subject: Local search: a new beginning for search engine submission industry [print this page] Local search: a new beginning for search engine submission industry
Ten years ago the online promotion mantra was represented by the phrase: "you must submit your website to as many search engines as possible". All the SEO specialists were claiming that a website does not exist if it is not found in search engines. There were a lot of software products aimed to help a webmaster to register websites to thousands of search engines (more or less useless) and any professional SEO services included the famous "manual submission" to carefully chosen search engines and web directories .
Of course, all this fever became useless when Google and other crawling-based search engines began to dominate the search market. Nowadays, a few backlinks are all that we need to have our website indexed and, with some luck, shown for some basic searches in the search engines that really matter: Google, Yahoo! and Bing. But today we are witnessing a new, emerging market: online local search. Despite the fact that the online local search market grows very fast, having an explosive evolution in the last couple of years, it still doesn't have a clear leader or a preferred technology, which makes us think that we are again at the starting point were the mantra: "you must submit your website to as many search engines as possible" can be successfully applied. This market was traditionally associated with "yellow pages" catalogs, usually published each year. But the traditional "yellow pages", based on printed catalogs, is losing support from the public and even the biggest "yellow pages" publishers are moving towards online publishing.
For online marketers, it's time to explore the options of local search marketing. In my opinion, we can distinguish three types of websites that can help a business to promote and develop their local presence.
1. "Yellow pages" business directories. YellowPages.com (www.YellowPages.com) is the best known. Such website allows user to make searches by keywords that describe products or services, and return results based on user's location. The results are displayed on a map so that the user can see the best placed businesses.
Although YellowPages.com is the main representative of this type of websites, in recent years their position is increasingly threatened by the "big three": Google, Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft) who have developed a their own local search service. Any company can now create a free profile at the following addresses:
http://local.google.com
http://local.bing.com
http://local.yahoo.com
It is good to have an updated profile on each of these services. In addition, other interesting sites are Hotfrog (www.hotfrog.ca), Dexknows (www.dexknows.com) or Local.com (www.local.com). But all these websites are offering more or less the same functionalities. Creating a profile requires only a few minutes of work for each website, so it would be good for any business to maintain an online profile on each website. Another advantage is given by the fact that a presence in such "yellow pages" directory doesn't require a physical website address. Even a business that doesn't have their own website can have a presentable profile on "yellow pages".
2. Job matching services. Service Magic (www.servicemagic.com) is a good example of this type of website. If you have a small business, you can enroll in Service Magic and every time someone would need your services locally, Service Magic will send you a notice. In exchange for this "tip" / lead, you will pay a small fee to Service Magic. However, it is your own responsibility to get the job.
Users who send their application through Service Magic cannot see who is selected and contacted by Service Magic, so they will not know what companies will receive their request. Therefore the application must be completed as accurately as possible in order for Service Magic to direct the request to the appropriate contractors.
Other websites similar to this are Bob Vila (www.bobvila.com), Contractors (www.contractors.com), RepairPal (www.repairpal.com - only for cars and vehicles) and Red Beacon (www.redbeacon.com). Even if these websites don't offer similar features like the "yellow pages", an online profile with a backlink to your website is well worth your time to setup your company profile.
3. Hybrid services - a combination of 1 and 2. Currently there aren't too many websites trying to combine the functions offered both by a service like "yellow pages" and a "job matching service", but such websites begining to appear as early as 2010. PinBud (www.pinbud.com) is one such site. In essence, PinBud takes from the "yellow pages" idea of a local business directory, but also allows the user, like any "job matching service", to post a request for service. This request will go directly to the companies that the user thinks that are the most suitable for his project, and the contractor's responses can be organized online. Thus, the brokerage is eliminated and the contact is made directly between consumer and contractors. Although initial PinBud subscription is free, in order to participate in auctions one must purchase a subscription. Without a subscription, the contractor's profile will still appear online, but paying members will have priority in search results. PinBud's yearly fees are nominal and will be well worth your time to setup your free Business Profile at PinBud.com.
Just like in the early days of the Internet, we don't have an absolute leader for this market, yet any business owner should take it seriously. Local search websites attract millions of users every month - are you in or are you out?
