Over 15 Canadian Local Searches I Have a Comment On
Having spent the last year working on the redesign and search logic for the new YellowPages.ca, which launched on Oct 12, 2009, I wanted to share some of the most interesting search queries that I have seen come through our log files in the past couple of weeks. These are all PG rated, believe me we get NSFW entries, but I will exclude those from this list.
Click here, if you want to skip my introduction and get right to the list of Searches.
Before jumping into the list, I want to send a thanks to all the teams that worked on bringing this together. The biggest learning from this Exercise is that most people I talk to ask me why this would take so long, “I mean come on, its a website, anybody can do website design”. The actual process of building and testing was relatively short, however, the logic streams behind the platform where the most timing consuming; planning, coordination and communication.
For end users, this site either works or it doesn’t. If they find what they needed, then their local search is successful. If they conduct a search and cannot find what they wanted, then we failed. When I say this was the biggest launch in my career, here’s why? Think of these numbers; 400K advertisers with content that needs to be mined, 1.2M business listings, over 200M+ in online revenue, over 7M Canadian per month that rely on yellowpages.ca for their local search engine (source: Yellow Pages Group Financial Statements). To say that relaunching yellowpages.ca has expectations is an understatement, but a great challenge and overall response has been extremely positive.
The underlying premise behind this relaunch was very simple: a) YellowPages.ca has vast amounts of local business content (remember only 50% of CDN businesses have a website, that’s around 500K and I would argue a good 1/3 of those have extremely stale data) that we need to get in front of consumers and b) make the site more geographical relevant to the neighborhood, landmark and lat/long perspective. By opening up more of the data and creating the intersection with geographical associations, I believe Canadians will have a much better local experience. To sum up the majority of what our users are saying, “It just works, thanks”.
If you have not already checked out the redesigned home page, here is the screenshot. We moved all the key aspects of what a user wants directly to the front, based on a lot of user research. For Business Search you can search via What/Where, Reverse Phone Look-Up, Map and Driving Directions. For People Search you can search via Who/Where, Reverse Phone Number, Map and Driving Directions. On the business side you can also click navigate through Business Locations or Business Category.
Here are some of the most interesting local searches that users are now conducting on the new YellowPages.ca. If you want to see the results that go along with those searches, click below, some are quite interesting.
Hemorrhoids, Port Coquitlam – nothing to say here, but buddy go get them checked out.
Phobias, Lake Country – somebody in the Kelowna area has issues they need to dealt with.
Nudism, Ontario – I was surprised at how many places in Ontario you can go au natural.
Nuclear Waste, Mount Pleasant – this is a neighborhood in Toronto, I hope they don’t actually have nuclear waste. From the result set, seems they were looking for Nuclear Waste Management Organization which is located around this neighborhood – who know?
Hot Yoga, Kitsilano – I put this one in, because current I am on a hot yoga in Calgary kick and it seems that Hot Yoga searches in general are picking up steam on YellowPages.ca.
Non Toxic Toys, Calgary – Either this is an over cautious parent or a couple looking for an interesting evening. I think it is the latter.
Drunk from Drinking, Winnpeg – that is usually what happens when you participate in this activity. For this user, perhaps an alternative search would be DUI lawyer, Winnipeg.
Handicap, Vancouver Heights – this is a neighborhood search in Burnaby – I wonder if they were looking for wheelchair information or not.
Fair Trade Coffee, Bell Centre – the search term, Fair Trade Coffee is really increasing, especially on our iPhone Application. I wonder if this was a native Montrealer or somebody visiting Montreal. Based on the search query time, appears to be before the Montreal Canadians game.
Dog Protein, Toronto – I put this one in because as an owner of a Cocker Spaniel, I can personally say I never searched this one before, but I suppose it makes sense if your dog is not getting enough protein in its diet.
Ripped Low-Rise Jeans, Laval – I really hope this was a girl looking for these in Laval. I love Montreal region in the summer – but that’s another blog post for another day 
Sushi, Halifax Citadel National Historic Site – I thought this was a pretty cool query and really demonstrates a true local search. Probably a tourist in Halifax.
Ugly, Canada – I think this was a joke search, but one observation from my end – why are all the businesses with Ugly in their name located in Western Canada?
Investigate Cheating Wife, Montreal – I think that search term says it all. You go buddy – you find out what she is up to. I suspect the next query should be Divorce, Montreal.
