The 2021 Local Search Ranking Factors

What are some strategies/tactics that are working particularly well for you at the moment?

“A consistent review strategy that nudges clients to use keywords and positive sentiment with some simple prompts. During COVID, we’ve helped clients pivot to using digital review collateral, with more focus on emails, setting up automated requests (through tools like Reputation Builder), and even producing “digital business cards,” which are phone wallpapers business owners and their staff can show to clients at in-person appointments while still reducing contact.”
– Allie Margeson

“Fixing duplicate content and on-page issues for sites with hundreds of locations. Spam fighting on GMB.”
– Amanda Jordan

“I’ve updated the cover image on most GMBs to group staff photos, added GMB Products, and installed internal links and jump-links on web pages. The latter has also been working well.”
– Amy Toman

“It’s not rocket science. Add unique content that has been well-researched and “optimized” to your location pages.”
– Andrew Shotland

“Ensuring Primary and additional Categories are correct. Assessing competitor’s GMB Categories for Category opportunities. Assessing Categories for new ones that I can add/change. Encouraging clients to provide more high-quality/relevant photos for their GMB listings. Dealing with fake/spam GMB listings (this can be very frustrating), which if removed or modified, can really help my client’s GMB listings to rank higher. Cleaning up ‘thin content’ or ‘low engagement’ pages on client’s websites. I’m testing now; I think Google has recently ‘turned up the dial’ on this issue, and that having these types of pages negatively affects organic and Local results much more than before, *Joy Hawkins recently did some testing on this.”
– Andy Kuiper

“Looking at our top organic landing and service pages and add either/both FAQ schema and jump link menus. This quite often means updating and improving the existing page content. We do this to make the listing stand out in the search results compared to the rest of the results above or below the listing i.e. I want to make my listing appear the best I can in the search results so searchers choose my client listing and no one else.

We have found that doing these kind of onsite, page content improvements has given us a higher clickthrough rate and, when we’re lucky, a featured snippet for various content-related search queries.

Internal linking is so important, creating content silos, hub and spoke pages, especially for location-specific pages still works very, very well. Remember to link your “related” blogs to your pages and your pages to your blogs so Google can understand the connection and how these pages are relevant.
Sprinkling the term “near me” on specific service area location pages seems to be having a good effect at the moment. For example, if someone searches for “personal injury lawyer near me” and we have something like “Is your personal injury lawyer near me?”, on the personal injury page. Remember, Google typically knows where you are searching from, so organically Google will show you, below the local pack, companies that are near you (suburb, town, city). So we’ve found that our geo-focused location services pages, which contain some kind of “near me” message have been ranking quite well, usually within a 1 or 2 miles radius of the searcher. But as with everything, it depends, so test this one and see how it works for you.

Don’t fear the dot, dot, dot at the end of the title tag and using Joel Headley’s tactic on exploring/exploiting the title tag, White Spark has an article called “Title Tags for Local SEO: Increase Your Local Traffic and Click Through Rate” which discusses this and more. We’ve had some good success with this for particular clients, but one tip with this is give it some time to take effect, we saw improvements over time and not immediately. However, with the whole serp title rewrites kerfuffle, we’re monitoring if this tactic continues to work, or not, at the moment we are seeing no change.

Finally, we’re also taking a deeper dive into our clients data, from GA and particularly from GSC. We can’t say too much about this but one example is, we’re looking at popular Q&A queries across the country and seeing how this may help with the content we create for new and existing clients.”
– Andy Simpson

“Currently, it comes down to a cohesive strategy that works for most clients. They may start with a comprehensive audit, which uncovers strengths and weaknesses across the spectrum of organic and local. Then we can move into GMB management, spam fighting and compliance auditing.”
– Ben Fisher

“Really understanding the intent of a keyword and producing content to match the intent has been resulting in good ranking gains. Implementing traditional hub-and-spoke topic clusters that include quality internal linking strategies. We’ve also been really focusing on driving higher CTR’s with Rich Results (Product schema, FAQ, and PrimaryImageOfPage).”
– Blake Denman

“Keyword stuffing a business name continues to work well. Being sure to have the correct primary category on the GMB listing is critical as well. We have noticed positive changes in rankings with internal linking on your GMB landing page as well.”
– Brian Barwig

“Concentrating on quality content on landing pages
Monitoring what attributes help, and which suppress other features – IE “onsite services” suppressing review/website justifications”
– Carrie Hill

“Having great photos. Watching out for new categories that are added.”
– Cindy Krum

“I’m still spending plenty of time on GMB optimisation as this is often the first point of customer contact for the SMBs and Attractions that I work with. Ensuring the information is correct, that the content looks and reads great, and that it encourages potential customers to take action. Reviews are as important (maybe more important?) than ever – potential customers are living through covid / post covid times and so much has changed in how they choose their products and services. Consumers expectations for how their services will be delivered are altered forever – and businesses need to make sure their GMB presence continues to reflect their safety procedures and their product and service delivery pivots.

The businesses I’ve worked with have continued to do really well with using first party reviews to mark up their product level pages with product schema, scoring increased visibility in the SERP which has positively influenced click through rate, revenue and enquiries.

Making sure that a basic and robust measurement framework in place also continues to be an important focus – something simple that SMBs can use to understand how my work is moving the needle for their businesses – utilising GMB insights and GMB data to illustrate how GMB and website optimisation is meaning the phone rings, the cash register pings and the door opens!

