Broadband Evolved

Two interesting stories surfaced today in the world of local search and small business marketing.

First, I received a tweet this morning from @TheKelseyGroup with a link to a case study about a local search portal called Weblocal.ca that has managed to generate large amounts of traffic after only a few months of being in market.  The company is actually a partnership between a software company called YellowBot and a Canadian print media company called Transcontinental with a collection of newspaper and magazine assets.  The portal itself is simple and clean.  Content is spotlighted for videos, pictures, users, and reviews.  Plus there is a tag cloud for popular topics and for popular places.

If you’re interested in local search, there is a lot to think about for sure.  However, in my opinion, the most intriguing part of the story is the 1 million UVs after just 60 days.  2.5% of Canada’s population visited the site in December 2008.  Transcon is pushing hard to promote the site through their 400 person sales channel and traditional media assets and it’ll be interesting to see how far they can go when taking on the leaders such as YPG and Canpages.

Second, in a sign that VC is not dead yet — or perhaps a sign that local search and generating inbound leads for SMBs remains a huge opportunity – Yodel announced that it closed a $10 million sercies C round.

I’ve said it before.  I’ll say it again.  In a down economy like this, SMBs are aggressively on the hunt for inbound leads.  Those that are positioned to help generate inbound sales leads for SMBs have an excellent opportunity for growth in the next few years.

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