'Net Features : yahoo local

Want Fair Reviews? Go to Yelp.

Mike Phillips — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:14:00 GMT

According to a study titled Anonymity, Social Image, and the Competition for Volunteers: A Case Study of the Online Market for Reviews, by economics professor Zhongmin Wang, Yelp.com offers the most balanced business reviews when compared to those of Citysearch and Yahoo Local.

The findings show the proportion of 5-star ratings at Yelp (24.4 percent) is less than that at Citysearch (50.3 percent) or Yahoo Local (58.8 percent). The same holds true for 1-star ratings, with Yelp showing proportions of 5.9 percent, compared to Citysearch (16.4 percent) and Yahoo Local (6.9 percent). In other words, where Yelp is more balanced, Citysearch and Yahoo are more extreme.

Another interesting finding was that Yelp reviewers are much more active. Just 9 percent of Yelp reviewers had posted only one review. Compare that to Citysearch, where 71 percent of users posted only one review, and Yahoo Local (56 percent).

As business owners, it appears that Yelp is the place where you can get the fairest, most trusted reviews of your business. Not only is this important for your own research purposes but also a sign that Yelp is trusted by other consumers, making it a site that must be monitored. On the other end, Citysearch and Yahoo Local might not be as popular, but be on the lookout for extreme reviews.

The entire study can be found here.

Yahoo! Local Shortcuts Enhanced

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:18:00 GMT

About 20 percent of online searches have a local intent, where users are looking for businesses, organizations, events, and other information in a specific geographic area.

Yahoo! has taken some pages from the Bing and Google search playbooks and enhanced the Yahoo! Shortcut for local businesses to include links to information user’s care most about (reviews, an overview, photos, and directions) and an overlay that displays that content directly on the search results page.

For example, we took a few of our sales staff out to lunch at Carlucci’s in Rosemont to celebrate their birthday’s yesterday. If we had searched for that restaurant on Yahoo! today we would have seen the following search result:

Yahoo! also enhanced its category searches. Say for example we had had not known about this restaurant but still wanted to go to an Italian restaurant, we could have searched for “Italian food in Rosemont IL” and been presented with the following:

If you haven’t added your business to Yahoo! Local (or any of the other local search resources, it is apparent now that you’ll need to start if you want to remain competitive as search engines provide deeper exposure to businesses within local results.

Yahoo! New Local Ad Sales Force

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:30:00 GMT

AT&T Interactive and Yahoo yesterday announced an agreement under which AT&T’s 5,000 strong sales force will sell Yahoo! display inventory across the United States. The companies have existing relationships across a variety of industries including portal and mobile services as well as powering Yahoo! Local with advertiser content from YellowPages.com.

AT&T Interactive has existing relationships with many small businesses, many of which have created local online ad campaigns and Web presences around YellowPages.com. The agreement essentially enables those using AT&T Interactive to add Yahoo! display advertising to their marketing.

"Local businesses are looking to drive in-store traffic, and our alliance with AT&T Interactive will help them reach a local audience of highly-engaged potential customers on Yahoo!," said Jim Schinella, Senior Vice President, North America Region, Yahoo!. "As local businesses shift their advertising spend to reach the growing number of Internet consumers, AT&T Interactive and Yahoo! can equip them with the tools and expertise they need to be successful online."

Attract Local Customers With Yahoo!

Mike Phillips — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:00:00 GMT

If you own a small business, you know how challenging it is to remain competitive. Financial resources for marketing are limited, as are the hours in your day to explore new ways for attracting local customers. By integrating Yahoo! Local as part of your marketing plans, you’ll make it much easier for local consumers to find your company’s goods and services. With Yahoo Local Search Marketing, you have plenty of options. Whether you want:

A simple business listing to show up when local keywords and phrases are searched
An enhanced listing with additional business info and customer reviews
A comprehensive marketing approach with Pay Per Click advertising
A marker on Yahoo! Maps with your business location
Pay Per Click ads that are inexpensive, effective, and appear only for people in your area
Keyword research assistance to help choose the most relevant keywords and phrases for your business
Daily spending limits that help manage your online marketing budget
A combination of these features and much more

One of the advantages of Yahoo! Local is that you are in control of how much time and money you want to spend on local online marketing while still getting ongoing support to use this dynamic form of marketing. So, you can take full advantage of your limited marketing budget while focusing on other important aspects of your business.

If you’re unfamiliar with local online marketing or Internet marketing in general, Yahoo! provides support every step of the way so that you can start slowly, spend only what you want to, learn how these strategies work together and separately to attract local traffic, and maintain control of your marketing at all times. If you own a small business, you owe it to yourself to check out Yahoo! Local and once you get started, you’ll soon see a measurable difference in your bottom line.

About the Author:
Nick Stamoulis is the President of the Search Engine Optimization Firm, Brick Marketing, a weekly contributor to Website Magazine's “Local Thursdays” and blogger of the Search Engine Optimization Journal.