Phil and Kirsty are right; it’s all about location, location, location. If you are a small business, it is highly unlikely that you will appear in the first page of a search engine nationally, so you need to focus on your local area. For example, if you are florists in Fulham, you need to focus on the customers who are searching for florists in Fulham, rather than florists in Falkirk and the rest of the country. Local companies do not have the budgets to complete for first page results for a key phrase nationally. It’s all about the local search.

At Infoserve, we not only use key phrases that are relevant to your company to help your customers find you, we also use locations. Letting the search engines such as Yahoo! and Google know where you are will make a big difference to your local search rankings. It’s essential that you use key phrases that are applicable to your company, but also locations where people will be looking for you.

With a KeySite from Infoserve, your company will choose three key phrases and three locations, and content will be written around your choices. This ensures that you will be given the best opportunity possible to get found by people who are looking for your services in their local area. Pretty simple.

A recent survey by American Express and SEMPO* assessed small businesses and their digital marketing strategies. The survey found that over 50% of small businesses admitted to needing help with their Internet marketing campaigns, but only 25% said that they would consider employing someone to help them. Nearly 75% of those surveyed said that they handled their online marketing themselves, despite having no experience.

Internet marketing is becoming more important to small businesses, as customers are changing the way that they find the companies that they need. You may know your way around a search engine, you may have even built your company’s website, but do you really know how to get found by the customers who are looking for you?

Websites used to be just a source of information for customers who were looking for your company, but what about the customers who want your services, but don’t know the name of your company? You could have the most visually appealing website on the Internet, but if you don’t have optimised content, no one who is looking for your services will be able to find you.

Internet marketing can be difficult to reason with as part of your marketing budget because you may think that it does not produce tangible results. But if your website is optimised and designed so that your customers can find you, your Internet marketing budget can be profitable and can produce the tangible results that you need.

75% of the people in this poll (the ones whom handle the online marketing themselves) may now be asking ‘but how does Internet marketing become profitable for my business?’ Well, the simple answer is that you call in the experts. You are probably very good at your job, but so are online marketing companies like Infoserve. They are experts in getting you found. It’s their job.

Infoserve has been helping small and medium sized businesses get found online for years, and they keep up to date with the ever changing world of Internet marketing, so you don’t have to. Let’s be honest, with your own small business you probably have enough to worry about.

Infoserve has the expertise to get the best out of your online presence, by creating a website such as a KeySite or EStart for your company, or helping you optimise your current website with a Keyword Management Report.

Start seeing results from online marketing with help from people who have the knowledge and experience that you need.
*http://www.equimedia.co.uk/index.php?id=98&article=800476944

Local search can be extremely valuable to a business. If people search online for a business or product in a specific geographic location and you get your business in front of them at this point you are well placed to convert them into a customer.

With online competition being so fierce any successful online local search marketing strategy takes planning, time and some good old fashioned hard work. Of course, there are some quick, easy steps you can take to help ensure your business gets found when people conduct local searches. Getting free listings on online directories is a good place to start. Infoserve has a number of high ranking online directories that will give your business solid online visibility. These include the popular business directory www.city-visitor.com and a range of industry specific business directories, including accountancy, cosmetic surgery and car hire. You can also get your business listed on Yahoo!Local through Infoserve.

There’s no magic wand when it comes to local search and it is important that you take a wide view of local search marketing. The algorithm used for delivering search results to users remains something of a mystery and constant monitoring is needed to keep your business visible for the searches you want to be found for.

Your URL, inbound links and keyword rich meta data and website content all help. A good website is essential to your business: there is no point doing all the hard work in terms of local search marketing and getting found if your website doesn’t deliver what the user wants or expects. Infoserve provides businesses with websites that are optimised for local search and which give visitors the information they are looking for. Some examples are:

· www.theyorkshirekitchencompany.co.uk
· www.electriciansstratforduponavon.co.uk
· www.urbanedgeacademy.co.uk

Infoserve offers a wide choice of websites, including E-Start websites, KeySite websites and bespoke and e-commerce websites.

