The courtship of social networking and local search will result in a marriage that diversifies the mix of sales tools and empowers circles of families, friends, co-workers and organizations to share experiences and opinions in the local search space.

For a number of years, consumers have had a collective, powerful online voice through ratings and reviews. That voice continues to grow and has never been more powerful thanks to social media. Now, small businesses must learn how to harness “local-social search” or risk missing important growth opportunities.

Social networking has taken ratings and reviews to the next level by giving them a real influence on a local scale. Early local-social search products like Yelp raised the bar. Now Twitter, Facebook and Google’s new local-social search efforts are fortifying the movement. Google recently launched Place Pages, which will aggregate reviews, photos, details and maps. Also, Google Maps recently integrated a user review feature, and Yahoo! Local modified its relevance engine to include review content in its index.

And so it goes. Mobile search has mutated into mobile-local-social search. Some local search destinations have recently launched user-generated content. YellowBot, for example, offers local search results based on networking and tagging. Unique users? One million since March.

While Yelp catered to foodies, and vice versa, should we expect to see such social network forums for florists, dog groomers, hair salons, doctors, etc.? I’d say, most certainly.

Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs) are adding a social aspect to ride the wave and continue to provide up-to-date local content. Idearc has even announced a Twitter feature for SuperPages. Social networking companies are providing local-social search platforms targeted to their unique audience demographics. For advertising and product marketing, local-social search enhances the ability to promote products and identify micro-target markets. And for business listings, local-social search provides a fundamental change in how listing information is collected.

User-generated content not only enhances the local-social search experience, it changes the game. And local search companies not embracing social search are ignoring an important avenue in how local information will be found today and tomorrow.

As local business information becomes less static through the partnership of social networking and local search, businesses must take advantage of the growing and ever-changing environment to help consumers and businesses connect in meaningful ways, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter, or new platforms that have yet to be launched.

Finally, after a lengthy gestation period, Microhoo is official! In late July, Microsoft and Yahoo inked a 10-year deal that — if approved — combines the companies’ forces in an internet search alliance to make a concentrated run at Google, recognized by many as the key player in local search.

The deal, which seems to mark the end for Yahoo as an independent search engine, propels Microsoft and its recently unleashed Bing search engine into the No. 2 position behind Google in search technology. Still, Google maintains approximately 65 percent of the U.S. search market, Microsoft and Yahoo 28 percent, according to stats from Hitwise and other measurement agencies.

Now everyone’s asking what this means. For those of us in the local search space, it will have important implications.

Local businesses will need to consider how they can optimize their content for both engines. Many have focused on optimizing their web sites and internet yellow pages listings to ensure they rank as high as possible on Google. If Bing is successful in its efforts to gain market share through this partnership with Yahoo, it will be more important than ever for businesses to ensure they rank high on Bing, too.

Making decisions about where to place internet advertisements and sponsored keywords will become more complicated. Internet advertising tends to be an area where small business owners are most uncomfortable making decisions without expert help. Understanding Google AdWords and other search marketing tools can be difficult for those who don’t have the time or relevant experience. Add Bing into the mix and small businesses will need more support than ever on this front.

Consumers may decide to visit multiple engines before buying. Many articles have noted that Google’s dominance in the search space is due in large part to the fact that it works well. But as searchers give Bing a try, they may find it has features or results that complement or are even preferable to what Google offers. Add into the mix internet yellow pages sites, which are often linked to the search engines or serve as a starting point for local search, and businesses will find it’s more important than ever to be everywhere a consumer is looking.

The bottom line is that the local search space continues to evolve, and competition will mean new opportunities and new challenges. Both Microsoft and Yahoo bring assets to the combined Microhoo. Microsoft has Bing Maps and Bing Local, which defaults to a YellowPages.com-powered directory. Yahoo has Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Local, and there’s also a Yahoo Yellow Pages. Yahoo and Microsoft also operate independent databases for small and local business listings: the Bing Local Listings Center and the Yahoo Local Listings Center. And both companies offer local search.

