Wednesday, September 28 saw Google’s Search On 2022 event; a conference announcing the newest features arriving to Google. We’ve rounded up all the exciting local search updates coming to Google this year, as outlined at the event. Multisearch Near Me“Your camera is the next keyboard” explained Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President at Google. Updates to Multisearch will now include ‘near me’ terminology. Users will be able to search through photos and images, alongside fewer words, to find what they are looking for, and stores nearby that sell it. Whilst we have known about this update for a few months, it’s now been confirmed that this will start rolling out across the US. Find the food you loveYou’ll now be able to search (using both text, and images) for a specific dish. This is a really intriguing update that will help you find the exact dish you want at restaurants near you. Try searching ‘soup dumplings near me’, for example, to find restaurants near you, serving that dish. Exact dish results will show on SERPs, and users will be able to browse menus, and view dishes and their details. You’ll also be able to book a reservation at the restaurant there and then. We don’t know what this will look like for restaurant owners, but it could mean more attention is needed on their Google Business Profiles to show up in SERPs.
Google Maps Neighborhood VibePopular spots on Google Maps will soon come to life as users explore the area. When browsing Google Maps, you’ll be able to see user-uploaded photos and videos of the area, to get a real ‘vibe’ of the neighborhood. This seems like a nod to the rise of social search and appears to replicate what Instagram is already doing with its immersive map. It also acknowledges platforms like TikTok where video-first content gives a more authentic view of particular neighborhoods and locations. Are we about to see a new age of local influencers on Neighborhood Vibe?
Google Maps Live ViewYou can now explore nearby places with a live view, using the new Maps overlay. Simply lift your phone to search, and Maps will show you what’s around you, including details like business hours, and how busy a location is. Source: Search On 2022 A Move Away From Reviews?It seems as though Google is also pointing users away from Google reviews, as Sophia Lin, GM of Food at Google explains, “Star ratings are helpful, but they don’t tell you everything about a restaurant.” Upcoming rollouts include AI that will take helpful insights from other sources such as user-uploaded images, to help you evaluate a location and make a decision that doesn’t solely rely on reviews. Greg Sterling, Near Media has said “This was subtle, but Google seemed to be deemphasizing reviews as a consumer tool in favor of other types of information.” He added on Twitter, “One of the most interesting things said at #SearchOn today was a passing comment suggesting reviews are less helpful now for consumers, and pointing to other qualitative and visual content to make decisions about restaurants.” While it may not mean the death of reviews, it may just mean they’re less of a factor that could affect your rankings. In summaryMultisearch and immersive features seem to be the common theme with these new updates, with Google pushing for users to use visual search more than text search. It looks as though they’ve also finally taken notice of the possible distrust in reviews and are giving users more ways to evaluate their purchase decisions through real-world features. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/krvyiDF Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/
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Just over a month ago, on August 18, 2022, Google announced an update to their algorithm that got people both fearful and excited. The update itself started rolling out a week later on August 25, and Google confirmed it was going to take a couple of weeks before people saw an impact. This change to the algorithm was named the Helpful Content Update (HCU). And, for the first time in a while, SEOs around the world thought they were going to see some seismic activity in the search engine results pages (SERPs), rather than small blips. Then, right after the rollout for the HCU had finished, they dropped another update on us. This update was the September 2022 Core Algorithm Update. So what actually happened? Where are we a few weeks down the line? Did people see their sites plummeting into obscurity, or suddenly rising to rank first for a valuable term? Does it affect local SEO, and is there anything you need to be doing right this second? We’re going to answer all your questions about the Helpful Content Update. What is Google’s Helpful Content Update?The HCU update is designed, in Google’s own words, to offer “better ranking of original, quality content”. That probably sounds familiar; they’ve said similar things before. What’s different this time around is who and what this update targets. The HCU is designed to stop searchers from being served content that’s purely been created to rank rather than providing the searcher with the answer they actually need. An example provided by Google can be seen below:
Google, in other words, is sick of being gamed. Still. And they want to show the best content possible in their search results. Industry experts have speculated on the types of content Google was going to class as ‘unhelpful’, such as:
