Infoserve Group

I came across a very interesting interview with Udi Manber, the Google vice president in charge of search quality, about how search has developed over the years.

It’s easy to forget that even five years ago, it wasn’t obvious to most people to turn to a search box on the internet to find what they are looking for. Now, search is the most natural starting point for so many of us.

For Udi, it was all very obvious;

“It was very clear that to have an information revolution, it’s not enough to store the information and move it around, you have to find it.”

And what’s more,

“We are finding that user expectations grow. The kind of searches people do now are more complicated than the kinds they were doing five years ago. People expect a lot more from us.”

So, what are the predictions about the future?

For Udi, its universal search that is “more in-depth, easier, and allowing you to control more of what you’re looking for, giving you more input, finding more things”.

For us, we think local search will continue to develop and in our eyes, the shift to mobile devices will change and shape user experiences the most. The biggest challenge will be keeping up with these expectations.

You can read Udi’s interview here

A new report shows that online shopping has surged in the first six months of 2008, growing by 38% over the same period last year. This strikes me as a great opportunity for businesses to make sure they get a piece of the internet-shopping pie.

The figures may come as a surprise given the credit crunch and reports that high street spending has been falling, but whether it’s the online discounts or the offer of free delivery, online shoppers are obviously bucking the trend. The report even predicts that within five years up to 50% of all retail spending would take place online.

Whether it’s through online advertising, increasing your visibility on search engines or improving your SEO for your website, have you got a plan in place?

Tipped as a rival for both Google and Microsoft search, it will be very interesting to chart the development of Cuil (”Cool”)

Dave Naylor’s followers are watching it closely already.

Offering to deliver greater relevance in search engine results than Google and Microsoft Search, it’s a bold promise. Watch this space?

Yet again, the predicted power of mobile local search has been highlighted, this time by Frazier Miller, general manager of Yahoo!Local.

Not only has he predicted that by 2010, mobile phone are expected to outnumber PCs by three to one, he also believes mobile users will be demanding local information the most.

This means:

“We have a perfect storm brewing between user demand, advertising desire for targeting and mobile evolution that’s going to make this an incredibly rich arena for the next few years.”

You can read more about the growth of mobile local search here.

Just an interesting thought I wanted to share..

In August last year, Nielsen Netratings announced that 7.4 million Britons (23% of Britons online) visited at least one of the ten most popular national newspaper websites.

In the last month, there are some distinct difference of opinions over which is the most popular online newspaper, but one thing is for sure, now that the internet is a source of information for breaking news, newspapers now have no choice but to put everything they publish online.

This also creates an interesting future angle for online local newspapers;

With more and more people searching online for local information, and seeing as local papers are often seen as a resource for this (whether it’s community events, classifieds or what’s on at the cinema), do you think we are going to see local newspapers and Local Search engines merging?

We could even take it one step further; would this combination ultimately replace the traditional forms of print media and be a perfect one-stop-shop for us?

A good summary has been posted about Yahoo!Local, advising how it ranks businesses when consumers search for local services.

You can read the top tips here

(Or click here to find out more about Yahoo!Local in general)

After commenting on how people are searching – and highlighting that nearly one in nine search in a particular location – we’ve had requests to outline some of the best ways to exploit this.

For many search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns or online advertising accounts, getting traffic through to your website is the number one priority. Actually targeting specific customers – such as those local to you - however, requires a more tailored approach and local search is one way to ensure you are reaching exactly the right people.

Local pay per click (PPC) campaigns, such as a Google Adwords, is one option. Here, you can target potential customers who are searching on your doorstep, e.g. “Restaurant in Leeds” because ads will only show on searches carried out within e.g. 10 miles of your business.

Another option is to be listed on Local Search engines. With paper directories and phonebooks becoming a thing of the past, more and more potential clients are turning to online directories, so perhaps look at sites like Yahoo! Local or industry specific websites, like www.eatsomewhere.co.uk, for ideas.

Alternatively, local SEO is proving to be a very a good long-term strategy for increasing your online presence. It’s just a question of thinking about how people may search for you and gearing your website towards this, e.g. “Restaurants in LS1”.  It’s definitely worth reading this article here from Hitwise about postcode searches, which also highlights the potential for SEO and how people are searching.

How do directories and search engines determine what information a consumer is searching for?

Without doubt, it’s one of the biggest dilemmas facing search engines today. A classic example is when someone types in “glasses” into Google - are they meaning opticians or crystal glassware specialists?

Very few people carry out one word searches anymore because they know they won’t be able to find what they are looking for. Typing in the exact term, e.g. “waterford crystal”, is one option assuming you know what you are looking for, but it’s clear that people are becoming wiser as they get more and more frustrated with irrelevant search results.

Changes in search patterns are showing that consumers are learning smarter ways of searching, moving to more specific four and five keyword searches. And as we have continually championed, more and more customers are using local search, looking for a business within a location. Marchex’s report sums it up:

“Consumers are increasingly relying on local search to make decisions about where to spend their money and time offline. In fact, 86 percent of Internet users search for local products and services, up from 70% in 2006, and more than 90 percent of the transactions resulting from these searches are completed offline.”

So, with nearly one in nine people searching in a particular location, can anyone tell me why businesses wouldn’t chose to tailor their marketing to local search? Surely this is becoming the most obvious strategies for businesses. All that remains to be seen how well the search engines keep up with demand and drill down on exactly customers are looking for.

It’s been a great internet success and it’s made some enterprising graduates very rich; Social Media has been the most recent dot com boom. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Bebo to name but a few have created huge communities online and become a modern phenomenon.

These places where you collect friends, post comments, images and videos, and share them with the world, have been great success stories and who gets bought by whom for the largest sum is hot news.

