ServiceMagic getting into SEM and site building

ServiveMagic announced an interesting acquisition today, buying a company called Market Hardware, which does websites and SEM for SMBs in some high-volume online verticals. This is going to be interesting, as it makes them more competitive to the IYPs and companies like ReachLocal who are all going after the same customers. I have to think that SM's stable of Lead customers will have huge potential to convert to SEM customers as well (and may shift their spend to SM from those other legacy providers). We'll see what happens...

Kelsey Group Blogs » IAC’s ServiceMagic Buys Market Hardware

Can Newspapers Be Saved? Here Are Some Ideas...

Building on the Newspaper discussion begun the other day, Search Engine Land has an article asking the question Can Newspapers Be Saved and how? The gist of it is:

1. This is the standard one we always hear. Advertiser relationships are the biggest asset for newspapers (just as they as for yellow pages), so they must defend those relationships and extend them, acting as trusted resources to provide a broad base of advertising products.
2. Sell everything your advertisers want. Not just newspaper, but IYPs (YellowPages.com, SuperPages and Dexknows are mentioned) and other local Internet traffic sources like CitySearch.
3. Focus on phone calls. As we've discussed here, most advertisers are not focused on directing clicks and traffic to their websites, except as it drives phone calls. Their sites are typically not optimized for conversion and they are not set up to do rapid responses to emails, so just skip the middle man and send the phone calls directly.

Everything else in here has to do with sales. Invest in your team, keep it easy to sell (this is a key - package products together rather than making it a complicated sale that seems like you're nickle and diming them), and make sure your sales comp is aligned with the new product set.

Sounds like pretty good advice. Will newspapers take it? That's another story...


Can Newspapers Be Saved? Part 2: Potential Solutions

Search Insider Recommends Yahoo! Buy RH Donnelly

What should Yahoo! do? How can they improve their business? How can they undo the major mistake they made in not selling to MSFT? Lots of people have their opinions, but according to the Search Insider column (via Greg Sterling), one of the recommendations is for them to buy a yellow pages company, specifically RHD. Why not Idearc? Not sure, any more than I'm sure why Barron's recommended RHD stock vs. Idearc.

But what this shows is that there are potential synergies between Search companies and Yellow Pages companies. Search, like many Internet businesses, has trouble getting a critical mass of small businesses. Yellow Pages companies have those relationships (and long-term established ones), but for the most part, don't have the Internet products to go with them. The question is going to be, does a Search company want to take a huge cut on their margins by acquiring a company that has a huge sales force in exchange for increasing their market share? I guess we'll see...

“Buy the Yellow Pages” Returns « Screenwerk

IYP Reach in the US (according to Google)

Via TechSoapBox:



IYP Reach in the US (according to Google) - Tech Soapbox

Medical Categories Slowly Moving Online

For traditional yellow pages companies, Doctors, Dentists and related categories are huge revenue generators. Online, though, they've been very slow to adopt (as with Real Estate, which we discussed yesterday). Several companies have tried different approaches to bring these categories online, like HealthGrades and several competitors, which offer reviews of medical professionals. Looks like there's another new site moving into this space, called ZocDoc, which has information on doctors, the insurance they accept and allows you to schedule appointments. Like many Local startups, I suspect this one is going to run into a Sales issue, with doctors being very busy people and their front offices not really being equipped to spend their marketing money. Like all categories, this one will eventually be fully engaged online, but for the time being, I think the YPs, IYPs and Google will be the primary resources they'll use.

ZocDoc Gets $3M to Help You Find a Doctor

Advertiser feedback on negative reviews

Today, Greg Sterling asks if the ability for advertisers to provide feedback on negative reviews is the future of reviews. I tend to agree with him that it's the future of online reviews, but it's also the past of reviews. Why do I say that? Because this is what eBay has been doing for years. As we all know, feedback is the key to the success of eBay's marketplace. Without trust in the buyer/seller you're dealing with, their system will not work.

However, as with local sites, one negative review can really impact your business on eBay, so they needed ways to deal with that negative feedback. The first thing they do is that they have the ability for users (sellers especially) to dispute negative feedback, although this ability is used sparingly. The ability for the seller to respond to negative feedback is really the main tool they have to keey their rating solid.

As IYPs and other local sites prepare for the next stage in their evolution, content is going to be critical, and reviews are a big part of that content. Local sites implementing reviews need to make sure they're not just slapped into the site, but that they are built with thought behind them, processes to support them, and the ability to get the advertisers involved and engaged. As we've seen from Merchant Circle's infamous launch strategy, negative feedback on a website is always a strong impetus for advertisers to get involved.

Is This the Future of Online Reviews? « Screenwerk

Self-Storage Reports Strong Profits

This one may be a bit off-topic, but relevant. As we move forward on this blog, we are going to talk a bit more about big local (Print, IYP and Search) categories, as it is relevant.

Storage and Moving and two big categories for us, and they're categories that are undergoing some growth right now, if this story is any indication. In this case, Public Storage has had their profits increase by 500% this quarter (vs last year), mostly due to the housing market. Realtors and Loans are two other big categories for the local space, and ones that are undergoing drastic shifts with the changes in the housing markets. We can probably all look for their investments in advertising to decrease a bit (at least temporarily). However, it looks like storage (and likely moving as well) may pick up some of the slack. Time for local sites to shift focus a bit?

Amid 91201 Foreclosures, Public Storage Inc. Reports Strong Gains | Redfin Los Angeles Sweet Digs

Women are more likely than men to be IYP users

I saw an interesting tool on another website today (it can be found at the link below). You activate this tool and it will go through your browser history, analyze the sites you've visited, and tell you if it thinks you're male or female. When I ran it, it said with 100% probability that I'm male (I am). But more interesting to me was the male/female ratios it displayed for various IYP/Local sites I've visited. Here they are:

• Yellowpages.com - 0.72 male/female (1.38 women per man on that site)
• Yelp - 0.77
• Yellowbook - 0.8
• ServiceMagic - 0.71
• DexKnows - 0.79
• Google - 0.98

As someone working in the local space online, this tells me that, across the board, 55-57% of our users are women. That's without any specific outreach effort to that group. Perhaps we should consider market more directly to them, or at least focus on the sites they're using, as they seem more predisposed to using us to start with.

Mike On Ads » Blog Archive » Using your browser URL history to estimate gender

Top 10 IYP Search Categories (from the YPA)

So according to the YPA, here are the top 10:

1.  Restaurants
2.  Physicians & Surgeons
3.  Hotels
4.  Auto Repairing & Service
5.  Florists-Retail
6.  Auto Dealers-New & Used
7.  Dentists
8.  Auto Parts & Supplies - New & Used
9.  Beauty Salons (tie)
10. Hospitals (tie)

What does this all mean? Not sure, though it shows that people are using IYPs for the same searches they're using print for. To me, though, while IYPs will have a tough time maintaining their print shares in some of these categories, their online positions should be more defensible, if they go the right direction. Some of these categories, like Physicians and Dentists, are ones where users want significant data to help them make a decision. Right now, levels of data on IYPs are low, but if investments are made into collecting more data (like specialties for doctors, or types of insurance accepted, etc), they can become trusted sources for information on these categories.

Yellow Pages Association Names Top 10 Internet Yellow Pages Searches Reflecting How Consumers Are Using Local Search Sites