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As the population with internet access explodes, and more and more people are using search engines to find what they need, the usage of local search also continues to rise. For any sites servicing a local or specific geographic audience, submission to local search based engines is becoming more and more important.

What is it?
In a nutshell local search involves the use of specialized search engines specifically created to focus on a selected geographic region to find local businesses and websites focused on your area.

Local search is commonly utilized as a directory, where users select their location, and narrow their search by categories till they find the listing they want. In many cases local search engines also guess at the users’ location by using their IP, so when you visit the site and search, for example, “Chinese restaurants” you automatically see results specific to your location.

Google has been doing this for a while to one degree or another. When you perform a search in Google using a geographic modifier the map comes up with results specific to that location. You can also take it one step further and search Google Local specifically.

But Google isn’t the only engine out there focused on local search. There are several of these directories ranging from the better known Best of the Web, right down to small town specific websites offering local search options. You even may find a web directory or guide specifically created for your city, and chances are, it will be a great place for you to submit your site.

Many local directories are free for basic listings along with paid advanced listing options.

Who needs it?
Local search is ideal for anyone serving a specific region, especially those with brick and mortar stores. While you do not necessarily need a physical location, some local search directories, including Google Local, require that you do.

Only recently have small local businesses realized the need to be found in the major search engines. I know that if I am personally looking for a bike tune-up, the first place I turn to is online, to find the various bike shops in my area, if at very least, I search online to find their contact info. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a phone book. As the internet grows in popularity, there are more and more people like me who use it exclusively to find what they want, local or otherwise. For businesses not found within the various local search sites, they are missing out on a growing piece of their market.

Considering the limited expense in getting listed in local search directories, traditional brick and mortar business can’t afford to not be listed, it’s quickly becoming a necessity.

Why bother?
With more people using these directories, and the incredibly low cost of “free” involved in being listed in many of them, it only makes sense to get listed. These directories, even the lower traffic ones, are a great free source of relevant traffic and the few minutes required to submit to them (usually around 10 minutes or so) only needs to result in a very small handful of site visitors to make it worthwhile.

Where to get listed?
When it comes to local search there are a few places you don’t want to miss such as Google Local. Many local search directories are country specific, so try your searching by using your country name; such as, “Canadian business directory”.

Try to focus your efforts on finding local directories that not only focus on your geographic region, but also offer you something in return.

How to decide if a directory is worthwhile
There are 5 main factors you need to consider when choosing to submit to a local search directory.

1. Location
   What geographic regions does the directory serve? Do they serve your location?
2. Relevance
   Does a relevant category exist? When you navigate to your appropriate category, are the other business listings relevant to your business? Some local directories may focus only on one industry, such as hotels. If the theme of the directory will not cater to your industry, you certainly don’t need to be listed there.
3. Price
   How much does the directory charge? If it is free, it’s most likely worthwhile. If there is a cost associated with the listing, you need to know more to find out if it’s money well spent (which is where the next two points come in).
4. Traffic
   Does this directory have much traffic? The quickest way to get a rough idea on this is to check their Alexa rating. Alexa is a rough indicator of how busy a site is, the busier the site, the closer their ranking will be to 1. If the site looks like it has very limited traffic, then you need to find out if the listing will have any SEO benefits if you are to spend any money here. (A low traffic free directory is likely still worthwhile however.)
5. SEO
   Will your listing help you with your organic rankings? This is relatively simple to find out. You want to first check the Google Page Rank for their home page. If it is low (less than 5) then this is not one of the major directories. If it is between 5 and 10, then they likely have some authority. Next check the page your listing will actually reside on. Is this page indexed by Google, and does it have any Page Rank? If so, is the link back to your site search engine friendly?

Many local search directories may link to your site using the rel=nofollow tag, or by redirecting through a variety of tracking methods, which can cause your link to have no value in terms of SEO. However, some of them will give you a straight link fully readable by Google, so you will also get the added benefit of increased link density from many of these links. Some directories will also create a brand new page just for you. In that case, your page will not be indexed by Google and will have no Page Rank, but in time, it will. If this is the case, check a few of the listings to see if their pages are indexed.

If Google can not see this link, it has no SEO value. If the directory has no SEO value, and no traffic, it is not worthwhile to pay for this submission. (That said, if it’s a free listing, you may as well list your site there.)

