Search Marketing > Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
May. 8, 2008 at 7:24am by Matt McGee
A Small Business Marketing Success Story: Avante Gardens
There's a battle going on in the floral industry, and many small, independent florists are losing. Like other small businesses, they don't have the time or knowledge to keep up with the latest marketing trends and tactics. But there are other challenges, too: Way back in 1998, the FTC...
See Related Stories In: SEO: Local, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Small Is Beautiful
Mar. 31, 2008 at 6:04am by Greg Sterling
Local Store And Inventory Data Poised To Transform "Online Shopping"
The neglected part of the local story is about products. Often local search is discussed exclusively in terms of finding service businesses or small businesses in one's own area. But an equally important, if less obvious, part of the "local search" phenomenon is shopping in the more traditional sense....
See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: Search Behavior
Mar. 11, 2008 at 10:42am by Chris Silver Smith
Optimize Local Events With hCalendar Microformat
I've run across a number of local business sites which offer event calendars of some sort, and many of these companies may not be aware that they can and should add hCalendar Microformat to their pages to further optimize them for both search and user experience. I've previously recommended...
See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Feb. 15, 2008 at 10:16am by Greg Sterling
Four Newspapers Join To Create Another Local Network For National Advertisers
Newspapers have watched as "their" national advertisers have gone elsewhere online to get the reach and local placements that they provided almost exclusively offline. There have been several disappointing attempts in the past to build a national network of newspaper publishers: the failed New Century Network and the existing but...
See Related Stories In: Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Yahoo: Publisher Network
Feb. 12, 2008 at 10:55am by Eric Ward
LinkSpotting - Headlines That Lead To Links and Why
My last column, When Linking Experts Go Underground, elicited some interesting responses, and a private email with the following awesome request: OK Eric - if you really follow hundreds of SEM news sources every day, you are seeing literally thousands of headlines every week. How do you spot the...
See Related Stories In: Google: Maps & Local, Google: Partnerships, Link Building, Link Building: General, Link Week, Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Strictly Business
Feb. 11, 2008 at 7:00am by Chris Silver Smith
How To Get On Google Maps Without An Address
One of the top issues in delivering up local search results in a map-based format is what to do with businesses which have no street address. During the SMX Local & Mobile conference back in October, Dick Larkin asked Google Earth VP Michael Jones a question about this very...
See Related Stories In: Google: Maps & Local, Locals Only, SEO: Local, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Jan. 18, 2008 at 9:31am by Greg Sterling
Jupiter: Local Online Advertising Will Be Worth $8.9 Billion In 2012
There are now a range of local forecasts in the market, some more bullish and some more conservative. But all generally agree that locally targeted ads in search, display (including video), and classifieds are growing at rates faster than overall online ad growth....
See Related Stories In: Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: Spend Projections
Jan. 16, 2008 at 10:32am by Greg Sterling
Google "Online Marketing Challenge" Has 724 College Teams Signed Up To Be Local SEMs
The Google Online Marketing challenge seeks to turn college and business school students into search marketers (in most cases local). We wrote about it when the program was announced. Google says that there are now 724 teams in the US (two weeks before the competition begins) and there appear to...
See Related Stories In: Google: Maps & Local, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Search Marketing: Public Relations
Dec. 24, 2007 at 9:26am by Greg Sterling
Real Estate Marketers And Their Dollars Shifting To The Internet
Realtors are an interesting segment of the small business market. Of quintessential small businesses (SMBs) and entrepreneurs, in some respects, realtors are atypical. One of them is marketing; realtors tend to be more aggressive and creative than other categories of SMBs. Accordingly, this LA Times article talks about how the...
See Related Stories In: Search Engines: Real Estate, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Dec. 17, 2007 at 8:18am by Chris Silver Smith
Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile
Many local companies depend upon their information's presence in various directories in order to advertise themselves, and the basic instrument of these marketing efforts is the Business Profile. The majority of businesses out there pay little attention to these beyond wanting their name, address, and phone numbers to be...
