Every Web site owner needs to clearly understand the importance of search engine traffic – and for those who do business in a specific geographic location – especially Local Search traffic.
Seventeen months of data for Texas Gazebo Manufacturer Golden Rule Gazebo was captured to illustrate clearly that Google has a monopoly on traffic and the importance of using Universal Business Listings to get your small business into all the tiny Local Search Directories to which you would never have manually identified and submitted.
This first screen capture shows overall search traffic for this very small business from October 29, 2009 (when analytics were first installed on their new blog) through March 20, 2010.
Over that time Google sent 1,412 visitors
Yahoo sent only 11 and Bing sent only 7
Google sent over 98% of their search engine traffic!
During that same period of time Golden Rule Gazebo used Google AdWords to send 1,293 visitors so of the above traffic, only 765 visits were from organic searches. Note that the time period shown above does not include the most recent year.
This next information adds the most recent full year, expanding the time from October 29,2009 to March 20, 2011. You can see a screen capture of that data full size here.
Google sent a total of 4,769 visitors
Yahoo sent only 96 and Bing sent only 71
Search (search who?) sent 45, aol 34, ask 10 and altavista 1.
Google sent just under 95% of all their search engine traffic.
In spite of such low search numbers their business – which would be expected to be as hard hit as other construction related businesses such as Millwork Companies and Contractors have in this economy – enjoyed a very good year last year and traffic is already picking up for spring which is their traditional strongest demand time.
Their sales are strong because of their many Local Search Directory Listings that send only a handful – or even one – new buyer at a time. This traffic converts much higher than traffic from a regular search engine because these types of sites are used by buyers when they are ready to hire someone or buy something.
Their Top Referring Local Search Directory Sites:
You can click on the image below to see this screen capture data full size or just check out the list below the image of the referral sites and number of visitors each has sent.
None of these are major local search directories! I don’t recognize any as being on the previous list of Local Search Directories I found when I did a similar Case Study on incoming links generating by using UBL for Good Millwork.
All of these are sites we would not have manually listed with and none are among the Top Ten Local Search Directories by Importance.
Notice that Google does not break out traffic that comes from their Google Maps site separately so there is no way to know how much of the traffic they send comes from Local Search but it is likely to be a significant percentage.
LOCAL SEARCH DIRECTORY URLs – Number of Visitors
This list is from Oct 29, 2009 to March 20, 2010:
- localfindonline.com 92
- foundnearby.com 39
- easylocalonline.com 36
- easyshoplocal.com 34
- mydailylocal.com 34
- yourgreatlocal.com 33
- easylocalfind.com 32
- ad.yieldmanager.com 29
- ilocalnet.com 28
- localpages.com 28
- click.zipcodez.com 26
- alltruelocal.com 25
- click.entertainmentdirectory.com 25
- localonlysearch.com 23
- click.salondirectory.com 21
- click.ultimateyellowpage.com 20
- federalyellowpage.com 19
- finddozens.com 19
- click.yellowpageonline.com 18
- findcitylocal.com 17
Compare the first list above to the list for Oct 29, 2009 to March 30, 2011:
- localfindonline.com 105
- definitelylocal.com 90
- amazinglocal.com 89
- guidetolocal.net 88
- superpages.com 83
- foundnearby.com 75
- localsearchlive.com 72
- yourlocalticket.com 71
- tradecrawler.com 68
- local-md.com 63
- ilocalnet.com 61
- searchyourzip.com 58
- localpages.com 57
- backroadhome.net 47
- easyshoplocal.com 46
- switchboard.com 46
- click.localsearchguides.com 45
- easylocalfind.com 42
- easylocalonline.com 42
- yourgreatlocal.com 42
The sites listed in bold at positions #5 and #16 are major local search directories and the 10 sites shown in italics were not even on the list of top 20 referrers the year before. Notice that the top referrer has slowed, probably because they have either lost search engine position or have stopped promoting themselves as well.
As new niche directories and geo-targeted directories are created, their site is automatically added because they are in the databases distributed through UBL. Small businesses with listings in as many local directories as possible are less affected by Google’s changes because as one local directory loses traction in the search engines, others you are also listed in will rise to page one.
