A recent white paper by Joe Laratro, MoreVisibility.com, effectively describes Local Search, its place in the local advertising milieu, and its importance to service businesses in the community. This type of search has the potential for a better user experience with reviews and other interactive content about local needs.
The major search engines have realized the value of local search and have created new local destinations for the informed searcher. For instance:
Local search opens a new online marketing channel to many companies because the engines do not require a Web site, concludes the report. Since the traffic is highly targeted and relevant, in many instances a conversion would be a phone call or a store visit. Business categories that can benefit from Local Search include:
A significant benefit to a small, local company, is that services or products can be submitted to an online classified Web site without having a company Web site, and the advertiser's listing becomes "their content" on that site. This content becomes significantly enhanced classified, taking advantage of the graphic opportunities of the Web. Growth in this niche sector, according to JupiterResearch, is forcasted to be fast.
US Local Online Advertising Spending (Billion $) | ||||
| 2004 | 2006 | 2008 | 2010 |
Local display | $0.2 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.9 |
Local search | 0.5 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 0.9 |
Local classifieds | 1.8 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 3.6 |
Source: Jupiter Research, July 2005 |