Category — Local Search

Facebook is rumored to be launching its own location based checkin service, foursquare and gowalla are getting more hype than a red sox/yankees championship game being played on the moon. Everyone is all about checking in. (But what about standing out?)

I’ve mentioned this before, but I think QR Codes should play a role in the technology of checkins. It forces a check in to be physically located in a given place, not just nearby or walking past and it adds a layer of interaction between the patron and the business.

No major revelations here, just something I have been thinking about lately amongst all this hype.

Within my business we have been talking alot about impressions, pay per action, service based contracts, all-you-can eat pricing and various other pricing models we and other players in our industry (local) are using. Its also interesting to see what the agency world is buzzing about in terms of the future of digital buying. (I think most people don’t understand the influence agencies have on the technology side of advertising, at least I didn’t until recently) Its interesting for me to look at the dicotomy between massive media buys and those media buys of the small local business. While their procurement and distribution might be similar, the methodology behind the initial purchase is entirely different. Foremost is the role that research plays in the buy, and put quite simply at one end of it there is a lot of research and at the other end there is very little.

In thinking of how to properly explain this difference, and sticking with the commodity theme that is growingly pervasive in the industry today, I want to compare a large media buyer, at the very basic level, and the average small business. Take the large brand media planner for example, this person might be working for Coca Cola and looking at a 20 million dollar digital ad budget, new technologies are allowing hyper targeting, re-targeting, behavioral targeting and real-time impression buys. In order to make sense of this world, the planner is analyzing audiences, demographics, entire neighborhoods of the web down to real time pages across the exchanges and networks they are plugged into then matching up the appropriate buys with Coca Cola’s plan. This planner wants to know who else is competing for specific buys, they want to know where users are coming from and where they will go after they view the Coca Cola ads; they want to see the entire supply chain of the impressions they are buying, from start to finish. The planner then recommends which impressions to buy, from which sites, at which times, etc. Brands can target specific individuals that fit their demographic profile for a specific campaign, and thus manage and run a very effective campaign.

Compare that to a local business with a $1000 they just cancelled from their local newspaper and want to move that budget online. Who do they talk to? They have no idea what an ad exchange even is, let alone where to find and implement a campaign in one. They might want to reach a more educated buyer than less, but they are going to rely mostly on gut, and what their local salesperson tells them is the right place for their dollar.

- Wait, a local salesperson?

Yes, dear rest of the world, local businesses want to deal with a local sales person who is an expert in their field and can give them valued advice on where to spend their money. Just as your average oil consumer doesn’t want to stress about the market fluctuations in a barrel of oil when they fill their car up, the local business just wants to get some new customers in the door, hopefully before he runs out of olive oil and with enough cash left over to replace the boiler.

When consumers go to the pump, they realize that the price of a barrel of oil correlates to the price they pay at the pump, and some weeks its more expensive than last, but generally they know they can go, fill up their tank for $30-40 and drive off. We don’t have time to calculate the cost savings of purchasing that oil at 11am rather than at 3pm as investors are loading up for tomorrows news, because frankly at the volumes most of us buy gas, the savings really isn’t significant.

Contrasting the media planner, purchasing the commodity of impressions at a vast scale and with micro targeting and specific demos in mind, executing on these buys in near real time; contrasting that media planner with the local business is fascinating. There are very few levels of size between Madison Ave/Varick St, and Main Street, USA - but a massive difference, both in scale and targeting. Commodity style impression buying is the new new, and its really intriguing, but the same way your average investor is not going to get into derivative trading or bond re-insurance, your average local media buyer isn’t going to get into the targeting, research and buying detail that is required to effectively execute commodity style buys - at least not on their own.

Yes, local businesses will figure out how to properly deal with commodity style impression purchasing and the Cost Per Action models becoming more pervasive. Yes, innovators across the world will build technology to make it easier for those small businesses to do so. But by the time the SMB’s adopt and adapt, impressions might not even be a metric. Or maybe they will. Regardless, who will always control the local ad budgets of those small businesses and ultimately the direction of their adoption? Their trusted local sales people and the brands they work for. At the end of the day self-service only platforms will not penetrate truly local businesses, feet on the street will be needed to ultimately unlock and capture the transition of local ad dollars to digital.