332 tiny Local Search Directories referred 3,430 visits
Compare that to Google sending 4,769
Like them, you can protect your business from dropping Google traffic!
For those who want to see all the other little Local Search sites that sent this Texas Gazebo Builder traffic and buyers, here are screen captures of the data from their Google Analytics:
- Local Search Referring Sites 1-20
- Local Search Directory Sites 21-55
- Local Search Directories Sites 56-90
- Local Search Directory Referrals Sites 91-126
- Local Search Directories Referring Sites 127-162
- Local Search Directories Referrals Sites 163-197
Besides all of the referring sites shown above, Google Analytics captured 135 more sites that sent one visitor each. No business is going to manually list on all these sites – and it isn’t necessary because there is a fast, easy way to make sure your business gets listed on existing sites and included in new niche and geo-targeted sites.
I encourage bloggers to create niche geo-targeted blogs and that post explains why that is important for both small businesses and bloggers. It also explains why some small businesses especially need to get the Local Listings explained in this post because their location makes them harder to locate in Google Maps or Yahoo! Local.
We offer Local Search Directory Listing Services for Businesses.
If you prefer, see our do it yourself Local Search Directory Listings instructions.
We will also teach others how to offer these services.
Focus on These Priorities for Small Business Internet Marketing!
LOCAL SEARCH INFOGRAPHICS
- Linking Mobile to Local Infographics
- Local Mobile Search
Gail Gardner
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Great information! It just goes to show that there is a lot businesses can do to ensure that they keep getting traffic to their website, whether or not they have been penalized or are not ranking well in Google!
local directories is most important to increase your local search..keep it on
sandybrown would love you to read ..Web Development Techniques for Small Businesses
The case study also provides me so many resources and information about local listings. I am working on my client’s website, he want to rank his website in local search results for USA. I am working on his local SEO campaign , this post is so helpful for me.
But Gail, were the keywords that was ranked for in Google, high-converting keywords(specific) or more general? I can easily get a lot of traffic for more general words, but then the conversion rate would be very low.
But still aside from that: those local directories are giving some great targeted traffic.
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Hi Danny,
If you write excellent descriptions that include your most important keyword phrases for the products and services you offer, directory listings can bring you very targeted traffic.
They also bring you people whose intention is to find a business that offers what they want so they DO convert well. If I go to Yahoo Local and search for plumber or auto parts or restaurants or a Bed & Breakfast my intention is clearly that I want to go buy something – and so is the intention of anyone else using a local directory.
They are BUYERS or at least researching something they need and not curiosity clicks like the ones you usually get from banner or content ads.
The primary reason for local listings is to make sure people who want what you have to offer can find you in a directory; however, those listings CAN and do often come up in the search results for organic searches.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing: Where to Start
So, directory listings not only bring you very targeted traffic but it is also good for increasing your leads and sales as well.
I wish to see more case study like this. And it’ll be grest if you could show the traffic breakdown, revenue etc.
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Wow, this is awesome. I haven’t done anything with local search for my site. Since I don’t do in person consultations it didn’t really cross my mind to much, but I still have an advantage for any potential clients searching for my service locally. I am not sure why I haven’t focused on local directories as well yet.
What are your thoughts on getting linked in all of the local directories vs how everyone is now talking about how link directories are no longer any good for SEO and you shouldn’t waste your time doing it. Do you think the local directories are looked at differently by google than the national and international ones?
Damon would love you to read ..Credit Counseling North Carolina
Hi Damon,
Even when a business can sell nationally or internationally it never hurts to sell more locally. Besides that, these directories are major sites and an easy way to get powerful incoming links.
As you can see by the stats in this post, while Google may almost own organic and ppc traffic they don’t own ALL the traffic from EVERYWHERE. Since we can not control what Google may do we need to make sure we get as much traffic from other sources as we possibly can.
Google changes like the weather and so much of what is written about SEO and them is disinformation that it is anyone’s guess how they will treat different directories because it will not be consistent.