This success hasn’t gone un-noticed and social media is now an integral part of many a website. Building your online community is building for success is it not? Users want to get involved, be part of a site and part of a community!

It’s not just about collecting friends and posting videos though, Social Media takes on many different forms. Take Amazon for example, their user review system is an integral part of their site. They rely on the contribution of their users, and if we’re looking at buying something we don’t know a great deal about, it’s encouraging to see several people rating your intended purchase as fantastic or the best buy!

Amazon is fortunate though; they’re a re-seller, they’re not selling their own product so it doesn’t effect them if something gets a terrible review. People are writing reviews on Amazon even if they haven’t shopped there; there’s an inherent drive amongst the new breed of internet users to ‘be heard’ and have their ‘voice’!

The Amazon business model is not harmed by allowing users to speak their mind and cast their opinion; on the contrary it’s an invaluable resource for the shopper. But what happens when we try and move this review model into a local search arena?

They’re trying. Yahoo!Local and Google Local have both added a business review element to their local offerings in the US and now the UK as well. Neither Yahoo! nor Google make their money from providing a local search solution; they’re a search engine/portal and do not have the right geocentric data to offer a perfect ‘local’ solution. Their core business is not selling advertising solutions to SMEs. This is why we at Infoserve now work in partnership with Yahoo! Local selling featured listings and providing them with geocentric business data for the UK.

Google Local in the US came unstuck when they offered the user the ability to contact a business directly from the site free of charge via SMS. It wasn’t long before this service was withdrawn due to it being abused. Adding a social media elements is not without its problems, even for the likes of Google!

If you want to find a local plumber you really don’t want one that wears a Stetson, chews tobacco and arrives at your house on a horse wearing a pair of chaps! Ok, a little artistic license there, but we all want someone we can trust and can be sure will do a good job at a good price. Recommendations by word of mouth is how many of us would choose a tradesperson or business, but popping over to the neighbours and asking them if they can recommend where you can buy some sexy lingerie for the wife isn’t always possible! I jest, but for many services and products we’re interested in buying these days it’s just not possible to find someone you know who can point you in the right direction.

If I’m looking to buy a new LCD Display for my computer, I want to know how good it is and how reliable it is on top of the technical specification. With the popularity of user reviews this information is at my finger tips, and looking at the average score from multiple reviews allows me to make an informed choice on whether to buy.

It’s not without it’s pitfalls though! How do I trust the review of someone I’ve never met? It’s open to abuse is it not? What’s to stop me or you from writing a selection of bogus reviews on a product from one of my competitors?

If I’m looking for a restaurant online, I’m interested in what others have to say about their dining experience. If there’s only one review, and it’s highly negative, I’m unlikely to choose that restaurant. If there are several reviews, the majority of which are positive, then I’m more likely to visit that restaurant. But who’s writing the reviews?

Some websites are now trying to prevent abuse of their review systems by allowing the reviewers to be reviewed! They’re building an online community, users are making online friends with other reviewers, rating them on the quality of their comments. If I read a negative review from a user and that user has a large number of ‘friends’ that rate their reviews, then I can deduce that this is likely to be a genuine review, and someone who’s opinion can be trusted.

Here at Infoserve, our business model is based on selling local search solutions to SMEs. We offer a wide variety of excellent solutions, but as yet don’t allow users to post reviews of local businesses. Why not?

The sales pitch! When a potential client realises anyone can write a review about their business and they can’t remove or edit that review, they are understandably apprehensive. What’s to stop one disgruntled customer or competitor posting a highly negative review of their business?

The Holy grail of local search will be the product that offers the best possible results and experience for the users, and the best possible, cost effective, advertising platform for the business; a site which serves both the consumer and the advertiser in equal measure.

Reviews are great for the user who wish to make an informed choice about a service or product, but they’re a potential deal breaker when trying to sell a local search solution to a restaurant for example; they just don’t like the idea that they could be given a poor rating! Here lies the conflict of interests; we at Infoserve strive to provide the best possible local search solution for our clients, making sure the consumer can find them when they are actively looking for a product or service, and we do this very well.

However, one cannot exist without the other. Without high visitor numbers, we couldn’t put our clients in front of a large number of potential customers, and if we don’t offer the best possible user experience for people searching for businesses, they could potentially use another site. Our cityvisitor site has 4 million users each month so we certainly have the traffic, but can we improve the experience for our users searching for a local business?

With an ever growing database of 3 million UK business records, we offer the best local search solutions in the UK, but the holy grail is still out there, and we’re searching - pardon the pun - for that illusive perfect solution!

I found this article in the Times about the online dominance of Google particularly interesting, especially when it pitches it against the rules and regulations facing the TV and newspaper industries.

“Traditional media resent the widening imbalance between themselves and their digital rivals who have a free hand”, writes the reporter.

Compared to Google’s remarkably unregulated online presence, you can understand their frustrations. The article reports that Google’s total internet ad spending is set to overtake the TV sector in 2009 so it’s quite astonishing that competition law has not yet crept into our online lives.

Could some form of potential combination between Microsoft and Yahoo! created a significant competitor in the market and challenge Google’s supremacy? Has the recent Google and Yahoo! deal put a stop to that? With numerous commentaries on Google’s market share rising to an all time high however, the article is also right in saying that media buyers cannot afford to exclude Google from their online campaigns by relying on the smaller search engines.

Here at Infoserve, we are in the lucky position of having close relationships with both Google and Yahoo!, but if it’s one thing this article has proved, online advertising is rocketing. Advertisers’ investment in local internet advertising services are projected to grow from $8 billion in 2007 to nearly $20billion in 2011 so if you’re not on board already, now is definitely the time to take advantage of the online boom.