Now, Bing has the opportunity to evolve much more quickly. Bing’s search market share will grow exponentially with the addition of Yahoo search—certainly much faster than it would from organic growth.

Of course, Microhoo has a long, long, long way to go. And Microhoo certainly is in for heated competition as Google now sets its sights on the new No. 2 search player. All of us in the yellow pages industry are working hard to stay on top of these changes as well to help our small businesses customers.

Is the much ballyhooed Google Chrome — the new open source browser — as shiny for advertisers as it is for those testing the Microsoft beta version and commenting via online posts? Those of us in local search are sitting on the edge of our seats to find out for sure, since Google is considered by many to be “the” player in the local search space.

Google began developing Chrome when rethinking the traditional browser, which was originally designed for simple text pages. Today, of course, the browser is tasked with rich, interacting applications. Google’s belief was that we needed not just a browser but a “modern platform” (operating system) for Web pages and applications.

In fact, Google Chrome was designed for people who live on the Web — searching for information, checking e-mail, checking up on the news, shopping, or just staying in touch with friends. Google sees Chrome as an opportunity to move the Web application infrastructure forward with the new OS that will allow for a better user experience and, in the future, potentially richer applications.

If this next generation browser/OS succeeds in driving innovation and faster downloads, it could be a lucrative opportunity for advertisers and local search players. Faster downloads, for example, would allow users to access more advertising information quicker.

However, there remains the possibility that pay-per-click advertising may increase in price. That’s because Chrome integrates the address bar with a search box that is driven by a Google Search feature. What might this mean for advertisers? Perhaps it will require increased SEO to reach the top of the pages and architecting search terms to reach the top of the suggestions list.

It also begs the question about any impact on display advertising headings. Google allows “incognito” searching, so some targeting methodologies that rely on cookies will be required to develop alternatives.

But think of the opportunities. We’ve seen the popularity of “apps” skyrocket lately as mobile devices push the trend forward. The concept behind Chrome suggests that there’s a whole realm of opportunity for delivering a new generation of apps directly through the Web browser.

As Google (and the Web) continues to evolve, those of us in local search can be beneficiaries of new technology, if we stay on top of the changes and create ways to deploy them to the advantage of our advertisers. We will also be challenged by new technology to be innovative in developing effective ways to communicate advertiser messages.

The progression continues. From the printed book to online to video ads, etc., Yellow Pages and Internet Yellow Pages have continued to innovate. But the only constant is change. Like the computer and technology industries, we all must be nimble, ready to not only accept change but to accelerate it. It’s what the end users expect and deserve.

Everyone seems to be chiming in with their reviews of Microsoft’s new search engine — oops, I mean “decision engine”. Can it compete with Yahoo? Will it become a verb like Google? Why’d they name it after the Chandler character on “Friends?”

I don’t know if Bing will grow legs or if it’ll get lost amid the competition. Given the $100 million ad campaign Microsoft is throwing behind it, I’d say it has as good a shot as anything to break through, even if it doesn’t fully cure “search overload”.

Early results are encouraging, but traffic from its initial weeks might be simply from people checking out the hype. They could kick the tires and take it for a spin, but they might not change their search habits.

But what if enough of them do?

Personally, I’m encouraged to see that Yellow Pages has had a healthy presence in Bing searches I’ve performed.

For instance, I searched “New York art and crafts stores,” and the top result was a listing of local businesses. Click on that link, and you’ll see two sponsored listings from YellowPages.com at the top.

You’ll find similar results with pretty much any local search. In fact, Bing’s local search portal page has YellowPages.com branding prominently displayed on the right side of the page.

Really, the intersection between Bing and the Yellow Pages makes perfect sense. We’ve long been a decision engine for consumers needing to find a local business.

And we’ve also long been relied upon by other search engines. It reminds me of something that stuck out when I read David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors report for 2009.

Mihm asked the search experts participating in the survey to rate the importance of different criteria on rankings in search engine algorithms. Out of 49 factors, citations from major data providers and IYP portals came in as the second most important. (Local business listing address in city of search was No. 1.)

One expert called the citations the “single most important factor to local search rankings.” Another said, “Being listed in the right directory or online Yellow Pages can make the difference between (being) No. 1 and not listed.”