SPAM fighting is still working well for spammier industries – sadly there still exists plenty of crap on the map!”
– Claire Carlile

• “Internal linking and internal linking. Did I mention internal linking?
• Consolidating long dropdown menus in a websites main navigation menu.
• Creating practitioner GMB listings and optimizing them for a specific service. For example, a hair loss doctor working out of a dermatology practice.
• Paying attention to what Google does, and not just what they say.”
  

– Colan Neilson

“The two recommendations coming out of our analyses as most impactful are consistently: Review/rating acquisition – both quality and quantity, Category optimization – ensuring proper + complete use of categories”
– Cori Graft

“New Reviews each week. Adding geotagged photos to GMB. GMB Posting M-F. Adding photos 3xs a week at least. New relevant content every week”
– Crystal Horton

“Content creation! Making useful and comprehensive content is key.”
– Dani Owens

“Creating pages for each of the client’s services and adding high quality content, imagery, video, etc to them and optimizing the main elements with keywords such as title/h1/content.

Creating FAQ/HowTo style blog content based on keywords that have high search volume, low competition and that typically produce a featured snippet when searched. Then marking that content up with FAQ/HowTo schema.”
– Darcy Burk

“Images! Most digital marketers only consider images from a design/conversion perspective, but we’ve seen some compelling evidence that Google is analyzing the contents of the photos and factoring it into rankings. For example, a dentist might have a photo on their homepage of a happy family with white teeth smiles, and Google interprets that as a photo of a “family”. That’s not really contributing much to what you want this page to rank for. Instead, use a photo that Google sees a “dentist” in. You can upload your images to Google’s Vision AI (google it) to see the keywords and entities that Google is extracting from your images.”
– Darren Shaw

“Two things I’m really focused on right now: quality content & links. I mean, what else is there?
Specifically though, focused on making sure GMB landing pages (and linked pages) are extremely thought out in terms of content, UX, conversion, etc. From there, earning links to these pages. Which is hard. Really hard. But worth it. Doing that through earned media and outreach. And we fail a lot. Not afraid to admit that. But baby, when we win, we win big with those links.”
– Dave DiGregorio

“Link building to specific landing pages & internal linking”
– Eric Rohrback

“Consistency is key for a lot of our bigger clients, consistency across the GMB listings helps to show the brand as well as on-page itself.

By consistency we mean, the same writing style, the same message across listings, and giving the customer exactly the reason why they should pick us over someone else instead of the popular “family-owned business” line which, to be honest, most people don’t really care about for most industries.”
– Emily Swinscoe

“I said it last year as well – but nesting department listings for car dealers (for parts and service) is still killing it. It helps the dealerships show up in more searches and it’s better for clients, since different departments have different hours. Localized content that’s associated with the business is working really well, and we’re having awesome success at targeting featured snippets. Once a client gets a few snippets we see a traffic boost every time. Locally-focused inbound links have also been incredibly powerful.”
– Greg Gifford

“Sadly, officially changing your business name to include category keywords still works really well. In fact, in legal, in competitive practice areas and locations, it’s *almost* table stakes to have an official name that includes keywords. Next to keywords in the official business name, making strategic decisions about opening locations to influence proximity to your target audience’s location. In other words, have a location in the cities in which (and for which) your target audience is searching. Third, get mentioned on and linked to from topically and a geographically relevant sites.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“Ordering a set of the basic citations. Linking GMB to a well-optimized landing page and spam fighting.”
– Jason Brown

• “Content pruning. Taking a site that has hundreds of pages with no traffic and consolidating them into less pages that actually get traction can have very powerful results.
• Updating content that gets traffic and conversions to make sure it’s accurate and is capitalizing on all the long-tail keyword variations is crucial.
• Having a proper internal linking strategy is like an SEO goldmine.
• We have focused more on getting keywords into our Google posts, not because it impacts ranking, but because it gets you justifications in the local search results which can make the listing look very relevant.”
  

– Joy Hawkins

“Loading regular images, especially for particular industries, has been a huge driver of engagement on GMB profiles.”
– Krystal Taing

“We are finding that Google Hotel Ads (GHA), both in the Featured Options (PAID), and in the All Options (FREE), are working well for our clients at this time. We do not know how the FREE version of this product will change into the future, but we are seeing a high conversion rate for this Google product at this time.”
– Lisa Kolb

“Overall focusing on providing locally relevant and valuable content that your users want and need. The goal has always been to provide valuable content that will ultimately help a business’s clients or customers. I’ve found by focusing on the customers first, including location keywords, improving title tags and headings, and closing locally relevant content gaps can make a big difference.”
– Liz Linder

“Scaling localized content across hundreds or thousands of locations is challenging but worth the effort. Creating a unique experience for users and engines that highlights relevant information about each location helps differentiate the location pages from not only the competition, but the other locations on your site.
Treat Posts as free advertising. You can get a lot of eyeballs on your listing or at the very least, your business name. Compelling posts drive decent engagement, especially when there is an offer. Posts were shiny and cool when they were new, but seemed slow to take off so folks de-prioritized them. If you haven’t jumped into utilizing Posts, you may be pleasantly surprised.”
– Matt Lacuesta

• “Larger volumes of content on home/service pages
• Covering as many GMB listing bases as possible
• Updating/refreshing/dynamic content on home/service pages
• Writing catchier title tags
• “Legitimately” changing the business name to include the top keyword (or even city)”
  

– Nick Pierno

“Building lots of high quality content with content hub patterns that consistently build topical authority across the entire site. Adding Chat tools to our sites has also helped grow conversions significantly. Leveraging GSC data coming out of the GSC API to inform our Content strategy has been a true gamechanger.”
– Noah Lerner

“Activity on the GMB listing appears to be the number 1 strategy that works to improve conversion rate right now.”
– Nyagoslav Zhekov

