30 Percent of All
Local Searches Attributed to Sites Outside
Top 10 Properties
According to comScore, there are only two
local search sites that capture more than 20
percent of the local search market share--YellowPages.com
and SuperPages.com. Two more sites, when
combined, capture just over thirty percent
market share--Yahoo and Google. So what is
the fifth largest local search site? It’s
“other”, or all other local search
properties that compete for traffic at the
three largest search engines: Google, Yahoo
and MSN.
Trying to make sense of all the statistics
and market share analyses can be
complicated, given the different definitions
used to measure a visitor or from where a
visitor originates. For example, if I
perform a search with a local modifier at
Yahoo and click on an organic link that
leads me to SuperPages.com, which site gets
credit? I make this point only because the
data referenced above goes against
traditional thinking and other widely used
local search market statistics.
To
keep it simple and put it into perspective,
consider that there are about 10 or so local
search sites that capture close to 70
percent of the local search market share and
literally hundreds of thousands of other
local search sites that capture the
remaining 30 percent. “Hundreds of
thousands?” you ask. “No way!” you say, but
it’s actually true. Try a search at Google,
Yahoo or MSN for any service or product
attached to a geo-modifier, and the results
will probably be the same -- a lesser-known
local or vertical directory site that
competes with the much larger IYPs. A
search for “Denver Auto Repair” for
instance, turns up
www.denverautorepair.com
at or near the very top of the page every
time.
Let’s face it: there are two primary ways to
drive traffic. Either you buy it in one
form or another (e.g., clicks, marketing,
advertising, etc.), or you optimize your
site to compete effectively within the
organic search engine results. The tactic a
particular site chooses is generally decided
by the means in which it generates
revenue—whether selling local advertising,
leveraging traffic, lead generation or
Google Ad Sense. The ability to drive
traffic through strong optimization has
created significant opportunities for local
search engine startups that have viable
consumer utility or simply create a
compelling user experience.
Sites like
Zillow.com
and
Trulia.com
have achieved both angles and offer a
compelling experience, in which users can
view numerous high-quality pictures,
detailed home data and neighborhood
information. The rich information provided
by sites like these speaks to the heart of
the opportunity and is another reason why 30
percent of local search is comprised of
sites outside the top 10 properties. Their
founders understood that local search is not
a purely sales-driven process, but rather
that it is primarily driven by consumer
preferences.
Zillow, Trulia and countless other sites and
applications are leveraging local content to
deliver a compelling local search experience
for the consumer. But how does a local
restaurateur or plumber ensure his or her
business’ listing information is available
throughout the growing list of online local
search properties, not to mention on mobile
and emerging social applications for local
search?
The challenging part of this emerging
dynamic in the local search marketing space
for businesses is tackling the laborious,
time consuming and nearly impossible task of
enhancing, distributing and then managing
local business content across the huge
spread of ever-growing local search engine
properties.
On
Monday, Apple announced users have
downloaded over 60 million iPhone
applications. On the first page in the
“Search Tools” category, 25 percent of the
applications were leveraged local search or
geo-specific shopping. In short order, this
is solid proof that the solution for
businesses looking to keep up with this
burgeoning trend in online local search is
to make sure that their local content is
being distributed and managed across the
widest network of local search engine
properties possible. In local search,
“other” doesn’t seem to be the outlier
anymore.
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