The sales people, and their overhead organizations will have to evolve, the businesses will demand new solutions, but as they demand new solutions they will look to experts for advice. Expert sales teams these small businesses trust. And right now, today, there exist thousands of local sales teams, many with years of brand equity invested and vested in their publications and properties. As ad dollars transition across the board away from traditional media, those properties and their local equity will in basic Darwinism adapt or die; and out of self-preservation many will adapt. Some will not, but many will.

Getting to my point that local businesses will evolve, that is inevitable, they are small and agile and represent the true grit of American capitalism. They will adapt, they will transition their ad dollars from traditional to digital, but they question remains - where and how? A second question remains - will the local media companies serving those companies adapt to the needs of their local customers, and if they do what solutions will they offer?

Many of the big publishers believe they have the solution. They do not, I have seen their solutions and they are not solutions to current problems. The biggest problem in the marketplace is that the majority of small local media companies don’t know what the solution is, or even really what the problem is. Over all in 2009 print revenues declined by about 20% +/- and digital revenues increased by about 9% +/-,  given the lower CPMs of Digital compared to print - that is not a zero sum game. Dollars are disappearing from the market entirely. And traditional media is suffering from that loss most acutely.

When those dollars come back to the market (as some have seen recently), they will not be returning to traditional media, they will be migrating to digital options, both web and mobile. And just as agencies control ad dollars for major brands, local media companies control ad dollars for pockets of local businesses. Big chunks of local media siphoned off into individual properties across the country. As local businesses demand different solutions and more digital options the local media companies that adapt and deliver new solutions will thrive. They may have to adjust their content models, but if they bring the right technologies to their customers, paired with true knowledge of their offering they will keep their customers both in business and doing business with their brand.

There are several technology companies which have developed strong local products and have had success with local sales teams. But these technology companies are not media companies - how will traditional content-to-display dollars transition to digital? As a basic consumer a more efficient PPC campaign does nothing to quench my need for a write up of local-celebrity gossip. Most importantly, as those companies are opening in new markets, they are ignoring what can often be valuable local media brands, along with the years of brand equity they have with local customers. Will local businesses receive a PPC optimizing technology better from the local salesperson they already deal with - from the brand they know and trust? Or will they prefer the new comer with the sizzle?

I believe that small businesses want to know and trust that the technology they are using is the best in the market, but that fundamentally they want to take their marketing problems and talk about them with their local salesperson. Looking to them for answers - solutions. I believe the smart media companies will adapt to their customers needs, where they will fail is the technology.

Technology that should be centralized, technology that should live in the cloud and distributed out through multiple markets, multiple sales teams. Technology that is easy to use, brought to market by the best local media brands in each market and made easier to understand by knowledgeable sales people, trusted by their customers. Coupled with a strong media property using a second decade content model, commodity based ad buys will thrive in the future.

Many local media companies will realize they need to adapt to a changing market place; adapt or die. Once they see this as fact, they will seek out technology to serve their local customers. They are experts in their local markets, in their traditional media and in sales/customer service. In true efficiency economics these adapting local media companies will seek expert solutions to their customer problems. And with success comes the desire for more solutions and that ultimately translates to more dollars flowing through local media companies.

Ad dollars flowing through traditional media companies? Yes, but those dollars will flow through the media company and into the cloud where they will be curated and optimized and from there those dollars with buy commodities - impressions, clicks, calls, etc. Ultimately those local ad dollars will originate from the local sales teams talking to local businesses on a daily basis, and over the next 3-5 years it is up to those local media companies to defend their turf. Adapt and deliver new solutions to their market, or sit by as new companies come in and drink their milkshakes.

In the beginning of July, my company decided to hire an SEO consultant to help us with a few problems we are having getting some of our content indexed. Since we launched a new version of our sites, we went from over 15k people a month to under 6k. Thats a big problem.

