Will US Local Ad Market Shrink?

Will the local online takeover traditional local marketing in US? Just have a look at what Kelsey Group and BIA Advisory Services say in their research report.

There is a bad news and the good news about the local advertising.

First with the bad news - The local traditional advertising will be much less in 2013 as compared to 2008. Both the firms predict a compound annual -1.4% overall growth rate, with the largest drop-off in local ad spending occurring in 2009.

The traditional media spend in 2008 is $141 billion and is forecasted to fall to $112 billion in 2013.

Now the good news - The local online ad market is growing, will continue to grow and make up a larger percentage of the local traditional media sector. This year about 11.5% of ad spending for local will be online that means to say yellow pages, emailing, SEM etc. And this will increase to 22% in 2013.

“The share shift we expect (traditional vs digital) could actually be more pronounced if the major traditional media are not able to integrate new interactive products into their bundle,” said Neal Polachek of Kelsey.

(Source: eMarketer.com)

Search Engine Marketing 2010

I have a strong feeling that local search optimization will be the real beast which will be more complex and challenging than SEO of a website or a dynamic website. I was just browsing and thought the below few points can be the tips for local search optimization.

So, here are my two cents -

Some tips here can be -

1. To have the keyword in the business name (similar to have keyword in the domain name in SEO)
2. To have a business name which is alphbetically on the top. Ex. to have a business name starting with number(s) 0 or 007 :)
3. To have multiple listings in local areas/cities where one can provide the services (this again is similar to link building)
4. To provide better customer service and request satisfied customers to rate you (I can say PageRank here)
5. In your ads on local search directory, include all the names (or different names the area is known for) of the lane or road your office is located at.
5.