» Local Search Advertising in 2008

Earlier this week Greg Sterling posted an article titled What Does 2008 Have In Store For Local? He emphasizes that the local market is about a very large number of mostly small companies. I could not agree more and most of these small companies are not advertising online. It is important to educate small local businesses on the benefits of local internet advertising. Currently it is the most cost efficient way to advertise your business.

“Study after study has confirmed that consumers research products before buying (mostly offline). However, perhaps more strikingly, the internet has now surpassed the venerable print yellow pages and newspapers as the primary local resource for consumers looking for services. This is not to say that print newspapers and yellow pages don’t have meaningful usage anymore, but we’ve reached an important “tipping point” of sorts. “

Greg Sterling mentions in the above quote that the internet has surpassed the print yellow pages and newspapers for local resources. Local companies need to take some of their ad spend from their traditional advertising like print and move it online. If local consumers are going to the search engines for local information then you need to place your products and services right in front of them. Consumers are searching on specific phrases that are related to your products so why not purchase these terms and guarantee that they will find you. This form of advertising seems like the obvious way to go however most local small to mid-sized companies have not caught on to this idea.

In his article Sterling also mentions the rise of user-generated content and the increasing importance of consumer ratings, reviews and recommendations in 2007. Yahoo and Google have both updated its local search product, expanding its search results beyond just business listings to include local user-generated content. A local search on Google or Yahoo in any city will now return user-recommended restaurants, events and many other forms of local entertainment. It will also display what other users in the same city have been searching for lately and list the most recent ratings and reviews.

Users do not only want to find a business, they want to find out what other users in their community think about the product and services they are looking for. 2008 is going to be an exciting year for Local Internet Advertising.