So we did the natural thing, started addressing the problem and after a good amount of frustration we got help. We spoke to a bunch of the best names in the industry, and chose a young company out started by a few people with varying degrees of experience in the SEO industry, but they were aggressive, defensive of the skills and passionate about what they could deliver.

We recieved an unbelieveably thorough site audit, which we were ecstatic about. Dozens of little tweaks, major architecture issues and some rather obvious stuff that we just needed a fresh set of eyes to notice. We implemented almost all the recommended changes, along with some other tweaks we unconvered as I began to implement them. They were a huge help and awesome to work with.

The thing is, I know SEO. I’ve been doing it for 3 years. I’ve been quietly attending conferences and workshops since 2005, I’ve built a company around getting found online, I know how to do this - successfully. (search “providence restaurants” - thats all me) But when crafting an entire Content Management System, from scratch there is so much to do. So much to keep in mind, and so many hundreds of little things that can screw up your rankings, or take you off the map completely.

We came off the map. We had some high profile rankings in the top 3 of Google, lots of traffic, only to fall out of the top 100.

Crawling back is an art. Crafting a site that the engines can dig is like making an elaborate painting. There is a proven technique to make the right brush strokes. There are certain types of paint and canvas that are better than others, but when its all said in done, you have to make the strokes, on the canvas, with the paint and bring it all together into something beautiful.

There is no secret forumula, it isn’t witchcraft but its certainly not a science. You have to do all the little things right, through some magic and hope in there, and wait for the bots. Its kind of like the invasion of Zion, only you want a nice picnic waiting for them.

The power of your competing with your friends for trophies has been a force since man first evovled from ape. Whoever killed the biggest animal fed the most people, and gained fame throughout the land. Today there are many trophies, many competitions and most of us have a bunch of friends. In today’s world of hyper connectivity, we can stay in touch with friends and acquaintances just as if they lived across the hall. This leads us to follow our innate competitive instincts and make a bunch of stuff over which we can compete peacefully. In this hyer-connected world, we have many examples of how games and trophies become popular, sought after and create successful businesses. The NFL is based on competition, Major League Baseball, UEFA,  The Olympics, all multi-billion dollar businesses built around the peaceful exploitation of competition.

But there are other levels of competition, ranging from who has the nicest car, to who has the most followers on Twitter. Us crazy people spend hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars and massive resources to win the imaginary trophies that the world offers to us. But alot of these games are fun, meaningless ways to interact with your friends and associates. Zombie Toss on Facebook, ReTweeting and now the ultimate example - Foursquare.

Foursquare captures all the potential of Twitter, and makes a fun game around who can go to more places and “check in” You can become the mayor of your favorite coffee shop, win badges for hitting multiple spots in a night, and show off your badges to all of your hermit friends. The intriguing game of checking in and badges is only the front of what could become a brilliant business idea, and I believe will capture the potential value of twitter to many of the small businesses staring aimlessly at a little baby-blue bird.

What Twitter first started out as, and what got me intrigued was the ability to broadcast where I am, to the people who cared. Now Twitter has become much more than that, but Foursquare takes that fundamental use-case, and makes a fun game out of it. It tracks and records where I go, how often I go, and withwhom I go (of course, only when I tell it). This information is absolutely invaluable to small businesses. Deli’s can learn their customers favorite sandwiches, discover problems in their offerings, and find out who their best customers really are. Then they could be able to send out offers to those customers who “checked in” They could build an email database to lure those customers back in. There are so many business applications to Foursquare, so many more obvious ones than for Twitter itself, I would buy Foursquare if I were Twitter - like tomorrow.

Foursquare is a fun application that takes human nature’s desire to see their friends and show off their trophies and turns it into a desire to go out more, tell the world where they are and win some meaningless badges. But all that adds up to great data for small businesses, great marketing opportunities for those businesses and a whole bunch more percieved immediate value than simple twitter feeds (to small businesses). Instead of trolling through twitter searches, I can just go to my business page on Foursquare and see what people are saying - and who’s coming.

