Local Search Engine Marketing

IOnline advertising is poised to surpass television as Great Britain’s premier advertising vehicle this year. According to an Enders Analysis forecast reviewed in this weeks Sunday Times, “online advertising spending will increase 26% this year to £3.56 billion” compared to a 2.5% decrease in television advertising revenue which is forecast to fall to £3.39 billion.

Analysts had expected Internet advertising to outstrip television advertising - but not until next year. According to Ian Maude, head of Internet for Enders Anaysis’, as reported in the Sunday Times, “The TV market is flat at best if not weakening, whereas online advertising has continued to grow much more strongly than expected.” In fact, increasingly techno-savvy Britons are turning from television and radio to the Internet as their media of choice. The Times quotes figures from Deloitte’s Digital Index which indicate “that 19% of households regularly watch online video, up 8% from August 2007. It believes that figure could rise to more than 50% in five years’ time.” It is expected that 50% of Britons will beonline video users in the next five years.

As Britons have made (and continue to make) the move from TV and radio to the Internet for entertainment and lifestyle purposes in addition to their business and information gathering needs, the necessity of having an optimized “digital footprint” in order to conduct online advertising and online marketing has become a business critical issue for small business and large companies alike. Even for the small local shop a web page that can be found online is the minimum business requirement these days. If Britons cannot find a small establishment online when conducting a local search for the products or services they need, their business is likely to go to a competitor who has tapped into the growing potential for marketing to disaffected TV viewers who are increasingly spending their time online.

The way Britons use their mobile handhelds and cell phones to access the internet and go online for local search and mobile search purposes is markedly different from how Americans do the exact same thing. In America, the number one online destination from a smartphone is Craigslist.com, with its arrays of classified and personal ads (followed closely by eBay). In the U.K., social networking giant Facebook.com was the top destination (followed by three.co.uk and Sky TV), according to mobile media analysts, M: Metric’s latest report.

This may not so much reflect the stereotypical Yank’s emphasis on business and commerce according to, as it does “the relative popularity of flat-rate data plans in the United States, where 10.9 percent of users have an unlimited data plan versus only 2.3% in Britain.” While Americans are spending almost double the amount of time on line from their mobiles as Britons (4 hrs. and 37 mins. versus 2 hrs, and 28 min. per month), and “social networks are running up the meters in the United Kingdom,” according to, don’t expect that to last. Local and mobile search are perhaps the major growth areas in e-commerce. As more mobile users switch to plans that feature flat-rates for internet access expect that Britons, too, will be increasingly using their mobile to find local bargains, shops and watering holes in addition to accessing Facebook or mySpace to keep up with their increasingly techno-savvy friends and the latest techno-savvy cultural trends.

Small businesses, local shops and even the big chains will want to ensure their online storefront can be seen and found as easily from a mobile or a laptop as it can be from the passersby on the street. Don’t underestimate the emerging importance of and mobile search to your firm’s business plan.

Internet marketing capabilities took a significant leap forward yesterday when Google previewed its new FriendConnect features for small business and other small web site owners. Following the lead of Facebook and MySpace, Google has now enabled small business websites to tap into the full online marketing potential fired by social networking media marketing that, formerly, only the largest of sites with ample reserves of money and technical resources could enjoy.

The idea behind FriendConnect is to allow transfer of user bios, contact lists, preferences etc., through the use of down-loadable widgets that will allow small site web masters to quickly and easily set up social networking sites on their own web pages. This will allow customers and clientele to interact with friends and contacts from their Google or other social networking accounts right on the small business’ website, providing awesome new potentials for the type of long-tail kick that online marketing is ideally set up to provide. According to Google’s Director of Engineering, David Glazer, “Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other.”

Google previewed its new FriendConnect features that let small businesses and websites tap into “any app, any site, any friends” online marketing technologies through social networking at a discussion for website owners at its Campfire One, Googleplex site on May 12th.

This week’s Sunday Times carried a first rate article on search engine optimisation, or SEO. The article illustrates how SEO can be crucial for businesses which rely on internet search driving traffic to their site, but can also be a business critical issue when a firm runs into problems with so-called cyber-squatters funnelling off their internet traffic or they have their website confused with other internet domains, as British hotels website Superbreak did when they were confused with an American rucksack manufacturer.

The Times describes SEO as being, “Part crystal-ball watching, part trial and error.” While it might seem that to an outsider looking in, particularly the crystal-ball part of it, that is far from the truth. The behind-the-page part of SEO, selecting key words that people are searching for and which describe your goods or services, then setting up the html code that runs your web site is really statistical modeling based upon past search patterns, rather than trial-and-error. What appears to be “crystal-ball gazing” but isn’t is keeping abreast of the tweaks that search engine giant Google and others keep making to their formulae which decide which page ranks where in an index, and then figuring out how you can anticipate emerging trends. These emerging trends and critical growth areas include optimising for local searches based on your firm’s geographic location, mobile searches which are now booming with the near universal proliferation of cell phones and handheld devices, as well as the emerging industry darling, using social media sites such as MySpace and FaceBook to boost your website’s Google rankings. 85% of UK searches are initiated on Google, making the other search engine’s seem like also-rans.)

What the Times article seems to lack is discussion of how SEO can be both critical and crucial for small business firms and mid-size enterprises. The reader is left with the impression that SEO - optimising your site for organic searches rather than the pay-per-click advertisements that are bid on and paid for (appearing in the right hand column and shaded top area of the Google display page - is only for big players and is relatively expensive, although not as expenses as a pay-per-click advertising campaign.