How can I get listed?
Unlike organic SEO, getting listed in a local directory is often as simple as finding the local directories that are relevant and submit your site. Once you have decided that a directory is worthwhile, filling in a few online forms and submitting payment where applicable is all it takes. Most paid local directories will have your listing posted within a few days, if not immediately. Free directories can take anywhere form a couple of days to several weeks, depending on their policies, etc.

StepForth will soon be offering a Local Search service, so stay tuned to see what we can do for you.

I came across a video on Twitter yesterday (thanks to user @mypluginplay) and after watching it I learned a few things about LinkedIn (a property where I have a profile but I haven’t researched yet) that were definitely worthy of sharing.

1. You can change and thus optimize the public URL for your profile.
   I changed mine from my name to http://www.linkedin.com/in/websitemarketer
   Personally I would rather have both URLs but I like this a little better. NOTE: if anyone knows how to secure the second URL for the same profile (w/o creating a second profile) please let me know.

2. Where you add your website URL you can actually make a small change that allows significant customization (select the “Other” option where the link drop-down is shown). See the video for a far better example or go to my Web site marketer profile where instead of seeing “My Website”, “My Blog”, etc. in the list of “Websites” you will see some great customized titles that I created.

Here is the video on YouTube if you can’t see it shown below; just don’t click on the strange link in the YouTube description of the video – it is lame advertising.

By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
“Step Forth and increase your bottom line, online at www.StepForth.com“

This week’s SEO 101 on WebmasterRadio.FM featured Search Engine Journal owner Loren Baker as our guest to discuss the ins-and-outs of Link Building.

Above is a recording of the show courtesy of WebmasterRadio.FM and these are just a few tease takeaways from this excellent episode:

• Loren Baker: Links should be built “with the mindset these links are going to bring in targeted traffic” not getting a top ranking.

• Question: Say a person has a blog and they want to build links but they don’t have a lot of time. How would they do that?
  Loren Baker: Search for authority blog directories like Best of the Web and Bloggeries, and get your blog added to the category most relevant to your service.
• Question: If a person doesn’t have a blog where should they go to find links for their website?
  Loren Baker: Best of the Web and the Yahoo Directory are great starting points because they give a little juice AND they provide relevance. Also don’t forget the Open Directory Project at DMOZ.org. Look for targeted directories for your vertical. You don’t have to have a blog to get a listing that applies great relevance to your site and can potentially offer traffic. You can often find directories by searching in Google or Yahoo for the phrase “submit url” or “add URL”.
• Question: With so many directories out there how can they all really help and how can you figure out which ones are worth paying for?
  Loren Baker: There are 100’s of thousands of directories but probably only .005% have enough value to warrant a link. So find the directories that have the most appeal by looking at their backlinks. Also check the quality of the sites listed in your target category and see if they are of a high enough quality. If they seem spammy forget the directory because it is highly unlikely to pass on any worthwhile relevance.

Here is an example of the other link building-related topics Loren Baker tackled over the rest of this extended show:

• If not directories, where else can people get links?
• What problems do people run into getting links?
• Learn about Loren’s famous “trickle-down link-o-nomics”
• How to manage the workload of link building.
• And much more.

A big thanks to Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal for being on the show. And a further congrats to Eric Lander of EricLander.com who did a wonderful job on his first episode of SEO 101; Eric is the new co-host on SEO 101 and is sure to add a great deal of value into the future.

Next week we plan on featuring keyword-guru Dan Thies to discuss the process of finding the best keywords to target online.

I was doing some of my daily news digging when I came across the following chart on MarketingCharts.com showing the Share of Ad Spending by Medium as of September 2008. With all of the discussion these days about TV and print advertising suffering during the (brace yourself for the phrase we all hate) economic downturn it will be interesting to compare these numbers to data a year from now.

