Scoot Blog

Earlier this month, US-based SEO authority, David Mihm, posted an interesting article about business categories in online directories.  Trying to match your business to the right category can be a challenge, especially if your activities fall into more than one category.  Check your business listing on Scoot and if your category is incorrect, let us know and we’ll change it for you.  We will also assign more than one category to your company if we believe your business activities justify this. 

Business categories on directories can look a little restrictive at first sight, but often there are a number of synonyms operating behind the scenes that ensure businesses appear in searches for common phrases associated with the category.  Of course, the best way to ensure your business comes up is to buy an enhanced listing on Scoot which will entitle you to a range of keywords that best describe your business!

As of 24th September, local search and business reviews website, Touch Local, acquired 100% of the share capital of Enable Media, the company that owns and operates Scoot.  Touch Local’s CEO, Mark Livingstone, summarised the key benefits of bringing the 2 companies together:

• A combined customer base in excess of 25,000 local business advertisers on annual subscriptions and growing at some 8% per month
• More than 2m UK businesses listed, 500,000 of whom have activated their profiles
• Over 3.5m uniques and 6m searches per month
• A field and telesales team in excess of 130 people and a really established platform for further growth
• A forward combined revenue run rate in excess of $32m and EBITDA in excess of $7.5m
• Strengthening of distribution strategy that will enable more exclusive partners to be added this year in addition to our local search partnership with AOL.

We’re really looking forward to bringing some great new products to our combined customer base!

If your business has a free listing on Scoot.co.uk, one of the UK’s leading online business directories, you can now add a Special Offer to your listing free of charge.

In the current economic climate, everyone is looking for a good deal at local businesses, so adding a special offer, coupon or discount voucher to your listing on Scoot is a great way to attract more customers to your business.

Just search for your business on Scoot, then click the ‘Update this listing’ link.  This will show you the information we currently hold about your business and enable you to add the special offer.  When you’ve finished making your changes, go to the purple tab and save your details before leaving this part of the website.

Market research business, Gartner, predicts that the worldwide consumer location-based services (LBS) market will double in 2009.   

Gartner defines LBS as services that use information about the location of mobile devices, derived from cellular networks, Wi-Fi access points or via satellite links to receivers in handsets. Examples are services that enable friends to find each other, parents to locate their children, mapping and navigation.

LBS subscribers are forecast to grow from 41m in 2008 to 95.7m in 2009, while revenue is anticipated to increase from $998.3m in 2008 to $2.2bn in 2009.  “The LBS industry has matured rapidly in recent months through a mixture of consolidation, improved price/performance of the enabling technologies and compelling location applications”, said Gartner senior research analyst, Annette Zimmermann.  “Factors driving the increase in the next year or so include higher availability of GPS-enabled phones, reduced prices and appearance of applications stores.”  Gartner also predicts that advertising-based or ‘free’ LBS (disregarding data charges by mobile carriers) will gain more traction as users adopt it as a way to limit costs.

Not everyone agrees with Gartner’s predictions about growing LBS revenues, however.  US-based local search guru, Greg Sterling, believes the paid LBS market is going to get smaller and smaller… not bigger:  “Those that are willing to pay… will be a tiny minority in a very short period.  Free (assuming a not-free data plan) will all but destroy the paid market unless those consumer fees are one-time payments or truly nominal monthly subscriptions.”

Meanwhile, here’s an LBS you can use for free.  Try out the Scoot iPhone Web App – www.scoot.co.uk/iphone - to find all the information you need about local businesses in just a couple of taps.  For further information, visit the Scoot website.

If your business is listed on Scoot, you can include a link to your Twitter account free of charge.

Add Twitter to your business listing on Scoot

Just search for your business on scoot.co.uk and click the ‘Update this listing’ link at the bottom of your listing.  This will take you to an area of the website where you can amend the details we hold about your business. Go to the ‘Contact’ tab and add your Twitter Username where indicated.  Remember to save your changes before leaving this area of the Scoot website.

