Why? Well, there's a few reasons.
1) The local engines are spending more
dollars on advertising themselves.
2) The local engines are also adding
more features, interactive maps, skype phone access, more customer information,
etc.
3) More services are interacting with the local engines. Services
like mobile hone internet providers.
4) The main search engines like
Google and Yahoo index the results from these local engines alongside their
organic listings.
5) Local search is great for companies to advertise
their websites and business but also great for customers to review the services
by these businesses.
6) In July, 68 million Internet users (in the USA alone) performed yellow
page searches online. That means they looked for a type of business in a local
area or a specific business or a specific phone number. Over 60% of these called
the phone number on the website they found. Only about 16% contacted the
business via email.
The reason I mention #6 is because the #1 reason I
get from my clients about why they DON'T want to be on local engines is because
they prefer to get more phone calls than emails. (I know, it doesn't make sense,
but what can I tell you?). So, the fact that the website becomes more popular
does not necessarily mean that it results in more emails. If you want your
viewers to call you, they will!!
Local search benefits are also shown in
the number of visitors to these types of sites. As an example, here are some
numbers for you to ponder about local search engines:
City Search - receives almost
31 million visitors a month.
InsiderPages - receives almost 2.5 million visitors a
month.
JudsyBook -
receives almost 200,000 visitors a month.
MerchantCircle - receives
almost 4 million visitors a month.
Yelp.com - receives almost 18 million visitors a
month.
Of these 5 local search engines, CitySearch is the only one that
does not provide a free listing. Their basic package is $149.00/month but
obviously, they also have the most visitors.
So, to get the most out of
your Internet marketing campaign, look over these local search benefits and make
up your own mind if it's worth it for you! If your SEO firm does not provide you
with submissions to these local search engines, contact us today.