If you need additional ammunition as you think about beefing up your local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other digital efforts, look no further than recent changes with Google.
There’s some last-minute spots available at today’s Lunch & Learn if you want to hear more.
The running theme with all these changes, says George Freitag of the prominent SEO consulting firm, MOZ, seems to be the following three things:
- Google is taking local seriously.
- Google wants to get more local data through its crawler.
- And Google really, really wants more reviews.
Let’s summarize some of the changes and what they mean in terms of action items for any business that wants to be competitive in local search.
Descriptions for Google My Business
Google My Business stopped accepting edits to business descriptions earlier this month. They will still be editable on Google+, but Freitag believes that this will be short-lived for a new feature called attributes.
Supported Categories
Removing Google+ metrics from their dashboard, the search engine giant is now delivering more detailed metrics around the source of views on your Google My Business profile. That’s where you’ll find valuable data on whether users found your business through a search or Google Maps. They also track here such events as website visits, phone calls, requests for driving directions or photo activity.
Reviews for Local Businesses
Google opened up all websites for “Critic Reviews” published directly in Google search results right next to local business results and is more aggressively trying to solicit reviews.
What Does it All Mean and What Do I Do Now?
“Google is making some serious changes towards local,” Freitag writes. And it should. Based on data released in May of 2016, over 50% of its traffic is now mobile and within that, nearly 30% of those searches are local!
Secondly, it means that Google is getting more confident in its own crawl data. Google wouldn’t take away a chance to get information from you if it didn’t have a good way of getting that same information by itself.”
Knowing that Google is putting more emphasis on crawl data and that it’s looking for more ways to get reviews, your job as a marketer gets pretty clear,” Freitag explains. “You need to get your local information and reviews in all the places Google might look and make it easy for Google to understand.”
Our professionals at New Plains Media stand ready to help you understand all of the recent changes with Google and much more. That’s what we’re here for. We demystifying SEO so you can de-clutter your desk and concentrate on all of the other factors that define your success.
Our team knows this stuff. They live it and breathe it … so you don’t have to.
