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Local Search is replacing the Yellow Pages

According to Jupiter Media at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, Local Search is replacing the Yellow Pages as the preferred way for consumers to find local businesses and services. Some estimates suggest that local search is the fastest growing segment in search engines with as much as 20 percent of all searches performed locally in conjunction with the user.

Until recently, Yahoo! was the leader in the local searches among the search engines. However, new enhancements from Google and AOL have made the market more competitive.

Google Maps was released recently in a beta version. Google Maps enables users in the United States and Canada to find local information, navigate maps and get directions to local businesses.

For the search engines, the brand “local” has replaced “Yellow Pages” as the doorway into local business information and related data.

As consumers use the Local Search more and more to find and evaluate local businesses, it will be imperative that your business’s web site be kept up-to-date with information about your business products and/or services.

In addition, your business’s web site should be able to address the initial questions of a potential customer. This can be accomplished by adding a FAQs page. In addition, a couple of testimonials will make it easier for users to evaluate and compare your business to others.

Here are the most popular of the local search engines:

http://local.google.com
http://local.yahoo.com
http://localsearch.aol.com
http://local.ask.com/local

Another new advertising opportunity is called Pay-Per-Call. Pay per call works in much the same way that pay per click does except that in this case advertisers are charged each time a call is a result of a user clicking on the toll-free number (as opposed to the URL in a pay per click) displayed in the ad. This type of advertising would be effective for a business that sells a high end product or a service such as web site development.

There are many ways that your web site can play a more productive role in your sales and marketing effort. Give us a call, and we can help you identify an Internet program that will support your own set of business goals -- within your budget and technology comfort level.

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