Search Engines Now Pass Up Yellow Pages In Use!
Overview of this week's e-Newsletter
This week I'm going to go over a recent study on the use of search engines verse the use of the Yellow Page and how most local customer are now using search engines. As a bonus I'm going to go over how you can add your local business to Google's local search for free and get a map and some times search engine placement included.

More Local Customers Use Search Engines Than Yellow Pages!
Recent study on the use of search engines verse Yellow Pages.
As I'm sure many of you have used the Yellow Pages to get contact information or find a phone number but as of a study conducted in July 2008 by TMP Directional Marketing it was found that local customers are using the search engines more when looking for local information.

As you can see in the cart below comparing 2007 to 2008 on the percentage of usage for local consumers looking for local information that the usage of search engines verse the printed Yellow Pages has made a big shift. Yellow Pages dropping from 33% to 30% and search engines moving up a percentage. As well it's interesting to note that search engines far out reach newspaper/magazines and other printed directories.

How To Get Your Site Listed For Free On Google's Local Search.
How setup your site on Google's Local search.
For those of you unfamiliar with Google's local search, Google adds local search results to some searches you perform. You'll notice them at the top of the page where there will usually be a map and a few small links to local businesses to the map's right. But signing up your business with Google's local listings you can get your company listed there and get your location pointed out on the map.

Google does not charge for this service so no doubt the benefits of signing up are well worth it. To sign up go to Google's Local Business Center. Once there you'll need to first sign up for a Google account if you don't have one or login to your exsiting account if you do. Then you'll be guided through a series of steps to setup your listing. One of the steps will be to verifiy your the actual business owner. To do that you'll have to choose how you wish to verify your business either by mail or phone. I'd suggest phone as it's much quicker, an automated system will call you with your activation number right then and there.

Then that should be it, your listing will be setup and now avaiable on Google. If you run into any problems or trouble setting your listing up give us a call or sent us an email and we can help.

Final Words
Ending comments
Well I hope that this week's eNewsletter was informative and helps drive a few more leads your way. And if you looking to do a more agressive marketing approch online give us a call or send an email and we can go over a search engine marketing plan cusomized to your company.

And as always, look for next week's newsletter where we hope to provide you with more useful tips and advice. If you have any suggestions about topics you would like to hear more about please send us an email with your thoughts.