ThinkLocal.com – Network Solutions’ Entry in Local Search
I noticed that Network Solutions has quietly added a play in the local search / IYP space – ThinkLocal.com. The site includes maps, weather, a yellow pages like search for businesses, and user review features.
I’ve thought for years that a site which allows people to search specifically for business websites would be a killer app, and Network Solutions has always had enough data to provide that very sort of thing through their status as a major domain name registrar. Unfortunately, I think no one site ever created a sufficiently broad directory of business websites, and Google, Yahoo! and MS Live have all evolved to fill that gap to some degree (it’d still be great to have the ability to only search for biz websites and not get unrelated content).
ThinkLocal doesn’t appear to be purely built from Network Solutions’ database, though. I found (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/27/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Online Directories, Yellow Pages Internet-Yellow-Pages, iyp, Local Search, Network-Solutions, ThinkLocal, Yellow Pages
Am I an SEO Dog? More On Toasting of Internet Yellow Pages
Donna Bogatin apparently disagreed with my article at SEL entitled “Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast in Four Years“, posting a bit of a lurid headline herself: “Yellow Pages Trash Talking: The SEO Dog in the Google Local Fight“.
I didn’t really think that my article was quite “trash talk“, and I’m assuming from the article content that the “SEO Dog” referred to was perhaps myself, or perhaps the “dog” is my article conclusions, fighting for the ostensibly narrow viewpoint of all SEOs. Aside from the somewhat scathing disembowelment attempted, I thought it’d be informative for me to address some of the logic-faulty conclusions that were drawn.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/25/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, Online Directories, Yellow Pages Donna-Bogatin, iyp, Local Search Optimization, local-SEO, Online-Yellow-Pages, Search-Engine-Land, SEO, Yellow Pages
Search Engine Optimization through Yellow Pages
There’s an interesting thread that appeared on Greg Sterling’s blog on Using IYPs as an SEO Strategy.
Some of the commentators pointed out that yellow pages ads are pretty costly, compared with those of the search engines. So, is using yellow pages as part of a search marketing campaign worthwhile for traffic and good for ROI? My answer is: Yes, yellow pages can and should be used as a major component of local search optimization. Yellow pages can be used for SEO, and here’s some details on how to approach it.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/24/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Online Directories, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Yellow Pages iyp, Local Search Optimization, local-SEO, Online-Yellow-Pages, SEO, Yellow Pages
SMX Local & Mobile Conference Discount
If you haven’t decided to attend the Search Marketing Expo Local & Mobile Conference on October 1 & 2, you’ll be missing out on the newest tips and information for two overlapping search segments that are considered to contain some of the fastest-growing marketing potential of any media around. The consensus prediction is for $8 billion in total ad spending by 2010!
I’ll be speaking on the subject of “Managing a Local/Mobile Search Marketing Campaign” on the morning of the first day. There are also a number of other interesting presentations that I plan to attend, covering subjects such as Local SEO, Pay-Per-Call Advertising, Mobile SEO, Mobile Advertising, and LoMo.
