It's no surprise that as more of the US migrates to the internet for local search, local businesses (like dental practices) see the direct impact. Let's face it, yellowpages are a medium of the past. In most places in the US, they no longer work as well as they once did. As such, small business owners are left to figure out the next medium to attract new clients to their door.  And, as more shoppers turn to the internet, it becomes the preferred method of business for many.

According to a recent study done by MerchantCircle (as reported by here), among 2,500 US small businesses, it finds that Small Businesses would choose search engine optimization (SEO) as their only marketing channel if they were given only one option. Now, this is quite incredible considering they had the option of  "Traditional Media" (Yellow Pages, Television, Radio, Newspaper, etc.), "Paid Search", "Social Media", and "Mobile Marketing". This survey directly backs our personal in-house data of what drives local clients to a business. When SEO is properly executed, the return on investment is quite high. We believe that the number of small businesses that realize this fact will only continue.

One important thing to note however, is that it's much easier to execute on SEO before too many other small businesses in a given segment of a market figure it out. If you are a small business looking to leverage a strong SEO position online, in most cases, it will only be to your disadvantage to wait. Good placement online takes time and a lot of work. The more businesses that are aiming for that top spot, will be that many more that you have to try and overcome. If you have questions about this, or just want to see what option are available for your business, contact us, and we would be happy to chat.

Finally, the stats break down as follows, 32.9% choose Search engine optimization, 19.7% chose Traditional media, 17.9 choose None of the above, 16% choose Social Media, 9.8% choose Paid search advertising, and 3.7% choose Mobile marketing & advertising.