“Treat every business as a service-area business. Yes, even if your or your client’s business is bricks-and-mortar. That means at least a few things. Make sure the footer, homepage, any “locations” pages, and extra-important “service” pages list the highest-priority communities you serve. Optimize your homepage and “Areas Service” or “Locations” page for “near you” terms. Create a miniature If you’re multi-location, focus any given “location” or “office” page not only on the city that store or office is in, but also on the towns immediately around it, and make “city” pages for those surrounding towns, too. Within the bounds of the GMB guidelines, look for ways to get an extra GMB page on the map, perhaps by creating a “practitioner” or “department” page that’s focused on a different category or family of search terms. Sure, it’s possible that be that every customer/client/patient/student/whomever is located IN the specific city or town or neighborhood you’re in, but maybe it doesn’t need to be that way. Expanding your footprint usually isn’t as hard as you might think.”
– Phil Rozek

• “Creating city/state specific service/product pages for enterprise business with unique content to rank for services/products in local areas.
• Linkz
• Internal linking between important sections of the website.”

– Rachel Anderson

“GMB spam fighting. Removing spam listings or incorrectly created listings seem to benefit rankings significantly.
Working with primarily multi-location companies we see huge benefits in utilizing Local Search Management tools to align and update information. Simply getting the information right across locations seems to be hugely beneficial.
We make sure we can measure everything in GMB and local search – both from an online and offline perspective. Equipped with that information it is easier to take qualified decisions on where to focus local efforts.
Keeping GMB attributes updated in light of the pandemic is quite important too.”
– Rasmus Himmelstrup

“When I tell clients to ask their customers for GMB reviews, I tell them it’s a good idea to give them “prompts” so they’re able to get natural keywords in the reviews that customers leave. For example, “We very happy to put a new roof on your home for you and appreciate you selecting us to do the work for you. Would you mind giving us feedback on how you like your new roof by leaving us a review on our Google My Business listing and tell us how you like your new roof? Here’s the link…””
– Sherry Bonelli

“Hyper-local links/citations from small news outlets, radio stations, chambers of commerce, business improvement area sites (BIA), etc. seem to have a significant impact on Maps rankings.”
– Stefan Somborac

“In depth knowledge based guides on – industry
Well thought out and planned locations section for multi locations”
– Tim Capper

• “Changing the official business name to include main keywords so that the GMB listing name can be changed and still be within the guidelines.
• Linking to service pages from within the content of the home page.
• Simplifying the main menu of the site to include only important category/service pages, and linking to subpages from those category pages (instead of trying to put the sub pages in the main menu).”

– Yan Gilbert

What are some strategies/tactics that used to work well, but don’t seem to work anymore?

“Spam fighting is less effective. Redressals don’t seem to be getting much attention and even the most blatant name spam or fake listing cases are difficult to get removed.”
– Allie Margeson

“Launching a million thin content local service pages across a multi-location site. Please don’t do that without consulting your SEO doctor first.”
– Andrew Shotland

“Citation consistency doesn’t seem to be very important at all, other than first-tier sources like Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc. Having fake/spam GMB listings modified or removed is becoming more and more time-consuming and difficult: I’m seeing fewer positive results than before… Google seems overwhelmed.”
– Andy Kuiper

“Nothing too much over the last year has stopped working, obviously, FAQ schema has dropped to showing just 2 FAQ questions in the serp results, which is annoying but as a tactic it still works.”
– Andy Simpson

“Still citations, we almost ignore them. We do some local citations, but nothing amazing.”
– Ben Fisher

“Building links that have no topical or local relevance to the website.”
– Blake Denman

“Trying to attain as many citations as possible is pointless. Geo-tagging photos is always brought up as a ranking factor, though it has been proven to do nothing and is a waste of time.”
– Brian Barwig

“Frankly spamfighting is getting pointless in many categories – its like throwing bricks on a brick pile. There’s just more bricks on the pile and nothing changes except the pile gets bigger. Google doesnt do anything about it at scale.”
– Carrie Hill

“City center proximity”
– Cindy Krum

“I’ve found it harder to smash spammy listings recently, and I’m seeing many more pop up more quickly than they used to. Industry peeps have all been talking about the waning importance of citations for years. I’ll always just make sure that the very relevant industry and local listings are correct, all the social, website and GMB consistency and then any site that ranks on the first page or two for the brand name.”
– Claire Carlile

“Spam fighting in certain markets is not as effective as it used to be. Especially when it comes to keyword stuffing (aka adding descriptors to your GMB name). This is mainly due to the fact that a lot of businesses are legit rebranding to get those keywords in there.”
– Colan Neilson

“Spam hunting… this used to represent a large amount of the work that we did. Proportionally, in 2019 almost 15% of the money clients paid us overall went towards spam monitoring, hunting and management. At this point, spam tactics seem to be completely accepted within the legal industry, so pervasive, so effective and so unpunished that the financial return on fighting (most) of it, is simply not worth our clients’ time.”
– Conrad Saam

“Focusing on citations – we have seen listings with virtually no NAP footprint outside of GMB rank successfully in the local pack. Posts – we don’t see much impact from these (never have, honestly)”
– Cori Graft

“New citations each month | New Reviews from Facebook, BBB, Angie’s List, Yelp”
– Crystal Horton

“Google posts. More for conversion rate and CTR than rankings. They were better when they were more prominant (obviously).”
– Darcy Burk

