Speaking Sensis

Charles Wright recently wrote in The Age how the benefits of search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) for one small business provided a far better return on investment (ROI) than advertising in the Yellow Pages®.

It’s easy to find one example of a business that’s been successful with any sort of advertising. The challenge is to find lots of them. Yellow Pages® has hundreds of examples of advertisers who get a majority of their business through Yellow Pages®. We even put some in our TV ad earlier this year.

Charles’ article was based on a simple assessment of ROI: cost of SEM outlay and the return in website traffic compared to the cost of advertising with Yellow Pages® Online and the subsequent website.

Where his case fell down is that it left out a number of costs a small business faces when gearing up for effective SEM and SEO activity.

These include the costs of building, hosting and maintaining a decent website, and possibly the cost of an SEO/SEM consultancy (or a significant time cost if you are able to do it yourself).

Sure there are online businesses that can manage all this and find customers. But there are a lot of businesses that can’t. Which is where the Yellow Pages® network can deliver real value.

Through its network, Yellow Pages® provides an effective multi-channel solution. With one Yellow Pages® ad, a business goes in the Yellow Pages® Book, Yellow Pages® Mobile, and the 1234 and Call Connect phone services.

In addition, Yellow Pages® also gives businesses a significant online presence by putting them in yellowpages.com.au, whereis.com and by making Yellow Pages® listings available to be searched on Google Maps and Bing Maps.

In fact, if you add up all these print, online, voice and mobile services, you find that Yellow Pages® advertiser content can be searched for through services used by almost 65% of Australians every month.

And that doesn’t include search engines. Recognising their significant value, we’ve made Yellow Pages® content not only searchable through the major search sites but we’ve optimised the content for search engines as well. That’s why over 2.5 million referrals come from search engines to Yellow Pages® Online every month.

People searching Yellow Pages® are buyers, not browsers. And they are often serious buyers who are ready to make a major purchase such as buying tyres for their car, booking an appointment with a dentist, booking a function at a restaurant or hiring a tradesman for work on their house.

The Yellow Pages® network helps puts businesses in more places customers are looking – including major online sites – with ease and convenience, leaving them to get on with running their business.

Sometimes the numbers just talk for themselves. Take Yellow Pages® Mobile usage data…

As you all become devoted (hopefully) readers of the Crunch! column, you’ll begin to notice that my articles all take on roughly the same formula.

Obviously, there’ll be stats… a no-brainer considering this column is meant to be about stats.

But those stats will be surrounded by witty (hopefully) witticisms and insightful (hopefully) insights as well.

There’s a simple reason for that. To the vast majority of the world (i.e. the majority of people who aren’t bone fide pen-holder-carrying geeks), staring at a bunch of numbers is like watching grass grow.

But, every now and then, you come across a set of stats that just talk for themselves – no frilly additions necessary.

Here’s an example.

1.    In October, the Yellow Pages® Mobile audience hit half a million unique visitors for the first time¹.

2.    All up, it’s taken Yellow Pages® Mobile a touch over 18 months to reach half a million unique visitors¹. By comparison, it took Yellow Pages® Online more than five years to reach that mark².

Still think mobile marketing’s sitting on the runway?

Think again.

1.  Omniture. July to October 2009
2.  RedSheriff 2004/2005 data

The AIMIA Digital Summit in Sydney last week included presentations from the likes of BBC, Facebook, Viocorp and Microsoft, research presentations from the Internet Advertising Bureau, Nielsen Online and Research International and case studies from Aussie, Witchery Holdings and Tourism Queensland. To sum up some of the key themes that emerged over the two days… online usage is flattening out but continuing to grow and mobile internet usage is on the up. Companies like Aussie and Witchery Holdings now attribute a significant proportion of their revenue to online retailing.

But, 97% of Australian retail sales are still occurring offline. This highlights the importance of local search services like Yellow Pages, which provide the link between online purchase research and the bricks and mortar supplier.

