Episode 234 – Consumer Search Behavior: Where Are Your Customers? (BL report)

Paul

Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Guides for Small Business podcast. I'm your host Paul Barthel and today we're looking at into the latest research on how consumers can actually find small businesses in 2025 where people are searching. I think this is important for small businesses to know because if you, if you don't know where your prospects are trying are searching, then it's going to be kind of hard for them to find you if you're not there. So this is comes from a studied a report done by Bright Local. And whether you're brick and mortar service provider, service area provider, professional services, you're going to get something out of this. So let's kind of jump in. And Ian, I'll start with you because Ken Tucker couldn't make it, but I am playing hooky. Ian Cantle and Jeff Steck. So Ian, what are consumers searching? Where or where are consumers searching for local businesses today?

Ian

Yeah. So despite all the buzz, despite all of the headlines, Google still dominates. Like I want that to get across really clear because even if you read the, and I suggest people go Google, Google, Google, bright Locals, Local SEO or Local Search Study 2025 because it's a fantastic read. The one thing I would just caution people is that it has misleading conclusions or headlines because that's what's exciting and sexy today is to say that Google's losing market share. The interesting thing is that when you actually dig into the results. So let me give you from a high level, so Google still dominates. It's got a 45% or, or, sorry. One other thing I should mention about this survey is, is it's a consumer survey and it's only a thousand people. And I want to make that clear because what's interesting is the survey actually breaks it down by age groups, so four or five different age groups. And once you start to do that, you start to get into a very small cohort. Right. Of those people. So I even caution people because I really wish, you know, a university or college would go out and do some studies related to this because it's so important and there's gotta be some, you know, marketing PhDs that need to do their thesis on something really fascinating other than AI. But AI relates to this. So. So I wanted to make that clear because I think it is important to understand, you know, what, what breadth a study is before you start pulling out the details of it. But Google still dominates. It's got, you know, 45% of all consumers said they start with a local search and they start with Google and. And then once you add in Safari, because Safari's default search is through Google, you get up to 53%. And then once you start to drill down, you. So you know, once you include Maps and YouTube, you're getting 60 to 80% of all local searches are done on a Google platform. So I think that's really important for people to understand before they're like, I'm jettisoning all my SEO efforts and trying to figure out this AI thing. You have to figure out the AI thing, but don't throw the baby out with bathwater. Then just to give you an idea too, once you start to drill into local search and the results of this consumer survey, the next after Google Properties, the next biggest used platform for local search is Apple Maps at 4%. So you're like, the disparity is massive. So put your money where people are actually searching for you. But yeah, like it's saying that, you know, social platforms are starting to grow more, more people are looking on social platforms, especially in the younger generations. But I also want to make it clear in this study, there's kind of two parts to the study and they don't clearly differentiate the two parts. One is where they talk about general search and one is where talk about local search. So searching for local services, solutions, problems, you name it. And I think that's a really clear or important differentiation people need to understand because, for instance, if I'm searching for, you know, how to replace this part in my dishwasher, I might search on, on ChatGPT or I might search on YouTube for that. But if I'm searching for a dentist near me, I'm starting on Google, right? Or on Google Maps, I'm. Because that's where I know that, you know, good reviews are. I can look to see, you know, how they compare to other dentists in the area or whatever it is that you're searching for. So I think that's really important. But some, you know, I don't know. What do you have to say about that, Jeff, because you read the study as well? Yeah, I think, you know, like you said, studies are studies, right? They what Data they use, who they talk to, what biases do they bring into it? I think you could look at five different studies and get five different opinions. So I use it as a, as a, as a baseline and as an interesting, you know, there's some validity to it for sure. But then think about it, what does it mean to me? So I would go to the, you know, different types of businesses are going to see different results. Not just the cohorts of the ages and the demographics of people doing the searches, but different businesses even are going to see different, you know, meaningful to them statistics. For instance, emergency plumber near me is going to get a very different type of search result than how do I fix my dishwasher, right? There's informational searches, there's commercial intent searches, there's, there's transactional searches. You know, somebody's right away going to do some, there's different types of searches. So I think it's important to think through that too and think through your business. But you know, the one that didn't really come up, as you alluded to, is the AI search. More and more people, people are using Chat GPT for their search engine essentially. And you know, I, I've, my wife and I kind of have this thing back and forth. So just ask Chat gpd, just ask Chat GPD where I'm going to go out and I'm going to do my own research. That's, I think a personal preference and it's part of, it's recognizing the data that I was trained on. But, but that's one of the key points is, you know, you want to get your data into the AI searches as well so that you can rank for, you know, the AI overviews or AI search engines. SEO is drastically changing. We've talked about that. Ultimately still comes down to what do you have to say and how do you say it and do people trust it. But you got to think through who's doing the searching, what type of business you are, where you should be. And then Also now the second order effects of AI coming into the game. Where's the AI looking? Where's the AI getting its information? ChatGPT was trained on something, GROK is trained on something, Gemini is trained on something. And then of course Microsoft, Bing is a tight connection with OpenAI. So you got to start thinking about being in the places if you're a business trying to get found, being in the places not only that people go to, to do the searches, but that the engines they're interacting with are also pulling From. So I don't know if I answered your question, but that's just some of the thoughts that came to mind when you were going through.

