Google Places Spurs Demand for Local Website Design & SEO
Google Places has become the new Yellow Pages® and this is creating a new wave of demand for website design and SEO services for small local businesses.
The source of demand for web design services has shifted from large international and national corporations to smaller regional and local businesses. Even small local family businesses are building websites and going online to take advantage of an increasing number of consumers using the Internet to source local services. Some web design companies are catering to this demand by offering solutions to suit the needs and budget of the small business owner: relatively inexpensive, easy to use websites and comprehensive support. Whilst these small businesses have smaller budgets, there are a lot of them.
What was once searched in the phone book or the local paper is now being searched in Google. Google’s search results are reflecting this trend with more and more searches now returning Google Places Listings (formerly called Google Local Listings). When Google recently upgraded and renamed their local listings, they stated: “...it’s just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local.”
The current small business wave is expected to last for some time. And it is not just web design: small business are increasingly diverting their offline marketing budget to online marketing services such as search engine optimisation(SEO) and search engine advertising.