Yahoo! Local-Vertical Research: Better Be Online

I’m finally getting around to writing up some consumer research that Yahoo! did earlier this year but was given to me last week. It examines consumer decision-making in five verticals: legal, real estate, home improvement, vocational education and healthcare.

The findings are interesting and I’ve written them up in some detail on Search Engine Land. In every case a relatively similar pattern emerges, even though consumers rely on somewhat different resources in different categories:

• Vocational Education – 67 percent of respondents used a major search engine compared to 41 percent who used local search
• Healthcare – 53 percent used insurance provider directories while 44 percent relied on a search engine
• Real Estate – 51 percent used a real estate vertical search engine versus 44 percent who used a major search engine
• Legal – 36 percent of respondents referred to a search engine while 25 percent used the internet yellow pages
• Home Contracting – 36 percent used a search engine while 26 percent used the internet yellow pages

While it varied somewhat by category, consumers used the Internet and search engines (also IYP and local) as an integral part of their research. In addition, local business and service-provider websites proved important to consumers in obtaining information and bestowing credibility.

The message is that if you don’t have a (good) website that’s properly indexed you’re potentially loosing out on larger and larger chunks of business as consumers increasingly rely on the Internet and search as a part of their decision-making.