Jonathon Stinton from Research International explained that with so many channels at the disposal of the consumer and the advertiser, it’s getting harder and harder to determine what the key influencers are over a purchase decision. He calls this the “Twilight Zone of information”. So what are influencers as far as we can tell? Consumers are strongly relying on the web to research retail buying decisions and social media is having a minor but growing impact on this phase of the purchase cycle. With the phenomenal rise in social media traffic, brands want a piece of the action and are exploring ways to tap into this and develop relationships with consumers.

So what should an advertising and media company take away from this? We need to be focused on providing choice to both buyers and sellers – and hence our multichannel strategy. With digital such a major part of many Australians’ search repertoire, Sensis needs to provide the most relevant online and mobile local search experiences possible to bring buyers and sellers together. Speaking on the closing panel, Sensis’ GM of Digital Development Cheryl Vize said this is why Sensis is so proud of innovations like the Yellow iPhone app and why we’re absolutely determined to keep “raising the digital bar”.

One thing seems clearer than ever: there may be no crystal ball, but it’s never been as important as it is now for a business to get the magnifying glass out and really examine the DNA of its target market and what media they are consuming where, when and for what purpose in order to determine how to get the best cut-through.

Crunch! is a new column looking at the numbers behind advertising and local search. In today’s Crunch!… Defining what a click is. That’s easy. Defining what a click isn’t. That’s harder… but much more important.

In the 12 years I’ve been working in online media, there’s one thing that’s always befuddled me.

It’s the fact that online marketers cite measurement as the biggest barrier to advertising on what is touted as the world’s most measurable medium.

Go figure!

To highlight this, a 2007 McKinsey Quarterly report* found that over 50% of Internet advertisers saw “insufficient metrics to measure impact” as a barrier to using or considering digital advertising.

And there’ve been similar surveys, with similar results, in Australia.

So, what’s going on here? How the hell can measuring such a measurable medium raise so much angst?

I’ve long thought there’s two reasons.

The first is confusion about how we’re measuring – in other words the different public measurement services and their methodologies. For quite a while now, there’s been concern in Australia about the accuracy of online statistics. Naturally, when there’s a lack of faith in the source, there’s going to be a lack of faith in the data as well.

The second is a lack of clarity around what we’re measuring. Just think about the simple issue of online traffic as an example. Over the years, we’ve been stumped by a blinding array of different metrics – hits, page views, sessions, visits, unique users and unique visitors just to start with.

These metrics all mean slightly different things but, despite that, they’re often quoted interchangeably: a recipe for much pulling-of-hair and gnashing-of-teeth if I ever saw one.

This metric malaise is a really big problem, and I wanted to touch on it today with a focus on one particular metric – the humble click.

WHAT’S A CLICK?

The other day, an interesting question was raised at a customer panel session I attended.

On the surface, the question – “what (in advertising terms) is a click?” – would seem pretty straightforward.

Put simply, it’s when a person clicks from a feeder – like a search engine or banner ad – to a particular advertiser’s web site. It’s the action that gives rise to pricing terms like ‘cost per click’ and ‘pay per click’.

Okay, no biggie there.

CLICKS AIN’T LEADS

But the question becomes a lot murkier when you think about what a click isn’t. In particular, whether a click and a lead are the same thing.

Now, this might seem like nit-picking, but it’s a really important question – especially for the numerically-obsessed, like me. It gets to the heart of how you understand, measure and evaluate the contribution of different media to your business.

To start with, let’s think about this in a traditional media context.

Let’s say you send out a DM piece to 1,000 potential customers. As a result, 100 people take a moment to read it and 10 are so enamoured with what you’ve said that they give you a call.

What have you got there? 1,000 leads? 100 leads? 10 leads?

If you’re a media outlet trying to justify your existence, you might say 100. You might even say 1,000 if you’re feeling particularly hairy-chested (and/or deluded).