I have several great takeaways from Foursquare’s app, but really its fun and it makes me want to go out more so I can check in again. Who doesn’t like badges?

So I am going on an actual vacation for the first time in over a year. Which I am understandably excited about. However, its amazingly difficult to find information about what I want online. And since I would like to be able to know whats happening when I get there, the paper stuff I can pick up on arrival just doesn’t do the trick.

I am heading to Sanibel Island, and these are my options for websites:

• http://www.sanibelisland.com/
• http://www.sanibel-captiva.org/
• http://www.sanibelflorida.com/

Those are all completely useless, they were built in 2002 or 2003, they have no updated information and who knows when they were last updated. I looked to Yelp, http://www.yelp.com/c/sanibel-fl/restaurants - nothing particularly useful they only have 5 restaurants reviewed. But hidden in one of the comments was the mention of a blog: this one - http://www.sanibelcaptivadaily.com/category/restaurants/ and finally I found something. Not particularly good, because there is a lot of local jargon type stuff I don’t really care about as a visitor, but its nice to know that the local residents have a strong sense of civic pride.

My point here is that its awfully difficult to find good local information about remote or even not so remote places. Basically if its not a major city or a randomly enlightened small town there is no info about that town online. I’m not talking population and basic business listings with maps, but valuable content on where to go and what to do while I’m there.  Good local content is hard to find, and thats a problem I have with the internet. At least with searching on the internet. There is no resource for up to date information on small interesting localities. And even if there was, could you find it? (I am having more and more issues with Google just doing a bad job of indexing good information vs favoriting really old static pages, but thats another post)

Tripadvisor is great for reading about things to do and hotels (and “adventures”), Yelp is great for reviews on restaurants and shops - but all of those are resources for things that happened in the past. Even the reviews from last week won’t tell me whats happening next weekend. If I hear about an event on one site, I then have to head over to Yelp to find out if the place its being held is legit. The world needs a steady resource for local information, activities, restaurants, shops and things to do. And I want a calendar around those things and of course I want to know what other people’s experiences were like.

Fortunately I know of a resource like this, its just a matter of getting to all these great places in the world.

There seems to be an interesting problem developing that most of the major SEO firms, organizations and analysts are missing - difficulty of inclusion. Its the term I’m giving to the amount of steps, and relative difficulty that it takes to get your business listed on major search engines and in local directories.

I’m going to outline some of the problems small businesses face, although not complete, but this is what I’m working on trying to fix every day.

• Local Business Databases - We have tried and used several different data providers. (ALL of the big ones) and unless you are using an extremely complicated importing script and combining every single database you can muster you are going to have an embarrasingly incomplete database. Yelp does a very good job including everything it can, but it still isn’t perfect. And thats just my problem as a publisher. There are hundreds of thousands of small businesses missing from all these databases, and that means they aren’t getting found online. At all. If I am opening a new business, or I have a business thats been around for years, I have to first make sure that I am being included in these data lists before I can even start to think about optimizing my listings. The folks at getlisted.org are doing a cool thing, but I’ve yet to come across anyone who is using it (and our company doesn’t get updates from getlisted and we have 900k businesses listed across our network - why is that ?) The small business world needs a uniquitous listing solution across all possible local listings - an openID for small businesses if you will.
• Learning - I am Joe the Plumber, I have a fleet of trucks, I have insurance on those trucks, I have 12 employees, I have workers compensation insurance, I have tools, I have angry customers, I have happy customers, My boiler just broke and my kids want new tricycles. I have a ridiculous amount of stuff going on in my life and I just found out when you search for plumbers in MyTown my competition gets 80% of the phone calls. WTF? What do I do now? I could spend a few hours scowering the internet and reading blogs about how to set up my LBC listing on Google and in Yahoo, and submit to GetListed. (there are alot of great resources out there) But if I don’t know these blogs, its gonna take me a couple hours just to find them, then its gonna take some time to find the article I need. It could take just a few minutes, but if I’m still using my hotmail account I probably don’t know what a blog even really is. And I have a long way to go if I don’t know what a blog is. Quick reality check for all you local search bloggers, the average small business owner still doesn’t have a website, heard about twitter on cnn, reads the local newspaper and is 47. Sure my generation has grown up with basic knowlege of the internet but if the internet is a foreign world to you, how are you going to succeed in it. You won’t make a very good French diplomat if you can’t speak French We need easier tools, and better knowledge bases for small business owners. Again, more ubiquity
• Depth vs Breadth - I want to be listed first in google, first in yahoo and on every local search directory that is applicable. In the yellow pages world, all I have to do is spend more money and buy the biggest add. Boom, more business than I can handle.  In the Google world, there is soo much more that needs to be done to succeed. You need quality relevant content, you need links, you need a good domain name, you need all of these other factors, many of which you can’t just buy. And thats just Google. There are whole lists compiled of what to do for each search engine. I can spend many days and go down the checklist for just one. There is so much to do.
• Options - If you give a person 12 options they’re more likely to pick none. There are too many places to advertise, there are too many places to start. First you have to pick one, and then you get going. There needs to be a uniquitous place to start, a local search center. Getlisted again is that idea, but they aren’t executing and how can they if noone esle is observing this problem (or atleast thinking about solving it).

