Author Archive

The first part of the current “Local Consumer Review Survey 2012” focuses on the number of local searches for companies as well as the general influence of online-ratings on consumers. In the second part of the study, BrightLocal.com, a company specializing in local marketing, has focused on the question of what users search for online and what role a company’s reputation plays.
The main result: although users search for restaurants the most when conducting local searches, “consumers read reviews for all types of local business at the point at which they need those services,” explained Myles Anderson from BrightLocal.com on searchengineland. Because users read less reviews than in 2012 in order to make up their mind, it is important for local businesses to have positive reviews. If users stop reading so many reviews, they tend to focus on the latest ones, continues Anderson. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the name of the cool club I was at during my last trip to London with the funny blond guy (Chris? Tim? Steve?) whom I was chatting until the dawn? We used to keep diaries for information like that, but the geolocation service Foursquare has developed a solution with its newest local search deal: the History Page shows users all check-ins with detailed information such as date, time, pictures, comments and with whom he was there with. Read the rest of this entry »

Yahoo Small Business, a special Yahoo-developed platform for small businesses, which offers webhosting, domain registration, design templets, and e-commerce templets, will also be offering a free online marketing tool: with the Marketing-Dashboard, local and regional business owners can find new marketing strategies and also expand and improve existing compaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

Next to online directories, there are a number of local search platforms and mobiles apps that help users find businesses and service providers in their vicinity. “Because the local data from each of the services usually comes from the same sources, one can assume that they also deliver results in a similar manner,” concludes Greg Sterling from Searchengineland. But he wanted to know for sure and hired Implied Intelligence to review the completeness and the accuracy of the results from the leading local search services in the USA. Read the rest of this entry »

The online offering of Das Örtliche belongs to the most-used local search services. In March, the portal gained a large amount of new users: according to the current numbers of the IVW (Informationsgesellschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern), the number of visits raised by 13 percent to 21 million in comparison to the previous month. Das Örtliche therefore takes its place directly following Das Telefonbuch with 24 million visitors as second amongst telecommunication directories in Germany. Read the rest of this entry »

The mobile local search app from Das Telefonbuch for the iPhone was updated recently and can be downloaded in the App Store. The 3.40 version offers several improvements and new features: the layout of the standard, vicinity, and expanded search has a new search screen. This leads to quicker results, according to the company. In addition, users can find addition information, such as location, website and additional company information with one click under the individual results. The results will not display special top- and standard-results, according to the PR manager Silke Greifsmühlen. Read the rest of this entry »

The free mobile application from Gelbe Seiten has passed the one-million download mark, according to the company. Local search has changed dramatically in the past years. Next to the printed directory, which is approximately used 1.7 million times per day, search conducted online and especially using mobile devices has become a day-to-day normality, according to Stephan Theiss, CEO at Gelbe Seiten Marketing GmbH. Read the rest of this entry »

The search engine giant has improved the 3D design of more than a thousand landmarks and tourist attractions in its local service Google Maps. With this, the digital map can be easily compared to the physical landscape, explains Paul Messmer, a software developer of the company, in the Google Latlong Blog. It is a part of Google’s effort to make Google Maps as accurate and useful as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Snipon.de, which launched last year in October, has now ended ist Beta phase. What makes this portal so special: users can search for local deals offered by local businesses as well as trans-regional deals in online shops. In addition, prices from various dealers can be compared so that users can find the cheapest provider. Read the rest of this entry »

Those who conduct a search by google.com can now pull up their most recent searches including results on the go with a single click. After say, conducting a search on a PC for information about a certain location, users can pull up this data on their Android or iPhone in their next search on Google.com, including directions or relevant information about the location, all by clicking on the “Recent” icon, according to Junichi Uekawa in the company’s mobile blog.

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