LocalBizBits Local Search Marketing Information and Resources
If you have spent anytime reading the search engine marketing blogs or tweets, you undoubtedly have heard of YellowSpaces– a new local search engine that recently went live. Greg Sterling had a nice post/interview on the site.
Well, Constantin S. Manta, the man behind this site, was gracious to give me some time for this interview so you and I could learn more about this new search engine. Today I have two posts regarding YellowSpaces. This one will cover YellowSpaces in general and the second post will cover their new iPhone app which launches today.
Q. Thanks again Constantin for the time, can you tell us a little about you and your company.
A. I’m the founder and principal of YellowSpaces. For the past 20 years I have worked with Internet advertising agencies and financial services companies primarily offering them financial services. I noticed a growing frustration with my clients when they tried to find reliable on- and offline advertising resources, including print yellow pages and local search engines.
Inspired by this frustration, I saw a need for more reliability and so YellowSpaces was born to create a unique and relevant search engine to appeal to smaller businesses across the U.S. As well, we think that consumers are looking for the most accurate business information, too.
Q. What is YellowSpaces and what makes it unique?
A. YellowSpaces is a new local search engine that focuses on finding businesses, products, or services anywhere throughout the United States.’ What makes it unique is that it offers more information to users more accurately and reliably than any other search engine. It’s also easier to use than the Internet or Apple’s iPhone.
Q. How can a small business get listed in YellowSpaces?
A. On our search results page we have a link for business owners to list their companies.
Q. Is Localeze the only source for business data for YellowSpaces?
A. Yes. We researched the field thoroughly and determined that Localeze offers the most current and dependable local search information. What helps make Localeze a real benefit to our users is their rating system they call it a Confidence Score.
The confidence score is a grade, an evaluation of the validity of the information about the local business. The higher the score, in the range from 0-100, the more accurate and dependable are the search results. When we do a search, we show the confidence score of that business right on the screen for the user to see.
Q. Do you have business reviews on the side?
A. Not at the moment. We might offer them in the future as a recommendation shown with a simplified graphic (e.g., thumbs up, thumbs down). We can probably define and make these recommendations from a consensus of opinion from other Internet Yellow Pages ( IYPs) rather than producing a long narrative presentation of our own.
Q. Did you launch nationally or are you doing it in increments?
A. Our original plan was to launch in the New York tri-state market, however, the introduction of the iPhone application into our overall strategy made it clear that we needed to launch nationally.
Q. You and I have initially connected on Twitter and I see you are using that quite a bit. Why do you use Twitter? Where to you see Twitter going in the near future?
A. For one thing, @yellowspaces gathers and reports news within the local search and IYP space. You see, Twitter is one of the most effective business tools on the market. It’s a wonderful marketing tool.
For example, we did a fun and keyword strategic 10-day countdown before launching our website. We used specific keywords in our tweets to attract the media. Although I have around 200 follows, and that isn’t a very large audience, Twitter is not about followers. It’s about timely knowledge. And timely knowledge is important. Twitter search and other tools give everyone access to your tweets.
For example, if you are a blogger who writes about start-ups, I can go into Twitter and search for the term start-up and pull companies that may be launching now. I believe Twitter will become another business customer service channel to the consumer.
Q. Where do you see local search going in the next few years?
A. Even with all the interest in local search, we really are still at the dawn of this application. As international business becomes more interdependent, there is a growing need for international local search. In a few years, we will want to be able to search locally anywhere in the world.
YellowSpaces is able to duplicate our technology internationally right now, and expand quickly into any country. We had the foresight to purchase and secure most of the domain names in the top 25 international by population and/or gross domestic product. We have trademarked YellowSpaces internationally, too. Our goal is to become the globally-branded local search destination.
