Here’s an interesting report from WebVisible documenting how much small and medium size businesses are spending on search advertising. You can download the full report here.
We have to remember that these numbers are taken from a wide variety of SMBs and include florists to doctors. However it’s inescapable to conclude that the idea of buying keywords for local markets is growing and that if you have a lot of retailers out there the amount of money collectively they’re spending on search is noteworthy.
This report shows an almost $9,000 annual spend per retailer. If you have 1,000 retailers this would add $9 million to your search spend. That’s powerful if you could control the buy and the landing pages. It could be devastating if you don’t have any input into what’s happening locally online.
That’s why we’re working right now with leading brand names to add local search campaigns to their ad builders. Helping your retailers buy keywords and helping them create and manage the landing pages is the smart way to increase and improve a brand’s online presence. Making the buy co-opable is an even better idea.