Most know that Google is the undisputed top dog in search, but who’s number two?  Take a guess!

My small unscientific survey of about 10 friends or family members yielded incorrect answers.  Most people guess Yahoo or Microsoft/Bing. However, the answer lies in a site that may be associated with videos of funny cats, rather than a portal for information.  Yes, YouTube.com is the second most widely used search engine on the web with about 2.6 billion searches (and growing!) every month.

What does this tell us? While people have started to turn to YouTube as a source of information, most haven’t realized just how big it has become.  For example, while the exact phrase “how to bake a potato” is found about 800,000 times in Google, it’s found exactly 4 times on YouTube.  Rankings aside, this disparity means that any one item from Youtube’s search results is far more likely than any one item in Google’s to be seen in the results.

As you may have surmised, there is opportunity behind this disconnect!  If it’s (relatively) easy to be found on YouTube, then get on YouTube! It’s not hard to change any content you have to a video or create some original video content. Plus, people feel like it’s less of an investment to watch a 3 minute video clip than to read a 300 word story.

Here are some ideas for local businesses:

1. Start off with a video of yourself and your business talking about what it is that you do. On your website, put this video where your introductory copy would normally be.  Not only are you more likely to get your message across, a video of yourself helps to build trust and put a face behind a name.
2. Create a how-to video related to your industry. My dry cleaner showed me a neat trick on how to get animal hair off of clothes in 10 minutes by using one of those masking tape rollers.  While this kind of video will attract traffic from all over the web (that’s good!), it will also help to establish you as a (very helpful) expert to locals.
3. Interview people! Who doesn’t love to share their opinion?! Ask people how they feel about a related topic in your industry.  For example, if your a dentist ask 10 people “What do you dislike most about going to the dentist?” Then talk about what you do to alleviate those common fears.
4. Get video testimonials. This one is my favorite.  There’s nothing more powerful than a good testimonial, and a video testimonial is 10 times more authentic than words on a page.  Ask a couple regular customers if they wouldn’t mind providing a recommendation on camera.  Film it and put it in a prominent spot on your site and in your local business listings.

If you have any other ideas or questions, please be sure to leave them in the comments!  I do read and respond to them all.

Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, but for all videos of third parties, you should get a signed release form allowing you to use the footage for commercial use!

Driving down I-290 yesterday, I noticed a billboard from Google. It was advertising their “Google Apps” for business program (which is great, by the way) and it made me think: what other tricks does Google have up its sleeve that most businesses ought to know about?

The first thing that came to my mind is a big one and it’s really simple: register your business with Google. For some reason, Google has not made much effort to get the word out. Any small business owner I tell is always surprised. And one thing is certain, it is not unknown because it is not helpful. Registering with Google is a major step toward increased visibility on the web.

How does it work?

Google’s Local Business Center allows a business owner to confirm and correct certain details about his or her business such as address and phone number. First the owner must “claim” the business, a process in which Google verifies contact information via a postcard or phone call.  Once claimed, the business owner is also allowed to add a wealth of other information including operating hours, a business description, pictures and videos which can be continually updated indefinitely.

Why does it work?

This process helps both parties: Google’s results are more complete and relevant, and the business owner knows that when someone sees his business, the information is accurate and provides more information than the lusterless listings of his competitors.

Of course there is one major benefit that really makes this tip worth the effort: Google gives your listing a real ranking boost, sometimes determining the difference between a #16 ranking and the #2 spot.

So, get to Google’s Local Business Center today and verify your business. Like any other tactic, it is certainly no panacea to getting found, but it is a great place to start.

-Craig

I had a client ask me this interesting question the other day, and although I had a (admittedly biased) hunch, I did not have any real data to back up what I thought to be the answer.

Could it still be worth a web advertisement with one of the paper-based operations like the Yellow Pages or Dex, even if their big yellow books are mostly headed toward recycling bins?  (There is a fresh one in mine, right now…)

Data shows that droves are moving online to research their buying decisions, but where exactly are they going? Are they just simply typing what they need into their favorite search engine? Or is “Yellow Pages” so ingrained in their minds that YellowPages.com is the first place they go?

Let Us See Some Graphs.

I could not find any research that had already been done on the subject, so I looked for my own. Google Trends is a tool that allows users to compare the popularity of any number of search terms graphically over time.

I compared Maps.Google.Com to YellowPages.com.  These are the results:

(Maps.Google.Com : red) (YellowPages.com blue)

Two things stuck out to me: Google Maps got (and is getting) huge. And although not as steep, we can also see a slow decline in searches on YellowPages.com.

(As a side note: I didn’t include Dex because the line was too small by comparison.  Picture a third bumpy line along the bottom of the graph.)

What Does It Mean?

Well, to say that we can write off YellowPages.com entirely would be hasty. However, if it is on the decline, there may be a point in the future when it no longer has any significant relevancy.

Now, even though YellowPages.com appears to be on a downward trend, that doesn’t mean that it does not (and will not) have significant traffic well into the short-term future. If the advertising is cheap enough, it just might be worth it.

To find out more, I put in a call to Yellow Pages customer service, and spoke to a friendly customer service rep. He told me that there are a variety of options YP offers for online-only advertising, ranging from about $150-$500/month, depending on the prominence of the ads and the area.

At a conservative $200/month, that’s $2,400/year. Is it worth it? Well, it is hard to draw a conclusion without knowing how much the resulting increase in business is worth to your company.

However, from the chart we can see that Google Maps gets roughly double the traffic of YellowPages.com. Compound this observation with the clear trends for each site, plus the added fact that Google.com is displaying its preference for Google Maps entries by including them at the top of the results for any local search (an example of a local search is “Elgin, IL Dentist”). Additionally, there are multiple search engines returning local results, but only one Yellow Pages. For the expected return from advertising on YellowPages.com to be worth it, getting a high and relevant result in Google Maps and other local search engines better be pretty darn expensive.

Just Call Me Paul Harvey…Not.

I didn’t even see this pitch coming! But, getting a prominent spot in Google Maps is not expensive compared to working with Yellow Pages online. (Think about it: they are a large and old institution with executives, salespeople, and HR people to pay, and then they need to make a profit on top of that.) No doubt that there is room for both online advertising and local search optimization, but as the graph shows: times, they are a changing.

Give us a call to find out more.

-Craig