Steve Stacy is president of Precision Web Marketing, an eight-year-old Warwick firm that helps businesses develop their online advertising strategies. Stacy, a Navy Reserves commander who served in Iraq, talked with Providence Business News recently about the latest trends in search ads.

PBN: Over the past year, your company has shifted a lot of its focus to Google’s local search. What exactly is that? How does it work?

STACY: Google is displaying Google Maps results at the top of regular search results for searches that include not only the “what” but also the “where.” For instance, if you do a search for “restaurants providence RI,” you will see that the first regular search results are Google Maps listings. Additionally, Google “knows” that certain general searches are people looking for local results, so a “restaurants” search will bring up local map results based on the IP address – or physical location – of the searcher. In this case, Google is providing the “where.”

These local results are free listings provided by Google that typically link directly to the local business’s Web site. In cases where the local business owner doesn’t have a Web site, then the listing will display all the relevant information that Google could find about the business in a well-organized free local business listing that shows an overview, details, reviews, photos and videos, user content, and Web pages. Google Maps’ local business listings can be claimed by the rightful business owner and be updated by the owner to reflect the most up-to-date information about the business. The local business listing is essentially the online version of what the yellow pages used to be to businesses – well, except that it’s free.

PBN: Is it common for people to use Google, a big global service, to find something local? How big a role does it play?

STACY: Consumers have made online search engines their primary resource for local business information and, they are buying both online and offline in droves. Ninety-three percent of online users now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services, according to The Kelsey Group, and 89 percent of consumers making in-store purchases in key categories have conducted online research prior to their purchase. So using Google to find something local is not only common, it has become the norm in shopping behavior.

PBN: When you review your small-business clients’ search-optimization efforts, what do you generally find? Is there usually room for improvement?

STACY: We typically find that our clients either have no Web presence or a poor Web presence, and it’s not their fault – the system is broken.

Most businesses equate their Web site with their ability to get business from the Web and rely upon the Web developer [for guidance] – but that is like asking the contractor who built your store to drive business through the doors. In general, Web developers know little about how to market a Web site, since that really isn’t their job – so we pick it up when the builder has completed the building, and put the business in front of their prospects – with Google.

Google doesn’t even require you to have your own Web site. Any business owner can go and claim their free local business listing on Google Maps – via the site’s Local Business Center – and start getting phone calls, e-mails, and new business.

PBN: Google has also introduced new regionalization tools for businesses on AdWords, its main advertising product, to help them zero in on the geographic response to their campaigns. How are those useful?

STACY: When it comes to search, local is all about pairing the “what” with the “where.” Even when the searcher leaves off the “where,” Google AdWords can still piece together “where” the searcher is physically located, and then displays ads based upon that information. Type in “doctors” and you will see national AdWords results, but you will also see regional results that only you would see because of your physical location. You can tell they are regional results because they have a location displayed below the listing.

For instance, type “doctor” into Google and you will see that some of the results say “Rhode Island” below them – those are regional AdWords ads. This allows advertisers to control the geographic region where their ads are displayed and it helps searchers get more relevant results.

PBN: Last year, the Justice Department threatened to file an antitrust lawsuit against Google and Yahoo after the two companies said they were considering an advertising partnership. What was your take on that?

STACY: If Google were to team up with Yahoo in search marketing, advertisers would suffer with fewer choices and higher prices. Search was monetized through the pay-per-click advertising introduced in the late ’90s by Goto.com. The company’s founder, Bill Gross, created a system where businesses could compete for top rankings in his search engine through a bidding process. He turned the written language into a commodity that is being bid on every moment of every day through systems like Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Currently, Google has about 80 percent of the entire U.S. search market and derives a majority of its profits from Google AdWords. Allowing Google to team up with Yahoo would essentially give Google complete control over the U.S. search advertising spend – thus giving them a monopoly. •