Will Local Search Be Googled?

Google might dominate Internet search from both the consumer and advertising perspectives, but it's far from being leader in the highly fragmented local search market, in which different players are emerging as leaders for different types of local search and at different points in the buying process. General Web search players like Google and Yahoo! are nevertheless well positioned to dominate local search in the long term. Marketers interested in local search — including retailers and manufacturers that rely on physical channels to sell their products — need to craft a comprehensive local search advertising strategy to reach consumers who hop, for example, from MapQuest to Internet yellow pages (IYP) and then to their favorite search engine.