Ian

And those are great thoughts. I just don't want people to miss this because I hear it so often, Jeff. Like, like, because we're all caught up in it, right? We're all using ChatGPT for a whole bunch of things. But do I, do I use chat GPT to find a local service? I might try to research some of them. But the funny thing is is that some of the AIs just pull in Google information anyways. But like, again, like, if you're looking at it as a business, how do I as a business get in front of the people that are buying my products? Like you have to be on Google. Like 2, according to this, 2% of people use ChatGPT for general searches or actually, sorry, that's local searches. So you know like 2% versus 60 to 80%. Like I know where I'm putting my money is in the 60 to 80.

Jeff

Oh, Google absolutely dominates.

Ian

Yeah, and Google's not sitting on the sidelines for AI either. Right.

Jeff

Gemini is.

Ian

They're the 300 pound gorilla or 600 pound gorilla or 800 pound gorilla that is entirely devoted to not losing their position as the search dominant partner for people. Right.

Jeff

And as you pointed out, you know, the headlines tend to be headlines in general. What's the saying in the news world? If it bleeds, it leads. You know, Google's losing money on certain. Well, Google's not losing money on search. Google because it's shifting elsewhere. Right. And the AI is, is coming on. They're going to make as much, I'm sure as they might lose in traditional search. But yeah, you absolutely have got to be on Google. My point is then there's also the other places that the Google data feeds into, but also the Bing data feeds into the, you know, you name it. Even your presence on the directories. Local directories. I think we may talk about those and anytime we talk about local SEO. But yeah.

Paul

Google does use AI in their search results, of course.

Jeff

Oh absolutely.

Paul

Well, yeah, and I mean they have for a while, but now it's, they make it blatantly obvious it's AI overview.

Jeff

Yeah, yeah.

Ian

And those are good. Like I'm, I'm surprised how good some of those are. Right.

Jeff

Yeah, they do provide links to their, you know, dominant source article. So now the, the trick is you, you're maybe not going to be ranking high on the page because the AI overview is Right. But if you want to appear in the high on the page search results, you got to appear in the AI overview search results because overview will give links. So that means you need to maybe gear what you're doing and how you present and how you answer it to make it more friendly. For AI search, which, which isn't new.

Ian

Right. Like if you wanted to rank for voice search or, or SEO in general, like all the things that you should be doing, you know, over the last five years are just as relevant today for showing up in AI. Like, there, there are no different strategies. If you actually ask the AIs, how do I get my business listed on you? It's SEO strategies, best practices. Like, it's a funny. It's a funny. I always find it a funny conversation because I'm like, just follow the best practices. Yes, they're hard.

Paul

Yes, they take time.

Ian

Yep.

Paul

So, Jeff, moving on, I thought this was interesting. Something they pointed out in their study is. And I'll bet a lot of people don't even realize or stop to think about it. But how, how often are people searching online?

Jeff

Oh, constantly. Hang on a minute, let me, let me look that up. Or I'll get my phone out here and I'll set up on ChatGPT constantly. If you don't believe it, go look in your browser history, look at how much stuff you've done in a day, how many websites, different pages you've been on. It's staggering. It's mind bog. People are constantly doing searches, whether it's on their desktop, asking their phone, interacting with the she who will not be named because I've got one in my office and she'll answer, you know, constantly. You know, something like, makes me want.

Ian

To say your name.

Jeff

I'm on an earbud so she won't hear it. So, yeah, I think the statistic Bright local gives is 82% of consumers search daily. And I'm actually surprised. I would think that may be a little higher. That may be not quite higher because, you know, not everyone's in a position where they can search daily, but 82% search something daily. 58% several times a day, 24% at least once daily. It's not sure how those numbers break out, but yeah, I guess the 24% is only once daily is probably what that means. Yeah. People are constantly searching for the bottom line. We have this, this vast quest to find answers to things. Right. How do we do this? Where do I go for that? How much does that cost? What am I do if right it's all, we have questions. We're an inquisitive species, we have questions and you know, the websites, the online properties have answers.

