Working With a Net, but No Wires

On-the-go Internet users are an attractive demographic.

According to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 34% of Internet users have connected using a wireless network.

And 27% of Internet users have connected wirelessly from someplace other than home or work.

Why should online marketers care how people get online?

For starters, wireless users are more frequent Internet users: 72% of wireless users check e-mail on the typical day, compared with 63% of home broadband users and 54% of all Internet users.

In addition, 46% of wireless users get news online during the typical day, compared with 38% of home broadband users and 31% of all Internet users.

Most wireless users (80%) have broadband connections at home, so they are hardly dependent on public wireless access nodes. Rather, wireless users may be viewed as “deeper” Internet users than those who use wired connections exclusively.

Wireless Internet users are, on the whole, younger and better educated, and they have higher incomes than Internet users in general.

“We know that ‘always on’ broadband connections really deepen people’s relationship to the Internet. Adding ‘on the go’ to the mix takes this a step further,” said John Horrigan of Pew. “The convenience of wireless access gives people the chance to fire off a quick e-mail to someone while waiting in a doctor’s office or check the news headlines on the way to work.”

Ipsos Insight released a study of wireless Internet activity during November 2006.

The findings were similar to Pew’s, with 16% of US Internet users connected wirelessly during the previous month, and 10% surfing the Web with a mobile phone.

Get a global view on Internet users — read eMarketer’s Worldwide Internet Users: 2005-2011 report.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Reports that, Across Distribution Channels, the Internet Reflected the Largest Increases in Average Daily Rates for U.S. Hotels in 2006

Based on PricewaterhouseCoopers, Smith Travel Research, TravelClick, and PhoCusWright research and data, PricewaterhouseCoopers finds that average hotel room rates booked online increased 8.7 percent compared with a 6.8 percent estimated overall hotel room rate increase for US hotels in 2006.

The largest increase among online bookings, 8.9 percent, was for the “opaque” distribution channel, those third-party sources represented by online reservations that do not reveal the identity of a hotel until a reservation has been placed.

The largest percentage increase in the number of reservations among all distribution channels was for branded Web sites, those operated by hotel brands.

“This is a dramatic change from just a few years ago when third- party Web sites and distribution channels led the growth in hotel reservations and negotiated with hotel owners and operators from a strong position,” says Bjorn Hanson, principal in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Hospitality & Leisure practice.
“Increased hotel occupancy, generally excellent hotel-branded Web sites, price guarantees, the launch of new hotel brands and enhanced loyalty programs have been extremely effective in enabling brands to regain control of distribution,”
he adds.

Marketing to baby boomers is booming.

Companies have realized that this generation — 79 million strong — are active consumers and not following the patterns of previous generations.

“The size and spending power of boomers is large and substantial,” says Mike Hess, global research director at media firm OMD, and smart marketers have learned that they’re not tied to brands they’ve used, nor are they too old to switch.

Companies looking for a share of their spending include those that traditionally target an older demographic — such as financial services firms and makers of age-fighting cosmetics — but the advertising has a bit more edge than before.

And newcomers — such as dating site Match.com — are jumping into the battle for boomer bucks.

Among the marketing strategies:

•Show “real” boomers doing bold things. Dove’s TV, Web and print marketing campaign for its new pro-age (as in not anti-age) line of beauty products includes discreet nude photos of real women 50 and older.

The ads are a response to a global Dove survey that found that 79% of women ages 50 to 64 do not see themselves as “older women,” says Dove’s marketing director, Kathy O’Brien. The poll of 1,450 women was done last June.

“These women believe they are too young to be called old,” she says. “We wanted to show that beauty has no age limit. We wanted to show true honest beauty, including gray hair and wrinkles.”

•Target boomers with non-traditional services. Match.com has homed in on single boomers, and they’re the fastest-growing subscriber age group for the site that pairs singles. Since 2000, the number of boomers is up 350%, spokeswoman Amy Canaday says, to 1.7 million, or 11% of its membership.

