SES Toronto 2008 Day 1 : Getting Found in Maps and Local Search
Local search is one of the topics that I am interested in currently. Mainly because there are a large amount of challenges that exist that stand in the way of having a relatively smart and user friendly solution. Things such as availability, relevance of information, having information at the exact time I want it etc. are just some of the roadblocks.
Here is summary of the panel discussion : Getting Found in Maps and Local Search.
Speakers
Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping
Candice Faktor, Creator, www.ourfaves.com and GM, www.toronto.com
Nick Patsiopoulos, Product Manager, Yahoo! Canada
Speech #1 - Ian White
Solving local search means identifying on and off-line merchants who can fulfill commercial inquiries.
Here are some stats that he rambled about:
40% queries inherently local. This means that a high percentage of searches that people make are about things around them, the city they live in, or products around them that a user is looking to buy or research about. He then goes into detail about IP based geo-targeting and its limitations, more specifically it is poor for local search and demonstrates a service area misrepresentation ie, mapping a persons location to a region is difficult.
Speech #2 Candice Faktor
Candice gave an overview of the properties that she is involved in, both toronto.com and ourfaves.com.
Overview of Toronto.com
Where to go and what to do in Toronto is all available on toronto.com
Entertainment focussed individuals are a target market
Interactive media property + local search engine
1mm unique visitors/month
10 years old
Part of Torstar Family
Overview of ourfaves.com
User generated content
Sister site to toronto.com owned by Torstar Digital
Torstar's first web 2.0 site
Launching in western Canada soon
SEO how we do it : how toronto.com touches local search
relevant title tags
descriptive body copy
Dynamically generated title tags
SEO Training
Circular linking on site
Quality links
SEM - How we use it
Drive traffic to areas we don't naturally rank high in
Couple SEM with core categories naturally optimized eg. restaurants
Strategically drive traffic to pages
SEM traffic drives deeper engagement than natural SEO traffic
Toronto.com's Local Search Product is being revamped.
Key Challenges that they face
- servicing the local business market
- High cost of sale
- less sophisticated buyer of search
- budgets smaller
Speech #3 - Nick Patsiopolous Yahoo! Canada
Online user reviews were an important part of local activity processes
If you're implementing a local search solution, online user reviews is important
How to Target Mobile
-make sure your business comes up in Search Engine local results
-Create a mobile site
Comments