Paul

So.

Jeff

You know, you got to be visible, you got to stay visible with updates about what's going on with you and your business so that you stay relevant. And that means doing all the things we've always talked about, blogging, putting out press releases, putting posts on your social media, putting posts on your, you know, news, news feeds, news articles, press releases, all those kinds of things. And of course the Google business profile, when you're talking about being found on Google, you know, posting on the Google business profile, it's another form of social media really. You can put business posts and updates, you got to do all that and then really be thinking about SEO. If not for the traditional SEO. I think it's changing a lot in terms of meta tags and titles and all the technical stuff. Yeah, it still matters, but I think the importance is diminishing as it's moved toward the content and the content kind of itself being geared more for question and answer and AI kind of searches. But yeah, you know, you gotta be constantly looking at it, staying ahead, thinking about what's coming next and how do I adapt. I guarantee if you're a business owner listening this, you've gone, ah, I don't need to worry about AI yet. You know, it's still, you know, five years off. It's not, it's here now and you're probably looking at your search traffic going down because of it if you're not adapting. So you gotta refresh what you're doing and your tactics constantly to keep ahead of it.

Ian

And just, just a comment about that, like the, the part about reduction in organic traffic depending on your website, like it and what you offer. Sometimes that has nothing to do with AI. It has more to do with zero click responses that, that Google's giving out. Right? Where.

Jeff

Well, that's also AI though, right?

Ian

Well, no, if somebody, it is, it's, it's shrouded in that. But it's not an AI. I want to make it very clear. It's, it's still Google, it's still a platform, but AI trying to give the answer on its platform, that still might be you, but it's on its platform. So it's trying to get, get, give you the answer like your phone number, whatever it might be without actually going to your website. So it's not always a bad thing. It's, you know, could be, but it, you'd have to dig More?

Jeff

Yeah. Whenever we talk about traffic going down, then the, the natural next question is, well, what kind of traffic? Right. If it's the garbage traffic, we don't care about. Good, good. It's reducing load in the Internet, it's reducing load on our servers. We want the good traffic.

Ian

And before we move on from this, the one thing I have to pull out of this study, because I hear this so often from my clients, is we got to be on TikTok for the younger generation. And yes, social media wise, you should be there if that's who you're trying to attract. 100%. But from a search standpoint, because people see headlines about TikToks getting lots of search, that's where my kids search. There's all this anecdotal evidence. Like in this study they said TikTok searches for local. This is just general searches. This isn't even local. Was 3%. So again, where do you put your effort? Like put your effort where the biggest lever is. I, I say, well, going back to.

Jeff

The cohorts and your, your point at the, on the first question, if your demographic is, you know, TikTok users, then it's probably more than 3%. 3% is probably the overall. Right. But if your demographic is TikTok users, maybe it's 30% of TikTok users are, are using it for search. You know, so you gotta really do the strategy work, dig into your, you know, ideal client Personas, where do they get their information, how do they use technology and then, you know, adapt accordingly.

Ian

Yeah, yeah.

Paul

So there's a, like Ian said, it's, you really have to understand what they're trying to tell you and you can't stop at the headline because it, they may have this sensational headline in this study, but then they actually do a pretty good job of explaining it, so you have to read it.

Ian

So, and I just, I just want to answer something because I just, I, I have the study up while we're chatting and, and just cheating. I, I know it is, but, but it's because you can't remember every stat answer to your, like the, the point you just raised, Jeff, like for Gen Z, which is the predominant one that's using Tick tock in this study, only 10% use it for searches. So like, I think that's important for people to understand. Right?

Jeff

Yeah.

Paul

So Ian, we've seen this a lot. I'm sure you have, Jeff, I'm sure you have as well is there's a lot of businesses, they don't keep their online Information up to date. Now seems to me that's rather important. How important is it and what kind of issues can that cause for local businesses?

Ian

Yeah, I mean, the study found that 85% of consumers said that correct contact info and opening hours are critical to choosing a local business. And they said that's even more important than the price or even than the reviews. So it's just kind of table stakes, like you have to have correct contact info. And, and really the reason is, is that nobody wants to perform research on, you know, which mechanics should I go to, which store should I go to and then find that the, the information that's on their Google business profile or their website or wherever the person's searching is incorrect. Because they, you know, I've had this especially, especially post Covid when there was all sorts of weird hours. Like businesses hadn't gone perfectly back to their normal open hours and you'd go to the grocery store and on Google business profile it would say, hey, they're open till 12. You'd get there at night, you'd, you know, at 11 and it closed at 8. And you're like, what? So, like, stuff like that really upsets people. And that's just, you know, one simple example. So, you know, I think it's a.