A current TV ad for Match.com features a widowed New York woman age 71 whose Match.com logon is DanishBeauty22.

•Using iconic, nostalgic personalities. Financial services firm Ameriprise Financial tapped Dennis Hopper for its recent ad campaign.

Hopper isn’t a baby boomer — he’s 70 — but boomers see the actor as “an older brother who’s been out there,” says Doug Pippin, a creative director at Ameriprise ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

“He’s lived true to himself, and he’s proved that you can do this your way.”

Pippin calls Hopper a “great anti-hero hero,” who “stands for unconventional thinking.”

There was some risk, given Hopper’s history of gritty movie roles, including the drug-smuggling motorcycle rider in the 1969 boomer classic Easy Rider and a mad bomber in 1994’s Speed.

“Of course, when you go with a celebrity, you have to be concerned … but we did a significant amount of testing prior to going with Dennis. He tested really well,” says Kim Sharan, Ameriprise’s chief marketing officer.

The ads scored low overall with adults surveyed by Ad Track, USA TODAY’s weekly poll. But of the target boomer-age consumers — adults born from 1946 through 1964 — about half liked the ad “a lot” or “somewhat,” and 79% rated the ads “very effective” or “somewhat effective.”

“We know that these ads are striking a chord,” Sharan says. “Financial services is a pretty staid field, so we wanted to bring a tone and personality that is more emotionally driven.”

Source: USAToday

TripUp targets MySpace generation

Little known social travel network site Tripmates rebrands as TripUp, building what it calls “the first online travel community to relate to the My Space generation”.

Social travel network site Tripmates announced the re-launch of its site under the brand TripUp.

TripUp offers opportunities to link up, meet up, and hook up with locals and travelers from all over the world. In addition to a fresh look, TripUp offers a variety of new features. Now, members can customize their profile styles and embed html and flash (such as graphics, videos, and slideshows). Building upon Tripmates’ user-generated travel blogs, photos, and reviews, TripUp becomes the first online travel community to offer globetrotters an opportunity to truly express themselves through customizable profiles.

Members from across the globe are planning their trips with the help of TripUp’s exclusive Trip Gurus-self-designated travel experts. In addition, TripUp members are using the social networking site to find Trip Buddies. From linking up with a local guide, to hooking up with a fellow traveler, to meeting up on a “trip date,” TripUp connects travelers before they depart so they never feel like a tourist while away.

“TripUp revolutionizes social travel networking,” said TripUp CEO, Sam Rogoway. “TripUp proves that online travel communities don’t have to be boring. We are pushing the envelope in online travel and building the first of these communities to relate to the MySpace generation.”

In connection with its re-launch, TripUp has added online travel pioneer Cameron Yuill to its Board of Directors. Yuill is the co-founder of MWM Capital, a capital advisory firm in San Francisco, and previously served in senior executive positions at Cendant Corp. (now Travelport) and Viator Inc. “I am pleased to join Sam and team in this very exciting, fast growing company,” said Yuill. “Unlike general social networks like My Space and Facebook, TripUp is aiming at a global niche of connecting travelers and locals. Plus, TripUp is at the forefront of online travel dating. We can’t wait for our first TripUp wedding!”

As paid search in the local market is heating up, select brands are beginning to maximize mobile marketing opportunities for local online ad-spends and promotions.

A popular cliché at marketing conferences in the 1990s was “go global and think local, or vice versa.”

And while international branding is still vital in a worldwide arena, smart interactive marketers are realizing that regional is the future. Geo-targeting, pay-for-call search and even newer interactive business models — many of which are based on pay-for-performance — will move stuff off shelves, fill movie theater seats and cash in on “celling” to the on-the-go mobile consumer of today and tomorrow.

Here’s a look at marketing strategies for how to do just that and how to begin cashing in on the $600 billion regional services marketplace.

