WebProNews

Tag: local businesses

  • Yelp Names Top 20 Cities For Local Holiday Shopping

    Yelp has put together its top 20 list for cities to shop local for the holidays.

    The company recently commissioned a survey from Nielsen to find out about people’s plans for local holiday shopping. It found that eight in ten Americans intend to shop local for the holidays this year.

    To come up with the top 20 list, Yelp says it analyzed millions of reviews and business listings to determine the best cities in the U.S. It includes those with the largest concentration of highly-rated, local businesses where shoppers can find gifts. Here’s the list:

    1. Portland, ME
    2. Lawrence, KS
    3. St. Petersburg, FL
    4. Asheville, NC
    5. Santa Cruz, CA
    6. Detroit, MI
    7. Bend, OR
    8. Chapel Hill, NC
    9. Wilmington, NC
    10. Hoboken, NJ
    11. Minneapolis, MN
    12. Portland, OR
    13. Frederick, MD
    14. Flagstaff, AZ
    15. New Orleans, LA
    16. Worcester, MA
    17. Savannah, GA
    18. Providence, RI
    19. Seattle, WA
    20. Baltimore, MD

    Here’s an infogrpahic Yelp released earlier this month, which features additional findings from the survey:

    Image via Yelp

  • The State of the Yellow Pages Print Industry

    I have been pretty harsh on the Yellow Pages in the past. Most of my trouble comes from the fact that the medium just isn’t as effective across all verticals as it once was. That’s not to say that it’s not effective at all, because that is untrue. In some areas, it can work well–like plumbing, HVAC and other emergency situations. Of course, by the time you locate the book you probably could have done the search on your computer or smart phone just as quickly, but who’s counting?

    Well, if there was ever a white flag of truce thrown up by an industry under fire, it is this one: the Yellow Pages industry has created an opt out of delivery site at http://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/. Here is the home page:

    National Yelloe Pages Opt Out.jpg

    There is a Canadian version as well, but the message there is not as glaring as the US site. Check it out here.

    This move means several things regarding the state of the Yellow Pages print industry.

    1. The industry is feeling pressure. If you have driven past or even dropped off Yellow Page books at the special dumpsters for them, there is a clear message that these directories are simply not wanted. Now YP groups will say those are just the old, out-dated versions being recycled, but I know I have thrown current versions in there just to get them out of the way from wherever they landed in my house (usually the garage).

    These dumpsters are due to pressure from environmental groups and from people who simply don’t want the delivery to begin with. In other words, it’s better for the YP industry to police itself or have more situations like the one in Seattle, which levied a 14-cent fee per book delivered by Yellow Pages distributors.

    2. The industry is changing. It wasn’t too long ago that an action like an Opt Out of the Yellow Pages delivery Web site would have been seen as an act of heresy. I suspect that there has been a realization that taking certain actions will be seen as positive moves to keep any wolves at bay, so rather than circle the wagons the YP industry will play the game.

    3. The industry suspects that impact will be nominal. I don’t know how this site is being promoted, but I doubt there is much effort by the YP folks to draw a lot of attention to it. Personally, I tweeted it so my Twitter followers would be made aware. I suspect that the YP industry knows that beyond the highly technical crowd, the masses will likely never know this exists. Perhaps they are banking on that.

    4. The industry is rattled. To sum up these points, it looks as if the Yellow Page industry is back on its heels. Bankruptcies (RH Donnelly) and overall trashing of the medium for sales tactics, coupled with an antiquated perception by consumers and marketers alike has the industry on the ropes. They need to look like they care about moving forward and adjusting to the new digital world order.

    5. The industry needs to concentrate online. The online Yellow Pages are also struggling because Google has taken away some of their search bread and butter. Google’s changes in how the SERPs render local search results (the heart of any YP offering) has moved online directories down the pecking order of what is considered a good result for a searcher looking for services.

