eLocal Listing Blog

Real Time Search Really Happening?

Tim Judd — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:33:21 +0000

Yesterday I was in mid text chat with someone and my phone stopped sending messages…then my oldest away at college in Chicago called me up freaking out that he couldn’t text at all and could only call occasionally…then number two son descended on me with similar symptoms. Clearly something bad had happened. I tried T-Mobile support and couldn’t get through, the on-line help first couldn’t then crashed. Being the online kind a guy I am I leapt to both Google News and Twitter and sure enough there was a press release just 23 minutes old about an outage problem which exactly matched the symptoms so I was able to reassure my panicking offspring that the problem was only temporary and they should calm the heck down and stop texting whilst “studying.” Of the two solutions Google was easier to understand as I didn’t have to study the runes of popular topics on Twitter, but both point to the continued rise of news search and real time search where content indexed only minutes or seconds ago will show up in search results. It’s a neat trick and getting more real time all the time.

Word is that our friends at Yahoo are about to release a new real-time search which will be integrated with their current main search, it will feature all kinds of social and ‘buzz’ stuff…not 100% sure how it will look but sounds cool.

Meantime in a related story our good friends Google who have just about a perfect monopoly (90%) of European search are getting in hot water with the EU powers that be potentially landing them in some antitrust doo-doo. A group of what sounds a lot like Fraidy Cat Italian newspapers are bringing a case against Google for excluding them from the search results because they had refused to join the Google News consortium. It sounds a lot like sour grapes (albeit nicely fermented into a fine Chianti) but if it develops into a fight and Google looses the already fairly weird European search space will get even more crazy. Oh La La! We’ll keep you posted.

Reputation, reputation, reputation!

Tim Judd — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:05:21 +0000

Bonus question for five extra points and your chance at our grand prize can you name who lamented the loss of his reputation ”Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. Give up? Of course not you can name the fellow in a moment because you only need paste that into Google and TaDaa…it was that idiot Cassio from Othello. I say idiot because having been in a touring production of that play waaay back in the day bits of it are firmly lodged in what remains of my memory…and the love sick idiocy of Cassio (presumably not named for the calculator) has for some odd reason remained fresh to this day…ah the power of great writing.

I was prompted to that inane rambling by a post from the Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa, where she gave some excellent advice about managing your online reputation. Her jumping off point was to lament that there is a ridiculous college photo of her posted online which used to show up on searches for her done under her maiden name. When she married that problem went away. I’m probably not the first person to point out to her that merely mentioning that problem in a public search forum is just inviting someone to spend the $1.95 required to research such a unique name and post all about it online so the dreaded picture will once again show up on her own search engine. I would never do such a thing, it’s tough enough that the poor lady has a birthday that close to Christmas…Oh..no wait! But seriously it’s a real issue and I mentioned the likely impact the new Google Side Wiki will have on just this issue in my last post. The word from Google is that they didn’t create the internet and aren’t responsible for the results they display, that’s obviously true and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act means that they have to keep it that way in order to preserve their safe harbor. Putting a tool like the Side Wiki out there to facilitate malicious reputation assasination probably won’t help make this problem go away.

Her comments can be summed up reasonably simply as “don’t post dumb stuff about yourself” and “do post good stuff.” The first rule is widely ignored by millions who apparantly haven’t recognized that the Internet is forever. An excellent corporate attorney I once worked with advised me thus “Never write anything in an email that you wouldn’t want to hear read out in court” it’s sound advice and applies doubly to images and videos. On a side note, I seem to remember reading that Gmail was deploying a feature where it would hold mail created after 10pm on a Friday or Saturday evening for more sober review….not sure if that ever happened but it’s a neat idea.

So…take a couple of moments and read the post http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/managing-your-reputation-through-search.html and think twice before you put that hillarious pic up on facebook.

Something Wiki This Way Comes…

Tim Judd — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 23:07:14 +0000

As guys go I think I’m reasonably calm, doing my job it’s pretty much essential. I have been known to yell on occasion but I’m in severe danger of blowing my stack about the cool new feature from our good friends at Google called SideWiki. It’s almost entirely brand new but I imagine it has already set off alarm bells all over the world. Just in case this hasn’t crossed your metaphorical desk yet let me fill you in on the details.