But if you’re a manager trying to get a handle on your sales pipeline, the answer is unequivocal… 10.

A lead isn’t a passing ship; it’s a real potential customer who has called, emailed, visited or contacted you in some way expressing a real interest.

A lead is a real sales opportunity that – most critically – you have a real chance to close.

Don’t get me wrong. The fact that 100 people read your DM piece (or clicked through to your web site) is great. They now know you and have you in the back of their minds. They’ve interacted with your brand.

But those people don’t qualify as ‘leads’ until they take that next step and get in touch with you.

BRINGING CONVERSION INTO THE MIX

Clearly, you can’t properly equate clicks to leads (which take the form of calls, visits, emails and other forms of enquiry) in the way some try to do these days.

To properly measure the leads generated by online advertising, you need to bring another ratio into play – conversion.

Conversion measures how many people actually took that next step of contacting you.

Most research suggests that online conversion rates are quite low – in the low single digits. That means the actual leads stemming from your online advertising may only be a relatively small fraction of the number of clicks.

THE BOTTOM LINE

So, what’s the bottom line here?

Firstly, comparing clicks with leads ain’t comparing apples with apples. If you want to compare clicks generated by one form of advertising with calls or visits generated by another, you need to think about the conversion as well. How many people actually visited your site and then contacted you?

Secondly, think about how well your web site converts browsers to buyers. Optimising online lead-generation campaigns means not just getting lots of people to your site, but having a site that efficiently converts them to leads as well.

And finally, if someone comes to you offering a mountain of ‘leads’, ask them precisely what they mean by the word ‘leads’.

How many of them will be real leads – enquiries from potential customers that you have a chance to close?

You might just find they’re leading you up the garden path.

* How companies are marketing online: A McKinsey Global Survey. September 2007

We’re a pretty tech-savvy population, early adopters of innovation. We don’t treat our handsets as a device any more – it’s a resource, a personal medium. For many, it’s our diary, our music store, it stores all of our secrets – basically, it’s our best friend!

A growing number of advertisers are turning to mobile to supercharge traditional media by targeting campaigns to specific user groups, and adding a stronger response mechanism than they can achieve with any other medium. I’ve recently had the opportunity to speak to a number of industry peers and commentators about whether mobile really is the great marketing enabler, and I think there are three clear reasons why it is.

The mobile internet audience is available and ready.

Currently, over 8 million Australians use a mobile phone connected to a 3G network. New smart phones are precipitating the uptake of mobile usage. Retail analyst group, GFK reports that retail sales of smartphones in Australia grew by 604% in the June quarter while standard mobile handset sales fell by 30%.

The June 2009 Sensis® e-business Report based on a survey of 1,500 Australians revealed that 31% of male mobile users and 26% of female mobile users are accessing the web on their mobiles.

Almost half of all 20-29 year olds have now used mobile internet, while 47% of 14-17 year olds, 34% of 18 to 19 year olds, 33% of those in their 40s and 24% of 50-64 year olds are also surfing the web on their handsets.

As to what Australians are doing with the mobile web:

• 41% use it to look for information on products and services;
• 40% are accessing the mobile web to use social networking sites;
• 36% are using it to find suppliers of products and services;
• 27% are downloading video content;
• 25% are downloading games;
• 25% are doing their banking;
• 17% are watching TV; and
• 12% uploading video content.

The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association’s Mobile Lifestyle Index survey findings which were released this week validated that mobile web browsing is on the rise, with 21 per cent of the 3,710 respondents visiting websites on their mobile phones at least once a day. The report’s author, Dr Marisa Maio Mackay, said accessing the web, video, music and information on mobile phones was now well and truly mainstream, and that Australians are comfortable with mobile phone advertising. Our experience at Sensis certainly bears out these findings.

