Gasta Advetising set to grow

Find the online opportunities in your own backyard: Gasta.com

Billions of local ad dollars will be moving online in coming years. Find out which outlets offer the best potential returns.

These days, the advertising community is focusing its attention on how to create ads for online media -- including video, rich media, Flash, etc. -- and the revenue potential associated with these channels. However, a less-often-asked but vitally important question in terms of industry shift, as well as dollars and cents, is this: Where will these ads be placed?

Industry estimates suggest that mobile advertising will reach nearly $10 billion in the next few years, with online video reaching nearly $3 billion. However, advertising at the local market level -- although not as frequently discussed -- has the potential for even bigger numbers and greater growth. What's more, local advertising isn't at odds with mobile and online video, as many assume. Rather, rich media and geotargeted place-based mobile advertising are likely to be big components of that local online ad spend. Within the context of the changing media landscape, local online advertising represents a massive opportunity that is coming into its own -- and bears more attention from the advertising community.

Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." And while that's not quite true of advertising, it does resonate when assessing this new shift into hyper-local marketing and advertising. According to eMarketer, $97 billion of the $157 billion -- more than 60 percent -- of the advertising market in the U.S. is focused on local. The online portion of that has thus far lagged behind the other advertising channels, with only about $2.1 billion -- 2 percent -- of local advertising being online at the end of 2007. However, that number is expected to more than triple over the next four years to more than $7.8 billion. That's a huge movement of dollars shifting toward reaching local audiences online.

But where are these dollars going to end up?

Although traditional local media -- Yellow Pages, newspapers, radio and broadcast television -- all have an online presence, none of them enjoys the dominance on the web that they do in their "home markets." Yet their audiences are moving online at faster and faster rates, resulting in major drop-offs in print subscriptions to newspapers, broadcast TV audiences, terrestrial radio listenership and Yellow Pages customers.

For example, the Kelsey Group recently found the erosion of print Yellow Pages is going to increase from 2-3 percent to more than 10 percent this year. That's a pretty massive decrease year over year. And even the Yellow Pages Marketing Association concedes that although online usage of Yellow Pages is growing, a 10 percent drop in print usage dwarfs the increase in online searches. Newspapers are in a similar boat with their advertising; online ad sales are climbing, but offline usage declines are taking a larger chunk of ad sales away from the industry as a whole.

And yet, projections show online ad sales more than tripling -- and there has to be a place for all that advertising to land, outside of the traditional media's online presences mentioned above.

With Google, Yahoo and online Yellow Pages growing their audiences, there is certainly going to be growth in local business searches. But what about brand advertising and trying to reach people who are migrating away from traditional television, radio and newspaper outlets for their news?

The numbers are a little grim. There are about 1,400 daily newspapers and 7,000 television and radio stations in the U.S., and back-of-the-envelope math shows that they each produce about three to six stories per day, or about 22,000 local stories for the entire U.S. This for an audience of roughly 20,000 individual cities and towns. All these players used to be able to back up their locally produced content with national stories, thereby providing a full news experience for their viewers or readers. But, the internet has changed all that; people get their national news from national sources. Instead of competing with other local newspapers, papers are competing with every news site that has a web page. Given this fragmentation, local news sites are not maintaining their market share.

So what's going to take up the slack?

Well, nature abhors a vacuum. Thus, amateur, user-generated content and commentaries are taking off in local markets. The internet's solution to the dearth of local news coverage is the same as it has been with other problems of scale: let the people build it themselves. Similar to Wikipedia, the Open Directory and Usenet, truly local content is going to be provided by the people who live there.

In looking at sites like MetroBlogs, Gothamist publications, Outside.in, NowPublic, Baristanet and Topix (the site that I run), it becomes apparent that a massive amount of attention and investment has been paid to giving people a platform for engagement with the places they live. And while social networks (based on who you know) like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace have generated a lot of usage, and even more buzz, none of them has really provided a locally contextual venue. You are unlikely to meet the neighbors who live two blocks away via Facebook or LinkedIn. However, when that same family starts blogging about your neighborhood or commenting on something another neighbor wrote, it's a compelling discussion -- one that you're likely to read and possibly even join.

Given the aforementioned advertising growth and the decline of the traditional places for it to go, user-generated content is where the action is going to be. The local online outlets that make the most sense for a given campaign will vary greatly depending on where you live and who you're trying to reach with your advertising. But the potential audience size available through these channels is impressive. Speaking for Topix, we've seen comment rates go from around 30,000 comments a day in the middle of 2007 to more than 140,000 comments a day -- or more than 3.5 million comments a month -- across more than 20,000 cities and towns within the U.S.

Media consumption and local audiences' preferences are shifting. Advertising is going to shift as well. So along with that cool viral video and mobile campaign, consider how you can make the most of region-specific opportunities as the $97 billion gorilla of locally targeted ad dollars spent in the U.S. starts to move online.

Chris Tolles is CEO of Topix

Gasta SEO: Oganic Search

If your company's organic search results aren't what you wish they were, check out these key tricks to know and implement. By Noah Elkin
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), there is no magic bullet. Effective SEO boils down to doing a lot of little things well. Imagine building a house -- each brick that goes into the foundation plays a vital role in creating a solid structure. A website is similarly comprised of a large number of building blocks, each of which needs to be given a proper level of attention to maximize your site's visibility. Following are 11 steps marketers can take to get more out of organic search.
1. Optimize your title tags: The title tag is the most important tag on a page. It's like the title of a book in that it should tell the search engine spiders exactly what the page is about. Also, bear in mind that the title tag forms the link in the search engine results page (SERP), so think about giving it a keyword-rich call to action to help it stand out from the crowd.
2. Add a robots.txt file: This is a simple file that sits in the root of the website. It's one of the first files a search spider will look for as it begins a site crawl, so make sure you have one -- it helps to control where the spider can and cannot go and hence what it can and cannot see.

3. Include sitemaps (HTML and XML): Google doesn't share much in the way of how to optimize for its algorithms, but the search giant does recommend that you add an HTML sitemap, and when Google talks, you should listen. Make sure you include the entire site, break it into multiple pages (no more than 100 links per page) and update it regularly so it accurately reflects the structure of the site. Add an XML sitemap designed specifically for search engines. This is particularly important for large sites that spiders are having trouble indexing. Verify the sitemap with the Google webmaster console and receive useful data back about your site.
4. Write high-quality, unique content: After all these years, content still rules. Good quality content will help attract links to your site as people refer to it and that same content will work to keep them on your site after they arrive. From a search engine perspective, spiders love content, so the more you can provide them, the better. And don't limit yourself to text -- images and video can help to showcase additional brand messages and attributes. But whatever content you do serve up, just make sure it is in an accessible format.
5. Insert meta-tags for top-level pages: While not nearly as important as they used to be, optimized meta-descriptions are still worth adding to your key landing and top-level pages. Well-wrought meta-tags will help entice users to your site from a SERP.
6. Conduct keyword research: There's no point in ranking for keywords that your target audience is not using, so make sure you know what your customers are searching for and the terms they're using to find you. To improve your chances of connecting with interested users, structure your site around keywords and themes that reflect their vernacular, not your internal marketing-speak. Remember that you want to help both visitors and search engines build a complete picture of your site.

7. Don't neglect your internal link structure: There's more to SEO and boosting your search rankings than getting links from other sites. Devote some attention to your internal link structure. Embed your target keywords into the internal links and help reinforce the key landing pages to the spiders; don't just use "click here," "next" and "more."
8. Think about pages you want to rank and those you don't: This is something that's closely tied to the internal link structure. For brand searches (typically the most significant source of traffic for any site), the home page often ranks first, followed by privacy policies, contact us and terms and conditions pages. The home page is a good destination to steer interested visitors, but the privacy policy and T&C pages generally are not the places you want your users to hit first, so try to sculpt the flow of page rank to the key site landing pages instead.
9. Get more from analytics: Make sure you set up your analytics package correctly so it separates the sources of your traffic. There's no point spending a lot of time and effort on search engine marketing only to find that your analytics software was not configured to separate the paid search traffic from the organic traffic.
10. Submit to the main directories: Make sure your site is listed in all of the main directories, such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Business.com, JoeAnt, etc.
11. Emphasize internal education: Everyone within your company can make a difference, particularly when it comes to a natural search campaign. Make sure all departments, from marketing to IT to PR to product development, know why the company is undertaking an SEO program and how they can contribute. Run regular sessions to update staff and inform them about how the campaign is progressing.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget process, but rather, one of ongoing improvement. Anytime you make changes to the structure of or content on your site, review the relevant steps in the optimization process to make sure you get the maximum benefit from these changes. Search can help you connect with your customers, but you have to make sure you're supplying the search engines with the right connective tissue.

