Local searches, both via Internet yellow page sites and search portals, are a quickly growing segment of the search category, according to new research conducted by comScore for the Local Search Association, which reveals that more and more people are turning to their computers and smartphones to find local business information.
In the same way in which people once picked up phone company-published yellow pages in order to source local goods and services, consumers are now pointing their browsers to IYPs. The research shows that consumers who access IYP sites such as SuperPages, Yellowbook and YP.com do so in order to obtain contact information for specific goods and services they already have in mind. Consumers who search using search portals are generally conducting broader research than that according to the study.
Consumers are using their mobile phones more than ever before to identify and locate local businesses. According to the research, 77.1 million mobile customers accessed local content on a mobile device. This represents a 34 percent increase, year-over-year. Additionally, the number of consumers who conducted local searches on gps-equipped mobile devices grew from 78 percent to 87 percent, year-over-year.
And as consumers increase the frequency with which they access local content on mobile devices, they are also changing the way in which they access that content. Consumers are now using apps to access local information 34 percent more frequently this year than last year. And even though browsers are still the predominant way in which consumers access local content via mobile, browser use for this purpose actually dipped, year-over-year.
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