Mobile reaches buyers and browsers

Mobiles are conducive to search, being with you at all times when you’re out and about looking for products, services and places. This explains why usage of Sensis’ mobile sites including Yellow Pages® Mobile, White Pages® Mobile, Whereis® Mobile, Citysearch® Mobile and Sensis Search has double over the last 12 months to almost 2 million visits a month. When the Yellow Pages® application for iPhone was launched in August, it shot to the number one position in Apple’s Lifestyle category and the number two position in its top 25 free applications. This is people using their mobile actively searching for goods and services.

Mobile display ad campaigns have also far-exceeded many people’s expectations across a range of sectors. They allow advertisers to display information in a teaser format and to entice mobile browsers to click through to a specifically designed ad site to find out more about a product, service or offer, download a video or wallpaper or click to place an order. MediaSmart recently notched up 200 mobile display campaigns for advertisers in the auto, finance, FMCG and entertainment sectors. These campaigns are getting real results: the average interaction rate for mobile advertising is about 30 per cent – that’s 30 per cent of people clicking on an ad and going on to so something else, such as downloading a video, wallpaper or ring-tone, entering a competition, making a call or ordering a product. This is compared with a 3-4 per cent interaction rate which is commonly achieved for online.

Mobile is the glue that brings all the elements of a marketing campaign together

One of the really exciting aspects of mobile’s addition to the marketing mix is its ability to interact with other media, enabling advertisers to extend the reach of offline and online advertising. There are a range of other opportunities to integrate mobile with other media, for example:

• SMS shortcodes – eg. ‘text 19WIN’.
• Mobile codes – scan a code with your mobile camera to get access to content on your mobile
• Send to mobile – search online and take the result with you
• Coupons – present for redemption at a retail store
• Voice to mobile – call a voice service for information or directions and have the info sent direct to your mobile.

Mobile offers sophisticated targeting capabilities to the marketer

The mobile audience can be refined by age and gender, but also by location, household income, and time of day. Media Smart, 3 and Vodaphone have demonstrated similar targeting capabilities for the last year or so. At MediaSmart, we can currently target 1 million Telstra mobile customers, and this is set to increase. Consumer information is ascertained based on the billing address that they include in their mobile contract, which is then refined according to their Mosaic profile – a geodemographic classification that categorises people into 11 groups according to their ‘neighbourhoods’, which is more accurate than post code information. So a Bali holiday package could be marketed to 25-year old females in the ‘Young Ambition’ group and a Gold Coast fun park 40-somethings in the ‘Pushing the Boundaries’ group. And you could target the message to the target audience at the end of a hectic day, just when they’re wishing they could get away from it all.

The capability is also being developed to deliver advertising that is contextual to where a person is located at that very moment. Location-based solutions can allow retailers to send a mobile coupon or incentive when a prospect is just around the corner. For example, in the near future, you might make a video of a house for sale available when the user is in the area during inspection times.

A parting thought…

Mobile is not a marketing add on – it’s at the centre. And that’s because mobile is an essential part of the lives of most in the developed, developing and increasingly, the underdeveloped world!

As Henry Jenkins, Professor of Comparative Media at MIT recently said in a presentation to Tribal DDB in London, “the future of media and advertising is not about technology – it’s about emerging cultural practices”.

Sensis’ Michelle Sherwood talks to small and medium sized businesses about how to get the most bang for their advertising buck.

Sensis’ General Manager of Marketing, Michelle Sherwood presented to a room of more than 900 small and medium sized businesses at the Small Business BIG Marketing event on Thursday 27 August.

Held at Central Pier in the Docklands, the event was a part of Small Business Victoria’s month long small business festival Energise Enterprise 09, of which Yellow Pages® is a platinum sponsor.

Michelle’s presentation, ‘Making your advertising work for you’ gave the businesses in the room practical insights and advice about effectively marketing and advertising.

Michelle Sherwood on the dais

“With consumer confidence on the increase, it’s more important than ever for your business to be seen by customers when they’re looking to buy.