Stop the silos
A good place to start for interactive marketers is to stop putting offline, online, mobile, search, content and commerce into silos.

Christopher Isaac, a McLean-based PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, underscores this in an email: “It remains both a challenge and a huge opportunity for companies to execute two critical enablers — to provide digital media consumers an integrated experience across different platforms, such as mobile phones, TV and fixed internet, and also to understand individual and group consumer preferences so that a very fragmented consumer market can be aggregated into meaningful segments, not just one time but on an almost continual basis.”

But why look local? Last year on iMediaconnection.com, I explained that Yahoo and Google mobile deals are opening the floodgates to the $90 billion budget U.S. businesses spend annually on local advertising.

The Kelsey Group claims that 40 percent of all online search queries are for local businesses, and an amazing 92 percent of local searches convert later offline — and adding mobile maximizes that marketing.

According to The Kelsey Group’s latest forecast, the market for pay-per-call advertising is expected to reach $3.7 billion in the next four years.

Stats are going to impact 2007
In a report from Borrell Associates, local online advertising will grow 31 percent in 2007, peaking at $7.7 billion. Local paid search will mushroom by 86 percent in 2007 to $1.8 billion, and local email advertising will grow to $233 million, a 54 percent increase.

“Just as paid search contributes to more than 40 percent of the total U.S. online ad spending market, so it is for local online advertising where paid search provides over 55 percent of the local total, ” states eMarketer.com.

Don’t forget that paid search in the local market is just heating up and many brands are slow to realize the value of local online ad-spends and tie-ins with mobile marketing opportunities.

So how does this translate to mobile and the new art and science of wireless marketing, or what I call “celling”?

Back in December, Ingenio, a leader in pay-per-call advertising, partnered with JumpTap, Inc., a mobile search provider for such carriers as Alltel and Virgin, with a goal of making that connection at the exact point people are ready to buy.

Ingenio has similar deals with AOL and Go2.com. Microsoft and Google also are implementing pay-per-call programs for mobile where advertisers only pay when the customer actually clicks or calls for more info or to buy products.

Two weeks ago, WPP Group, one of the world’s leading communications services groups invested in JumpTap, Inc. This investment will provide clients of WPP companies with access to mobile search and advertising solutions. JumpTap’s president and CEO, Dan Olschwang, predicts that his mobile operator customers will do more than 250 million searches per month by the end of ‘07.

According to Mark Read, CEO of WPP Digital, an initiative within WPP to develop the company’s digital offering, the partnership will enable both JumpTap and WPP to develop new techniques to target and profile customers via mobile.

A quick check on the WPP website shows top clients, including such major brands as American Express, AT&T, Colgate-Palmolive, Ford, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, Nestlé, Pfizer, Philip Morris, Vodafone, HSBC, Samsung and Unilever.

New content demands new business models
It’s not just the brands and agencies that recognize the need for change. At NATPE, co-chair Stephen Davis remarked at the opening session on Jan. 16, that he projected the time is here for a shakeout, and by year’s end, he sees the new media space evolving into a much different shape.

“I see 2007 as a year of reckoning in terms of what defines new media, and more importantly what does and doesn’t work from a monetization perspective and how that will affect traditional distribution channels for content,” Davis said, calling for superior business models to drive the coming together of technology and content.

No single ad model fits all
It may be that no single advertising model will fit all, especially in the mobile arena. That’s why a savvy content creator like Versaly Entertainment’s video group, VMBC.tv, is using four advertising models in the launch of its FastLane channel in Sprint’s lifestyle section.

FastLane’s target is early-adopting, big-spending, gadget-loving males ages 18-34. The channel features up to 14 different programs providing advertisers an even more defined audience. The ad-revenue models include 15-second interstitial commercials, program-exclusive sponsorships, integrated advertising and digital overlays.

Versaly co-founder and CEO Matthew Feldman claims the viewer picks the time and place they watch videos, and with mid-roll interstitial, he believes the viewer is fully engaged when a spot is shown.