Lastly, I as a consumer find it so frustrating when I can’t find the business I am looking for. I want their phone number, I want their menu, do they sell what I want and can I trust them? If i’m a restaurant in NYC I better be damn sure I’m monitoring my Yelp reviews and encouraging my patrons to “give me some love” But if I’m in Maine or North Carolina, where do I start? That problem exists and at some point we are going to have to solve it. Google is just going to scour the internet, or use a third party data set. Yelp just compiles data sets. But if the business I want isn’t in that data set, im screwed. We need local people to ensure data accuracy and completion. Otherwise businesses will fall through the cracks and that obviously hurts the business involved, but it also hurts us consumers. Because if the little shop that sells the computer bag I want is 2 miles away but It doesn’t come up in google for that term, and nothing else does, I’m not going to buy the bag I want - from anyone.

Dear Small Business Owner,

We are going to service the heck out of you. We are helping you learn how to set up a facebook profile, we are promoting your events and we are allowing you to twitter directly from your account with us.

If you like service, knoweldgeable and friendly service, call us. We are here to help you.

Best,

- Jamie

I find google maps local business search to be utterly useless. Time and again, I enter a local business term and I find nothing that is usefull to me. For example, this afternoon I wanted to cruise into Greenwich, CT and do some work in a nice locally owned coffee shop (ie NOT starbucks). A quick Google resulted in this:  http://bit.ly/19UmsA, the first 10 listings in google were totally useless to me, none of them even deserved a click. So I went with the Local Maps. Also useless; I had heard of a place I was trying to find and it wasn’t there.

Alas, I was forced to use Yelp. I like Yelp, its a great service but I never use it.  Here is the search results I got in yelp: http://bit.ly/Cyd5D. Great results, I found the business I was looking for and there were about a dozen additional businesses that were in Yelp’s data compared to Google’s. Here is another good example of why Marty Himmelstein doesn’t know what he is talking about when he says SEO doesn’t matter.  As good a job as Yelp has done with SEO, they should be showing up in this search term. Apparently Google didn’t think they content on Yelp directly related to my search was important enough. Great SEO would have placed the most relevant results in front of me on the top of the first page. Great SEO wouldn’t need me to type in a website directly becuase it would deliver them to me when I ask.

For all you local search businesses out there, keep going. Google isn’t doing local well and unless they decide to focus on it (please dont, please, please!) they aren’t going to. Matt Cutts, if you read this don’t get any ideas

The lesson from this is: SEO is absolutely priceless. And if you aren’t doing it, or you are harping against its value you will be riding a sinking ship into the horizon.

What are your experiences with Google Maps Local (as a consumer)?

There has been a lot of chatter about local business data recently in the local blogosphere. (Here and here ) I’m in the business of local business data and I agree it sucks. I spent this week at Search Marketing Expo attending sessions from some of the best in the business and the search engines themselves. And what I realized is that everyone is just trying to create a technology that will eliminate personal interaction and direct updates.