Gasta SearchMatch hits the Spot for SBO's

Gasta Views: SearchMatch hits the Spot for SBO's

Enabling small business owners to launch campaigns on large publishers' sites could be the next million dollar idea.

From automotive and restaurants to carpet cleaning and hotels, a large percentage of us are involved in a business where the local owner/operator is vital to our success. But stepping out from the argument of corporate-knows-all vs. all-business-is-done-locally for a moment, we can all agree that there would be a tremendous benefit to getting these local operators online in a local, customizable fashion that drives real ROI. Sadly, the largest and most advanced portals and networks have neglected this market -- and millions of dollars have been lost as a result.

Currently as small business owners (SBOs) get out their wallets and try to "finally launch an ad campaign online," they find that getting someone to take their money can actually be a challenge. For an SBO who turns to a major portal with his entire quarter's ad budget, $5,000, the money is turned away because of minimums. The result is no different when soliciting the help of most major ad networks. My goodness! We have someone here willing to spend $5,000 and no one will take it. Are times that good?

Microsoft buying Yahoo shows that times aren't that great for everyone. It could be said, "Jay, it takes us the same amount of effort to write an order for $2,500 as it does $25,000, and we just can't be profitable running hundreds of small campaigns." But think about it: Google has built its business on $2,500 campaigns, and they're eating competitors' lunches so badly that Yahoo has to be bought to compete, and you "can't afford" to take that business? Large publishers need to look now for profitable ways to take SBO campaigns. Here are a few steps that could push large publishers in the right direction.

Partner with a flash ad generator
Search any form of "flash ad creation" and you'll find dozens of folks who have created software that takes flash templates and allows laymen to instantly create customized variations. Some portals already offer this, but they should leave pride and effort-spent-to-date behind if better solutions exist. Most SBOs are used to stepping out of their comfort zone and doing things themselves. Building an ad from a template builder will be easy for them, and can be done in a controlled environment for you.

Open up your API, or build one
Buying, placing and loading campaigns can all be automated, and this is the key to profitability on the publisher end. Sure there will need to be some manual oversight for delivery purposes, but one person should easily be able to handle hundreds of campaigns. From there, educate the SBO on campaign optimization and put it on them; but, provide an 800 number in large print at all times. This is one mistake Google has made, and I believe it is a key source of the frustration users feel toward the company.

Be fully transparent with targeting and placement disclosure
The No. 1 targeting desire for most SBOs is geographic; usually involving one or multiple specific ZIP codes. Anyone who has done the research knows this is simply not possible by IP and must be done with registration data or user input. SBOs are surprisingly understanding when it comes to limitations like these -- if those limitations are clearly explained to them up front. It's when expectations aren't properly set to begin with that frustrations brew and animosity sets in.

Because the user would be responsible for placement and creative optimization, an aggregate data library of best practices for vertical and placement would go a long way toward ensuring repeat business by giving SBOs useful data and information to improve their own results.

Work with resellers
The eBay model works. Embrace those that will be power users and help them make you more money. We work with dozens of companies in multiple verticals whose franchisees are 100 percent ready to make the leap into online as long as someone is able to liaison between them and the publisher. In fact, we could have easily brought over 1,000 campaigns of between $2,500 and $5,000 to a publisher by now -- and that is just our company! When $2,500 turns into $2,500,000, might publishers think and act differently?

The reality is there are hundreds of agencies, consultants, and leading speakers who are well-known and trusted within their verticals. Providing a higher, private level of support to these influencers and connectors creates value at the reseller level, minimizes time spent re-explaining the same thing to 100 different SBOs and motivates everyone in the same direction. Of course, accepting SBO credit cards for campaign pre-payment and paying the resellers immediately would seal the deal toward partnership and profitability.

Let this be an open call to agencies and corporate marketers with a horse in the local retail race. This is an initiative you can't afford to ignore. The first major portal or ad network to create a cleanly-branded content solution with the acceptance of third-party ad serving from its resellers will have trouble finding bags big enough to cart away the money. Our network of franchisees and dealers in multiple verticals alone would make this effort worthwhile, and I would imagine there are another 50-100 companies just like us. At a time when two goliaths are having to join forces to stay competitive, is there anyone who can afford to ignore one thousand payments of $2,500?

Jay Friedman president of Goodway 2.0