Jeff

It'S a basic trust and credibility factor. It's a good idea. If I'm looking for someone and their hours are wrong, they can't even be bothered to keep their hours correct. And they just wasted my time. Why do I think they're going to do a good job at whatever they're trying to do?

Ian

Yeah. Oil change, fix my teeth, whatever it is. Right, yeah, it's a good point. Yeah.

Paul

And the opening hours are, is, is huge because it's like you said, Ian, if someone shows up and you're closed because your hours weren't correct, or maybe you failed to mention that you weren't open on Mondays and someone shows up and it's, it just pisses people off.

Ian

Yeah. And, and you know, as a business, it behooves you to ensure that your contact and open hour information is correct on your website. Because imagine if, if your information on the web is showing that you open an hour earlier, you've just chopped off a percentage of your business because maybe people can't come that late. They wanted to come earlier and so they went to one of your competitors. Right. So it's not just we're talking about public perception at this point and how it affects your business, but also it could just be pure, like you're shutting off the spigot when you could be getting customers.

Paul

Yes, definitely. So this was a question I was going to ask Ken. So maybe we can. I'll start. Maybe we can all throw in on it. Customer reviews. How critical are they? Well, they're. They're extremely important. I think they said in the study 67% of consumers always are, always are, almost always check business reviews. And I know, I do too, because I don't know anything about this business, really. I mean, unless I've dealt with them before, if I'm looking for somebody to put new gutters on my house, I'm gonna kind of depend on reviews because I, I have never had replaced the gutters on my house, at least not yet. So I don't. I don't know any. Well, I probably do, but, you know, but still, I'm going to check reviews, and responding to reviews is important. Ian, Jeff, you have anything to add into that?

Ian

I'll, I'll start. And Jeff, if you want to pick up, I. So reviews are so important, right? Because they're. We as businesses can talk about how great we are as businesses. We can make promises about what we deliver, but when a customer of ours, a client, a patient, leaves a review and it's a legitimate review. And, and again, I do want to, you know, help people understand too, that the quality of reviews has risen dramatically over the last couple of years because platforms have put enormous amounts of energy into keeping good reviews, trying to get rid of fake reviews. Right. Because they know that, you know, to Jeff's point, trust is. This is all about trust. And so when you, when a client or a customer will share their experience with someone else and they'll talk about you in a glowing way, we as consumers that are looking for a solution, we put a lot of trust in that. We, you know, a lot of us have become, you know, all the studies show that we're kind of a research first, before we make decision, kind of consumer now in North America and around the world. And so, you know, we're all researchers. We all want to do our research so that we can find the best solution. We look at positive reviews, we look at overall aggregate review rating. We look at negative reviews to see how the businesses respond to them and whether there's, you know, the, the recency. Because I know I've certainly seen this where, you know, sometimes you'll, you'll sort it by most recent and you'll see this flurry of bad reviews and you're like, oh, man, like, did they Sell the business. Do they have a new manager is what's going on. And you know, so it, they helped tremendously, for sure.

Jeff

I, I was just trying to look it up and I don't know if we'll get the numbers right because I couldn't find it quickly. But I'll use an example, personal example. So a couple years ago, the water heater in our house went out. We needed a new water heater. So, you know, we checked with some of the Facebook groups, neighborhood Facebook groups, and, and, you know, called somebody out to do an estimate. And I got the estimate and, you know, I have a background in home services, so I kind of looked at it. It just seemed really off, seemed really high. And they played the, you know, let me go out in the truck and call the manager, maybe I can get you a better deal trick. And came back in. Oh, yeah, he was in a really good mood. And we can get you 10% off. I just like, yeah, no thanks, go away. Had somebody else come out and they quoted half. So I went on and I posted a one star review of the first company and I put a screenshot, I redacted my name and address, but I put a screenshot of the estimate and said, these guys are trying to rip me off. Here's what happened. I got three thumbs up as a review, right. And this is the number I couldn't find quickly. I think it had been shared something like 100 times. So that one review, that negative review with factual information about how this company is trying to rip me off, how much business did that cost them? Right. The flip side, how many people were saved? A lot of heartache, but reviews are incredibly important. And keeping up with the reviews, keeping good, steady review growth. Don't go out and say, oh, I think I'll get 500 of them next week because that looks fishy. Good, steady review growth and then responding to all the reviews and commenting on them genuinely, authentically, if it's a negative, not argumentatively, is super, super critical, super important for local businesses.

Paul

Yeah. Review velocity is important and recent reviews are important because if, you know, if you go look at reviews for a business and the most recent review is two years ago, you're kind of like, what? Okay, what, what's wrong with them? So, yeah, all those things are important. Put your reviews on your website.

