September was a mixed bag in local search. While Google’s COVID-related updates continued as expected, the search giant’s primary competitors—Apple and Bing—both adjusted their review integrations in a way that hurt a different big player in the review market. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic is prompting consumers to reconsider how they judge and choose businesses, so changes […]
As the pandemic becomes business as usual, Google My Business (GMB) updates have gone from emergency hot-fixes to routine patches. This month has seen some quality-of-life improvements for both customers and businesses, while multiple improvements and iterations on updates from previous months have been rolled out. With the initial panic of crisis updates out of […]
Last year, most people were unaware of attributes despite them being a feature of Google My Business (GMB) in many business categories. They provided useful information to consumers (and some handy SEO side-effects) but were underutilised. It was not until the global onset of COVID-19 that Google attributes suddenly became a critical local optimisation strategy. […]
Reopening can be complicated for businesses with distributed local footprints, especially in the highly regulated financial services industry. That’s why we hosted a Local Search Masterclass to help industry marketers get the most valid information in front of their audiences as they look to return to physical locations. Some key insights in this masterclass included: […]
Google’s updates are not slowing down. As we grow accustomed to life with COVID-19 and how to do business amid social distancing practices, updates to the local search ecosystem have stopped becoming stopgaps and are now full-fledged long-term changes. To ensure marketers are making the most out of these trying times, it is crucial to […]
Full shelter-in-place orders were in place all over the world for much of April 2020. Unsurprisingly, most local listing developments were in direct response to the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean these updates will cease to be relevant after COVID-19. Many of Google’s product releases are general “quality of life” improvements that could potentially have […]
Many businesses would love to dedicate more time to embrace every possible online optimisation. But the business of running a business usually takes precedent, and you know what that means: understanding how to improve your search experience doesn’t mean you magically have the time to make it happen. Now with many businesses temporarily closing during […]
While COVID-19 dominated almost every news headline, the local search world kept on keeping on last month. There was plenty of coverage for the ways in which the pandemic is impacting online listings, but the non-COVID updates and changes continued. For all of our recommendations on how to best handle your Google listings during COVID-19, […]
A lot has happened in local search since we first described how to handle your Google listings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although none of these developments change the advice we gave just a couple of weeks ago, it’s time to stand back and take stock. Here are the most significant developments so far—the ones that […]
February was a tumultuous month for Google. Multiple updates, minor tweaks, and even a couple of glaring errors saw much change in the local search ecosystem this month— especially in Europe. Here’s everything you need to know. Google links to third-party rivals on European SERPs In a move that can only be detrimental to Google, […]