A VC - Latest Comments in Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

fredwilson — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:52:23 -0000

Totally!

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Jason Preston — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:42:00 -0000

I'll tell you it drives me nuts when a location link doesn't go to Google maps. People say let's have lunch at XXXX coffee shop, and then link to the coffee shop home page.

That doesn't help me, because the address means nothing to me. So I have to copy it, go over to google maps, paste it in, and then go from there.

It's on my mind because of this post and the fact that I've run into this about five times in the past three days already, where a link to Google maps would have been at least 2x more valuable to me than the link that was there.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Christian — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:38:03 -0000

http://it.youtube.com/watch...
You should watch see, it has been 1 year now, but this cut is about the Google CEO and local business. They want to invest, see the video.
My 2 cents,
Christian

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

flummox — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:07:56 -0000

"But the standardization breeds familiarity and trust and encourages more usage." The truth of the statement is rock solid -- and still too often unrecognized.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Harry Wakefield — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:41:57 -0000

A user friendly URL like this one?

http://praized.com/places/u...

There's even an automatically generated short version: http://przd.com/o5RfZ-TQ0xz.

The "overview" and "details" tabs are coming, they're part of our product roadmap.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

David B. — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:25:35 -0000

I'm glad to see this post. This is the focus of the start-up I'm in, but we add a twist: it's essentially a user-defined database. So you can find all people in area x, who sell: bags/laptop/macbook pro/15". This isn't an add for our site; it's not up yet. Just wanted to chime in.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

dean collins — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:09:34 -0000

Hi Fred,

I dont know if anyone from Union Square was at BarCampNYC3 last saturday but with regards to branding shortlinks and non online content.....have you seen www.Delivr.com yet.

TinyURL is dead long live "Delivr"

Cheers,
Dean Collins
www.cognation.net

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

jonathanmendez — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:40:04 -0000

I think the larger problem for merchants is more the management of ongoing CPC campaigns then getting a page built. Still, I don't see many other problems here. Your "navigational" query presented results that completed you goal. Possibly even exceeding your expectations (presenting store hours etc.)

Most SMB just want a call, not a web inquiry. If the issue is more generic searches e.g "bags nyc" then this is a different aggregation play more like OpenTable which does a fine job of building "landing pages" for every restaurant. I expect we'll see much more of this soon with APIs and semantic technology gaining traction.

Landing page relevance is ruled by matching the query (goals and intentions) with the content. Google's page does a pretty good job with this IMO. Likely much better that Joe the Plumber would do making his own page. The real questions and problems emerge with those generic terms if Google were to "own" these pages.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

masonmason — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:00:30 -0000

You are on the money and StudioNow wants to be the video provider to create the millions of great 1-2 minute profile videos for these merchants!!!!. Here are a bunch of examples of what we currently do for CitySearch merchants.
http://citysearch.studionow...

We are also working very closely with your friend David Goodman at CBS radio to offer interesting things for merchants as they relate to video and web 2.0 media marketing materials.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Edward Keyes — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:07:08 -0000

Actually Google does have something of a similar feature called Hosted Business Pages, released a couple of years ago. http://adwords.blogspot.com...

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

andyswan — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:20:20 -0000

Right on!

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

fredwilson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:12:50 -0000

Click to call voip is a good solution for joe :)

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Tim Panton — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:16:03 -0000

Very interesting post, it really helped crystallize several thoughts that have been running around in my head for a while.

The problem (as I see it) with the Joe-the-plumber usecase is that Joe doesn't want to get a sales lead on his computer. He wants it on his cellphone or perhaps to his 'office' landline.

Any solution in this space that doesn't include a phonecall as a closely integrated action won't address Joe's needs. (Although it will help Jane-the-accountant and perhaps Jim-the-florist)

I guess that Joe might do email on his cell one day, but not until someone makes a smartphone that can stand-up to life in a toolbox :-)

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Lisa Badalamenti — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:54:59 -0000

I agree that Google can do better to fill the void between offline local merchants today and the existing online offerings. In addition to product development, one thing holding it back is what you allude to with regard to traditional media companies.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

slowblogger — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:37:02 -0000

"And the thing Google needs to do is make the merchant pages in its service good enough that local merchants can use them as landing pages."

