In local search news, AT&T Interactive has rebranding its popular YellowPages.com to YP.com. AT&T's Jamie Carracher tells WebProNews, "YP.com will replace YellowPages.com as its flagship web property and brand."
This was actually revealed last summer, but is now being implemented.
About the change, Carracher says:
- Predictive text search technology that automatically suggests potential search terms as a user enters a business name or category.
- Search results, supported by YP.COM's database of over 21 million business listings, allow users to filter results by neighborhood, Video Profiles and business coupons.
- While in beta testing, advertisers averaged a 28% increase in calls and clicks per search as a result of placement on YP.COM
"Our new direction with YP.COM reflects our investment in developing local search technology that helps create stronger engagement between consumers and the businesses they are seeking to discover, find, and connect with," says David Krantz, president and CEO of AT&T Interactive. "With the help of our users and 5,000+ local market sales experts, we have a tremendous opportunity to keep helping our advertisers grow their business, while delivering a search experience that brings together richer content and transactional capabilities."
Users can filter results by neighborhood, Video Profiles and business coupons.
AT&T is also currently tinkering with Buzz.com, a social local sea/> [...]
When it comes to marketing in the current economy, small businesses need all the help they can get. They don’t have the ad budgets, the personnel or the time that the bigger competition has. But none of those factors really matter to search engines, and SEO is a great way to both level the playing field and steal marketshare.
Here are a few tips that small businesses can use to improve their SEO and user experience.
1. Turn everything into content
Content is still King. Search engines still love unique content, and the more useful content there is on your website, the more opportunities you give searchers to find your products and services. Rob Snell gave a fabulous presentation at PUBCON South, and one of the main takeaways was how to turn everything on an e-commerce site into content. Here are some ways to “free” extra content on your site. Here were some of his tips:
Record everything and transcribe it all into text. Interviews, conversations, product DVD’s, personal opinions, etc.
Turn support emails into FAQ pages on your site
Turn PDF’s into HTML pages (although PDF files can rank on their own)
Start generating videos of everything
2. Make it personal
Small businesses have a major advantage that most bigger businesses don’t: A personal voice. By making your voice heard, you’re showcasing your authority in your market, and adding trust. Buyers love hearing recommendations or reviews, and are more influenced to buy from those vs. product feature and benefit pages. Consumers use search engines to research products, and other than the /> [...]
It’s a debate that’s more common than you might think. Strategy or Tactics first when it comes to social media? Many companies approach their participation on the social web tentatively, picking a popular tool like Twitter, Facebook or for the more adventuresome, a blog. The exercise of setting up and populating a profile, friending others and seeing what happens is akin to the proverbial “throw spaghetti against wall to see if it sticks” school of marketing.
There’s a time and place for tactics, for strategy and for experimentation. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to test certain channels without a broad corporate wide commitment to being more social. However, that effort should be guided by smart analysis of audience, tools and with the aid of goals and measurement methodology. Without a plan, social media efforts often fail, waste time, money and detract from the brand experience.
There’s plenty of room for discussion on this topic so I reached out to over 40 friends, collegues and others in my social network to get their opinion. Responses include a great mix of insights, metaphors and analogies from the likes of: Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Katie Payne, Peter Kim, Debbie Weil, David Meerman Scott and many more social media smarties.
Does social strategy need to come before tactics? (in order received):
I had the pleasure of spending some time with Joe Sorge, who runs AJ Bombers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as Water Buffalo, and a few other restaurants in town. We were talking about how he uses social media to power his business and I found it fascinating. Here’s why this is a Kitchen Table Talks video: Joe shares how he uses a tool to humanize his business.
Copyright 2009 (c) Dylan Rosario - The founder of www.FleeQ.com a new semantic search and discover agent. Utilizing web 3.0 technology, fleeQ levels the playing field for small publishers and advertisers alike. www.fleeq.com and www.xyppy.com are based upon fleeQ technology.
SES provided by the IT training and computer schools network.
When it comes to marketing in the current economy, small businesses need all the help they can get. They don’t have the ad budgets, the personnel or the time that the bigger competition has. But none of those factors really matter to search engines, and SEO is a great way to both level the playing field and steal marketshare.
It’s a debate that’s more common than you might think. Strategy or Tactics first when it comes to social media? Many companies approach their participation on the social web tentatively, picking a popular tool like Twitter, Facebook or for the more adventuresome, a blog. The exercise of setting up and populating a profile, friending others and seeing what happens is akin to the proverbial “throw spaghetti against wall to see if it sticks” school of marketing.