Customer reviews can be extremely useful to your business: the launch of Google Hotpot emphasises this. Reviews need monitoring, however, as they can be both good and bad. You will need a plan in place with regard to negative reviews: perhaps that will be to respond; get additional positive reviews, or just accept you can’t please everyone all of the time.

Social media is growing in importance and you should always consider how the likes of Facebook and Twitter can be utilised for local search. You can use Facebook and Twitter to attract people to your website; although be careful not to oversell on these platforms – they are social arenas and people can get turned off by pushy sales tactics.

The way people look for information has changed. Gone are the days when people used a paper directory to search for information. The world has changed and if you want your business to survive it is important to embrace the changes and aim to get ahead in local search. It will pay to do so.

One of the great advantages to Internet marketing, as opposed to other forms of marketing, is that it is constantly changing and improving. The Internet is developed through programs and machines, so the possibilities are endless. Search engines like Yahoo! and Google are constantly adapting their systems to suit their users. The biggest change recently has been with the search engines recognition of the importance of local search. Research from March 2010 found that 97% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses and 90% of these consumers use search engines to find them.

Just think about it… if you were looking for a dentist in your local area, would you just type in ‘dentist’ in the search engine, or would you put ‘dentist Durham’ or ‘dentist Dunstable’? If you want a local business, you would search for businesses in your area. Search engines work by finding the companies which they see as the most appropriate for your search terms and then they place them in the order of relevance in your search results. The more often you are mentioned in relation to key terms and the key locations on the Internet, the more likely you are to be found online. If you are a dentist in Dudley, and have professionally written SEO content that let’s the search engine know that you are a dentist in Dudley, you are much more likely to rank on the first page of search engine results.

Infoserve local search products

The first step is to get your company listed on pages that are relevant for your business, such as the directory pages on Internet directories like City-Visitor. A directory listing on City-Visitor gives your company increased visibility online, and City-Visitor boasts 12 million number one positions and 22 million first page results on the search engines your customers will be searching in, including Google, Bing and Yahoo! Infoserve are the official partner of Yahoo! Local and can provide the local listing that will get your business found online. With an enhanced listing from Yahoo! Local, you even get reports that show you how often your business was viewed and clicked on.

Infoserve has created products that will help small and medium sized businesses get found locally by the customers who are looking for them. With Infoserve KeySites and EStart websites products, we create content and websites that will get your business found online for the key phrases and key locations your customers will be looking for. We make your business relevant to the search engines, and therefore we make you relevant for your customers.

www.infoservegroup.com
www.infoservemarketing.com

Ok, here’s the next its-never-been-easier blog about the best ways to market your business online.

We’ve covered:

- Infoserve KeySites, which are one/two page websites specifically designed to rank highly in major search engines for chosen search terms, like “garden maintenance in Coventry” for example (see here).

- City-Visitor, which is one of the most used business directories on the Internet. You can get a listing on here to be found on the first page of major search engine results.

The next product?

- Infoserve eStart Websites

It’s all very well getting your business to the top of search engines, but what if your website is really old or you can’t manage it yourself to update the content? Or what if you don’t even have a website?

Infoserve’s eStart Website packages are simple.

Easy-to-manage, professional looking websites at affordable prices. There are a variety of designs which, using your own images and text, can be customised to your business.

They are like template websites so you don’t pay the huge costs of design and build.

Infoserve sorts the domain registration for you (yourbusinessname.co.uk), hosting (your website has to ‘sit’ somewhere to be available for Internet users to see), but then it’s down to you.

YOU get to maintain your company website and be in control; you can view reports on how many people have visited it, edit any text to include latest offers and upload any new photos.

And if one or two pages isn’t enough, try out eStart Plus product which gives you up to 10 pages on content.

So if you want to ditch your current website (Not modern enough? Not able to edit the content at all? Worried it will cost too much?) or want to start from scratch and build up a website for your business, give us a call. It really is pretty straight forward. The hardest part will be choosing your design…

Another no-nonsense guide to Infoserve’s products to try and make everything as simple as possible for businesses looking to increase their online presence.

