As Matt McGee suggests, it would be a good move by Google to remove the Nearby Places list for businesses that have claimed their profile else Place Pages like the Buffalo jeweler’s found by Mike Blumenthal that shows 10 other jeweler listings will be the norm and those businesses that claim their profile and do the most work to make them more visible will also end up helping their competition the most.

Now all of this may be just a bunch of local search geeks getting all hot and bothered over what may not be a very big deal.  After all, the nearby places are listed fairly low on the page and thus will not even be seen by most visitors.  These lists are also good for people looking for local businesses so perhaps their needs should outweigh the sensitivities of business owners. But if you have a blog it’s your duty to put on your tinfoil hat and look for conspiracy theories:

Update: The following statement attributed to Mike Blumenthal may have been taken out of context and misinterpreted, but I like the way it sounds so for now I’ll keep it in:
Mike Blumenthal stated about this event: “when you add this to the “enhanced listing” experiment the only thing keeping them from being more like the YPs of old would be the high pressure salesmen.”

My response is that the high pressure YP salesman is not even in the same atmosphere.  He’d need a hyperbaric chamber to keep up with this one.  To wit:

Check out this Place Page screenshot for Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Pleasanton, CA (note to Google Maps team - check out the bug on this one):

As you can see the Nearby Places section appears below the “Details” & “Reviews” sections.  If Google persists with putting competitors on your Place Page, then the best way to deal with it is to push them as far down as possible.  The best way to do this: add more data to your details and get more reviews.

It’s almost as if Google created Nearby Places as a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) way to get you to add more data to your Place Page.

Sorry gotta go, they need my hat for a grilled cheese.

“agency access to LBC is unlikely”
&
“they may give biz owner a way to share account with one person”

Not perfect but sounds like a step in the right direction.

It’s all about relevance right?

How To Get Your Site Indexed Quickly In Google & Other Search Engines (I Hope)
(in the SEO Category)

IYP SEO Rankings Report 2009
(in the Local Search Category)

Yellow Pages vs. Social Media: A Rebuttal to the Lazy, Lying Mainstream Media
(in the Rants Category)

Hint to judges, I am pulling for the Rant.

I will be judging the Search Tech category along with the inestimable Todd Malicoat.  Any nominees who wish to ply me with liquor, cigarettes and/or stacks of unmarked bills, you know how to find me (logowear is not an option).

Skills required in order to be considered:

1. Basic understanding of search engine optimization, keyword research, site architecture and linkbuilding
2. Ability to set up and operate a wordpress blog

Skills that are nice-to-have but not necessary:

1. HTML, MySQL, php programming
2. Interest in sales
3. Good writer
4. Product management

What you’ll be doing:
I need someone who can handle all aspects of client site audits, help me spec out and build new websites and test various SEO theories. You will be exposed to working for large Fortune 500 companies, hot start-ups, venture capitalists and small businesses.

What I am not looking for:

1. Candidates who do not live within 60 miles of Pleasanton, CA
2. Outsourcing firms (that means SEO outsourcers from India, China and other countries that like to send blind emails and fill up my inbox, please do not!)
3. People who require a lot of handholding and are not confident enough to take charge of a project with little to no guidance and see it through completion.

What I am looking for:

1. The ideal candidate thinks he/she will start his/her own business someday and is looking for a foot in the door to see how it’s done.
2. Someone who is willing to do the grunt work as well as the “cool” stuff (although hopefully you’ll think the grunt work is cool too)

This will be a contract position to start.

If you are interested please find a site that has a search engine optimization problem and in your note to me tell me what it is and how they can fix it. And instead of sending me a resume, how about just sending me a link to your online CV?

And please try to include as little fluff in your note to me as possible.  It will save you time having to think up weird niceties and it will save me time having to read them

You can contact me at localseo-at-localseoguide.com

My how time flies when you are spamming improving Google’s results.  Time again for my take on what’s in store for all of you localsearcharati in ‘010. And check out how my seo predictions did for 2009. Drum roll please…

