Survey: Where do local business websites get their traffic & do consumers appreciate local search results?

About Survey Findings

The following findings are drawn together from two (2) separate online surveys that were conducted by BrightLocal.com between February & April 2011.

>>Survey 1: Local Business Website Review: Traffic Sources: volume & ranking

We asked 648 professional Local SEO providers to answer a set of questions relating to their observations and beliefs about the sources of traffic (website visitors) to their local clients’ websites. In total these 648 professional SEOs handled/have handled online marketing work for over 5,000 local businesses in the last 24 months which provides a good sized sample to base these findings upon.

All answers were provided anonymously and we did not request evidence to be supplied to support their answers.

>>Survey 2: Online Consumer Search Behavior: Awareness, Consideration and Appreciation of Local Search Results

We asked 1,250 consumers* to answer 3 questions relating to their use of online search engines. The survey specifically focused on their use of Google & Google Places and if they ‘Liked’ & ‘Valued’ the inclusion of local search results within main, organic search results.

*All 1,250 consumers were based within the United States (US).

Survey Objectives

The combined objectives of these surveys is to attempt to answer the following questions -

• - From what websites do typical local businesses receive most of their website visitors?
• - Where should we focus our local-online marketing efforts?
• - How Regularly to Local Consumers use Local Search Services to find Local Businesses?
• - Do local consumers find Google Places and Local Search services useful?

Question: Please rank these traffic sources in order of their volume of website visits generated?

Key Findings:

>>Google Places drives the most website visits, followed by Google organic comes second.
>>Direct traffic (known URL) accounts for less than 1/4 of local business traffic

Something to note – these findings are based upon the experiences of professional SEOs who have carried out SEO campaigns for their clients. Therefore it’s extremely likely that results for search-originated traffic will be higher than for non-optimized businesses.

Question: What percentage (%) of website visits do these traffic sources provide to your local business client websites?

Key Findings:

>>Google Places drives 33% of visits to local business websites
>>Google Organic drives 25% of visits to local business websites
>>Combined, Google drives 58% of website traffic to local business websites
>>Yahoo & Bing account for less than 7% of website traffic to local business websites

For comparison….

A recent (Jan, 2011) blog post by Mike Blumenthal published results for a small study that reviewed traffic sources for 16 local business websites. These sites had done very little SEO/online marketing and therefore their results can be treated as a useful control sample. Here are the results and a link to the full findings on Mike’s Blog -

>>Google drove 44% of ALL website visits (no distinction between Google Places & Google Organic provided)
>>Google accounted for 74% of total SEARCH traffic (‘Other’ Search Engines provided 26% of search traffic
>>Facebook generated just 1% of website visits

View full post here – http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/01/11/how-much-traffic-do-local-sites-get-from-google/

Question: How often do you use Google to locate and find a good local business? (e.g cafe, bar, plumber, taxi service…)

Key Findings:

>>59% of consumers use Google each month to find a good local business
>>31% of consumers use Google each week to find a good local business

Question: In Google’s search results they often display local results*. Which of the following statements best applies to your attitude and use of these types of results?

*A screen grab showing ‘Local Search Results’ was attached to survey to provide clarity

Key Findings:

>>71% of consumers value the information contained within local search results.
>>This rises to 80% for those aged 16-34; Only 66% of consumers aged 55+ find these results useful

Question: Google sometimes displays ‘local results’ with an image or logo of a business*. Which of the following statements best applies to your attitude and use of these types of results?

*A screen grab showing ‘Local Search Results’ was attached to survey to provide clarity

Key Findings:

>>60% of consumers give more consideration to local results that have images
>>23% of consumers are much more likely to contact a local business that has an image attached to it’s listing