    Of course, there are cries of foul play by Google (and maybe Bing, too, since they copy Google’s results!) but the fact of the matter is, that as a searcher myself, I hate being directed by Google to another directory that I have to maneuver through. That’s a bad search result. I want actual businesses that do something rather than a third party aggregator’s version, loaded with their advertising.

    In the end, this move by the Yellow Pages industry is one that needs to be watched. We live in a world where the appearance of "taking care of business" is easy to create. Many of these kinds of efforts are by industries merely looking to avoid lawsuits—what I call "Wizard of Oz moves." "What’s that?" you ask? It’s simply creating something that looks like a huge gesture but when you pull back the curtain there’s more "show than go." In this case, I bet that the industry is making this look like a grand gesture and the hope is that no real large number of people will act on it.

    Unfortunately, we live in a society where this kind of thing can be passed off as real action and the result is the ability of the Yellow Page industry to say "Look we are doing our part!" when they know full well that most people won’t even know the option exists.

    Welcome to online America, home of the shallow. Where people can look like they are concerned and give any appearance they need to get by. Sorry for the cynicism but can you blame me?

    Your thoughts on the subject?

    Originally published at Biznology

  • If You’re Not Local, How Can You Compete in an Increasingly Local Google?

    Update: Looks like there is likely to be a lot more local action coming Google’s way soon. 

    Original Article: There’s no question that Google has been putting a lot of focus on local results lately – from the release of products like Google Places and Hotpot (the company’s personalized and social recommendation engine) to an increasing amount of queries simply retrieving local results – often above other organic listings. 

    We had an extensive conversation about this with industry veteran Bruce Clay at PubCon a couple months ago, and webmasters and SEOs have been stressing about it all over the web. In fact, just today, one consulting firm ran a press release talking about the competitive advantages local business owners have as a result of recent changes with Google. 

    Do local businesses have the upper hand in Google? Tell us what you think. 

    Consultant (and founder of the firm, LocalMarketingProfitFaucet says there’s a new type of Google Gold Rush. He’s referring to getting the prime listings from Google Places, which Google will often place at the top of the SERPs. 

    "This change is having an immediate and positive impact on the local businesses shown in these Page 1 listings," says Adams. "The Internet-savvy business owners who understand how to take advantage of this are generating new customers for next-to-nothing. Meanwhile, a surprising number are still oblivious to the significance of this change. In fact, Google has revealed that only a tiny percentage of local businesses have even claimed their Google Places listing, let alone optimize it."

    "From our experience," Adams continues, "Google has always given preferential treatment to unique, multimedia content that is kept fresh and up to date. And of course, stay away from any black hat tactics that try to game the system. Google always catches up to these shenanigans. When they do, your listing could be banned with no warning and no second chances."

    If local businesses have the competitive advantage now, then some non-local businesses are wondering how they’re supposed to compete with that. After all, the far reach of the web has historically been an attractive reason to start a business in the first place. 

    In a new video uploaded to Google’s Webmaster YouTube channel, Matt Cutts (head of the company’s webspam team) addressed a user-submitted question: "In a search environment where local is becoming increasingly important (and more full on the SERP), how can an out of town company compete with the local based (and locally housed) competition without lying to show up in these results?"

    Cutts responded by saying, "The entire page of web rankings is there that out of town people can compete on, so the idea of the local universal results is to show local businesses, so in some sense, there’s not really a way where if you’re out of town, you can sort of show up (within our guidelines), and show up as a local business."

    "Now, if you are a mobile business – so for example, maybe you’re a plumber, and you get into your pickup truck, and you drive around in a particular area – so if you’re a mobile business, then in Google Places you can specify a service area, which is roughly 50 miles around where you’re based, but that’s only if you actually have some base of operations there," he continues. "You can’t be based in Topeka and claim that you have a service area in Wyoming if you have no physical presence there."

    "I think that that’s a good idea. You do want to have local businesses show up, and I know that the team has really been paying a lot of attention to try and improve Maps quality, make it more robust, check on the authenticity of businesses, and that will only continue," adds Cutts.  

    In other words, if you’re not a local business, there’s nothing much you can do about getting the kind of visibility the local businesses are getting, should Google deem the user’s query worthy of the local results. I might suggest finding queries related to your business that aren’t returning local results and giving these some more attention, and of course there’s always AdWords. 

    If there’s a particular geographic market that you’re after, but you’re not based there, you may want to consider setting up shop. In the end, Google is just going to do what it thinks will help users. Whether or not you buy that is up to you, but they’re not going to deviate from that stance, and if it encourages more people to buy AdWords ads, then so be it.   

    You can expect there to be a great amount of focus continued to be placed on local. The company even moved former VP of Search products, Marissa Mayer, to this area of focus, and with mobile becoming such a big part of the way people search, local is by default going to be a bigger part of what people are actually looking for. 

    Has Google’s increased focus on local hurt your search rankings and visibility? Let us know in the comments.

  • CEO Dennis Crowley “Bullish” on Foursquare for Local Merchants

    "Whenever I hear SMB, I think of Super Mario Bros," Foursquare co-Founder and CEO Dennis Crowley said today. But in all seriousness, he has tremendous pride in his service and its future use for local businesses (among other things). 

    Speaking here at ad:tech New York, he compared Foursquare to a Google Analytics for people who walk in your door. "These are your best customers," he said. "The check-in is kind of a commodity."

    "The check-in is ultimately boring," said Crowley, adding that Foursquare is focused on what comes after the check-in. The company wants to deliver more relevant  content based on check-ins, beyond just games. "Every check-in should mean something," he said, though games are still a big part of what Foursquare is about. "The  whole thing is based on Super Mario Bros." he joked. 

    Dennis Crowley Talks Foursquare at Ad:TechBut he talked about scenarios such as traveling to Chicago and getting some tips on things to do based on where you’re at and your past experiences in another city like New York. Real, practical uses. He says he’s "really bullish" on the local merchant-related stuff Foursquare is doing. 

    "The harder part is consumer brands…consumer packaged goods," he said. For example, things like Foursquare to help sell batteries or cereal. "We’re definitely still in that experimental stage."

    Foursquare is not without its skeptics of course. Neither was Twitter when it started, he reminds us. "We’ll be kicking ass a year from now," he says. 

    There are plenty of people that still think Twitter is useless, and there will probably always be those opinions about Foursquare as well, but Crowley is confident that once they are able to start showing real metrics and data about why this can be useful, more and more people will start to get it. "I think we’re still in the super early days of this."

    Do you get Foursquare? Tell us what you think.

  • Google Focusing On Check-In Services with Google Places API

    Google is placing a great deal of emphasis on check-in services, with regards to Google Places. This could mean some interesting things for businesses.

    "We have been delighted with the enthusiasm we have seen for the Places API, and the innovative ways in which developers would like to use it," says Google Maps API Product Manager Thor Mitchell. "We have seen applications that offer check-in to places and need to identify an individual place at which a user is currently located, applications looking to show a user Places around them, and applications looking to offer a search and browse experience for Places similar to that offered on Google Maps."

    "We are going to focus initially on check-in applications," says Mitchell. "These are the applications that we feel the API currently caters to well, and we are excited to work with developers building these applications to understand their requirements, and ensure that we are offering them the best possible experience."

    Google Places - API will focus on check-in appsGoogle says it has been reaching out to developers who have expressed interest in building check-in apps using the Places API. This includes developers working on client apps for the Buzz API.

    Check-in services are gaining a lot of attention, and are creating new and interesting opportunities for brick and mortar businesses that just weren’t available before. Combine that with the power of Google Maps and Google’s increasingly heavy push of Google Places, and this has the potential to be very powerful. With Google’s APIs, the consumers are going to have many more access points, particularly from their mobile devices.

    It would also not be surprising if this was heavily tied to that "Google Me" project that has been speculated on so heavily in recent weeks.

    Earlier this week, Google updated its Maps for Mobile on Android devices, making a Places icon available. This essentially turns Places into its own app for all intents and purposes.