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It’s clear to see that lately Google have been focusing on local search results, there are more and more businesses appearing for local search terms and the features of the Google Local Business Centre are increasing.

Now it appears that Google doesn’t want to stop there, they have been testing out Google Local Ads in San Diego and San Francisco, an example of how these look can be seen below.

It appears to be an extension of the Sponsored results that appear at the top of the Google search results. The impact of this means that organic listings for these types of searches are being pushed down the page, clearly showing Google’s intentions for Local Search.

Google Local Ads work in a similar way to Google Adwords, whereby you pay for the listing itself. The difference however is that you don’t  pay on a Cost Per Click basis, you pay a fee every month. This fee will vary depending on the competition for that keyword and for that area.

Google Local Ads will soon be released in the UK, you can find more information on it at the Google Local Ads page.

Infoserve Provide a FREE Google Local Guide which can be found here

Follow Infoserve on twitter for alerts on Google Local news.

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!)

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?

Anyone heard of Google Insights before?

Fascinating stuff, it’s basically insights into consumer behaviour and advertising from numerous sources (Google included).

It’s particularly good for going back to basics and breaking down all the technical jargon about online marketing, but it is also reaffirms the power of the internet in helping drive business. For example, I was reading Speeding Up in the Slowdown (Google, Nov 08);

“The slowdown will fuel online growth. Consumers value the information and opinions they can find online. As household budgets get squeezed it is likely that consumers’ use of the Internet to find the best deal will accelerate.”

It’s a good reminder that people shop around; they bargain hunt, compare products, look for special offers, read reviews… in other words, your online presence and reputation is getting more and more important.

The key message is that people use search engines to find this information. In fact, Google report that 73% of users find search engines an important resource when researching a product, ahead of personal recommendations (63%).

So, are there any reviews of your product when you run a search? Do you have special offers that consumers can find easily?

Make sure there’s no slowdown in your business plan for 2009 by having a quick read through Speeding Up in the Slowdown to pick up some handy hints - and on that note - Happy New Year!

If you ever need convincing of the significance of local search, you only have to turn to look at the actual breakdown of Google search results these days to see exactly why it’s becoming so important.

Do a search on Google for a business or service and you would expect to find websites that link to these search terms.

In actual fact, the websites often appear towards the bottom of the first page and instead, your eye line is drawn towards maps showing the locations of local businesses, sponsored links and advertisement, and business listings from the local area.

So if you’re a business looking to target these potential customers, what this means is that SEO will only get you so far in drawing people to your website. When internet users today are demanding immediate and relevant results, they won’t spend long looking for the information, so appearing on Google maps or being one of the sponsored ads presents a priceless opportunity.

Ah, but is this expensive, I hear you cry? As we’re always telling SMEs with tight budgets, online advertising has one key advantage over others; you can find out exactly what gives you the best return on investment and measure its effectiveness, so even in these tough economic times, you’ll be amazed at how online marketing can help generate cost effective leads for you.

Being able to directly target your key audience in an online advertising campaign presents an incredible opportunity for SMEs.

And without the backing of big marketing budgets, any online advertising campaign should take advantage of this to exploit your strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, running your own campaign on Google or Yahoo! can be quite time consuming and complicated to monitor. To maximise effectiveness and get the best return on your advertising spend, you need to have the ad-creatives that attract the consumer to click on the ad and then to phone or visit your business, and you need to ensure that your campaign covers all the various goods and services that you offer where you make most of the profit.

Most SMEs are great at running their own businesses but do not have the time or necessary skills to set up and run their campaigns but there are some great resellers of these campaigns who can help you through this potential minefield for a fairly low fee.

Consider:

• Time: Set your ads to run at specific times to suit you

If you run a typical 9am – 5pm type business, you may find you are wasting money by running ads that appear after work hours and missing any calls that come through.

Similarly, think about when your target market will be searching; for example, if you’re a recruitment agency, you would expect people to be searching outside of work hours

• Locality: Through IP settings, set up your ad campaigns to target people searching in a certain area

With 9 out of 10 people searching for businesses or service in a certain area, make sure your ads reach the people who are looking for you at that exact same time they are searching. You can read all about local search here.

To make sure you get the best attention try and find the Authorised Resellers of both Google and Yahoo! as the search engines themselves have picked them specifically for their honesty, integrity, and transparency of charges as well as their skills.

No doubt many of you will have read in recent weeks about Google’s 10^th birthday and the profound impact that it has had on our lives. Like our previous post about the history and future of local search, it’s hard to take time out to consider where we were a decade a go – and even more so, where we may be in another 10 years time.

Google has certainly shaped the way we search for information in the last decade; it has dominated the market, Google Adwords advertising has transformed how businesses can target their consumers and now Google Maps will be a huge source of information for users and business owners alike.

Can anyone envisage anything that will have such a big an influence on shaping our search patterns in the next 10 years? Various predictions have been circulating:

• - will social networking sites increasingly shape how people search for information about people and organisations?
• - can rival search engines, such as Yahoo! or even the new kid on the block, Cuil, challenge Google?
• - will comparison sites be used more and more to help us drill down on how products and services compare across the board, not only in terms of price but also consumers’ reviews?
• - finally, one of our predictions: will local search dominate our thinking? (particularly that of mobile local search, which you can read all about here.)

For SMEs, it’s a fast paced environment to keep up-to-date with and will be even more so in the coming years as technology improves. It’s important to think ahead about how your consumers may be searching for you in the future, so take that time out now to consider how best to market your business.

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.