1. The Open Source Yellow Pages Will Emerge
   Business listing data online has traditionally been severely fragmented.  Different sites have different business names, phone numbers, website URLs, hours of operations, services, etc.  The backend data suppliers like Localeze, InfoUSA & Acxiom have done an ok job of trying to become the source of truth for business listings, but ultimately the world really needs a single source for the so-called golden record for each business.  Twitter looks like it’s about to become that source.  It’s recent purchase of MixerLabs and their GeoAPI product is the yellow pages API I have been whining about for the past year or so.  If this rolls out the way I think it will, Twitter will now become the central clearinghouse for a huge portion of local data.  The data providers, yellow pages publishers, ad agencies will still play a part, controlling what proprietary info they feed into the system, but pretty much any application that involves local businesses will use the Twitter system, so much so that if you aren’t using it, your product will seem deficient.  Mastering the inputs and outputs of this system will become a key differentiator for local marketers in ‘010.
2. GOOGLE
   What else is there to say on this subject?  GOOG will continue on its long march to local search domination.  More organic results will lead to more Maps results in more ways than ever before, continuing to put the organic squeeze on any sites that are not true local businesses.  The Favorite Places window sticker thing won’t do much for traffic but GOOG will send them out to more businesses just because they can.  Now that the Yelp deal may have passed GOOG will leak that they are setting up a call center to target SMB advertisers in a few markets as a test further freaking out everybody else in local.  GOOG voice search on mobile will start to show some serious growth.  Audio SEO aka Voice Search Optimization will be a minor development with huge ramifications.  As I said last year, it’s a Google world and we all just search in it.

Ranking Tip: increase your business’ presence on Google Maps citation sources such as Panoramio, Flickr, Wikipedia & YouTube.  Be the first on your block to discover new sources and get a gold star

3. What’s Our Demand Media Strategy?
   I almost put this ahead of Google because while the Great GOOG will be where a lot of the action is, it seems like everyone I talk to is fixated on the Demand Media strategy of creating content based on actual demand instead of editorial judgment.  Expect to see big brands creating large amounts of content around hot keywords clogging up the organic SERPs and social media sites.  This has been a time-honored strategy used by spammers. The big difference here is that big companies with big budgets are starting to play in this game churning out more content than ever before.  If you run a company that provides cheap article writing in the Philippines, this could be good.
   Ranking Tip: See Brent D Payne’s great presentation on How To Connect Journalism with the Greatest Possible Audience.
   
4. Attack of the Guides
   Given that it’s getting harder for yellow pages publishers to rank well for local queries, expect to see a lot of how-to guides emerge from the various players in an attempt to expand their “search footprint”™.  I expect within 3-6 months pretty much everybody is going to have a wedding guide, a home improvement guide, etc.
   Ranking Tip:  Don’t fish where everyone else is.  Go after a relatively uncontested niche - maybe start with a funeral guide?

5. Invasion of the Lame Local Games
   Foursquare and GoWalla have attracted attention for creating games that have a virtual local component.  There is something very cool and futuro about this.  Problem is everybody is going to try and copy this because the potential is insanely huge.  So expect an onslaught of local gaming lameness.
   Darkhorse Tip: A company like Zynga has the potential to do something out of control with this concept which will totally take the industry by surprise.
   
6. AdSense for Local
   Adsense performs well on local search sites.  Big local search sites are some of the top local advertisers on Adsense.  They would rather not give their $ to GOOG.  They have a lot of advertisers.  Why haven’t they done this yet?
   Strategy Tip: Companies like Localeze & Yext claim they are already on their ways to a system like this.  We’ll keep an eye on them.
   
7. Reputation Management Wars
   It seems like everybody’s working on a reputation management system to help SMBs get a handle on how they are being presented on relevant sites across the Web. Merchant Circle, Marchex, GetListed, Palore have all either rolled out or announced efforts in this area.  Expect to see big publishers and SMB ad sellers like ReachLocal, Webvisible, Yodle, etc. try to figure out how they can play in this space to create more value for advertisers.
8. SMB SEO Budgets Will Increase Dramatically
   A number of misguided souls are predicting that personalized search renders SEO obsolete.  Bottom line: most SMBs don’t know what they are doing with search, are going nuts because some spammer or the guy down the street outranks them, want to spend more time with their kids and are ready to hire someone to make the problem go away.
9. GLBC Will Institute An Agency of Record User
   There are all sorts of complicated reasons why Google Local Business Center does not allow for an “agency” user.  Google wants to discourage mass spamming and perhaps they want to force more businesses to claim their own profile and actually engage with the Google.  The best response I heard from Google is that if businesses aren’t signing up on their own then that’s a problem with the product and they need to improve the product to get them to do so.  Hopefully this is the year that Google admits that most businesses just won’t do it on their own.
10. M&A Activity in Local Search Will Take Off
    There’s a reason I have started including M&A services as part of my consulting work.  The Yelp/Google deal, the ReachLocal IPO, the Twitter/Mixerlabs deal - these events create a growing sense that local search is starting to congeal - meaning that there are a set of services that are starting to show the ability to break away from the fragmented local search pack and have the potential to grab relatively large shares of their markets.  Expect to see a domino effect with a number of large and small acquisitions over the next year.
11. SEO Consultants Will Become Better Known as Marketers
    2009 seemed like the year when a lot of SMBs woke up to the fact that SEO actually existed and could be an important part of the marketing mix.  In 2010 more businesses are going to start to realize that search and social media could be the biggest area of potential for their companies and they will pour more resources into these channels.  As a result search marketers are going to take on bigger roles helping drive comprehensive marketing strategies.  SEOs will be the Na’vi 2010 - whatever that means.

