Just like last year, I’ve been collecting links to as many articles as I could find that offer predictions and resolutions for 2010 to create the following big list. And you’re welcome to let me know what I missed down in the comments.

SEO

• Search Engine Land: Link Building Trends For 2010
• Search Engine Watch: 5 New Year Resolutions for Search Marketers in 2010
• Acidgreen: SEO Trends in 2010: Search Engine Optimization Techniques for Online Marketers
• Internet Marketing Inc.: Three 2010 SEO Trends to Look Out For: Social Media, Onpage SEO & Link Diversity
• Small Business Trends: SEO Trends to Watch for in 2010
• SEOptimise: 20 SEO New Year’s Resolutions for 2010
• Search Engine Land: 6 New Years Resolutions For In-House SEMs
• Search Engine Journal: 2010: A New Age For Search Marketers
• SEOmoz: 8 Predictions for SEO in 2010
• David Harry: White Coat SEO resolutions for the New Year

Search Marketing/PPC

• Search Engine People: My 3 PPC Resolutions – Why 2010 Will be Defined by Mobile, Facebook and the Website Optimizer
• PPC Without Pity: Three PPC Predictions For 2010
• Search Engine Land: My PPC New Year Resolutions
• Search Engine Watch: Search Marketing 2010: Plan ahead by looking back
• PPC Hero: 5 PPC Resolutions for 2010
• Search Engine Land: Five Search Marketing Predictions For 2010
• Web.com: 5 Pay-Per-Click Trends to Watch in 2010
• Google: Think2010: Personalization and accountability (Google AdWords video series)
• Search Engine Land: 2010 Planning: 3 Tips To Improve Search Results Next Year
• eMarketer: eMarketer Weighs In on 2010: Online Advertising & Usage

Local/Mobile Search

• GigaOM: Will 2010 Finally be the Year of Location?
• Local SEO Guide: Local SEO Predictions 2010
• Mashable: Location, Location, Location: 5 Big Predictions for 2010
• Small Business Trends: Five Can’t-Miss Mobile Marketing Trends For 2010
• Search Engine Land: Predictions For The Changing Local Search Landscape In 2010
• Marketing Charts: Top 10 Wireless Predictions for 2010

Social Media

• Social Media Explorer: Five Things We Should All Do In 2010
• Mashable: Facebook: 5 Predictions for 2010
• ReadWriteWeb: 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010
• Dan Zarrella: My Predictions for Social Media Marketing in 2010
• DreamGrow Digital: 22 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010
• Social Media B2B: 11 B2B Social Media Predictions For 2010
• eMarketer: eMarketer Weighs In on 2010 Trends: Social Media & Paid Content
• Search Engine Land: 12 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010
• 10e20: 6 More Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010
• Harvard Business Review: Six Social Media Trends for 2010
• 451 Marketing: Top Social Media Strategists to Watch in 2010
• SmartBlog on Social Media: Looking ahead to 2010 with Shiv Singh

Video

• Reel SEO: 11 Predictions for the Online Video Industry in 2010
• VidiSEO: 2010 Video Marketing Predictions

Analytics

• Search Engine Land: 5 Web Analytics New Year Resolutions
• Avinash Kaushik: Five Sweet Web Analytics Resolutions To Kick It Up A Notch

General Online Marketing

• Online Marketing Blog: 5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010
• Conversation Marketing: 11 internet marketing trends to ignore in 2010
• Search Agents: The Search Agents Predictions for Online Marketing in 2010
• Search Cowboys: Disa Johnson’s 2010 predictions
• Online Marketing Blog: 5 Top Email Marketing Tactics for 2010
• Ad Age: 9 Digital Marketing Mistakes I Won’t Make Next Year
• Hit Search: 43 Internet Marketing predictions for 2010
• MediaPost: 10 Things Changing Marketing In 2010
• Mashable: Marketing in 2010: It’s All About the Data
• Fast Company: 10 Marketing Predictions for 2010
• Search Engine Land: 5 Things On My B2B Wishlist For 2010
• Jeremiah Owyang: 2010 Trends: More Speed and Integration (video)
• eMarketer: Seven Predictions for 2010 from eMarketer’s CEO
• Forrester: 2010: The Year Marketing Dies…
• eMarketer: eMarketer Weighs In on 2010 Trends: UK & Europe
• Online Marketing Blog: SES Chicago: Internet Marketing Tips for 2010
• Web Profits: 2010 Online Marketing Predictions
• Evan Carmichael: The Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch in 2010

