The rise of online search activity may have come from the global reach of players such as Yahoo! and Google, but there is evidence of growth at the other extremity of the sector through local business directories.
The rise of online search activity may have come from the global reach of players such as Yahoo! and Google, but there is evidence of growth at the other extremity of the sector through local business directories.
In Perth, the recently launched 1STOP is just one example.
Subiaco-based 1STOP.com.au wants to be a reference point for local communities and expand nationwide.
Creator Steve McQuillan believes there is a strong market for this type local online advertising.
“The facts speak for themselves; online advertising has increased 60 per cent in a year. It’s similar all around the world, and the whole series of the internet growth is in the area of the local search, local market, local community website,” Mr McQuillan told WA Business News.
The recent internet growth forecast published by PricewaterhouseCoopers in early August says that online advertising will continue to grow strongly until at least 2010, when it is expected to be the third biggest generator of advertising revenue in the Australian media sector – behind TV and newspapers – with $1.78 billion.
A 2004 Sensis research also showed that about 6.2 million Australians aged 14 and over use a search engine every month. A third of those searches are commercial, with 25 per cent of those being local.
Mr McQuillan describes his directory as a communication hub for local communities, where businesses, organisations and individuals can promote their goods, services activities and opinions.
1STOP has everything from plumbers to day spas.
“It’s not just a faceless directory which is purely there as another business directory, another restaurant directory or something like that,” Mr McQuillan said.
“They see the local guy, promoting their local area. It’s a media point of difference, rather than the typical sales team coming into the area, signing people up for a year and then you never see them again.”
1STOP was launched in April and aims to reproduce its model in various WA areas through franchises. The first franchise for the Joondalup area was sold in July.
Mr McQuillan hopes to set up a 1STOP WA and eventually a 1STOP Australia above the franchises network.
Competitor, Applecross-based online directory Top5guide, was officially launched in March 2006 with a plan to list up to five businesses for a wide variety of subcategories, dividing Perth into two traditional regional areas – north and south.
Top5guide general manager Chris Bartlett believes that the cluttered online advertising market requires a huge investment from small businesses to stand out.
“Our original concept came among a group of young business people,” Mr Bartlett said.
He said the concept was born of the frustration created by directories for people who were time poor.
“That’s why we decided to list five companies only under each of the150 subcategories,” he said.
Both websites claim significant results in frequentation during with an average of 500,000 hits a month.