People make use of search engines for a wide variety of purposes, with some of the most popular being to research, locate, and buy products. Even with the recession that (officially) hit the U.S. economy in late 2007, and which continues through the publication date of this book, e-commerce sales reported by the U.S. Census Bureau were a healthy $31.9 billion (http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/data/pdf/08Q4.pdf) through 2008.
It is important to note that search and offline behavior have a heavy degree of interaction, with search playing a growing role in driving offline sales. A Yahoo! study from 2007 (http://searchengineland.com/yahoos-robo-study-search-has-big-impact-on-offline-purchases-11832) showed the following:
Online advertising drives $6 offline (in stores) for every $1 spent online.
Search marketing has a greater impact on in-store sales lift than display advertising—three times greater, in fact.
There is also a significant amount of interaction between search and local offline commerce. WebVisible and Nielsen produced a 2007 report on local search (http://searchengineland.com/survey-search-now-top-resource-for-local-information-12396) that noted:
74% of respondents used search engines to find local business information versus 65% who turned to print Yellow Pages, 50% who used Internet Yellow Pages, and 44% who used traditional newspapers.
86% surveyed said they have used the Internet to find a local business, a rise from the 70% figure reported the year before.
80% reported researching a product or service online, then making that purchase offline from a local business.
Local search is an increasingly important component of SEO, and one which we will explore in detail in Chapter 2.
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