How to Optimise for ‘Near Me’ Searches | Vicinus.ai

Getting your business’s physical location found online in ‘near me’ searches is still as relevant as it always has been. This is because a massive:

‘90% of retails sales (in the US) are still based offline’

This means that optimising your online presence for hyperlocal searches (also known as ‘near me’ searches) is imperative to getting sales in your physical store.

So, what actually is a ‘near me’ search?

It may sound quite self-explanatory, however local searches are a little more complicated than you think. The term ‘near me’ suggests a local search within a certain geographic location for products and/or services nearby.

The intent of these searches is to find a physical location to purchase their products and/or services.

Are ‘near me’ searches popular?

Local searches have never diminished in their popularity since software evolved to accommodate these types of searches. Customers still shop in physical locations, still eat out at restaurants, and still want to see what they look like in an outfit before purchasing.

This means that search engines such as Google work hard to create an optimised online experience to create a great offline experience.

Are customers still using search engines in the way they used to?

In short: no. This means that the way you’re optimising your online presence should change too!

Customers are now searching more and more online for offline products and/or services. This means that encouraging your online growth for offline sales is imperative to growing your business.

Customer searches have changed because the way they search has changed. With the rise in popularity of the mobile phone, geographic searches have also risen in popularity.

Statista suggests that since 2013:

the share of organic searches made on smartphones has more than doubled to dominate around 60% of the total share of all searches.

Even Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report showed that:

 Time spent on mobile devices has finally overtaken television. 

Below is a graph revealing the surge in local searches from 2014 until 2019.

As illustrated above, ‘near me’ searches are growing more and more popular over the years and we don’t see this trend stopping any time soon.

In what industries do local searches matter most?

Although all physical locations should be optimised for localised searches, there are some industries that would benefit from geographical optimisation more than others.

Below is a list of some of the industries where ‘near me’ searches are used the most by its consumers:

• Food — 84 percent

• Entertainment — 56 percent

• Banking — 50 percent

• Apparel — 41 percent

• Persona care — 38 percent

The visual below shows how unbranded- or ‘near me’- searches are used in different industries:

How can I optimise my business for ‘near me’ searches?

This is where Vicinus can help you! Our AI-powered hyperlocal marketing platform can help you drive more calls, store visits, leads & website redirections to your business. For more information about how to optimise your local searches for offline sales, please check out our blog post below: What are Local Business Listings?