We started with Infoserve’s KeySite product, now let’s look at City-Visitor.

In essence, this is one of the most used business finders on the Internet – or an online directory as most people like to call it.

Someone searches for Hotels in Durham, for example, and you can bet a directory will pop up, because it provides the exact information that person wants – a list of hotels.

Infoserve’s City-Visitor website is a really powerful opportunity to help your business get to the top of search engine results. It has 12 million number one positions and 22 million first page positions on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo!, so if you’re listed on here with Infoserve, potential customers can easily track you down.

Infoserve offers free listings, but to get ahead of competitors there are also enhanced and priority listings so people spot your business first.

Infoserve’s City-Visitor website basically does all the hard work for you, getting you top rankings.

What are you waiting for: contact Infoserve to find out more about how we can help get your business found online.

Here at Infoserve, we speak with hundreds of companies every day and there is a huge amount of confusion about what online marketing can do for your business.

We just want to prove to you exactly what can be done through Infoserve’s portfolio of online local search marketing solutions.

So we’ve decided to write a no-nonsense guide to Infoserve’s products on this blog to really make everything as easy as possible.

Let’s start with Infoserve’s KeySite offering.

This is a really simple website that ranks highly in major search engines for chosen search terms.

The ultimate aim is to get your business on the first page of search engine results when someone is looking for your product or services in your local area.

Let’s play that one again. Would you like to be on the first page of search engine results when potential customers are looking for you?

An Infoserve KeySite can perhaps be targeted at a new product you want to push, a special service you offer, and it can either link back to your existing website or be a stand-alone website promoting your business.

And it can be written, built and be ranking in the search engines within a few weeks.

Just give Infoserve a call to discuss what search terms you want to rank highly for.

Or take a look at some examples we’ve already done for customers wanting to rank highly for garden maintenance in Coventry (click here to see KeySite), or car servicing in Dunstable (which you can find here).

It’s no surprise to hear that we are spending more and more time online, but a survey by The UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) estimated that the average person in the UK is spending 22 hours and 15 minutes surfing the Internet every month, which equates to almost one full day per month!

This is great news for businesses with a strong online presence, good SEO and relevant content on websites, hoping to capitalise from their efforts – and a wake-up call to those who don’t…

It’s amazing just how quickly things are evolving and the huge difference in the way we use the Internet compared to a couple of years ago. If you don’t have an effective online presence, you really will be missing out given so many people now turn to the Internet to find what they are looking for.

The full stats can be found in an article published by the BBC, showing a full breakdown.

You may have noticed a change in the way Google has been searching for your results. In the past month Google Instant has been predicting your search as you go, ‘faster than the speed of type.’ Researchers found that people type slowly but read quickly and this new innovation modifies the displayed results as you type, saving you time every time you search.

The creators claim that Google Instant could save you between two to five seconds whenever you search, and they even say that if everyone used Google Instant around the world, it would save 3.5 billion seconds a day, which could mean that 11 hours could be saved every second. That’s a lot of time saved for both businesses and their customers.

Now you might be wondering what this means for Search Engine Optimisation, and why Google Instant is important for your company. The changes to Google have meant that webpage optimisation is vital; if the key terms that a customer is searching for are being predicted by Google, it is essential that a company’s webpage has as many of those key predicted terms as possible. In the UK where 90% of searches happen on Google, tailored, effective SEO is a must.

Customers will view their Google results as more accurate due to Google Instant’s predictions, so a listing on the second page just won’t cut it, and accurate, professional search optimisation is essential. Our City-Visitor product has 12 million number one positions and 22 million first pages on major search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Infoserve’s SEO service offers your company results that are tailor made for your business and your requirements, and our goal is to help your customers find you as quickly and easily as possible.

Our products include a Keyword Management Report: the equivalent of an SEO health check for your website.

If you want to see your website ranking higher in the search engines and want to make the most of innovations like Google Instant contact Infoserve.

Much of the commentary on search marketing these days gets lost in technical jargon. As terms become more familiar, you’ll find “PPC” and “SEO” has just slipped in to everyday language and it’s easy to get confused.

