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Local Businesses in Southeast Wisconsin Missing from Search Engines
With the ever growing realm of the Internet and more online savvy consumers researching the products and services business has to offer, it is becoming increasing difficult for local area consumers to find local businesses on the Internet, especially on search engines like Google and Yahoo. It is proven fact by many national research firms that roughly 35% of all searches on search engine are local in origin.
Over the last several months Bofish Marketing has monitored several different Southeast Wisconsin industries and found a surprisingly low number of local based businesses with a search engine presence. Research covering the automobile, real estate and restaurants related keywords showed consumers in Southeast Wisconsin are very active. “I am not surprised by the number of searches, I am surprised by the lack of local businesses presences.” acknowledged Tom Mitchell of Bofish Marketing, Inc. “Between those three industries, there have been over 1.3 million related searches performed in the Greater Southeastern Wisconsin market in a two month span with very few local business targeting these online consumers.
There are four main reasons why the majority of local businesses have yet to develop a search engine presence. National Coverage of search engine ads, third party websites, click fraud and or don’t understand search engine marketing. The most common factor is most businesses still believe ads placed on Google or Yahoo cover the entire U.S. “This is now a common misconception.” states Mitchell. “Through technological advances made by search engines and outside marketing firms in the past couple of years this has changed. Local business can now place local search engine ads in their defined market.”
Some businesses realized the potential of Internet and opted to work with third party sites known as aggregators. Aggregators cover search engines on the national level while businesses who signed with then are marketed locally within the site. Businesses who signed up for these services usually paid a set amount per lead or a monthly fee to advertise their products and services. However this usually meant a business could be sharing a potential online lead with competitors in their market.
Many businesses refrained from moving forward with local search engine marketing because of Click Fraud horror stories. Click Fraud strikes a nerve in most businesses because they fear competitors will constantly be clicking on their ads or be overcharged. However, search engines publishers are aware of this and developed technology that prevents Click Fraud practices and programs. Click Fraud is also monitored by government and independent watchdog groups which recently resulted in Google losing a $90 million class action lawsuit.
The final reason is lack of search engine knowledge or understanding. This alone is more likely to hurt the future of businesses in locally. The lack of local business search engine presence frustrates many online consumers researching potential purchases because they do not have access to websites. People are not picky when searching, 60% of the time people do not have a particular brand name in mind according to Kelsey Research study in 2004. This means online Milwaukee consumers are using very common keywords when searching. Bofish Marketing research supports this.
Milwaukee ranked 37th in online advertising spending of the major U.S. markets in 2004. Since 2003, local online spending in Southeast Wisconsin has increased around 31%. It is projected that Milwaukee businesses will spend $35.44 million in local online advertising in 2006. Yet, there are not a lot of local businesses advertising on search engines. Internet Yellow Pages covering Milwaukee are fairing a lot better than. Using the local automotive dealership industry as an example, there are twenty-seven current auto dealerships advertising on Yellowpages.com compared to 4 or 5 on Google. This holds true through most industries because Yellowpages.com is affiliated with the local AT&T Yellow Pages which has an active sales force in Southeast Wisconsin. This is good exposure for businesses in the local market; however usage statistics still show search engines still out perform Internet Yellow Pages on searches two to one.
As a whole, Southeast Wisconsin businesses are behind their counterparts in other U. S. markets in search engine marketing. ”I am not sure why this is.” exclaimed Mitchell, “The only reason I can think of is Wisconsin companies relative conservative approach to online business practices. I have worked with companies through out of the U.S. on search engine marketing programs and had excellent results in highly competitive markets.”
Mitchell believes companies who start now will see the rewards of search engine marketing. In all earnestness he believes it will take most businesses a little time to warm up to search engines as a source of lead generation and revenue dollars.
About Bofish Marketing Inc.
Bofish Marketing Inc., was founded by Tom Mitchell, President/CEO, who has over 10 years of experience in Internet Marketing, Advertising and Research Industry. Mr. Mitchell has served as a top consultant with Monster Worldwide and TMP Directional Marketing. Bofish Marketing Inc. is the marketing arm of Bo-Fish Bowling News Inc. established in September 1998. Bofish Marketing Inc. was restructured as a separate division in 2006 to accommodate expansion into additional online research and marketing services capable of covering local, state and national campaigns.
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