The highly coveted niche audience of 100,000 viewers per month is perfect for Toyota, one of the advertisers that have already signed. Add a local call-to-action, and it’s likely that a high percentage of local viewers could head to a dealership for a test drive the very same day they see the promos.

A revolution in local TV search
Just around the corner is an upgraded version of pay-for-performance that you might call ITV 2.0. In a first for the interactive television arena, at the January CES show in Las Vegas, Zodiac Interactive announced the general availability of TVLocalSearch, an application that allows consumers to use the TV and search for local businesses without interrupting the viewing experience.

Like its online counterpart, TVLocalSearch is free for consumers, easy to use and gives viewers relevant information on demand. Zodiac’s TVCallME service instantly connects viewers to local businesses by telephone with a click of their remote control and offers a hassle free way to connect to a local vendor, opening up a cornerstone to monetize search for TV.

“To paraphrase Tip O’Neill, all advertising is local,” says Matt Johnston, Zodiac’s SVP of strategy and bu
siness development. “We’re transforming TV from a branding medium to a transaction-ready platform that empowers local consumer transactions for national and local advertisers.”

This is not some blue-sky venture. Cable operators flocked to the demo at CES, and Zodiac executives say it will be deployed within 90 days, which means that by summer ‘07, the U.S. might have a transactional system that could even beat the red-button on remotes in Europe. [In case you've never seen a remote over the pond, it includes a red button you can press to buy stuff and find out more information on what you see on TV.]

IVillagelive.com offers 3-screen interactivity
Meanwhile, I’ll just have to satisfy my quest for interactivity by heading over to iVillageLive.com to join their West Coast chat with fellow viewers who seem to appreciate a two-screen show that spices up content with mobile quizzes and polls. Sponsors I spotted include Bally Total Fitness, Estee Lauder, Healthy Choice and Unilever.

Dialing for Small-Biz Dollars

Pay-per-call ads are luring to the Web service-oriented businesses that don’t have Web sites and prefer calls over clicks to rack up sales

by Jeffrey Gangemi

Three-year-old Rhode Island-based roofing company AS Enterprises had a big, albeit common, problem: not enough customers. Owner Ann Marie Appleton had tried offering free estimates in local circulars and flyers, but her competitors were doing the same, and the resulting leads were lukewarm at best. She considered an ad in the SuperPages yellow pages, a division of Verizon (VZ) spin-off Idearc Media (IAR), because of its large distribution and solid reputation, but the next edition wouldn’t be delivered to homes for eight months.

Eventually, Appleton’s sales representative sold her on the idea of a monthly agreement for the company’s new Pay For Call service, where businesses pay for each call made to their business via SuperPages’ online local search results.

Appleton couldn’t be happier with her choice. The service costs around $600 a month, depending on how many times her ad is served and how many calls she gets. AS Enterprises totaled more than $240,000 in sales in 2006, up from just $60,000 the year before, and Appleton says a good 70% of that business came directly from her pay-per-call advertising.

Calls Over Clicks

People used to call just for the free estimate, says Appleton, but those who call from SuperPages are ready to do business. Her closing rate on calls went from 25% to between 60% and 70%, and her call volume has tripled. Since the service requires that she bid against other businesses, each call costs about $25, but Appleton says she’d gladly pay twice that. “It pays for itself with just one job, and I get between four and eight good jobs a month,” she says.

Princeton (N.J.)-based research firm The Kelsey Group estimates that the pay-per-call market will more than double each year for the next five years, with revenues reaching $3.7 billion by 2010. “Call tracking will live side-by-side with pay-per-click, e-mail tracking, coupon prints, and other measurable consumer actions. For off-line businesses in the service sector (painters, roofers, etc.), calls will have a higher importance than clicks,” says Matthew Booth, senior vice-president and program director for interactive local media at Kelsey.