Miscellaneous

• Small Business Trends: Public Relations Trends for 2010
• Kosmix: Some predictions for 2010
• ineedhits: Our Search Wishlist for 2010
• Small Business Trends: Top Web Design Trends For Small Business In 2010
• John Battelle: Predictions 2010
• PR Squared: 2010 Predictions for Communications
• New York Times: Five Tech Themes for 2010
• TechCrunch: Ten Technologies That Will Rock 2010
• New York Times: Five 2010 Predictions About Tech Companies
• Google Operating System: Predictions for Google’s 2010
• USA Today: Ask an Expert: Top 10 Trends in Small Business for 2010 (Part 1)
• USA Today: Ask an Expert: Top 10 Trends in Small Business for 2010 (Part 2)
• CNN: 2010: Year of digital distraction?
• Web Design Ledger: Web Design Trends for 2010
• iMedia Connection: 9 digital trends to watch in 2010
• Digital Media Buzz: Top Digital Trends For 2010
• CNN: 10 Web trends to watch in 2010
• Trendwatching: 10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010

Let’s take a look at some of the most significant developments that have contributed to the evolution of local search in the last year:

1) Local goes universal — big time.

Per Andrew Shotland’s #1 prediction for 2009, Google made several moves to increase its already dominant position in the local search space — none bigger than its release of the generic 10-pack on March 31. While its earlier release of the "K-Pack" and later refinement to the 7-pack were each noteworthy in their own right, the appearance of Local Business Listings across such a wide variety of phrases opened the eyes of Google users, observers, and competitors to the local frontier, and really set the tone for the year.

Yahoo followed suit in December with its own introduction of local results to generic SERPs, while Bing included an "8-pack" from day one of its June launch.

2) Tough times for the Yellow Pages industry.

Even before the introduction of the generic 10-pack, the ever-prescient Chris Silver Smith had some excellent advice for Yellow Pages companies about how to adapt to the changing local search landscape — advice that still holds 11 months later.

But even for those companies whose properties are well-optimized for organic search (per studies by Andrew Shotland and Ash Nallawalla), the 10-pack has slowed referral traffic from Google considerably, and even Google Suggest thinks the end may be near for the industry as we know it.

Google’s accidental indexation of Place Pages during their initial release in October had the potential to choke Internet Yellow Pages traffic even more before Google rectified the glitch.

The annual ComScore/15miles local search study may not portend such a depressed view for the Yellow Pages as a whole, but certainly forecasts a continued decline for the print side.

3) Major upgrades to the Local Business Center(s).

Perhaps Google’s most visible upgrade to its Local Business Center, at least for small business owners, was its release of LBC Analytics in late May, providing basic traffic statistics, information on coupon views, and requests for driving directions. While most SEO’s, including Search Engine Land’s Matt McGee find the data from LBC Analytics borderline useless, two excellent tutorials on segmenting 10-pack traffic via Google’s actual Analytics program were published by Martijn Beijk and Mike Belasco & Mary Bowling.

Later in the year, Google also made public a long-rumored "whitelisted" bulk upload feature for larger companies, and announced a beta ad unit that we are sure to see more of in 2010 — Local Listing Ads — a flat-fee, no-keyword-research-required offering for small business owners based on their Local Business Listings.

Google also put in place clear guidelines in the fall for do’s and don’ts of its LBC, with a few noteworthy changes to combat spam, as well as a guide to the Local Business Center in April.

Bing added phone verification to its Local Business Center soon after it launched, bringing its submission process up to par with Google’s.

4) Continued problems with local data.

All of the local search engines do a "pretty good" job with location data accuracy, but is that job "good enough?" Perhaps not when it comes to police departments, hospitals, or other emergency services, whose Authoritative OneBox results all came under increased scrutiny this year.

OneBoxes featuring merged listing information also raised quite an outcry among SEO’s and SMB’s numerous times throughout the year, although a Search Marketing Now webcast with representatives from the major data providers did an excellent job of clearing up some of the confusion as to why these data problems exist.

Many are caused by NAP ("Name Address Phone") inconsistencies or overlaps, as Gib Olander of Localeze preaches every chance he gets. Despite the measurable promise held by call-tracking numbers, I’ve also advocated for consistency of NAP information on multiple occasions, at least until something akin to a canonical phone tag is adopted by the major players in the local search ecosystem.

