• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, August 25, 2021

Data from a research company shows that local is the second-largest channel behind organic search. The two organic channels combined dominate the traffic at 69%, in page views, and channel revenue contribution.

The Milestone research report segments local organic and organic search traffic, and down-journey performance by analyzing traffic sources from multiple channels to provide a benchmark.

For the research, the company reviewed more than 500 location-based websites, 63 million sessions, and 176 million page views between January 2020 and June 2021. Then it categorized results as location or non-location-based businesses.

The data represents what Milestone research identifies as trackable digital traffic.

Local traffic is the highest-intent traffic, meaning that its share of page views and revenue is higher than the traffic session share, with a share of page views at 28.6% and share of revenue at 25.5%.

The findings suggest, according to Milestone research, that local search benefited from the pullback in paid spending and traffic that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By segmenting the local traffic from the organic traffic, Milestone research saw that:

• Local traffic is one-third of total organic traffic for location-based businesses
• Local traffic has better engagement and higher conversion
• Local traffic has higher revenue per transaction

The research company also offers suggestions for businesses including, but not limited to:

• Completing the company’s Google My Business profile
• Add Schemas to help search engines understand website content
• Optimize for voice search on engines and assistants
• Add FAQs to lead in a specific topic.