Read my posts Google Fairy and the very end of my post about how dangerous Using Crowdsourcing is and how that applies to the new Chrome block data.
growmap would love you to read ..Blogging Collaborations Process- Benchmarking
Thank you for the response. I was further reading through your website after I left that comment and I see you offer local directory service as well as provide resources if we want to take the time to submit our sites myself.
I am going to give it a whirl, but you guys certainly make a strong argument for outsourcing those tasks to you. Don’t be surprised if you hear from me after a few weeks of taking on the task myself 🙂 Mainly I want to get familiar with it. Thanks for the advice.
If I was to analyse the success from these results, I would heavily focus on conversion from individual sources rather than total amount of traffic sent. Nice report BTW.
regards
Kashif.
Hello Kashif,
In the case of this particular business that is not possible because they do not have an ecommerce site and sales are not made directly online. Their custom gazebos are custom and built to order and buyers order them primarily over the phone.
growmap would love you to read ..Local Search Directory Listings
Wow that is impressive data (not so much in overall numbers but from the amount of different sources), and a great testimonial for using UBL. I have repeatedly recommended that service to a few clients but they have yet to take advantage of it. I’ll have to send them this way so they can see some results.
Hi Rusty,
Your clients are fortunate to have someone who cares enough to keep trying to get them to see the light. We can not save them all – only those who will listen, believe, and act.
growmap would love you to read ..Hungry Many Are Need More Business 1 Hour Strategy Session for every 77 Food Bank Donation
It is also a way for businesses that have no Internet presence to become visible almost immediately. Every local business MUST get online – even if they do not use the Internet themselves.
pak web master would love you to read ..Green Mountain Coffee Passes FTC Investigation
Yes, pak, they MUST get online and grow their local business while we still can. The future is not certain and those who have a plan to thrive online and off no matter what will be in much better shape.
growmap would love you to read ..Why the Economy is In Decline and What We Can Do to Improve It
I get a lot of referral traffic from local sources. Not to be overlooked
Thank you for sharing, Jody, and welcome to GrowMap. Many do not realize that every business that has a physical address can get referral traffic from local sources – even those who are totally online or sell books or do speaking engagements around the world.
Every listing is a tiny seed and each seed has the potential to bring more fruit or even go viral. Instead of grabbing for the brass ring, businesses need to be planting more seeds.
growmap would love you to read ..Hungry Many Are Need More Business 1 Hour Strategy Session for every 77 Food Bank Donation
This is great to know because I have a few real estate websites that I’m the web master of. I’ve been trying to find a way that I can get them in the places results, but I didn’t realize so much traffic could come from these other local directories.
Hello,
Real estate sites definitely need to be in local listings, and those listings provide incoming links from major sites to support all organic traffic and search engine positions in addition to directly sending traffic.
growmap would love you to read ..Why We Need Group Geo-Targeted Niche Blogs
Great study, I agree with the findings, but I’d just like to point some observations.
#1- Low annual search volume to draw conclusions off of.
#2- Very low time on page for top 2 referring sources – is the time on page for other referral sources similar. With 2 seconds on the page or 23 seconds, as #1 and #2 referral sources have, it’s hard to qualify that as any kind of valuable traffic. There are several others with extremely low time on page values- but the majority seems valid, at least enough to make this point.
The strategy is sound; the more you can diversify your traffic sources, the more insulated you’ll become from Google’s algorithmic changes that can affect your traffic volume in the short term. The best way to diversify your traffic is through an information broadcasting service like UBL’s. They reach hundreds of data aggregators, which can all be referral sources for your website.
I’d like to see this study across a national footprint of local stores. I will work on compiling data and post the results- follow @localsearchguy on Twitter to keep on top of the findings.
Hi Phil,
The times on pages are shown on each of the screen captures. As you can see, most of them are significantly longer than those first two. The first one appears to be some kind of ad.
For this specific business which has the disadvantage of being more than 50 miles from any major city – and therefore limited in how much traffic they can draw from sites like Yahoo! Local and Google Maps – this traffic has been essential in keeping their sales growing.
Personally, I inentionally focus on truly local small businesses so I do not have any data for any brand that has nationwide stores.