And there’s still no solution to the "service area problem" from any of the search engines or data providers for which Miriam Ellis and Chris Silver Smith, among others, have been clamoring for years.

Beyond business data, local search also incorporates a geo-spatial element, of course. Google made a "tectonic shift" on this front in October to eschew data from its former provider, TeleAtlas, in favor of its own. Microsoft continued to update its own VirtualEarth product with more accurate geo-spatial information.

5) Continued problems with Map Spam and Map Jacking.

What 2009 Year-In-Review would be complete without at least a passing mention of locksmiths and their penchant for the darker arts of Local SEO? Muckraker extraordinaire Mike Blumenthal did an excellent job covering the onslaught over the course of the spring.

Things got so bad that Matt McGee asked if it was time to send Google Maps back to the drawing board. Bing was not immune to the scourge of the local search industry, either, and even state attorneys general started to get involved in cracking down on criminal behavior.

To Google’s enormous credit, locksmith-infested SERPs have been pretty clean since late summer are now made up almost entirely of legitimate business owners. Next up in the game of Map Spam Whack-a-mole is likely plastic surgeons.

Less humorous was the frequency of hijacked business listings which even reached as high as the LBC entry for the White House. Google seems to have largely taken care of this issue system-wide as well.

6) Continued problems with small business advertiser "churn."

The Borrell Report in early June highlighted a shocking 50% year-over-year "churn rate" for small business customers who advertise online. Of course, when you consider how many SMBs are being sold a "bill of goods" or are falling victim to other predatory tactics, it’s a little less surprising.

But even companies as large as Google continue to struggle with the customer-facing aspect of serving small business customers. Google began sending email newsletters in August and sent stickers to 100,000 businesses named "Favorite Places" in December as part of a more aggressive outreach campaign than anything we’ve seen to date.

Nonetheless, it has been lambasted for its lack of Local Business Center support almost monthly by the Local SEO community. While Miriam Ellis’ hopeful New Year’s Resolution for Eric Schmidt did not come to fruition in 2009, things are looking up for 2010.

7) The rise of local-social interactions.

Without a doubt, 2009 was the year that Twitter became a major player in local search. Their API added location awareness in August, and just last week Twitter bought TownMe, the owner of GeoAPI. Twitter has truly become a critical component for local online marketing, and released a "101 for Business Owners" including best practices and case studies.

Yahoo added a major local social component to its product suite — Yahoo Neighbors — and Google began displaying customer sentiment via reviews much more prominently on Place Pages, something Bing did several months sooner.

Offerings such as Praized’s Local Buzz which incorporate online word-of-mouth about local businesses are sure to pick up even more steam in 2010.

8) Major partnerships and almost-partnerships.

By far the biggest story of the year was the one that didn’t happen — Google’s reported $500 million offer to buy Yelp that seems to have fallen through. As Mike Blumenthal pointed out, the powerful combination of Google Maps for recovery searches and Yelp for discovery searches would have sent shockwaves through the entire local search industry.

Still, some smaller partnerships hold potential for the future as well. Citysearch has been the most active player, announcing partnerships with Twitter, MySpace, and Mapquest in the last nine months. Yellowpages.com also made a nice deal with Microsoft to power sponsored results on Bing Local.

9) A groundswell of hyperlocal content.

Despite a continued lack of respect from traditional media, the future looks extremely bright for hyperlocal bloggers, thanks to some major distribution deals inked in the second half of the year. Hyperlocal hotbed Seattle is blossoming thanks to its community’s collaboration with the Seattle Times. Nationwide, deals between MSNBC and Everyblock, as well as Bing’s Local Lens project show that Microsoft is clearly moving in a local direction.

Scrappy startup Outside.in, after beefing up its own search capabilities, received a $7 million investment from CNN, meaning hyperlocal content now has the chance to go National. And Yahoo’s homepage has been displaying local news stories inline with national ones for months.

Smaller players like Citysquares and the aforementioned Praized also announced content syndication possibilities this year.

And then there’s Google, which has continued expanding its definition of local content by incorporating real estate listings from Google Base into Maps and tieing in local inventory options to its product search.

What’s coming in 2010?