Small-business customers like Appleton say it offers a better return on investment than pay-per-click advertising and suits the needs of businesses that often can’t close a sale via the Web only (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/29/07, “Small-Biz Ads: The Year of the Web”).

Dropping the Dime

Still, the acceptance of pay-per-call by no means signals the end of pay-per-click; in fact, that market continues to grow. But some small-business advertisers are getting outpriced by their larger counterparts (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/22/07, “The Small Fry Sour on Search Ads”), leading them to look for alternatives.

Most pay-per-call advertising services work like this: First, companies bid for placement on keyword searches. Then their ad is served to the user based on location, and the company is charged each time a user calls; the ad itself is placed for free. When companies register with most providers, their site is assigned a unique phone number that appears in the ad, so that the company can track how many calls actually come through the pay-per-call advertising system. Businesses only pay when someone searching for their product or service picks up the phone and calls them.

Some companies think that the local nature of the product will bring in loads of new advertisers. Ingenio, a San Francisco-based local search advertising company with 110 employees and more than $100 million in annual revenue, is one that’s betting that the torrid growth rates of pay-per-click advertising can’t continue forever. “Everyone focuses on the 500,000 U.S. businesses targeted by pay-per-click, when there are 13 million businesses not engaged online at all, and 70% of them don’t have Web sites,” says Ingenio Chief Marketing Officer Marc Barach.

Serious Callers

Therein lies an untapped demand that’s making companies like Ingenio salivate. Through their bidding system, Ingenio, like SuperPages.com, has created a virtual market that dictates its own pricing, much like the pay-per-click model. Barach says prices vary across different industries and for different services. Legal-service ads draw higher prices than those from hair salons, for example. And when tax time is peaking, Barach says the price of placing tax-service ads on portals such as AOL (AOL) and MSN (MSFT) goes through the roof.

Barach thinks the advertiser’s return on investment more than makes up for the higher initial price of pay-per-call vs. pay-per-click. He says the average conversion rate on a pay-per-call ad is three to five times more successful than a pay-per-click ad in a field like legal services, and that rate grows to eight times for smaller purchases like flower shops. “The reason is that people who are clicking to read Web sites are in the research phase, and people who are calling the merchant aren’t doing it for entertainment. Hence, these things convert more.”

Get Them Talking

Google (GOOG) is currently at work on its own pay-per-call service, which already works as a part of Google Maps but hasn’t yet been offered to U.S. small businesses. In that system, users click on an icon for a restaurant, enter their numbers, and an outside provider connects the user and the establishment. The company has already launched a formal pay-per-call product in India, says Rohit Dahawan, a product manager for Google that oversees the click-to-call and pay-per-call products. And they’re working on more such products, to be launched in the next several months in the U.S. They’ve also started tracking calls as part of their updated small-business AdWords service.

When deciding with whom to advertise, small businesses try to keep in mind the eventual placement of their ads and the amount of traffic that will see it. SuperPages.com had 2.8 billion searches in 2006; Ingenio’s network of AOL and MSN reached more than 1.1 billion searches. Says Robyn Rose, vice-president of Internet marketing for Idearc Media, “Having a heritage in the yellow-pages business, we know that about 70% of companies are service-based. Most want to conduct business over the phone.”

For Travel, Two-Thirds of Web Users Both Research and Transact Online

With the U.S. online travel marketplace approaching $70 billion, Burst Media’s survey of some 2,100 web users 18 years and older who plan to travel in the next three months found that nearly half (47.2 percent) of respondents who will use the web to plan their upcoming travel say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Among age segments, respondents 25-34 years are most likely to say the internet will be their primary travel resource (53.2 percent); respondents 55 years and older are least likely (41.4 percent). Half (51.8 percent) of respondents reporting household income (HHI) of $75,000-$99,999, and nearly two-thirds (63.1 percent) of respondents reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, say the internet will be their primary travel resource.