I am following you on Twitter and am interested in any similar studies you publish. Feel free to comment here and include anchor text links to any posts related to my own here.
growmap would love you to read ..Why We Need Group Geo-Targeted Niche Blogs
Very nice report. Definably Google gets you the most searches but I think it also depends on a website, if a website is ranking well in Yahoo or Bing then the numbers would be different. Also they were running paid campaign on Google, so that’s obvious that most of the traffic would be from Google.
Hi David,
While they do run some AdWords ads they choose to bid so low (because they do not wish to raise their prices to cover a higher cost of lead acquisition) that the traffic from that source is not what you might expect.
I have access to analytics for many sites and neither Bing nor Yahoo sends any significant amount of traffic compared to Google for any of them. When I focused on AdWords for dozens of ecommerce stores – most of them Yahoo! stores with a few on Volusion – organic traffic was 60-75+% from Google, but that has been some years ago.
If anyone is seeing strong traffic from Bing or Yahoo! I would be interested in reading their case studies on why they believe that is so.
growmap would love you to read ..Why Businesses Should Use Social Media
I tried to hand submit to the sites you listed and there was no way to do so on at least the first several. I gave up after about 5.
Hi Marla,
That is why I recommend people use UBL. Many sites make it very difficult to find free submission and others may not even accept submissions. They get their data from databases that UBL can put you in.
The lowest cost UBL is only $30 so why would you want to ever try to manually submit to any of these? I always use UBL and then upgrade the top ten most important search engines manually.
growmap would love you to read ..Local Search Directory Listings
According to a survey conducted by eMarketer.com, a business information service, 90% of mobile searches go for local information. So aside from directory submission, it’s really a must to optimize your website for local searches to make sure that your website gets listed for local searches.
Hello Aybi,
That makes sense because the one thing I would actually use a mobile device to search the Internet for is something I wanted while out shopping. (Fortunately for most businesses, the average person does that far more frequently than I do.)
I would prefer a larger monitor for Internet usage – not a smaller one.
growmap would love you to read ..Hungry Many Are Need More Business 1 Hour Strategy Session for every 77 Food Bank Donation
This clearly shows how important is directory submission for any site as it help to get backlinks plus receive traffic as well.
Great study. Thanks for the input. The market is really shifting right now bring what used to be a universal phenomenon down to a micro standpoint. A lot of people would surely benefit from this article of yours. Keep posting more.
Good case study. Thanks for the info!
Since the story was about Local Search, the 1st thing I did was check to see how well optimized their Place page was. Maybe since I do Places optimization, I’m too myopic but I thought Place page optimization was a key foundational piece of the local search puzzle. So I was surprised to find their Place page isn’t even claimed or anything.
I wonder how much more Google traffic they would have gotten if they had a claimed and optimized Place page? ESPECIALLY prior to Oct. 27th with the old Google Places algo. (I realize now with the new merged algo rankings depend more on organic SEO factors to a degree and the proper local hooks.)
So I’m curious. Typically people submit to UBL to try to help boost their local rankings via their Google Place page. Why was UBL done in this case since they hadn’t even claimed their page? Well, whatever the reason, I guess it worked as far as referral traffic.
Linda Buquet would love you to read ..New Google Places Bug – DOUBLE Reviews for Lucky Place Pages
Hi Linda,
I put this business in UBL many years ago (as you can see from the history in this case study) before Google Places existed. Like any other small business, they do not know how to optimize anything themselves and I have been too busy to reach out to them to claim their Google Places.
We did claim and optimize their Google account and I only realized as I was writing this post that the transition from Google Maps to Google Places may have lost their verification. As you know, the business owner must be available to verify the listing or I would have done it before I published this post.
That concerned me so I checked some other businesses and they still show verified but I highly recommend all business owners check to make sure their Google Local information is still claimed. I have seen Google Maps accounts get hijacked by competitors for their reviews.
We need to realize that business owners are not SEOs and they do not know how to do these things for themselves. It is hard enough to get them to understand why Local Search Directory listings are important – much less teach them to update the listings themselves.
In their case because they are more than the mileage choices away from major cities in Yahoo Local they may get more buyers from all these little directories than they do from the major ones. They do show up well on the Google map on a search for gazebo texas so that is good news.
