Dex Advertisers Continue Relationship with Yahoo Local

If you’re in Minnesota, you’re one of the 14 States that may get that tree on your doorstep known as the Dex print Yellow Pages. Winds up they and R.H. Donnelley expanded their relationship with Yahoo Local.

I consider the print Yellow Pages as useful as a broken, manual typewriter, but they’re continuing something pretty useful.

Dex advertisers can benefit from Yahoo Local’s featured, enhanced, and maps business listings. Here’s an overview, straight from Yahoo. Turns out that these ads are pretty prevalent in Yahoo Local, often in Yahoo’s version of their “one box”, and often Yahoo Local results appear in Google’s main search engine listings.

Is this for you? Maybe. Depends on the price point.

Favorite Posts/Site/Event/Good Cause of the Week

Yep, it really is time to optimize your Web site for the holidays. Matt McGee from Search Engine Land provides some good steps on what you can do. In April, I mentioned that I had a new favorite Suburbamall for my holiday shopping because of a company called NearbyNow.com. It looks like their Ridgedale search model is already up.

Local? Yep. Minnesota? Nope. Houston, we have a skate. The official site isn’t up yet but the Houston Inline Marathon is scheduled for November 4, 2007 with festivities also occuring on the 3rd. The nice thing about this is the rec skaters start either a full or half marathon first, many will finish before the skin suited speedsters start, and can then watch them grind it out at the finish line.

I’m guessing with a greater Houston population of around 5.5 million, this will be a fantastic event for pro and rec skaters alike. More to come, but you can register at any time.

Most of us in the Twin Cities area have been affected by the Mpls bridge collapse in some sort. To help out, some local crafters and artists are joining at Grumpys Downtown on September 6, 2007. I don’t know much about crafts, but I do like local art, and Grumpy’s, and am hoping to make it and contribute. If you’re a crafter, artist, retailer, group leader, or just a consumer, you can help.

Speaking of Grumpy’s…

Currently on iTunes: Nothing. Off to Grumpy’s to see Helmet.

Rollersoccer?

Inline skate and play soccer? Maybe this is for you.

It looks like fun, actually. The Rollersoccer site lists Minneapolis as a location via Robichon’s, although I didn’t see anything on the site specific to rollersoccer.

AT&T iPhone Bills – Plant iTrees?

With only one minor iPhone hiccup, I have no buyers remorse, at all. It really is an incredible user experience, at home or on the go. The only thing I don’t like is paying an AT&T bill every month.

Sounds like AT&T should start planting iTrees.

It also looks like these huge bills are pretty common. I’m willing to be wrong, but I’m guessing 300 page phone bills are because of detailed text message info (unlimited 10 bucks a month) rather than the actual amount of the bill.

A Look at the New Yahoo Local

It was just earlier this week when Yahoo came out with blended search, similar to what Google and Ask have recently done. Now they’ve gone a step further by updating Yahoo Local. Yahoo can arguably be considered the better local engine already, although this looks like another step in the right direction.

It’s taking a bit to get used to, but I noticed one thing right away. It’s stepping further away from the search engine look to more of a community-building look. For what Yahoo considers metro areas, right up top you see visual tabs for different “guides”. These prominently include ratings and user reviews, maps and buzz tabs, and even an event tab to see what band, sporting event, or art scene is going on in your neighborhood this coming weekend.

I do like the community-building feel. Outside of pizza, music, and maps however, you do have to search around for other local services such as attorneys, lodging, or even piano lessons. Luckily, these local results still often show up in Yahoo Web searches, their local search box, and even from Google searches. 😉

Not everyone likes this new look. Yahoo does provide a suggestion board for those who want to share their thoughts.

Post also up at Search Engine Guide.

Lead-Gen Tools – VisitorTrack and Eloqua

For those in the search marketing world, analytics tools such as Google Analytics, WebSideStory, and ClickTracks come to mind.

I’ve recently been introduced to a couple lead-gen analytics tools on steroids. They aren’t necessarily built for search marketers, but more for marketing managers, directors, and execs for companies large and small.

VisitorTrack from netFactor – It can be a cool lead-gen tool, but it gives me the creeps. It allows you to track Jigsaw visitors. For those unfamiliar with Jigsaw, it’s an online directory of more than six million business cards.

If you’re a Jigsaw member, VisitorTrack buyers can track your visits down to your physical address, phone number, email, and name. I don’t know much about Jigsaw, but that alone makes me not want to sign up.

I can see VisitorTrack being a good lead-gen tool, but can also see overzealous marketers using it in wrong and unethical ways.

Eloqua – I haven’t looked into this much, but I like it. Here’s an example:

A targeted user comes to your site and fills out a contact form allowing opt-in email. Once they return and follow a certain navigational path, you can set it up to automatically send an email to their interest. If they navigate a different route, you can automatically send a different one. There’s much more to it, but that’s just one example.

I’m still learning on these, and feel free to give input for those who have tried or have thought about trying these.

Favorite Posts of the Week

Both Matt and Mike address that Google’s local business referral program will either fail or just not be worth the effort, and I agree.

That’s a lot of work for not a lot in return. But hey, all the best for anyone who does it. It can only help the results.

Barry Schwartz writes on Google’s top ad position and how an updated algorithm may change which ad shows up on top. Looks like it has to do with how much the advertiser is willing to pay (not actually how much they will actually pay).

I can see explaining this to clients of the corporate type. Some might really want one particular phrase to appear up top, and it may happen, but they should probably understand that it’s possible that daily budgets could have an adverse effect on other phrases during short-term bidding wars.

Finally, it’s recently been said that Google reads underscores the same as they do dashes. It looks like that may happen, but Matt Cutts puts it into perspective (about half way through the post). Some of the normal 4200 comments are kinda’ funny. 🙂

Currently on iTunes: Nothing. In Hayward WI in a run-down Super8 (but they do have free WiFi), and praying for no rain.

Searching Online, Buying Offline?

It’s arguably the premise of local search, and a comScore study with Yahoo gives some interesting insight to the “search online, buy offline” behavior. They examined five major retailers, including JC Penney, national department and apparel stores, and a major office supplies outlet.

They have some very compelling points regarding these type of consumers being more engaged, and how they spend more incrementally than if they made a purchase online.

The study focuses more on products than services, but the concept can apply to both. If you’re looking for a lawn mower, you might be doing quite a bit of research before you decide on a local dealer. If you’re looking for a quick and easy haircut, you might just be searching online for the nearest location.

As a consumer, there have been countless times when searching online and purchasing offline has benefited myself (and the local businesses I’ve visited because of it) for the same points explained in the comScore/Yahoo study.

Let’s turn this to you. Do you research products or local services online before you purchase offline, and how much do you research beforehand?

Post also up at Search Engine Guide.

A couple notes…

Aaron, aren’t ya’ glad I didn’t make you click? 😉

Rashmi, ya’ happy now? 😉 Posting has been light as of late, but hopefully should change soon.

Thanks for the Emails, Calls, IMs, Texts, Twitters

Thanks to those who contacted me in various ways to make sure I’m ok regarding the Mpls bridge collapse. I was home when it happened, and deepest thoughts go out to all victims and their loved ones.

Aaron mentions the Red Cross TC if you would like to help or donate. If there are more ways, feel free to comment.

9:00pm update: They call it “Minnesota Nice”. We should extend this moniker to the wonderful people in Washington State.

Five people from Puyallup, Tacoma, Bonney Lake, Kennewick, and Moses Lake have contacted me in one way or another. Thank you Heather Edson, Deelonna Shepard, Todd Wiekert, Matt McGee, and Scott Carsey.