Your local newspaper may soon offer SEO services. Heck, maybe it already is. Two of the three biggest newspaper publishers in the U.S. have recently announced that they’re selling marketing services to small/local businesses … and those services include things like SEO, local search marketing, and more. Gannett Newspapers is the latest to hop on […]
In this post I’m combining two search trends reports: early Q4 search spending data from SearchIgnite and excerpts from a terrific Q3 local search spending report from WebVisible. Both show gains by Bing. The WebVisible report also shows significant improvements by Yahoo. Based on “41 million clicks on Google, Yahoo! and Bing during Q3-Q4 of […]
Having worked in the local search space for a while, I am often asked how is it that SMBs are so slow in adopting self-serve systems in their online advertising. And indeed, in the age of Internet advertising, when anyone can purchase keywords on search engines, is there really a need for a middleman anymore? […]
For the several years Nielsen and local SEM platform provider WebVisible have done research tracking online consumer behavior related to local search. Here is our write up of the previous round of findings from the last survey (October, 2007). Over the weekend I got a preview of some of the data from the most recent […]
Does anyone want to dance with Yahoo? Well, Bloomberg is reporting that Yahoo is continuing to talk with Time Warner about buying AOL. The report says the two companies have met “in the past few weeks,” and are discussing a plan where AOL’s advertising business would be given to Yahoo in exchange for Time Warner […]
Last week, Judy’s Book joined the list of companies that have tried but stumbled or wiped out in local. The market’s complexity and business model challenges make it tough for most startups to succeed. Yet, paradoxically, consumers have clearly embraced the “local Internet” and are using it with increasing frequency to find local information online. […]
TechCrunch first reported (confirmed on CEO Andy Sack’s blog) that local search site Judy’s Book is shutting down and/or looking for a buyer. After struggling to monetize its traffic, the site shifted its business model to emphasize coupons and local deals. The firm had raised over $10 million in two investment rounds. This follows the […]
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 released. The second survey is […]
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 pricing tiers are available, which […]
In another Where 2.0 related announcement — they just keep coming this morning — Skyhook Wireless has released toolbar/platform Loki 2.0. Loki is kind of like the Firefox of local search. Once downloaded, it determines your location through wifi triangulation and removes the need to enter location when performing a local search.