Invertebrates, Gloucester – I thought this was an interesting search. For those of you who don’t know, Gloucester is a connecting city to Ottawa.
Sprocket, Lessard Park – Lessard Park in located in Edmonton. This proves that even business to business searches (perhaps this is business to consumer) will start to get hyperlocal given the opportunity.
Fireworks, Calgary – I wanted to include this one, because when I lived in Pickering it was amazing to me how many people shoot off fireworks during holidays. I lived in Calgary and Saskatoon prior to moving to Pickering and this was not a normal thing in those cities to do. Now that I am back in Calgary, still not normal, yet it surprises me how many searches there are for it. Go figure.
I will keep an eye out for more interesting searches to post in the future. In the meantime, if you have not already, check out YellowPages.ca and tell me what you think in my comments.
Revisiting my Yellow Pages Answers Interview on CP24
I was updating my personal profile within Google today and adding links to the various videos that I have been part of lately. One in particular was my interview with Omar Sachedina of CP24 on Wednesday, July 8, 2009 for the Yellow Pages Answers services, business category data provided by YellowPages.ca. Here is a replay of my video interview with Omar Sachedina:
Related to the answers service, I also wanted to take this opportunity to highlight just how easy it is to get started using Yellow Pages Answers. Before are some screenshots:
First – you will want to visit Answers.YellowPages.ca or if you are french speaking, you will want to visit Reponses.PagesJaunes.ca.
You will notice that the service starts with welcoming you and immediately gives you access to the Answers Help along with a box to post your first question. Before you can start posting a question, look to your right under “Options” and select join.
Second – you have two options to join the answers service, using your Facebook Account or signing up for a new account.
Most users select the signin using your facebook account. If you select this option, you will be presented with the following:
If you don’t already have a facebook account, to set-up your own account on Answers is simply. Fill in email, username and password and agree to the terms of use. From there you will get an email confirmation, click on that and you are finished.
Third – you are finished. Now you can start to post and respond to questions within Answers
This service is a great way to solicit recommendations from your social network or people with the answers network. I did a post back in July on the most unique questions asked using Answers service, many of which now have answers to them.
If you have used the answers service and would like to comment or have suggestions, please post to my comments section or send me an email directly to dsieben … @ … gmail … .com ….
The 8 Most Unusual or Out of the Ordinary Local Business Questions on Answers.YellowPages.ca
The YellowPages.ca Answer Service has been running for over 1-month now and the numbers of local questions being asked and answered is increasing steadily. There are a lot of questions around plumbers, mechanics, electricians, restaurants, etc, however, I wanted to highlight some questions that don’t really fall into the traditional categories of what people are looking for.
Here is my list of the 8 most usual or out of the ordinary local business questions asked by users:
- I need to find mannaquin arms, 10 to be precise. Where can i find them? – mannaguin arms, I wonder what he needs those for? What about the rest of the mannaquin?
- Does anyone know a good, high tech dentist w/ cute assistants in Montreal, QC (near downtown core)? – love this question, forget the dentist, it is all about the assistant
- Does anyone know a nice no-tell hotel in Montreal, QC? – hmmmm, I wonder what the no-tell is about
- Does anyone know a good escort service in saint john? – interesting, perhaps the person looking for the no-tell hotel could help, see above
- Does anyone know a mediocre taco bell restaurant in guelph on? – some would argue that all food at Taco Bell is mediocre
- Where is a good place to buy NHL jerseys in Toronto? Jerseys from other teams, not just the Leafs. – exactly, who would purchase a leaf’s jersey?
- Anyone know a mediator specialized in neighbour disputes in Montreal, QC? – see Samual L Jackson in Lakeview Terrace, might give you some ideas
- Where is the best place for happy hour on a Friday afternoon in Ottawa? – somebody has their priorities straight
I will continue to monitor and update this list later in the year with more unique questions that are being asked.
From a business perspective the Answer service can be used to increase sales and leads to your business. Here are 3-Steps on how a local businesses can take advantage of this service?
1) Create an account and if your business uses Twitter, connect it to your twitter feed
2) Monitor the questions
3) If a user is asking for a recommendation on your business category or you think you can help them out, provide a recommendation. I suggest that you disclose that you are recommending your own business. In the comments field give some insight into why that person should do business with you.
What this does for a local business is gives them direct access to users who might be interested in their products or services and opens a dialogue with users.
