Local Business? Get a Website!

Owners of local small businesses now use the Internet more than any other source to find other businesses.  Yet only 44% of these owners actually have a website.  This gap is one of the main findings of new research from Webvisible and Nielsen , and reported as the ‘great divide‘ in the Marketing Vox post.

The research confirms that the Internet is increasingly the way people find local information.  82% of respondents in this study use search engines for local info compared with 57% who use Yellow Pages directories.  50% actually use the search engines first, compared with only 24% who turn to the YPs first.  A large majority of the searchers were satisfied with the online search experience even though they often had difficulty finding a specific business they were looking for.

Reading between the lines, this suggests that they found at least a similar business online, and perhaps used that instead of the one they were looking for in the first place.  As the Internet replaces other sources of local information, it will be ever more important for local businesses to have websites and to promote them.  That’s where their competition is.