helpful, and we’ve had a lot of fun with it, we often found ourselves wanting to see all recommendations by a particular friend for a particular search. Problem solved…"

"Say I’m searching on Google Maps for ‘italian restaurants’ in New York," Yehuda explains. "I’d probably trust my buddy Octavian’s recommendations over Bernhard’s (who is more of a hamburger guy, really). Now all I have to do, to see Octavian’s entire list of Italian restaurant recommendations in the city, is click on his name when he pops up in my initial search; this filters my search results to only those he’s rated and shows them on the map. It’s like I’m seeing the world, through Octavian’s eyes."

The feature is available for the desktop version of Google Maps, as well as the Android version.

Now, it’s going to help if your friends are actually rating restaurants using Hotpot. There’s probably a good chance that they’re not, and the feature isn’t going to be incredibly useful without your friends. It remains to be seen just how big Google will be able to take Hotpot, but there’s no question the company is putting a great deal of focus on it these days.

In fact, Google is putting a great deal of emphasis on local search in general, and with Marissa Mayer (who until recently was Google’s VP of search products and user experience) running the show in this area, it’s not hard to see a product like Hotpot gaining some steam.

Are you using Hotpot? How about your friends? Let us know in the comments or on our Facebook page.

January 19, 2011
Tasks That Should Be On Your Local Search Shortlist

Recently, I have been talking about local Internet marketing and the rapid developments in the area. Well, as we start 2011, there is a strange sound in the local Internet marketing space—silence. There is a temporary lull in the frantic pace of change and innovation in the Google local search results.

Whether you are a large retail chain or the Mom and Pop shop on Main Street, local is the new black and the rapid pace of innovation in local search can be too much for even industry pros to stay on top of. What is happening at the start of the new year, however, is actually great for the SMB crowd and the Internet marketing industry as well.

It has actually been quiet. There hasn’t been a major change or something that makes everyone run around doing the "search marketing sky is falling" dance in this first week of the year. So what does one do with a rare moment of relative silence in this space?

Get caught up with all the recent events by updating your local presence. Here are the tasks that should be on your short list for local search as we start 2011:

Verify your Google Place Page. Just verifying your Google Place Page doesn’t necessarily help with ranking, but it is an important step to utilizing other services that Google is offering. A business can also directly answer reviews about their business that were done in Google Maps if they have verified their page. That alone is worth the effort.

Take control of your online data. Most businesses are not aware of just how many places on the Internet have their business data (name, address, business classification and more). Check out services such as Universal Business Listing and Localeze.

Perform basic search optimization for your Web site. Fresh content, specific keyword focus, unique title tags with keywords and using H1 tags with keywords. These are the absolute basics and can do wonders on the local level.

Consider Google Tags. Tags are a new way to make your Place Page listing pop. Run promotions and get attention for just $25 a month (right now there is a 30 day free offer coming from Google).

Start following local Internet marketing blogs. Follow the Google LatLong blog and Google Mobile blog. Follow Mike Blumenthal’s blog about Google Maps. Stay on top of things.

This short list can be put into action pretty quickly. My suggestion is that you do it ASAP because before you know it there will be something that changes or is added to the equation. If you don’t take the time now you could fall further behind.

It’s time. It’s 2011. Local Internet marketing truly matters. Make sure your business benefits. If you don’t, your competition will gladly take the business you leave for them.

Originally published on Biznology

January 10, 2011
Google Talks Local Search Relevance Factors

Google is placing a great deal of emphasis on local in its search results these days. In fact in many cases, it would appear to significantly reduce the importance of ranking in the regular organic results.

Google talked a little about how local search ranking works today in a blog post on its Lat Long Blog, which included the below video of Google Product Manager Jeremy Sussman discussing the basics.

"Say you’re in Union Square in New York City, and you want to find a nearby coffee shop, so you go to Google and type in ‘coffee shops in Union Square, NYC’. You’ll find a list of just what you typed in – local coffee shops near Union Square with all the basic information you would expect to find, such as name, address, and phone number, and if they exist, you’ll also find reviews, ratings, and links to other relevant resources," he explains. "These organic listings are free to both the user and the business. We give you the best results we can find."

