Earlier this month, I posted about where local results come from, which referenced Bruce Clay's Search Engine Relationships Chart - Local Edition. One of the search engines listed on that chart is TrueLocal.
TrueLocal has just launced a new tool that "that aggregates and shows users traffic statistics on TrueLocal. Potential advertisers can type in a zip code and a search term and receive information about TrueLocal traffic from the previous month."
I know a lot of you spend an enormous amount of time optimizing for local searches, and it seems as though this might be a great way to spend some of that time.
The press release is here. You may need to be an advertiser to access the tool. I couldn't find a link for non-advertisers, but I may have just overlooked it.
I went through the site and all references every which way and couldn’t find a link for the traffic estimator so I contacted them for more information. My site is currently in their index, though I’m not paying for it…at this point.
To date haven’t seen a single piece of traffic from this source.
Dave
I actually found that our brick and mortar isn’t listed in there, paid or otherwise – it’s so cheap that I thought I’d give it a run, and see if the traffic estimator can be found once I have a campaign going.
So far, I still can’t find it. And I can’t find a place to ask a support person where it is.
Hmmm. Color me unimpressed so far….
I’m pretty sure I contacted them after I read this. Its now 5 days later and 3 working days. I’m thinking a bit like R Paulson. Not very responsive.
Dave
Ah well, maybe we can scratch that one off the list then.
They called today. We did a little test on my industry. Not much traffic to speak of. The estimator has only been up for a month.
I’m generally dubious of anything outside of the engines at this time.
I don’t see much traffic from any of these new sources.
Dave
ah well, good to know it actually exists, at least.