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According to the latest publication from comScore, an internet marketing research company that collects data about online user behavior, Yahoo! holds about 14.1% of the total Core Search Market. Yahoo! is currently ranked third, after Google and Bing, in total search queries. In addition to being one of the top three search engine powerhouses, Yahoo!’s extensive content volume are viewed as a valuable resource for other search engines. Therefore, listing your business on Yahoo! Local is still a very important step to improve the overall local search ranking of the business. In this entry, we are going to introduce some of the basic outline of the Yahoo! Local search result page as well as tips on how to improve your business’s ranking on Yahoo! Local.
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For large national brands with an extensive local footprint, the ever-evolving online social/local/mobile (SoLoMo) search landscape is daunting. Often, things change so quickly that keeping one’s balance is impossible. When you are working at scale, any wrong step can trigger ramifications that could span years. Execute a poorly thought through marketing strategy, and you could damage your brand before you ever reach your audience online.

Beyond the obvious challenges faced by big brands – understanding the SoLoMo space, finding time and resources to keep up with what’s “new,” and aligning solutions with internal goals – there are more quiet concerns that often get lost in the glare of shinny new marketing objects. Being ready to take advantage of the right solution is critical, but brands often fail to consider elements that hide below the surface.
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In a blog post yesterday, Mike Blumenthal pointed out that Google has reduced the presence of Google Places results, on their SERP, from the fairly standard 7-pack to a 3-pack. The change was first noticed about 2 weeks ago for a select group of keywords, but most viewed this as a one of Google’s standard layout tests. While this may still be a test phase that Google will roll back, it’s important to start understanding what the new SERP real estate means for local marketers.
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If You Do Not Engage Now, Your Customers May Already Be Choosing Your Competitors.

In case you missed it, there was a big announcement this week about the Google search results and how Google is capitalizing on their own Google+ Product.

Some of you may be thinking, so what? Just another Google change right? Wrong.

Whether you’re a hotel, plumber, insurance agent, or retailer, Google has now forced your hand in mixing business with pleasure. What do I mean? Whether we like it or not, we need to create business profile pages on social networks (like Google+) and make it a pleasurable experience for our audience and customers. If we don’t, we may now be appearing further and further down the Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Why? Because Google is now populating social business pages and photos from Google+ in search results, and you need to be there.
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In the past, mass media and traditional print advertising were enough to draw consumers toward a national brand’s local store or service. Today, however, 90 percent of consumers use search engines when researching products or services in their local area (BIA/Kelsey study).

Google appears to have noticed the change in search behavior, and in October, 2010, Google changed its algorithm to display more local businesses in the search results. Google’s local search results are displayed for both geo-targeted search queries such as “Chicago Hotels” and generic search queries such as “Hotels” based on one’s IP address.

Advertisers are taking action and investing more in local online advertising. Borrell Associates forecasts an 18% growth as local online advertising increases from $15.7 billion to $18.5 billion in 2012.

So how can national brands harness the power of local search?
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Last Friday, Google released Adwords Express functionality to all bulk imported listings. Before then, Adwords Express was only available to business listings that had manually verified their listings (via phone or postcard) while businesses that used bulk verification needed to rely on Adwords local extensions to advertise locally.

This roll-out is surprising for two reasons:
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Google has rolled out a new function to their Maps and Places pages on December 12th, which we’re calling the Attraction Link. The Attraction Link is an anchor text link for a nearby attraction (example “Chicago O’Hare International Airport”) that directs the searcher to the attraction’s Google Places Page. This link appears on Google Maps listings and Place Pages for nearby businesses.
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Currently, Google Places offers three methods of business verification: phone, postcard, and bulk import. Often, the phone and postcard will be lumped into one larger group called “Manual Verification,” because the verification process includes obtaining and inputting a unique PIN for each location that needs to be verified.

In this first entry on Google Places verification, we’ll walk through what to expect from the Phone Verification process and what factors should be considered prior to going this route.
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If you’d like to keep your product or service as professional & as serious as possible, there are other ways to utilize video campaigns without humor…. just don’t expect to compete with Keyboard Cat. Online video campaigns, if optimized and strategized properly can accomplish a lot in a LOCAL market using optimization, frequency of content uploads, and filling your video with relevant information & search terms.

You do need to be able to answer some key questions. If you don’t have these covered, then you’re probably better off recording your dog dreaming and praying it’s something good enough to make him jump head first into a wall:
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It’s the Season for Budgeting and since most businesses have been spending the last month or so figuring out their 2012 marketing allocations, I’m confident one topic has repeatedly been up for debate: Online Video Campaigns. With YouTube boasting a whopping 490 million viewers every month, it is a landscape that advertisers can no longer ignore. More often than not the same concerns continue to surface: “How do I track my ROI with a video?” “Is this a legitimate lead generation tool?” “ Can you guarantee a certain amount of views?” “I’m not sure we have the time or resources to do something like this”…

There’s no doubt in my mind that people need to budget for online video campaigns. All questions are justifiable (helpful hints included), but the first and probably most important rule of a video campaign is to gauge your expectations (and no, unfortunately we can’t guarantee a certain amount of video views). Advertisers seem to understand the power of Rich Media (use of video, images, audio, text, engaging & interactive content). Yet most SMB’s who can’t afford a dedicated creative team are intimidated by the task of making video work for their business type. To further complicate the issue, the ones who have pulled the trigger and are ramping up video marketing efforts, at times, have unrealistic expectations of acquiring viral status, only to be disappointed with results and swearing off online video for good. Regardless of which bucket you find yourself in, there are solutions for you. It simply takes defining your goals and strategizing towards them.
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