“I used to think links were the primary differentiator between pages that ranked well and pages that didn’t, but I’m seeing more and more pages ranking with very few links, even for decently competitive terms. The difference seems to be shifting to content quality. This means incredibly well written, expert-level content, written by noted experts in their field. Google is getting better at figuring out what content should rank based on the merits of the content itself. They also seem to have gotten better at knowing which links to count, and which ones to ignore.”
– Darren Shaw

“Pretty much everyone says this every year, yah? Citations.”
– Dave DiGregorio

“Citation building. Don’t trust companies that heavily promote this as a way to rank better.”
– Eric Rohrback

“Spam fighting and removing fake reviews are becoming a lot harder to achieve”
– Emily Swinscoe

“Citations. We literally don’t care any more, unless it’s a brand new business or the phone or address has changed.”
– Greg Gifford

“Really any quantity factors seem to matter less than they once did. Whether it’s the number of citations or links, sheer numbers don’t move the dial like they once did. In fact, I see sites with less overall quantity of links, beating more linked to sites, more regularly.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“Reporting and correcting name spam. Google has gotten worse at accepting name spam.”
– Jason Brown

“Spam fighting is something that varies a lot by industry. Although it still works very well in most service-based industries, we have seen some industries where it doesn’t have the same impact anymore.

Since Google posts aren’t a ranking factor, the frequency of them doesn’t matter as much if you are a business that doesn’t have constant news or specials to post about.

We completely removed the GMB description from our local SEO audit, along with a few other GMB fields that we found have no impact on ranking and get very little exposure in the search results.”
– Joy Hawkins

“For highly competitive markets, it used to be possible to identify something fairly simple, like getting more reviews, that would help you stand out. There’s not always such low hanging fruit as more and more businesses of all sizes and types adopt local digital strategies.”
– Krystal Taing

“Before 2016, Google Local content and authority was the controlling factor for lodging properties to being seen in Google local. But when this all changed, and Google released Google/Travel, inventory being provided to Google rose to the top of the requirements to be competitive with other lodging properties in the direct vicinity. Though Local content and authority is still a foundational item, it doesn’t control local placement as it did in the past.”
– Lisa Kolb

“Spam fighting, unfortunately, when a location that violates guidelines is removed it can have an impact on rankings. However, I’m finding it more difficult to fight spam (e.g. keyword stuffing your business name in GMB).”
– Liz Linder

“The time and resources that were once earmarked for citations, should be shifted towards responding to reviews and Q&A initiatives. Citations are still on the decline, but you should still at least have the basics.”
– Matt Lacuesta

“This isn’t really new, but the focus for citations continues to shift towards having clean info on sites where actual users will see it (and ignoring the rest).”
– Nick Pierno

“Non Focused link building.”
– Noah Lerner

“My guess would be low quality link-related strategies. Specifically ones focused on obtaining many links with specific anchor text in a short period of time.”
– Nyagoslav Zhekov

“Getting extraneous keywords / search terms / place names removed from GMB names. I’ve found that the competitor still will continue to benefit from the shoehorned-in keywords for weeks or months after they’re removed – if the competitor doesn’t just add back the keywords right away. Google gives businesses every reason to keyword-stuff and few reasons not to. Do I recommend you do it? No. Do I recommend you keep competitors’ names clean(-ish) as part of a wider effort to keep spam in check? Yes. Just don’t expect it to be a layup shot for your rankings. It’s tough going. Now, on the other hand, getting shady GMB pages removed entirely.”
– Phil Rozek

“Citation management for businesses who have operated at the same address for several years”
– Rachel Anderson

“Google Posts used to convert extremely well. That is no longer the case due to the positioning of posts in the SERP.
Increasing the quantity of citations and the consistency is not something that we are spending time on.”
– Rasmus Himmelstrup

“Even though we still get our clients listed on online directories/citation sites, I don’t feel that it impacts rankings nearly as much as it once did. We do it now as a “cover all your bases” local SEO practice.”
– Sherry Bonelli

“Lots of citations, everywhere. Citation remediation, especially on low-quality business directories that just don’t matter.”
– Stefan Somborac

“Content like – best dentist in location”
– Tim Capper

“GMB Spam fighting – Google support is poor to remove flagged listings.”
– Yan Gilbert

What are some methods you’re using to try to influence behavioral factors, if any?

“All the GMB factors that don’t impact rankings – photos, Posts, Products, Services, descriptions, Q&A, Messaging. We want to give searchers everything they need so they’ll call/click/drive/chat/book from the listing.”
– Allie Margeson

“Our team has been making good use of internal links and FAQ schema, which has brought much additional visibility to our main services pages.”
– Amy Toman

“We are working with the PR departments of some of our bigger clients to get in sync with the promotions they are running and showing them how it can benefit SEO by driving more brand queries to specific categories.”
– Andrew Shotland

“Adding quality photos to GMB listings – and lots of them. In some cases, using the Products section to highlight services, *Darren Shaw recently did some testing on this.”
– Andy Kuiper

“Nothing immediately springs to mind on this one.”
– Andy Simpson

“Paying attention to all details in GMB. They may not be a ranking factor, but they can totally be an engagement and conversion factor when properly executed. This combined with a solid on-page strategy and conversion funnel can be very powerful.”
– Ben Fisher

“Rich Results can really help here. Pay attention to mobile SERPs, they display a different Rich Result that you won’t see on desktop.”
– Blake Denman

“From our tests influencing behavior factors only makes minimal impact when the influence is actually happening – like click through contests, etc – as soon as you stop, you lose whatever you gained. The return isnt worth the effort on any scale.

