The 5 Most Important Local Search Insights of 2016

In this present era, digital marketing is the most important marketing tool used by the organizations to promote their products and services among the online customers. The high utilization of the online platform for marketing and promotion of a business emphasizes the significance of various digital marketing categories. The digital platform is an ever changing place that witnesses various changes at a regular interval of time. Each day, there is a new trend that becomes important for effective marketing of the products and services on the digital platform. With the ever-changing statistics of the digital marketing platform, the insights of the search engines keep on changing. Considering the day-to-day trends in the search engines, there are many new insights originated on the local search engines in the year 2016.

Here are the top 5 most important local search insights of 2016.

                              1. A steady speed of the website is the key to success in the local search engines

In the web world, speed is an extremely valued commodity. The web world is fast and so speed plays a crucial role in it. Many times, it is seen that customers move to competitor's site due to the slower website page loading time. The criteria of speed are even categorized a ranking factor by Google for its mobile search algorithm. So, seeing the loading time of the retail mobile sites is a bit surprising. The statistics say the median load time of retail sites ranges from around 4.33 seconds in 2013 to 5.5 seconds in 2015. Such slower website loading times have a very detrimental effect on the bounce rate, conversion rate, and page views. This is the reason, the speed factor of a site is paid heavy attention for the successful marketing of the products and services on the digital platform. The organizations are widely recommended to make the website more user-friendly by speeding up the loading time of the site and stay ahead in the competition of the web world.

2.  Reviews plays a decisive role in reflecting the online reputation of the organization

In this present era, reviews are very important for attracting customers to the website and grab their interest and trust in the products and services the organizations offer to them. As per the latest statistics, around 91 percent of consumers rely on reviews to make their purchase decisions. Many statistics reports also suggest that 67 percent of consumer's decisions are based on the reviews. It is often seen that many organizations try to avoid reviews for negative comments. But, in this present competitive web world, reviews play a predominant role in attracting visitors to the site. These days, buyers rely more on genuine responses and experiences, which makes reviews the key factor in the online marketing of the products and services of an organization. People trust more on the references of the other customers, which automatically drive traffic to your site. So, as per the 2016 local search insights, reviews are vital for the better ranking of the website on the local search engines.

                            3.  Third party listings are becoming the de facto home pages

Most of the times, an organization website consistently led the charts in ratings for media sources most likely to be relied upon, when purchasing any local products or services. Basically, the third-party listings make the local business profiles, more robust and rich with information. This makes these third-party listings very important for the local search rankings of the organizations. However, it is widely noticed that the majority of the businesses are not claiming the free profiles available on the sites like Yahoo, Google My Business, Yelp, Bing, etc. all of which have unclaimed listings of approximately 80 percent or more. Also, many times, it is noticed that organizations often overlook profile images, which plays a crucial role in grabbing the attention of the online customers. Around 93 percent of the most engaging posts on the popular social sites are images. Ignoring this aspect means, lacking behind in the race of online marketing far behind. Apart from these two aspects, website design also plays a predominant role in the local search ranking of the website.

So, keeping up with all three aspects is a key to success for an organization on the local search engines.

4.  Non-Local customers are very important for local search engines

Most of the times, non-local customers play a crucial role in generating revenue for local businesses. The local-based marketing typically focuses on the local audiences but most of the times a large amount of revenue is generated from the non-local customers. As per the statistics and insights of the local search of 2016, it is found that around 33 percent of business to local companies comes from out-of-town visitors. So, failing to account these kinds of insights can have detrimental effects on the success campaigns of the organization. Thus, make sure that you have the right strategy for local search engines, which includes non-local customers as well.

5.  The changes in the traditional search model challenges the status quo

These days, there have emerged many new search models that have provided a tough challenge to the traditional search models. From the past decades, the search models are dominated by the directory model, which involves the listing of businesses categorized by various filters that contain basic NAP data and perhaps some enhanced information like reviews. In the present times, search models like voice search are trending. This feature has provided a stiff challenge to the traditional forms of search models. Search models like Thumbtack are used by many organizations, which provide greater utility to the customers and higher-quality leads to local businesses. So, these new search models cannot be ignored and are potentially a threat to all the traditional search and marketing providers.

Thus, these top 5 local search insights helps you take a glimpse of the on-going changes in the digital marketing platform.