Archive for the ‘Local Search’ Category

10 Reasons Why PPC Advertising Beats Yellow Pages Every Time

November 21st, 2011

For the purposes of this article, the term “yellow pages” is meant to refer to any non-specific telephone directory of businesses that was commonly printed on yellow paper (of which there were many) and their present online assets.

There was once a time when the yellow pages reigned supreme. This was probably 20 years ago (in 1992), right about the time that Delphi began offering the first full Internet service to its customers, before AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe came online. Back then, if your business wasn’t listed in the in the yellow pages you were effectively undetectable to your potential customers. But that was before the advent of the internet and the web as we know it. Before 14.27 billion indexed web pages. Before affordable, high-speed internet access for all. Before pay-per-click (PPC) advertising brought Google billions and billions in annual advertising revenues.

Interesting notes: Some print directory industry insiders have publicly stated that use of the yellow pages has declined in exact correlation with the adoption of high-speed internet access across the nation. Additionally, trending for yellow pages online directories is worse today than it was in 2004 (according to Google Trends).

Perhaps it is too easy to say that the days of paging through the phone book and pouring over ads for a plumber that makes after-hours service calls during a holiday weekend are over. Then again, who among us would go to all that trouble if the plumber we needed was just a click away?

As more and more homes became wired for lightning-fast access to search results and information, it is easy to assume that very few people would choose to trudge to the hall closet and pull out that thick book of yellow pages and spend half an hour looking through a mess of tiny listings for a plumber that suited their specific needs – especially not when Google can give you about 2,000 results for a local plumber in 0.21 seconds, as well as location information, service rankings and search ads with money-saving coupons.

In 2008, there was an article written by a marketing manager for one of the largest phone directory publishers in the nation, in which he stated that the yellow pages was only relevant to two population groups: the lower social-economic segment of society and the over 50 years of age market. He went on to suggest that the yellow pages was probably a valuable place to advertise if either of those two groups was a primary demographic for a business owner. Ouch.

Given the significant decline in printed directory usage, the old yellow pages publishers have moved their operations online – getting onboard with ads that run in both the print directory and their new online directories. Problem is: It’s hard to compete with Google search. The barriers to entry are now too high for a simple search directory to have any significant draw or lasting effect. With mobile devices the default search settings are set to use Google or BING. Thus, we can only assume the separation between  online directories and rise of major search engines is a trend that will continue as mobile usage increases.

So let’s look at the comparison to PPC advertising. What makes PPC advertising such a valuable asset to a business owner (of any size) when the yellow pages are calling?

  1. Targeting – PPC advertising enables you to target hundreds or even thousands of people looking specifically for businesses just like yours. By targeting people as they search, you’re reaching prospects who are ready to make a buying decision. You’re not buried in a three-pound book at the top of a hall closet or in an specific online directory under your competitors listings.
  2. Cost – PPC advertising allows the business owner to set their own budget. Simple as that. No more escalating “rate card charges” for annual placement in a book or online directory that fewer people are turning to each and every day. No costly online ad contracts.
  3. Tracking – PPC campaigns, married with FREE website analytics, will tell you how many clicks you received from your ad and what those visitors viewed on your website. Unless a caller tells you that they found your ad through the yellow pages, how would you ever know?
  4. Controlled Exposure – Want PPC ads to show in one part of town but not another? You can control exactly where your ads show through geo-targeting.
  5. Content that Changes – PPC ads, much like web content, is something that is quick and easy to change. How many times have you seen business ads with the wrong phone number, address or hours of operation? That kind of incorrect information can cost a business dozens of potential customers over the course of a year.
  6. No Contracts – Sweet Spot’s PPC management is month to month. With a yellow pages directory, a 6 month contract is typcial.
  7. Share of Voice – With a print or online directory, you’re competing with every other plumber who has a listing. With PPC ads, you compete only against those who are on the first page at Google.
  8. Market Share – A simple numbers game: All yellow pages properties combined probably represent about 2% of the total search market share. Google, BING and Yahoo control ~95% of the search market. Where are you going to put your marketing budget dollars?search-market-share
  9. Impressions – Your yellow pages directory sales representative will tell you that they have an extraordinary amount of impressions for their pages. Count how many individual listings are on that page and divide. Are those impressions for your area of the city specifically? Divide again. Try to get out of the CPM buying model. Calculate your expected Cost-Per-Click (CPC) for Yellow Pages, and you might find it to be twice (perhaps more) as high as your PPC costs.
  10. Transparency – With a PPC campaign, the business owner has the ability to track everything through reporting. This is important when factoring in PPC offered by the yellow page directory sites. They may want to drive the clicks you paid for to your business listing on their URL and not your actual site.

