august 2008

Ok I am going to date myself…I remember when MTV started. Does anyone know what the first video that was shown (without looking it up)? Can you name any of the VJs?

Well I bring up MTV today because my good friend Paul O’Brien at Zventshas shared with me some info about a new joint venture with MTV and Zvents.

Zvents will now be powering Campus Daily Guides with Zvents’ local search and discovery experience. It will  provide details about tons of important college and recreational events, local promotions, sports, concerts, and performers, specific to each university campus.  MtvU is serving up local search for students like it’s never been done before.  For local merchants and advertisers looking to get more targeted traffic, this definitely provides a new advertising vehicle to reach students.

I am happy to see my school, Florida State University, has a page! Go Noles! I wish we had something like this when I was in school.

Thanks for the update Paul, and if you are interested, please download the official press release here.

Side note: Paul is offering a special deal to LocalBizBits readers. The first three readers who post a comment here about this announcement, can get a free Enhanced Event listing (worth an average $29 each).  You will be able to post your business and events (sales, etc.) here: http://www.zvents.com/welcome/create.   Please post a link to that venue/business and its event(s) in the comments. I will then forward your info on to Paul and he’ll take care of the rest.

I saw this line as part of an ad on a billboard yesterday and I thought it tied in nicely to what I was going to comment on today. Why do we do what we do?  Why create web site(s) and market them?

After seeing that billboard it got me thinking. Yes billboards can be a good form of advertising but are very limited. You cannot easily change the sign, you can’t make folks drive by the sign, or even read the sign. The Internet is another story. You can easily change or update your web site or content, you can help drive folks to your web site, and it is up all day, all night, 365 days a year. (unless of course you forget to pay your bills )

I bring this up because of an article I read a while back: Search Engine Optimization Means Business By C.C. Holland.

This is an excellent article on how a small business can grow and thrive on-line with a little bit of effort. The author talks about how one law firm was able to turn its business around using search marketing.  (There is some nice introductory SEM information included too.)  They said:

“The research paid off. Parra took the firm’s “really bad site” and tore it apart, improving the design and completely reworking the navigation. Most importantly, she created a huge amount of content and fine-tuned the site using guidelines and techniques approved by the major search engines.

The end result?  Jackpot. “When I finally launched the fully optimized site, it only took seven days to hit the top of Google,” she says. And the clients began to pour back in. That was two years ago; today, Number1DUIoffice.com is still the first result returned in Google for the keywords “Oakland DUI lawyer.” And all the firm’s eggs are firmly in the online basket, says Parra: “We’re entirely Web-based, and we don’t do any other advertising.”

This is why we do what we do. This is why I am writing to the small business owner, to help educate on search marketing.  Having a properly created, optimized, and promoted web site works!

Today I am speaking with George Oji, Founder of Jippidy.com, small business video yellow pages.

Q. What is Jippidy? A. We believe that the results produced from local searches should be user-generated results. Meaning in our view, the business owner is best positioned entity to sell a product to the consumer. Essentially we’re pitching a Myspace flat form for businesses, where businesses can add videos, pictures or coupons as they see fit to their profiles

Jippidy is then a user-generated small business video yellow pages site that connects local businesses with consumers. As user on Jippidy, you can create a business or a personal profile and if the choose to, they can create both under the same username. Take a look at the 2 images below, it is a personal and business profile for the same user.

Q. How did Jippidy come about? A. The idea of Jippidy came about when one of my best friend Jeffrey and I were in Vegas. We wanted to go out but didn’t want to do the usual tourist clubs. We basically ended up surfing the web looking for places and listening to the radio for suggestion. When we found ideas and then searched on the web we found nothing but pictures which as a tourist to the city was of little use. That is when we realized that the future of local advertising is definitely going to be video.

Q. Where did you get the name from? A. Actually, Jippidy is the nickname my business partner (Jeffrey Kim) goes by. Jeffrey and I founded Jippidy. Link to his Myspace profile is here. 

