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9
Do You Know How Confused Small Businesses Are by Local Search?
November 9, 2006 | Anita Campbell
Local search is a growing category in the search field.
The more I learn, the more I realize just how confusing the entire local search landscape is.
That confusion is going to be magnified in the minds of small business owners.
Right now I doubt that the average small business owner or marketing manager, trying to figure out an online strategy, even understands the differences between say, Google, and Google Local. To most people, Google is Google. Likewise, they don’t really know the difference between Yahoo’s main directory and its search engine and Yahoo Local. Again, to the average person, Yahoo is Yahoo. Throw into the mix all the yellow pages sites and miscellaneous local directories, and you have a recipe for mass confusion in the minds of small business personnel.
What has driven this point home to me are a couple of recent events. First, I ran into a blog exchange between two bloggers, Mike Blumenthal and Bill Slawski, who are carrying on a fascinating back and forth discussion on their respective blogs about whether one of the players, Google Local, accurately portrays local companies. It brings up just how many nuances there are in local search. (Read: Local Search at Rest, and Local in Motion and Will Google Maps (Local) data become more accurate & useful over time?)
Second, I ran into the confusion issue first hand recently when I attempted to touch on the topic of how to get found locally in search engines, while giving a talk about online marketing to a group of small business owners. I found myself talking to a sea of blank faces. Only a few of the most online-savvy among them even realized there was a difference among the many local search vehicles out there and standard search sites. And of the few who realized there was a difference, they understood precious little about what to do with all those different sites.
SEO and search engines are baffling enough to most people. Local search adds yet another layer of confusion for small business people.
If you are selling listings in local search sites or selling SEO or SEM services to small businesses, you just might want to start working on how to simplify the message about local search and cut through the confusion. That confusion definitely exists.
Comments
1 Comment so far
I have thought a fair bit about this confusion and how to best elucidate the (future?) value of local search to this audience.
As in all new technology the business person attempting to serve this new market has the additional responsibility of education. Part of the problem here is that according to recent Comscore research very few of the small business people (ie over age 34) use mobile search technologies. However, most of the older users understand this demographic differenence and are open to possiblities if the value can be made clear to them (rather than just talked about)…ie show them not tell them.
I have thought (but not yet tried on a real group) of a way to do that: A quick demonstration of Google SMS from my cell phone writ large on a 10 foot screen or perhaps a demonstration of 877-520-FIND over a (loud) speaker system might drive this point home and get their attention. In both you search on a broad “service + locale” type search like “restaurant + Your City, St”. If you combine these examples with a quick view of the Local OneBox that displays the 3 top local businesses on google’s main results page, it should allow for a segue into a discussion of importance and possible strategy that would benefit them.
I have the seminar using this technique blocked out…if I get the chance to present it to the appropriate audience, I will let you know how it goes.
Mike Blumenthal