There are many SMEs out there that are feeling reluctant to join the ‘online marketing world’ because they already feel left behind, or they don’t quite understand the significance of why they need to get involved.

So when you come across some really simple research which explains the importance of building an online presence, it’s worth pointing out.

The new ‘state of the nation’ survey from the IAB (International Advertising Bureau) is one of those examples. Really clearly laid out and to the point, it sums up how businesses are beginning to prioritise search marketing as part of their wider marketing mix.

Interestingly, 78% of respondents believed that search can build a brand. How do you think your business is reflected online?

As Infoserve also keeps pushing, websites are so important for creating an online presence and the IAB found that only 37% of websites are ‘good’ at achieving their objectives which leaves “much room for improvement once consumers reach their destination.”

It would be remiss not to point out our own survey findings too about the importance of good websites, which we hope are as clear… You can find them here . Get in touch if you want any help or guidance with kick starting your mini online revolution for your business.

So it’s not just us who believe in the search industry, we promise.

One of the latest articles by New Media Age, suggests that “the search sector remains the most healthy of all online disciplines.”

In a relatively rare UK-stats based piece (we come across US stats all the time which support our work, but we understand SMEs may be sceptical of any trends developing across the water as necessarily reflecting what is happening here), it states that

“Google’s prices are concerning many, with 69% saying keyword costs have increased over the year…Nevertheless, 39% said ROI from Google has improved, showing that if you invest wisely, then the returns are worthwhile.”

I don’t think anyone can escape the fact that you have to spend money to make money, just make sure you’re doing it in a way that can be measured and is effective, and online advertising is undoubtedly the best format for drilling down on these kind of results. And we think you’ll be surprised anyway – compared to traditional routes of advertising and marketing – online is very, very competitive.

Thank you to everyone who responded to our recent survey about online marketing and views about the internet in general.

We thought we would feedback the results so you can see exactly what everyone else is thinking too. We have compiled the results in a PDF document (752kb) for you to download.

Click here to see the results of the survey

If you are unable to open the PDF document, you can download the free Adobe Reader plugin, available here

So what does it all mean?

Nearly 80% of SMEs we surveyed think it’s very important to have top rankings of Google. Yet over a third rarely or never update their websites.

Having fresh, relevant and tailored content is really important in in determining search engine results. Whilst a few years ago having a website was the sign of a progressive business, people now look for websites that are engaging, dynamic and up-to-date.

It’s best to compare it to the high street - a stale and uninspiring website is like having a shop window that doesn’t ever make any effort to catch anyone’s eye. Most people would just walk past.

So what’s the next step?

Read our survey results to find out a bit more about how to evaluate your online presence.

The latest internet advertising results are out, which provide really clear evidence of the direction of online marketing.

(They are particularly relevant given they are UK based stats rather than a lot of US information which is circulated, and secondly, they are the results for 2009 so are bang up to date)

The stats are from the Internet Advertising Bureau, in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and shows a growth in online spend despite the difficult economic conditions.

Key figures are:

• Spending on internet advertising grew by 4.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
• Paid-for search listings (the adverts that appear next to search engine results) were up 9.5%, display adverts down 4.4% and classified adverts down 5.3%
• The number of people online grew to 39.7 in Feb 2010, representing an increase of over four million active internet users in just 12 months

So what does all this mean?

In a nutshell, more and more people are spending time online and businesses are gearing their advertising towards appearing next to search engine results.

Ah, but aren’t paid-for search listings expensive I hear you cry?

It’s one of the biggest myths in online marketing. Tailored, relevant paid-for search adverts can in fact be a very cost effective way of securing more business. You can find out exactly what gives you the best ROI and you can analyse which keywords are attracting the most number of click throughs to your website. Win win.

Don’t forget though, there are many other cost effective strategies for appearing on the top pages of search engine results, such as search engine optimisation (SEO) to help improve your website’s natural rankings, or getting a listing on a business directory that features on the first page. You can find out more on all these approaches here

As the virtual world plays an even greater part in our lives, there are two words that really get to me.