“Our job at Yellow Pages® is to bring buyers and sellers together, whether that be through print, online or mobile directories, search and mapping websites or telephone information services,” she said.

The Yellow Pages® and White Pages® face to face sales representatives were also out in force, with small business owners flocking to the stands to find out how Yellow Pages and White Pages can help to grow their business.

Luke and Deepak at the Yellow Pages® stand

Visit www.yellowadvertising.com.au or www.whywhitepages.com.au for more information.

This year Sensis is sponsoring a series of lunches for members of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. After two of these lunches, it’s really pleasing to get feedback from this diverse audience that we’ve shared a few things about consumers, small businesses and advertising that they didn’t already know…and actually wanted to know!

I mean, let’s face it, how many times have you turned up to a seminar or lunch only to walk away thinking, I’ve just been robbed of two precious hours in my life and I should demand a refund! I’m not saying Sensis hasn’t been guilty of this in the past… we’ve had our moments like any large business given the opportunity to put someone on the soapbox. But we’re starting to use opportunities like this to – and don’t gag here – help people.  So we asked the Chamber what their members wanted to know to about digital marketing.

And as the chicken and beef mains made their way around the room, our head of Yellow Pages® Digital, Sandeep Baruah, explained that the future of digital marketing in business will see a range of new applications at the disposal of the marketer. The question is what opportunities do they really present to increase brand equity and a company’s bottom line?

For some business, just knowing where to start is daunting in itself.

Sandeep unlocked some of the mystery around digital marketing tools such as:

• Social networking sites
• Search engine marketing
• Search engine optimisation
• Content syndication
• Mobile internet and
• Mobile codes

And he gave the audience a realistic check-list to help them make decisions about their digital marketing strategies:

• Who are my customers and where are they looking?
• What media are they accessing that influences their buying decisions?
• Which of these channels can I use to engage my customers?
• How can I use new technology to integrate campaigns and content across different media?
• Finally, what return am I actually going to see from this investment and how will I measure it?

Answering these questions will help any business go a long way to ensuring that they’re not simply swallowing the hype around new ways of reaching consumers, or putting all of their eggs in one basket.

Sensis China CEO, Robert Rath, talks about China’s online consumers and offers some tips for Australian businesses looking to do business in the world’s fastest growing economy.

WA:    G’day Robert. How’s the weather in Beijing?

RR:    A lot warmer than Melbourne I suspect. As normal for this time of the year, it’s in the mid-30s today.

WA:    I wish I hadn’t asked. Robert, it’s been another strong year for Sensis in China. What are the things you remember most about the year?

RR:    I’d have to say our investment in PCPop and Norstar was the most notable event. These companies are associated with sites that are number one in Chinese online auto (Autohome.com.cn and CHE168.com) and number two in Chinese online IT and consumer electronics (PCPop.com and IT168.com). This is a great addition to Soufun, which is the world’s largest real estate site.

What’s really exciting is that all these sites are still in the early growth stage of their life cycles. It feels like a start-up over here… albeit one with proven success and a lot of strength behind it.

Beyond that, I’d say achieving our Soufun 100 cities target, and just the growth in our team over here. We’re really operating as a tight-knit team now and we’re working very closely with Telstra and Sensis in Australia.

WA:    Any down sides?

RR:    The world is going through an economic downturn. Chinese commerce has been impacted like everyone else. But you need to put the Chinese experience into perspective. While the rest of the world has experienced flat or negative GDP growth, China’s ‘low point’ was about 6%. Nevertheless, the government has invested aggressively – and very wisely, I think – in key infrastructure right across the country. As a result, China definitely seems to be turning the corner. It was great to see that some of our key markets, like auto and real estate, were specific targets for government consumer incentives and investment.

WA:    Robert, you recently delivered a speech about the Chinese online consumer. Can you share some thoughts about how Chinese and Australian online consumers differ?