Not so. Small business proprietors and entrepeneurs who wish to achieve boosted sales through online marketing should ensure that their websites are optimised to the liking of Google and the other web-crawling search engines that rank their site and bring customers to their online door. Speaking with an experienced and successful SEO provider that specializes in small business and local search capabilities should be your first step in that direction.

Britons are increasingly utilizing local search terms when going online for products or services. An analysis of recent statistics shows that 1 in every 7 search that is handled by Google in the U.K. is executed through the “Pages in the U.K.” search option. This isn’t surprising given the increasing sophistication of Google’s users and design, as well as the heavy emphasis that all the main search engines are putting on local search capabilities. Google and Yahoo! maps functions, which display results specific to the area that is being searched are a welcome feature for users who are more and more casting their nets on the internet for local services and products. (Try searching “Best Pubs Manchester” on Google and see where you are relative to that city’s finer drinking establishments.) The tendency for more and more U.K. users to utilize local search functions underlines not only the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), but the importance of SEO performed with an eye to local search capabilities in particular. Whether you are the local florist or a chain retailer you will want the customer who is searching for a shop in their neighbourhood to find you. Online marketing specialists suggest the following features online entrepeneurs looking to optimize their sites for better organic local search rankings should consider:

• Tagging your site’s images - particularly if you are displaying local images.
• Optimizing video content - a no-brainer, but the more concise the video content the more likely it will (a) be downloaded, and (b) watched.
• Posting local news content specific to your locale.
• Listing your site within the local business ads section within your adwords account.
• Write an e-book with local content and publish it with PDF (I know it sounds daunting, but you may have sufficient content on your site already to turn into an e-book with little effort). Ensure your e-book is registered with a Google book ID.

Of course, as with any SEO your output in time can be significant. Working with an SEO company that specializes in local search capabilities for small buinesses as well as mid-sized firms can be well worth the money in terms of increased organic hits and click-throughs on your site.

Recently released financial results and industry reports highlight the growing importance of search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) in the United Kingdom. SEO and SEM help direct local search engine traffic to small business and medium business websites.According to figures released by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), £80 billion of consumer spending occurs over the internet or is influenced by it. In fact, 10% of all retail sales are now made online, or roughly £30 billion in all. IMRG indicates there is another £20 billion of non-retail consumer spending, and £30 billion of consumer spending that is impacted by information gleaned online. These numbers are only expected to grow. Small wonder that search engine giant Google’s recently released 2008 first-quarter results showed that Google’s U.K. revenues totaled $803 (U.S.), accounting for 15% of its total global revenue.The ever-increasing importance of online sales to the retail sector, and ever-growing competition for those sales, explains why firms are increasingly turning from in-house expertise to outside firms specializing in SEM and SEO. The recently released UK Search Engine Marketing Report 2008, compiled by industry leaders E-consultancy in conjunction with Neutralize (*/*), showed that firms and companies of all size are increasingly turning to outside SEM and SEO specialists for expertise in capturing and exploiting this lucrative share of the retail market. The E-consultancy report indicates that companies are turning to outside help for expertise in maximizing the effectiveness of both their paid on-line advertising (‘pay-per-click’) and their organic search results (their page rankings on Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other search engines). The key areas where the surveyed firms are spending SEM and SEO dollars are in:

• Key word research
• Landing page optimization
• ROI tracking and analysis, and
• Competitor research.

With the emergence of much improved local search capabilities (and now mobile search capabilities, using cellular phones and other handheld technologies), it makes sense for even small and mid-size companies focusing on local markets to turn to an experienced seo company with expertise in local search engine optimization. SEO and SEM expertise will help drive local search engine traffic to you, ensuring that even smaller firms get their share of the growing internet commerce pie.

The Kelsey Group reports that Pagesjaunes France will cut print prices by 20% while raising the costs of its online products by as much as 50%.

In 2007, online revenues made up 36% of PagesJaunes overall revenue, putting the company in good position to make the drastic changes.

Maintaining a balance between print revenue and online revenue is key for any Yellow Pages publisher. Publishers continue to make massive profits on the print product and with the knowledge that online marketing will continue to force major changes in pricing and publishing in the next eighteen months.

A recent study by Click Forensics indicates that more than one in four clicks on content networks like Google’s Adsense or Yahoo!’s Publisher Network were fraudulent.Key Findings in the Study:
• The overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 16.6% for Q4 2007. That’s up from the 14.2% a year ago and 16.2% from last quarter (Q3 2007) despite the many tools and techniques the networks have taken to combat the situation
• The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks (e.g. Google AdSense, Yahoo Publisher Network, etc) was up to a whopping 28.3% in Q4, compared with just 19.2% last year.
• The 2007 industry average click fraud rate grew by 15 percent over the industry average click fraud rate for 2006.
• The greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from India (4.3%) Germany (3.9%) and Sout.


Keep these numbers in mind when you see those enormous impression numbers in your pay-per-click campaign from the content networks. Are you really getting value from the clicks you are getting?

SearchEngineWatch reveals that YellowBook turned to their chief new media officer, Pat Marshall to lead them into search engine marketing, not expecting any serious results. Top brass didn’t understand why Pat would bother with their website, after all the major publishers were way out ahead of them. YellowBook’s search engine traffic jumped 137% over a three month period. The best time to get started with local search engine optimization was about 12 years ago. The next best time is today!     

Tough times may be ahead for small businesses but if you plan it right you can fly through the turbulence with ease. BusinessWeek offers tips on how to plan for difficult times including how to keep your customers close and exploring additional ways to bring in new customers.

Smith and Saunders, web designers in Cambridge, can guide you through the numerous opportunities available to you through online advertising. Stay ahead of the curve and do your online marketing research today so you won’t be scrambling when the crunch hits.