"Now, there are a variety of relevance factors Google uses to match or answer your search query, in this case, locating coffee shops near Union Square. Three of the key factors are: relevance, prominence, and distance," he continues. "Relevance is showing you only coffee shops and not unrelated businesses such as retailers, dry cleaners, and so on. Prominence is determined by how well known or prominent certain coffee shops are, based on sources across the web. Distance is easy. We calculate how far each coffee shop is from Union Square. And if you don’t specify Union Square in your search, we’ll show you coffee shops based on your general location."

Google recently launched Hotp

ot, a social recommendation engine for local search. You can read more about that here. Hotpot listings can show up anywhere business listings show up in Google search results.

"Do the Hotpot ratings and review impact order and ranking of the local businesses you see on Google? Absolutely," says Sussman. "That’s the whole point…if you signed in to post ratings and reviews and to receive personalized recommendations in your search results. We do this to deliver more relevant search results and provide a more tailored experience based on your preferences."

In case you were wondering whether or not claiming a page will influence ranking, Sussman says, "A business claiming a Place Page does not result in preferential treatment. Of course more detailed information about your business helps us do a better job connecting people to the businesses they’re searching for."

Finally, he makes it clear that neither Tags nor Boost (a couple of Google’s local advertising options) influence local search ranking or where listings appear in Google or Google Maps results. Google does say, however, that the ranking of Boost ads in the ‘Ads’ section of the Google.com and Google Maps results pages is based on relevance and quality factors.

December 3, 2010
Milo Launches Useful Local Product Search Android App

Milo.com announced a new Android app today for local shopping. The company claims this is the only app available in the Android Market that will search the inventory systems of local stores in real-time and tell shoppers (while they’re on the go) what’s currently in stock , where, and which local stores have the best prices.

You can see why consumers would find such an app helpful, and you can probably see why local stores would to. This can be a powerful tool for getting customers in the door, while they’re already out shopping.

The company recently told WebProNews that Milo.com gets over a million unique visitors, has tracked 2.8 million products, and is growing by an average of 185,000 items per month. In addition to that, the site also has inventory data for over 50,000 stores and covers 30,000 communities across the U.S.

"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, e-commerce currently accounts for less than 5 percent of U.S. retail sales, with the rest of sales still conducted offline," the company told us. "Milo.com is poised to own this trend, projected to amount to almost 40 percent of total retail sales by 2011 – a $1 trillion market."

The Android app uses geo-location technology to identify a user’s location and return product results based on coordinates.

"Because our users are top of mind, we knew that launching a Milo mobile app would be instrumental before the holiday shopping season—it’s ideal for both the time-strapped and price-conscious shopper," said Jack Abraham, founder and CEO of Milo.com. "Say you see the perfect pair of fall boots walking down the street. We’ll not only show you local stores that carry them, but we’ll make sure they’re available in the size and color you want, so you don’t waste a trip. And we’ll do the same for all those hot holiday toys that are just starting to hit—and fly off—your local store shelves."

Milo.com also gives users alerts notifying them when a price falls or a product becomes available.

October 29, 2010
Google Intros Place Search to Deliver Local Results More Efficiently

Google announced a new kind of search result called Place Search today. These results can be accessed from the new "Places" option in the left panel on Google search results pages, but unlike many of the other search options available in the panel, Google will actually return you these results for queries automatically, when it thinks you are looking for local information.

Place Search results are marked with red pins, much like you’re used to seeing on Google Maps.

Obviously, this is great news for local businesses, or at least the ones that are optimized for local search. For those who aren’t, this would appear to symbolize a crucial time to starting placing more focus on this area.

"We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places," explains Product Manager Jackie Bavaro. "With Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names (‘stubb’s bbq’ is the same as ‘stubbs bar-b-que’)."

"One of the great things about our approach is that it makes it easier to find a comprehensive view of each place," adds Bavaro. "In our new layout you’ll find many more relevant links on a single results page—often 30 or 40. Instead of doing eight or 10 searches, often you’ll get to the sites you’re looking for with just one search. In our testing Place Search saves people an average of two seconds on searches for local information."

