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February 26, 2005

We've all seen the MSN search adverts on the TV and elsewhere by now (they are here in the UK too).

I just saw one in the contextual ads in my GMail account for MSN Search linked to here.

There's a link on this page to "Search Near Me". Search for a keyword that MSN has deemed local and you are prompted to select a city from a dropdown list to see local results for that location. Examples are searches for "weather" or "malls".

A nice start from MSN - but that's where it ends. The PPC ads shown from Overture don't change as you select a different city; search for "attorneys" for example and select any city and the same dull PPC ads appear ("attorney" doesn't seemed to have been marked as a local search at all by MSN).

A pity - local/regional firms won't be convinced to start buying PPC ads until there are local searches for their servies for them to buy ads on.

Let's hope MSN has significant local search plans and is working on then right now. Ask, Yahoo, AOL and Google all have some sort of lcoal search interface in place now, if only in beta.

Mr Gates' engine needs to not just play catch up - but to leap frog the entrenched competion. Local search results are one area where the rules are unwritten and they could lead the field. Could - but I suspect they won't.

Posted by duncan at 05:16 PM | Comments (0)

Here are links to some local search articles I've been meaning to post for a while...

Meet the Local Search Engines

Local Search Marketing Tactics

Pay-Per-Call: A New Avenue for Search Marketers

Approximately 90 percent of search conversions occur offline (Overture). (Scroll down to below the yellow table) So if you sell offline you need to use local search advertising and optimisation to get your products and location in front of people whilst they research.

Posted by duncan at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2005

In a move that will surprise, umm, nobody, AOL has launched a local search "tab" at http://localsearch.aol.com/. This follows Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves' local tabs.

Users have to set their location upon visiting the site and results are then tailored to the location. (In the future AOL could pre-fill this for their subscribers based on the zip code in their profile.)

You can save several locations - e.g. home and work - by signing in as an existing AOL subscriber or creating a free (non-ISP) account. Once saved they are accessible via a drop down. Nice and easy to use.

However AOL need to add the ability to name locations to make this more user friendly, e.g. "home" "work" "Mum and Dad's" etc.

I did find an anomaly in the data used by the interface; it doesn't recognise the zip code for the office of Vocal Minds, PPCA's parent company (the Florida code is 33904 and "not found" by AOL; Google's recently launched Google Maps has no such problem ). FindWhat's Florida zip code, 33907, was recognised by the system.

The FAQ says AOL are adding data over time though; I expect anomalies like this will ironed out over time.

Once you have set your location local weather information is displayed. Search for a service - e.g. attorneys - and results feature:

- recommended sits from AOL's editors; a very good move IMO as this adds credibility to the results and offers a "guide" element that adds to usability. A good way to build audience loyalty.

- categories for that service to help users refine their search (similar to Yellow Pages categories)

- local firms with a link to driving directions and maps (from MapQuest) as well as phone number (pay per call potential advertising here)

- listings are accompanied by a star rating and AOL users can login to rate businesses
(interesting - I expect to see more of this "recommendation" type reviewing in local results; the idea is to mimic the sort of word-of-mouth recommendations we all use to find local businesses. Of course it might be open to abuse. Black hat local search SEO, anybody?)

- event and movie data is listed below (I can't see this being relevant to most local searches - a waste of space IMO)

- Google PPC results. These, unfortunately, were not locally targeted on the searches I tried.

Some types of listing have enhancen options like making restaurant reservations or buying cinema tickets - nice. I can see pay per call potential here too...

So what are my initial impressions?

An easy to use interface with the ability to store multiple locations. Good. Yellow pages style data with categories for search refinement. Good. Reviews. Good if trustworthy. Non-local PPC ads. Bad. Space for unrelated movie and event results (which return "No exact matches") Bad, a waste of space and poor design IMO.

AOL has an Yellow Pages site already, http://yp.aol.com/. So what's the difference? According to the site, AOL Local Search is aimed at information and not just finding businesses like Yellow Pages.