Burst found that two-thirds (66.9 percent) of respondents will conduct travel research as well as make an online travel transaction – and 33.1 percent will use the web solely as an information resource. As household income (HHI) increases so does the likelihood that a respondent will use the internet to conduct both travel research and travel transactions: 72.3 percent of those reporting HHI of $75,000-$99,999, and 79.7 percent reporting HHI of $100,000 or more, will conduct both research and transactions.

Of those who will conduct a travel transaction on the web, about three-quarters (74.0 percent) will purchase airline tickets, 72.9 percent will likely make hotel reservations, and over one-third (40.4 percent) will likely rent an automobile. Those who plan to make transactions online will also conduct travel research online – 59.7 percent will research travel destinations, and 28.6 percent will research travel/tour operators.

Among survey respondents who use the internet solely as a research tool, the most popular topics of research are hotel accommodations and prices (50.1 percent), travel destinations (45.8 percent), airline flights and fares (39.2 percent), tour/travel operators (24.4 percent), and car rental availability/rates (12.2 percent).

Respondents were asked what features of a travel resource website make them want to return to it: The most cited were the ability to check flights, hotels and rental car’s rates/availability (55.1 percent), destination information (49.9 percent), and travel promotions and specials (49.7 percent).

Women placed much greater importance than men on travel promotions and specials (55.4 percent versus 44.5 percent). Older respondents placed greater emphasis than younger respondents on destination information:Over half (56.5 percent) of respondents 55 years or older say destination information is essential for a website to continue to draw their attention – compared with 51.8 percent of respondents 35-54 years, and 43.1 percent of the 18-34 year segment.

10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm

Several of us have been involved in a lot of discussion about why the same search produces different results between Google Maps and Google.com.

The recent expansion of the Google Maps Onebox on Google.com makes local search optimization much more important than it was before this new display was implemented widely on Google.com. Now, whether you have a web site or not, a business that Google ranks highly in Google Maps can get dramatic exposure thanks to last month’s change. How dramatic? Well, according to Bill Tancer’s Hitwise data, Google.com gets about 100x more traffic than Google Maps. So, yeah, this can be huge for some small businesses.

The inevitable question, then — and the one several of us have been discussing — is what makes the Google Maps algorithm different from Google.com? Google Maps has a unique set of data to draw from. Here’s a semi-educated guess — but a guess, at best — at some of the factors that might make up the Google Maps algorithm. (These are not necessarily listed in order of importance.)

1. Use of Google’s Local Business Center (LBC)

Local search requires structured data to be effective. Google needs to be able to match the business to a location. By submitting a business listing, you’re giving Google the data confirmation it needs to make the association between your business and your place on the map.

2. Availability/Trust of other business data

If the business is not participating directly with Google’s LBC, does it have listings in the other major business databases like Acxiom, Amacai/Localeze, and infoUSA? If so, and if the listings are the same from one database to the next, Google may be able to assign more trust to the business and its location. Listings in Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) providers such as Superpages and YellowPages.com might be used for a similar purpose.

3. A Business Web Site

Having a web site is not a requirement to being found in Google Maps (or Yahoo! Local, for that matter). However, having a web site, and having pages that are properly optimized for local search terms (keyword and location) would most surely be a factor in the local search algorithm. Taking steps to make your page(s) more local should be part of a business’s local SEO effort.

4. Listings in 2nd-tier Local Directories

I use the term “2nd tier” because I’m putting yellow pages on the top level of trusted local directories. Very slightly below them, I think, would be sites such as CitySearch, Yelp, InsiderPages, and the like. I’ve seen Yelp data cited an inordinate amount of times in Google Maps in recent days for a variety of local business listings. It seems logical to suggest that both the business data and the user reviews on sites like these would be impacting the local search algorithm. (More on reviews in a moment.)

5. Listings in Vertical Directories

For some queries, Google Maps pulls data from verticals such as TripAdvisor, ChefMoz, Gayot.com, Fodors, Travelocity, Wcities.com, Frommers, HotelGuide.net, and so on…. These sites are often being used for reviews that Google shows, but also for secondary business data such as Payments Accepted, Directions, Price Range, Checkout Time, etc.

