Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Smart Phones & Local Search

Aug 11, 2009 - 7:30 pm 1 by

Below is live coverage of the Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Smart Phones & Local Search from the SES San Jose 2009 conference.

This coverage is provided by Barry Schwartz of the Search Engine Roundtable.

We are using a live blogging tool to provide the real time coverage. You can interact with us and while we are live blogging, so feel free to ask us questions as we blog. We will publish the archive below after the session is completed.

Keeping it Local: The Convergence of Smart Phones & Local Search(08/11/2009) 
4:34 Barry Schwartz:  Moderator:
Kevin M. Ryan, CMO, WebVisible, Inc.
Speakers:
Steve Espinosa, VP of Innovation, eLocal Listing, LLC
Michael Boland, Analyst, The Kelsey Group
Josh Siegel, Product Manager, Mobile Local Search, Google
Gregg Stewart, SVP, Interactive, TMP Directional Marketing
Justin Jed, Group Product Manager, Bing Mobile
4:34 Barry Schwartz:  Michael Boland, Analyst, The Kelsey Group is first up
4:35
4:35 Barry Schwartz:  iPhone sales are huge, but it is not just iPhone, 15% smartphone peneration in the US
4:36 Barry Schwartz:  More smart phones more people using data on the web on the go
4:37 Barry Schwartz:  Local intent is different then when you search on a mobile vs a desktop
4:37 Barry Schwartz:  Local search on the mobile desvice indxes higher than the desktop device
4:37 Barry Schwartz:  27% share of local search is on mobile devices today, will grow to 35% in 2013
4:38 Barry Schwartz:  top 8 mobile features
  • Email
  • Weather
  • IM
  • Maps
  • News
  • Sports
  • Directory
  • etc
4:39 Barry Schwartz:  Monetization:
  • CPA
  • Banner
  • Mobile Apps
  • Mobile search
  • ecommerce
  • pay per call
  • voice search
  • sms
4:39 Barry Schwartz:  right now, most advertisers are porting their campaigns from one media to mobile, but not using it as effectively
4:42 Barry Schwartz:  Quality over Quantiy:
  • SMS has a 20% ad recall rate and 12% response rate
  • Display ads on verizon has 2% click rate
4:42 Barry Schwartz:  How do you get into mobile?
  • decide your goals
  • choose the platform
4:43 Barry Schwartz:  That is all for Michael
4:45 Barry Schwartz:  Gregg Stewart, SVP, Interactive, TMP Directional Marketing is now up
4:46
4:46 Barry Schwartz:  consumers use multiple services when conducting local search, including YP, print YP, search engines and others
4:47 Barry Schwartz:  21% said they conducted a local search on their mobile device
22% said they used directory assistance
4:48 Barry Schwartz:  usage increases
4:50 Barry Schwartz:  Lverage online media buys with exisiting companies
4:50 Barry Schwartz:  Maps and driving directions are used a lot on mobile, so this is a key area for mobile ads
4:51 Barry Schwartz:  This info is pushed out to phones, GPS, yellow pages, etc
4:51 Barry Schwartz:  This is not a one size fits all strategy, lots of different ways to take this to market.
4:51 Barry Schwartz:  MAke sure you plan and research before
4:53 Barry Schwartz:  Steve Espinosa, VP of Innovation, eLocal Listing, LLC is now up
4:54
4:55 Barry Schwartz:  Google local search... even though they have ten local on desktop web, they have three displayed on the mobile version, so aim for three
4:55 Barry Schwartz:  between 4 and 10, there is a "huge" drop off in visits
4:56 Barry Schwartz:  The second ad is a local ad targeted and targeted for iPhone
4:56
Expand
4:56 Barry Schwartz:  See that link to the address, that is the local part
4:57 Barry Schwartz:  Reviews play a huge factor
4:58 Barry Schwartz:  The one listing with reviews gets more calls, you can see some of that show up in the image above, but if you have 4 reviews or more, you get stars in the reviews, on the iphone
4:58 Barry Schwartz:  With Bing, you need a yellow page ad to show up
4:59 Barry Schwartz:  The ad takes up the whole screen, so it is worth buying an ad
4:59 Barry Schwartz:  Yahoo shows top two ads, 800#s makes a difference on mobile, for some reason, they look more for local numbers when searching and calling these listings
5:00 Barry Schwartz:  If you add photos in Yahoo, it pushed your competition down on the screen
5:00 Barry Schwartz:  Yahoo Search Monkey is implemented in local search... create a listing in Yelp (which is a default for Yahoo Search Monkey)
5:01 Barry Schwartz:  Yelp is a strong domain
5:02 Barry Schwartz:  Google said he sees a lot of stolen listings in the lock smith business and many of those cold call business driven areas, but Google has locked down many areas, but then you annoy lots of big companies, so it is a hard balance.
5:03 Barry Schwartz:  Wait, Google guy did not say that
5:04 Barry Schwartz:  Josh Siegel, Product Manager, Mobile Local Search, Google is now up
5:05 Barry Schwartz:  [email protected] is his email, email him if you have an issue with your mobile listing on Google
5:05
Expand
5:05 Barry Schwartz:  In mobile, they want to make searching Google's database as easy as possible on your mobile device.
5:06 Barry Schwartz:  They are now integrating your location (with permission) with your search, including your iPhone
5:07 Barry Schwartz:  See it works, me searching from san jose
5:07
Expand
5:07 Barry Schwartz:  Otherwise, enter in your location, ie pizza SF or san fransico
5:08 Barry Schwartz:  he is promoting Google Gears as a standard for location APIs, this is built into HTML 5
5:09 Barry Schwartz:  He then explains how to manage your business listing, google local business center http://www.google.com/local/add
5:10 Barry Schwartz:  Last up: Justin Jed, Group Product Manager, Bing Mobile
5:12
Expand
5:12 Barry Schwartz:  32% of smart phone users are doing half of all mobile searches
5:13 Barry Schwartz:  but other half are using more standard phones and they are also searching
5:13 Barry Schwartz:  don't forget those people
5:14 Barry Schwartz:  mobile queries are very specific and very short query intent
5:14 Barry Schwartz:  mobile users want an answer right away
5:14 Barry Schwartz:  Future: GPS, voice, picture, etc make mobile search better
5:15 Barry Schwartz:  when you look at the mobile queries, many of them are not local intent, he said
5:16 Barry Schwartz:  but we really dont know what local intent yet is
5:16 Barry Schwartz:  we need to better understand local query intent
5:16 Barry Schwartz:  
  • you need to focus on task and decision
  • better results
  • mobile optimized
5:17 Barry Schwartz:  Bing does answers on the go
  • weather
  • map
  • movies
  • products
  • etc
5:18 Barry Schwartz:  Great relevant results
  • reach to all types of mobile devices
  • one click directions
  • local listings
  • categorizing results
  • and search one location
5:18 Barry Schwartz:  Optimizing the UI for each device is important alos
5:19 Barry Schwartz:  
  • Help users complete tasks
  • Delivery great results
  • more rewarding experience
5:19 Barry Schwartz:  That is it, now Q&A, which I will skip
5:19
 

 

 

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