If you download the new Google tool bar (or update your existing one) you will acquire the new Google SideWiki tool. It lets you go to pretty much any page on the web and leave your comments on that page in a side pane on the left. You can see other peoples comments and they can see yours. The site owner has no control over what people have written and they can’t remove it. Short of hate speech and obscenity anything goes…anything. If I knew your Face Book page I could zip over there and leave public remarks about anything I feel about you and you can do nothing about it…Nothing.

Here’s a neat scenario. How about I hack into a bank and steal a bunch of credit card numbers and post them on CNN. It’s not legal and no doubt they would be taken down, but not until CNN had discovered the problem and protested, and who should they call at Google?)

Online reputation management has developed into a significant industry. There are many online review sites where you can say all sorts of things about anyone including businesses. Most of these are mediated in some way and you have to know where to go to find the content. Of course some of them are designed to perform very well in search results but it’s been a manageable problem. This tool opens up a whole new world of pain for websites of all shapes and sizes. On the Internet famously nobody can tell you are a dog, all that is needed is a Google account (it takes about 15 seconds to get one and it can be effectively anonymous) and you are all set to defame and abuse anyone you think worthy of it.

You can also spam to your hearts content. I just checked BBC.co.uk and did you know that

“yootravel is a good travel budget site - Go www.yootravel.co.uk and check for everyday possible holiday voucher codes”

You didn’t…well you should do because it’s on the second page of the SideWiki on the BBCs web site…one of the most powerful and authoritative sites in the world. Is it just me or is this complete madness? There is a vote up and vote down button and you can report abuse. So far nobody seems to know what determines which Wiki ranks where in the side pane and it’s also unclear what impact (if any) this will have on the way pages rank over all in the search results, it’s too early to tell.

Lord knows I love Google, I had a meeting with some of them only this week. They are smarter than God and have more money than him so no doubt much greater minds than mine have deemed this a great and cool thing. The problem with the web is that apart from being a huge force for good it’s also a huge force for evil where the weird, spiteful, criminal and plain crazy are continuously on the look out for new ways to make like more difficult…and in my humble opinion Google has handed it to them wrapped up in a bow. To quote David Letterman to Hugh Grant “What where you thinking?”

eLocal Listing announced today that they have entered into a strategic agreement with PixelFish

@seotips2go on twitter! — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:57:20 +0000

Temecula, CA (PR Web) October 2009 — eLocal Listing, the leading provider of affordable Internet Marketing solutions to small and medium-sized businesses, announced today that they have entered into a strategic agreement with PixelFish, a leader in providing affordable and effective custom video ad solutions. As part of this agreement, eLocal Listing will begin offering its customers these professionally crafted videos as part of our Multi-City & Premium Online Advertising Packages.
New customers will receive a free of charge, professionally designed 20 – 25 second long video embedded onto their eLocal Business Profile Page and distributed across the Internet. These videos have proven to capture the attention of a targeted audience and initiate a call to action by consumers.
Both eLocal Listing and PixelFish are pioneers in providing affordable and effective online advertising solutions that level the playing field by giving small and medium sized businesses unparalleled access to these must have business tools; a strong online presence and an online video ad.
“It seems like only yesterday that eLocal Listing was one of the first (if not the first) to bring online video to small businesses with the introduction of the eLocal Video program”, said Tim Judd, CEO and President of eLocal Listing. “Our relationship with PixelFish is another way that eLocal Listing can bring value to our customers. We are online marketing specialists not movie makers, our videos were great but the professionally produced videos created by PixelFish have proven to be even better. We can now give small businesses videos which compete with businesses with much larger marketing budgets. It’s very exciting for us to be able to offer small businesses videos from a production team that has won three highly coveted silver Telly awards and the 2008 Horizon Interactive Award. The work produced by the team at PixelFish is compelling, concise and right on target in delivering a message that converts a search into a sale. It is like having an advertising agency on your team. We are proud to be partnering with such an innovative and talented team.”
John McIntyre, CEO of PixelFish adds, “We are truly excited about the opportunity to partner with an online marketing innovator like eLocal Listing. eLocal Listing’s commitment to giving small businesses access to the power of video fits perfectly with our strategy of providing the most affordable and effective video ad solutions. eLocal Listing shares our vision of going beyond simply producing a nice-looking video and taking it to the next level of delivering the most effective video for each business that measurably improves lead generation and conversions.”