A Canadian First – Blackberry Application Featuring People Search
Released over this past weekend was a very cool blackberry application from Yellow Pages Group. The application can be downloaded directly to your blackberry at InstallYP.ca/Blackberry (http://installyp.ca/blackberry) – please note that this link is blackberry specific, if you try to access through a web browser it will tell you that your devise is not supported.
This application features the leading directory services in Canada, YellowPages - for finding a business, Canada411 for finding a person, and a blended Reverse Lookup for finding both people and businesses.
Compatible with the newest blackberries and backward compatible to previous generations, this application automatically detects your device and installs the features that are compatible. For example, GPS search is enabled on devices with GPS, non GPS blackberries won’t see this option.
Lastly, the application auto detects your language settings and is available in French and English – pretty cool stuff.
Some of the high-level features include:
- tab between Business, People and Reverse Lookup
- save listing information through MyFavs or directly to your blackberry address book or both
- people search with integrated find businesses nearby (surprise your date with flowers on the way)
- GPS search (for devices where this is enabled)
- direct connect to Voice Search (no charge usage) if you are on the go
Application is completely free to download and overall is pretty cool and puts the most up to date Business and People information in Canada at your fingertips.
If you are interested, check out other neat local Canadian search applications.
Harper, Dion, Layton, Duceppe and May … A Online Directories View of Canada’s Political Leaders
The last week in Canada has been one heck of a political ride with the economic update leading to a coalition opposition looking to take power from the reigning Conservative government. If you want to read about the full week of details, check out The Globe and Mails Political section.
Got me wondering, with these 5 political leaders in a history making battle, what would Canada’s leading directories tell us about these political leaders and their names.
To recap, here are the players (there names link to Wikipedia, if you want to read more about them):
Stephan Harper, Conservative Leader and Current Prime Minister
Stéphane Dion, Liberal Leader and Proposed New Prime Minister
Jack Layton, Leader of The New Democrats
Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Québécois
Elizabeth May, Leader of the Greens
Now that we have the players, what can we learn about their last names?
Let’s start with Canada 411, Canada’s most used people finder directory. I will conduct a search for each political leaders last name within the country and the top 2 provinces that contain that last name. Here are the results (if you want to see the full results, click on the name below):
Harper in Canada – 3150 results with the most coming from Harper in Ontario (1505) followed by Harper in British Columbia (476).
Dion in Canada – 13,042 results with the most coming from Dion in Quebec (10,979) followed by Dion in Ontario (1065).
Layton in Canada – 395 results with the most coming from Layton in Ontario (134) followed by Layton in Alberta (105).
Duceppe in Canada – 100 results with the coming from for Duceppe in Quebec (99) followed by Duceppe in Alberta (1).
May in Canada – 12,260 results with the most coming from May in Ontario (5017) followed by May in Quebec (2481).
Now, let’s turn our focus on business searches searches using YellowPages.ca – Canada’s Most Used business directory. For these searches, we have filtered based on businesses that contain the last name of our 5 political leaders along with the top 2 most references business categories. Here are the results:
Harper in Canada – 156 results with the most common business heading being Engines-Diesel (12) and Lawyers (12) followed by General Contractors (6).
Dion in Canada – 436 results with the most common business heading being Dentists (22) followed by Auto Repair Garages (21).
Layton in Canada – 37 results with the most common business heading being Dentists (5) followed by Lawyers (3) and Roofing Contractors (3).
Duceppe in Canada – 6 results with the most common business heading being Theaters (3) followed by Lawyers (2).
May in Canada – 1734 results with the most common business heading being Lawyers (54) followed by Restaurants (50).
So there you have it, the 5 political leaders in Canada looked at from the view of Canada’s directories.
Check out Canada’s Top 20 Surnames Dissected if you are interested in more numbers.
Why Really Smart Advertisers Look Beyond The Big Shiny Numbers
Big numbers, seems the entire world wants to see them, even those in the local advertiser space in Canada. Big numbers are good, but what about results and do these always correspond? This article will take a look at a couple of older web posts and some updated data from my favorite small business in Canada – The Bra Lady.
I want to reference a post that I made a few years back titled, Putting Numbers into Perspective, in which I look very closely at the value of advertising from a Calgary Realtor perspective. Here is an excerpt making reference to the search volumes for Google and YellowPages.ca at that time:
While some of the skeptical business owners might say, “well, that’s not a lot”, most likely the top performers within the industry would look at those numbers and be very excited about what they represent.