So whether a consumer looking for a local business is using Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Superpages, Bing or any other search tool out there, there’s one common thread: a strong reliance on Yellow Pages listings. Yes, even the hot new thing Bing gets a hand from the folks who have been doing local search for more than 130 years.

Thus, small business owners who want users to find them — that’s pretty much all small business owners — need to realize the importance of using the Yellow Pages as part of their online strategy.

How many good conversations have you had where one person spends the entire time talking?

That’s not a conversation, of course. That’s someone simply spouting off. A conversation requires dialogue, people taking turns talking and listening.

The online world is no different, and we’ve reached a point where true online conversations occur all the time. The days of receiving an e-mail from someone who says they’ll “talk at you” later are disappearing. That person likely now tweets those messages, creating an instant back-and-forth as followers chime in with their replies and spread the news with retweets.

Marketers, local search experts, are you listening?

Say a couple’s car is acting up and they need to find an inexpensive and reliable mechanic in the Phoenix area. In the past, a consumer might have searched in the printed or online Yellow Pages for information on a product or service, now they can also receive instant feedback and responses from their Twitter followers.

Adept advertisers and advertising consultants should view that as an open invitation. They need to be one of those followers, and they also need to know how to best leverage their own followers.

In the above example, what would help better woo a customer: a shop responding with its vitals, or one of its regular customers serving as a validator? The best response would probably be a combination of both: the shop posting its hours, location and other useful information, while a patron follows that with a comment on the professionalism and friendliness of the staff.

So the benefits are obvious. Microblogging is more than just a marketing fad. It has become a channel that people will use to find local information in the future, in conjunction with print and online directories.

But where exactly can we, as local search providers, jump in?

For one, we can use these tools to promote our own offerings. Like any other business, we can tap Twitter to engage with our potential customers, our advertisers. Timely tweets can inform our advertisers of product enhancements, special pricing, and other news. Additionally, we can use this channel to give our industry a voice and build alliances with both colleagues and competitors. It’s really just another tool to add to the 21st century business toolbox.

Another easy way to bring this technology into our day-to-day operations is to offer the space for savvy small businesses who have embraced microblogging. We can add new fields within our listings so that our advertisers can list their Twitter pages the same way they include their Web sites. In this way, we’re truly providing the 411 for today’s small business owners.

Yellow Pages companies are transforming from single-product publishers to relevant lead generators in the fast-growing and dynamic local search industry. As today’s technology allows us to do more real-time listening and reaching out, we are in a position to provide new and even more relevant value.

Given the continuing growth in the smartphone market, mobile phones are poised to become the first source people turn to when searching for local business information. Until widespread adoption of smartphones occurs, though, there will be a gap that smart businesses will seek to fill.

There were some especially telling findings in comScore’s presentation, “New Takes on Local Audience Targeting,” at the Interactive Local Media 2008 conference hosted last month by the Kelsey Group.

Most Americans turn to online resources for local search

Presently, two-thirds (64%) of Americans say they generally turn to online resources for local search, while 33% turn to print, and 3% go to their phones. However, mobile phone users outnumber computer users by 39 million. And the market for mobile search is growing faster than expected.

Mobile phone users are on the rise

According to comScore, there are 228 million mobile phone users, and data plan subscriptions are on the rise. Subscriptions are up 37% from last year, with 37.8 million users now subscribing to data plans. Unlimited data plans, those without restrictions to Internet access, account for nearly all of that growth, rising 47.4% from 2007.

That rise in data plans is no surprise given the increasing popularity of smartphones, such as the RIM BlackBerry Storm or Apple’s iPhone, and cell phone browsing has exploded. The total number of U.S. customers who use a mobile browser jumped from 30.7 million in June 2007 to 44 million in June 2008, a growth of 43%.

Will Americans start browsing the web more on their mobile devices?

As more consumers adopt these devices and as their Web navigation capabilities improve, browsing on them will become more of the norm.

The iPhone and other smartphones lend themselves to the use of browsers and applications better than standard cellular phones. Of all mobile phone users, just 5% access business directories at least once per month.

