December 11, 2006 | Monday

Study: Search Driving Offline Conversions for Local Service Businesses

By Jon Myers, Director Of Search in Search Engines |Search Research

New research suggests that internet users are increasingly relying on search to find local service businesses, potentially taking mind-share away from traditional print yellow pages and classified advertising. Full review can be found here

Nielsen//NetRatings and local search engine marketing firm WebVisible conducted a survey in August to determine whether and how U.S. consumers were using the Internet to find local service businesses. Using Nielsen’s consumer panel, respondents were qualified in terms of whether they had used the Internet to find a local service provider and whether they had done so within the past 90 days.

There were 2,866 survey respondents overall, 70% of which had used the Internet to search for a local service business. Forty-six percent (1,319 respondents) had done so in the past 90 days. The survey emphasized the use of sponsored links as a part of this process.