Those words are ‘UNDER CONSTRUCTION’ splashed across a company’s website.

I would hazard a guess that in the majority of cases, nobody’s doing any work on it and the words ‘under construction’ will remain for months and even years. It’s a cop out for most. They have bought the domain name, put up a holding page and think that’ll do until they get round to sorting it out, paying little attention to internet marketing.

But they don’t. Instead they forget about it not realising it will be doing more harm that good.

Companies need to realise that with 86% of local searches for businesses taking place online, the first port of call will be the website. It serves as their place of business in a virtual world.

And the fact is the virtual world is just as important as the real one, as it is the first stage in the buying process.

Consumers today are savvy. They want to know more about the business before they buy. So if they can’t find any information they’ll be off to a competitor. Just like they would in the real world if a note was pinned to the door telling them the business is not open yet!

And when people have researched online by taking a look at websites, 90% of those searches will result in offline activity such as calling the business or going to visit them.

So companies must make it a priority to get their website sorted out. For an investment of a few hundred pounds a company can have a site to be proud of which will tell potential customers all they need to know and drive business their way.

Only when it has been given the attention it deserves can online marketing be maximised, whether it is through website optimisation, a business directory or through PPC and sponsored links.

So if your website resembles more of a cobweb site, it’s time you dusted it down and gave it the attention it needs so you can attract more business rather than presenting them with a closed door.

The award-winning Hovis commercial about the boy going for a loaf of bread and journeying through the decades until he arrives back in the 21^st century began a nostalgic trend.

The cleverly reworked Milky Bar Kid and Persil Mum showing the commercials through the ages quickly followed.

Having discovered that nostalgia reinforces strong brands and sells products it won’t be long before others follow suit.

But this approach will not work for everyone, especially those companies overtaken by technology.

Take Yellow Pages for example. As brilliant and memorable as the commercials were, we are unlikely to hear the ‘Good Old Yellow Pages’ strapline being repeated.

Although it is accurate, as online marketing has all but consigned paper directories to the bin, Yellow Pages will not want to bring attention to the ‘old’ method of business search.

Re-running the cult JR Hartley commercial would only serve to demonstrate the time consuming method we once used. Today, Mr Hartley would not have to ring countless bookshops to ask if they had his book. A quick search on the internet and he would have found it in a couple of clicks.

Business marketing in paper directories was fairly straightforward in those days. Pay a lot of money for a large advertisement and the perception is that you are a successful and trustworthy company. The bigger the advertisement the more likely you were to be chosen.

The consumer of today is much savvier. They can do a lot more research about a company via online local search now. Not only can they find the product or service they need quickly but by clicking on enhanced listings in an online business directory or a well optimised website they can take a look at the company’s website and find out much more about them.

Mind you with Government statistics suggesting that nearly 50% of SMEs do not have a website, even though an effective one can be produced for less than £100, it demonstrates a lot of companies are still missing out on potential customers.

Perhaps some are still clinging on to listings in paper directories. But even Yellow Pages must have realised the writing was on the wall when they brought out the TV commercial of the small boy standing on one of their directories to kiss a girl. The pay off line explained that there were so many other uses for Yellow Pages than looking for a plumber to repair a leaky tap.

Having said that, one part of their marketing campaign still holds true today.

You can still ‘Let your fingers do the walking!’… Except now they are more likely to be using a keyboard rather than thumbing through a paper directory!

Well there are numerous predictions for 2010 floating around, from continued trends in online advertising through to how significant local search will be this year.

We’ve just pulled together a few salient arguments which will hopefully get your brain cells thinking about the future direction of online marketing

“Local search providers will vie for social”

There are many blogs like this one that believes this will be the ultimate test in 2010; major players competing for ad spending on the top social media sites.

You can see the appeal - online social communities are a relatively untapped source and in theory can provide a perfect platform for local businesses to sell their goods and services. If you’ve already built good online relationships with these communities, surely it will be easier than ever to promote yourself?