Others thought that we might see the end of random websites ranking for terms they have no authority on, simply because they’ve created a keyword-stuffed article. At the time of writing, only some of this has come to pass, but many experts expect it to impact rankings in the long term. Essentially, if it hasn’t hit you now, it will only hit your rankings if you start making content Google doesn’t see as helpful. That being said, Google rolling out September’s Core Algorithm Update right after this one has probably made it quite hard for some people to work out which of the updates may have affected their rankings. Why does the Helpful Content Update matter?Google announced that this would be a sitewide algorithm update. This means that if your site is assessed as having unhelpful content, even just in one section, your whole site will be affected. This alone makes the update kind of a big deal. What it should mean, in the long run, is that websites that create content for the sake of rankings alone will struggle to get that content ranking. This means that businesses of all sizes should focus on creating content that truly matches what a potential reader or customer needs. But, it should also mean that relevant websites and businesses now have a better chance of ranking for terms that they are an authority on. That probably sounds familiar and may have you thinking about Google’s EAT scores. What about EAT and Panda? Hasn’t Google already tackled unhelpful content?This all probably sounds quite familiar now we’ve gone into more detail. On paper, it’s not actually that different from what Google’s historic updates targeted. Sure, those updates specifically targeted quality and aimed to rank higher quality content from sites that offer Expertise, Authority, and Trust, but this is an update in addition to those. Essentially, Google is doubling down on making sure the websites it ranks are really helping the user. They know that since those updates, new tactics have emerged and now they want to tackle those, too. So, what actually happened? Was there some kind of content apocalypse? And how did it affect local search?So now it comes to the crux of the issue: we’re a few weeks down the road from the Helpful Content Update’s launch on August 25—what impact was seen? The truth is, there hasn’t been the upheaval people were expecting. If you look at the results of a poll we ran of local search marketers who use BrightLocal: We polled our users between September 9th and 20th, to see whether they had seen any significant changes. While most (33%) had seen no change whatsoever, a few had seen a slight increase (22%) or slight drop (21%). Slight increases and drops are the sort you likely couldn’t rule out from regular ranking fluctuations and changes. A very small number saw significant increases (7%), while a bigger number did say they saw a significant drop (17%). This lines up with a lot of experts expecting to see more sites punished for unhelpful content, than rewarded for doing what they should have been doing in the first place, in Google’s eyes. Note: We checked the results both before and after the September 12 core algorithm update, to see if that new update had changed the average response. We found that there wasn’t a significant change in the responses after that started rolling out. This update didn’t directly target the local pack, although a service area listings bug around the time of the update did leave many alarmed, as some saw rankings suddenly plummet. Content is still an important local ranking factor, though, so it’s always best to ensure you’re creating quality helpful content. From the ExpertsWhile it doesn’t look like the seismic shift some were expecting, some sites have obviously been affected. A number of experts in search have been posting when they’ve seen a site they think may have been affected, whether that’s positively or negatively. Currently, it looks like the initial update has targeted the spammiest sites that were obviously duplicating content or keyword stuffing, as we’ll see below. Aleyda Solis ran a poll on Twitter, and found that only 20% of respondents had been affected at all.
Lily Ray has been monitoring a number of different sites, and has spotted a few different trends across lyric sites, gaming websites, and sites using duplicate, or near duplicate, content alongside aggressive affiliate links.
Ben Fisher spotted an impacted local services site that was using plagiarized content and keyword stuffing.
Dr. Marie Haynes has spotted a particular trend in ‘review’ sites that go hand in hand with the recent product review update (another of which has just been announced at the time of writing—c’mon, Google, give us a minute here).
How has the Helpful Content Update affected BrightLocal? The update is done and, as of the time of writing, we’re happy to report that we’ve come out a little stronger for it. We’d certainly be the first to say our content, such as our Learning Hubs and BrightLocal Academy, is helpful—and we hope you agree! What happens next? Does it tie together with the new September Core Algorithm Update?It’s been confirmed that the update isn’t done and this is just the beginning, so keep an eye out for what happens next.