However, those percentages are 20% for smartphone users and 33% for iPhone users.

What’s happening now in mobile local search?

Some folks in the mobile industry predict smartphones will dominate by 2014. But what will happen in the interim with mobile local search?

“Free 411″ or “Free DA” (directory assistance) is an area that those of us in the Yellow Pages industry see ripe for immediate growth.

Like other advertising supported services, free directory assistance services offer callers a toll-free number to reach an automated system. They then can ask for a particular business or ask for business recommendations by a location in a city. At the outset, the system plays an advertisement, and there can be other ads later in the call. The system can also provide details to the caller’s wireless phone via text messages.

Local Mobile Search conducted a mobile user survey in August 2008 and reported that a majority of mobile users had never tried free directory assistance services. As Greg Sterling points out, it’s a mystery why these services are not being marketed more heavily, given the opportunity to reach the majority of users who own non-smartphones (approximately 86 percent in the U.S.), who want information on the go, and who don’t want to pay for traditional 411 service.

For those trying to reach mobile users who haven’t upgraded to smartphones, marketing with free directory assistance seems the smart way to go.

The search business is a roll-up-your-sleeves type of business. We’re continually honing the way we deliver the search experience of today while preparing for how that experience will change tomorrow. With our eyes on the road ahead, and our minds grappling with what lies around the corner, there isn’t much time to look in the rearview mirror. But two learnings that came out of the recent Kelsey Group’s Directional Media Strategies conference provided reassurance that we’re delivering on what advertisers expect and deserve — ROI.

First, there was plenty of talk about CRM Associates’ research that states Internet, online directories, and printed Yellow Pages were the top three ROI performers for advertisers, delivering respectively $63, $53, and $52 of sales for every dollar of advertising. By comparison, more traditional advertising media — TV and radio — came in at $11 and $8, respectively.

Second, three national advertisers — Orkin, Avis, and Service Master — highlighted their commitment to and usage of Yellow Pages. Each reflected that spending on directories, both print and online, as a category remain in the top three of their media spending, despite ever-increasing pressure to expand into other online marketing options. And while acknowledging that the Internet is redefining and adding value to our industry, recent findings from these marquee brands indicate that dollar-for-dollar, print still delivers a strong proposition, offering a lower cost per call than leads captured via online methods.

Clearly as search continues to fragment, it’s reassuring to see major advertisers and small businesses alike continuing to view what we do as very important and beneficial to growth of their businesses.

Advertisers have the ultimate metric when viewing the contribution that search provides to their business — leads and sales. But we need to be vigilant in providing them with the tools to expertly assess our relationship to the bottom line. The Yellow Pages industry routinely conducts metered advertising testing; that is, tracking studies to determine the effectiveness of ads placed in Yellow Pages directories. We place unique phone numbers in Yellow Pages ads, and use Remote Call Forwarding (or RCF) network technology to automatically forward an incoming call from one telephone number to another. We then track monthly call volumes from customers for each ad.

Metered advertising testing by individual publishers allows our advertisers to know exactly how many customer contacts they receive through their Yellow Pages ads. Then, each year, the Yellow Pages Association commissions an independent vendor, CRM Associates, to aggregate the studies. In fact, over the past 12 years, Yellow Pages publishers have invested more than $150 million in metered advertising testing, offering our advertisers an added value that enhances their ROI and demonstrates the true value of our medium.

Small business owners who want their information to appear in local search results have several options in addition to traditional Yellow Pages, of course. To help small businesses sort through all the new and emerging opportunities, search industry players need to do a little hand-holding and actually “consult” with the advertiser. Within the Yellow Pages subset of search, the sales teams are creating marketing strategies, rather than simply designing ads. They’re serving as consultants to business owners faced with the challenge of developing and executing effective marketing, leveraging online, mobile, video, and search technologies. Delivering on this multi-platform promise, our “feet on the street” are delivering the unexpected: Web site development, direct mail, and search engine optimization and marketing.

