Local Search – There’s No Place Like Home

Posted by Erin Meyer

As Dorothy discovered when searching for her heart’s desire, she did not have to look any further than her own backyard. This concept seems to be proving equally true for consumer search and online marketing. In order to find your future customers, you need to understand where they are looking for you. As consumers are increasingly focused on convenience and efficiency, local search methods are being more widely used.

Search Engine Watch reports that U.S. mobile local advertising revenues are projected to grow substantially over the next five years. The article points to three main highlights:

U.S. mobile local advertising will grow from $664 million in 2011 to $5.8 billion in 2016, a CAGR of 54.2 percent.
This represents a 41 percent share of 2011 overall U.S mobile advertising ($1.6 billion) growing to 58 percent of 2016 mobile advertising ($9.9B).
Search is the largest mobile local revenue component and will remain so through the forecast period. It will grow at a 52 percent CAGR, from $390 million to $3.2 billion.

Small businesses can get a jump on this trend right now by establishing a solid local search presence. A great way to start is to make sure you a have a Google+ page for your business. This will improve your Google search rankings in two ways. First, Google recognizes when local results are most relevant for searches and shows Google+ local business pages near the top of the results. Second, for Google+ searches, businesses that have a Google+ local business page will have far less competition and distraction.

To get the most from your Google+ page, you will want to include as much engaging information as possible. Enticing photos, as well as business details, and positive reviews will all make your page more effective. While gathering information about your business make take some time, building good reviews will probably also take a little more effort. We’ll have more on this in an upcoming blog post.

Considering whether not you have the time to invest in building an online local presence with a Google+ local business page? Remember that when it comes to finding loyal customers, there’s no place like home.