The first thing to consider is this; the search numbers above represent qualified prospects. These are directive searches; somebody is specifically typing in those keywords or searches. I believe that if somebody logs on YellowPages.ca and does a category search for real estate agent in Calgary, they are most likely seeking a professional to provide those services. The same goes for Google, if a prospect types in Calgary realtor, clearly they are looking for a realtor in Calgary.
The point of the entire article is specifically around how top realtors look at numbers very differently to measure return on investment.
Second, I want to reference an article by Tom Tsinas titled “Google vs Yellow Pages” in which he provides some specific details on dissecting traffic numbers and examines very closely YellowPages.ca as part of the media mix. Here is an except from this posting:
Google vs Yellow Pages – This battle is a lot closer than most of you can imagine. I’m constantly hearing about how the Yellow Pages are dying and there’s no value in them. While most may say that I’m biased because of the number of years I spent in the industry, the same cannot be said for Google Analytics.
Google Analytics cannot lie, it has no biases and, thank goodness for the Yellow Pages, paints a much different picture than many so called experts. You just have to know what to look for.
Read the full article for the detailed analysis that Tom did on the numbers from one of his clients. This is a great article that is worth taking a read. I will use a couple of key measurements he spoke of, namely referral traffic, bounce rate and listing the multiple referral list for YellowPages.ca.
So what about the TheBraLady? Below are some stats from The Bra Lady, Custom Bras in Calgary. For disclosure sake, as many of my readers know, she is my mom and yes I do all of her online marketing in Calgary.
Let’s examine what Google Analytics is telling us about her stats. From January 1 to September 30 here is the traffic from different sources along with the bounce rate, the lower the number the better:
Google Organic – 1576 (bounce rate – 27.98%) – NOTE: this includes traffic from Google Search and Google Images as well as Google.com and Google.ca. Further discussion below about the local value of this traffic – which is about 50% of the number listed above.
YellowPages.ca – 495 (bounce rate – 21.02%)
Yahoo – 60 (bounce rate – 33.33%)
Microsoft Live – 56 (bounce rate – 37.50%)
NOTE: With Google Analytics, Google has done a very good job of pre-aggregating all their sources of traffic in the Google bucket, this would include traffic from Google.com and Google.ca and includes traffic from Google Search, Images, etc. My only complaint with Google Analytics, unlike log analysis, is the breakdown of traffic by time of day. In the case of The Bra Lady when I look at the log files, I see a very high percentage of traffic from Google coming after midnight, usually between 1am and 3am. If I correspond this to keywords, what I notice is that late at night, we are getting lots of “junk” traffic, people looking for pictures of women in lingerie, most coming from US or International based IP addresses. If I remove all the easy to identify “junk” traffic, I notice that the good traffic from Google drops by almost 50% in this particular case.
In the YellowPages.ca bucket was sources of traffic from the following sites which are all part of the network and these to be added together to get the true picture of traffic from this source. This is important to note when calculating return on investment to ensure that you have all the data.
YellowPages.ca Business Directory
SuperPages.ca – purchased by Yellow Pages Group in 2005
YellowPages.ca Facebook Application
For her specific business, as you can see Google and YellowPages.ca are both very good drivers of traffic to her website. In terms of bounce rate, YellowPages.ca is showing as the strongest. So if we were only interested in the “Big Shiny Numbers” we might stop here, make our conclusions and call it a good day at the office.
The real question is which one is converting into sales? Although at this point I can’t get into specific financial conversion, I can tell you that the order of the top 2 from web traffic is opposite in terms of conversions to sales. This does not come as any surprise to us when we consider at what stage a user in their buying decision. People don’t go to YellowPages.ca to “surf”, they go their to conduct a specific local action, unlike search engines whose user motivation tends to be higher up in the purchase funnel.
Lastly, I would suggest that you take a look at another older post from January 1 of this year called – Word of Mouth Needs Support – A Deeper Look at Web Referral Traffic – in which I examine specific tactics for a small business to dig deeper with their customers to fully understand conversion of traffic so that a business owner can make business decisions not based on hype, but based on fact.
The bottom line decision for any local business is not who drives more traffic to their website, rather who drives more sales conversions.
Local Search in Canada Using the Apple iPhone – a Visual Comparision
As the iPhone becomes more and more popular in Canada I decided to take a look at 4 local web products, YellowPages.ca, 411.ca, Canpages.ca, and Google Maps.