On the other hand, have a look at this post here, which predicts that social network advertising will rise and then fall flat. Perhaps you can develop good brand recognition but at the end of the day it’s a social site and preying on this precious space may prove disastrous. Any thoughts?

“Mobile search will capture the imagination of consumers during 2010“

The question is, will mobile search become bigger than desktop search? Local search has been shaping the general search landscape for a long time now, but maybe this is the “year of the mobile” that everyone has been quoting for the past few years.

Most people agree that the stumbling block will be user experience, which we’ve blogged about before, so weigh this argument up too. Websites and technology need to be spot on for this to expand as rapidly as predicted.

Finally, in terms of pay per click trends,

“We should see an even greater focus on display ads in 2010″

Rather than the simple (however effective) text ads there are, a whole new range of ad formats will offer a choice of appealing promotions - which surely will also improve everyone’s search experience as well.

Either way, we believe that SMEs can drive change and this is the year for them to succeed online. Maybe just having a website was enough before, but with local search soaring, and people recommending and reviewing, a whole online conversation seems to be brewing… which means 2010 points towards a range of different strategies needing to be considered.

It’s very interesting watching the recent television programmes reminding us how far gadgetry and IT progressed over the last decade. We can look back with fondness and a bit of a smile at brick-like mobile phones, walkmans, and video recorders?

But one of the greatest advancements has to be the Internet.

When we started Infoserve in the last century (1999 to be precise) the Internet was in its relative infancy. Do you remember having to dial up to get online in those days?

So we can forgive those people who thought we were a little crazy all those years ago when we told them about our prediction that paper directories would gradually be phased out and replaced by people searching for their products and services on the internet.

It was a tough sell. Yellow Pages dominated the market and through brilliant marketing they created a fear factor among SMEs. Businesses were literally scared of not being in the directory in their area.

It’s been a long journey for Infoserve since then. Being the first in the UK to have this vision (we believe), we feel as though we have set the pace and created the agenda for online local search.

Imagine when we set up city-visitor.co.uk. There was nothing like it around, so we had to build it from scratch. Today it is one of the most used business finders on the net with 12 million number one positions and 22 million first page positions on the major search engines!

In the last ten years or so we have invested an enormous amount of money in the business. We have continued to build our technical platform and improve search performance to cater for the huge growth in online marketing by SMEs.

And its growth has been astounding.

Today 38.5 million people (63.8% of the population) use the internet in the UK¹. This has resulted in 86% of all local searches taking place online² with 90% of these searches resulting in offline activity³ and 61% of the offline activity resulting in a purchase⁴.

Some people may say it was a huge leap of faith when we set up in 1999 but we like to think it was extraordinary vision.

So if you are looking for dramatic changes in the next ten years, the way companies advertise themselves has got to be right up there.

It is incredible to think that the Internet has now overtaken TV advertising.

With 90% of consumer purchases made within 20 miles of where people live or work⁵, SMEs are now worried about not being found when people are looking online for and the products and services they provide.

1. Source: Nielsen Ner//Ratings;
2, 3, 5. Source: The Kelsey Group, March 2008;
4. Source: TMP Directional Marketing Source

It may have been a while since we posted on here, but we’d like to keep reminding businesses that we’re here to help when it comes to improving your online presence.

Local search is still proving to be the winner. So many recent surveys are singing and dancing about how consumers are increasingly using local search to find what they want.

This study probably sums it up the best (which although is US -based, is reflected by recent UK surveys too). If you cut out the waffle, it basically advises you to think locally when it comes to marketing your business, and then engage with consumers who follow-up their online research when they look to pop down to the nearest place they can find.

So yet again we’ll beat the drum; businesses need to be found easily in this initial search process, as well as have clear websites to help consumers decide whether - and how - to buy from you.

Dare I say marketing couldn’t be easier? To quote one marketing legend, “simples”!

An interesting study from Borrell Associates, with suggestions that most small-business owners are turning away from local paid search campaigns.

We have long argued that appearing next to search results is the best way for local businesses to reach potential customers, but is support wavering? Is this down to cost? Lack of results? New and better strategies?