See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Dec. 7, 2007 at 4:30pm by Greg Sterling
Local Online Ads Will Reach $12.6 Billion In 2008, Local Search Will Bring In $5 Billion Of That Total
Using an expansive definition of the marketplace, Borrell Associates says that "local online advertising" is worth $8.5 billion today. That number consists of local search, "local banners," and local video. Banners is the biggest spending category and video the smallest. But Borrell expects local search to grow substantially to become...
See Related Stories In: Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: General
Nov. 26, 2007 at 7:35am by Chris Silver Smith
Internet Yellow Pages: Worth The Effort?
Here at the end of 2007, it's painfully obvious that the local search advertising market remains highly fragmented. Numerous local search experts attending the recent SMX Local & Mobile Conference reiterated the observation that businesses seeking to target local audiences have a plethora of options, and identifying and selecting...
See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: Popularity
Nov. 20, 2007 at 10:51am by Greg Sterling
Corporate Logos From Space: KFC Edition
The Google Earth Blog has a humorous discussion of the "world's largest KFC logo" in the Nevada desert. KFC stands for Kentucky Fried Chicken, the US-based fast-food chain. This stunt is about being visible in satellite mapping applications (such as Google Earth) and takes the rooftop logo craze to new...
See Related Stories In: Google: Earth, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Oct. 11, 2007 at 11:00am by Greg Sterling
Survey: Search Now Top Resource For Local Information
Local SEM firm WebVisible and Nielsen last year surveyed U.S. consumers about their local search behavior. There were some very interesting and striking findings. For example, 51% of users were doing category searches for local businesses without a geographic modifier. Today findings from a second wave of that survey were...
See Related Stories In: Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: Search Behavior
Oct. 9, 2007 at 9:06am by Greg Sterling
SEM Firm ReachLocal Closes Massive Funding Round
ReachLocal, an SEM firm offering simplified Internet and local search services directly and indirectly to the small business market, has closed a massive $55 million round of funding. This adds to previous rounds raised by the company. Reach is building out sales offices in cities across the U.S. and a...
See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, SEM Industry: Outsourcing, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Oct. 2, 2007 at 8:55pm by Barry Schwartz
SMX Local & Mobile Recap
The SMX Local & Mobile conference is over now. It took place in Denver over the past two days. In case you were unable to attend, there has been a lot of coverage of the conference. Below are links to the various session notes, pictures, and overall write-ups on the...
See Related Stories In: SEM Industry: Conferences, Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Search Marketing: Mobile
Oct. 2, 2007 at 12:20pm by Elliance
Search Illustrated: Geo Targeted Keyword Strategies
Last week's Search Illustrated depicted high-level strategies for geotargeting search campaigns. Today's Search Illustrated drills down on this subject, showing how to target specific geographic areas with a search marketing campaign that will reach only qualified prospects within a specific area or region:...
See Related Stories In: Search Illustrated, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Sep. 24, 2007 at 12:04pm by Chris Silver Smith
Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast In Four Years
Local marketing industry savants have long been predicting the demise of print Yellow Pages books, going the way of the buggy whip due to overwhelming competition from Internet alternatives. Further, the aggressive invasion of search engines into the local space during the past few years has inspired some analysts...
See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: General
Sep. 18, 2007 at 9:47am by Elliance
Search Illustrated: Six Simple Steps For Local Optimization
Optimizing content for local search is similar to, but subtly different from, optimizing for general web search. Many key factors, such as optimizing for specific keywords, securing good backlinks to content and so on all apply. But there are several other steps—simple ones, fortunately—that you can take to really...
See Related Stories In: SEO: Local, Search Illustrated, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing
Sep. 12, 2007 at 8:51am by Greg Sterling
Marchex Issues Local Search Report, Starts Local Blog
Marchex, which recently acquired VoiceStar, launched 100,000 local search domains and is about to relaunch OpenList as a new, comprehensive local destination site, has issued a local report entitled "Unlocking the Potential of the Local Internet." The document is a very good overview of the state of the market...
See Related Stories In: Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: General
Sep. 4, 2007 at 8:38am by Greg Sterling
BT Formally Launches Small Business Search Marketing Product
Like many other directory publishers and telecom companies before it, the former British Telecom (now just BT) has formally introduced a fixed-fee simplified search marketing offering for small businesses in the UK. Called BT Web Clicks, the offering has been around for many months but was just announced yesterday. Five...
