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SES - 2008 Retrospect

By Jen Longtin | March 21, 2008

SES is winding down today, and as I read through blogs from search engine land, search engine gurus, Kelsey Group, etc I am pleased to see that the buzz of local is catching on.

We had a huge turnout at our booth this year, good enough to consider one of those big booths with water fountains, (I wish there was a water fountain booth).  It felt like four in ten people that visited our booth had a specific interest in learning more about the Marchex Local Content Network.  With over 25 million visitors and over 50,000 new user posts each month, it is a great time to get on board.

In the session “Why Local is Different,” I had an opportunity to hear several perspectives on Local.  Chad Schott  discussed the opportunity Local offers and why it is the next megatrend.  By 2011, it is expected that $20 billion will move to Local (forecasted from Interactive Ad Bureau and Borrell Associates, 1998-2007, Veronic Suhler Stevenson 2007).  And we have already hit the tipping point.  Benu Aggarwal helped educate people on how to integrate Local into their overall online strategy.   She included tips like using local names on everything down to a photo for better relevance and thus higher SEO ranking.  Vik Advani and the moderator, Ian White talked about opportunities with new mapping technology.  And Gib Olander from Localeze talked about the challenges local companies face in search engine rankings, and how to get higher positions.  He included everything from creating a page for every store location you have for ranking, to simply making sure the name and address you put on your site is consistent (ex: Marchex, Marchex Inc).

There was a moment of confusion when we were quizzed about the percentage of people searching online using local terms.  The message that came across was that well over 90% of search queries online had no local keywords included (neighborhood, city, zip code).  Fortunately there is research now from Yahoo research to tell us what is not reflected in people’s searches does show up in their buying intent. According to Yahoo Research, 92% of internet shoppers make their purchases offline; and our representative Chad Schott chimed in to remind people of this.

So, back home, a little smarter from sessions, a little fatter from industry parties, and extremely excited for the upcoming megatrend.

Topics: National advertisers, The Kelsey Group, Events, Community, Advertising |

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