Local Internet marketing, local search marketing and Mobile Internet marketing doesn’t have to be hard or intimidating. Click below to watch the two-minute free presentation…
It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Almost ALL consumers now rely on the Internet for researching local products or services.
A new report out by BIA/Kelsey and Constat confirms what many have known has been building for a long time. Local businesses can no longer ignore the online space if they hope to be sustainable.
That usage level is a staggering statistic when you consider its real world implications. Many of the people I see in my local stores now do exactly what I’ve been doing for years – Searching online to find their nearest hairdresser or hardware store.
And the online sophistication of local users might also surprise you. Whilst there’s no doubt that Google is the starting point of most local searches, consumers are turning to 7.9 sources when they do local research. And the savviness doesn’t end there. According to WebProNews’ summary:
- 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year.
- 19 percent of respondents made an appointment online in the past six months for a service besides a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service).
If you’re a local business and you’ve been holding off on your online marketing – now is the time to act.
The year was 1878. The first telephone book was published by the New Haven District Telephone Company.
This so-called book was actually just a single page that held fifty names. It was divided into four headings – residential, professional, miscellaneous and essential service listings – and, ironically, it contained no phone numbers.
That’s because, back then, the operator had to connect the parties. (Betsy? Sam here. Would’ja connect me to Doc Henry? I need some more of that ‘lixir for my rheumatoids …thanks darlin’).
It’s hard to imagine how ridiculous the newfangled telephone seemed back then. But even Mark Twain (who, incidentally, lost a fortune investing in new gadgets that never caught on) once remarked that he didn’t see much potential in the telephone. He figured that most people would just walk down the street and say what was on their mind in person.
After all, that was how people communicated back in those days. Few realized that a revolution was about to explode onto the stage of communication.
Fast forward 130+ years – it’s happened again!
A Customer's Favorite Storage Bin For The Telephone Book
Compared to what’s coming, you haven’t seen anything yet! Of course, Google, Yahoo and Bing already know this. That’s why they’re throttling full speed ahead to make Local Search ubiquitous – wired, wireless, desktop, laptop, mobile! EVERYWHERE!
Right now, as we speak, Local Search is shaping up as a primary source for local businesses to acquire new customers. And the growth-graph is exponentially shooting skyward as more and more people are discarding their 20th century style phone books.
After all, Local Search provides so much more…
- Customer reviews and ratings
- Storefront and product photos
- Detailed maps with directions and actual street views
- Smart phone integration with GPS guidance
- And a plethora of features and benefits in the works that you haven’t even heard of…yet!
The printed phone book is as functionally obsolete as the manual typewriter. Online access is the preferred means for finding business information locally.
That’s why local businesses that leverage Local Search are emerging as the winners. And the growth potential for local search is staggeringly high. The impact on your business will be enormous. The opportunities are huge and the time to get established is now!
It’s last call to get on the ‘local search’ bus – before your competition gets so far ahead in customer reviews, ratings, photo posts, positioning and referrals that you can’t catch up!
Ready or not, Local Search is here and gaining momentum as we speak!
Contact me today and we’ll discuss your options and a game plan.
Local Market Pro
(360) 747-7640
Half of consumers are using their phones to help make shopping decisions, suggesting that old-style feature phones have a place in the market, according to a new survey.
The report, by Arc Worldwide, based on a survey of 1,800 U.S. mobile phone users and a smaller qualitative study with 30 mobile shoppers, shows 50% of consumers are using their mobile devices while shopping. Since the smartphone penetration rate in the U.S. hasn’t yet hit 50% that means that many consumers are using feature phones. In fact, such shoppers are the majority — 80% of those users are consulting their feature phones for purchases.
William Rosen, president and CEO of Arc, puts shoppers in two groups — heavy and light users. The former tend to be wedded to their phones and love experimenting with new apps. The latter view their cellphones as an inferior, on-the-go version of their computer.
While many marketers are focusing on the former, Molly Garris, digital strategist at Arc, says that light users will remain the majority for some time. She suggests the best way to address the market right now is via multi-tiered campaigns aimed at users with smartphones and feature phones.
Garris says Sephora is a good example of such a marketer; the brand has in-store displays directing shoppers to m.sephora.com, which can be accessed with a feature phone, but Sephora also has a barcode-reading app for those with smartphones.