Oblique Strategy for 2010: Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)

Great Local Search/SEO Sites To Stay on Top of in 2010:
Local Search Twitterers
Local SEO Tweets
Locals Only
Mihmorandum
NetMagellan
Praized Blog
Screenwerk
SEMClubhouse
SEOIgloo
SEOOverflow
SmallBusinessSEM
TheGypsy
The Kelsey Group
The Local Onliner
Understanding Google Maps & Local Search
Yellow Pages Commando

feel free to email me with additions to the list and enjoy the decade.

As per my custom around the holiday season I encourage everyone with a web site to give the gift of SEO by linking to their favorite charity’s site with on-the-money anchor text.  Here are some of mine:

Clean Water

Green Christmas Gift

Lymphoma

Orphans Charity

Nicaraguan Aid

And it wouldn’t be New Years without a few resolutions.  Here are some of mine:

1. Blog more
2. Launch at least one new business
3. Redesign this site
4. Provide search marketing help to deserving charitable organizations
5. Reclaim my #1 ranking for “soup nazi” in image search (a man can dream can’t he?)

Happy New Year!

I am hearing from a lot of different sites that the whole Tiger Woods thing has been a like a big traffic Christmas gift, particularly for news sites and social networks that are generating a lot of articles and discussions on his night putting activities.  In my attempt to cash in on the craze I figured I’d see what sort of data Google is showing for “Tiger Woods”-related queries.

Google Suggest

If you read the list downwards in sequence it kind of tells the whole story doesn’t it?

Google Insights for Search - Regional Interest in “Tiger Woods”

Those Jamaicans just can’t get enough of Tiger.

I am guessing this Jamaican traffic is due to the stellar reporting of the Jamaica Observer.  Here’s an excerpt from a recent investigative piece:

“What has come to light is that the golfing phenom was hitting the birdies left right and centre and it was not on the links. The sad thing is that some of these birdies sing like canaries and the talk show hosts are now having a field day at the Tiger’s expense.”

And then there’s this gem:

“by Jamaican standards, Tiger would be playing in the minor leagues. So far, 10 women have admitted to having an extramarital affair with the with him. This would be cited as a sterling example of sexual moderation among many Jamaican sportsmen and entertainers.”

And this one:

“Research has shown that supporters of losing teams have relatively lower levels of testosterone than those of winning ones. There is a direct link between ones testosterone levels and ones libido. Maybe the Tiger could not help himself. He was suffering from testosterone overdose.”

Ok I have now bookmarked this site.

I think I mostly love that this story is probably screwing up the traffic for sites that optimize for “video game cheats” traffic.  See Tiger Woods Cheats.  Then again maybe they are getting an insane amount of traffic from these queries, which I would love too.

Ok, get back to work.

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter: Focused on building out revenue products

Greg Isaacs of AT&T Interactive: Manages revenue products

Kara Nortman of CItySearch: BD

Tim Kendall of Facebook:
There are about 700K FB for business pages.  5000 created per day.  They have facilitated over 1 billion merchant-consumer connections via FB Pages.

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
Twitter’s geotagging API provides a valuable context for local conversations.  A restaurant will update its menu based on what people are saying.

Greg Isaacs of AT&T Interactive:
Yellowpages.com using Facebook Connect to integrate social connections and local.  Building Buzz.com which should come out next year that melds conversations and lead-gen.

Kara Nortman of CitySearch:
CS implemented Twitter APIs this week and relaunched free claim your profile product.  Users can use Twitter profile to write reviews against biz profile.

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
Every tweet should have a bunch of meta data that puts the tweet into context.  This is pretty huge.

Kara Nortman of CitySearch:
Focusing on creating an “introductory” social media marketing product for SMBs.