For a start, we don’t believe local businesses are turning their back on paid search advertising and our retention figures would back this up. With search engines still being the most popular way for consumers to find local businesses, it simply just makes sense to mirror their movements. Plus online ads produce measurable results, so I don’t think there is a better marketing strategy out there.

That’s not to say that paid search advertising isn’t complex and time consuming though, which is why we would always advise SMEs to employ someone to manage your account for you.

But, that equally doesn’t mean you should sit back either, so make sure you keep them on their toes - find out where your ads will be running to see the results for yourself, make sure you review your key words too (rather than simply rely on your account managers all the time), and use Google Analytics to fine tune your campaign.

Finally, one of the most interesting points I’ve read recently is that paid search advertisement isn’t just a quick-fix solution either. Like optimisation, it helps build your brand, your visibility and recognition too.

You can find some more top tips about Google Adwords here on a previous post

Following on from last week’s post about the drive to improve local search, it’s also worth reiterating the steps that the search engine giant, Google, have specifically taken.

The changes have made a huge difference for small businesses - integrating local business results into Google’s main search results and introducing Google maps which list local companies are two great examples.

I also think it’s admirable that Google Ads have the same format, regardless of a business’s size or success. All this basically means is that smaller, local companies have a chance of running very successful advertising campaigns without getting crowded out by the ‘big boys’ with their larger advertising budgets.

The competition is still fierce though, and whilst the cliché  irritates me, “you’ve got to be in it to win it”

(which translated into local search speak means make sure your business can be found online when people are searching!)

With all the recent debate about an emerging digital Britain, we use this blog as a means to promote the one area of development that we believe is advancing beyond recognition - that of local search.

Enabling customers to find particular products and services in a specific location is a very powerful tool. As with ambitions of creating universal broadband access however, local search still has an awful long way to go.

It has been summed up recently by Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and CEO:

“Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today - there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily.”

We’ve come a long way though, especially in terms of connecting local consumers to local businesses through online directories. Although sometimes criticised for dominating the search rankings, directories do neatly summarise what consumers are searching for and are becoming an increasingly popular way for businesses to reach the first page of Google or Yahoo!

Which means it’s left to local businesses to supplement these kind of listings with optimised websites and adverts of their own to appeal directly to consumers - and it’s precisely these forward-thinking businesses that will drive local search.

Have a think about what particular goods you provide that someone may be searching for now and see if you can help them find it in seconds. That’s local search at its best.

With the vast majority of business searches now made online and the success of paper directory and traditional local newspaper advertising methods in decline, more and more companies are beginning to recognise the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) to help them improve the natural ranking of their website within the major search engines’ results pages (SERP’s).

In 2008 the number of local searches for goods and services performed online increased by 58%, reaching a total of 15.7 billion searches for the year, whilst total online searches for 2008 reached 137 billion and today that figure is higher still.

The search engines list over one billion websites, the majority of them fighting for the top positions in their industry sector. This makes it vital for online companies to employ the services of a search marketing expert to help potential customers find them on the internet. Very few searchers go beyond the first two pages in the results, often not even to page 2, and the need to rank prominently on page 1 has driven this demand.

The constant review of multiple websites ranking positions is incredibly labour intensive and so many companies choose to automate their search queries. This can - if done abusively - impose stress upon a search engines resources and result in a ban being imposed upon the IP address of the user.

Infoserve’s SEO strategy combines the use of search engine friendly querying tools, techniques used to make a website more accessible to the search engines and users and the constant review of a website’s performance in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) in order to increase the visibility of a website in major search engines.

One such tool is the Ranking Report Software by Caphyon, which has been developed to emulate a manual search, therefore saving the user the inconvienience of incurring a search engine’s wrath and being denied the service.

With the help of the Advanced Web Ranking Tool you can choose to track the ranking of multiple websites through over 1000 search engines and generate monthly reports making it easy to get a quick overview of the evolution of a particular website. The Advanced Web Ranking Tool’s project management system can manage hundreds of different site results at once, using scheduled updates to avoid the task of manually updating each individual project.

