SEW: Local Search Needs Small Biz

Good overview of the local search market on SEW today, in particular a good summary of some of the hurdles to sustaining growth in what might be called the “Yellow Pages” sector – those really small businesses which account for billions in local radio, newspaper, and Yellow Pages advertising:

To achieve any sizeable revenues from the local market, paid search needs to gain small business advertiser adoption. But how much of the small business market will pay-per-click (PPC) be able to penetrate? There are some very practical challenges, which include:
* The complexity and time involved in keyword bid-campaign management
* Limited ad inventory and competition between national and small business advertisers for that inventory
* The absence of local sales channels to “push” PPC to small business advertisers
* The lack of websites among as much as 70% of small businesses

These are not insurmountable by any means, though they should not be minimized.

Worth noting that Verizon’s SuperPages deal with FindWhat to OEM FindWhat’s auction process goes live next week on Superpages site…It’s also interesting to note that Verizon did *not* do this deal with Yahoo or Google…