Q.Is Jippidy nationwide? A. Yes Jippidy is nationwide. But we just launched recently so some areas in the U.S don’t have much content yet. But by middle of August we should have a database of all U.S businesses on the website. With regard to strategy, we have an L.A and S.F team and those are the two areas we’re focusing on. We do have a nationwide strategy but that’s an internet based strategy. Our brick and morter strategy is a land based strategy focused on L.A and S.F.

Q. Is there a fee involved? A. We believe that you cannot charge small business owners to use this service. For example, Citysearch charges a fee for local businesses to take over their profile and update it with pictures or video. But there’s a conflict of interest if Citysearch is trying to provide a complete, dynamic up to date product for the consumer. If they charge businesses owners, not all business owners will subscribe to their service and thus ultimately the end result is an inferior product.

Q. Do you allow reviews? A. We have a review section similar to Yelp. Yelp is a website solely based on reviews, while we believe that reviews are very important, they are secondary/supplemental to the user-generated profiles. We believe that down the line reviews will serve as a secondary tool to learn more about an establishment after you have reviewed and fully analyzed profiles. While Yelp is a good ...

Hope everyone had a good weekend. This was one of those “cleaning” weekend- in the yard and on the computer. I decided to tackle cleaning out some of electronic clutter.  I had to chuckle. I found a ton of emails and articles I had saved from a few years back, all regarding local search.

How times have changed!

It is amazing to see how much changed, disappeared, appeared, you name it, in the last couple of years in this area of local search. This is why I have decided to focus most of my time and energy into local search-it is simply exciting to see all of these happenings and then what tomorrow holds.

After a few minutes, I had deleted a ton of stuff, simply because there is no looking back. It is good to see where we have been but so much is going on NOW, it is hard to keep up with it all.

Yes there are exciting times but I know for the small business owner, there is a lot to take in and absorb.  So far I have not found one great source of information on local search.  There is no definite ebook or web site that covers it all.  For the do-it-yourself small business owner, my recommendation is read-my blog :) and  those on my blogroll. Take notes, practice, and every once in a while, step back, review what you got and then get rid of the electronic clutter!  Repeat as necessary.  

Palm Beach Local, a new (it is only a couple of weeks old) local business directory in Palm Beach Florida.

Q. Hey Michelle, thanks for taking some time today, can you tell us a little about yourself? A. I am a piano teacher who has become very interested in search marketing and SEO over the past year. I do search marketing primarily for local business and I enjoy writing articles, press releases, and blogs. I am co-founder of PalmBeachLocal.info.

Q. Tell us a little about your directory- who can list their business? A.  The Palm Beach Local Directory is a multi-media directory for small and medium sized local businesses in Palm Beach County. Any business that is legitimate can be listed in our directory. We do not allow gambling sites or anything related to pornography.

Q. You have told me “This will be the most interesting, user-friendly, helpful, dynamic business directory in Palm Beach County South Florida”  how are you going to accomplish this? A. Palm Beach Local will be an interesting site to visit because of the beautiful photo galleries, virtual tours, and videos of our local business owners. Our site is also search friendly and easy to navigate through. We are hoping our site is easy to the eyes and not filled with confusing text, flash, and images.

Q. Tell me about your video services. A. Our video services will be achieved through a simple upload of a video by the business owner. If the business owner wishes to have a video professionally done, it will be at an extra charge.

Q. Why are you including video? A. We added video because video has become extremely popular on the Internet. A video can truly provide that personal touch and convincing message that can win over a prospective customer when ready to purchase goods and services.   Q. What do you see as the greatest challenges to small local business directories such as yours? A. The greatest challenge that I see for a directory such as ours is convincing potential advertisers of the true value of our service. Many businesses are still Internet phobic. What they do not realize is that over 50 percent of people look for local business products and services online.

