Getting caught up in the coolest, newest thing is easy. For marketers, that “thing” these days seems to be mobile search. While there’s no doubt mobile search is here to stay and be taken seriously (heck, I even blogged about mobile search before), sometimes, you just have to take a step back and say, “What’s really best for my client?”

One of the key take-a-ways from our most recent local search study was that local business search varies drastically, depending on the product or service needs of consumers. I realize this may seem like nothing more than a matter of common sense, but let’s take a closer look at some of the study results. Take, for instance, the “Child Care” category — the majority of searchers (46 percent) use local search sites to conduct their searches. Compare that to the “Home Services” and “Banking & Finances” categories, whose majority of searches come from Internet Yellow Pages (45 percent) and search engines (95 percent), respectively.

Consumers know where to get the information they need, and we need to be able to keep up with them. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of stopping to take a deep breath (and putting down your iPhone, Droid or Pixi) in order to do so.