Local Search & Mobile: Emerging Trends Small Business Should Know About


Local searches on mobile phone continue to grow day by day. People are using their smartphones to search local things and also look for services like doctors, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and much more. This article will let the small business owner know why their business should be locally optimized for mobile. This article includes the following:

  • Search trends on internet
  • Local search Trends
  • Search trends on local mobile search

Internet Search Trends

  • 74% of Internet users perform local searches.
  • 66% of American's use online local search, like Google local search to locate local businesses.
  • More than 100 million people a month use Google Maps from mobile phones to find business information.

Local Search Trends

  • 61% of local searches result in purchases.
  • 82% of local searches follow up offline via an in-store visit, phone call or purchase.
  • As much as 43% of Google Search traffic has local content!
  • Consumer said they would buy in store versus store when they are: close to store. (30%), could get the product quickly (35%), and saw better pricing (31%).

Local Search Trends on Mobile

  • 54% of Americans have substituted the internet and local search for phone books.
  • Microsoft has claimed that 53% of mobile searches on Bing are local in nature.
  • Mobile local searches for local information are expected to grow from 27.8% in 2008 to 35.1% by 2013.
  • Nearly one in two shoppers for local products and services are using their smartphones.
  • Over 50% of local searches for businesses happen on mobile devices. With 79% of smartphones users and 81% of tablet users reporting that they use their device for local searches.
  • 50% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their smartphone. 34% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their computer and tablet.
  • Consumer behaviour before visiting store and while in store: 1 in 3 searches smartphone occur right before consumer visit a store. 15% of in store activities involve conducting smart phone searches about a product or for price comparison.
  • 4 in 5 consumers conduct local searches on search engines. 88% users use their mobile device and 88% users use computer and tablet to perform this searches.
  • Consumers use their smartphone for local search to find business information like business hours (54%), direction to local store (53), local store address (50%). Consumers use their computer/tablet to find information like availability of product at local store (45%), business hours (42%), local store address (38%).
  • Over 60% of smartphone owner access local content via app.
  • 60% mobile consumers expect business to be within distance.
  • 1 out of 3 smartphone users search specifically for contact info like phone number and driving direction.
  • 63% people who do local searches typically buy within 1 hour. 66% mobile searches conducted in a store are used to help making purchasing decision.

People have now become more tech savvy and prefer to use their smartphones to find and search various things on internet. Gone are those days when people used to visit their nearest local store to buy something. Time has taken a big leap forward. Now people use internet to compare price and read reviews on their smartphone, tablet, laptop and mobile before going to buy anything. The above data shows that local searches have now gone mobile and use of smartphone is continuously growing for local search as it helps users to make better decision in buying things online or from local store. Now it has become essential for small business owners to optimise their business locally for mobile competitive advantage.

(This post is brought to you by an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business)

Ref:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140403171335-26818297-local-internet-marketing-statistics
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2343577/Google-Local-Searches-Lead-50-of-Mobile-Users-to-Visit-Stores-Study
http://searchengineland.com/report-mobile-traffic-to-local-sites-growing-faster-than-total-internet-now-at-27-percent-158139
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2265547/46-of-Searchers-Now-Use-Mobile-Exclusively-to-Research-Study

7 Amazing New Features in iOS 8 You Need to Know

The release of Apple’s new operating system has unleashed a bevy of new features and updates in an ongoing effort to improving user experience. Subtle changes can have a major impact on functionality, and Apple’s improvements have aimed to do just that. Available as a free upgrade to iPhone’s 4s and newer, here’s some of what you can expect!

-Photos


Apple’s photos now have a comprehensive searching method that allows you to search by time, location, date or album. You can even use a smart search function by entering keywords that pertain to the photo you are looking for.

Advanced editing features allow greater photo manipulation, as you can choose to manually adjust settings like brightness or shadowing.

-Typing



It’s been long overdue really. iPhone has not messed with the functionality of its keyboard since pretty much its conception. They have finally stepped it up a notch with the introduction of typing predictions that are so advanced it can even differentiate between the contacts you are messaging and adjust its predictions accordingly.

-Messaging


Now, a simple swipe or tap to your phone can easily send image, audio and video files. It is also possible to mute and exit group conversations, as well as quickly send locator maps to an acquaintance you are meeting. No more dreaded repetition by having to reenter an address into a search engine!

-Health Application



One of the proud revelations at this year’s Apple reveal, Home Kit will be available on iPhone’s 5s or newer! Installed motion processors get to use the new Apple Health App, which logs physical activity.

-Apple Pay



Another innovative reveal this year was Apple’s mobile payment system, called Apple Pay. An upgrade to iOS 8 system means you can start using this convenient wireless payment method on the iPhone 6 or 6 plus.

-Sharing


In a generous move by Apple, the new Family Sharing Feature allows a user to share pretty much any of their iTunes purchases, like books or movies with users they have approved.

-iCloud Drive



Similar to Google Drive or Dropbox, the iCloud Drive allows you to browse, edit and share files across different Apple Devices. Mac users beware however! You’ll have to wait until the OS X Yosemite operating system update is released later this year.

With such a diverse range of upgrades it’s kind of hard to choose our favorite (Although a speedier typing experience thanks to predictions is a definite contender). What are you most looking forward to, and why?

This post originally appeared at  here

(Omnie Solutions is an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services for leading mobile platforms like iOS, Android, and Rim to global business. Follow Omnie Solutions on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn).