Online Marketing Strategy
Google, Bing, and the other search engines have revolutionized how we learn, how we collaborate, how we shop and how we interact within our local communities. Today, Google alone handles more than 166 billion searches (05/24/16) per month around the world. Of those searches,
- 15 billion desktop queries (08/31/16) per month in the United States alone have local intent .
- 50%+ of mobile queries have local intent.
- Roughly 63% of all searches are mobile (10/23/19) . 45% PC per month; 55% mobile (8/31/16).
From these numbers, we can extrapolate that there are approximately twenty-four billion unique local searches per month on Google in the United States, about 2.4 trillion searches a year.
Google, Yahoo!, and Bing are all currently returning local results that
have challenged traditional print Yellow Pages
and, in many areas, exceeded their usage as the preferred method for discovering local businesses and local information. The number of mobile searches checking for local businesses grew by over 250% between 2017 and 2019.
Additionally, mobile search is absolutely exploding. Leading analyst firm BIA/Kelsey (now, BIA Advisory Services) predicts that mobile local search volume did surpass desktop local search volume in 2016. Mobile searches primarily pull their results from local search engines.
What this means for your business:
The potential to attract new customers via local search is enormous.
PRESS RELEASE:
Chantilly, VA (Dec 21, 2021) – BIA Advisory Services has increased its 2022 U.S. Local Advertising Forecast estimate to $173.3 billion, from its earlier estimate of $161.5 billion issued late summer. The 2022 forecast indicates an 11.4 percent increase over 2021 due to faster than anticipated growth in digital advertising and a strong political year. Traditional media ad revenue still maintains a slight advantage over digital at 50.8 percent of the ad spend ($88B), while digital media will get 49.2 percent of the ad spend at $85B.
“2021 has been a year of fluctuations,” said Mark Fratrik, SVP and Chief Economist, BIA Advisory Services. “The first two quarters of the year saw strong growth, with some stalling in Q3 once the Delta variant appeared late summer. We’ve taken pandemic concerns plus inflation and supply chain issues into account to prepare our local media estimates and, overall, we are bullish on ad revenue for 2022.”
A third (31.3 percent) of franchisees invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to drive lift in organic searches
by consumers.