Citysearch Has New Way for Local Businesses to Advertise

Citysearch recently announced a set of APIs to make all of Citysearch’s local listings content and advertising available to other Websites and mobile apps. It's called CityGrid. Today, the company announced an online advertising solution called CityGrid Complete, as an extension of that.

CityGrid Complete was built around an investment from Citysearch in OrangeSoda. CitySearch tells WebProNews that with the investment, they will offer local advertisers:

- Access to a pay-for-performance advertising platform and campaign management tools

- Scalable search engine optimization solution on the Web, including targeted keyword optimization, and reporting (ranking, conversation tracking and trending)

- Local listings optimization, including business profile optimization and phone call tracking and reporting

- Wider distribution across CityGrid

"Whether it's driving new customers to our advertisers from major search sites or mobile applications, CityGrid Complete is about delivering local businesses the highest quality leads for the best value," said Citysearch CEO Jay Herratti. "By combining the distribution power of CityGrid with OrangeSoda's platform, every small business in America now has access to a one-stop local advertising solution with SEO strategies and tactics that historically required a large dedicated team of experts."

"Every search engine has introduced local directory listings prominently in their organic search results and this has given small businesses another way to get featured in the search engine results real estate," said Jay Bean, CEO of OrangeSoda. "For over 15 years, Citysearch has helped small businesses gain exposure on other websites, and now they want to help small businesses gain better exposure through organic search results. By bundling our expertise and tool set with CityGrid, we are offering small businesses a revolutionary local online advertising package that no other company offers."

OraneSoda has provided SEO services to brands like International Truck, Remax, and Jiffy Lube.

AT&T: Buzz the “Best Way” to Get Your Business in Front of Facebook Users

Google Buzz has captured a lot of the buzz around services with "Buzz" in the title (of which there are a few), but before Google Buzz was even announced, AT&T Interactive had already launched a beta version of its latest take on local business search at Buzz.com. Buzz.com has only been available on an invitation basis so far, and will remain that way until some bugs are ironed out, but you may find AT&T's Buzz becoming a bigger part of your life than Google's simply, because it will be coming at you from your Facebook friends.

We spent close to an hour talking to AT&T about the product, checking out a demo of the service, and getting a feel for just what AT&T plans to do with Buzz.com. Right off the bat, Charlie Hornberger, director of product development told WebProNews it's not as much about getting in front of people on Buzz.com, but getting in front of them on Facebook. That's just for now anyway, it's already integrated with Facebook, and Twitter is next on the list, he says. Then they'll figure out what other networks to integrate, whether that be Gmail contacts, instant messenger lists, or anything else.

Buzz.com is focused on only positive reactions to businesses. Users can "favorite" businesses and recommend them to their friends. So as far as reputation management goes, there shouldn't be too many issues here from the standpoint of monitoring negative commentary. Although if your competitors are getting a lot of "buzz" and you're not, that may be worth looking into.

Hornberger doesn't appear too worried about any branding issues around the name Buzz. Jokingly, he said it seems like "if you don't have Buzz then you have a problem." The very nature of Buzz.com shouldn't make it much of an issue anyway, because it's essentially coming at you right in your Facebook news feed. You don't necessarily have to go to Buzz.com to feel its presence, although he views having buzz.com as a URL as a "great asset," because it "makes sense for this product."

Before you get all riled up with visions of Farmville-style Facebook updates, relax, because Buzz's Facebook integration is set up to prevent feed-spamming. If a user shares a lot of businesses at a time, it will consolidate these into a single update on Facebook. Some Facebook users may still wish not to see such things, but they can adjust their settings in Facebook the same as with anything else. Frankly, this is adding more value to the user than learning about friends' pseudo-farming practices, because if a friend recommends a dentist, for example, that might be useful to you at some point.

Businesses will want to make sure they're listed in Buzz.com, because not only will they be listed in Buzz.com, they'll be listed right in Facebook users' news feeds anytime a Buzz.com user "favorites" their business, and shares that with their friends. Hornberger calls it a way to get on Facebook "in the best possible way."

Currently there is not a place on Buzz.com that businesses can go and get listed, but he says there will be soon. However, listings come from the same database that powers AT&T's YellowPages.com. I'd advise making sure you have a listing there, complete with a link to your site. They are looking at other potential ways to expand listings as well, including potentially, a way for users to submit things besides businesses (like a public tennis court for example).

They will have a mobile web app available in a couple weeks for Buzz.com. Hornberger says they haven't started on one for the App Store, but even if they do, it will be more for visibility purposes, and the web app will likely provide the better user experience (no mention of an Android app).

For now, you can use Buzz.com if you get an invite. Everyone that gets an invite can send out more invitations. There is a chance you are already seeing people post Buzz.com activity to Facebook. Until the kinks are worked out, it will continue to be on an invitation-only basis, but that will likely change in the not-too-distant future.

Buzz.com could play a significant role in the local search space as it grows, and is probably not something businesses want to ignore. On a side note, Buzz.com utilizes AT&T's existing partnership with Microsoft by providing Bing Maps imagery, so this could be considered another factor in Bing usage.

Have you used Buzz.com? Share your thoughts.