Q. Why should  a business use your directory vs. say Citypages, Superpages etc? A. Our directory is very personal, and provides the nicest picture galleries  that I have seen. Our price point is lower than yellow pages and other directories and offers much more for the money. Our search marketing efforts for our site are also very strong due to intense article marketing, blogs, and press releases.   Q. Where do you see local search going in the near future? A. Local search is only going to become more popular as more and more people use the Internet for their every day searches and queries. 70 percent of non-referral piano students have found my name through a Google, Yahoo, AOL, or MSN search in the past year.  This has been increasing every year since the ...

Local Advertising. It is critical for your small business. The Internet does provide a huge potential for new customers.  Below are some quotes that I thought were worth repeating. I think they speak for themselves…

The Local Advertiser of Today and Tomorrow by Gregg Stewart

“Local search is a vertical strategy with the rewards of lower leads cost with higher sales conversation.” “..reaching your customers on a local level is a multi-step process with great rewards..”

 Local and the Future of Ad Serving by Greg Sterling

“Most major advertisers don’t know how to think about local online today and most aren’t taking advantage of current capabilities, let alone all the emerging layers of targeting. But what these increasingly sophisticated ad platforms (i.e., Yahoo!’s) will do is compensate for that lack of human sophistication…”

We Need a New ‘Local Framework’ by Greg Sterling 

“For too long “local” on the Internet has been “off to the side” as a much talked about but under-performing curiosity. Major ad networks have boomed, social media has been hyped, search has been celebrated. But it all leads to one place — the point of sale. And in 95%+ of the cases that’s in a physical, local place.”

“The Internet is fundamentally a research tool that helps people decide what to do and where to spend money.”

“The dots need to be connected up and down the line to help lead me from offline prompt or stimulus to online research/consideration to a POS offline. Once that becomes more transparent for advertisers then the Internet’s full potential as an advertising medium can be realized.”

Should We Do Away with the Word ‘Local’? by Greg Sterling

“But national brands and marketers often don’t see the opportunity because they associate the word “local” with someone or something other than what they do….But overall they don’t fully grasp the opportunity and that “local” or “geotargeting” is really about reaching particular people in particular places — who will typically buy something or do something in a physical location.”

I have just got back from vacation where there was no Internet available to me. This was good and bad. Good because I was able to read up on a lot of articles that I have been saving and actually worked on a number of posts. Bad because there was no Internet!  You really do not realize how much you rely on something until it is gone…It is nice to be back home

Today I wanted to comment on two posts that I thought were very good. The first was by Miriam Ellis, Where Local Search Falls Down In Small Town USA.  Miriam hits the nail on the head in this post!

“Yet, there is a disconnect going on between local business owners and Google Maps/Local that is making this tool so much less useful than it could be, and I feel the trouble is especially apparent in places like my new small town.”

Local search can be a great tool but from my limited travels and where I live, Augusta GA, there still is a lot of room for growth. Local search is a very effective tool in the larger cities but Small Town USAis still a few years behind. Even through locally owned small business directories, local search really has not gotten going.  It really is frustrating.  Miriam also wrote:

“But here, in Small Town, USA, opportunities are being missed to strengthen the local economy by showing the local people that almost everything they’d need can be found right here.”

This is so true, all we can do is continue to preach of gospel of local search and eventually small business will see the light.

The second post, was by Greg Sterling,  The End of SMB Websites where he said, “in a few years most SMBs effectively won’t need sites at all because their data will be online through third party efforts (they might need to update or correct information however). Richer profiles with more local data will make SMB sites potentially obsolete.”

Greg makes a good point and it really could come to past but the key part of his statement is in a few years. Right now the small business owner is really lost on-line. I am hoping this blog, seminars, etc can help educate the small business owner on how the Internet works and what they need to do to survive.

To the small business owners reading this, build a website, submit to local directories, or use some third party efforts but get your business info on-line.  Those that take advantage of it now, will reap the benefits.

Below is a nice chart from Palore, representing over 6,000 businesses found on leading online directories. Categories selected were beauty & fitness, photographers, landscapers and limousine services, for the LA and San Francisco area.

Small businesses are spending very little on-line, too little on-line. It takes money to make money folks!  If that is you-find yourself a good SEM and increase your budget.