According to Delloitte 84% of the UK population owns a mobile phone, and with the increasing presence of smart phones such as iPhone and BlackBerry hitting the market it’s a good guess that a great deal of these users have used their mobiles to find a local business.

There are a growing number of apps for local and Geo targeted search hitting the app stores for iPhone and Blackberry. Each of these apps provides a way for users to find a business close to their location.

For example Mr Smith from Leeds is searching for a florist near to where he is for his wife on Valentines Day (He’s left it late so he needs the closest one!). There are a lot of apps out there that can give you a number and even a location for local businesses and these can all help Mr Smith find some flowers for his wife quickly and easily.

This platform is beneficial for the customer and the business, not only does the customer get what he needs fast but the business owner receives a customer with minimal effort. The conversion rate for this is extremely high!

There are probably certain businesses such as Florists, Restaurants, Plumbers, Electricians and Taxis that will receive the greatest benefit from this type of search, purely because their services are likely to be needed straight away and therefore there is a minimal search and review process.

On top of this the user could store the businesses phone number, company address or even website address. All this leading to repeat custom!

With mobile search and smart phone usage increasing, advertisers can capitalise on this by creating apps and mobile platforms to allow businesses to list themselves on mobile directories and giving more exposure locally.

Yahoo have made the way you search for things more locally personalised. In the past if you searched for “pizza”, it would just bring up the standard results such as wikipedia etc. Now if you are in the US and are searching for “pizza” you will see local business results based on your current location.

You will probably have noticed that Google already does this for similar queries worldwide. Below is what you will see in Google if you search for “electricians” for an IP based in Stratford Upon Avon.

Currently Yahoo only have this feature enabled in the US, and it is not clear if the UK and other areas will follow, although I would imagine they will. Yahoo recently announced that they have cemented a 10-year deal with Microsoft part of this deal sees that Yahoo will be taking over the user orientated side of things and this is probably one of the first steps to achieving this.

We will keep you up to date on this feature in Yahoo UK.