More promise for local businesses?
Jinfo Blog

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Local businesses could reap the benefits if current information trends prove well founded. New figures indicate exponential growth in local search, Experian has come out with a new “clone my customer” service, competition among some local business websites indicates that there are prizes to be fought for – and even troubled Yell is starting to look cautiously optimistic.

Twice recently LiveWire has picked up on promising developments in this sector, noting that local business information seems to be shedding its Cinderella status and spotting a small flurry of activity around small business information needs. Both trends seem to be continuing.

By 2015, 30% of search volume will be local in nature predicts BIA/Kelsey, a local media advertising specialist. A continuing increase in local search activity is driving its growth, with better targeting contributing to a projected 10% compound annual growth rate in associated advertising revenues.

So it’s no surprise that Experian’s cloning service sees opportunities for small businesses to target customers who look like their existing ones but don’t buy from them yet. Demographic profiling is behind the tool, which Experian says has been very effective for larger companies, but involves analytical capabilities which have been beyond the budget of many small firms hitherto.

And if more evidence were needed that the sector is interesting the bigger players, look no further than a fascinating article on Search Engine Land about developments in that increasingly vital viral marketing tool, customer reviews. Drawing on earlier research by Zhongmin Wang of Northeastern University, Matt McGee notes how local business site Yelp trounced its two main rivals CitySearch and Yahoo Local by nurturing its local reviewers instead of just waiting for them to “fall from cyberspace”.

McGee goes on to suggest that the mighty Google is now trying to out-Yelp Yelp with its own local reviewing service (formerly called Hotpot but now part of Google Places). It’s still way behind Yelp, it seems, but catching up fast.

But these big players may not have it all their own way. Another competitor, the hyper-local social network Yatown started by former Googlers, has apparently scored a major coup in attracting to its board Tuoc Luong, who used to be senior vice president of global search at Yahoo!.

Long-established Yell ought to have been a market leader in this field, going by experience alone – but it’s been consistently outclassed, it seems, by nimbler newcomers. Now though it’s promising a strategic review for July, and reports good progress with its digital media offering.

As Yell points out, small business confidence remains low at present. Only time will tell whether continuing information developments such as these turn the sector’s fortunes round – and, for that matter, those of Yell itself.

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