Forum Moderators: anallawalla & bakedjake
It is a fantastic solution with significant ramifications for those seeking to utilize Yahoo Local.
Your link seems to provide a nice answer. Thanks.
luv it
Has Yahoo made any remarks as to local search listings having any effect on regular serps? Really doesn't seem like it at this point, and doesn't seem likely that yahoo local has very high distribution at this point.
I wonder where they are planning to gain additional volume from.
One has to wonder, huh?
>>Really doesn't seem like it at this point, and doesn't seem likely that yahoo local has very high distribution at this point.
I can tell you that Y local search results are showing up on the traditional serps. Not only Y, but on pg 1 G serps as well. That is distribution worth preparing for.
>>I wonder where they are planning to gain additional volume from.
In Chicago, there are Y people on the streets handing out Y local stuff. There are also ads in the bus stops and other public places.
As with any new technology, it is about user adoption. Y more than G understands this, and they will cross promote Y Local through their own Internet real estate and they will continue to drop traditional dollars in the months and years ahead to promote adoption.
Chris Sherman's article on the topic released today.
Also wondering if there's a way to tell someone is using the "enhanced listing" at this point to see if G is giving any preference to those sites in their listings.
I think it's ridiculous that the local search / advertising industry is trying to force this space to adopt cpc - it just doesn't make any sense when you consider that 80% of local merchants don't have Web sites. To counter this, you see these convoluted solutions like forcing users to click a trackable link to display a phone number.
Just seems like trying to force a square peg into a round hole to me.
By offering a flat fee for an enhanced listing - Yahoo is doing two things 1) recognizing that there's money to be be made from local merchants apart from CPC; 2) allowing mom and pop shops a viable alternative to building (and optimizing) their own Web site.
It's tough to convince someone to pay $9.95 per month for the opportunity for anonymous strangers to badmouth their business.
Obviously, we'll see how committed Yahoo is to user reviews when thousands of local merchants indicate that they would love to sign up for an enhanced listing if they could just turn off the user reviews piece.
Many SMEs are going to jump at the opportunity to bid for a 1-800 # with no need for a website. I do not know if Yahoo offers such a pay-per-call plan yet. So far FWHT (in partnership with Ingenio) is offering it to clients for BizJournals and soon SuperPages. No need for SEO in this area so I expect not to read much about it in WebmasterWorld.