What will change by next September? Well I would like to think that the share of Internet ad spending would at least increase 15% (granted that is no small increase) but that all depends on whether the old school traditional marketers feel enough pressure to take the leap and increase their footprint on the Internet. I would think the infinitely measurable methods of marketing on the Internet would be the like the light at the end of the tunnel during these tough times. There is no question advertisers are shrinking away from the costly forms of traditional advertising they are so used to such as newspapers and television:

• The Ten Most Endangered Newspapers in America – Time
• National Ad Spend on Radio Drops More than 20% in Q4 – MediaWeek
• CBS Cuts Dividends – Bloomberg: “The owner of the most- watched TV network also reported a 52 percent drop in profit.”
• Sponsors Splitting from TV Sports – Forbes

So that is what is happening with offline advertising but what about the Internet? There were many articles that noted sales were down for online marketing as well which is expected since there is less money to go around. That said, what it is interesting that the following articles indicate Internet advertising is being taken far more seriously in the face of tighter budgets:

• Online Advertising Grows at the Expense of Traditional Media – Digital Lifestyles:
  “‘This research shows that while other forms of media are suffering from slowing spend, online continues to take a growing proportion of advertising budgets as brands increasingly recognise its impact, value and potential return on investment,’ said Alison Fennah, executive director of the EIAA.” (EIAA stands for the European Interactive Advertising Association)
• Online Advertising’s Appeal Grows During Recession, But Will Dollars Follow?
  – Medill Reports
• IAB Reports Internet Advertising Grew 10 Percent Last Year; Outpacing TV – TechCrunch
• Internet Advertising will be Relatively Unscathed During Downturn – Economist.com

What Have You Experienced?
Is your company treating online advertising a bit more favorably lately? I would be very interested to hear your stories and opinions (email me at ross at stepforth dot com). I expect there are many that have seen the opposite reaction in their business but that side of the story is also very helpful to hear.

For years now, Google and Yahoo have been making a significant portion of their income on the paid sponsored ads to the right of the search listings, and that is about to expand. Google has recently discovered a loop-hole in anti-trust legislation which will allow for the ultimate sale of organic rankings – the catch – they must partner with Yahoo.

Current laws do not allow for paid sponsorship of unlabeled organic listings; however Google has found a way around this – by spidering and indexing paid listings at competing site Yahoo, and including them within their own search results.

Google will soon start to spider and index select ads posted through the Yahoo Search Marketing platform, and rank them within Google’s own organic results. These paid ads will be given an artificially high ranking and will appear at the top of the organic results – appearing as free listings to searchers. Google will receive 80% on the per-click spend; this in itself may sound great, but it barely scratches the surface.

In order for Yahoo Advertisers to open up their ads to Google, they will need to pay a monthly service fee, of which Google will take the lion’s share. While the actual dollar amount for these fees has not been officially released, industry experts are anticipating the flat rate fee to be well in excess of $10,000/month – a small price to pay for first place ranking in a competitive industry.

It is expected that the increased revenue from this initiative will result in a boost in Google’s market value by as much as 30% in as little as a year; however, this may be an understatement given a 21% jump in Google’s stock shortly after markets opened this morning (increasing by $81.01 to $424.37).

This is only one of a number of plans that Google has for the very near future in order to ramp up its overall market value. With a looming sale to occur in April of 2010, Google wants to ensure that they get top dollar. Earlier this week, the next phase of buy-out negotiations was reported between Google and the White House with an agreement in principle that the US government will pay fair market value in April of next year.

Google has become one of the biggest players in the technological world, but lesser known is its growth as a high-level power in the political world and the US government wants control of this power. This potential government acquisition of the search giant is no big surprise given the extensive bank of in-depth information Google has amassed over the years.

“Google has been selling information to the US government now for several years,” Frederick Grinder, head of Google’s Secret Search Team, noted in a press conference early this morning. “An acquisition seems like a natural step.”

Several years ago, Google was fined $15.5 Billion by the World Court for unleashing a virus-like spider that infiltrated many world-wide government databases and amassed an immense amount of sensitive information. (You didn’t thing that Google actually paid $2.2 billion for YouTube, $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, and billions more for others did you? These were merely cover-ups for the fine). While part of the court order was to have this data permanently deleted, many conspiracy theorists believe that Google still holds all this information, and the US government wants unrestricted access. The only way to secure this access is through full ownership of Google.

You’ve probably heard of Google Webmaster Tools, well Google also has Google People; A complex database consisting of confidential information on the vast majority of the world’s population accessible only to those with high-level clearance. Google knows what you bought using your super market discount card, they know what you charge to your Visa, they know your SSI and all your personal numbers, and they have all your internet passwords. For the US government to have access to all this same information they can significantly expand their anti-terrorism campaign which began during the Bush administration.