That's a great idea. People have tried to make web publishing easier for small businesses. Now, Google could say "you don't even need to do it yourself. We have one for you."

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

kiran — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:33:17 -0000

The site is called www.Justaroundme.com. Currently in stealthmode. We will be launching Beta in Jan 2009

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

kortina — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:13:44 -0000

Excellent point. I worked a summer during college selling a service like this to local businesses in Philadelphia, and the only way I got clients was doing cold calls in person to business owners. The last place these folks think they need to spend money is online. It's a tough sell, but perhaps now, a few years later, they would be "get it" more and invest a bit in their online presence / SEO. I was actually reminiscing with my business partner from college about those days an hour before reading this post, talking about how there's still a great opportunity here. Custom CNAME + custom css + simple cms + microformats--this would sell at the right price point with direct sales force / marketing behind it, especially if you provided data entry / setup services. Most of the businesses who would be interested probably would pay a small fee to just have someone knowledgeable set them up.

As Fred says, however, Google is probably in a better position to execute than a startup. Still, good food for thought.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

LocalHero — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:57:00 -0000

People want to know that their search is accurate and unbiased and as soon as you are publisher and a search engine there is a conflict of interest.

This conflict already exists but if google offered this sort of thing it would only be worse. I really hope Google do not go down this path (and would possibly stop using Google if it did).

Pete

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

EricSt — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:51:54 -0000

These are all very good ideas and I agree that Google can do better to fill the void between offline local merchants today and the existing online offerings. In addition to product development, one thing holding it back is what you allude to with regard to traditional media companies. I fully agree that they will and should make the transition to "local agency", but few of them have gotten there and most are just now in the process of realizing that Reach Local, Yodle et al are eating their lunch here.

Another thing to keep in mind is the diversity of the local space. The title of your post is actually a good case in point. Many plumbers don't actually want to appear on the map, at least not with a pin that identifies their location. Having their home page be on a map is somewhat incongruous to them as they (and many others) are service businesses and work out of their vans. Some of what you suggest will be viable for plumbers and other service businesses, but we need a solution for this location based recognition.

Here's one additional idea for your list: I'd like to see the overview tab aggregate reviews from the multitude of sites (Yelp, Angie's List, Merchant Circle etc.) and allow merchants to respond. Feeds would go back and forth between the source of the reviews and the merchant, allowing users to still use their favorite local review site, but giving merchants the chance to manage their growing online profiles.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

Sylvain Carle — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 23:41:10 -0000

I think Google can be the aggregator (as it is now) but I believe in a truly distributed model with standard meta-data (microformats) to really make it happen. That's what we are trying to build with Praized...

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

emily — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:57:14 -0000

Agree completely.

We recently worked with a local locksmith. He is spending about 2000$ per month of Adword. Also, start putting ad in yelp as well. Meanwhile, he is working with our company to make sure his Google search ranking is high (1st page) so when people search for local locksmith, his website will show up first. SEO is a must for local merchants.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

brian — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:14:50 -0000

The way Google needs to promote something like that is with physical direct mail. Google should send a letter to every shop owner telling them how many local Google searches have been performed for their service / address over the last week/month/year. I think a lot of these business owners are not online-savvy, and they need to be reached via offline channels.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

lawrence coburn — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:59:12 -0000

I don't know the answer. If claiming all local search results were to cause Google to lose objectivity / market share in organic search, then we wouldn't be any further along. If they could continue to do the best job in search and own local search results, we'd certainly be farther along then we are today in bringing local advertising online. I guess we'll get there when we get there.

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

fredwilson — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 18:17:49 -0000

That's an interesting point. But if it means we can create new forms of viable local media, would it be worth it?

Re: Joe The Plumber's Landing Page

lawrence coburn — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:12:50 -0000

Fred, I think it would be a bad idea to have the dominant search engine own such a significant chunk of the landing pages / local search results. It would put a lot of pressure on the objectivity of their search results, which to date, has powered all of their innovation in other areas.

I also believe that a Google ownership of the local landing page, and by association, local advertising space, would put them squarely in the "too big to fail" camp that you have spoken out against.