About eLocal Listing
eLocal Listing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Search Initiatives, LLC and is located in Temecula, CA.
eLocal Listing specializes in managing internet marketing [internet marketing] campaigns for small and medium sized businesses. The company has over 120 employees and currently thousands of customers who take advantage of eLocal’s expertise in Search Optimization and internet search. www.elocallisting.com

About PixelFish
PixelFish, Inc. is a technology-driven provider of award-winning video advertising solutions. The company has developed a revolutionary platform for quickly and easily creating, distributing, and optimizing the most affordable and effective custom video ads. Its intuitive online applications enable a range of video solutions that meet the varying needs and budgets of businesses of all sizes, supported by its global network of more than 3,000 professional videographers. PixelFish is the leading provider of custom-produced video ads to Google, YellowBook and other ad network, search and directory partners. Founded in 2006, PixelFish is a privately-held corporation headquartered in Torrance, California. To learn more, please visit www.pixelfish.com.

A Fish Story from eLocal Listing

@seotips2go on twitter! — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:08:30 +0000

OK, I have waited my entire career in product marketing to have a product or to associate myself with a company with a great name. What did I get ? Atex, MEI and product names like IAR, Integrated Accounts Receivable, OK, I named it and sure it was concise and clear, you knew what you were getting right? Yep, an integrated Accounts Receivable package, but try to be clever in your press releases or your promotional packaging. I always wanted some sort of a name that I could rhyme with, make up cute little diddies, use puns, clichés, all those things that people roll their eyes at (and Marketing Coordinators that are 20 years younger, say “I don’t get it”, (shout out to you Jackie, miss you)), but I longed for the catchy, the inane, the just plain silly. Even if it never made it to print or web, it would have been fun to sit around and think of what we could say … I can just imagine the laughs we would have had back in suite 102, Aaaron, Steve, Justin, and the crew! Certainly, eLocal Listing is a name that is solid, makes sense, not a bad choice, again clear and concise, what do we do we provide Internet “e” Local “too obvious to put in parentheses) and Listing, as part of our Internet Marketing campaign we submit Google and Yahoo! Listings. And the logo, oh Steve and Aaron, just refrain … it is OK, I get it … blue, black, chart representing growth, business like. Sure it reminds you of the AT&T bars, but it beat the “ Mickey Mouse” ears logo we had before. But try to use either one of those to come up with a catchy slogan or marketing campaign. Sigh I had been relinquished to a career with product with a boring name … Oh flash back I worked and had to design a website for a company called PPI who had three big RED ARIAL ITALIC BOLD LETTERS as their logo … not good .. sorry, I digress and I will through this entire blog. It will make no sense and may appear self indulgent, but imagine my wonder when I was presented (like a gift) with something I could finally work with, a name, a logo, a partnership with a company who has a cool logo and a name that anyone who has ever had anything to do with marketing would die for … I had a fish. OK, I always wanted a dog, but a fish would do!

So, no I am not going to tell you what I am actually talking about (yet) … I have a fish (of sorts), so for the next few minutes, I am going to get it out of my system … so Martin, our amazing Social Media guy points me to an all Fish Quote site for inspiration … Oh this is fun!

So, let’s see now I can use sayings like “get hooked on”, the whole teach a man to fish saying, fish tales, fish stories, nothing fishy here … fish and visitors stink after three days … Sorry, I know I can’t actually use that one, but I always wanted to quote Ben Franklin in something I did …

Alright so it isn’t as easy as it seems … but it was fun nonetheless .. I guess I could use some help … anyone have any good fish quotes … after all those years with boring names and logos and I draw a blank … Comments, responses are welcomed and encouraged, can’t give you anything for them, just a thanks!

“Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Give me a PixelFish and I eat for a lifetime.” That is your only clue on what I am talking about!

Til next time … more great stuff coming.

This post was written by Carolee Collins

eLocal Listing: DMS 09 – Directional Media Strategies recap with Stephen Espinosa

@seotips2go on twitter! — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:59:10 +0000

Here is a recap from e Local listing’s Stephen Espinosa DMS 09 – Direction Media Strategies session.

Fixing the taxonomy structure of a site is not enough on its own, the other content and tag structures is as important if not more important.

YellowPages has to figure out a way to deliver answers to questions asked that don’t follow a normal YP (YellowPages) structure

Engaging the community to add more content is important, user or business generated content drives SEO results

SEO needs to filter through the entire organization, from sales people up through all aspects of product

If you rely on business to create their own content you can run into big problems

Setting the right expectation is important, in the early days of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) sales people scortched the earth and burned a lot of trust.

WebVisibles’ sweet spot is 800-1200 per month and they look for one year engagements to allow for peaks and troughs in the market

IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages) aren’t doing a good job of optimizing and distributing local customer videos, the search engines want to display video to video destinations….local videos are the easiest way to get ranked on the front page of search.

SEO can be less tangible but adds enormous value, if it can also stop one of your competitors from getting to the front page.

Videos are sexy…elocal sees 3.1x improvement in performance…video ad networks don’t work as well as youtube and yahoo video

One of the strongest ways to get multiple hits is to put data on multiple domains

Freshness of content is as important as having content…don’t expect immediate results…it’s not “Set and Forget”

You have to be committed to SEO from the top…it’s not black magic it’s an important way to drive results

So there you have it! A great recap from e Local Listing’s Stephen Espinosa’s session at Direction Media Strategies.

Yellow Pages in Turmoil…The Conference

Tim Judd — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:21:32 +0000

Doing the job I do I get to attend quite a few conferences. Some are very tech oriented with an average attendee age of about 12 with body piercings mandatory, others are more marketing focused, but Kelsey gets the prize for the best food and the most suits. DMS ’09 happened last week in Orlando and we may have been the only group of people wearing jackets within a twenty mile radius.

It was a fascinating conference, I’ll admit that hour after hour focused on trends and solutions for the emerging online side of the Yellow Pages industry isn’t everyone’s idea of a fun couple of days…but I was transfixed. To appreciate the magnitude of the challenge faced by this industry you only need to look at the massive losses and bankruptcies that litter this industry. They have been hit by the perfect storm of market changes, technology advances and economic decline. The days when local businesses bought yellow page print advertising automatically are long gone golden age. The Yellow Page Behemoths are surrounded and confounded by emerging online competitors who don’t have to kill trees to reach customers. Advertisers are becoming focused on one thing and one thing alone…results. To be specific in tough economic times where every advertising dollar is carefully scrutinized they want leads.

Several interesting threads emerged from the conference worth considering in more detail.

* Competition between YP providers is hurting themselves more than anyone else. They had better start hanging together or they will be hung separately.
* Their single strongest surviving asset is the relationship they enjoy with their advertisers through their sales force…and a sales force is essential to work with local businesses.
* Their role is changing, to survive the storm they must become consultative partners for local businesses delivering the leads their advertisers need across all sources.

Perhaps the best summary of where the industry is headed articulated the need as follows.

The winners in the current battle will be those who can provide the following

1. Presence, all the things needed to ensure that the advertiser has an accurate persistent presence both online and offline on a low fixed price basis.
2. Performance, the ability for a business to get more leads to meet their needs on a performance basis such as Pay Per Click or Pay Per Call.
3. Permanence, the ability to provide to advertisers with tools to strengthen the relationship which advertisers have with their customers; social media, blogs and tools like linked in are examples of this.

The good news from our point of view is that we are already delivering on all three of these approaches. We have more to do no doubt, but it was encouraging to see that we are moving in the right direction.