Tim Kendall of Facebook:
Next year FB will focus on doing more geotargeting with ads.  RIght now it’s all IP address targeting.  From a base of 100 fans, there are 15k one-degree-separation of possible new customers for businesses

Anamitra Banerji of Twitter:
We don’t know if advertising on Twitter will be local at first.  It will be an introductory product that will provide basic engagement metrics and assistance.  This will be the first step towards an advertising program.

Final Thoughts:
FB: Use FB Connect

Twitter: Use the Twitter API and go crazy with it

AT&T: Businesses need to make sure social makes sense for your business before jumping in

CitySearch: Please take our ads and content! Simplicity of implementation is key.

Great panel.

Overall media consumption is higher than ever but more outlets competing for attention

Not enough differentiation in local content to create demand

Successful media outlets operate with tight target focus and brand filters.  Brands today as much about what it is not as what is is.

General players (i.e. broadcast TV) getting picked off at the margins (such as by cable).

Individuals are increasinly “polylocal” - distinction between national and local is eroding

Consumers seek mobility and a seamless content experience

Audiences expect a dialogue

Audiences have increased expectations.

The Consumer Need State During the Day

In the morning, audience is focused on utility & agenda setting - radio is king

In afternoon, updates, info, actionability & escape are important so the PC (Web) and mobile become important, particularly for entertainment

In the evening it’s more about entertainment & escapism, TV becomes the dominant platform.

NBC NY’s News broadcast went from 10MM viewers in 1998 to 3.7MM in 2010.  By adding websites and other digital media options NBC brought total viewership up to 15MM.

NBC Targeting “local lifestyle content” - areas that have above avg interest but low satisfaction with current offerings.  Targeting social capitalists.

Sorry guys I had to leave in mid-session so I missed the big finale.

Patricia Nakache:
no one has cracked local impulse purchases - mentions Groupon

Warren Lee:
Skeptical that growth will happen as fast as Kelsey predicts because access to venture capital is not as easy. Venture capital is going to contract by 20-30% and fragmented nature of local with big capital requirements makes it harder to fund. (sounds like a lot of VCs will be getting into SEO next year)

Michael Yang:
It is not for the faint of heart on the VC side to spelunk in the local space (truedat)

Patricia Nakache:
Making shopping fun has a lot of opportunity.   A more curated, better matching experience than Craigslist is needed.  See care.com

Warren Lee:
Video.  Oh yeah and did I mention video?

Michael Yang:
Stay away from search and ad networks.  Video.  Leadgen & email are still interesting.  Commerce is more interesting than directory/media in local.  You need to be >1MM uniques/mnth to be interesting.  SEOd directories are a dime a dozen.

Warren Lee:
Invested in Associated Content at 1MM uniques/mnth.  Need 10MM uniques/mnth to get attention of brand advertisers.  Need to break top 100 mark on Comscore to get attention of ad agencies.

Michael Yang:
slightly backpedaling on his “not interested in SEO plays” but likes Associated Content/Demand Media because they have systems v. 2-3 people start ups which don’t.  IMO AC & DM started with no systems but used SEO to justify building them.

Warren Lee:
Shared risk models with contributors helps you scale up because the upfront costs are lower.  Content on the web has a remarkably long shelf-life which makes the biz model more scalable/sustainable.

Michael Yang:
Streetview technologies that allow users to have a virtual experience with the merchant before they go there are interesting

Patricia Kanache:
There’s an opportunity for the companies that owns customer relationships to be the advocates for the SMBs to help them figure out the right mix and manage their reputations

Warren Lee:
There are too many options out there for SMBs. A large group of startups out there that haven’t been consolidated yet.  Over the next couple of years we’re going to see a lot of start-ups fail.

Nice cheery ending to the panel.

Total U.S. Local Ad Spend should grow from $136B in 2010 to $144B in 2013.  Scary looking drop from $155B in 2008 to $141B in 2009.  A result of the economy and shift to digital.

