It was just a matter of time… but it’s now official.
The Search Engines surpassed the Printed Yellow Pages when customers are looking for local information, products or services.
If you own an offline business of any type… Pizza shop, Hardware Store, Accountant, Landscaper, Ballet School, Roofing Company, Fitness Trainer… doesn’t matter, your ‘potential’ customer will become a customer of your competitor if they can’t find you online.
Don’t take my word for it though… Chris Crum of WebProNews recently published an article titled “Local is As Local Does“.
Here is how the numbers break down.
I’ll borrow a bit of Chris’s data (and his image below).
- Search Engines - 31%
- Print Yellow Pages - 30%
- Internet Yellow Pages - 19%
- Local Search Sites - 11%
Image Provided by and Property of Chris Crum
At first, the data may not seem that significant… but it does represent a trend that’s not going to end anytime soon.
In 2007, the Printed Yellow Pages were more frequently used for local search (by a mere 3%)… this has now changed.
So this is truly a milestone.
Think back just a few short years… you were trying to find a ‘Widget’ for your ‘Smidget’.
You pulled out the old trusty Yellow Pages… thumbed through the 18,436 pages and found twelve ‘Smidget’ stores.
You called each one of them to find out if they had the ‘Widget’ for your ‘Smidget’… and where they were located, and exactly how do I get there.
Today… I do my ‘Widget’ for my ‘Smidget’ searching on Google… Google gives me the phone number, and a map where they are located with directions on how to get there.
If you happened to be in some strange city and your ‘Smidget’ broke… you could use your iPhone to find one using Google (just in case you don’t have Yellow Pages for every city in the U.S. in your pocket).
The offline and online world are merging.
Most of your competitors do not see the writing on the wall… so get busy.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
These search engines are so powerful now, no need for online phone directories or yellow pages.. they can just diffuse anywhere and extract information!
I agree that local search is absolutely vital to a business even if they don’t have a web presence however just because web search is now the number one source of data doesn’t mean it killed Yellow Pages. There’s no doubt in my mind that local search will continue to gain market share over the phone books there’ll always be a need to be listed in the phone book just more important to be listed on the web.
Johns lastest world class blog post..Gaithersburg Real Estate
Hi John,
Thanks for the comment.
Maybe something along the lines of;
“Local Search is on the Verge of Killing the Yellow Pages” would have been a more appropriate title
Andrew
I am the webmaster for eFindLocal.com a site that will be helping online and offline businesses get found “Locally”. I could not agree more. If you do not have an online presence, alot of business will be going to your competition that does. If your on the fence about this, you need to get off and get going.
Tom Fisher,
Webmaster,
http:eFindLocal.com
Toms lastest world class blog post..Local Search Optimization
I love using Google to find numbers and addresses. It is so convenient and when you combine it with Google Maps, it beats the traditional phone book hands down. I can’t even remember the last time I used a paper phone book.
When you consider how Google offers the free 411 service as well, they really are positioning themselves to be a phone book killer.
49% use the Yellow or White Pages (online or offline) compared to 31% using search. Yellow/White is still king! I think what we are witnessing is an evolution (not the death) of the Yellow Pages. The decrease in people using offline Yellow/White Pages has been transferred to those using the online equivalent. There are also some interesting developments as Google and various Yellow Pages franchises get cosy and do deals together.
Also consider differences in quality of results.
Simply Yellow Pages has a big brand and a lot of people haven’t converted over to a complete online world.
Ben from AusMedWebs lastest world class blog post..Different referral sources bring different volume/value traffic