According to a recent comScore study, around 109 million people in the U.S., about 63 percent of U.S. internet users, performed a local search online in the month of July. This is a 43 percent increase over last year.
The two leaders were Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO), with Google accounting for 30 percent of the searches and Yahoo, 29 percent. Microsoft (MSFT) finished in third taking in a little over 12 percent overall.
The press release said that "...59 percent indicated they were searching for a restaurant or something entertainment-related, such as a theater, theme park or an attraction for sightseeing. Another 52 percent said they were searching specifically for a business phone number or address. Two out of five local searchers (41 percent) were looking for information on a local service in their home area, including car rental office, dry cleaner or lawyer."
One interesting result of the study was that the Time Warner (TWX) network sites garnered 7 percent of the local search market.
The big thing for us as marketers is to understand the opportunity that this offers us locally. There are a lot of businesses that don't even have an online presence, let alone set up for local search. Market your online presence locally and see your results explode!
|
Share of Local Searches by Site July 2006 Total Home, Work and University Locations Source: comScore qSearch |
|
|
|
Total Local Searches |
|
Total Internet Population |
100% |
|
29.8% |
|
|
Yahoo! Sites |
29.2% |
|
Microsoft Sites |
12.3% |
|
Time Warner Network |
7.1% |
|
Verizon Communications |
6.6% |
|
YellowPages.com |
3.9% |
|
Ask Network |
2.7% |
|
Local.com |
1.9% |
|
InfoSpace Network |
1.9% |
|
DexOnline.com |
1.4% |
|
All Other |
3.2% |
Comment Preview