A few off-the-cuff predictions include:

• more momentum for location-based microformats and KML
• more mergers and content partnerships, especially among the non-Google players
• more mobile-local synergy with initiatives like Favorite Places / QR codes and Microsoft’s slick new "Street Side" experience

While 2009 was certainly a thrilling year for the local search industry, 2010 is sure to be every bit as exciting — and then some. Have a safe and Happy New Year, everyone!

Certainly all newspaper sites should be figuring out how to rank well for news searches and Chris covers how to do this pretty well. The problem is that ranking for news searches is probably not the best business model (the CPMs for holiday traffic accident queries are probably not that great after all) and if that’s your main online marketing strategy then you are falling into the same trap that got your industry where it was in the first place.

I have provided SEO help to some of the largest newspapers in the country. A big problem I typically see (and not just with newspapers) is that these companies have a huge focus on their core business and not so much on how to make money online.

Sure, newspapers are trying to figure out how to maximize the revenue from their web content, but the focus always seems to be how to get more people to read the article so they can generate more impressions to satisfy their advertisers. They often have partnerships with other companies to offer other high value content like classifieds, real estate, jobs, etc., but these bolt-on sections seem to get little more than banner ads from other parts of the site. And the implementations are usually botched from an SEO standpoint because either the partner or the client didn’t know what they were doing to make the content search-friendly.

I once told the digital execs of a big paper that if they all died and some of the SEO guys I know inherited their business they wouldn’t spend much time trying to make the best news product—they would more than likely try to figure out how to exploit their most valuable asset (aka their domain) in search and social media. If twenty-two-year-olds sitting in their bedrooms with no brand and no media experience can make hundreds of thousands of dollars/month in AdSense revenue with 99% profit margins, surely a big trusted domain could hit the ball out of the park from a revenue standpoint.

Now before everyone jumps down my throat and starts calling me a filthy spammer, let me provide some more detail—then you can call me a filthy spammer. Without further ado, here’s how newspaper sites can use search to start making more money in just minutes a day (and perhaps get a free set of Ginsu knives thrown in too):

A newspaper’s domain should be able to rank well for almost any local query. By default, newspaper sites have a lot of SEO factors working in their favor. They get a lot of links from other authoritative local sites. They generate a lot of content so they typically have links with a wide variety of anchor text. They usually have been around for a long time so their domains are well-trusted in Google. And many of them have a city name in their root domain (e.g. miamiherald.com). So in theory they should be able to rank well for a lot of city + keyword searches.

Newspapers should work harder to leverage their natural keywords. Newspapers don’t seem to understand the value of a keyword. Talk to any affiliate marketer and the first thing they want to know before they build a site is how big the payout per lead is. Once you know which products/keywords make the most amount of money, you build content to attract relevant searches. I am not suggesting that newspapers need to start running stories about the acai berry or herbal viagra, but there are plenty of high value queries that they could logically tie into the content they are already running. While I typically see SEO advice on how to write headlines to target high volume queries, how many publishers are also factoring in the monetary value into their keyword research? Which brings me to…

Newspapers should launch a yellow pages site and link to it effectively. A number of companies provide “yellow pages in a box” solutions complete with monetization. Services like Local.com’s PremierGuide, MojoPages and ShowMeLocal can get you up and running in minutes with well-SEO’d yellow pages solutions. These systems on strong local domains can generate a nice amount of organic traffic quickly at CPMs that are much greater than the average newspaper CPM. A well monetized general local search site should be able to hit $25-30CPMs without trying too hard. The phrase “DUI attorney Los Angeles” is currently going for $34/click on Google. How hard do you think it would be for the LA Times to rank for this query?

The problem is that most news sites do a bare minimum of linking to these pages, typically with a link module provided by the vendor. An intern working a couple of hours/day could improve the targeted linking to these pages from article pages that rank well for related local terms (e.g. linking from a news story about dentists to a local dentist directory page. This could quickly add up to more traffic and more money. After all, one visitor to a local dentist directory page is probably equal to 100x more value than a visitor to a page about the local Thanksgiving turkey trot race.

This strategy should works pretty well for classifieds, jobs, real estate and other similar partner sites.

Target your competitors’ brands. Local media brands love to obsess over their rankings vs. their competitors’ for local head terms such as city + weather. While these terms drive decent traffic, often these local media sites get a lot of search traffic for queries for their brand (e.g. “ny dailynews sports”). It wouldn’t be very hard to create a few pages that target these high volume branded queries and rank either ahead of or right behind your competition in the SERPs. Ok, this may not make you millions, but it will steal some traffic from your competition and even better, it will really annoy them.