How many users are going to remember, or even know, to switch tabs like this? Not many IMO. Hopefully a unified search interface will be introduced to direct users to the right type of search results for each search. (Google US local searches now continue links to Google local results, for example).

Let's hope AOL keep on developing this and start using targeted local PPC ads, generating lots of nice local ad inventory as a result :-)

And the question some of you are dying to ask: how do you get listed? Unfortunately the FAQ doesn't say; I've emailed them to ask...

It's early days for AOL in search as a whole, so well done to them for making this early move to introduce a local search interface.

Posted by duncan at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2005

Interchange, who provide local search and PPC technology to websites, are acquiring Swedish wireless and local search comany Inspire Infrastructure 2i AB. (Press release here. Inspire will be renamed Interchange Europe.

Interchange will integrate Inspire’s search technologies with the company's existing local-search and advertising solutions to offer a search and advertising platform supported by Internet and wireless local-search technologies in both the US and Europe.

Heath Clarke, Interchange CEO: “Inspire has an accomplished team of people and is a natural strategic fit for us. "This transaction builds on the strengths of both companies. It expands our reach in the global market by allowing us to provide our advanced local-search services in all major Western markets as well as to multi-national customers.”

So what does this mean?

IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages), search companies outside the big 3, destination sites and mobile phone networks that don't want to add to the bank balances of Yahoo-Overture, Google or FindWhat-Espotting now have a technology partner to work with who has the technology:

- for PPC (Interchange owns PPC ePilot),
- for putting printed Yellow Pages online,
- for wireless mobile phone / PDA local search
- for deploying search interfaces to draw this all together for consumers.

Inspire apparently uses clustered local-search technology to offer a hybrid mix of business listings including "local content, online vertical content, classifieds, reviews, and businesses web information and content."

The press release states they will offer:

Local and national search solutions
Private label pay-per-click advertising platforms (i.e. white labelling, like FindWhat do for Lycos Insite)
Mobile (i.e. wireless) search using SMS, MMS, JPhone, Symbian, SIMToolkit, WAP, and wireless PDA
Local-search indexing technology for classifieds, white and yellow pages, and other local data sources
Directory assistance call center search technologies
High-volume search distribution network technologies

Inspire has already delivered search solutions in five languages across six European markets including the UK, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Portugal, and Finland. Inspire is headquartered in Stockholm with subsidiaries in London and Madrid.

To me this is (in theory) the ideal local search result solution; structured IYP listings, targeted and relevant PPC advertisements, 3rd party reviews (e.g. of restaurants) and related content / information.

Of course the devil is in the details of delivering this across multiple platforms and multiple languages (including several in some countries) and winning distribution partners to build enough search inventory to sell to advertisers.

Let's hope this spurs innovation and competion in the local search (and local search advertising) market.

Posted by duncan at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2005

FindWhat have appointed a Senior Vice President/General Manager of their pay per call technology. Michael Kerans joins with a background in distribution and ad sales. Full release.

Pay per call is a crucial element of an effective local search advertising solution IMO, allowing advertisers without a website to reach customers looking online for their products/services (with pay per call searchers can request a call from the business or call them directly from their PC).

Businesses with telephone enquiry/sales lines can use this form of advertising to gain more targetted calls via the web, too.

For consumers this should mean empowerment - getting the sales people to call you at a convenient time on their phone bill and getting the information you need to make a decision verbally. This also provides the opportunity to discuss the product/service - something that is not always easy to do via email or online chat. Of course, you might have to put up with the hard sell, too.

More on FindWhat's pay per call technology (press release) - Findwhat.com Launches Pioneering Advertising Service - Pay-Per-Call

Posted by duncan at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

February 07, 2005

Overture have appointed a new head of local search for Europe, after former head Rob Jonas moved across to Yahoo UK.

Hoepfully this means Overture's Local Match is coming to Europe soon - I was told it was launching in the UK in last quarter of 2004. It didn't - maybe because headhunting was going on?

Posted by duncan at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)