The two largest, Google and Yahoo, added this component early in 2004, but have made major changes since then.

Due to the strength of the local search market potential, partnerships made, acquisitions by other companies, and other factors, some other leading PPC search engine have changed dramatically in their approach to PPC advertising.

In addition, a couple of smaller PPC, search engines begun in 2005 to integrate facets of local search into their offerings.

Let’s see what the current local search options for pay-per-click advertisers are.

Google AdWords
The Google PPC local search product, Local AdWords, initially, identified the user’s location by scanning the user’s IP address.

It then fed them PPC results for the location determined to be closest to the browser’s IP address.

Unfortunately, if the user’s IP address was not his or her usual location (for example, if you were using a computer in another city but were looking for a product/service in your home area), the PPC ad results reflected your current location, unless you specified geographical limitations in the initial search (for example, “car dealers in Manhattan”).

The acquisition by Google of BellSouth (RealPages.com) in October of 2004 and its later purchase of SmartPages.com meant that these became the first Internet yellow pages groups allowed to sell ads through Google AdWords.

This allowed the Adwords program local search to use online white/yellow pages as well as IP addresses to serve up more accurate local results.

Google moved quickly in and offered a beta version of local search, called Google Local, which brings local search to the organic rankings area.

The search bar in Google Local’s beta version has two parts-one for the product/service, and the other for the location.

In response to actions by Yahoo, Google Local moved out of the Google Labs development area and onto the homepage search site in February 2005, although it still carries the “beta” tag.

The results may or may not be accurate, or at least not as accurate as a PPC ad. They also warned that their SafeSearch feature was not totally functional with the beta version. In many cases, better results are returned if you use the city name, rather than a zip code.

With Google Local, unless you use the PPC option of the Local AdWords program, you are still not guaranteed that your location will come tip as it should.

For example, if you conduct a Google Local search for shoes in a city that you don’t know the zip code for, you may get results for any city in North America with that name (and we all know there is more than one city with the same name within the North American region).

However, this is mitigated largely by the ability to specify a search area from your current location, such as the number of miles radius of an area you want to search.

When Google Local was still in development, results based on searches in Canada were very unreliable.

Some of the changes instituted, such as the integration of mapping capability into the product, have increased the accuracy of results for Canada significantly, although results are still somewhat less reliable than searches with United States locations specified.

The key to overall improvement in Google Local for all of North America appears to be the integration of Google Mars into the product.

A map of the area you have targeted (5 mile radius, for example) comes up along with the local listings, each with a letter assigned to them that matches a small balloon on the map, indicating their location on a street grid.

You can dynamically change the radius of location to expand or constrict your search for local businesses. A few PPC ads appear along the top of the results Page that are also locally related.

The listing for an individual local business itself includes the name, phone number, and address of the business, the distance from your location, and a short description that appears to be drawn directly from the web page if the location has a website (the URL is also listed).

Next to the distance parameter is a “Directions” link, which takes you to a page that zooms in to show directions. It also provides text on the side.

If you are interested in participating in Google Local, it is on through the AdWords program.

Setting up the parameters is a process and you can run different campaigns set to different location (e.g. one ad targeted to the city as a whole and another targeted to within a certain distance from your location).

Keep in mind that the smaller make your search radius in your ad, the less traffic you are likely to receive, is your ad will only show up if someone specifies a location within your set region.

Yaboo Search Marketing
Yahoo Local Match works the same way their regular PPC products do, but the advertiser also specifies the area they want the advertisement to cover, with an offered range of ½ mile to 100 miles away from their place of business.

When a potential customer types in a search that includes a geographic area, such as a city or state, the PPC listings for that area will appear with PPC ads first, followed by the results section, initially sorted by “Top Results.”

The user can then click on any of the columns in order to re-rank the listings by price, rating, name, or distance from their current location (as Yahoo has determined it).

They can also click to get a map or a phone connection, rather than clicking on the company name.