6. References from other Web sites

Citations and links from other web sites that include the business name and location would, in theory, be helpful in ranking for local search terms. This might include references from Chamber of Commerce-style sites, Visitor Bureau-style sites, city/town directories, and even school web sites, not to mention the local categories of DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, and the like.

7. Reviews

It’s hard to get a handle on the impact of user reviews in the algorithm. In many searches, a 4-star rated business will be listed higher than a 5-star business. In some searches (see below), a business with no reviews will be listed above a 5-star rated business. That speaks to the fact that reviews can be “gamed,” though I would still suggest strongly that both quantity and quality of reviews are part of the algorithm.

8. Proximity to location

Not too long ago, this was a prime factor in many local search algorithms. A local search SERP used to show listings based on proximity by default. That’s not the case anymore, but for any location-based search, it still has to play some part in the algorithm.

9. Location Prominence and User Query

Full credit for this goes to Bill Slawski of SEO by the Sea, who wrote about location prominence in relation to the search query a user enters. In a nutshell, a Google patent application Bill analyzed reveals that some local queries are said to apply to a smaller geographic area than other queries. To borrow an example Bill has used, someone searching for car dealers may be more willing to consider businesses over a 30-40 mile area than someone looking for pizza. The algorithm, if this patent is in use, would take user queries into account as it determines how big an area to include in the results. (Bill, did I get that right?)

10. Use of other Google services

No, not the dreaded Google rewards AdWords customers with higher rankings conspiracy; that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’ve seen no evidence to suggest a business that uses Google Checkout, for example, gets found easier in local search (yet). There is the possibility, though, that the use of a Google Maps service — such as coupons — could play a small factor in the local search algorithm. Coupons are too new, and may not have wide enough adoption to say for sure one way or another. More research would need to be done.

So, that’s my quick a
nd unscientific stab/guess at what might be rolled in to Google’s local search algorithm. I’m sure it’s nowhere near complete, and your thoughts and guesses are very welcome in the comments.

To underscore the difficulty of de-constructing a local search algorithm, where keywords and anchor text aren’t nearly enough to determine relevance, let’s look at a not-too-competitive search: dry cleaners in san jose. Since there’s not a ton of data to dig through, it’s easier to spot differences between the results we get back.

Listing “A” — The one dry cleaner with a web site gets the top listing. The web site has a PR=1, but is not especially optimized for local search aside from internal anchor text that says “San Jose, California” pointing to a page that holds a Mapquest map and little more. Google’s info. about the business shows data from Acxiom (Allpages.com), Yelp, Citysearch, Superpages.com, and others — a nice variety of external references for such a small business. This business has no reviews, and doesn’t appear to have submitted to Google’s LBC. It’s further from the San Jose city center than listing B, and about the same distance as listing C.

Listing “B” — This business, like listing C below it, does not have a web site. It also doesn’t appear to have submitted to Google’s LBC. It’s closer to the city center than listings A and C, and also has a 5-star review from Yelp. Neither listing A nor listing C has any reviews. It has fewer 3rd-party web references than listing A, but more than listing C.

Listing “C” — This business is the only one that is using Google’s LBC. The business has no reviews, but is using the LBC to offer a coupon. The only 3rd-party web reference Google shows is an Acxiom listing on AllPages.com. It’s about the same distance away from the city center as listing A, but further away than listing B.

What’s interesting to note here is that the SERPs below this Google Maps display are filled with directory sites such as Citysearch, Yelp, InsiderPages, and even Yahoo Local. No actual dry cleaner has the juice to outrank deep pages on these sites. Listing B is the only one of our three that appears in the Yahoo Local Top 10 — it’s the first dry cleaner listed, and has a 5-star review.