RR:    The first and most obvious difference is scale. It’s amazing to think that every one of Soufun’s 100 cities has more than a million residents. Beijing, where I live, has almost as many residents as the whole of Australia.

China is now the largest online audience in the world with 338m users as of June this year¹. The amazing thing is that only 25%  of the Chinese population are online². Even in the developed cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, the penetration is still only 60% or so. So that’s a big difference. At the same time, Chinese consumers spend over 40% of their leisure time online³. That’s ahead of even of Korea and Japan and more than any other country.

WA:    Why is that?

RR:    Part and parcel of China’s economic growth is an enormous amount of social change. One change that’s relevant to us is that millions of people – particularly young adults – are moving to the major urban centres. In the cities, they’re finding huge opportunity. The end result is we’re seeing a rapidly growing, young middle class emerging in China.

But moving to a new city has its challenges too. Young people need to connect with each other, find new friends, find products and services, find their way around and so on. And they need to do all this in a city that’s unfamiliar to them.

So they’re turning to digital media for just about everything – instant messaging, chat, news, games, shopping and even things like translation. In preparing for the speech you mentioned, I spoke to one of our employees who recently moved to Beijing from Hunan province. Between work and home, he uses the web about five hours a day. He watches TV for only an hour.

WA:    Are you finding that Chinese consumers use the web in different ways to Australian consumers?

RR:    Definitely. One of the really big things I’ve noticed is the enormous amount of social activity on our partner sites. And, remember, these aren’t social networks. They’re sites that help people wanting to buy good and services. On the auto sites, for example, over 20% of visitors spend time on discussion forums. They use these forums to talk about their favourite cars, compare deals and specs and even to organise social events like driving days. Now, the major manufacturers are working to build clubs on our sites as well. This interaction makes for a really vibrant experience – like special interest social networks. It’s an exciting dynamic to be a part of.

WA:    What about mobile, Robert? Are people surfing their phones?

RR:    It’s astonishing to think that there are about 700 million mobile phone users in China. To put that into perspective, the number of mobile phone users in China today is roughly the same as the entire population of Western Europe. And of those using their mobiles, over 150 million use them to connect with the internet⁴. They connect online to chat to friends and download music and games. Although, unlike Australia, where 3G has been in place for three years now, it has just launched in China and is still not used by the majority of consumers.

WA:    Thanks Robert. Just one more question, if I could. You’ve been working in China for almost two years now. What advice would you have for Australian businesses looking to trade with China?

RR:    To me, four things really matter. Firstly, invest to be number one or two. More than most other markets, it’s hard to really make an impact and drive growth without that. Secondly, go local. Sensis and Telstra have a lot of expertise to contribute to our Chinese colleagues. But it’s vital we let our local people get on with the job. They know the markets, the people and the culture. The management within our partner companies are the ones who built and are running these businesses.

Thirdly, connect at all levels of the organisation. Build strong relationships and intimate knowledge at all levels. It’s vital in this market. And, finally, you’ve got to enter China with the right attitude. Ask yourself “how can I support China’s growth”, not “how can China support my growth.”

WA:    Thanks a lot Robert.

1: CNNIC, 24th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China

2: Sensis analysis of CNNIC, 24th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China

3: TNS “Digital World, Digital Life” as cited in press release, December 19, 2008

4: CNNIC, 24th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China

In his April speech “The Rise of Social Media“, Sensis CEO Bruce Akhurst commented on the US mobile takeaway business – Kogi BBQ – and their success in using Twitter to keep customers in touch with where their vans would be.Bruce commented that Kogi BBQ had acquired 15,000 Twitter followers in its short life.

Well, I happened across Kogi BBQ’s Twitter page the other day. Turns out their band of followers has more than doubled – to over 36,600 – in just three months.

Ahhh… the tweet smell of success.

There’s a lot of improvement going on at Sensis. And our customers like what they’re seeing.