We’re in the business of meeting the demands of business owners, who are in the business of meeting the demands of consumers. Bottom line, if we give small businesses the tools to measure, implement, and fine tune their marketing initiatives … their search advertising should be academic to us and intuitive to consumers.

Stephanie Hobbs, an award-winning print and online Yellow Pages executive with broad domestic and international experience, is the Yellow Pages Association vice president of communications. She also directs the association’s Local Search Guide, a who’s who of Local Search players and perspectives. The Locals Only column appears on Mondays at Search Engine Land.

When you’re in an industry that is based on answering consumer needs, as all local search brands are, you’re hardwired to remain relevant. After all, the granddaddy of local search, the printed Yellow Pages, is 125 years young this year, born out of necessity in 1883 when a Wyoming business directory publisher ran out of white paper and had to print on yellow stock. And yet today, it’s a multibillion-dollar business morphing onto the internet.

Longevity in the business of local search boils down to one thing — never losing sight of our North Star, which is all about answering consumer needs. It sounds simple, but the mission can get lost in a constant rush for first-to-market status in interactive technologies.

So for emerging local search brands that are intent on starting their own 125-year story, here are some secrets to longevity:

The message is the convenience (not the medium)

What do you stand for? Do you provide the most direct way to information? The fastest? The most detailed? The most trusted? Figure out the DNA of what you offer, and strive to be the best at delivering it. Look at how the Yellow Pages has manifested itself online. Nothing too fancy there, just the information people need when they’re ready to buy. That’s what people have come to expect. What do people expect from your brand?

Innovate where it matters

We are increasingly a recommendation society, with 8 in 10 of us preferring advice from a peer vs. an expert we don’t know. So it’s no wonder that user reviews are becoming a companion piece of content for advertiser information. In January, Gregg Stewart reported that 24% of people who search locally look at user reviews before purchasing goods and services (comScore and The Kelsey Group). That’s innovation that enhances the user experience — not innovation for innovation sake.

There’s nothing wrong with being second to market. Dell became the No. 1 PC company in the 90s by installing new personal technologies only after they had proved themselves on trailblazing competitors’ products. There’s a lesson there for all of us as we excitedly entertain being first with a new feature. We have to initially ask, will it stick?

Relationships are gold

Every positive advertiser transaction and user session is an opportunity to build relationships that reward us two ways — first, it will bring the advertiser and user back, time and time again, and second, it will create ambassadors for your brand who will tell their co-workers and friends about the value you deliver.

The bedrock of local search is helpful and reliable content. Getting that content from the business should be more than a one-way exercise. Mining how people are using your local search brand to find what they need can deepen relationships, too. The local search player should take extra steps if necessary to make sure the content is organized and presented for maximum impact. The secret sauce for Yellow Pages companies is acquiring that data from a feet-on-the-street sales force. What’s your secret sauce?

Stephanie Hobbs, an award-winning print and online Yellow Pages executive with broad domestic and international experience, is the Yellow Pages Association vice president of communications. She also directs the association’s Local Search Guide, a who’s who of Local Search players and perspectives. The Locals Only column appears on Mondays at Search Engine Land.

The importance of valuable mobile content and services is undeniable—just observe the sea of people talking, text messaging, and searching on mobile devices in nearly every personal and business setting these days. What remains to be seen, however, is which local mobile services and companies will rise to the top with the most relevant offerings that become the “must have” features, and which local mobile companies will fully harness the power of advertising in this medium.

Giving users yet another way to utilize the Yellow Pages with local mobile search is the next-generation format of the medium, as it continues to deliver local content to users’ fingertips when they are ready to find specific business information and make a purchase. The customers ultimately choose the format, and with an estimated 37 million Americans conducting mobile searches on a weekly basis (according to a recent report by iCrossing), local mobile continues to be more widely embraced.