Go to the 'Contact' tab and insert your Twitter Username

If you’ve heard a lot about Twitter but are still wondering what on earth it’s all about, there’s a really helpful beginners’ guide on searchenginewatch.com

To make it easier for you to find special offers on Scoot, we’ve launched a new page on our website that enables you to browse special offers and discount vouchers.  You can see all the offers and coupons on the site or you can see just those in your area by clicking the area on the UK map.

Scoot special offers browser

Each special offer has a link back to the business’ information page on Scoot where you can see full details including addresses, telephone numbers, descriptions, websites, maps, directions, photos and even videos. 
You can also print the coupon for presentation in store.

Keep up-to-date with the latest offers in your area by signing up for Scoot’s regular special offers email newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed or follow ScootSpoffers on Twitter.

Don’t forget, if you’re looking for a special offer for a particular type of business, then search on scoot.co.uk for that business category in the area of interest.  You can then refine your results by using our filter option to view only those businesses with special offers.

A new report from Berg Insight predicts that the number of mobile users in Europe using location-based services (LBS) will grow from 20 million in 2008 to reach 130 million in 2014.  That’s a healthy 37% growth rate.  Local search, navigation services and social networking look like being the top applications in terms of number of users.  Berg also estimates that more than 20% of mobile handsets shipped in 2009 will feature GPS and that the number in Europe will surpass 50% of total handsets in 2013.

For those of you with iPhones already, try the Scoot LBS.  Free to download from the iPhone App Store, Scoot uses the iPhone’s GPS capability to locate you, then find your nearest cafe, bank, restaurant, petrol station and much more.

If you’re a Scoot advertising customer, you can add your Google Streetview image, if available, to your Priority or Super Listing on the online business directory.  Streetview doesn’t yet cover the whole of the UK, so log into your Scoot account with your user ID and password, click ‘Edit this listing’ and go to the Map tab.  If a Streetview image is available for your business, it will appear on screen.  If you want to add this to your listing, just tick the box underneath the image.  You’ll find that if you change your location marker on the map, your Streetview image will change accordingly.  You can also use the up, down, left and right arrows on your Streetview image to determine the start point to be displayed on your Listing.

Don’t forget to save your changes before logging off!

Click here for more information about advertising on Scoot.

Estimates of UK mobile Internet users still vary quite widely from 7.2 million (Nielsen Online, November 2008) to 17.4 million (Mobile Data Association, February 2009).  Although mobile data services seem to have been slow to take off in the UK, this is about to change, according to analyst eMarketer, thanks in part to the 3G iPhone and an increase in practical applications like maps, GPS services, games, news and social networking.  Mobile search applications, like Scoot’s new iPhone app, that are convenient and simple to use will help to boost this market.

The iPhone app includes a number of standard icons as default

Scoot has launched a new location-based iPhone application that helps mobile users find information about local businesses in just a couple of taps.

Free to download from the iPhone App Store, Scoot uses the iPhone’s GPS capability to locate the user, then find the nearest cafe, bank, restaurant, petrol station and much more.  It’s so quick and easy to use when you’re on the move.  There’s no need to type anything in: you just open the app and tap the relevant icon – cafe, for example.  Scoot will then show your nearest cafes with name, address, phone number and distance from your current location. 

You can also use Scoot to find your nearest special offer!  Just tap the Offers icon to see a list of nearby businesses that have posted a special offer or coupon on Scoot.

If you tap the ‘More’ button on each business listed, you can see additional information which might include descriptions, opening times, payment methods, special offers/coupons, pictures and even videos.  You can also see the business on a map, get directions, click to call or view their website.

The app includes a number of standard icons as the default, representing some of the more popular business categories on Scoot.  However, you can easily customise the application by using a simple on/off toggle button to add search icons for more categories or even your favourite brands.  We’ll be adding more categories and brands in future releases of the app, so will keep you posted.

Find futher details here, or visit the App Store