Local Ad Spend by Medium: All mediums losing share except for digital/online

2013 Interactive Ad Market $58.57B -Search= about $26B of that

2009:
- Mobiie, email, reputation management, video, display about where they thought they would be
- Estimating search at $13.9B to $15,5B

- Total searh query volume exceeding targets

- CPC down 3.3 to 1.0% from 2008

- CTR down 12.4% to 3% from 2008 but GOOG rebounding

- Ad coverage up 2.7%

Local search:

- Off $350MM-$100MM from previous forecast

- CPC down -4.8% from 2008; pull back of SMBs of 30% in mid-year

- CTR down 10.6% from 2008; result of advertiser pull back

- Ad coverage down 2.6% from 2008

- Revenue showing robust growth; range 9.6% to 17.8% from 2008

- Expectations is that end of Q3 is when turnaround will be in full swing

Classifieds & Verticals

- Down $1B from 2008

- Classifieds performance terrible -30% Q2 Y/Y; Overall down -21% from 2008

- Non-Auto/RE vertical markets were strong

SMB Ad Spending

- Spending is down 23.5% from August 2008 to Q2 2009, but this appears to be turning around

- Direct mail seems to be coming back

- 6% of SMBs tried PPC this year down from 9% last year, but PPC appears to be coming back

- 8% bought print ads in 2009 v. 13% in 2008

Newer businesses much more oriented to Online Media but newer businesses spend less

- Businesses 0-3 yrs old spend 30% of ad budget online v. businesses 11+ years old spending 13% online

49% of SMBs buy ads themselves (down from 57% last year)

24% buy ads via Print Yellow Pages/IYP sales forces (up from 16% last year)

9% buy via Radio/TV Sales up from 3% last year

8% buy via an agency up from 3% last year

New content models based on analytics such as Associated Content, DemandMedia & Examiner.com are going to be a big trend going forward.

SMBs that intend to use a page on a social site in the next 12 months:
- 44% of new SMBs say yes

- 18-22% of older SMBs say yes

Online Media Usage Reaches Parity with Traditional Media.  Kelsey expects Online to eclipse Traditional over the coming year.

ROI pereception

1. Email

2. Direct mail

3. PPC

4. IYP

5. Print YP

16% of businesses that are <3 yrs old have self-enrolled in Twitter

not even going to try and interpret the chart that’s up there now

Neal pushing Presence (you need to be where people are looking), Performance (you need to be able to convert & vehicles that help you convert are important) & Permanance

THE BIG TAKEAWAYS

• Massive shift to digital; “The Cliff” is here
• Search is already rebounding; expecting growth to continue CAGR ~15% through 2013
• Geo-targeted display, video, mobile, email & reputation management all meeting expectations
• Traditional sales forces more competitive with each other.  Digital divide is closing
• Overall 2010 will be strong for interactive SMB marketing

Neal thinks the broadcast industry will be much more tied to the mobile experience in the future.

ILM 09 Local Media SEO Presentation (it definitely needs narration so feel free to ping me with questions)

it’s pretty much a rehash of my SEL post: Don’t Give Google The NoIndex Finger

Hanan Lifschitz of Palore is speaking in my place.  Showing some data on what they have discovered by crawling different local search sites:

1.Only 14% of SMBs have claimed their listings on local search sites

2.64% of all businesses are only listed in 1 or 2 categories

3.Searching 20,000 local keywords for Orlando businesses on Google Maps, remarkably 20% of all businesses in their database show up on the first page of Google’s SERPs.

Now demoing their visibility tool - AmIvisible.org
Kind of cool you can compare your visibility with local competitors.

Hanan just typed a auto dealer in Memphis’ phone number and the service quickly showed that this dealer is the most optimized dealer in Memphis.  We can see how many categories he uses, which keywords he is targeting and which sites he is advertising on.  Very cool.

Now we’re seeing a less visible competitor and comparing to the above dealer and you can easily see why he is less successful compared to the top dealer.

AmIvisible is beta testing in only a few small cities but should be available nationally in a few months.

That was much cooler than my presentation for sure.

David Mihm now stepping up to the plate:

1. Maximize Your Internal Linking Strategy
2. Be Keyword Focused with Title Tags
3. Enable User-Generated Contetnnt
4. See Google as a Partner - XML sitemaps

Any important page on your site must be linked from your homepage

No more than 4 clicks from homepage

Use geographic anchor text when you link

UGC is great for long-tail phrases and creates distribution possibilities

Citysearch images seem to be showing up a lot on Google Place Pages - is there a partnership?

Google is starting to use more rich snippets in their results.  Add a CSS class that Google recommends to try and get your reviews/stars to show up in search.  Also try the hcard microformat.

Use an XML sitemap

Use KML to get your data on MyMaps pages

Creating an interesting map on your site and it can appear in the User-Created Maps section on Google pages.

Scott Knowles of AOL Local talking about how to use social platforms to get your info into search results.

David Mihm on Video SEO: Youtube is the place to be.

Yellow Pages headings are not search friendly.  Tags are.