Given the local mobile search boom and its strong implications, we’re hosting a top-level Local Mobile Search panel at the Yellow Pages Association’s upcoming annual conference and exhibition, April 6-8 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Dana Todd, CMO of Newsforce, will moderate the panel, which will provide different perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of new local search tools as well as predictions on the “next big thing” for local search. This should provide for some lively discussion, as panelists include Matt Crowley, CMO of YELLOWPAGES.com; Peter Hutto, vice president of business development and sales for Local.com; Tony Meador, CEO and founder of MobileGates; Jeffrey Porter, general manager of RHD Interactive; Robyn Rose, vice president of marketing for Superpages.com; and Gregg Stewart, senior vice president of TMP Directional Marketing.

The panelists had a few things to say about the state of the local mobile industry when we engaged them in some questions prior to the conference. First, there is always debate over which local mobile content elements are most valuable to consumers. Basic business contact information, e.g., phone number, address, is a given No. 1, but as Jeffrey Porter points out, actionable content is the most valuable, as mobile searchers are typically at the end of the buying cycle and looking to take action. Therefore, maps and driving directions and timely business information, e.g., daily specials, movie times, etc., become extremely important as well. Gregg Stewart added that hours of operation is another top-tier content element, as this type of information helps users determine which business to actually contact.

We also discussed how mobile advertising complements online advertising, as some may question the relationship and level of interactivity between the two. Most panelists agreed that mobile ads are an important extension of online advertising, but how that actually plays out in execution can be quite varied. Jeffrey Porter commented that mobile banner ads, landing pages, and SMS-like text links complement online ad campaigns by sending consumers online to register for promotions, to get daily deals through opt-in text, or to simply retrieve more information about the particular business.

According to Robyn Rose, mobile advertising provides an additional platform to connect with consumers on the go. “Our philosophy is to enable our advertisers access to consumers wherever and whenever they are searching locally.” Providing a different slant on the issue, Dana Todd asserted that users are still in learning mode when it comes to interacting with mobile content, so advertisers may need to further educate mobile phone users to interact with mobile content that isn’t pre-loaded into their provider’s interface. For now, she feels that finding simple ways to create a two-way messaging opportunity is key for advertisers to focus on.

Another hot topic is the role of directory assistance (DA), as more people are using the service on mobile phones than ever before. With both paid and ad-supported free DA services available, Gregg Stewart feels that everyone wins with the ad-supported DA model. “Consumers love it because it is free and advertisers love it because it provides them with a targeted, captive audience. I think these services would see a lot more success with a national ad campaign vs. just WOM marketing,” he said. Tony Meador supports supplementing DA calls with coupons sent directly to the user’s mobile phone—allowing users to opt in to receive a coupon relating to that paid or free directory phone service. The coupon may include maps, directions, food menus, and other items (even more contextual ads) that benefit both the advertiser and the user.

Finally, we polled the panel on what the biggest challenges are for Internet Yellow Pages companies, search engines, and DA companies in driving adoption of their services. Peter Hutto responded that the lack of room on the mobile handset can be a major challenge for advertising due to the limited real estate. He also added that there is a lack of common standards for programming, creating the need to set up hundreds of different versions of a given application to cover all devices and their respective operating systems. Robyn Rose pointed out the challenges of adoption, referencing that consumer adoption is likely to increase as advertiser-pay models are more widely adopted by mobile voice DA companies. She feels that ultimately, adoption will increase as the value of the new services is successfully demonstrated. Gregg Stewart concluded that ensuring access across a fractionalized service platform is the biggest challenge, as Smartphones, iPhones, and non-Internet mobile devices create unique delivery challenges that slow user adoption and audience mass.

Speaking to the context of the user’s situation when using mobile devices, Dana Todd said, “Let’s face it, we’re talking about an incredibly tiny screen here, with tiny little buttons, in the hands of people who are likely in a hurry or doing something else like driving or walking or hanging out with friends. The first challenge is to find appropriate content that truly is consumable and useful in this mind-state, in order to change the engagement from an ‘ears/mouth only’ device to a full sensory experience.”

The local mobile search market has definitively taken the Yellow Pages market to the next level, as it naturally complements both the print and online forms of the medium. As adoption continues to rise, a healthy crop of new and established companies are offering more and more advanced local mobile offerings that serve both the consumer and advertiser marketplace—those who are able to bridge the two together most effectively will surely take the gold in this new market.

