Local Listings for local business owners are FREE. Search engines are pouring much of their resources into creating an effective, comprehensive local search platform to meet the demand of consumers, which in turn meets the demand of their advertisers … and that’s where search engines make their money. That’s why it’s free to you.
In this post, I wanted to offer up some 2008 – 2009 statistics to show you that, if your local business isn’t listed online, you are losing customers. And further still, if your local listings aren’t optimized to their maximum potential, so they come up on the FIRST PAGE of local search results, you are losing customers.
It is the Internet Age
As of February of 2009, more than 80 percent of Americans have a computer in their homes, and of those, almost 92 percent have internet access.
(The Nielsen Company, 2009.)
The Local Search Industry
The search industry overall is expanding rapidly, with the total number of U.S. searches having grown by 31 percent across all media platforms between June 2008 and June 2009 (21.9 billion total searches in June 2009). Internet search engines continue to be a primary source for local business information.
(TMP Directional Marketing, October 2009.)
Local Searches by Consumers
As of 2008, 74 percent of all internet users search LOCALLY for a product or service every day …
and 54 percent of those refer a friend to the local business they found in an online search.
(The Kelsey Group and comScore, 2008.)
And 92 percent of Internet users have researched a product or service online, then purchased from a local business.
(WebVisible, 2009.)
The Most Commonly Used Local Search Tools:
• Search engines, 82 percent
• Yellow Pages directories, 57 percent
• Local newspapers, 53 percent
• Internet Yellow Pages (such as Yellowpages.com or Superpages.com), 49 percent
• Television, 49 percent
• Direct mail, 38 percent
• White Pages directories, 32 percent
(Nielsen and WebVisible, 2009.)
Don’t Just Get Listed … Get Listed On Top
If your business is not in the top ten, or at least on the first page of local search results, the chances your local listing will even be viewed by consumers is reduced by 92 percent!
(The Kelsey Group, 2008.)
Consumers are online … and they are performing thousands of online searches every day for local business information. Can they find you?