Local Search growing pains, pains me.

I’m not sure if that’s the correct title or not, I ask myself whether or not “growing” should be included. I’m going to expand on a previous post on this blog that looked at Local Search and want to shed some light from both a user and an advertisers perspective.

I’ve been delving a little deeper into the local search arena over the past couple of weeks for several clients and have so far found very little to be impressed with. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Google with their ease-of-use, their slick interface, their effectiveness. Personally, I continue to use Google for my local searches. I still find that I get much better results typing in the city name and then my keywords, my options include local, paid and organic listings (I like organic, the company is proving that they can walk the walk).

Let’s do a quick test. I go to Google, type in “Philadelphia Search Marketing”. I get a page that includes:

Local results

 Paid results

Organic Results

It’s easy. I can tell that it has a high level of relevance (I see some familiar names in there including ours) and away I go checking them all out.

Let’s have a look at SuperPages, now an Idearc Media division. With some powerful partnerships and affiliations, one would expect a decent system. I do like a good design but I’m more interested in performance…and especially usability. So I’m willing to overlook a bland appearance and even a simple typo like “Regiser a Domain Name” (as long as they don’t get the domain name wrong.)

Typing in “Search Marketing” then “Philadelphia” brings you to another screen with related categories which I must say is pretty annoying (below)

So then I click on “Internet Marketing Services” and get 2 sponsored results and some advertisers and that is it! So I wasted my time. (admittedly, there are more results for traditional businesses).

I go to YellowPages.com. A big brand also with some big backing. I like the design but again, not overly concerned with that aspect. I type in “search marketing” then “Philadelphia” and am taken straight to the results (there’s only 1 there) but I liked the ease of process (I used a pretty poor example I’m afraid, maybe dentists would’ve been better) but it at least offers some insight.

So I’m a little dirty at SuperPages.com, not only from a user perspective but as an advertiser. Managing the system is clunky, often painful, I keep getting errors (I couldn’t log in this morning which was the main cause of this rant) and admit to be pretty disappointed.

I think the graph below may also be an indicator of the comparisons. Either YellowPages.com is doing something right, or SuperPages.com is doing something wrong. I’ll continue to use Google and wait till the others get their act together or maybe a smaller player like Yelp.com will come to the fore.

Paul Fleming is co-founder and VP of Interactive Services for Dinkum Interactive. A trained teacher, Paul has worked in a variety of forms of Internet Marketing but with a focus on SEO. Originally from Australia, he now resides in Philadelphia with his wife and 2 ankle-biters.