Tags: Ad Impressions, AdWords, Analytics, CPC Ads, Display Ads, Google, Reports, search marketing
Posted in Bing, Google, Google Adwords, Local Search, Mobile Marketing, PPC, SEO | No Comments

SMX East 2011 Recap Pt 2 – Personalized Search and Data Consistency

October 3rd, 2011

This is Part 2 of the Search Marketing Expo East 2011 wrap-up.

The Search Marketing Expo in New York, also known as SMX East, concluded September 15th after three days of speakers and programs. Produced by Search Engine Land, SMX East was an awesome educational and networking experience for hundreds search marketers, techs and business professionals from all over the globe.

In the first part of our SMX East wrap-up, we covered Google +1 and Search Rankings and how Microformats are changing the way that content is found. In this installment, we’ll cover two other important takeaways from the programming.

3. In the Google Personalization & Robot Gatekeepers keynote address, “If personalized search is here, are keyword rankings dead?” was the question addressed by Eli Pariser, Board President of MoveOn.org and author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You.

Personalization may be the greatest achievement or greatest downfall of the web. Think about it in this perspective: Total personalization – that is, a web that is tailored to your interests, associations and activities – is no longer service-specific. It’s a buyer’s market vs. a seller’s market. When personalization factors alter or impact what you see on the web, then the web will show you what it thinks you want to see, not the information world as it actually exists.

Is this evil? Not necessarily. Although some attendees were wide-eyed at the thought, some skeptical, Eli explained it in simple terms: “Google most likely doesn’t have malicious intentions with personalization. Google is trying to make the web experience a little more passive, give you a better user experience.”

Okay, that’s an understandable approach to their personalization effort. But we all hope that Google understands that they don’t really know who we are. Google only thinks it knows who we are, based on our actions, our preferences and the content we regularly consume.

One of the additional problems with a wholly-personalized web experience is that a significant portion of the web-searching market may not know when the results are being personalized and when they are free of filters and solely native to the keywords in their search terms. Of course, the other glaring problem is that personalization may pose a great filter barrier for those SEOs and site owners that rely on keyword rankings and a level playing field to get their message out to the broadest market.

One last note from Eli, a well-stated suggestion for the powers that be at Google: “It would make it easier if we (the users) were able to understand the filters, able to turn them on or off, rather than having them imposed on us.”

A large part of this keynote was pulled from his Beware of Online Filter Bubbles TED talk. If you have not watched it yet, it is highly recommended.

4. “On local search, Data Consistency is key,” said Mike Ramsasy, one of the speakers at the Hard Core Local SEO Tactics panel.

Some would say that data consistency is a mantra that has been chanted to death. Not true. Now, more than ever, data consistency is crucial to local search rankings. Ramsay kicked off the discussion by claiming that “correlation does not equal causation. You cannot cause your page to rank by merely claiming your Place Page.”

Ramsay is correct. Any first-year statistician knows that correlation between two variables does not automatically imply that one causes the other. Ramsay goes on to say “build out your Place Pages with purpose. Own your data and fill out everything accurately.”

Some of the “most recommended” Place Page factors to focus on include the following:

  • Consistent NAP (name, address and phone) data
  • A manually-owner-verified Google Place Page
  • Proper category associations for your business products or services
  • Local area code on Place Page

Each of those recommendations suggests that you work to eliminate data confusion. For those who may not know, your Google business listing is commonly known as a Place Page. As a business owner, you can verify your business, add content to your listing, just make certain that your business name, address and phone number is consistent everywhere. A great tool to see if you have good verification metrics is GetListed.org. This tool can quickly check Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, YELP, Best of the WEb and hotfrog.com.

The reason for all this consistency is this: Ramsay and the other speakers have rightly suggested that “citation” is a ranking factor of highest importance. A citation is where your business name and address is mentioned on another website. These citations can come from directories, blogs, articles, or merely appear on other sites for whatever the reason. Citations do correlate highly with rankings. A citation is founded on data you can control and make consistent.

One easy way to verify data consistency is to search for “address” and/or “phone number” and check the results several pages deep.  Name, Address, Phone = NAP. And NAP creates your citation. Build out pages to reinforce your data and consistency. Easy. Worthwhile.

Tags: citation, Google, Map Listings, PageRank, search rankings, SEM, seo rankings, Site Ranking, smx
Posted in Google, Local Search, SEO | No Comments

Planning and Measuring SEM Goals: State of Search 2011 pt.1

August 16th, 2011

Decades ago, before we had access to Google, Bing, and the whole of the Internet providing the world at our fingertips, search was a laborious, time-consuming effort.

For instance, if you landed in Honolulu for a 10-day vacation in the Hawaiian Islands and wanted to know where you could find the nearest Puka Dog Hut, you’d have to phone down to the front desk of your hotel and talk to the concierge.