Jeff

Yeah.

Paul

You know, absolutely. So, Jeff, we talked about Google and how important they are and how they dominate, but there are other platforms out there. So what platforms should small businesses optimize for besides Google?

Jeff

Yeah. So again, Go back to strategy first for your target market, what's important to them, Figure out where they are and pay attention to that. And that extends to social media. You can have all your contact information and business information on social media. So if your demographic is one that uses Facebook, be on Facebook, have a Facebook page. If we talked about TikTok a few minutes ago, so have the presence in the right places and then work it effectively. Social media still, what maybe 14% I think is what Bright local said. The map apps, of course, if you're a restaurant, if you're a store, someplace that people are traveling to get to, super important to be on the map apps, especially restaurant, driving around, running errands with your significant other and you go, gee, I'm getting hungry. Where should we eat? I don't know. You pick up the phone and go, you know, what's a, you know, Italian restaurant near me? Right? You've got to be on the map apps to be found with those. But then as we talked about earlier, Bing, don't ignore Bing and the, the Bing places, that's the Microsoft equivalent to Google. And in fact I think you can synchronize from your Google business profile into Bing places now. So there's really no reason not to do it. There's a very small percentage. We've talked about that before. I think Paul took me to task because I had it at a higher percentage than it really is. But there is a small percentage of people that do use Bing. So especially if all you have to do is push a button to synchronize your Google profile over to Bing, why wouldn't you do it? If some people are using Bing and then the directory listing that we love to hate, Yelp beyond Yelp, because it does show up, it carries a lot of weight in search. Still, a lot of businesses will have their own specific, you know, industry type specific listings. Houzz a very good one for remodelers and home services businesses. So you want to be in all the places you can to grab a profile that makes sense to help show up in search, that you can get links back to your website, that you can put out examples of what you're working on. You can get reviews, just leverage them all. Of course, don't, you know, ignore the big ones, but maybe work in occasionally a few of the smaller ones and keep building that overall body of work and that overall presence and then make you cross link everything back and forth. All of your profiles and directory listings and social media all need to link to your website and Your website should mention at least the strategic. You don't need to mention every business directory you're in, but at least mention the key ones. House. You know, if you're in the home services world, you probably do want to link to your house page, your Facebook page, your Twitter account, your Instagram. If you're servicing Gen Z, then to your TikTok. So yeah, make it easy for people to find things no matter where they are and then get someplace else and, and, and see more. That's what you really want to do, right? Is get their attention and then draw them in deeper and deeper.

Paul

Yeah. And Yelp is kind of unique because there's certain parts of the country where Yelp is huge.

Jeff

Yeah.

Paul

And you, you have certain industries. Yeah, certain industries. And certain parts of the country. And there's certain parts of the country where Yelp is just, I'm not going to say they're non existent, but people just don't use Yelp in certain parts of the country. So you should still be there, but that don't spend a lot of resources if, if people aren't using Yelp where.

Jeff

You are and make sure you do it the right way. Yelp is very protective about verifying what's put up. You can't give somebody a link that'll take them to link to write a review because Yelp will see it came in from a link and they'll go, oh yeah, you're just, you know, it's not authentic, it's not genuine. You gotta know the ins and outs of the platforms and how to work them. But it's unfortunately you can't ignore. I'm not a fan of Yelp but it is important for, you know, a lot of businesses and some of my clients to, to be on. So, so we're on it.

Ian

And, and I would never suggest people ignore platforms, but I, I, I just want to be 100% clear with people. Put your energy where you'll get the best return on investment. And so if the statistics are saying 60 plus percent of searches are being done on Google platforms, put 60% of your effort there. And then if TikTok it's saying gets 3%, put 3% of your effort there. Unless as Jeff was saying, it, it is Gen Z you're after, then put 10% because according to the stats in this study, only 10% of searches by Gen Z's are done there. Don't get caught up in the shiny object syndrome of other platforms. And according to this, Yelp gets 3% of searches. So again like put your efforts where you'll get the biggest bang for your buck.

Jeff

Yelp does show up a lot in searches, which is the complicating factor. But you know, the other thought you triggered, Ian, when you said that is don't ignore anything. And here's another reason why. Just because you aren't doing anything on it doesn't mean you're not on it. Right. A lot of the, especially the so called citation directories, they mine public information and they create a listing for you and it's probably not correct information. It may be an old address, it may be an old phone number. You need to go in and look at them. And this is where tools like Bright Local or YEXT really excel. You need to go in and look at them and make sure they have the correct information, even if you're not working them actively as a review site or you know, someplace that you expect to get a lot of business from. It's so easy to keep the profiles up to date that even if it's, it means you get one or two every once in a while, it's worth it in that overall body of work that's more consistent. Having everything listed across the web the same way is only going to help you overall.

