Local Search – The Game Changer!
If you are a solo practitioner or own a small firm in a local market this is a GAME CHANGER!
Allow me to explain.
We all know about the escalating rate of change that is occurring as technology creates new opportunities and threats to your business.
But every once in a while something happens that you really need to pay attention to. That if you take advantage of it it could literally hurl your business into new stratospheres of success…and if you ignore it you’ll be left in the virtual dust, kicking yourself in the backside waiting for the next big opportunity…if your firm survives until then.
What am I talking about?
Local Search. Google Maps.
Google finally took stock of these numbers…and so should you.
- 70% of households now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services
- 31% of all business buyers turn to a Search Engine first when looking for a locally based product or service
- Product Research and Comparison shopping happens online, but 67% of those purchases happen offline
- 90% of purchases are made within 50 miles of a person’s home
- 43% of all searches on the Google network included a geographical identifier.
- 86% of those people followed up with a phone call
- 61% of those people ended up making a purchase offline
- 25% of all commercial Internet Searches are conducted by users looking for Local Merchants
- 35% of all Searches are ‘local’
- 84% of U.S. based Internet users performed local searches, or 129 million people, and were looking for a local business
Make no mistake…that includes lawyers too!
So Google introduced the “Local Maps” like you see in the picture above.
If you’ve ever done a search for a locally provided product or service…plumber, chiropractor, flowers,…and especially if you added a city…for instance “Dallas Immigration Attorney”…you’ll know exactly what I mean.
And right now Google shows the top 7 results with little red balloon markers on the map.
So what?
Are you kidding me?
Do a local search right now.
Notice the results in the map area and notice the natural “organic” search results below.
Do you see any correlation?
The answer is NO!
There might be a couple businesses in both, but they don’t have the same ranking at all.
Google uses a different algorithm to calculate the results in the local search box than the traditional “organic” listings.
GAME CHANGER.
That means that all those guys who had a jump on you or had deeper pockets and got to the top of the search engines for whatever reason…who had such a HUGE advantage over you…now have virtually none.
It’s a new game.
You got a “do-over”, a mulligan, hit the “reset” button.
In a day or two I’ll make a post showing you visually why being on that map is soooo important.
Now go put yourself on the map!