When a user clicks on your PPC ad, they are taken to an interim page called the Locator page, which has a map to your business, customized information about your business, a link to get driving directions (a small map is shown by default), and the URL of your website.

Users can also write a review of your business on this page or look at the other linked listings displayed.

There is also an area where you can locate various services near the business, such as public transportation, ATM machines, and hotels.

This interim page allows the advertiser to provide a lot of information to potential clients without them even having to visit their website.

More importantly, perhaps, it allows advertisers who do not have websites to participate in Local Match, because a URL is not a requirement to participate in the program.

All of the relevant information can be included on this page and, in fact, because the main results page includes a link to contact the business via a text message sent to a phone, businesses without a website call also take advantage of the service.

Alternatively, the user can click on the map icon at the top-right of the results and bring up a mail of the area with the results numbered on it.

However, the resulting map is not very attractive and defaults to a more regionalized area than Google default.

While undertaking the same local search on Yahoo, the “map the results” click yielded a mail of the general New York area with the results all piled on top of each other.

The user needed to zoom in or adjust the view in order to see the results in any usable fashion.

There are some easy ways to do this, with a setting for street, city, or state that adjusts the view automatically to, a clearer visual.

Another interesting feature is that if you hover over the listings alongside file map, a small popup appears identifying the business, its address, and phone number.

Alternatively, if you click on a number in the map itself, a popup appears telling you which business it is and offering you the option to go to the locator page, get driving directions, or to send a text message to a phone for the business.

Yahoo Search Marketing offers a self- serve approach to setting up this localized search ad, with no service fee if you wish to do it yourself.

Otherwise, you can obtain expert advice on the various local options and how to best craft your Locator page, etc., for a fee of $99.

The signup process is fairly intuitive and similar to Google. However, at this time, Yahoo only offers local listings in the United States.

Interchange
Interchange has undergone numerous changes, both through the last half of 2004 and into 2005, as it continues to acquire or partner with other properties and Internet yellow pages companies, in addition to its earlier acquisition of the PPC, search engine, ePilot.

As a result, it now offers a local search and advertising platform called Local DirectTM, which combines Interchange’s proven paid-search platform with the world’s most accessible local business database, and the company’s proprietary Keyword DNATM technology, to create a comprehensive local-search solution.

Although not nearly as robust as the Google and Yahoo offerings, it is a big step forward to add local search to a smaller search property.

The user types a search word and location into the search box and the relevant business near the location appear in a results page.

An interesting feature of Local Direct is the ability to enter your address via “Set My Address,” so that the search engine will remember your physical address (associated with your IP address) for all future local searches, helping provide a better search result for potential buyers.

The options available from a Local Direct Search include a link to a telephone contact, the ability to access a map, access any coupons the business offers, and a link to the website.

The complete Local Direct service portfolio is available to Internet yellow pages and printed yellow pages (IYP/YP) partners, as well as other portals and websites seeking a local paid-search solution.

Interchange’s local-search technology effectively bridges the gap between keyword search and category-based directory search, and enables directory publishers and website owners to enter the growing online local-search market, with the strength of the company’s expansive networks (Search Distribution Network/ Advertiser Network) and advanced technology at their disposal.

Find What
FindWhat began offering a local search option on their website, using SuperPages.com as the delivery vehicle.

On their homepage, the search bar has one place for the search term and another for the city or state.

A local search brings up a typical list of four relevant websites. Once you click
on one, you are taken to SuperPages, where a page with information very similar to that found on Yahoo is presented.

SuperPages.com itself introduced a form of local search on its website, but has also transformed itself into much more than a yellow pages site-it has also added the veneer of a shopping site.

To take advantage of local search if you are an advertiser on FindWhat, you need to set up a PPC account on SuperPages using category pricing (minimum click price of 20 cents), even though the base technology is from FindWhat.