Bing Talks Local Business Listings

In case you missed it, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke at SMX West in Santa Clara yesterday, addressing the search marketing industry for the first time (you can watch that at our new site live.webpronews.com). Obviously, much of the conversation was centered around Bing. A little bit later in the day, WebProNews caught up with Mikko Ollila, Senior Product Manager on Bing Local to talk a little bit about Bing's efforts in local search.

As Ballmer noted in his keynote, Google "did search right first," and Ollila mentioned Google as well, but he says Bing's local experience is more natural (almost like being there). He says it's designed to help users make quick decisions, in as little as three clicks.

Ollila says that Bing gathers business info from different providers, making it difficult for Bing to ensure accuracy of unclaimed listings, although he maintains they do a pretty good job of it. The best thing business owners can do, he says, is to find the Bing Local Listing Center, and go and take a hold of their own listing. "Just take ownership and make sure all your information is represented correctly," he says.

He says it's probably already there and correct, but if you own a business and want more traffic, you should make sure and get ownership of the listing. Bing tries to make it as easy as possible, giving the user a "wizard" type of interface.

Ollila mentions that a lot of business owners get fired up about local listings, and upset about bad reviews. Bing crawls the web for reviews and plugs them in to business listings. He says businesses will often get mad at not just the reviewers, but at Bing for listing these reviews. He says, "There's no real magic answer for getting bad reviews other than take care of your customer."

As you know, maps and local go hand in hand, and as we covered last month, Microsoft introduced some new Bing Maps features at TED, including a streetside photos application, world wide telescope integration, indoor panoramas, and video overlay technology.

Microsoft wants to gain any ground in can in search, and the company is showing that this time around (with Bing, I mean) they are taking it very seriously. Still the very dominant Google isn't exactly slowing down in its own efforts. As Ballmer pointed out in his keynote, since Bing launched, efforts from the competition seem to have increased right along with the companies own efforts. Right around the same time Microsoft unveiled these features, Google introduced its Google Maps Labs, which hosts experimental features for Google Maps that users can turn on/off.

Features give customers reasons to use products, which is why it is important for businesses to at least acknowledge the efforts being put forth by the major search players in this area. Even if a specific map-related feature doesn't affect your business directly, it may give a potential customer reason to simply start using local search with a particular provider, which makes it all the more important for a business to make sure it's properly represented in the listings with said provider.

Do you use Bing Local? How would you rate Bing's local experience compared to Google's? Comment here.

AlikeList Points Customers to Local Businesses Their Friends Like

As we've written about a lot lately, local search is continuing to evolve, and that evolution is not just coming from the biggest names in search. We recently had a discussion with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn about user location-sharing as  new kind of query that can yield local business results. ChaCha is bringing in Q&A to local search.

Another site, called AlikeList aims to make local search a social experience, where consumers turn to their trusted friends (and friends of friends) for business reviews, so they don’t have to rely on the words of strangers. Basically, users can see which businesses their friends "like."

AlikeList has over 14 million businesses listed in its database, and 10's of 1000's of businesses are recommended in over 1,000 hyper-local cities in the US and in 5 major metro markets. We asked the company how a consumer benefits from the site's strategy of not offering any negative reviews. In other words, what is to keep a user from looking for a more balanced source?

Co-founder and CEO Jim Delli Santi tells WebProNews, "AlikeList enables its users to see 'Likes' from their friends, from friends-of-friends and from all AlikeList users. The goal is to replicate real-world, word-of-mouth referrals online. If a friend recommends a business, you already know his/her preferences, and based on those preferences you can make a decision to follow/not follow the recommendation."

"Similarly, a referral from a friend-of-a-friend is stronger than a referral from a stranger because you have a general understanding of their background and preferences," he adds. "This is faster than traditional services because you don’t have the 'review the reviewer' to try to learn if your preferences match, and you don't have to worry if negative reviews are coming from a business' competitor or someone with an axe to grind.  In addition, when you need an important local business fast, a dentist or plumber for example, it is much faster and easier to find the ones your friends like and use, instead of reading reviews about dentists and plumbers from strangers or ones people don't recommend in a negative review."

There's no question that time is increasingly becoming harder to come by and more valuable a resource in the age of information overload. What incentive would customers have to take the time to "like" businesses on AlikeList?

Jim says, "AlikeList saves people time by offering an easy way for them to share and discover their most trusted local businesses with their friends. 'LikeLists' are available 24x7, and let people quickly find a trusted business and move on about their day. This is helpful for low-value decisions like 'which pizza restaurant to choose,' but this is vital for making high-value decisions like a doctor, lawyer or auto mechanic."

"People can spend lots of time researching which of these high-value service providers to use, or they can quickly check the 'LikeList' of a trusted friend," he adds. "In addition, your LikeList and TryLists serve as personal yellow pages, easy to reference quickly when you need them, or easy to refer to them when friends ask for recommendations.  In addition, your LikeList will contain deals and messages from the businesses you like, so you can receive offers directly, without sifting through offers from businesses you don't want or need."

The company stresses that AlikeList was not built to be "another local reviews competitor", or a media company, but that it was created to be "an online local marketplace on which businesses and consumers can interact and build relationships."

Businesses can create special offers and promotions, which are posted directly to their AlikeList page. Customers can receive discounts or other special offers, and businesses can get people to promote them on their "LikeLists."

AlikeList has mobile apps "in the pipeline," the details of which will be shared when they're ready. This could be a vital factor in the service's success. 

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