{"id":102534,"date":"2017-04-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/breaking-local-search-bitesize-pieces-series-1-foundations-local-search\/"},"modified":"2024-12-19T16:40:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T21:40:47","slug":"breaking-local-search-bitesize-pieces-series-1-foundations-local-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/breaking-local-search-bitesize-pieces-series-1-foundations-local-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Down Local Search into Bitesize Pieces. [SERIES 1] The Foundations of Local Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Local Search is a complex but incredible channel that is essentially the last mile in a consumer\u2019s journey to purchase. \u00a0The challenge is; it\u2019s not a straight-forward channel to understand or to master. There are many intricacies to Local Search.<\/span><\/p>\n

To get the best chance of improving or increasing awareness for the Local Search channel, there are some granular but important things that you need to make sure you have in place before you even attempt to solicit Local Search traffic through your Business Listings Management tool<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have written a series of posts to help you break down Local Search and to get a better grasp of what\u2019s involved. Hopefully by the time we get to the last post in the series, you\u2019ll have a much more granular understanding of what it\u2019s all about and feel empowered to make informed decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get stuck into <\/span>SERIES 1 – The foundations of Local Search<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Should You Give a T*ss about Local Search?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

This is the first thing you should actually determine; because as controversial as this might sound\u2026 Local Search isn\u2019t right for everybody\u2026 cue the outrage from my colleagues!<\/span><\/p>\n

Local search isn\u2019t right for an eCommerce only business for example…because they don\u2019t have any physical locations. Local Search is only ever right for you, if your customers have to perform all or some of the conversion action offline. If you\u2019re a retailer, you will have physical locations – Local Search is 100% relevant for you. If you are a service based business that uses an online presence as a \u201cbrochure\u201d of sorts, so driving enquiries, Local Search, again is 100% relevant for you. <\/span><\/p>\n

Quantifying Local Search ROI<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

This is a big one, and it needs a separate article of its own – coming soon. Many people have written about how to quantify Local Search and there are a lot of variables to consider. <\/span><\/p>\n

(We have an excellent <\/span>Consumer Journey Product<\/span><\/a> that can also help brands covers local search attribution.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Essentially, if a customer transacts with your business in a physical location and generates revenue, you need to try and understand how much Local Search played a part in this transaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a few ways to do this currently; however before you tackle it, you need to make sure you\u2019ve mapped out your typical consumer\u2019s journey so that you can determine whether you can actually track every single touchpoint leading to the physical transaction. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A typical journey looks like this (using an example where a customer is searching for a brand):<\/span><\/p>\n

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  1. Customer searches for a brand using their smartphone on Google search [QUESTION: Can this search be tracked?]<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Customer is presented with local pack results (local results on a search page), and customer clicks on a local result [QUESTION: Can this click be tracked?]<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. After clicking on the local search result customer is taken to the map result, in which the customer has over 9+ clicks and options they can make [QUESTION: can any of these links be tracked? (Google actually provides tracking capability for almost all links in this view so the answer is a cautious yes)]<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Depending on the action that took place on item 4 (for arguments sake, let\u2019s say they clicked on directions and selected \u201cwalking\u201d), the customer visits the store (here\u2019s where it gets really tricky [QUESTION: Can you track the customer from directions to visit]<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. The customer makes a purchase in store [QUESTION: Can you track \/ link the customer to the purchase?]<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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