Stephanie Hobbs, an award-winning print and online Yellow Pages executive with broad domestic and international experience, is the Yellow Pages Association vice president of communications. She also directs the association’s Local Search Guide, a who’s who of Local Search players and perspectives. The Locals Only column appears on Mondays at Search Engine Land.

Welcome to the jungle. As the first column from the Yellow Pages Association and the Local Search Guide, it is very exciting to join the Locals Only forum with some of the most notable local search contributors in the industry. Representing more than 150 Yellow Pages publishers, we are looking forward to sharing the internet Yellow Pages perspective—from research to challenges—on the jungle we all know as local search.

We thought it would be appropriate to start with some history and our position on the state of the industry. The Yellow Pages were the original local search tool—the first medium to provide a directory of advertisers for consumers looking to buy. The medium is needs-driven, not content driven—as in “I need a plumber because my pipes are frozen,” or “I need a pizza, and not the frozen kind.” Local search is that same model online, and early on, before some of today’s internet leaders were even out of high school, Yellow Pages publishers recognized the opportunity of the internet and the long tail of their successful local advertising model, leveraging their small and medium business (SMB) relationships and consumers’ ongoing idiosyncratic needs.

Today, IYP searches account for more than 30 percent of local commercial searches online, and this number doesn’t include the distribution deals several of the powerhouse IYPs have forged with search engines. While many players were quick to discount the IYPs’ ability to compete with the search world’s big names—Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft—IYPs have maintained relevancy, increased their offerings, and grown their traffic and presence. In fact, the number of IYP searches increased 102 percent from Jan. 2005 through June 2007. IYP users, like Yellow Pages users, are “ready-to-buy” consumers who look for local businesses to fill a need—many considered life events, as in “I’m getting married and I need a florist, a baker, and a candlestick maker.”

In taking a look at what has helped IYPs compete, you can’t ignore the link to the print Yellow Pages’ on-the-street sales force of 15,000 plus, not to mention a vast database of local market information. Having a solid corporate infrastructure can be a good thing (really, it can), especially when it has been dealing in the local advertising market and working with SMBs and national brands to drive local presence since 1883.

In spite of all this, IYPs do face challenges. The number-one challenge is traffic. Number-two is brand recognition. While IYP leaders recognize that their sites do not currently generate the traffic, nor do they have the brand recognition of some of the big search engines, they are working to address those challenges by partnering and acquiring local search properties to strengthen their core competencies—local data, local sales, and strong relationships with local businesses. In 2007, DexKnows.com acquired LocalLaunch to improve their search engine marketing services. The company also acquired Business.com, a leading business search engine and pay pay-per-click network. Idearc Media, home to Superpages.com, acquired the LocalSearch.com URL, made a strategic investment in AmericanTowns.com and acquired InfoSpace’s directory assets, including Switchboard.com. Additionally, Yellowpages.com acquired Ingenio to bolster its pay-per-call product.

Challenge number three is common to all local search players: the SMB market. While IYPs have the benefit of a foot in the SMB door with large local sales forces, transitioning the SMB market (20 million U.S. businesses according to the U.S. Small Business Association) to an online model has not been easy. SMBs have limited time, resources, and budget, and many still lack the know-how to start with online advertising. Yellow Pages are capitalizing on this challenge by transforming their sales forces into multi-media consultants that assist SMBs with their IYP and print Yellow Pages buys as well as mobile and video offerings, search engine marketing programs, direct mail campaigns, and more.

So, what does all this mean? In the U.S., it means that economic challenges, the Hollywood writers’ strike, the Olympics, and the presidential election will converge to make 2008 a pivotal year for all media, including local search. It means we should expect more consolidation, more mobile, more video, more accountability, and more diversified media companies. It means the local search market is quite a jungle, full of both risk and great opportunity.

Stephanie Hobbs, an award-winning print and online Yellow Pages executive with broad domestic and international experience, is the Yellow Pages Association vice president of communications. She also directs the association’s Local Search Guide, a who’s who of Local Search players and perspectives. The Locals Only column appears on Mondays at Search Engine Land.