For readers of Natural Search Blog, we’re able to offer a conference discount of 20% off the full registration price if you sign up now. Just go to the SMX Local & Mobile 07 registration, and enter our discount code:
SMX20OffLM
Google’s advent of Universal Search has propelled content from a number of search verticals into the main results page, including content from Local Search in many cases. This development has opened the eyes of many marketers to the fact that businesses with local components really need to specifically target their content to appear optimally under this new paradigm. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 09/18/2007
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Filed under: Conferences, Local Search, Mobile Search, Seminars Local Search, LoMo, Mobile Search, Search-Marketing-Expo, SEM-Conferences, SEO-Conferences, SMX, SMX-Local-&-Mobile
Marissa Mayer demos the iPhone at SES San Jose
At this morning’s keynote conversation between Marissa Mayer (Google’s Vice President, Search Products & User Experience) and conference co-chair Danny Sullivan, when asked some questions about Google’s interests in mobile search and wireless applications, Marissa whipped out her iPhone and showed some features and user-interface aspects that she particularly admired by pulling up Google Maps and Google Voice Local Search service on the phone:
As we recently highlighted Google’s mobile phone development project, they apparently have quite a bit of interest in the mobile space. Obviously, they consider the iPhone to have very good user-interface design, since this very nearly amounted to a product endorsement. From watching this, I’d predict that Google is likely to be in talks with Apple to see if they couldn’t partner with them in some major way in order to get prominent placement through the iPhone platform, or perhaps even to persuade Apple to develop the hardware for the Google phone on their behalf.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/22/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps, Mobile Search, News danny-sullivan, Google, Marissa-Mayer, Search-Engine-Strategies-Conference, SES-Conference
Google Browser Development Confirmed
At the end of July, I wrote that it looked like the Google Browser might actually be in the works after all, based upon their recent hire of a browser security expert. I now see this in this Wall Street Journal article from August 2nd about Google’s push into creating their own wireless phone that they are indeed working on a browser — built specifically for these proposed cellphones:
“Now it is drafting specifications for phones that can display all of Google’s mobile applications at their best, and it is developing new software to run on them. The company is conducting much of the development work at a facility in Boston, and is working on a sophisticated new Web browser for cellphones, people familiar with the plans say.”
Could this be what they’ll have that browser hacker working upon?
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/16/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Mobile Search, News Geolocation, Google, Google-Browser, GPS, Mobile Search
Yelp opens API for developers
Michael Arrington reported today how Yelp has released their API, allowing developers to dynamically query and display their yellow pages listings, reviews and content for display on any websites. The terms are fairly generous, allowing developers to have up to 10k of queries per day, and relatively few restrictions on display.
This is a really cool thing for an IYP site to do…
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 08/02/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Online Directories, SEO, Yellow Pages APIs, iyp, Online-Yellow-Pages, Yellow Pages, Yelp
Google Maps adds Microformat support to results
I was pleased to see that Google Maps team announced support of the hCard microformat today in map search results. This will make the export of address/contact info easier for users, and pave the way for perhaps greater integration between the map results and other applications. If you have a browser with a Microformat plugin feature, you can easily export listing information for use in Outlook or other applications you may have:
Can we hope that Google’s support of Microformats at the front-end of their application might also indicate that they may eventually support Microformats at the back-end? As you may recall, in local SEO tips I posted last year, I recommended that local business webmasters not just include their business address on their site pages, but to do so in the hCard Microformat. I was probably the first to propose doing this for local search optimization, even though there’s been no overt mention from the search engine representatives that this is necessary or desirable. So, why did I recommend doing that?
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 07/31/2007
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Maps Google-Maps, microformats
News: Pat Marshall new Chief New Media Officer for Yellow Book
The Wall Street Journal reports that Patrick Marshall, Superpages.com veteran, has just been named as Chief New Media Officer for Yellow Book.
I used to work with Pat back when he was President of New Media Services at GTE, overseeing Superpages.com back when it was brand new, and I know him to be a fantastic businessman. Pat is well-known in the yellow pages industry and was the recipient of The Kelsey Group’s New Technologies Leadership Award in 2002.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 07/24/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, News, Yellow Pages Patrick-Marshall, superpages, Yellow Pages, Yellow-Book
Stephen Colbert puts Internet Yellow Pages on notice?
I just saw this hilarious photoshopped illustration of Stephen Colbert, apparently making some commentary about online yellow pages and local search sites:
This was used to illustrate a blog article commenting on how Google Maps could now be poised to totally kill off other IYPs, now that they’ve added user reviews. (“Google Maps Puts Local Search Industry On Notice”)
The placard Colbert is holding up lists a number of the top online yellow pages and local search companies: Yellowpages, Superpages, Yelp, Yahoo! Local, Idearc, MSN Live, and Citysearch.
While I disagree — I don’t think the addition of user reviews is the tipping point for Google Maps — hat tip to Evan Roberts for a very clever and funny article illustration!
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 06/22/2007
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Filed under: Local Search, Yellow Pages iyp, Local Search, Online-Yellow-Pages, Stephen-Colbert, Yellow Pages