That being said, working to improve the appeal of your listings and improve click through rate can improve conversions. Rankings are such a small part of the overall “make clients money” picture.”
– Carrie Hill

“Providing as much info as possible related to payment, accessibility and COVID purchase options/alterations.”
– Cindy Krum

“Having GREAT images that reflect ‘how we work / look now’ is really important now. Making sure that clients engage with their listings, with Q&A, with reviews etc is a priority – so that potential customers can see they’re involved and customer focused. Have the CORRECT details showing is super important, last year and this year potential customers have been p***ed when they found opening times are wrong and they make a wasted visit.
Product schema to increase CTR and associated conversions is still ?
On site (pre title-tag-mageddon) title tag updates that focus clearly on value added (such as free returns, half price for kids etc) is a quick win – small business title tags are usually pretty bad and some simple sales and marketing focused messages increase click through dramatically.”
– Claire Carlile

“Creating amazing Google Posts as per our Google Posts Study – https://www.sterlingsky.ca/google-posts/
Creating animated GIF’s for GMB Product images. Thanks Whitespark!”
– Colan Neilson

“Focusing on completeness of listings + accuracy of hours, utilizing the GMB product feature in nontraditional ways such as listing floor plans for apartments, removing addresses to encourage website clicks instead of driving directions clicks.”
– Cori Graft

“Providing more relevant content based on what our new and old website visitors are requesting by monitoring searches triggered GMB Business Profiles, Google Search Console, and analytics data.”
– Crystal Horton

“For on-page I’m adding links to related / recommended articles throughout blog articles to encourage staying on the site longer. I’m also creating longer content so that users may stay on the page longer in order to read all the content.”
– Dani Owens

“Title tag/meta description optimization to increase CTR.
Adding quality content with rich media above the fold to increase “dwell time”.”
– Darcy Burk

“The link to the Whitespark website in my email signature actually goes to a Google search for our brand name instead of being a direct link to our site. Every time someone clicks it, that’s one more brand search! I have no idea if this helps at all, but it’s fun to think that it might!”
– Darren Shaw

“On GMB, always trying to make sure the listing is completely built out with photos, videos, posts, Q&A, real reviews, etc. On the organic side, getting creative with title tags. Do we really need pipes and 70 characters? Also love messing around with schema (local biz, review, faqs, etc) to see what Google will display in the SERP.”
– Dave DiGregorio

“Title tag optimization for organic & actively responding to reviews on GMB”
– Eric Rohrback

“Professionally taken photos seem to be the go-to at the moment to improve click-through rates.
Encouraging our clients to get more reviews and also respond to them, positive or negative.
Another during covid times is ensuring that any changes caused by the pandemic are up to date on the listing and across the website to ensure customers know exactly what is going on.”
– Emily Swinscoe

“Promotionally-focused Google Posts. Seeded Q&A and upvoted owner answers. Loading lots of high quality photos.”
– Greg Gifford

“Mostly posts, images, and videos. Test different offers and imagery in posts and images. These command eyeballs and clicks. Otherwise, maximize your hours of operation (folks tend not to engage with closed businesses) and earn positive reviews.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“Getting customers to add photos to complement their reviews. A picture is worth more than a review.”
– Jason Brown

“Optimizing for featured snippets and making use of schema types that actually influence the way the site appears in the search results.
Having recent reviews is really important. Google weights the age of the review heavily when deciding which ones show up at the top so the most recent reviews are the ones that customers are most likely to see. This can be potentially harmful if your most-recent review is negative.”
– Joy Hawkins

“For a number of multi-location clients, we’ve been testing including limited but relevant keywords in owner responses to reviews, services, and posts to help capture more unbranded traffic and seeing some positive signals when applied consistently.”
– Krystal Taing

“We continue to track Google My Business (GMB) local listings traffic / bookings vs. organic listings traffic / bookings with the use of UTM tracker code. We are finding upwards to 70% + of some clients discovering that their traffic / bookings are heavily coming from Google’s local options vs. Google’s organic options. This tracking allows our clients to better place their marketing dollars on the correct side of the fence. Whether it be on a quick to load, enhanced mobile display vs. a costly fancy desktop design, or by using Google Hotels Ads (GHA) instead of, or in addition to, Google Ads. Knowing exactly where traffic / bookings are coming from in the Google universe is a huge data decision factor.”
– Lisa Kolb

“Make sure the Google My Business listing is as complete as possible! This includes more than just the business information but uploading new images, creating and sharing Google posts, filling out the products section (if available), and providing a comprehensive Q&A section.”
– Liz Linder

“For brick and mortar locations, it’s been very important to keep up on hours of operation and take advantage of the COVID related attributes that are relevant to your business. With things still changing all the time, it’s important to provide the most up-to-date information for your potential visitors.”
– Matt Lacuesta

“Friendlier, more brand-focused title tags and descriptions — and the best possible content/layout/performance experience on key landing pages.”
– Nick Pierno

“Adding videos + transcriptions to long form content as much as possible.”
– Noah Lerner

“GMB posts, targeted review-related strategies.”
– Nyagoslav Zhekov

“Google reviews. Detailed reviews, with specific services mentioned, photos where possible, and from new customers and old. (See my 2018 post called “The Perfect Stack of Online Reviews: How Does Your Local Business Measure up?”) I’m particularly interested in the “service” prompts in Google reviews, where Google asks reviewers “What services did [the business] perform?” and lets them select all relevant services from a list. As of now (September 2021) that doesn’t appear to be an option for most businesses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a feature that becomes universal.