Paul

So Ian, we've talked about this a little bit, maybe we can go into it a little bit deeper. But are younger generations using search platforms differently?

Ian

Yeah, I think the statistics, at least according to this study and every other statistic I've heard to date suggests that for sure. But it's not as fall off the cliff as many headlines want us to believe. So even in this study, for local searches by Gen Z, Zed, I don't know, are you guys zers or zetters?

Jeff

Oh, Z all the way Z.

Ian

Okay, we'll go with Z. So even in this study it's showing that Gen Z, local searches, which platforms they use. Google is 30%, Google Maps is 18, TikTok is 10, Safari is 6, which uses Google and then Facebook is 5. Right. So if you, if you look at the social side of that, again, where do you put your effort? Right. Like I put my effort where I'm going to get the biggest bang for my buck. And if Gen Z is who I'm after, I would still put it in Google. I wouldn't ignore the others. Right. It might be TikTok might be my secondary platform I put effort into. But would I put, put 100% effort into TikTok and ignore Google? That doesn't make any sense.

Jeff

And, and recognize again, it is generational too with you know, your, your target audience and then YouTube. We haven't talked about YouTube a lot other I think at the top you mentioned as a Google property, it is a very viable search engine. A lot of people will use YouTube for search. And again it's demographic. My, my kids are without, you know, giving away too much, they're three and a half years apart. And the older, not anymore because it's kind of dying off. It's just the old folks platform now. But the older of the two would have been on Facebook while the younger of the two is all over YouTube and that's just three and a half years difference. So your demographics of who you're going after and where they get their information, how they get their information, can't stress enough the importance of really understanding that and having those ideal client Personas defined and then keeping up with the fact that it's, that it's shifting. Right. Gen Z are in the workforce now. So if you 10 years ago said, oh, Gen Z, they're all, you know, well, TikTok didn't really exist 10 years ago, but they're all Instagram, they're all whatever, you know, I don't want to be there. They're not my target market. Well, guess what, now they are. Right. And if they grew up with that platform and they're still using it, then you need to shift, you need to get some presence on those platforms so it's don't get stuck in a rut and keep up with your target market and you know, be everywhere they are.

Paul

Yeah, we've talked about that before that your, your target audience is going to get younger. That's just how it works. You know, people get older customers.

Jeff

Yeah.

Paul

And you know, you had mentioned YouTube and it's really important to be on YouTube because people may not not start a search on YouTube with transactional intent, but it can lead to that because like the how to videos are still the most searched videos. Well if you're there and they need your service or your product, guess who they're probably gonna call.

Ian

So there's a great example of that in the H Vac world where it's proven to be where the guys or, or ladies, but it tends to be guys in that world do videos on how to adjust your thermostat and they do it for all sorts of different thermostats. Right. Nest thermostats and whatever carrier ones. And so those show up in searches and then when people need help, they've actually, you've almost created a relationship already because they've seen how helpful you can be with something as simple as changing your thermostat or making setting changes or whatever it is and, and, or replacing your filter. Right. Like people, people value that kind of information. They see how you interact on camera and you've already reduced barriers.

Jeff

Yeah. And if you think about how the algorithms work too, they're going to reward overall presence. So if you start to get a lot of views based on informational stuff, you're not going to sell, you know, a how to guide to adjust your thermostat. But if you get a lot of traffic to your YouTube channel or maybe to your website, if it's an article on your website, that traffic is going to count in the ranking factors. It's small, small contribution, but it's going to count in the ranking factors of the engagement and the overall value of your website. So yeah, again, lots of moving parts. They all work together.

Ian

One of the interesting stats, again when you lump it together is what platform or what types of platforms are consumers using for local searches. And they drill down into the generations and it's a very helpful chart. What I find interesting is when you look at everybody from millennials to boomers, all of those stats of search engine plus maps equals around 80 something percent on Google. Like so search engine and maps are usually Google to start with. Like Google owns a large percentage of that. So, so you can basically say Google and then even when you go to Gen Z, you're still looking at 65%. Right. So it is a drop tremendously from the other generations, but it's still 65% like it's pretty, pretty wild data.