It looks like this will be a continued effort, rather than a one-and-done, like some of the bigger updates to the core algorithm. Some experts initially speculated that the next Core Algorithm Update to impact the HCU further. Well, that update came around pretty sharply afterward, and while Danny Sullivan has stated that the HCU and September Core Update aren’t related, it’s probably no coincidence they happened so close together. Is there anything you need to do right now?If you’re worried that your own site could be hit, then there are a few things you may want to consider, including:
Those should be things you’re already doing. If you weren’t, and you’ve just been looking to game the system, then it was likely Google may have found you out sooner rather than later anyway. Has the Helpful Content Update affected you?We’d love to hear from you, whether that’s in the comments below, on Twitter, or via Linkedin. Have you been affected by the Helpful Content Update, or do you have any predictions for what comes next? As with any algorithm update, we’d recommend keeping an eye on the local SERPs and tracking your local rankings so you can spot any problems and work out what you need to do quickly. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/xYlvnFy Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ Hello, and welcome to the second installment of Local Search at Scale! This series is devoted to helping large enterprises and franchises tackle the world of local SEO. The first installment, ‘How to Best Tackle Local SEO as a Large Enterprise or Franchise Business‘, was an overview of the topic at large, and included the top five problems that enterprises/franchises often face when trying to boost their local SEO efforts, as well as five tips for how they can improve them. Here’s a refresher of those key challenges:
Moving forward, each installment will look at one of the problems or tips and do a deep dive into that particular issue. Today, let’s look at why these large organizations seem to have a fundamental challenge in understanding why investing (smartly) in local SEO is so important. Big Solution = Big MeetingFranchises and enterprises often use their size to their advantage. They have bigger budgets than independent operations and will often flex those financial muscles to drown out the competition when it comes to digital marketing. They also have bigger staffs, which means the odds are good that they have a roster of capable and talented people to help get the job done. But bigger staffs present an issue that underlies this problem of not knowing where to spend: larger organizations have more difficulty getting all the stakeholders in the same room, in the same meeting, and on the same page. Let’s say you own a single, independent retail clothing store and you want to start a marketing campaign. You likely only need to have yourself and a few other people in this initial meeting to decide the best strategy (probably just the store manager and the person who handles your digital advertising). Now, imagine you operate a retail clothing chain with dozens of locations in the Western United States. You’ve got to have all the C-level executives, directors, managers, social media team, your pay-per-click (PPC) team, your SEO team, and each store owner/franchisee in this initial meeting together so you can jointly determine what your KPIs are going to be and who is responsible for what. That’s easier said than done. And speaking of KPIs… The Difficulty of Proving Local SEO ROIWe previously mentioned the typically large budgets that enterprises and franchises deal with. And while digital advertising has changed a lot over the years, PPC is still king. In fact, according to research from Social Media Today, PPC spending hit the 11-figure mark for the first time in 2017 with just over $10 billion invested… and it’s only been growing since then. According to Statista, in 2022 search advertising spending is expected to amount to 164.6 billion U.S. dollars worldwide. When it comes to marketing spends, big organizations tend to be enamored with PPC because it is relatively easy to determine ROI in a quick period of time. The CFO can approve a spend of X amount of dollars, which relates to Y amount of clicks, which in turn leads to Z amount of increased possible conversions online. It’s cut and dry, and you can see the full results of a 30-day campaign just a few days after it’s over. But while you can judge the ROI of that PPC campaign from a global perspective, it is much harder to quantify on a local level. Large enterprises are notorious for throwing a ton of money at a PPC campaign, looking at the boost in metrics, and calling it a day. But for many brick-and-mortar enterprises and franchises, what they most want to see—the biggest KPI—after an investment in local SEO, is an increase in foot traffic to individual locations. Which makes sense, right? After all, more foot traffic in the stores leads to more sales. But how does an effective PPC campaign translate to footfall? Often, it’s a difficult task to associate the two since the footfall teams at many large enterprises don’t work hand-in-glove with the online team. While there may indeed be a footfall person or even team measuring foot traffic and comparing that against in-store sales, it can be difficult to track the increase or decrease in footfall to anything you’re doing online. The real difficulty for any brick-and-mortar store is measuring foot traffic to conversions. What KPIs should we be looking at, then, to determine if a local SEO campaign is effective? Let’s examine. Evaluating Local SEO SuccessAdmittedly, this can be somewhat of a challenging process. There are many guides out there that will offer competing metrics for evaluating the success of your local SEO efforts, but here are the ones that are worth really honing in on. Phone Calls from Google Business ProfileWhile not available to all businesses, Call Tracking from Google Business Profile (GBP) is an excellent way to see how your local SEO efforts are progressing. There are a lot of great additional features, but the main takeaway is that you’ll be able to glean peak days and times in which your customers are using the “Call” button directly from Google search. An alternative to Google’s call tracking is to get a number with a provider like Call Rail or Call Tracking Metrics. Overall GBP Impressions and Website ClicksThe GBP for each individual franchise or location is likely the first stop for any customer searching locally for the goods or services the business offers, and the insights Google offers profile managers are invaluable. In your locations’ Google Business Profiles, you can compare the number of people who found your page by searching for the business directly versus general searches for a category, product, or service. You can track how many people are requesting driving directions and see what is a better generator of traffic: people who find your listing on Google Search vs. Google Maps. Impressions on PhotosAccording to Google, businesses or locations that have good quality, regularly updated photos see a 42% increase in requests for driving directions. That’s nothing to sneeze at! People that are requesting directions from a local search are extremely likely to come into the business, especially if you keep accurate opening and closing hours on your GBP. Finding a quick and easy way to regularly upload photos to your GBP can go a long way to boosting your local SEO presence, and give your potential customers a better idea of what to expect at your business and what’s new. Getting Buy-inSo we’ve established that the favorite method for a digital marketing campaign (a massive PPC spend) isn’t necessarily the most effective route for enterprises and franchises to see a local SEO boost. We’ve also highlighted how a dedicated effort to optimize each individual GBP can make an appreciable difference (here are some helpful tips from Google on how to do just that). Considering this, it should be easy for enterprises to focus on local locations, direct people to do the key things to optimize each GBP, and watch the increase in impressions, driving directions, and foot traffic… right? Eh, not so much. Going back to the first point, it’s all about communication. Again, this is more difficult the larger and more unwieldy the enterprise is. Let’s look at how complex something like the marketing budget can be for a business that has numerous franchises. More Locations, More ComplexitySome franchisors have a marketing budget that each individual franchisee can use. Some do not. Some franchisors will allow each individual franchisee to essentially do whatever they want on a marketing front (so long as it’s with approved vendors). Others do not. At the end of the day, the majority of franchisors want franchisees to invest more in local marketing efforts so they can make more money and pass it back up the chain to the franchisor. But when the franchisee is in charge of the marketing, they often don’t have the time (they are busy running the business) nor the inclination (few franchisees have significant experience in local SEO or digital marketing) and will often let it fall by the wayside. Even if the franchisor and franchisee can agree to a division of labor, so to speak, there is still likely going to be a lack of buy-in from the top at the corporate level. One big reason why bigger companies love PPC is that it’s a near instant level of gratification. Proving that for local SEO spends is much more challenging and takes time to build. Here’s a quick example I was speaking with a very large franchisor in the HVAC industry which had several locations with GBPs that were out of compliance and suspended. Thankfully, my team and I were able to get both franchise locations reinstated in less than two weeks—this was particularly appreciated by the franchisor as they had been trying for over three months to do the same but with no luck. The conversation naturally progressed to how we could help them get all of their (well over 100) GBPs in compliance, optimized, and with a plan in place to deal with future suspensions. However, when it came time to make the decision, both the CFO and the marketing director (who wasn’t even working on anything digital) declined the plan, stating that it was worth the risk to the franchisees to be out of compliance if it meant that they had to divert funds from their PPC campaigns. You can probably guess what happened next: three months later, 33% of their GBP profiles were again suspended. ConclusionTo help enterprises and franchisors understand the value of investing in local SEO, the most valuable thing one can do is to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Not to sound like a broken record, but you’d be surprised how difficult this can be for larger organizations. It’s critical because all involved parties (directors, managers, franchisors, franchisees, CFOs, etc.) need to understand what is going on. They need to understand the KPIs that will move the needle, and they need to understand that it may take some time to see ROI. But if efforts can be made and the time is put in, everyone will be happy as footfall increases, conversions rise, and GBP impressions increase on a regular basis. Next Up on Local Search at Scale: How to Tackle Poor Communication Across Locations or Branches via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/M8rcd5l Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ UPDATE – September 16: Ben Fisher has confirmed that the issue of service-area business listings dropping out of Google Maps rankings is a bug. There’s no timeline for a fix as yet, but they’re working on it. Original Story: Google may have rolled out a local search ranking update around September 7th. Local SEOs in the Local Search Forum are reporting ranking drops for service-area businesses (SABs) on mobile, with some SAB Google Business Profiles suddenly not visible on desktop. These drops in rankings have only been seen in Local Pack results, and not in organic rankings. These changes in rankings seem to have started happening around September 7, suggesting a change in the local algorithm focussed on SABs, on or around this date. Sterling Sky‘s Joy Hawkins has said:
However, she is not able to provide specific advice at this time. As you’ll see below, the whole local SEO community is currently trying to figure this one out. Above, Joy is referring to Google’s Helpful Content Update (which started on August 25th and took two weeks to roll out) as well as the September Broad Core Algorithm Update, which started rolling out two days ago. It’s possible that the fluctuations the community is seeing in SAB rankings are tied to these updates, but there’s always the potential of a local-only algorithm update. The last update to the local algorithm that Google acknowledged was the Vicinity Update in late 2021, so we’re certainly due another. Return of the Kansas Bug? There’s also talk of these ranking changes being the result of a resurfacing of the ‘Kansas bug’, which “essentially removes back end information about your location and relocates your business to the middle of Kansas.” For example, Local SEO expert Amy Toman spotted her Texas-based service-area businesses appearing in Kansas.