“With the help of our top secret satellite imagery and foreign personnel files we were instrumental in the capture of Saddam Hussein – with unrestricted access there is no telling how far the US can go to increase the safety of our nation,” Grinder went on to say.

We will continue to keep you informed as this story develops. In the mean time, have a wonderful April 1st.

As many of our readers know, Web Position Gold (WPG) is a tool used to check search engine rankings. It does other things, but its reporting feature is all we use. It does a good job of managing multiple accounts and reporting rankings compared to many other choices on the market.

Some SEOs believe that position reports are useless, and while I understand their arguments, there is no denying that clients want to see this information. I am not going to argue the pros and cons about position reporting; this post is not about that. Here I am going to explain a specific chart that appears on the WPG reports, and my advice to WPG on how to improve on it.

One of the most common questions clients ask about position reports is the purpose of the “visibility index” graph that WPG displays, and how it is calculated.

How the Keyword Visibility Index Works
Essentially each ranking position is given a score, with the values increasing as you approach the #1 position. For instance, a #1 ranking gets a score of 30, with a #2 ranking getting a score of 29, and so on down to a score of 1 for the 30th position. If you have two phrases being checked in one search engine, one with a ranking in the #1 position and the other ranking in the #10 position, the score would be 30 + 21 = 51. (See Figure 1.0 below)

WPG calculates the maximum possible score (all phrases ranking #1 in all engines) divided by the actual score, to get a percentage. 100% would represent all phrases ranking #1. In the example above, two phrases in one engine would have a maximum possible score of 60, so the score would be 51/60, or 85%.

Generally, the closer your score is to 100%, the better your rankings. The problem with this is that there is one major hole that renders this visibility index nearly useless, and that is not being able to factor in the individual importance of each specific target phrase.

Fundamental Error with the Keyword Visibility Index
(This is where things get a little more complicated)
Let’s look at Figures 1.0 & 1.1 above. In Figure 1.0 the score is 85%. Now assume that PhraseA is very important, and PhraseB is of significantly lesser importance. If later we run a new report and see that the ranking for PhraseA has dropped down to #9, and PhraseB has jumped up to #1. The end result is a higher visibility score, up now to 87%. The end score reflects a positive change, but if PhraseA is significantly more important, these new rankings are actually worse.

The same can happen in reverse. Good phrases can increase in ranking while bad ones drop, resulting in a reduced score, where in fact the rankings actually are more favorable.

While an increase in this score is generally a good thing, not enough information is used to determine at a glance, if the campaign results have actually improved.

Potential Fix
There are likely numerous ways to correct this, but one idea stands out in my mind. By introducing a variable into the algorithm that determines the importance of each individual keyword, this could solve the problem. End users could enter in a value between 1 and 10, 10 being most important, to indicate how critical each keyword phrase is. By dividing the user entered score by 10, a multiplier between 0 and 1 could be generated behind the scenes.

If a user gives a value of 10 for a specific phrase, then that phrase will retain its full value as calculated by WPG. If they enter a 5/10, then the end score for that phrase will be multiplied by 0.5 (or halved). Phrases with a value of 0, would not contribute to the end score at all.

By doing this, the end result would be much more reflective of the actual rankings. As you can see in Figures 2.0 and 2.1 below, when the important PhraseA drops, and the less important PhraseB increases, the total score also drops, indicating that overall campaign is not doing as well. With this change users could, at a glance, have a better impression of how their campaign is doing with the comfort of knowing there is an extra level of accuracy.

I want to point out that I am not a programmer, or a mathematician. I would not be surprised if there were holes in my potential fix; however, I am certain, that some kind of variable to indicate importance would make WPG’s Keyword Visibility Index much more useful. Another, much more complicated method could be to have WPG automatically grab the search frequencies for each phrase and sort according, then apply importance values behind the scenes, or perhaps even a combination of this and my user entered idea. There may be even other better ways. This post is merely a suggestion to WPG on one way to improve their product.

I welcome the feedback of any WPG staff or users to chime in on what they think, so be sure to leave a comment. I will also happily accept any royalty checks should WPG successfully use my idea.

