ClickZ: Local Search Critical to SMEs

While Jupiter Reserach estimates continue to predict negative growth relative to other parts of the online media mix, local search got a boost from a study indicating that small and medium-sized businesses that focus within a 50-mile territory tend to believe the Internet will make them more successful within that small market. Two years ago, only 35 percent of these small business owners indicated they thought so. Today, almost half have their own website, and while local search engines are very nascent and incomplete, more and more people are using them.

The study, conducted by The Kelsey Group and ConStat, concluded that local search will likely see rapid growth, which jars against Jupiter's internal harbinger of local search doom Nate Elliott's findings that local search just isn't quite ready for primetime.