Start a skunk works. Many successful websites are extremely simple. Some are little more than blogs. I started my blog for a grand total of a couple of hundred bucks and with a little hard work it now ranks for queries worth considerably more. A smart software developer and a smart marketer with access to a powerful domain could probably come up with a number of local content ideas that could do well in search, make money and perhaps even spawn new businesses for the newspaper. I imagine if you gave a team of two smart twenty-two-year-olds access to your domain and said their goal was to make 5x their salaries from search over the next year, they could do some amazing things with it. They might even come up with a business model that will save the company. Proceed with caution, of course, because you don’t want them doing anything that will upset the Google gods.

Naturally, all of this is easier said than done. But these local media companies have ignored search for too long and recent industry rhetoric implies that search is local media’s enemy. Smart local marketers know that search is their friend. It’s time that newspapers figured this out.

Based on “41 million clicks on Google, Yahoo! and Bing during Q3-Q4 of 2008 and 2009,” SearchIgnite found that Bing is doing well with retailers (and e-commerce consumers):

Retailers have spent 47% more on search ads on Bing in Q4 this year than during this same time period in 2008, with Bing now accounting for 8% of all US retailer search spend, compared with only 6% in the first half of Q4 2008. Average order values on Bing are 21% higher than across all engines, which could account for the spend growth.

Compared with Google and Yahoo!, Bing also saw better YoY performance for impressions and clicks.

Source: SearchIgnite, November 2009

Local search marketing firm and platform provider WebVisible showed improvement by Bing and Yahoo vs. Google among small business advertisers. Here are the top-line trends the firm identified in Q3:

• In Q3 2009, Google accounted for 60.4% of search advertising spending. Yahoo! accounted for 26.2%, Bing 10.5% and Ask 2.4%. Google lost 5 points year-over-year (YoY) as spend shifted among the other engines.
• CTR on Bing improved by 76% YoY, while Google CTR increased by 52% in that period. Yahoo! showed the most dramatic improvement in CTR, with a YoY increase of 123%
• Average CPCs are on the rise, with Google up 14% over a year ago. Google’s average CPC was approximately 30% higher than Yahoo! or Bing in Q3 2009.

WebVisible speculates that higher CPCs on Google are contributing to “diversification” of more search ad spending across engines:

Share of Small Business Search Advertising Spend by Search Engine

Source: WebVisible, November 2009

That’s undoubtedly true because WebVisible works with a range of local media companies that manage search campaigns for small business advertisers. Those companies are always seeking to decrease their costs and protect margins.

The company said that “32% of search clicks resulted in a conversion action on an advertiser’s Web site.” Here is the range of actions taken by those clicking-through:

Percent of Converting Clicks Resulting in Action, Q3 2009

Source: WebVisible, November 2009

Owners of small businesses usually need to devote all their time to their customers. They would be best served by letting experts in Internet advertising create and manage their online ad campaigns. This allows the local plumber to plumb and those in online advertising to advertise, drawing on their expertise to produce the most effective and cost-efficient ad campaigns for a local business.

Why do Joe Plumber and Andy Accountant think they are perfectly capable of running online ad campaigns? I believe that the accessibility of online ad tools like Google’s AdWords contributes to the idea that creating and managing online ads is easy. After all, anyone can go online and create an account, set up ad copy and keywords, determine targeting, and decide how much money to spend on a campaign. If everyone has access to these tools, how hard can it be to use them?

A Madison Avenue ad agency draws on previous campaign results and years of experience to determine what works best for a print or television ad campaign. It is doubtful that our local business owner would stroll in to a big agency and tell the ad exec how to do his or her job. People who work in online advertising do much the same thing, spending hours each day examining ad copy and keywords, targeting options, quality scores, page rankings, bid pricing, content development and a myriad of other elements that go into a successful online ad campaign. Familiarity with these elements allows those with this knowledge to craft campaigns, tweaking them as performance data is gathered in order to produce the best return on investment (ROI) for their client. There is a great deal of information to be sifted in order to create the cost effective—best performing—campaign. Simply having access to an online advertising service—Google AdWords or Microsoft AdCenter—should not lead business owners to believe they can do this work just as well as a paid professional. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should!

