Infoserve Group

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.

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 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”!

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.

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?

Connecting businesses with consumers searching online is the driving force behind Infoserve.

For businesses that are on board with us, they are seeing very real and tangible results - increased visibility online, increased leads and increased sales. Our aim is to convince every business that it can happen for them, too. The internet is a big piece of pie and everyone can have a slice.

The latest research from Webvisible/Nielsen online is a reminder that there is still plenty of work to be done.

They identify a massive gap between online consumer behaviour and small business marketing, and it goes something like this:

There is a “significant difference between the way Internet users search for local products and services and the manner in which small businesses market themselves”

and

“Because of this ‘Great Divide’, local businesses miss a significant opportunity.”

Here are the stats:

• Consumers use search engines 72% more often than they did two years ago
• Search engines are the No. 1 choice of consumers and small business owners alike when looking for a local product or service.

Yet, only 44% of small businesses have a website and half spend less than 10% of their marketing budget on Internet advertising.

So there you have it, the majority of businesses are failing to connect with their consumers. Are you?

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 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