There are ever greater opportunities for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of emerging local search and mobile search technologies. In an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, yesterday - an interview credited with bumping Google’s share price 4.7% - Google CEO, Dr. Eric Schmidt, called the emerging capability for consumers to conduct local searches using mobile phone technologies (cell phones, iPhones, BlackBerries etc.) “a tremendous opportunity” for growth.

Google’s research indicates that over the next three or four years, another billion mobile phones will be added worldwide. Eventually, there will be “five or so billion mobile phones in a world of six billion or so,” Dr. Schmidt predicts. Integrating local search and mobile search capabilities will be a key for driving these customers to local businesses.

Schmidt, not surprisingly, travels with the requisite array of laptop, cell phone PDA etc. He notes there has been “a huge increase in maps, Google Maps”, particularly, he says, has been “hugely successful”. Internet mapping, especially Google and Yahoo! maps, is the key ingredient in optimizing both a business’ local search and mobile search capabilities. “When I want to go to the equivalent of Starbucks,” Schmidt says, “I just type ‘Starbucks‘, it says its over there. For me, that’s jusut a huge - a huge improvement. And that service is available almost everywhere in the world.” (As an avid caffeine addict, I can only add my, “Me too!”)

As technical innovations improve local and mobile online searching - and Dr, Schmidt intimates there is a pipeline of innovations at Google awaiting rollout - it seems clear that optimizing your company’s website for local and mobile search - whether you are a turnkey operation, a small business, or a medium-sized growth business - is an imperative. It may seem daunting, especially for the small entrepeneur, but the investment of time, money and effort will be a necessary investment for your company’s success.

Working with a search engine optimization company that specializes in local search and has experience working with a range of clients from small, owner-operated companies to large firms, may be the best way to ensure your company’s footprint is out there and can be found with ease by your potential customers. You do not want to miss the “tremendous opportunity” that industry leaders, like Dr. Schmidt, have so clearly identified.

Okay, it’s not quantum computing….yet. However, a study released this week by Yahoo! Research in conjunction with researchers at Cornell University highlights the increasingly refined local search capability and capacity that search engines are developing.

Using a model based on probability theory to track the most frequent queries from Yahoo!’s logs, the research team led by digital search pioneer, Lars Backstrom from Cornell, found that the ‘probabilistic’ methodology they utilized (please forgive my tantalizing allusion to quantum theory, I couldn’t resist) significantly outperformed the simpler geometric techniques currently utilized by Google, Yahoo!, MSN et al. Using probability theory, the research team was able to pinpoint the natural geographic “hot spot” for any particular search query, as well as its ‘dispersion’ - how quickly the relevancy of a particular search term falls off as you move away from the geographic locale naturally associated with the search term. (The researchers used the names of baseball teams as an illustrative search term. The search term “Yankees” quite naturally had a wider geographic dispersion than the term Royals did, reflecting the national following of the New York team as opposed to the more localized following of the Kansas City ballclub.)

Even more interestingly, the authors of the study were able to track and predict how the natural epicentre, or “hot spot” of a search term as well as its dispersion can change over time. (The illustration they used was queries about “Hurricane Dean” as that storm blew in from the Carribean. Search intensity and dispersion increased and widened in real time, dispersion spreading widely just before the hurricane made landfall. In contrast, queries about the “Grand Canyon” - a national monument carved by time, but relatively unaffected by its passing - pretty much reflected the population distribution of the U.S. as a whole.)

As search engines begin to adopt this next generation of local search methodology it will “affect both search-based marketing and advertising efforts by region,” and will “also be useful as a component for search engine rankings themselves.” The methodology outlined in the study appears to be eminently applicable to everything from marketing political candidates (ugh…enough!) to focusing one’s online marketing efforts geographically and in real-time to changes in cuisine tastes, music preference, and even consumer responses to changing weather patterns.

The focus that search engines and leading academic researchers are putting on local search capabilities underscores how important a segment of online advertising and marketing local search has become - an importance that will only increasingly rise over time. The good news is that thanks to Yahoo! Research and Cornell we will soon have the ability to track that rise in importance in real time, as well as its dispersion across North America and the world!

In the 1700’s signs with the letters “T.I.P” began to appear on signs in English pubs. Standing for the phrase, “To Insure Promptness”, the practice of giving gratuities for prompt, efficient service, or ‘tipping’ began. Flash forward: What are the best ‘TIP’s for medium-sized or small businesses ‘to insure people’, or even better ‘purchasers’, entering local search terms on Google or Yahoo! will visit your website and ultimately buy your products or services?