If Google uses location info from mobile devices along with this, it could make mobile search much more powerful and useful by simply saving time. Usually, when you’re on the go, anything that saves time is helpful.

The feature is only starting to roll out, so if you don’t have access to it just yet, you can check it out here.

October 27, 2010
Using Social And Local Search For Your Business

Local search and social media are becoming increasingly important for all businesses.

Coverage of SES Chicago will continue. Stay with WebProNews for more notes from the event this week.

In the session “Social Goes Local,” the speakers offered tips on using social media and local search to promote businesses.

Gregg Stewart, President, 15Miles, said social and local go hand-in-hand. Growth from search engines are being outpaced by non-search engines. Growth I n search is driven by local.

Facebook is local in nature. It’s capitalizing on search with its search bar.

Google is getting more serious about localized search, cites Google Places as an example. “As local heats up, Google is making strides to own the local search space,” said Stewart.

Consumers are increasingly using more sources to find local information and content.

Google Maps is helping to drive local search. People are using other methods to search more frequently, not just searcg engnes, but on mobil and social networks.

Use of content management is vital for local search. A lot of development in digital word of mouth, such as reviews and reccomendations.

Adress, location and driving directions are important for local search. Get your base business identity correct.

Users are more likely to do business with a company found on a social network. Consumers need to see responses to posts on Facebook and Twitter. Social networking users are heavy shoppers and tend to buy more than generic search users.

Local business search on social sites will continue to grow and can’t be ignored.

Searchers are referencing company brand pages on social networks. As local search and social continues to grow, reviews and ratings will become even more important.

Gib Olander, Director of Business Development, Localeze, said mobile devices are driving local search as well. “No one has local and social completely figured out,”
said Olander. There is a lot of noise out there.

Mobile local search today is a combination of devices. People expect to buy within one hour on mobile, compared to 7 days on a PC.

By 2011 80 percent of mobile devices will have GPS. Sixty percent of mobile usage is spent on social networking. Get your business on Foursquare as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Business identity needs to be established online. It anchors the customer experience with your business. If your identity is not established online, your business does not exist.

October 21, 2010
Google Uses Rich Snippets for Local Search

Google announced that it is now using Rich Snippets for local search. Webmasters with pages that in some way pertain to real world places, can utilize these to reference those places and optimize for local search results.

"By using structured HTML formats like hCard to markup the business or organization described on your page, you make it easier for search engines like Google to properly classify your site, recognize and understand that its content is about a particular place, and make it discoverable to users on Place pages," says Carter Maslan, Google’s Director of Product Management for Local Search.

Google says to optimize for local search, you should not only use structured markup to help Google identify the places mentioned on your site, but to tell Google about your content through this form.

"Whether you’re creating a website for your own business, an article on a newly opened restaurant, or a guide to the best places in town, your precise markup helps associate your site with the search results for that particular place," says Maslan. "Though this markup does not guarantee that your site will be shown in search results, we’re excited to expand support for making the web better organized around real world places."

Google provides more information about using Rich Snippets for local search here. There is also an FAQ page, which you may find useful.

September 22, 2010
More Smartphone Owners Using Local Search And Social Networking

More people are increasingly using their smartphones for local search, social networking and gaming, according to a new survey from Compete.

Nearly one in three smartphone owners has called or stopped into a local business after finding it using a local search application. In the first quarter, close to a third of Android and iPhone users found at least two new businesses that they previously were not aware after using local search applications.

"With the increasing popularity of local search, retailers should ensure their sites are optimized for mobile browsers," said Danielle Nohe, director, technology and entertainment for Compete.

"Making it easy for consumers to discover businesses via their devices opens local companies up to a whole new customer demographic, and savvy businesses should make sure they’re maximizing this opportunity."

Consumers are increasingly accessing social networking sites via their mobile devices. According to Compete’s findings, 33 percent of smartphone Twitter users primarily send tweets via their smartphones, and 33 percent of these consumers prefer to read tweets on their phone. Of those accessing Facebook from their smartphone, consumers are increasingly using the device to read news feeds (66 percent), post status updates (60 percent), read/reply to private messages (59 percent) and post photos (44 percent).