Paul

So this is something else we've talked about in the past and we could probably roundtable this a little bit. Customers make decisions fast after because they do their research. So that process may take a while and they check reviews and things like that, do their research. But once they decide that they're going to contact a business, they pretty much made their decision. And to me this is more about speed of response for the business than how fast consumers are actually making decisions. But according to study, almost 50% said they plan there. If it's a business, they're going to, they plan their route immediately after searching. So it's, that goes to high buyer intent. But if they call your business and they get a voicemail, they're probably going to move on. Is why we've talked about voice AI because it can replace an answering service and by the time a consumer calls a business they're probably ready to buy. And you better have a solution in place other than leave a message, you know, because even with voice AI, you can collect their contact information immediately, send a text or email to someone and someone in the business, and they can get back to them within minutes. Any other thoughts on that from anyone?

Jeff

Yeah, I think you mentioned the intent word, and that's the key. There's different types of searches, different types of use of platforms have different intents. But absolutely, if you're in one of those categories, if you're a restaurant, people are driving around, like I said earlier, you know, Italian restaurants near me. Next thing I'm doing is go, oh, well, that one looks good. I'm going to hit the get directions button. I'm looking for a store. If I'm looking to buy something, if I'm trying to get some information, I want to call. Yeah, all that, you got to get back right away. But before that, you got to show up, right? So showing up in those searches means you've got to have all the information in your profiles and everything clearly defined. If you're a service area business, define the service area that you're in. So that near me makes sense. Define the services that you offer, not just one or two, but take advantage of as many different services as you can. If you go look at the Google business profile, important tip, pay attention to that because sometimes Google will start adding them in for you and they may not always be the ones you want to, but take a look at all of the ones that are in there or could be in there, and think of all the variations that you can add to that. It's not just dentists near me. It might be orthodontist, it might be teeth whitening, it might be cavity filling. You got to figure out all cleaning, everything that goes along with it, and build those specific services out in your profile so that you have the best chances of aligning for those type of searches. And then, yeah, there's other stuff on the profiles too, that, that, the price of entry, I think you called it earlier. Right. Having the hours, having the address, having the phone numbers, that's all important.

Ian

There's a, there's a really neat section to this study where it talks about how do consumers approach business selection within their research. And, and it's so fascinating to look at it because, you know, a lot of marketing is kind of social, economic, you know, trying to figure out who is my ideal client and how do I get into their head, right. To understand who they are, how they Buy. And what was really interesting in this section was it was talking about how it kind of lumped it into three areas. One was how do they choose one? Or they choose one business to focus more research on. And you could see like the boomers do 24 of that. The Xers do 27%, the millennials do 35%, the Zers do 38. So it was so interesting how like each generation does more and more research in order to choose the business they do more research on. Right. And then the next section it was talking about, they choose one business and make a decision. And everybody was almost equal in that, except for the, the boomers were a little less. And then it went down to choose. They choose several businesses and conduct more research, want kind of a, a menu of, of businesses to then reach out to or conduct more research on. And this was the reverse of that first one where the zers do the least amount and the boomers do the most amount. So it was so interesting just to see, you know, how each generation is interacting with businesses online in different ways. But there's, you know, kind of an equal opportunity to reach them. You just have to know how to do it. It.

Jeff

Yeah, that goes back to again, doing the research and understanding your demographics, Paul.

Paul

Yeah, yeah, I found that interesting too, Ian, that the, the younger generation kind of does the least amount of research where you just said there, and the boomers do more.

Ian

But yeah, it's like, it's like the, the Gen Z's just want one, they want the short list super fast. They just.

Paul

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Jeff

Yeah, we, we could get probably not qualified to talk, you know, socio graphics and all that. But in general, I think the, the attitud that the younger generations are more adhd, they, they, they want to lock in on something they don't want to. You know, that's actually just the opposite. They, they, they have more anxiety, more fear of missing out, more concerns about doing the right thing. So they go deep on something, I guess that's counter to the adhd, now that I'm saying that out loud, but I know what you're talking about. I've seen it in my, in my kids. You know, they don't, I guess the ADHD part comes in. They don't want to be. That's too much. It's overload. You know, I've got all these things pulling me in different directions. I need to just lock in on something that's their coping mechanism with it, I think is, is the way I would put it, you know, As a, as a parent and having seen it and then that tends to manifest itself into wanting to make sure that that's the right thing and then going deeper on it. That's, that's my guess.

Ian

But.

Jeff

But not really qualified.

Ian

Well, you're observationally qualified.

Jeff

Well, I'm, you know, qualified as a parent.

Ian

That's right. And as a marketer.

Paul

Well, we are kind of coming up on an hour and I think these last two questions I had, we kind of talked about them. Does anyone want to. One of them is consumers using multiple platforms for search while they are.

Jeff

Yeah, we hit that a lot. Yeah, absolutely. And be on the right ones.

Paul

And the next one is AI, like ChatGPT or in overviews. We've talked about this a little bit. Are they reshaping how people search? Probably not.