Another thing I like to do is identify terms for which my client ranks only in the 3-pack and see if we can scare up some organic rankings right below it. You’re more likely to get a click (and competitors less likely to) if people see you multiple times on a SERP. If you’re on the map for a term, usually at least one page on your site is within firing range. Usually the issue is either that the homepage doesn’t have much info on that service/product/offering, or that the most-relevant subpage on your site just needs more internal links.”
– Phil Rozek

“Google Posts frequency. Localizing on page content to be more relevant to searchers (longer on-page dwell time)”
– Rachel Anderson

• “Justifications in Local Pack to increase CTR.
• Testing different images in GMB products and in GMB generally to increase CTR.
• Making sure GMB attributes are updated properly in light of the pandemic – e.g. Mask required.”
  

– Rasmus Himmelstrup

“Create engaging GMB posts with images or offers that grab searchers’ attention.
Make sure we upload GMB photos of the company’s team/employees so potential customers can see the “people” behind the company.”
– Sherry Bonelli

“I like the idea that you want to be the last click on Google. So, when a searcher clicks your GMB profile or website link, give them want they want so they don’t go back to Google to continue searching.
You make that happen by focusing on conversion factors. (Which has the added bonus of conversions! Obviously.)”
– Stefan Somborac

“Proper setting of businesses external footprint when located inside another building
Multiple phones at new location over the first few weeks of opening”
– Tim Capper

“Emojis in page titles and meta description to display in the SERP to influence CTR
Using review schema to get stars to display in the SERP to influence CTR
Testing different visuals in images used for Google Posts for better CTR”
– Yan Gilbert

If you manage LSAs, what are you to doing improve rankings in the LSA packs?

” Managing Local Service Ads is a must-have in the local space. The fact that they are at the top of search and really only take about 20% of traffic from your 3-pack listings. In most categories, we are seeing a 40%-60% close rate on LSA leads. What we have discovered is that most of the ranking factors come down to process-oriented actions. There are many myths out there regarding LSA’s and ranking factors. I agree with all of Google’s listed ranking factors. I would add the name of the listing, bid model, budget to an extent, number of booked leads (a conversion factor) and number of listings for different service types.

Ps it’s a myth that disputing leads causes a loss in ranking.”
– Ben Fisher

“I pulled this from the great Matt Casady’s LocalU session.

• Add All Relevant Categories
• Set up Separate LSA Accounts
• Mark Leads as Booked
• Get Verified Reviews
• Set up Message Leads
• Connect to Booking Platform
• Train Staff on LSAs
• Use a Tracking Phone Number”
  

– Colan Neilson

“It’s very difficult to manage LSAs. It feels like they are designed and run by a junior high tech project. The lack of data coming back out of LSAs is infuriating. Much of this goes to trying what works very well in one market and then trying to (unsuccessfully) replicate same in another. To date, we’ve had success (sometimes amazingly so, in other instances not at all) by marking leads as solid, maximizing budget and being first to market. Overall, I suspect given that many LSAs include pictures of the provider (in our case, lawyer) Google is going to be loathe to share any data, as the worst headline reads: “Google Rewards Sexist and Racist Consumer Behavior with Local Service Ads.””
– Conrad Saam

“Responsiveness | Relevance/Radius |Reviews”
– Crystal Horton

“Ensure all categories/services the client provides are enabled.
Growing reviews.”
– Darcy Burk

“Matt Casady had a TON of good tips at August’s Local U event. I encourage all readers to go find that video right now and watch! Use code “DaveSaidSo” to get 50% off.”
– Dave DiGregorio

“Keep getting reviews on the GMB page, play with bidding/category options. We ran LSAs, but they’re difficult for niche industries to really see success because of the broad targeting capabilities. They work great if you’re not super specialized in one or two sub-niches within your industry.”
– Eric Rohrback

“Our LSA clients are doing SEO and PPC with us, so there’s nothing specific we do for LSAs – we do all the SEO and PPC work we always do.”
– Greg Gifford

“Stay active in the platform. Manage leads. Update budgets. Adjust locations.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“Set up separate LSA accounts, get verified reviews (this is more for conversions than ranking), target entire states, and add all relevant categories. These tips 100% need to be credited to my brilliant colleague Matt Casady who does a lot of our LSA accounts at Sterling Sky.”
– Joy Hawkins

“All 3 positions on the page are equally visible, so for me it’s a zero-sum game of: are we showing up there or not? I try not to manage LSAs if I can avoid it. There’s little to manage: the whole premise of LSAs is that Google adjusts the thermostat for you. Which is fine if one doesn’t have PPC chops and isn’t too concerned with wasted budget. I’ll admit that LSAs can be pretty effective for contractors, but they’re more hit-or-miss for people in other industries. In general, I steer clients away from LSAs and toward AdWords campaigns that we can control more.”
– Phil Rozek

Any comments about where you think Google is headed in the future?

“Google and Apple are both innovating quickly with messaging features and pushing users to messaging experiences for businesses that have it enabled. While Google stated earlier this year that signals related to messaging are not part of any ranking algorithms, messaging is clearly becoming much more important from a customer experience and conversion optimization standpoint.”
– Adam Dorfman

“With my recent presentation on Messaging & Booking on my mind, I really do think Google is fine-tuning these features that are major conversion opportunities for businesses. As consumer habits evolve, I think businesses will need to invest more in e-commerce, online chat and bookings and Google has a foundation laid for all of these. Now if only See What’s In Store could have a solution for makers and local stores with products that don’t have UPCs…”
– Allie Margeson

“I’ve been seeing Google tightening up their filters for reviews, photos, and other areas that are used to manipulate rankings. Between those and the header changes, it looks like they’re searching for, and awarding, authenticity. I only hope that search doesn’t cause problems for smaller businesses who manage their own listings.”
– Amy Toman

“Very soon, pretty well everything above the fold will be monetized. LSA’s (Local Service Ads) at the top, Google Ads, then Local ‘Verified/Screened’ GMB (paid) listings. *The non-Verified/Screened GMB listings may end up being pushed down and out of the 3 pack. I also suspect Google will continue to interject themselves between the searcher and the business, in LSA’s they are the lead gen, and within GMB’s I suspect they may provide some ‘value-added’ type of monetization… some way for the paid GMB listings to ‘stand out’ from the other listings.