The limit of four listings presented when one uses the local search bar (versus their general search bar, which returns many more results) needs to be more comprehensive in order to get advertisers interested in signing up for this feature.

The results are attractive, but until more advertisers are provided with adequate information on how to integrate local search into their ad campaigns, the FindWhat offering is not as competitive as it could be, given the number of patterns the search engine has.

Kanoodle
Kanoodle has just launched a local search option, called LocalTarget listings. It has teamed up with WebSearch.com, in addition to its usual partners, and results are presented on a WebSearch page that has been customized to include paid listings from Kanoodle.

Kanoodle has tied the program to their ContextTarget product, in effect creating, as they put it, “a group of topics centered on individual communities.” Content-related ads are definitely more targeted, but usually provide fewer conversions.

The effectiveness of a local ad on Kanoodle has yet to be seen. One disturbing feature is that unless your IP address indicates you are within file location you are searching for, you will probably receive a notice stating, “We’re sorry … the advertiser you clicked on has requested not to receive any visits from users outside of their market area.”

Keywords: local search market, Local PPC Search Engines, PPC search engine, local search, pay-per-click advertisers, Local AdWords, Adwords, Local Match, Locator page, localized search ad, Local Direct Search, advertiser,

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Their efforts may not have been perfect, but they realized the importance of local search before most other search engines did.

It really wasn’t until research conducted by the highly regarded Kelsey Group, among others revealed some interesting information that made everyone in the online world sit up and take notice.

Released late in 2003, The Kelsey Group’s survey and research produced some interesting data and estimates. Here are some of the more pertinent results:

• Traffic from the major search engines that can be defined as looking for a product in a certain location can be as high as 60% (for market leader Google), although for other search engines, a more typical percentage range was closer to 10% to 15%. Even the percentage for Yahoo was rated at 12% to 40%.

• Local search traffic from the smaller, niche search engines, which often provide impressive ROI on PPC ads, usually was in the range of 10%.

• Businesses reported that about 75% of all their customers originate from within a 50-mile radius of their location.

• Approximately 80% of small-to-medium-sized businesses reported they buy their needed products/inventory within a 50-mile radius of their business.

• Kelsey estimated paid local search would make up about 24% of the market by the year 2008.

• By 2008, purchases tied to local search are estimated to reach at least $2.5 billion.

The results of a similar survey conducted by The Kelsey Group and BizRate, a comparison shopping site, were released a number of months later, in February 2004.

This research used, as their source, a group of U.S. residents who had made an online purchase in the previous year.

The report showed a quickly changing scenario and clarified some of the earlier information.

Kelsey spokespeople themselves stated that they were rather surprised by some of what they found.

• 25% of all users of search engines who are looking for products are looking for businesses close to home and/or work. This is about twice what their earlier survey showed.

• 36% of searches are shopping related, either to research compare prices, or buy online.

• 64% identified search engines as the primary way consumers find something online.

• 80% said that commercial search results were “good” to “excellent.”

• 44% of consumers are making more local product/service searches than in the prior year.

Two key points from the research deserve repeating here:

• Almost half of those who buy online are using local search.

• One-fourth of all shoppers using search engines are looking for a local business to buy from.

There is no doubt that PPC online business is growing. Spending on search-engine-related spending was reportedly close to $1 billion just during the second quarter of 2004, while in the corresponding period in 2003 it was half that amount (about $515 million).

One trend, already underway, affected the development of local search significantly-the growing presence of online versions of print telephone directories (the “yellow pages”).

Throughout 2004, many search engines have contracted with various yellow pages properties to integrate the yellow pages web capabilities with the search engines’ version of local search.

Throughout the remainder of 2004, a variety of ways of implementing local search capabilities were added into PPC search engines, especially during the latter part of the year.

The complexities and variations of these local search solutions prevent us from predicting will become the “standard” local search solution, but there are some key clues to be found in the programs developed and currently used by PPC search engines.