Google announced yesterday morning over at the two improvements they have made to the search results. These improvements include more refined results for specific searches, and longer snippets for long tail searches.

Search Refinements

This refinement will allow Google to offer more “related searches” for various queries that users perform. Now when you do a search in Google, at the bottom of the results there is small section of links titled “Searches related to:” These are links to other related searches.

This addition expands Google’s ability to recognize related searches and as a result will now not only give more suggestions to users, but (hopefully) increase the relevance of its suggestions.

Impact on SEO

This change is relatively minor when it comes to SEO but does have some impact. With this refinement, Google shows other key phrases that it deems relevant to the initial search. This can be used to help refine your keyword research.

If you are interested in ranking for a particular phrase, do a search in Google and investigate the phrases Google notes in the “related to” section. You may find valuable keyword targets here worth pursuing. Including these phrases within your site may also help Google relate your site to the initial phrase and could help with your search rankings. This is something that one was able do before the upgrade, but now, these suggestions will likely be more refined and valuable.

Longer Snippets

Previously Google search descriptions were limited in length to around 150 characters. Now when you perform a longer search query of more than three words, the snippet is expanded considerably. I have noticed snippets as long as 413 characters, but some may be longer. This change was made to help people recognize relevant results when more detailed searches are performed, and in some cases provide the information that someone is searching for right within the result pages.

Impact on SEO

Longer snippets will not likely play a big role when it comes to getting a site ranked, but it may very well help determine if a ranking is clicked by a searcher or not. With these longer site descriptions appearing it will be that much more important to ensure that the description Google is using is appropriate for the search phrase.

If you find yourself ranking in the top 10 for a particular phrase but are not happy with the description, do what you can to help guide Google to use something more appropriate to entice users to click on the listing. This will give you a little more opportunity to attract visitors and perhaps make a few extra sales.

You may be able to find some insight by checking out your site’s analytics for long tail phrases driving traffic from Google. Search for these phrases in Google and see what your description looks like and take it from there.

These two new improvements to the Google search results really play only a minor role in the big picture of SEO, but as with all adjustments they can contribute to your site’s overall performance. In this case the main impact is in getting the right users to your site. If you take these two changes into consideration when you are working on improving your site’s visibility it may help improve your overall SEO campaign results.

A new search engine, Newssift beta was recently launched by the Financial Times Group in an attempt to attract business users to search. It allows users to build incredibly specific queries to help return very specific and relevant results. Newssift also tend to focus on business oriented sources, including magazines, blogs, newspapers and other credible sources to help maintain higher quality results.

The site will be supported financially by the sale of ad space down the right hand side of the search results. Currently these ads are not contextually driven based on a user’s search, but plans for the change are in the works for a future release.

As you enter in your search term, sub categories are displayed to help you narrow your search. Clicking on a topic under “business topics”, “organization”, “place”, “person” or “theme” will help you to narrow your search accordingly, or you can simply click “Go” to see results from all categories.

Next to the results returned they have also included a “Sentiment” pie chart that shows the break down of the results. A search for “google” brought up about 45% positive, 29% neutral, and around 25% negative stories. You can then click the pie chart and see only stories with the corresponding sentiment.

Beneath this is the “Article Sources” pie chart. Here you can select from “online news”, “blogs”, “newspapers”, or whatever other source you would like to narrow your search down by. If you want to see only positive blog posts about Google you’ll find about 1800 articles.

Another handy feature is the ability to search within your results, a feature not as easily done with the major search engines.

Selecting the timeframe of results within your search criteria is easily done and a welcome feature. If results from today only, or perhaps a specific past date or date range interest you, it’s as simple as selecting the appropriate timeframe.

I have read a few reviews about the site where it is noted as being ugly and somewhat cumbersome to use, but personally I found it to be fairly straightforward, and surprisingly, I somewhat liked the look. While it is not as simple as doing a search at Google, the increased functionality is very welcomed in easily narrowing down the search to the specific types of articles you are looking to read.

For anyone researching a specific news story, Newssift may make finding some of information you are after considerably faster and easier. I personally am not a big fan of the search engine’s name, I would prefer something easier to say, “newsfilter” for example (but that’s already been taken by a domain squatter). Overall some of the features found in Newssift would be perfect if integrated within Google News – perhaps an acquisition will be in order sometime in the future.