YP Hooks Up With Goodzer to Add Services Data to Search
YP has announced a new partnership with Goodzer that will populate the company’s local search product with information about service provider offerings from the startup. It’s the latest in a series of moves by the yellow pages carve-out to rejuvenate its local search product and draw users away from Yelp and Google, as pressure continues to mount on the listings model.
The partnership will add pricing and other information for service providers from Goodzer’s database into the profile pages of the YP app and website which together reach over 80 million users each month, according to the company. Goodzer expanded into the service industry earlier this summer, adding content for mechanics, salons, and a number of other service businesses to its existing database of mostly retailer data.
YP started to reinvest its consumer presence last year, running a brand campaign to promote its new name and adding a CMO in Allison Checchi in January. In April, the company started to roll out MyBook, a feature that allows logged-in users — an important detail — to save businesses and access later across platform. Then in May, the company ditched the slogan, which came with the rebrand, in favor of “can do that.”
For the local search industry, items-level data seems like the logical successor to the menu information that SinglePlatform and others have found success aggregating. Studies show that richer content means more conversions for local search, and the deal with Goodzer is likely to provide to improve — albeit, incrementally — the quality of YPs product.
But the company may be better suited to pony up some cash to buy one of the number of booking apps that have popped up recently. Slightly better listings data will likely not entice users to switch from Google or Yelp — but buying and booking functionality might. It requires a slightly more high touch integration with merchants, but it could provide a meaningful way for the company to put its existing customer base to use.
Steven Jacobs is Street Fight’s deputy editor.