To small businesses, the ability to run a local search is a huge development. This finally gives you the opportunity to persuade Internet customers who like to buy locally to choose your business over the store 3 blocks away, without even having to interact with them.

Local search is here to stay, and it is not too late to enter the game. In fact, this is exactly the right time to become involved!

What looked like trends six months ago are now reality and a major upheaval is quietly making its way through the online community.

Many businesses have become disillusioned with organic search results. They have found that PPC is a more reliable option for their ad dollars, and adding the local touch is the icing on the cake.

Local PPC search is definitely worth investigating and experimenting with to see if it can help you increase your ROI by converting more online visitors to your website into buyers.

Keywords: Local Search, paid local search, yellow pages,

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The initial 1969 network (called ARPANET) that eventually evolved into the Internet was a collaborative effort Commissioned by the United States Department of Defense and involved just four academic institutions.

During the next decide or so, development moved ahead quickly, despite a number of major challenges.

The best minds in the newly formed Field of Computing Science, and experts in other scientific and mathematical arenas, Collaborated to work out the problems associated with a global undertaking of this size and complexity.

It wasn’t until 1982 that the network was officially named the “Internet,” and another eight years until the First search engine-Archie-was developed at

McGill
University in
Montreal, Canada.

The

University of
Minnesota soon followed with the extremely popular “Gopher” and the race to build bigger, better search engines began.

The World Wide Web, or file “web” as it has come to be called, also came into being soon after Archie was released.

However, it wasn’t until 1993, with the release of the Mosaic web browser, that computers operating either the Windows or the Macintosh operating systems could access it.

The availability of Mosaic, and the similarly flexible web browsers that followed, were key to the success of the World Wide Web.

Initially, most individuals interested in exploring the World Wide Web chose online services such as America Online as the easiest way to interact online, but businesses soon realized the potential for using the web for commercial use.

Today, there are hundreds of millions of domains registered on the Internet and millions of businesses that use the Internet to sell their services. Even more businesses could benefit from the Internet if they were aware of the possibilities.

The Internet is no longer the simple communication and informational source it began as. It is now a huge, quickly changing entity. Search engines play an important role, because they help users find what they are looking for and are constantly reacting to market needs and developing additional resources and capabilities with which to compete with each other.

Therefore, if you want to be successful in your online advertising campaigns, you must be prepared to quickly adjust your strategies, methods, and approaches.

Keywords: Internet, Mosaic web browser, ARPANET, ppc history.

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It was often presented as being just like a billboard, but with the added advantage of people across the globe being able to view it.

Another form of advertising was “hay per click.” At its most basic level, this involved the placement of a small ad on a search engine, for which you were charged only if a visitor clicked on it.

Since 1997, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has become the fastest-growing method of online marketing.

As its popularity increased, the model was altered somewhat to take advantage of technological advancements and to deliver what research said potential clients were looking for in an online ad.

During the last decade, PPC advertising has become the most popular method of running ad campaigns online amid generally believed to be the best advertising method, as far as return on investment (ROI) is concerned.

The following timeline highlights the development of the PPC advertising model over the last several years and the search engines that offer it as an option:

1997

Bill Gross, Founder of 1dealab, developed a concept for a search engine that focused solely on search. 

He named the engine “GoTo.com” to brand the site as the place millions of Internet users could “go to” in order to find what they were looking for.  This search engine was renamed Overture late in 2000

1998

The GoTo/Overture website launched, with a search-only focus. The pay-per-click model was introduced, which enabled businesses to bid on search terms in an auction format.

The amount bid for the terms determined their ranking in the search results-the highest bidder appeared first in the list, the lowest bidder last.

1999

GoTo/Overture launched a Pay For Performance. Affiliate Program that allowed businesses to add a search box to their websites and, in return, receive payments based on the number of visitors who conducted a GoTo/Overture search from their site.

The ePilot paid-search engine, and pay-per-click technology aimed at driving consumer traffic to this flew Search engine, was introduced.

