• by Wayne Friedman , May 18, 2011

Local media will get a big shot in the arm in coming years from local search advertising revenues.

Revenues are expected to jump more than 50% in the next four years, hitting $8.2 billion in 2015 from $5.1 billion in 2010, per media researcher BIA/Kelsey. Overall, the media research group believes local search will represent 30% of all search volume by 2015.

Other media analysts believe local search revenue could be a significant benefit to local TV and radio stations in working together with the big search engines.

"Local search ad revenues hit an all-time high last year, driven primarily by better product integration across search engines, especially Google," said Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director of BIA/Kelsey's Interactive Local Media practice.

"Revenues will continue to grow as better targeting, increased mobile usage and improving integration drive up local search activity," he adds.

An earlier BIA/Kelsey projection estimated local search will hit $8.1 billion in 2013, with overall search revenues at $26.7 billion. Local search revenues were estimated to represent around 23.6% of all search revenues.