'Net Features : local business

Yelp Unveils Revenue Estimation Tool for Local Businesses

Allison Howen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:15:00 GMT

A new Yelp tool is helping local businesses figure out how much of their monthly revenue can be credited to the Yelp platform.

The Revenue Estimate tool is launched after the recent release of a Boston Consulting Group study that claims local businesses with a free Yelp account obtain an average of $8,000 in annual revenue from the location-based platform. It is important to note that the tool is free to all businesses that have claimed their Yelp profiles.

According to the Yelp blog, Revenue Estimate multiplies customer leads sent from Yelp each month by the business’s average revenue per customer lead. Additionally, Yelp includes the average spend per customer for each business category as a reference, which is based on the Boston Consulting Group study. Business owners simply need to login to their Yelp account in order to start using the tool.

Bing and Yelp Team Up to Take on Google Places

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:00:00 GMT

Last week, Microsoft’s Bing search engine announced a huge partnership with user review and recommendations site Yelp that could help position both companies to overthrow their common nemesis, Google, and its Google Places service, in particular.

Local businesses will likely benefit from this pairing, as it gives them an alterative or additional way to present their companies on a search engine and to increase exposure without relying solely on Google. In addition, having a Yelp listing could now get a business that is not currently in Bing’s database added to Bing Local, although this isn't a guarantee.

It should be noted that Bing is only using Yelp content from six different business categories: restaurants, arts and entertainment, beauty and spas, home services, shopping and local services. Right now, only about 30 percent of the business listings on Bing use Yelp content.

For the foreseeable future, the search engine will be using three types of Yelp content in its business listings: review snippets, business attributes and photos. The content is laid out with the attributes first (labeled as “Features”), Yelp photos interspersed with other images Bing has of the business and Yelp review snippets below the pictures.

However, while Bing will acquire basic business information like names, addresses and phone numbers from Yelp – mostly to ensure that it is showing reviews for the correct business – the data shown in its local listings will still come from the Bing Business Portal, InfoUSA and standard Web crawls, among others, so simply having a Yelp presence won’t replace the need to work with these sources.

While the partnership will only partially impact Bing Local business listings for the time being, I would expect to see deeper and more complex integration between the two services sooner than later.

Get Listed – Merchant Marketing for 2012

Allison Howen — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:30:00 GMT

There is a new Scrooge in town, and it goes by the name of Amazon.

The retail giant that stocks everything, Amazon, is becoming a little greedy in the eyes of small business owners because of a recently launched app.

The Price Check app drives customers into local businesses, and then with the snap of a camera, steals the customers away. When customers visit local businesses to shop, they can use Price Check to snap a picture, scan a barcode, use speech or text search to find an item, and then buy it (at a cheaper price) from Amazon within seconds.

With tools like this, how can local businesses fight back? By making sure that their business listings appear on every one of the platforms listed below.

Local business listing sites, equipped with customer feedback and daily deal features, can help drive traffic to ecommerce sites and brick and mortar stores, in hopes that customers leave that pesky Amazon shopping app at home.

A recent study from the Pew Research Center reveals that people rely on the Internet – especially search engines – when looking for information about local restaurants and other businesses.

According to the study, 55 percent of adults seek news and information about local restaurants, bars and clubs. However, 51 percent of those adults turn to the Internet for this information – with 38 percent relying on search engines. The study also reveals that 60 percent of adults actively seek news and information about other local businesses, with 47 percent relying on the Internet for this information and 36 percent gathering the information through search engines.

To increase visibility for all of these local business searches, why not get listed? Here is the ultimate list of business listing websites:

Google Places

This free platform is a MUST for local businesses. Not only will it help put your business in the top search results, but it also puts your business on the map – Google maps that is. Merchants can also customize their listings, by adding photos, videos, offers, special promotions and respond to customer reviews. And with Google’s recent acquisition of Zagat and implementation of brand pages into Google+, one could only hope that someday soon all of these platforms will come together to form a great option for local and social search and reviews.

Foursquare

This platform straddles the line between a social site and a listing site, but nonetheless it is a great tool for Web success. Merchants can claim their venue as well as create specials, discounts and promotions for their customers. This platform is particularly helpful for business owners that are thinking of entering into the location-based marketing game.

Yelp

With more than 22 million reviews in 11 countries, it is clear that this website connects local consumers with local businesses. This listing site provides free tools for businesses including the option to create deals, message customers publicly or privately and view your business listing’s performance trends.

Yahoo! Local

Retailers can list their business for free, including phone number, address, Web site, store hours and information about products and services. For an enhanced listing, business owners can also add a description, logo, photos and offer online coupons to customers.

Bing Business Portal (Beta)

Increase visibility by verifying your business listing to ensure that customers can find and contact your business. This free platform allows merchants to add photos, logos, contact information, payment types, menus and deals that can be published onto Facebook.

Local.com

List your business for free on Local.com, which will provide your business’s name, address, phone number and website. Premium listings are also available and start at $49.95. Features of premium listings include top search result placement, as well as enables businesses to include a company logo, offer specials to customers, add up to five photos and more

MerchantCircle

Through this local business social network, retailers can upload pictures, create blogs, make coupons and newsletters, as well as connect with other merchants for free. This platform also makes businesses more visible in search results, allows owners to manage and monitor their business’s online reputation, enables businesses to recieve local customer referrals and helps businesses advertise. Currently, more than 14 million businesses are included in MerchantCircle’s directory.

