Visibility

When It Comes to Local Advertising, You Get What You Pay For

Gib Olander , Localeze - Local Search 0 Comments | Add Yours

About The Author:

As director of business development, Gib Olander has helped Localeze become the largest online content manager, serving local search engines, businesses and ready-to-buy to consumers.

I’m a former ad man for the yellow pages industry, so I understand the old precept that says, “Advertising is sold not bought.” I also believe that advertising works when it’s done the right way; after all, I own a ShamWow and who knows; a Snuggie might not be far behind. However for businesses hoping for a strong local search presence, good advertising alone isn’t enough – not by a long shot.

While it used to be that consumers turned primarily to print yellow pages to find products and services, online local search and a sharp decline in print ad spending have changed that. Now 90% of online commercial searches result in local purchases, proving that consumers are turning to the Internet to find the local businesses and service providers they need.

This phenomenon, coined “ROBO” (research online by offline) by Yahoo!, is defined by conceptual queries based on ideas and geographies and is changing the face of search behavior. Now ready-to-buy consumers are able to conduct searches through strings of top-of-mind key words not the rigid categories that set the parameters for the old print directories. In fact a recent Hitwise study shows that five word search queries have grown by more than 10% year over year, and shorter queries have shrunk by 2% during that same time period.

Despite these trends, there is still an inherent disconnect between consumer search behavior and online ad spend. The online yellow pages publishers that feed most of the advertisers to the major search engines are still selling advertising on a category-based model. Businesses that rely on advertising sold into categories as opposed to establishing their online identity by focusing on the attributes or keywords that set them apart are effectively homogenizing themselves amongst their competitors.

If you’re spending all of your online marketing dollars on advertising and Web site SEO, you’re undoubtedly being edged out, as ready-to-buy consumers search online for products and services your local business might offer. If your business can only be identified by Google through its brand name or category, it is not going to be recognized for the things that make it truly unique.

The search engines aren’t going to do this work for you, but there are local search online content management companies that will. In order to appear in organic local search engine results and to make your business relevant to consumers with evolving search habits, center your optimization efforts for local on keywords not categories. Focus on all the brands and products you carry, your geographic location, the services you offer and much much more. A commitment to optimizing this kind of content will facilitate the meetings of more buyers to sellers, which is after all, what the local search industry is all about.