Search 123.com was founded in June.

The FindWhat.com network was launched in September.

Kent Keating founded Kanoodle.com in October.

Enhance Interactive was founded under file name ah-ha.com.

2000

Google became the largest search engine on the web, with a new index comprised of 1 billion URLs. Yahoo! selected Google as its default search results provider to complement the Yahoo! web directory and navigational guide.

ePilot 2.0, with new design and advanced search features, including a keyword-bidding wizard, was released.

The BrainFox network was founded in June.

PageSeeker/ROAR began operation in September.

Search123.com launched a pay-per-click search engine platform in October, with a robust self-service user interface for advertisers and a real-time reporting interface for traffic partners.

The Searchfeed.com network was established in November.

FindWhat went public and began trading on NASDAQ.

GoTo officially began to change its corporate name to Overture.

2001

Google advertising programs attracted more than 350 premium Sponsorship advertisers and thousands of AdWords advertisers, and delivered clickthrough rates four to five times higher than clickthrough rates for traditional banner ads.

Yahoo! launched “Sponsor Matches” with Overture as its Pay-For-Performance search provider.

Another major upgrade of the ePilot search engine was announced. The move enabled the company to partner with other search engines and distribute tens of thousands of sponsored advertiser listings.

2002

Google launched AdWords Select^TM, an updated version of the AdWords self-service advertising system with a number of new enhancements, including cost-per-click (CPC)-based pricing.

MSN signed an agreement with Overture to be its Pay-For-Performance search provider for MSN Search in the
U.S.,
UK, and
Canada through 2003. Yahoo! extended its Pay-For-Performance search partnership with Overture for three years.

Interchange unveiled an industry-leading Keyword Suggestion Tool, which helped advertisers pre-populate a robust and comprehensive keyword list utilizing a unique comparative research process.

2003

Google surpassed 100,000 active advertisers in its Google AdWords program.

Google AdSense, designed to maximize the revenue potential of a website by serving highly relevant ads specific to the content of the paper, launched. Initial partners included ABC.com.

HowStuffWorks Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc., Lycos Europe, Knight Ridder Digital,About.com, CNET, and others.

Google introduced enhancements to its AdWords service, including a conversion tracking tool and expanded match technology.

In June, Search 123.com was acquired by ValueClick, Inc.

In July, Yahoo! and Overture signed a definitive agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Overture. In October, Overture stockholders voted in favor of the company’s acquisition.

ePilot’s search distribution network exceeded I billion searches in the third quarter of the year.

The search engine began development of their Local Direct search and advertising platform and pioneered Keyword DNA^TM“-a search technology that mapped billions of keywords directly to over 10 Million individual
U.S. business listings.

This effectively bridged the gap between category-based directory lookup and unstructured keyword search.

A merger between FindWhat.com and Espotting, a major European search engine, was announced.

2004

Google announced a new web-based mail service called Gmail. Gmail included relevant advertising delivered with the same technology that scanned web pages as part of the AdSense service.

The AdWords program itself was enhanced with the addition of local search targeting capability, enabling advertisers to specify a geographic range for delivery of their ads.

Overture launched Local Match-their local search solution, with options that allowed it to attract businesses with no online presence.

Interchange launched the breakthrough Local Direct^TM search and advertising platform. The platform integrated a “push to talk” service, which combined the power of inbound telephone leads from the web with the flexibility of a pay-her-call model.

Also partnered with YellowPages.com to provide local paid search, which enabled YellowPages.com to offer cost-per-click advertising services to its advertisers via Interchange’s Local Direct^TM search and advertising platform.

2005

Overture was renamed to Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions.

Google launched a limited beta test that will let advertisers choose the sites on which their contextually targeted ads appear.

But they have to pay for those ads on a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) basis.

Keywords: Pay-Per-Click, PPC, banner ad, billboard, hay per click, cost-per-click, CPC, ppc history.

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