Local should be Local

Websites provide huge efficiencies of scale for most business models. Build one website for selling books, sign a contract with FedEx, and the entire free world is your customer base. I've always believed, though, that this efficiency doesn't apply to at least one marketplace: local business and advertising.

This week an indignant customer called us to complain. He owns a business called Oxford Hotel Management. (I changed the actual name.) His problem was that his company has the word "hotel" in it, so he gets about ten calls per day from people who search for hotels on Yahoo and call him about his hotel. He has been contacting Yahoo for many months and has not been able to get assistance from anyone there.

He recently made a Smalltown webcard, and was careful to include "I am not a hotel" repeated 6 times in his keywords. This resulted in even more calls about hotel reservations, thus making his situation extra annoying. But when he called Smalltown, we answered the phone, explained to him how keywords work, helped him come up with better keywords, and invited him to visit our office down the street if he had any more questions.

He stopped by to give us a handwritten thank you note. We liked that.

- Hal Rucker