I think Google will then try to somehow have one management portal for SMB’s that combines LSA offerings, Paid GMB ‘verified’ listings, and Google Ads ‘Performance Max’ Advertising (in beta). I also think Local will be all AI driven; Google Ads is heading in that direction at a faster pace than Local, but it’s coming to Local sooner than we think.”
– Andy Kuiper

“Who the hell knows nowadays! Who would have thought Google would have launched this latest title rewrite in the serps and what a mess that is at the moment, will they roll this back, will they tweak how aggressive this has been for some sites? Sadly, it is what it is, and remember updates like this just don’t happen to you but also to your competitors, so try not to panic!

We’re still waiting for some kind of monetized version of Google My Business, perhaps Covid delayed the launch of this and decided to sit on this a little longer, only time will tell.”
– Andy Simpson

“Last year I predicted that LSA and paid was going to be huge. Well, it is, and it is going to continue to grow. I feel there may be a small diminishing return as more merchants get involved, this has happened in other categories. Also, there are a few tactics that may make things more difficult, just like in GMB as adoption grows in LSA. Think about spam tactics for GMB but they are OK in LSA.

The Transparent Merchant Experience (aka Direct Edit) is still the next big thing. This will keep a merchant on Google longer and they will not have to head to business.google.com to make changes. Having the ability to directly edit and also see analytics etc.. right from Google is huge for a merchant. I feel this will be almost fully rolled out this year and will help many merchants manage GMB in a more organic way.”
– Ben Fisher

“Within the next 10 years, Google will become a search engine that doesn’t crawl websites, it displays structured feeds of information that business owners feed it. Websites will still exist but they won’t be used in determining the ranking of results on search. For more information on this, I highly recommend you look at all of Cindy Krum’s work.”
– Blake Denman

“It’s difficult (and pointless) to try and predict what Google will do next. They make updates all the time, and many of them are ridiculous (title change), or non-factors. Continue optimizing websites within the context of most of Google’s guidelines so you don’t get a penalty or suspension. The basics of SEO and Local SEO haven’t changed much in 5-10 years, but that doesn’t mean you should stop learning or testing. New ideas or concepts come about often which can give you a leg up on your competition.”
– Brian Barwig

“I have no idea what they’re doing – honestly its a waste of time to speculate. They need to address spam on a mass scale, and they THINK they have – but they don’t live in the real world where it impacts businesses every day.
I think we just do what we know works, continue to test with an eye towards what Google DOES vs what Google SAYS”
– Carrie Hill

“I think Google wants to make GMB + Free GMB websites a competitor to WordPress.”
– Cindy Krum

“Hmmmm, with regard to GMB maybe more opportunities for user generated content to be added in functions where we’re not used to seeing them and where the businesses themselves are used to having total ‘control’ over the content – for example the addition of the ‘by users’ tab in the ‘updates’ section on business profiles in Google Maps. If you’re not keeping a close eye on how the interface changes across platforms and devices and operating systems you’ll likely not notice new challenges and opportunities for the businesses that you work with.

Google is always going to be looking to monetise the SERPs, so I guess we can expect an increase in ads in the business profile across a range of verticals beyond attractions and lodgings?

Title-tag-mageddon has SEOs up in arms. We’ve relied on title tag optimisations (and also therefore keyword stuffed the hell out of them!) for years. Google’s move to populate this area based on other page factors (and whatever else they’re using on the day to generate these) which they hope should create better titles in Google’s search results as a whole indicates a continuation of Google wrestling back control of a number of factors that SEOs and marketers felt they had proprietary rights over and which formed part of the service packages that they offered, just like the case of responsive search ads now replacing Expanded Text Ads.

Agencies and individual practitioners need to take an increasingly ‘joined up’ approach to developing partnerships with their clients, developing a deep understanding of their business, their niche and the competitive landscape. Google can replace functions we’ve traditionally completed for our clients as part of our service delivery (writing title tags and meta descriptions or ad copy) with their own algorithmic approach – why wouldn’t they? But, for the moment, they can’t replace our strategic marketing nouse and our human insight into the world in which the business and the customer operates.”
– Claire Carlile

“I expect Google to continue testing more features for GMB. I think 2022 will see at least one paid feature offered inside the GMB dashboard.
I think we will see more GMB features that are good for the user/customer, but not necessarily for the business. For instance, this year we started to see Google prompting users to get quotes from competitors after selecting the “Booking” or “Request Quote” CTA on a businesses KP/business profile. I think we will see more of this type of stuff.”
– Colan Neilson

“Hopefully reducing the dependance on reviews for ranking within the local pack. I would LOVE to see some methodology of verified reviews within the legal market. With the advent or more and more direct to consumer online transactions within legal, this would help both consumers and the (good) part of the legal community.”
– Conrad Saam

“Google will become more and more reliant on its own first-party data sources, such as GMB and user-sourced attributes/information. In the future GMB will offer more paid premium services for businesses to leverage.”
– Cori Graft

“User behavior data is going to heavily influence how your business ranks. Understanding your visitors (new & old) through user behavior data. I’ve noticed the pattern switch a little more this year to favor those that understand their users. Optimizing content is the best approach to collecting user behavior data to improve rankings.”
– Crystal Horton

