54% of searches done on Mobile Phones are “Local” searches. Local businesses who pay attention to the emerging applications for ways they can be found will win, period.

“In time for the holidays Google is making it possible for online (and mobile) shoppers to discover real-time product inventory in local stores. Google certainly isn’t the first company to make a run at this; there are multiple startups that have been working on bringing local product inventory online for a number of years. But because of Google’s visibility and influence it represents a kind of “crossing the Rubicon” moment for online shopping.

While it still comes as a surprise to some, and as big as it is, e-commerce is not the story. Online influencing offline buying is a much bigger and more important phenomenon. Roughly 95% of all products are bought in stores (according to the US government). Many analysts in the late 1990s foretold the death of traditional retail at the hands of e-commerce. However something more complicated has happened.”

via Google Connects Online And Offline With Local Product Availability.

Google Connects Online And Offline With Local Product Availability is a post from: Page One Business

Was reading an interesting article
The Importance of Local Search Today.

They mention a couple interesting points

“Search is constantly evolving, from general web search such as the old giants Yahoo, AltaVista and Excite through to the current day of Google.”

Google never sleeps, just like rust.

“According to a Piper Jaffray 2008 research paper, 30 percent of all queries contain a city, state or zip code. With 2.6 billion local searches performed each month, the Internet has now surpassed print Yellow Pages and newspaper as a primary source for local consumer service information. And the adoption of smart phones will only add to these numbers; 27 percent of all mobile searches are for local information.”

The question for a local business is, are you updated in all the local listings being done by the search engines and the 3rd party listing companies like city search, yellow pages, etc.

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How The Publishers Acquire & Utilize Business Information

The emergence of local search has left publishers scrambling to acquire general business information to augment their miniscule local indexes. Search engines have traditionally garnered their information by deploying scripted search spiders to crawl the Web and pull in new content. They have relied on this methodology to build organic search indexes, which now have billions of web pages that can be referenced.

Due to the nature of information necessary for local search, the search engines and IYPs cannot employ spiders to pull data and must rely entirely on the information pushed to them by third parties. Third party offerings include individual submissions of business listings, listings pulled directly out of print editions of yellow pages, and information gathered by third party, direct marketers such as Acxiom or InfoUSA.

The information acquired is usually limited to business name, address, telephone number and fax number. The accuracy of the information is dependent on the source, and is not frequently updated. Since users’ searches tend to be much more comprehensive search engines now need deeper information – products and services offered, brands carried, hours of operation, amenities, specialties, etc. Including such data in business profiles is vital, especially considering how search algorithms operate in local space. ”

Smart companies will optimize and win.

Will The Evolution of Local Search Leave You Behind? is a post from: Page One Business