"Given the increasing popularity of Facebook, Twitter and other social sites, it follows that users are eager to access these outlets on their phones," said Nohe.

"Based on our findings, I recommend marketers start thinking about new ways to maximize consumers’ use of smartphones on social sites, as mobile adoption will likely only increase with time."

Over half (51%) of iPhone users have five or more games on their devices. In contrast, 46 percent of BlackBerry users have no games on their smartphones. Not only do iPhone owners download more games, they play games more frequently than do owners of other smartphones. Of the consumers surveyed, 37 percent of iPhone users report playing games on their smartphones at least daily and puzzle games seem to be capturing the majority of this attention.

"It’s evident that iPhone owners have embraced mobile gaming," commented Nohe. "Developers should turn their attention to targeting other smartphone users in an effort to even out the discrepancies in mobile gaming adoption."

July 6, 2010
WhitePages Releases New Version of Local Business Search Offering

WhitePages.com has released a new version of its Business Search today. It includes contact info for over 15 million local businesses around the U.S. as well as a Store Locator providing one-click access to neighborhood contact info for over a million local branches of national chains.

The angle WhitePages is taking is that it is replacing the need for search engines like Google and Bing for finding business contact info. I don’t know if that will translate into such actions by search engine users, but WhitePages certainly hopes people will see it that way.

"The frustrating days of scrolling through search engine results, clumsy store locators, or phone books for simple local business contact information officially comes to an end today with the launch of WhitePages Business Search," says Jason Milstead, director of WhitePages Business Search. "Web users that want to connect with websites should use Google or Bing. But if they simply want practical, easy to find contact information to connect with a local store of a business chain, doctor or dentist, WhitePages Business Search is the best resource."

"Every day WhitePages seeks new ways to make it easy for consumers to look up contact information for people and businesses online without surfing non-authoritative sites or dialing 411," said Alex Algard, founder and CEO of WhitePages. "The new WhitePages Business Search takes us one step closer to helping everyone quickly and efficiently connect with both people and local businesses."

Obviously Google and Bing are not going to lose too much sleep over this announcement, but WhitePages.com did have over 13 million unique visitors in May by Compete’s count.

June 24, 2010
MerchantCircle, Demand Media Provide New Local Search Opportunities

MerchantCircle, a social network for local businesses, which boasts over a million businesses, announced an expanded partnership with Demand Media. I spoke with Darren Waddell, VP of marketing for MerchantCircle and Sean Pate, the company’s Director of PR about this and some other news.

MerchantCircle has had a pre-existing partnership with Demand Media that functions in several capacities. For one, Demand’s domain registrar is used to give MerchantCircle businesses domains that MerchantCircle recommends based on their business profile. In addition, Demand Media content appears on merchant sites. For example, a plumber may have plumbing-related content from Demand Media on his site to make it more relevant and useful to users. Now, there is a new element to the partnership – Q&A.

Demand Media’s AnswerBag is a Q&A site, and the 122nd most popular site on the Internet, according to Merchant Circle. Now, AnswerBag questions will be routed to MerchantCircle businesses to answer when appropriate. This way, in theory, if a person asks a plumbing question, it will go to a plumber, and make for a more helpful and relevant answer. In turn, the MerchantCircle business (the plumber) will get more exposure, credit for answering (which can enhance the appearance of credibility), and even links – so businesses have an incentive to answer questions.

"The more you’re able to show off your expertise online the more likely you are to get more business," Waddell tells WebProNews. Through the partnership, MerchantCircle is basically providing greater distribution of the answer given. Plus there’s another perk: potential search engine traffic. "We’re a really good complement for SEO-savvy businesses to help people get more exposure on Google or other search engines," says Wadell. "A good complement that can help get them more traffic."

The AnswerBag deal isn’t the only piece of news. They also announced a partnership with HelloMetro, a company with hyperlocal sites for over 1,000 cities, serving between 4 and 5 million unique visitors a month. MerchantCircle will power its directories.

