July 17th, 2009
CitySearch Overview
Citysearch is a major local directory player owned by IAC–the same company that runs Ticketmaster, ask.com, and match.com. They’ve been steadily losing market share– from 19MM monthly visitors 2 years ago to 7MM visitors last month. When I checked a year ago, their sales team was selling flat rate clicks across all categories for about a dollar, then using second tier search engines to buy cheap clicks, thereby creating an arb play.
A fixed price per click would seem to insulate the local client from fluctuations in bid prices. However, what actually happens is that it creates an incentive for the agency to buy the cheapest clicks possible, since that enhances their profit. With no call tracking, nobody is the wiser.
Recently, CitySearch partnered with MySpace to offer MySpace Local, where CitySearch licenses part of their 18 million directory listings and does a revshare. MySpace is taking only restaurants, bars, and clubs– so this is not a listing opportunity for BlitzLocal, which is more focused on doctors and lawyers. But MySpace does offer self-serve PPC, a weaker version of Facebook’s tool.
Listings Page Comparisons
Back to CitySearch–here’s what their actual listing page looks like. Note that the ads are somewhat hidden and the navigational elements are very heavy.
Here’s MerchantCircle’s sample listings page, ad supported, but not too bad.
Here’s blitzlocal’s sample analyst page, compare to merchantcircle.com’s example analyst page, called a Marketing Advisor. We’ll be cleaning up our pages even more when we transition to the new system.
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December 24th, 2008
Promoting and marketing your business on the Internet effectively is not easy. With the millions of websites live on the Internet it’s very difficult to get a favorable ranking in search engine results. If you are not adept in search engine optimization and other promotional techniques you will find that this is virtually impossible.
BlitzLocal (www.BlitzLocal.com) takes the hard work out of online marketing and promotion. Instead of attempting the tough tasks of submitting your site to search engines, fine-tuning your site’s performance, and attracting potential customers, why not leave everything to the experts at BlitzLocal?
They will take care of your online marketing campaign by bringing potential customers to your site and converting them into paying clients. BlitzLocal has an excellent track record of successful online marketing campaigns for small businesses all over the country. BlitzLocal can customize your marketing and promotional campaigns according to your unique needs and specifications.
Why do search engine campaigns yourself and make costly mistakes in the process? Hire the services of the experts! BlitzLocal is a reliable and trustworthy team of online marketing and advertising experts who know which is the best way to promote your business.
If you are tired of your website languishing at the bottom of search engine results and getting no customers, then let BlitzLocal help you. You simply take care of your customers’ needs and BlitzLocal takes care of bringing in new customers for more sales and bigger profits. The Internet is the new way to do business, so don’t be left behind by the competition. Take advantage of an excellent online marketing and promotion company called BlitzLocal and see your profits skyrocket.
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November 23rd, 2008
Small businesses spend money on marketing via yellow pages, coupons, direct mail, better signage, internet advertising, radio and TV spots, newspapers, flyers, bakesale and any other variety of marketing tools. But how much should you spend overall on marketing? And then how much should you allocate between each of these channels?
The ROI calculation is not that easy for small businesses, since some types of advertising are more measurable than others. The web should be the easiest, since you can track directly what customers see your ad, which of them clicked on it, how much you paid, and whether those folks took action– filled out a form, picked up the phone, or walked into your office.
But what about the yellow pages? You must ask the classic question– “How did you hear about us?” And of those folks who came in, how many turned into customers? Let’s say you’re a dentist. Of the people who walked in the door last month, 30 of them mentioned that they found you through the yellow pages. Assuming they all became customers and you’d be willing to pay $100 to get a new customer, then the yellow pages drove $3,000 in value. If you’re paying $2,500 per month, then you were clearly better off to advertise in the yellow pages.
But what if you only got 15 new customers? In that case, you’ve lost $1,000 per month. Worse, you’re locked into a 1 year contract, so you’re going to multiply that loss by 12 and there’s nothing you can do to adjust for it. It’s a leaky faucet that you’re only allowed to touch once per year– even if you know it’s dripping, you have to wait a year to fix it– the next time the book is published.
With internet marketing, you can see almost instantly what is working or not– and you can make immediate changes. Maybe as a dentist you find that folks who search on “root canal” are worth 5 times as much as those who search “teeth whitening”. In that case, you can pay more for the latter and less for the former. Or maybe the majority of your customers live within a 10 mile radius of the office. Then you can set up the campaign to show ads only to people who live and work in that radius. And you can turn the dial to adjust as often as you like with no additional cost.
There’s no risk to internet advertising so long as you are able to measure your results and are also able to react quickly. At BlitzLocal, our experts have already built successful campaigns for dentists, lawyers, mechanics, and small business owners of all types. Our system monitors your campaigns 24×7 to make sure they are producing for you. And when you have thousands of keywords spread across multiple search engines, it’s probably not the best use of your time to do that.
Contact us for a no obligation analysis. One of our analysts will help you figure out what’s right for your business.
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