Traditionally Yahoo! Small Business sees an uptick in people starting their own online business in the first quarter of the New Year. As 2011 kicks off, Yahoo! Small Business explores the New Year’s surge and the reasons and barriers to starting a new business. A new survey, conducted by Yahoo! Small Business and Ipsos OTX MediaCT, reveals one in two have either dreamed of starting their own business or have actually started a business. Key findings from the survey include:
As the local component of the online space continues to heat up, it is starting to get very crowded. There is Google, Facebook, Groupon, foursquare, Gowalla, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, IYP, YellowBook, Merchant Circle, InsiderPages etc, etc., etc.—the list goes on and on. As with anything in life, if there are a lot of options, you are either happy for the choices or confused and frustrated by too many options. In the online space, especially as it relates to SMBs (small and medium businesses), frustration and confusion are often the reactions to just how much can be done online.
Google has made some adjustments to it's "Place Pages." As Doug Caverly reported, they are now showing more specific details for reviews. They are letting people rate individual aspects of businesses.
Some small business owners could, if you woke them up from a sound sleep in the middle of the night, immediately tell you their site's ranking for different terms on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. But today, even people who aren't that obsessive might want to check in with one engine, since Yahoo's revised its search experience.This is more of a look-and-feel adjustment than a straight-up rankings change; if you used to be number one for "ornamental pooper scoopers," anyone who searches for that term should still see your site at the topmost center spot.
There is a new tab in Yahoo Local that went live earlier this month, but Yahoo hasn't really made any significant announcements about it, so there is a good chance you have not even realized it's there. Matt McGee, writing for Search Engine Land, points out that this could become a very useful tool for small businesses.
You've probably heard by now that Microsoft and Yahoo have announced a big search advertising deal which will see Yahoo Search using Bing results, and Microsoft using Yahoo's advertising. The two players in the search industry have essentially combined to take on Google.
Small business marketers should take note: it's become a little harder to swing by Yahoo Answers and leave a link to your site. Still, if you make a regular habit of providing information, some new restrictions could wind up working in your favor. Marketers used to leave links all over Yahoo Answers for the sake of search engine optimization. Then Yahoo Answers started using the nofollow attribute. This move cut down on spam, making users happier, although it must have frustrated some individuals.
I don't like reposting the same content from one site to another, but as I have often noted in the past, writing for WebProNews, I come across many things that just simply should be shared with Small Business owners, and being how this is SmallBusinessNewz, I hate for stuff to go unmentioned. So with this in mind, please allow me to direct you attention to some notable items from the week that you might want to pay attention to.
There is an interesting post on the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog looking at information from the U.S. Commerce Department. Apparently retail sales jumped one percent in January, after falling for six straight months. In fact, it was even the biggest increase in 14 months. Noah Belson, Content Quality Analyst at Yahoo Search Marketing writes:
Are you using Twitter to market your business? Chances are you've read something about this at some point, but now even Yahoo is suggesting that eCommerce sites use the tool to create some buzz.
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