If there’s one thing this world definitely doesn’t want for, it’s business advice.

I mean, there’s more business books out there today than skivvies at a Trekkies convention. If you don’t believe me, try searching for “marketing” at Amazon.com’s book section… and be amazed by the mind-snapping 535,000 results you get .

The irony is that this torrent of advice all boils down to some pretty basic principles. And the most fundamental of them all is:

Give your customers what they want.

With that in mind, Sensis has been working closely with the buyers and sellers who rely on our services: listening to them, learning about their needs and launching the solutions to help them.

This approach has led to a stream of new innovations over the last couple of years. From info-rich advertising and metered ads to the Yellow™ in the car directory, to agreements with Ninemsn and Google Maps, to re-builds of our directory web sites to the new mobile sites that are now delivering 8% of our total digital traffic (1) .

More importantly, this customer-centric approach – which can be seen not just in our product development, but in our focus on effective sales and customer service – has contributed to a real spike in customer satisfaction. Between February 08 and May 09, for example, satisfaction among users of our directory sites increased by 10 percentage points (pp) for Yellow Pages® OnLine (2) and 14pp for White Pages® OnLine (3).

And we’re keeping the heat on the innovation front so we can deliver continuous improvement to our customers. In just the last fortnight, for example, we’ve launched the following upgrades to our digital local search sites.

Easy to access

Buyers are looking for more touchpoints, so they can access our services whenever and wherever they want to.

To assist this, we’ve just launched White Pages® Mobile. The new mobile version of White Pages® gives you access to residential, business or government contacts together with maps and directions and the ability to save listings to your contacts or share them with friends. And it’s all just one click away from the BigPond mobile menu.

We’ve also improved the popular send to mobile feature on Whereis.com. Send to mobile is a simple way to send your online search results to your mobile. That way, you can easily take the business details you found on your computer out on the road with you.

Easy to search

People are also looking for easier ways to search – less entry boxes and more relevant results. Over the last fortnight, we’ve continued to answer this call by launching:

• Streamlined search in White Pages® OnLine. We’ve reduced the number of entry windows, which means less typing and faster results. For example, the number of business search windows has shrunk from four to two.
• Auto-complete for White Pages® OnLine searches. By suggesting answers while you’re typing this new facility saves even more time and helps ensure more relevant results.
• New user-friendly URLs for Yellow Pages® OnLine advertiser pages. This means site users can easily bookmark the results page for businesses they’re interested in. And, if you’re an advertiser, you can link straight from your web site to your Yellow Pages® OnLine ad.
• The addition of business listing names to the Yellow Pages® OnLine search algorithm. This has the potential to greatly expand the relevant results site users will receive. For example, a search for Thai Restaurants on the Gold Coast currently returns 87 listings, instead of only 26 in the past.

Easy to find

And what about when you’ve found the business listing you want? What are we doing to make it easier for you to get in contact with that business?

If you’re hungry, Yellow Pages® OnLine has made it easier than ever to book a restaurant or order a meal. There are already over 500 registered Menulog restaurants across Australia that are now also listed with Yellow Pages® OnLine under headings like Restaurants and Cafes.  For example, you can search for Indian Restaurants in Melbourne VIC, and find restaurants like Nirankar Fine Indian Cuisine or Bombay Beat Restaurant that provide one click access to Menulog’s booking and ordering facilities.

We’ve also added landmark navigation to the Whereis.com web site. As a result, you’ll begin seeing turn by turn directions like “turn right at the Post Office” rather than just “turn right in 200m”. This enhancement is the result of research undertaken by Melbourne Uni’s Geomatics department and Whereis. The research clearly showed that people are able to navigate more easily and precisely using landmarks.

I hope you’ll agree that that’s not a bad haul for a fortnight. But it’s far from the end. Continuous improvement means continuous innovation, so keep your eye on Speaking Sensis for more listening, learning and launching in the future.