Local Search – No Clear Leader

Posted on | October 23, 2008 | No Comments

Local Search generally means a search to find some type of business, such as a Mexican restaurant or doctor’s office, within a specific neighborhood. It uses a specialized Internet search engine to allow searches to submit geographically constricted searches. So, a typical local search includes not only the “what” a user is searching for, but also the “where”. There are two types of classifiable local searches. One includes a location modifier such as “Denver, CO” and the other is a service that is usually used locally such as “hair salon”.

Statistics today show a conservative estimate that somewhere between 30% and 40% of all Internet searches are made with the intention of finding a local business. You can clearly see how important local search is becoming. With that in mind, the question now is which local search site should you focus on. Unfortunately there isn’t really a clear leader in these sites.

There are, of course, the two biggest players – Google Maps and Yahoo Local. While Google has the best maps, Yahoo has the best user interface out of the two. Since they each excel in different areas it’s very difficult to assess which one is the leader between the two big search engines. This is because people search for local businesses in a variety of ways and neither of these are comprehensive ways to search.

Then there is also the matter of the other players in this field. Sites such as Yelp, Citysearch, Insider Pages, MerchantCircle and Metromix are all making a play for becoming the leader in local search.

Each of these sites offers a different experience for a searcher. Some of them employ a social aspect where one can befriend other users who write reviews of local businesses. Then when a search is performed you can look to your friends to find their opinion on a place before trying it out. Others use strictly editorial content so the opinions expressed are seen as “expert” opinions. Additionally, many of these second tier search sites are actually used to provide the information to major search sites like MSN, Ask.com, Expedia and so on.

Because there are so many option it would be a good idea to perform a couple of searches in your own area for your business or service offerings. Then you can see which search sites are coming up in the top of the SERP. If you find that often Yelp is coming up then you should look into getting your business on their site, or similarly if Insider Pages is the leader choose that one first. Eventually, you should try to list your business in all of the local search sites, at least until a clear leader is defined.

Category: Research Engine

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