More than likely, they would reply with “Oh, sir, you don’t want to eat that. Perhaps I could recommend the Sansei Sushi Bar for some Asian-Pacific Rim cuisine?”

“That’s not what I wanted. I want a Puka Dog.”

“But, sir, really…”

You get how this is going; we don’t need to belabor the issue. Before the internet, search was cumbersome and unreliable. Therefore, it’s easy to understand and accept the idea that the present state of search is strong, getting stronger every day. How do we know this for certain? The numbers.

I can get a complete listing of Puka Dog Huts in Hawaii from Google in 0.26 seconds. Ease of access is not only turning consumers to search-related resources for their each and every need, but access to this extent is also developing greater and greater levels of impatience in the searchers. We want what we want and we want it now.

Before planning your SEM goals, let’s look at the numbers.

In the State of Search 2011 report, it was projected that search engine marketing (SEM) spending for North America would grow from $16.6 billion to $19.3 billion in 2011. This represents a 14% increase. In fact, the percentage of increase for SEM spending grew 32.19% from 2009 to 2011. That growth rate increase towers over the paltry 19.3% increase that the Oil Drilling Industry saw in the same time period.

Some 54% of all businesses plan to increase SEM/SEO spending, while only 10% plan on spending less (but you can find them in the yellow pages, I’m sure). According to the study, increased spending for 2011 will be focused on:

  1. Paid Search (PPC/Paid Inclusion)
  2. Search Engine Optimization
  3. Facebook PPC Advertising
  4. Search-Related Technology
  5. Mobile Internet

It’s not difficult to imagine that all your competitors are looking into the 2011 and 2012 marketing budgets and figuring out how to spend more effectively on their SEM programs and how to differentiate themselves in the market.

The immediate question for any small business owner is “How does our company define our SEM goals and objectives?” If you like, start with the basics. The state of search 2011 data shows that surveyed business owners plan to allocate their SEM outlays toward the fulfillment of five main business objectives.

Business objectives that companies are trying to achieve through SEM (by percentage of importance):

42% Drive traffic to the website
29% Generate leads
18% Sell products or services
10% Increase brand awareness
01% Improve customer service

The data above shows that a predominance of businesses have come to the realization that converting prospects and generating leads begins with website traffic numbers. Driving traffic to your site is the first step. Converting those visitors into customers is the next. Therefore, your SEM planning has much to do with luring prospects, content development, and on-site conversion rate optimization.

As you can also see from the data above, a slightly-lower percentage of businesses view sales and lead generation as a primary SEM objective. Although much of your typical SEM effort is geared toward getting traffic to the site in the first place, there are many that believe this traffic has an inherent value for outbound sales efforts.

The bottom three responses are fairly typical of SEM and e-marketing efforts in previous years, back when web marketing served to point visitors at product pages and optimization efforts attempted to shorten the path between product and check-out (as if we’d learned nothing from the decades before the dawn of relationship selling).

Note: In the forthcoming State of Search 2011 (pt. 2) article, we’ll discuss defining and measuring social media marketing, but it bears mentioning at this point that increased brand awareness is the top objective for social media marketing.

When measuring your SEM goals, the focus is on data that allows your on-staff SEM, or SEM support agency, to track the progress of a campaign toward your pre-defined objectives (as in above paragraphs). At this time, we are speaking directly about metrics for measuring SEM efforts and analyzing the results. There are a number of avenues for measuring SEM performance, but once again, we’ll return to the survey data to see the top responses from those businesses with active SEM campaigns.

The three most important metrics for use in gauging the success of SEM efforts toward pre-defined goals:

1. Site traffic metrics
2. Conversion rates
3. Click-through rates

Similar to recent years, site traffic metrics and conversion rates are the top two metrics for measuring the success of SEM programs. The click-through rate has seen an increase in importance since last year. Once again, more companies have come to the realization that converting prospects and generating leads with an SEM program will begin with quality ads that draw the eyes and the clicks. No clicks, no traffic, no sales.

In the end, planning and measuring a competitive SEM program first requires a defined, attainable, measurable set of SEM goals. Analyzing the results of your SEM campaign allows your marketing staff or agency to track the progress of your campaigns toward this pre-defined set of goals. And although the metrics for a large e-marketing campaign over a spread of media may include ongoing keyword research and evaluation, web site usability testing, competitive analysis, conversion evaluation, continuing development and testing of PPC ads – your site traffic metrics, conversion rate and ad placement are three top metrics for gauging your success in meeting your SEM goals.

Tags: Analytics, Content Development, CPC Ads, Google, Reports
Posted in Local Search, Microsoft AdCenter (BING), PPC, SEO, Sweet Spot Marketing, Yahoo | 1 Comment

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