There is no one size fits all anwer to the local data question. How do local businesses represent themselves online. Well first you need to educate them on why they should be online. (here’s a good resource for education) If they know they need to be online chances are, they don’t know where to start. They don’t know where to start. Some have ideas, some have misgivings and some are misguided. One of the biggest problems I find is that there were people that came to them in 2003 and told them they were the next big thing. Small businesses paid up and never heard from these guys again. They are weary and rightfully so. Today there are about a hundred local search options out there, thousands if you incorporate all the offline media they could be buying.

The real query that hasn’t been indexed is how do you gain trust, build a really SOLID local business database and make money while doing this all. Not an easy question. Automation is nice, but you aren’t going to get a bar owner to self-service, not in 2009, maybe not in 2012 - maybe not for along time. The issue is time and ROI and trust. Small businesses don’t want to waste their money on advertising, but they know they need to advertise so they are willing to do that. What they really don’t want to waste is their time.

So if you are venturing into the local search space, you need to recognize one thing. These guys are busy and they are afraid to try new things. If there is one thing thats on our side though, its the fact that they can’t keep justifying increasing print rates with declining circulation and escalating printing costs. So they are going to have to try new things. Alot of companies charge for customer support, so why can’t you? Because you don’t have it.

No algorithm will ever replace handshakes and personal contacts. Walk your prospective clients through your product, educate them on why its valuable and you’ve got a client. Give them a self service portal that injects their business into a Live Nation infested noise fest, they’ll never take action.

Moral being, talk to your customers.  Be there for them. The web is strange enough for these old tymers don’t be a full voicemail box and an anonymous email. Be a person, don’t forget - they’re people too.

Today was a very exciting and exhausting day. Introducing some new people to the site, adding some great people to the team. Its amazing. Welcome to 2009.

I have an interesting perspective on what I’m doing. I learned my tricks from battling in the streets. When I first started I walked the streets with a blue  paper folder (the kind with the pockets), print outs from Word with a description of my new website.

“Thats, great kid. Let me know when someone else is on it.” - Ok

I learned that small businesses don’t really care about the internet. They dont care about SEO, they don’t care about fancy algorithms and pre-roll ads. They care about getting customers in their door and making them happy. I learned quickly that if you can make marketing easy for them they will listen. I learned that if you could show them new customers at a lower CPA than the local paper, they would not only listen - they would buy.

I have great idea’s everyday, I have a really great idea in my head right now and I know its 6-10 months away from happening.  In the past few weeks I got my girlfriend to start blogging, I think she finally understands how Twitter is cool and she even set up and iGoogle page this weekend. My parents have a computer in the kitchen (you have no idea about my parents - whats facebook?). People are using the internet to find things they need. - But of course they are Jamie! - Yes, but now they’ve realized they can find all kinds of crazy things they need on the internet easier than with their (insert non web-based tool). There are so many great things to do out there, the internet is going to explode when this economy recovers.

People aren’t leaving their neighborhoods like they used to. And if they are they are planning their trip from their desk, via the internet. They are searching for local businesses, for location specific activites and destination related things to do. This is what we mean by local. This is why Google introduced its OneBox (those bastards!) and its why everyone and their mother is started the latest and greatest local search site.

Well I didn’t figure out local was cool last quarter. I didn’t notice people were starting to ramp up local searches in June, not even of ‘07. I’m not telling you 2009 is going to be “the year of local” [trumpets sound]. But I am loving it. Loving the buzz, loving 2009 trend predictions from J.P. Morgan and Barclays. Loving the fact that a small company from Boston is dominating a huge billion dollar company with an almost identical name because its thinking small.

I’ll leave you with this, because you’re probably in the same game I am somehow or another. So cheers:

Internet activity continues to increase as the medium plays a more significant role in people’s lives, and this increased usage and dependence should leave Internet companies well-positioned when the macro environment improves.

- Barclays’ Doug Anmuth