Here’s an example for you. Andy Accountant is one of my clients. He had been managing his own Google AdWords campaign for a year or so but after much effort on my part agreed to give us his online advertising business. While Andy’s efforts were not bad, I was sure that if allowed to manage the campaign I could achieve better results and save Andy the time and effort of managing his campaign online.

Among the first things I did was to remove the one-term keywords like accountant and accounting since I was confident that longer terms like income tax returns, tax accountant, income tax filing, business accountant, certified public accountant and other terms that were more specific would produce more effective results. Additionally, I set these for exact match rather than broad match, thus improving the likelihood of traffic producing real leads instead of just clicks to the website. While Andy was generating ample click traffic to his site the conversion to leads was minimal. After my revisions Andy realized fewer clicks but actually had more connections generated after potential customers clicked to his website and then followed that with a phone call or submitted an interest form.

Additionally, we were able to assign a call tracking number to Andy’s campaign, thus channeling calls through a trackable number that clearly matched calls to the campaign we were delivering. Over a period of six months, the campaign CTR improved from 0.07% (accounting) with Andy’s terms to 2.04% (income tax filing) to 4.82% (income tax returns) and an overall connection rate of over 30% (connections being all forms of contact with client). Thus, just because you can manage your online ad campaign yourself, doesn’t mean you should!

The ability to associate online ads with traffic to a website and to track clicks from a particular ad appearing on a specific search engine means that there is unprecedented accountability for performance in online advertising. In no other format does such a clear connection between an ad and a customer/sale exist. As such, online SEM experts are constantly required to demonstrate the efficacy of their work. They monitor performance and make adjustments in real time that no print ad exec has the option to do. The data gathered requires a time commitment to a level of scrutiny that no small business owner can afford. Thus, said business owner is best served by using an SEM professional and not setting up his or her own ad campaign.

Ultimately, there is no difference between the expertise of print advertising professionals and online advertising professionals, apart, of course, from their understanding of the unique elements of print and online ad campaigns. It’s just a matter of perception. Andy Accountant and Joe Plumber should not presume to know Samantha SEM-Expert’s business anymore than he should presume to know how to manage a print ad campaign better than an ad agency. Just because Andy and Joe have access to online advertising systems doesn’t mean they should use them.

Rely on experts! That is what they’re there for!

• What mobile channels are available to search marketers and which show the most promise?
• What are the prospects for search, particularly local search, on mobile devices, and how is the landscape changing?
• What steps can marketers take to effectively target and reach consumers using mobile?

The report generally advises:

• Create usable content designed around the specific wants, needs, and usage patterns of mobile consumers.
• Redirect users to that content via SEO and paid search efforts calibrated to the smaller screen real estate available on mobile devices.
• Location, location, location: remember that mobile is about location, specifically where the mobile user is at any given moment.  Take into account  the specific behaviors and needs that accompany on-the-go Internet access when crafting advertising messages.
• Brands that value their site stickiness and hard-earned search equity should create versions of their desktop Web content synthesized specifically for the wants and needs of the mobile user.
• Marketers need to segment the market by demographics and mobile device traffic.  Mobile is not a one-size-fits-all proposition.

Overall it’s a very helpful primer on mobile marketing and search marketing to mobile device users, for those just starting to think about it. The report provides concrete best practices advice, identifies challenges and differences between mobile and PC SEO and paid search. It also segments the audience by device and demographics.

Earlier this year, SEMPO released its annual findings on the State of Search Marketing, based on data collected in December, 2008. It found that just under half of survey respondents were interested in mobile search marketing. There was also a mixed picture in terms of location targeting on mobile devices. I suspect these numbers would be much higher just nine months later.

At SMX East there will be several panels directly or indirectly addressing mobile, with one directly about mobile search marketing.

As local search is continuing to grow and advertisers, search engines and local businesses alike are grabbing a piece of the pie, does it make sense for big brand manufacturers to join the party? Today, “ROBO” (research online buy offline) search queries are changing the face of local search. According to a study by Yahoo, consumers exposed to online retail marketing campaigns were more engaged and spent more dollars in physical stores than otherwise. Now, ready-to-buy consumers are conducting more precise targeted local searches through a series of keywords, which often include brand focused-searches. But again, auto manufacturers don’t seem to be taking advantage of the phenomenon:

While big ticket brands spend money on paid search campaigns with specialized offers and promote these incentives through targeted TV and radio ads, often online organic search is left out of the mix altogether. It’s a great time for brands to start ramping up organic SEO campaigns as local organic searchers often generate higher conversation rates than paid search campaigns, and most users tend to trust organic results over sponsored links.