What do local SEOs need to know now?At the moment, local SEO experts are working out what has happened, and how to resolve the changes in visibility and ranking. Advice across the Local Search Forum is to contact Google support if your service-area business is affected by the Kansas bug. The situation is changing all the time. For example, User Julie-b (as mentioned on the Local Search Forum thread) is now experiencing a fix to the issue:
This quick reversal of fortunes suggests a bug could be at play. Is this an algorithm update?Barry Schwartz, of Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Land, is reporting the changes as a possible local algorithm update, because they’ve happened around the same time as the rollout of Google’s Helpful Content Update and September’s Broad Core Algorithm Update. Meanwhile, in Tim Kahlert’s Local SEO Strategies Facebook Group, Kyle Sabraw has said:
However, Joy Hawkins has noted more changes with her own GBP for Sterling Sky. That business profile now shows the option for a user to find ‘Directions’ to the business, despite it being an SAB.
Alongside this, and the possible resurfacing of the Kansas bug, it’s difficult to tell whether there has been the cause of: a) an individual local algorithm update b) the impact of the Helpful Content Update or September Broad Core Algorithm Update (or both!) c) a series of bugs d) something else entirely Whatever the case, someone at Google is keeping local SEOs very busy this week. We’ll of course keep an eye on these changes and update you when something more concrete has been established. Are you working with an SAB that’s seen GBP bugs or drops in rankings? Let us know in the comments below! via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/64PXpF3 Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ We’ve upgraded Local Search Grid to give you more ranking insights than ever. Since we launched last year, Local Search Grid has become a valuable and popular addition for our customers. They use it to:
Up until now, each Local Search Grid report was limited to five keywords, so you’d need to be selective about what you wanted to track and analyze. But that’s changed! Now, you can track up to 30 keywords in each report so you can:
To help you take full advantage of this, we’ve just given existing Single Business, Multi-Location, and SEO Pro subscribers extra Local Search Grid credits for free. But that’s not all. We’ve made a number of improvements that’ll make it easy to stay on top of these extra insights. We’ll go through them now, so you know what’s new. New metrics to help you understand and track performance across all keywordsWe’ve added new metrics to measure and compare the performance across every keyword you’re tracking for a location. All Keywords Average calculates the Average Map Rank across every keyword for a bird’s-eye view of a business’s search visibility. Plus, you’ll be able to track how that’s changed between each report run and see how many keywords moved up and down. You’ll find these metrics at the top of every Local Search Grid report. And to help you spot changes to visibility across all locations, you’ll now find All Keywords Average on the Local Search Grid Overview page, and as a metric you can add to Locations Overview. Track changes to visibility more easilyYou’ll now be able to see how much the Average Map Rank has changed for each keyword between report runs–so you’ll never miss a significant increase or decrease in search visibility. Quickly compare keyword performanceTo help you prioritize your efforts, we’ve added the ability to quickly navigate between keywords. And, importantly, see the performance of each keyword and how that has changed since the last report run. Get started with free Local Search Grid creditsIf you’re subscribed to a Single Business, Multi-Location or SEO Pro plan, then we’ve got a special gift, just for you: FREE Local Search Grid Credits. These bonus credits are in addition to the monthly credits you get as part of your plan. And better yet, they won’t expire! Here’s what you’ll have at your disposal the next time you log in:
We hope this gives you plenty to get started with, so you can unlock more ranking insights than ever. Head over to Local Search Grid to start using your credits. If you’re new to Local Search Grid or haven’t had the opportunity to go deep on it yet, then we’ve got you covered.
New to BrightLocal? Give Local Search Grid and all our tools a try with a 14-day free trial. via BrightLocal https://ift.tt/aZCyKJu Check out more SEO posts onhttps://seouk41.blogspot.com/ |
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