Manta

With more than 1,500 businesses joining every day, this platform helps businesses be found through its nearly 30 million visitors per month. This platform is free and focuses on driving traffic to your business and attracting new customers. Additionally, merchants can monitor who is viewing their profile and make business connections with other business owners.

Yellow Pages

Create a free business account on YellowPages.com and receive a listing and a free coupon. This platform allows businesses to reach customers and customize their listing. Additionally, businesses can upgrade listings to include more detailed business information, graphics and priority placement.

MapQuest (Beta)

With the free listing option from MapQuest, retailers can include website, hours of operation, photos and other information in business listings. The MapQuest premium option allows business listings to include special offers and provides the option to promote a business on multiple popular sites, including Yahoo!, Yelp and SuperPages.

SuperPages

Merchants can create a business profile and add online coupons for free with Superpages. However, the point-of-difference is that this platform also provides click packages to bring traffic to a business profile. These packages improve placement on search results, allow for an extra line of text within the business profile and include a bold business name display, as well as an icon or logo.

Citysearch

After adding your business listing or claiming your business page on Citysearch, business owners can manage profile details like hours, address and phone number, view page analytics through a dashboard, add an offer to attract customers, communicate with customers through an integrated Twitter feed and promote their Facebook business page.

Cityslick

Businesses can locally advertise online with this solution by registering for a local business profile so that the business listing can be picked up by search engines. Free listings include basic contact info, a map, link to a website and more. Other listing options start at $3.99 a year and reach up to $99.99, which include extra features such as ads, bargaining tools and reviews.

Localeze

Improve your business’s “findability” by signing up, reviewing and certifying your local business with Localeze’s Business Registration Manager. Once signed up, your business will be distributed over a large network of local search platforms including Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Facebook, Tomtom and more.

LocalPages

Like many of the other options, this platform includes both a free listing and premium listing choice for business owners. The free option includes basic business information, an optimized Yahoo and Google local listing and enables businesses to be found on Google, Yahoo and Bing. The premium listing features top search result perks, profile customization, automatic updates and sharing options for social media.

New Local.com Business Solutions an Exact Match

Michael Garrity — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:00:00 GMT

Local businesses take note! A BIA/Kelsey report states that around 17 percent of all Internet searches are "local in nature" and consist of consumers who are ready to make a purchase or are looking for local businesses. Some projections have that number growing as high as 20 percent by the year 2015.

Looking to capitalize on this growing section of Internet consumers and help aid local businesses in reaching out to them, Local.com has officially announced Exact Match, a series of local business solutions for small and medium-sized businesses using the 'Net.

Exact Match solutions are designed to aid local businesses move past their traditional business profiles by expanding their presence online, which will enable them to target and reach ready-to-buy consumers looking for local businesses, products or services on the Web.

"Industry estimates put businesses in America spending approximately $136 billion annually on local or regionally targeted advertising," says Local.com Vice President of Product Development Mark Wallin. "Exact Match gives local businesses the ability to boost their online presence, build their brand locally and drive new customers to their stores by utilizing the power of our suite of local online advertising products."

The Exact Match solutions consist of four main products:

- Local: This product is built to help local businesses connect organically with consumers using opitmized keywords and a geo-targeted website. It also provides content creation for their specific local markets. Local.com guarentees prominent, first-page rankings on a major search engine, such as Google, Yahoo! or Bing.

- Mobile: Exact Match Mobile gives Local.com customers a mobile version of their Exact Match Local website that features driving directions, one-click contact information, social sharing features, QR code capabilities and much more.

- Social: Local.com sees the potential in the growing field of social media, and chooses to meet it head-on with Exact Match Social. This product gives businesses a presence on Facebook and Twitter that links users directly to their Exact Match Local and Mobile sites so that customers can find local businesses with social media.

- Display: The final product in the Exact Match line was established to help increase brand awareness through display advertising on Local.com's flagship property, which reaches almost 17 million consumers every month who are searching for local products and services. Local.com provides local businesses with premium, above-the-fold, category and geo-targeted placement that helps them reach out to consumers who really want to buy stuff.

"We continue to use our experience in the local market to develop valuable ad products for local businesses in order to help them reach ready-to-buy consumers when they are making spending decisions within a targeted category and geographic area," says Wallin.

Reaching into Local with ReachLocal

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:15:00 GMT

One of the challenges in the local advertising and local Web publishing spaces is that there has not been an ad exchange or network which has worked effectively on that often micro level. That's all about to change with the release of a new platform from ReachLocal (the ReachLocal Xchange) that enables Internet publishers a way to "tap the advertising budgets" of local advertisers and offers local marketers access reach to local consumers.

"The local online advertising market is extremely fragmented and chaotic with tens of millions of local businesses, hundreds of thousands of online publishers, and thousands of solutions providers," said Zorik Gordon, co-founder and CEO of ReachLocal. "The ReachLocal Xchange brings order to that chaos by providing a single platform for these groups to connect."

For media publishers (website owners) integrating directly into the ReachLocal Xchange, it is easy to create custom ad inventory offers that will be displayed and promoted to local advertisers via ReachLocal's global feet-on-the-street Internet Marketing Consultants or IMCs. Some 500 IMCs currently manage local, regional and national advertisers out of more than 35 offices in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

This access allows publishers to generate more revenue and higher overall yield for their inventory; to enhance ad content with locally and regionally focused advertisers; and to create custom ad offers across different ad formats, sizes and types.

Greg Sterling has a great Q&A about the platform with ReachLocal co-founder Rob Wright that is worth a read.