You said, “Typically people submit to UBL to try to help boost their local rankings via their Google Place page”.
While it is good news if that works, that is NOT the main reason I recommend UBL. Google is a monopoly that controls far too much traffic. People need to realize how dangerous it is for them to rely on Google. They can and do regularly make businesses disappear – especially during the critical times for each type of business!
Google is EVIL There is no doubt of that. See the links in that post for many reasons and proof.
When they start using the new Chrome block data the same way WordPress uses Akismet today they have the perfect excuse to drop any site they choose from Google Search and claim it is what their users want. Read my post about how Akismet has silenced the most influential bloggers in my Crowd Sourcing Failure post.
All bloggers need to be influencing their followers, readers, friends and family to start using INDEPENDENT search engines (i.e., not Google, Yahoo, Bing, Microsoft, AOL) and not let businesses depend on any of those or Facebook or Twitter for traffic.
I am NOT saying don’t use them – use them now to bring as much traffic as possible – but do not count on them. Take that traffic and create relationships, connections, mailing lists. Use a domain you own and NOT Facebook or some other site as your primary “home”.
growmap would love you to read ..Twitter Best Practices- How to Use Twitter Effectively
Thanks for the extra details and great insights. Sorry I guess I skimmed and didn’t realize the dates.
Linda Buquet would love you to read ..New Google Places Bug – DOUBLE Reviews for Lucky Place Pages
This just goes to show that the best business environment is the one you know. Many people try to internationalize their businesses when they could easily make a lot of money by referring your business to your local businesses.
Alex would love you to read ..Salon de coafura
yeah… well, I’ve heard of some great results from a friend of mine that runs a local business in berlin and since he added his site to local search and now it is shown on google’s first page, it traffic almost doubled… so it definitely worth the time investing in it
Joe would love you to read ..Yachtcharter Holland
Hi Joe,
Thanks for commenting. Your comment reminded me to emphasize again that incoming links from major sites with local listings can definitely move your business to the first page on Google which can generate significant additional traffic.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing
Once again you outdid yourself. I like case studies like these. If you garner your sources properly you can even double your traffic.
Thank you Ivin,
I am planning more case studies like this one. I should have similar data for the Florida based Good Millwork Lumber Mill. I have done many UBL listings for businesses but most of them do not have blogs and therefore have no analytics.
growmap would love you to read ..Media- Journalism- Blogging – Editorial or Truth
Great information! It just goes to show that there is a lot businesses can do to ensure that they keep getting traffic to their website, whether or not they have been penalized or are not ranking well in Google!
Hi Kristi,
Thank you for taking the time to comment. This study is very important to me because it shows me there IS at least one inexpensive, fairly fast way a business can replace the traffic Google may take away from them.
It is also a way for businesses that have no Internet presence to become visible almost immediately. Every local business MUST get online – even if they do not use the Internet themselves.
Now that most (all?) new vehicles have GPS systems in them and almost everyone carries a cell phone even those who do not even know how to turn on a computer use the information found online – even if they do not realize they are using the Internet.
There is one database that feeds almost all of those devices and the UBL listing puts your business into that database faster and at no additional cost. I suspect that one database is also the source of most of the traffic this business received from all these obscure little local sites.
growmap would love you to read ..Local Search Directory Listings
I really appreciate all of the work you have put into gathering this information.
Just last night I was looking at a new local search directory. It was nicely done but I wondered about the value. Now I will go back and reconsider it. Plus the other local directories.
I also have several clients that I will benefit from this information. I have put them on Google Maps and a few directories in there niche, but this really expands my view.
Thank you.
Sheila Atwood would love you to read ..I Said Blog Disclaimer and You Yawned
Hi Sheila,
Thank you for your comment and I do hope you will consider using more local directories for your clients. I was just as surprised as many of my readers likely are when I saw all these obscure sites sending them traffic.
While it is certainly easier to focus on massive traffic from Google, in the case of this small business and many others it does not take large numbers – just the most targeted traffic.
growmap would love you to read ..Why Businesses Should Use Social Media