WebProNews

PubCon: Succeeding At Local And Mobile Search

For the moment, never mind the "world wide" aspect of the Web.  A whole lot of any business's customers are likely to come from its home region, and so a PubCon session called "Local and Mobile" search took a look at ways in which companies can best serve these nearby individuals.(Coverage of PubCon continues at WebProNews Videos.  Stay with WebProNews for continued coverage from the event this week.)

Local is As Local Does

It looks like search engines have officially trumped the Yellow Pages when it comes to customers looking for local businesses. Data from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing shows that this year more people are turning to search engines after last year's showed that Yellow Pages were on top. What the Data Shows

Yahoo's Openness To Search

Yahoo announced that they have integrated a couple of applications from their SearchMonkey project into everyday search results for users of the Yahoo search engine. The two integrated apps are from Citysearch and Zagat, which Yahoo intends to use for improved local search results along with Yelp and its own Yahoo Local results.

Google Caters to Lazy Texters

Google has added the "My Location" feature to its mobile search, which previously had only been available on Google Maps for Mobile. My Location recognizes your location (go figure) and gives you relevant search results based on where you are. Instead of having to enter your geographical information, you can just automatically receive geographically relevant results. This will be a lot easier than texting out more information. Google displays the concept in this silly video:

Geographical Modifiers and Relevancy

Back in May, I noticed what appeared to be a test by Google to add more relevancy to search engine result (SERPs) by publishing a search box for geographical modifiers to a requested search query (Google Pushing Local Results). See image below:

Don't Forget About Yahoo! Maps

It's been a long time since we've heard anything about Yahoo! Maps and just when we thought that Yahoo! had forgotten all about the map service, Yahoo! has surprised us by performing a major update to Yahoo! Maps.

Planet Discover Finds Local Success Normal

Bringing a sharply focused local search experience to local media sites means making disparate data play nicely together. Planet Discover CEO David Lenzen wields the pointy stick and tells WebProNews more about it.

Google's Local Search

Today while doing research for a client, I happened to notice something very interesting in Google’s results. The given search was for “hampton inn” and further research on other geographically relevant, broad terms returned similar results like “restaurant” and “mcdonalds.”

Not All Traffic Is Created Equal

For a long time there's been a certain amount of obsession among webmasters about building traffic—any traffic—for websites. But really, especially if you're location-based, the focus should be on building the right traffic.Of course, search takes center stage in that struggle, but more recently social media sites like Digg.com and BoingBoing have captured the imaginations of traffic-obsessed marketers. Here's what many of them discover, though: traffic bursts from those sites do little for sales.

Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Local Search

I've written about it before, and I'll write about it again: the only phonebooks around my work desk are the ones raising it and the monitor a few inches higher than they'd otherwise sit.  Local search functions well from a consumer standpoint, and a session detailed how businesses can benefit from it, too.