MerchantCircle is also now leveraging the Yahoo Answers API to introduce even more questions to its merchants. They’re taking questions from Yahoo Answers and introducing them to merchants. They say they take only really relevant questions that pertain to categories that are strong in merchant’s circle, and again, merchants can get more links. If you go to a merchant’s listing page, you’ll see all the questions they’ve answered. You can see what they’re experts in, which can be a strong selling point for a business.

Q&A search is getting to be a big business these days. Even Google has recognized this, as evidenced by its recent acquisition of Aardvark. MerchantCircle has put an interesting spin on it that seemingly offers a fair amount of potential for businesses to capitalize on. With these partnerships, that potential should only grow.

April 13, 2010
Citysearch Has New Way for Local Businesses to Advertise

Citysearch recently announced a set of APIs to make all of Citysearch’s local listings content and advertising available to other Websites and mobile apps. It’s called CityGrid. Today, the company announced an online advertising solution called CityGrid Complete, as an extension of that.

CityGrid Complete was built around an investment from Citysearch in OrangeSoda. CitySearch tells WebProNews that with the investment, they will offer local advertisers:

– Access to a pay-for-performance advertising platform and campaign management tools

– Scalable search engine optimization solution on the Web, including targeted keyword optimization, and reporting (ranking, conversation tracking and trending)

– Local listings optimization, including business profile optimization and phone call tracking and reporting

– Wider distribution across CityGrid

"Whether it’s driving new customers to our advertisers from major search sites or mobile applications, CityGrid Complete is about delivering local businesses the highest quality leads for the best value," said Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining the distribution power of CityGrid with OrangeSoda’s platform, every small business in America now has access to a one-stop local advertising solution with SEO strategies and tactics that historically required a large dedicated team of experts."

"Every search engine has introduced local directory listings prominently in their organic search results and this has given small businesses another way to get featured in the search engine results real estate," said Jay Bean, CEO of OrangeSoda. "For over 15 years, Citysearch has helped small businesses gain exposure on other websites, and now they want to help small businesses gain better exposure through organic search results. By bundling our expertise and tool set with CityGrid, we are offering small businesses a revolutionary local online advertising package that no other company offers."

OraneSoda has provided SEO services to brands like International Truck, Remax, and Jiffy Lube.

March 8, 2010
Local Business Search as Q&A

Human-driven Q&A search service ChaCha launched some new functionality this week for local businesses. Now users can access information about over 15 million businesses in the U.S., courtesy of partner Localeze.ChaCha spoke with WebProNews about why the company considers itself a legitimate contender in the ever-growing local search space.

"Across all platforms – mobile (SMS), online and now Facebook – we are up to nearly 20 million unique users per month," a ChaCha representative tells us. "Our run rate over the past several months has [averaged] 15 million uniques per month. The user base is split almost half male, half female – with over 80% of users between ages 13 and 24. We also answer over 1 million questions per day, and over 400 million answers have been served."

With an ever-increasing number of ways to access local business information, one might wonder what ChaCha brings to the table that can’t be found from other existing sources.

"Unique User benefits on ChaCha were the deeper questions, answers and info about the businesses, and in the future, the ability to get mobile coupons, join a businesses mobile lists, get discounts and more," she says. "These are the ChaCha value-adds over other sources, and features and content will continue to expand."

"We will be providing means for businesses to not only upgrade listings to add mobile and online coupons, but to add and edit top questions about their businesses – for example, say it is a Sushi place and a business wants to state the most popular item…they could provide that as one of their key questions and answers," she adds. "They will also be able to add mobile text-based loyalty lists where users can get updates, news and special from that business on their mobile phones."

February isn’t even over yet, and already 2010 has been a big year for local search. A lot of that has come from search giant Google, which could make for tough competition for anyone. Google has, for example, started showing mobile users "nearby places", allowing businesses to post announcements/coupons on their Place Pages, while also showing reviews from more sources, tailoring mobile search suggestions to location, and even suggesting competitors for local business searches.