1. Make sure your website’s main page (your “landing” or “splash” page) is optimized so the “spiders”, “robots” or “web crawlers” – programs from the search engines that visit individual websites – are able to visit your site and know what it is about. (Focusing on what keywords describe your business is essential.)
2. Make sure the search engine spiders can navigate your site once they are there. (Having a site directory on your landing page will ensure searchability, not just for the web crawlers but for your potential customers as well, ensuring they can easily find what they need on your site.)
3. Make sure you regularly add new pages and content to your website. ‘Spiders’ prefer to eat the new ‘flies’ they catch in their webs rather than flies that have been stuck there, drying out for weeks or months. (Remember: ‘Content is King.’)
4. Make sure you content is useful and interesting for your ultimate reader – the potential customer who visits your site. Optimize your site all you like to obtain top rankings on Google, but you’ve wasted your time if the person who reaches your site finds nothing interesting or relevant on it. (Another site where the reader can look for more relevant content is just one click away!)
5. Make sure the ideas and content on your website are spread over a range of different pages. Try to restrict yourself to one idea, one product per page. (Each time you put new content or pages on your website, you are training the search engine spider to revisit your site more often – hopefully increasing your search engine page ranking each time with fresh, relevant content.)

Working with a knowledgable and experienced SEO company (search-engine optimization) that specializes in local search capabilities for small business or mid-size companies, and/or attending a search optimization seminar, may prove invaluable in building and improving your local search capabilities driving more traffic and potential customers to your website.

Kudos (and thanks) to John Alexander of Search Engines Workshops for the detailed insight and knowledge he shared with the author and others in the recent Toronto-area SEO training seminar held in conjunction with Barry Byers and Greg Mate Search Engine Academy.

Industry revenues from newspaper advertising fell 7.9% in 2007, the New York Times recently reported. Background figures from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) show that the steep decline in traditional ad revenues would have been greater still if the drop in traditional ad revenue had not been offset by an almost 19% increase in online advertising revenues. Overall, in 2007 online advertising accounted for 7.5% of newspaper revenues in the United States, up from 5.7% in 2006.

“Even with the near-term challenges posed to print media by a more fragmented information environment and the economic headwinds facing all advertising media, newspaper publishers are continuing to drive strong revenue growth from their increasingly robust Web platforms,” NAA President and CEO John F. Sturm said.

These figures highlight the increasing trend away from traditional advertising media - newpapers, television, radio - to expanding online marketing opportunities. This shift highlights how important it is for companies, both large and small, to have an effective and search friendly online presence. Whether a company’s target market is global, national or local, the trend is sharply away from traditional media advertising.

The numbers from the NAA should indicate to businesses, no matter how large the scope of their market, how important it is for them to optimize their local search engine presence and capabilities, since newspaper advertising is particularly aimed at local consumers. Search engine optimization (SEO) of a company’s website should take into account this sharp shift away from newspaper advertising, particularly local newspaper ads, and optimize the effectiveness of their business’ local search capabilities.

Sesimi welcomes ITX to our online marketing family. ITX supplies Canada Computer Rentals including: 

• Laptops
• Servers
• Desktops
• Projectors
• Perpherals

ITX provides rentals for short-term and long-term projects along with the hardware and software you need to make your project a success.   

Search Engine Land reports on the addition of 7 new listings n the local search results on Google. Local search results now account for the first 10 listings in a search query instead of the first three.This is  a great opportunity for local small business owners to get into the rankings without search engine optimization or pay-per-click advertising.  

SearchEngineWatch  reports that IYP publishers are gaining ground on Google local. Yellowbook’s traffic numbers jumped 137%  over the past 3 months  thanks to the initiation of an aggressive local search engine traffic campaign.Market fragmentation leaves the door wide open for even the smallest directory to expand, as long as they are engaged in search engine marketing.

I spoke to a prospective client today about his website and the keywords he was using to drive traffic. I asked him if he had set up Google Analytics yet and he replied, “What for?” Incredible as it may seem, many small businesses are not using the free Google Analytics tools to track how their customers engage their website. If they had they would see the trend towards local search. Internet users are increasingly using terms like mortgages Toronto rather than just mortgages. They have been schooled to the fact that by just adding a local identifier in the search box, their success at finding a local company escalates.You can ad or adjust content to go after local terms if it suits your business.

We are proud to announce that we have reached a working arrangement with a Toronto estate lawyer who will be reaping the benefits of one of Sesimi’s online business profiles.

We are proud to announce that Canadian Mortgages Inc has joined the Sesimi site. They offer Toronto mortgages as well as competitive mortgage rates throughout Canada.