The Internet has now surpassed the print yellow pages and newspapers as the primary local resource for consumers looking for services. This is not to say that print newspapers and yellow pages don’t have meaningful usage anymore, but it’s clear where the momentum is.
The Pew Internet and American Life study recently took a daily ‘snapshot’. Since 2002, the number of Internet users who search at least once a day has risen from approximately one-third, to almost half, or 49%. Overall, the amount of daily search users grew 69% between 2002 and 2008. While coming in a close second to email in this study, search beat out other daily Internet activities such as reading the news (39%), checking the weather (30%), researching a hobby (29%), surfing for fun (28%), and visiting a social networking site (13%). The two studies referenced above independently reflecting this shift in 2007 were from TMP Directional Marketing-comScore and WebVisibile-Nielsen. Both studies showed search and/or the Internet, generally as the medium with the greatest reach among U.S. consumers for local information.
What’s really interesting is that most experts believe yellow pages directories receive 90 percent of their traffic from search engines.
The idea is that most people search in the main search engines; they may find a directory and then are forced to repeat the search within the directory. This isn’t good for either the searcher or the marketer. Consequently, it’s not good for the search engine either. Google and the others want the searcher to find the answer they are looking for through Google, rather than send the searcher to a competing directory for a solution. This is a gigantic insight if you consider that; given the choice between you and a directory you might advertise in……Google wants you to win.