Otherwise, the report also finds that what is becoming a considered purchase has been redefined. “What’s casual is now more considered,” says Rosen,”and what’s considered is more casual.” For instance, shoppers are finding that bringing their phone with them helps them research big, considered purchases like cars on the fly, but phones can also add a layer of complexity to simple purchases, like coffee.
“Nothing more casual than buying a cup of coffee,” says Rosen. “But now Starbucks is using it to broadcast your location and pay for coffee.”
Read the original story on Mashable.com
 |
SEO PowerSuite launches Big Heart WWW CruiseBig Heart is travelling from webpage to webpage and lets anyone get a 60% discount on state-of-the art SEO software. |
|
This is the best chance to get the world-standard SEO software at a special Christmas price — and help your business enter a prosperous New Year. Check the rules, join the cruise and claim your Christmas offer! |
|
Cornell University performed an eye tracking analysis of search engine users to determine where users spent the most time looking on a search results page. Here’s a graphic of what they found, which demonstrates the difference in attention even on position higher or lower can make…
Results of Cornel University Eye Tracking Study of Search Engine Results Page
This is a great post I ran across today over at The Marketing Blog.
Effective marketing requires a knowledge of both search engine optimization (getting your web site ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines) as well as Pay-Per-Click marketing. If you haven’t strengthened your knowledge in each of these areas, I recommend that you consider doing so.
This past week, both Google and Yahoo! made pretty significant announcements. If you don’t know what they are, consider monitoring popular Internet media like Search Engine Watch or Web Pro News. These sites are always on top of industry updates and can be the first to publish news from the big search engines.
Google Provides Multiple Listings
It used to be that if you were in the first position for a keyword phrase, Google might also provide an indented listing of a popular page from your web site. However, this is as far as Google was willing to take it. Google has always been big on diversity of search results and didn’t want to fill the first page with nothing but listings from a single site. Therefore, Google would only allow two listing from your web site per keyword. But all of that has changed.
In an announcement this week, Google said they are now opening up their listings for a single web site. This means that you might have multiple individual listings for a given keyword phrase (more than 2), giving you greater online presence and more organic traffic. This is a surprise move but one that has a positive impact for web site owners everywhere. More listings equals more traffic.
Yahoo Using Bing Search Results
Although it’s been a long time in coming, Yahoo finally announced that switch over to Bing search results. Bing, formerly MSN, has seen a great deal of success with their re-released Bing and partnered with Yahoo to improve search results. The move means that optimization techniques that have been effective on Bing will now apply to Yahoo! as well.
Search engines each have their own unique qualities. Now, limiting the field to two major players, Google and Bing, SEO’s can simplify the optimization of web sites and blogs. The partnership of Yahoo and Bing may also mean more changes in the future. Regardless, we know from an SEO and PPC perspective, online marketing continues to evolve and our need to better understand how search engines can be leveraged from a marketing perspective is paramount.
Keep a look out for additional changes related to online search. Be sure to lend your comments to the discussion. How do you keep track of online marketing changes? What do these changes mean for your Internet marketing?
This is a powerful analysis by TechCrunch:
By 2013, annual global IP traffic will reach two-thirds of a zettabyte, according to a new forecast of IP traffic
issued by Cisco today.
What is a zettabyte? It is a trillion gigabytes, dummy. (I had to look that up too). And that number represents more than a fivefold increase in IP traffic from today. (See the forecast in the tables below).
What is driving this growth is video. Cisco forecasts that 90 percent of consumer IP traffic (which makes up the majority of total IP traffic) will be video in 2013.
Cisco also predicts that mobile data traffic will also be overtaken by video, reaching 64 percent of total mobile IP traffic by 2013.
Part of this might be wishful thinking on Cisco’s part, which needs broadband usage growth to continue apace in order to sell its networking gear. But part of it is also the fact that these numbers are based on the percentage of bits traveling over those broadband pipes, and it doesn’t take a lot of fat video files to fill those up.
Cisco is a big believer in the growth of mobile video, expecting it to grow from 33 petabytes a month in 2008 to 2,184 petabytes (or 2 exabytes) a month in 2013, which represents a 131 percent compound annual growth rate. (No wonder it bought the maker of the Flip video camera).
As impressive as those numbers sound, at that point, mobile data will only make up 4 percent of total IP traffic. (Good thing Apple finally decided to get with the program and add video to its upcoming iPhone 3GS).
Read the rest of the story on TechCrunch…
