{"id":114828,"date":"2016-09-01T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-01T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/now-see-now-dont-large-brands-losing-local-seo-3\/"},"modified":"2024-12-23T00:37:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T05:37:12","slug":"now-see-now-dont-large-brands-losing-local-seo-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dacgroup.com\/en-gb\/insights\/blog\/local-search\/now-see-now-dont-large-brands-losing-local-seo-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Now You See Me, Now You Don\u2019t \u2013 Are You Losing In Local SEO?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From single location businesses to massive brands with hundreds, or even thousands of stores, \u201clocal search\u201d and \u201clocal marketing\u201d are buzzwords that we\u2019ve been hearing for a number of years. Smartphones started becoming popular in 2010 and by 2013, consumers were spending 15+ hours a week researching on their smartphones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Examining Google specifically, their search sophistication has allowed them to remain the dominant search engine on desktop, but even more so on mobile<\/a>. They closely track consumer search behaviour and recent trends show that users are searching more often with local intent<\/a>. In order to stay ahead, Google continually updates their local SERPs for both desktop and mobile, as well as branded and unbranded queries. For example, in 2015, an update that\u2019s presumably for mobile reduced the number of business locations that will show up in local pack results from seven to three but increased the prominence of links to local store pages for those three locations.<\/p>\n

Now in 2016, traditional SEO is playing a larger part in Local SEO success<\/a>, which should be an advantage for larger brands that have invested in areas such as content, backlinks and on-page SEO. With their ample resources and larger marketing budgets, it only seems natural that they would outperform their SMB competitors. So why aren’t they?<\/p>\n

One Size Does Not Fit All<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The problem with this assumption is that local marketing isn’t easily scaled across hundreds or thousands of locations. \u00a0If you search for help on the internet a lot of experts provide clear directions for what a small business can do, often on their own, to drive additional leads to their small network of locations through local search. But these principles can potentially erode when implemented by large, multi-location brands due to the following three reasons:<\/p>\n

1. Difficulty streamlining correct location data and content for each location across all device types and aggregators (e.g. store locator, store pages, GoogleMyBusiness, Apple Maps, Yelp, Bing, etc.)<\/p>\n

2. Disorganisation between brand marketing\/e-commerce teams and local marketing efforts or difficulty implementing coordinated local marketing initiatives with large decentralised networks of agents or franchise locations<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Google values and rewards businesses with relevant, unique and engaging content<\/a>.\u00a0Multi-location businesses may not be able to easily generate differentiated and personalised content<\/a> for each individual store (such as collecting local neighbourhood information,\u00a0testimonials, bios, photos<\/a>\u00a0and available products to listing correct hours of operation or temporary store promotions)<\/p>\n

These issues leave marketing teams at large brands conflicted on how best to take advantage of digital budgets. Almost all agree that local marketing is important, but identifying opportunities based on ROI and feasibility, and choosing the right implementation and tracking methods (using in-house employees and technology or third-party technology and agencies) is not an easy task.\u00a0Furthermore, many large, multi-location businesses might implement a local SEO strategy that works well for certain locations, but not others. How do you segment, control for or measure opportunities with variables such as:<\/p>\n