What we’re seeing is similar to the days of yellow pages co-op advertising—still a tried and true approach for manufacturers for boosting sales and visibility for specific products through their local distributors. Local search offers further revenue-generating opportunities for manufacturers and their distributors to join forces and reach the growing local online consumer base. Avenues for these brand powerhouses are numerous.

Brands should focus on extending promotional/brand advertising to the near point-of-sale by partnering with local search engines and content management providers to push out display advertising when relevant keyword searches are performed, for local queries that include their brand names (e.g. Frigidaire) as well as for local queries that include products they sell (side-by-side refrigerators).

Big brands or manufacturers can also offer co-op opportunities with distributors to place logos/offers at the individual listing level to draw the consumer to the brand they are looking for or to influence their selection if they have not specifically selected a brand.

There are also opportunities to create directional advertising by developing branded local search micro-sites targeted at local searches that include their brands, products or services that contain “where to buy” links to distributors offering their products.

It’s all about brand awareness and market share, right? Well, today local is where it’s at. If you’re missing out on this opportunity, you should make sure you are throwing the party instead of being left off the guest list.

David sent out a questionnaire listing 49 possible factors that affect local search rankings, and invited the participants (disclaimer: I’m one of them) to rank each factor on a scale ranging from “very important for ranking well” to “can hurt your ranking/lead to penalty.” According to the panel, the five factors with the most significant positive effect on local rankings are:

1. Having your Google/Yahoo local business listing with the address in the city being searched
2. Having citations from major data providers, such as infoUSA, Localeze, and Internet yellow pages providers
3. Associating your local business listing in the proper categories
4. Having a claimed, verified local business listing with Google/Yahoo
5. Having your product/service keywords (i.e., “hair salon,” “attorney”) in the title of your local business listing

Since the survey is in its second year, there are interesting comparisons you can make between what mattered last year and what matters now. David makes some of those comparisons on his blog.

If local search is important to you, the Local Search Ranking Factors is a must read.

There’s no breakdown offered regarding the small business vs. franchise or national-local advertiser percentages in the data. However, among the top 20 local online advertisers identified in the AdQuants Q1 paid keywords crawl, most are all directories or search engines of one sort or another that resell search traffic to small business customers:

As the top local search advertiser, Local.com was advertising against 21,000 local keywords according to AdQuants. AdQuants also reported that among local/geo-targeted advertisers on Google it found that approximately 30 percent of those SEM campaigns were being managed by third parties. Here’s the breakdown:

The AdQuants data doesn’t capture 100 percent of what’s going on in the local marketplace; however, it’s a highly representative snapshot. What we see here is the ecosystem laid bare: directories with local “feet on the street” and local search engines buying search traffic and local keywords from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft and then reselling that traffic to small businesses, which are otherwise mostly unable to manage those campaigns themselves.

After several years of experiments Google essentially recognized the need to develop sales channel and reseller partnerships with companies that had more direct reach into the small business market. (Yahoo and Microsoft also have these partnerships to a lesser degree.) The ecosystem reflected above was not engineered by Google; it emerged largely “organically” in response to the needs of publishers and small businesses, which didn’t have the time or inclination to master AdWords themselves.

I believe this is the first such relationship between SEMPO and an individual yellow pages publisher, although the Yellow Pages Association is a long-time member of SEMPO.

The deal appears to be about helping the Yellowbook sales force improve its ability to educate and sell SEM related products to local yellow pages advertisers/small businesses (SMBs). All the major US yellow pages publishers, including Yellowbook, have been selling simplified SEM offerings for several years and most of them are Google resllers. Indeed, some of the yellow pages publishes even bought SEM firms (e.g., Idearc-Inceptor) to bring SEM expertise in house. A number of years ago, Yellowbook purchased an SEM firm called ClickForward.

Yellow pages publishers and increasingly newspapers, as well as a number of independent sales channels such as Yodle and ReachLocal, sell search marketing to small businesses. But the products they’re selling are greatly simplified and managed by them or third parties, as opposed to the local advertisers. This has been a key to more deeply penetrating the small business world with search marketing.