Martin Canchola speaks about HyperLocal Content on Webmaster Radio

@seotips2go on twitter! — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:35:44 +0000

I had the privilege of being invited to Webmaster Radio to speak on SEM Synergy Hosted by Bruce Clay, president and founder of the international SEO and SEM company Bruce Clay, Inc. I was interviewed
by Virginia, an Associate Writer and director of the radio show. Also had Ben Saren as a guest who is an Online media entrepreneur and CEO of CitySquares.com.

We began talking about the new buzz about hyperlocal content. Which as Ben Saren says “Has actually been around for over 100 years.” Ever since the days of the newspapers.” Everyone wants Hyper Local news going on in there local neighborhoods. It’s not just about the main city in question anymore, it’s about the towns and neighborhoods. Now with the usage digital media means like photo and video cameras, audio recorders, and blogs.

Hyperlocal Blogger Toolbox:

Smart Phone or any find of digital phone that can take picture, tweet, and record video!
GeoToolKit http://outside.in
http://flickr.com
http://youtube.com
http://twitter.com
http://theflip.com

Hyperlocal Websites and Blogs:

http://neighborlogs.com/
http://wikicity.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://everyblock.com/
http://fwix.com/

Hyperlocal Twitter Tools:

http://localtweeps.com/
http://chirpcity.com/

Listen to this Podcast on Hyper Local Content.
Connect with me:
http://twitter.com/seotips2go
http://twitter.com/elocalrocks

TechCrunch50 2009 Wrap Up in San Francisco!

@seotips2go on twitter! — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:29:43 +0000

TechCrunch50 was probably the biggest event I have been to yet! The amount of companies there was astounding! I had the privilege of meeting one of the biggest Hip Hop superstars there, Chamillionaire! Don’t be quick to judge, Chamillionaire has some deep insights when it comes to social media and web 2.0! He was on the judges panel for reviewing the startups at TechCrunch50. There were over 47 companies that were selected from over 1,000 applicants.

These were the selected TechCrunch50 Companies:

All these companies were competing to be the top presenting company at TechCrunch50 to win a $50,000 grand prize! The TechCrunch50 Best-In-Show Award was determined by a panel of experts and the conference organizers.

Winners

Congratulations to all of the winners:

TC50 Winner:
Redbeacon

TC50 Finalists:
Threadsy
AnyClip
CitySourced

Best Presentation:
iMo

Best International Company:
Trollim

Microsoft BizSpark Award Winner:
AnyClip

Perkins Coie Award WInner
Toybots

Demopit Winners:
oDesk
YourVersion
Socialwok
Chyngle

So, if you didn’t have a chance to make it to this TechCrunch50 2009 event be sure to make the next one! Too much fun to pass up!!!

Local Search Summit Wrap Up

Aaron Irizarry — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:55:19 +0000

Recently eLocal Listing was a sponsor at the Local Search Summit conference during SES San Jose. Local Search Summit was one of the first conferences with it’s main focus being local search. Some of the highlighted speakers were Jason Calcanis (Mahalo), Steve Stukenborg (Google), Jeremy Stoppleman (Yelp), Jennifer Chin (Google), Sarah Smith (Facebook), and plenty of others.

Since Local Search Summit was only one day each panel was jammed packed with today’s thought leaders on local search, social media, and mobile technology. Steve Espinosa moderated quite a few panels, and eLocal’s Todd Johnson made an appearance on the panel about “What kind of products do small businesses really need” and shared his sales experience and knowledge with the crowd. I personally was honored to share a panel with Will Scott of Search Influence, and Sarah Smith of Facebook where we discussed social media’s impact on the ability to drive and convert leads for small businesses. You can see my presentation here, and Sarah’s presentation here. (make sure to turn up your volume, as the audio is a bit low).

Overall I enjoyed every session and was able to take away something valuable from each one. eLocal’s Own Steve Espinosa headed up the conference and was well applauded for a great event that ended up being the talk of SES San Jose.

Here are some links to other blogs that covered the events and their feedback/wrap up’s.

SES San Jose YouTube Chanel

Local Search News Wrap Up

Aaron Irizarry Social Media Session and Q&A

Expand 2 Web by Don Campbell Summit Wrap up