Jeff

They are, I think. Absolutely.

Paul

Yeah, it is, but I'd say not as much as people might think they are. You know, I don't usually search on Chat GPT simply because I'm in front of a computer all day, every day and I, I always have Google open. I don't always have Chat GPT open. That's the, the counter to type in a search.

Jeff

That's the counter I gave earlier about. You know, my wife always gives me a hard time. My wife works with, with me in the business. We're partners in business and in life and she gives me a hard time. So just use Chat GPT just because I'll go out and I'll be doing my own Google searches, my own queries and I'll be going to the website and I'll be looking in the help document. She's just, just ask Chat gbt. So I think that is, that falls into the category of it's absolutely coming on and more and more people are using it and don't ignore it, I think is what it falls into. Don't make assumptions about. Well, that's not the way I do it. So nobody else does it.

Paul

Yeah, don't, don't ignore it. And it's just, I, I know you can't ignore it, but if I'm not logged into Chat GPT and I have my browser open, I'm just going to do a Google search.

Jeff

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on that, Paul. My wife, though, total opposite, she's like, just go to Chat GPT. That's the first. That's her go to now for question answered.

Paul

But then I have to log in. I already have my problem again, like.

Ian

The, the intent differentiation. You brought up earlier, Jeff. I, I always see there being a pretty big divergence of where you search based on your intent. And I don't see like Chat GPT or any of the other wholly like separate AI platforms. Like Gemini is built into Google. Right. So it's the, you're going to see it anyways. But I, I don't see people using that for local searches for like I want a Thai restaurant, you know, near me. Right. And, and that's.

Jeff

Yeah, you might.

Ian

The general searches for sure.

Jeff

You know, I do a lot of.

Paul

Research on Chat GPT.

Jeff

Somebody saw me just the other day that they were asking for a comparison of two restaurants for sure though.

Ian

Yeah. And I've, I've used it to try to find like a used car of a particular kind in a particular price range in area and all sorts of things like that. But very, very different kind of searches at least. And, and the study itself is, is saying that only 40% of consumers are actually actively even using AI platforms right now for any kind of searches. So even that statistic like that's not even talking about local search, that's just talking about general search. Is it on the rise? Absolutely. Should we ignore it? Absolutely not. But for businesses go where the people are searching and that's not AI right.

Jeff

Now try Perplexity for search if you want to see what AI search should be. It's really good actually. Not to get too meta, but I was talking to another guy who got an AI startup the other day and we were talking about marketing platforms and I won't give away any names of his company or any of the other ones ones but we were talking about AI based marketing platforms and he had one I hadn't heard of and I had one he hadn't heard of and he put it into Perplexity and asked it to compare the two. So the AI was comparing the AIs.

Ian

Yeah, I like asking the AIs what they think about themselves in particular areas too. Like where do you get your data from? What are you basing your answer on? It's interesting. You'll get some interesting responses.

Jeff

Yeah.

Paul

And then it'll start hallucinating.

Jeff

Yeah. I was going to say be careful, you catch them in lies. If you ask them enough times to where did you get that from? Then finally they'll go, I made it up. I actually literally had an AI do that to me once.

Ian

Well, and, and it's a good practice to ask it for like when you're asking it a question, ask it for. To provide the source as well, and then actually click on the source, because I've had it where it's. It gives you multiple sources and you click on. On the source and it takes you nowhere. And I'm like, okay, that's not helpful. I'm not. You know, maybe it had a legitimate source, but the link it provided wasn't.

Jeff

But given that AI is here and it's coming on stronger and stronger every day, do the things you need to do now. Don't say, oh, I don't need to worry about it for five years. You needed to worry about it last year. And do the things now to, you know, make. Make all your marketing assets work for you in the AI realm too.

Ian

But just remember, if you do those things, they're the same things you need to do for Google SEO.

Jeff

Yeah, exactly. Well, with a slight distinction of it may shift like the language use, how you gear things for questions. You know, do you schema markup more, make it more.

Ian

Same as voice search. Same as voice search, though. Yeah, exactly the same. Yeah. Which has been around for years.

Paul

All right, well, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us. If find anything that was helpful, share it. If you have any topics you want us to cover, let us know. Ian, you want to take us out?

Ian

Sure. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you for Jeff and Paul and Ian. Thank you, Ian, for being here as well. And thank you, Ken, for listening to us while you're driving. And if you have a particular question, please send it our way. We want to be answering the things that you're most interested in and bringing our experience and insights to light for that. So, again, thanks for being with us. Share with your friends, family, colleagues, and don't forget to keep calm and mark it on, folks.