Conclusion

Traditional search is keyword-based and the algorithms center mainly on the keyword: where and how often it appears in the page title, on-page text, inbound anchor links, etc. Local search is a different ballgame because geography gets thrown into the mix, and geographic data is spread out far and wide on the web. The fact that most small businesses haven’t done anything to confirm their online data only makes local search harder to get right … and makes the algorithm that much harder to de-construct.

Free ‘Click-to-Call’ Feature Now Found on Google Maps

Google is rolling out click-to-call functionality in the U.S. via Google Maps. http://maps.google.com/

Microsoft’s Windows Live Local has been offering click to call, but the feature has been showing up on Google Maps as well, with Google picking up the tab for the call, writes Garett French in a ZDNet blog, citing Washington state blogger Justin Uberti, who offers details. http://juberti.blogspot.com/2006/11/google-maps-adds-click-to-call.html Users can be connected to listed businesses by entering their own number in the “Connect for free” box.

The new service is vulnerable to abuse – crank calls and free long-distance calling – as both Valleywag and Rogers point out. Google’s click to call FAQ foresees the problem of crank calls (”What if someone enters my phone number instead of theirs as a prank call?”) and offers this:

“Google takes fraud and spamming very seriously. We use technical methods to prevent future prank calls from the same user within a reasonable period of time. You won’t be charged for any such calls. Please contact adwords-support@google.com if you believe someone is entering your phone number without your permission or knowledge.”

Source: MarketingVox

Yahoo runs mobile phone advertising in 18 nations

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc. said on Sunday it has signed up top corporate advertisers to use its advertising system to run brand ads on mobile phones in 18 countries, marking a major diversification beyond computers.

The Internet media company has begun offering its brand advertising to reach mobile phone users across markets in Western Europe, South Asia and the Americas, capitalizing on its prowess in supplying Web advertising to computer users.

Yahoo said it has signed up major advertisers including Hilton’s Embassy Suites, Infiniti, Intel Corp., Nissan, Pepsi & Co, Procter & Gamble Asia-Pacific and Singapore Airlines will be initial advertisers on Yahoo’s mobile advertising system.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company already offers online marketing services to a large majority of the top 100 U.S. advertisers. By expanding onto mobile phones, Yahoo aims to help corporate advertisers run coordinated campaigns that reach both computer and phone audiences, an official said.

“This is really about Yahoo staking out its leadership in the emerging space on the mobile phone,” said Steve Boom, Yahoo senior vice-president for mobile and broadband.

Yahoo is the world’s top provider of Web display ads such as online banners, commonly used for brand advertising.

It is seeking to become the early mover among Internet companies in mobile phones, racing against Google Inc. which over the past two years overtook Yahoo in ad revenues the two companies receive in the overall market for Web search.

Yahoo is betting that as most mobile phones now come with higher-resolution color screens and Internet browsers, the mobile advertising market is poised to explode, Boom said.

“We have the three legs of the stool,” he said. “We are not only building the advertising platform. We are actually building the advertising relationships with it. We also have the audience,” he said.

The new service is available in Western Europe in Britain, Ireland, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and in the Americas in United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

It also plans to offer the advertising service in Asia-Pacific markets including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Advertisements will run along the top of Yahoo’s home page on the Internet screens of mobile phones. Consumers can click on the interactive ads to learn more about an advertiser’s offer or call the advertiser directly for details.

Yahoo Japan Corp. , the company’s joint venture with Softbank Corp. has been running ads in Japan for several years in what ranks as one of the world’s most advanced mobile technology markets.

Yahoo’s latest moves build on an exclusive partnership deal it struck in November with Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile phone carrier, to provide corporate brand ads in Britain. Yahoo also introduced display ads in the United States in November.

Over the past year, Yahoo has also announced several enhancements to its mobile Web home page to make it faster and easier for consumers to search the Web, check e-mail, instant message, or check on news or sports.

The latest announcements were made ahead of Europe’s major annual mobile phone conference in Barcelona this week.