The Advanced Web Ranking Tool can also help with the all important task of keyword research, helping you to find the most used keywords that people use on a daily basis to find the products and services you are hoping to market. It helps you to research and analyse new keyword ideas, identify search trends and get more information on finding niche market related keywords, by bringing multiple keyword research tools together in order to make your research much easier and more accurate.

Another important aspect of a successful SEO campaign is link building. The search engines view good quality inbound links to your site from sites with related content as a recommendation of your website. The more relevant and authoritative inbound links your site has from other successful sites within your industry sector, the more relevant and authoritative the search engines will deem your site to be. Successful link building strategies are based on establishing your competitive position in the online marketplace that already exists around your specific industry sector.

So monitoring these links on a regular basis is crucial, and the Link Popularity Software by Caphyon is a great tool to help you keep track of your websites inbound links. You can utilise this tool to find out who is linking to your website and which keywords they are using to link to you, you can also check on your competitors websites and find out who is linking to them.

Being able to keep a tab of paid for links can also save you money, if a link is broken or has been taken down the Advanced Link Manager Tool will notify you, it can also tell if the page rank of a linking page has dropped giving you the opportunity to renegociate the cost of your link. The Advanced Link Manager Tool can also help with the difficult task of finding new link partners, the Potential Refferers Wizard allows you to search all of the available search engines, using advanced search criteria to look for future partners who you may wish to exchange links with, listing them in order of page rank. So you can choose to eliminate any low ranking websites from your list of potential link referrers.

Infoserve’s SEO capabilities have expanded rapidly with the help of such tools, giving their SEO experts more time to spend on the one aspect of SEO they have not yet developed a tool for - good, old fashioned, human analysis.

Whilst many have tried to break down the complexities of Google and explain the power of search engine rankings, this is one of the most interesting articles I have read recently.

In essence, it’s an article about the dominance of Google but it breaks down the nature of search well.

Its fault (as I would always argue) is that it doesn’t reference the influence that local search has cast upon our day-to-day lives, although it does underline the complete dependence we have on search engines and how influential the page rankings can be.

I also love it when someone points something out that is undeniably true:

“Taking wrong turnings on the net can lead us to information that we didn’t even know we were looking for.”

How many times have you been sidetracked recently? The distraction has even been officially termed:

“In April 2007, a survey concluded that two-thirds of British internet users spent time ‘wilfing’ (”what was I looking for?”) while hopping around on the internet.”

Wilfing. Perhaps the modern day equivalent of reaching the top of the stairs and forgetting what you were looking for, as you become increasingly distracted by numerous other jobs you have to do?

Having touched on mobile advertising before on this blog, it’s worth keeping you updated with its progress.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has revealed that UK mobile advertising spending exceeded the predictions of 2008 and reached a total of £28.6 million

Paid-for-search advertising on mobile topped the charts, accounting for 50.2% of all spend, while mobile display advertising (banners, text links) covered 49.8%

So what does this all mean? This quote, from Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, sums it up well:

“Over the past 12 months the marketplace has been buzzing with anticipation about this exciting new channel. Now is the perfect time for brands to dip their toes in the water, to see for themselves how effective and complementary mobile advertising can be.”

Read my earlier scepticism here for a more slightly cautious approach, although it does look as though mobile advertising may become a pretty powerful strategy in future years.

My colleague came across an article in Marketing Magazine about how paid-for search is suffering as brands reduce online spend.

This is despite paid-for search being “hailed by the IAB as ‘the advertising recession-buster’, with more customers searching online for cheaper goods and services.”

We left a comment (how could we be expected to resist?) about how Infoserve disagrees. We wrote how we are

“…experiencing record levels of new customers who are turning to the internet to market themselves. Within the SME sector, paid for search obviously presents a huge opportunity to target local searchers looking for specific goods and services, and businesses are finding the ROI that online advertising can provide incredibly useful when budgets are tight.”

It’s also worth reading the last couple of paragraphs of the Marketing Magazine article about social networking sites and advertising, which pretty much reiterates what I wrote about last week.