About a third say they’re trustworthy and accurate, too!
A recent report from eMarketer shows that when searching for local products and services, U.S. internet users trust search engines even more than friends and family members. Having a website that is well optimized for search engines can help your business rank highly in search results – which is becoming increasingly important for driving traffic to your website.
Traffic to our client websites from search engines continues to grow. For example, in 2017 35% of our clients’ website traffic is coming from search engines – up from just 20% last year!
Where is the first place you look when you are in need of a local product or service?
The below article was published by eMarketer and written by Danielle Drolet.
Need a dry cleaner, dentist or local burger joint? If you are an internet user, data shows you are likely to use a search engine to find a local business.
According to a March 2017 survey of U.S. internet users conducted by Burke for the Local Search Association (LSA), eight out of 10 respondents said a search engine was their top choice among a collection of digital and nondigital sources to look up information for local businesses last year.
Specifically, 80% said they used a search engine to find a local product or service in the week prior to the survey, and 87% used one in the past month. Respondents cited a company website as their second choice.
Printed white and yellow pages had the lowest reach in use last year.
Most sources reported year-over-year increases in use by respondents. Search engines in particular showed a gain of 2 percentage points from 2015.
The survey also found search engines lead other sources when it comes to consumer trust and accuracy. In fact, the percentage of U.S. internet users who agreed with this sentiment increased dramatically from 2015 to 2016.
Search engines only fell short when respondents were asked about their favored source when ready to make a purchase. At this point in the purchase journey, 27% cited company websites vs. 24% for search engines.
Overall, it appears that local marketing practitioners in North America are in step with this consumer behavior. Well over half (68%) of marketing professionals in North America polled by LSA in May 2016 said search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial marketing tactic to meet local objectives.