I selected these as they all have iPhone compatible versions of their websites. Google Maps is a standard icon on the iPhone by default.
For this particular test I decided to focus on a popular generic category search (dentists in Toronto) and a very specific landmark search (restaurants by Eau Claire Market). For those of you who don’t know, Eau Claire Market is a popular destination located in downtown Calgary. I believe that landmarks would be important search criteria for mobile products.
In terms of ranking, I have decided not to rank the results. For the landmark search I indicated success or failure. You be the judge in terms of your personal preference. Please feel free to add a comment on your favorite or suggest other sites in Canada that have iPhone versions.
Let’s start with what happens when you bookmark the websites above and put them on your iPhone desktop.
From left to right:
Maps (Google) - this is default on your iPhone. One issue that I have is that Apple or Google have failed to customize this icon for regions – notice the US highway signage.
YellowPages.ca – In Canada, Yellow Pages(TM) is a registered trademark and when you bookmark you get the logo on your desktop.
411.ca- They have a unique icon and tell you 411 at the beginning of the text string. The ouch! at the end is a little weird though.
Canpages.ca – No custom icon, uses a screenshot that clearly tells the user nothing.
Let’s look at each property individually based on my two search queries.
First we try Google Maps – “dentists in Toronto” search on Map view.
The same search done via list view.
Here is the screenshot of the details of the business listing.
Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Toronto. Google did not recognize this landmark.
Second we try YellowPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search. NOTICE: with YellowPages.ca you also have the ability to switch to find a person in Canada using Canada411.ca.
Here are the results of this search.
Here is the details of a business listing
Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market“. This search was a success, landmark was recognized.
Third we try 411.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.
Here are the results of this search.
Here is the details of a business listing
Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed as the results are located in Ontario. 411.ca did not recognize this landmark.
Fourth we try CanPages.ca here is the screenshot for the “dentists in Toronto” search.
Here are the results of this search.
Here is the details of a business listing
Finally we will conduct “restaurants by Eau Claire Market”. This search failed CanPages.ca did not recognize this landmark.
If you want to see another comparison - check out Taking a Look at Local Merchant Pages in Canada - a post from last December.
Just in time for the release of the iPhone in Canada – YellowPages.ca iPhone / iPod App Gets a Staff Pick Nod
With the July 11th release of the iPhone through the Roger’s Network, which includes Fido, Canada is starting to get iPhone fever.
Some interesting posts on the Canadian launch of the iPhone that I have found interesting in the last week: Read More…
Add Save and Share Functionality To Your Website – For Free – Thanks to YellowPages.ca
Just launched this weekend on YellowPages.ca is the ability for merchants in Canada to add Save and Share Functionality to their website. The company providing the service is Agendize. For information on the specific service from Agendize – visit their widget product page. You can also read a full article from a strategic perspective on this initiative on the Kelsey Blog titled “Agendize Brings Contact Widgets to Local Listings“.
So how does it work and what does it look like?
First thing a business owner should do is go to YellowPages.ca and do a search for their business listing. Once again – I am using my mom’s business, The Bra Lady as an example. Once you are on your business listing click on the ? beside the Add These Tools To your Website.
When you click on the ? mark – this will launch a new window with some Javascript code that you can copy.
Take the Javascript code and add it to your website. In the case of TheBraLady.ca – we decided to add this code into the header of the website so that it is available on every page.
Finally – when a user selects this new button on your website – it launched a window that gives a user a multitude of ways in which they can share your business information.
And that’s it. Now your business contact information can be shared via email, address book, desktop, social media, print and instant messenger.
Pretty cool eh.
Local Video Coming to Canada … Big Time
Video is definately making its mark in Canada with a number of local search sites launching video products. Companies such as Yellow Pages Group on YellowPages.ca, GoldBook, Canpages all have video products available to their customers.
Of particular note in this post is the ability to embed these videos into 3rd party websites. For end customers this is a great way to leverage the video service on their own websites to generate a richer experience for customers who might type their URL directly. This service is available on YellowPages.ca. Under any video you can select “embed”, grab the code and place it on your website.
Here are some examples of local business video ads (embedded from YellowPages.ca):
Harley-Davidson Motorcycles Of Edmonton (1980) Ltd
Skintastic Laser & Cosmetic Clinic
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