Other sites and apps are taking advantage of consumer location-sharing, making local search more real-time in some ways. ChaCha has a lot to contend with, but clearly the company is confident it can compete as a go-to place for local business search. The company plans to expand on its local business features in he coming months.

Would you use a Q&A service to find local businesses? Comment here.

February 25, 2010
Why Even Local Search is Becoming More Real-Time

As the web quickly becomes more mobile and social than ever, we see apps filling voids that were mostly left empty throughout the history of search and social media. People are increasingly sharing their locations with their friends, certain apps, certain sites, and even the world.

While sharing one’s location can present its own set of dangers, as PleaseRobMe bluntly reminded everybody last week, people continue to share their locations and businesses have been, and will continue to take advantage of this. In fact, you might even say that this is becoming a major part of search marketing, and we’re not just talking about Google (which of course has its own location-sharing/obtaining capabilities).

Simply sharing your location has simply become a way of sending out a generic query, and local businesses have some tremendous new opportunities as a result. WebProNews just spoke with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn on this very topic out at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego.

"The thing about Foursquare and Gowalla, and these check-in apps, is like, a single tap of your phone is a powerful piece of data. It creates a connection with the merchant (with a bar or a restaurant) that you’re at," explains Coburn. "It tells your friends where you are, and then in the aggregate, it tells the services like Foursquare and Gowalla what places are hot. And then you can imagine, like a local coupon or a local ad network overlaid on top, where a business is having a slow Tuesday, and they can blast out to everybody in their neighborhood, and say ‘hey, we’re doing half off beers in our place RIGHT NOW,’ and they can decide that on the fly, and reach a community that’s right around them."

Now that’s real-time local search marketing, and in fact a far more effective strategy of utilizing real-time search than simply getting into Google’s ever-moving regular real-time web search results for a brief second. Potential customers sharing their locations means businesses can provide a real-time call-to-action to get them inside their establishment while they’re nearby.

As Coburn notes, search marketers can utilize location with APIs. Foursquare and Gowalla both have APIs, for example, which means any developer can build stuff on top of those popular products.

He also recommends that if you’re going to start building up content, to add a field to your database around lat/long (latitude/longitude). You can then deliver content based on that location information, whether it be news, deals, coupons, tips, recommendations, etc. When you can get to the user in a way that reflects right where they are (assuming they’re willingly sharing this information), you can give them more relevant content, which is what search is all about.

For more on ways businesses can utilize the increasingly mobile, geo-ized world, read this recent WebProNews article.

Do you consider lociation-sharing to be a significant element of your marketing efforts? Discuss here.

February 24, 2010
Google Suggests Competitors for Local Business Searches

Google is offering suggestions for "nearby places you might like" on Google Maps when you look up a place that you do like. So if you like a particular bakery, you might be presented with other places within the same vicinity that Google thinks you might also be interested in trying.

"When you live in New York City, everyone has an opinion on where to eat," says Tammy Stern of the Google Maps team. "And usually, telling someone a place you love will lead to a long conversation of a string of other places you should try. For example, one of the more interesting restaurants I’ve eaten at in NYC was recommended to me by someone who knew I loved a different restaurant by the same owner. And, when I told a friend I was heading to the Lower East Side to get some yummy knishes for lunch, he told me to make sure I checked out the famous Guss’ Pickles right around the corner and that I might consider picking up some smoked fish at Russ & Daughters down the street."

"You’ll notice that we do not limit these suggestions to places sharing any specific characteristic; instead, we use a broad set of signals to come up with what are hopefully the most interesting suggestions," says Stern. "We’re still working on refining these signals, so bear with us if your serendipitous discovery of a new place is even more unexpected than you’d anticipated."

This feature could have both positive and negative effects on local businesses. On the one hand, it could give established customers ideas to go to your competitors. On the other hand, you could be the competitor and benefit from that.

The suggestions are just the latest feature in a recent slew of local business-related features from Google. The company is clearly focusing a great deal on this aspect of search.

Related Articles:

> Businesses Benefit as Customers Share Current Locations

> Google Makes it Harder to Hide from a Bad Reputation

> Google Tailors Mobile Search Suggestions to Location

February 7, 2010