“Better parsing and understanding of page content and elements to render schema obsolete. They don’t want to have to rely on our inputs to understand information but they currently have to. This will eventually change. #SchemaGeddon2025”
– Darcy Burk

“Same answer I give every year: they’ll be continuing to look for ways to monetize their SERPs through ads AND by facilitating transactions right in the search results. We’ll see more and more opportunities to just buy things right off of Google, with no need to go to the website. It will be so convenient: search for something, Google shows you multiple options and prices from various sellers, click the buy now button in the search results or knowledge panel, and get it to your door in a few days. You don’t even have to enter your address or credit card because Google has it all on file in your account.”
– Darren Shaw

“By May 2022, GMB will have premium (paid) features in the dashboard.”
– Dave DiGregorio

“Google is trying to limit clicks away from their properties. Make sure you’re taking advantage of every feature you can to give yourself the best shot over competitors.”
– Eric Rohrback

“The idea of a “cookieless world” will be a large feature of Google’s plans for the near future, it will be interesting to see how it will be tackled.”
– Emily Swinscoe

“Seems like Local is becoming much more prominent every year, and the crazy number of updates to Local/GMB in the last year and a half prove that Google is investing more in serving users with a better search experience for Local results. I think the “customer experience” focus will continue, with the attention shifting almost entirely to the “what’s it like to navigate the site on a mobile device” point of view.”
– Greg Gifford

“More ads.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“Google is staying the course to keep people on Google and send less traffic to your website. Google want’s to answer a query. As long as you can answer the query, you will win.”
– Jason Brown

“I’d love to say that maybe they’ll stop ranking SABs based on the address used for verification, but I’m not holding my breath.”
– Joy Hawkins

“As we see a broader adoption and deployment of local SEO tactics, I think Google will focus on verticalization with unique features as well as ranking factors by industry.”
– Krystal Taing

“We are very interested in Google’s Page Speed Experience updates and their ever changing requirements, and ultimately their impact on Mobile placement.”
– Lisa Kolb

“Seems like Google continues to try to meet search intent so we can probably expect to see some fun surprises (e.g those changes to title tags). However, what I’d love to see is more of an action to remove spam and take action on false negative reviews.”
– Liz Linder

“If you’re managing hundreds or thousands of locations, you need to be working with the API. The agency dashboard isn’t as buggy as it once was but it doesn’t add features and functionality as much as the API. It can be daunting to jump into, but if you’re managing locations at scale, it really is the best way to make the most of what GMB offers without losing your mind.”
– Matt Lacuesta

• “Google as a “home page” for many businesses
• Investment in Google conversion options (booking, LSAs etc), and general monetization of the SERPs
• Maybe Google will work on fixing the business name spam issue -JUST KIDDING”

– Nick Pierno

“Google is heading in a direction that best benefits Google and Users. This means that the prominence of ads and Google results to queries are continuing to become more and more prominent. It will also bring its machine learning capabilities, which are too computationally expensive at the moment, to bear in the next 2-5 years. Hopefully this means that links will become less and less important and Google’s ability to understand quality authentic content continues to evolve. It will also pull more and more results “fraggles” out of anywhere it deems worthy as entities and the knowledgegraph become more and more important.
Our mileage will likely vary ?.”
– Noah Lerner

“Google is headed towards personalization and monopoly. The end goal is to try to have as much content squeezed and available directly on Google properties (such as the search results) as possible, while obtaining as much personal data about the user as possible.”
– Nyagoslav Zhekov

“Optimistic view: a break-up. Pessimistic view: into a piece of hardware on your phone that will create a holographic Google Ads rep who materializes in your bedroom and won’t leave until you increase your daily budget.”
– Phil Rozek

“More localization in search results – so enterprise businesses with no local-specific content will suffer.
CWV/page speed/mobile friendliness will continue to become more important.
More SERP features to keep users on Google instead of websites.”
– Rachel Anderson

“I expect we will see even more features added to GMB as I am sure Google will start monetizing the Local SERPs even more. I expect we will see more local ecommerce features added eventually.
I do hope Google will be better at removing spam listings as well as limiting the value of keywords in the GMB business name.”
– Rasmus Himmelstrup

“With Google now offering call tracking, I think that Google will begin ranking businesses that promptly answer their phones higher than those businesses that don’t answer their phones (i.e. let an answering machine get the calls.) Google wants to send searchers to businesses that are responsive — and these types of signals will play a larger role in local rankings in the future.”
– Sherry Bonelli

“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.”
– Stefan Somborac

“There is going to be a big shake up soon in Google Travel with Google partnering with Trip.com
It could be good in terms of easing out other OTAs or really really bad for Hotels organically – unsure yet.”
– Tim Capper

“More ways to get in between the user and a purchase by expanding the Merchant Center product inventory capabilities. Example is the Cars for Sale program which follows in the footstep of Google Flights and Hotels.”
– Yan Gilbert

Any comments about anything else you’d like the readers of this survey to know?

“I continue to wish that Google would make it easier for small businesses to receive support. The GMB support forum isn’t as obvious as it could be, and without this and similar resources, some small business founder. It would really help Google’s public face if they were more forthcoming about their published resources and how to access them.”
– Amy Toman

“I think it’s a good idea for small business owners to get familiar with their GMB listing (and App). GMB may become much more of a ‘portal’ than it is now. Bookings, messaging, real-time support, and much more can be handled via GMB.”
– Andy Kuiper

“Google is getting smarter, month by month, year by year, even if we don’t sometimes agree with how it then presents some of this “smartness” in the serps (title-tag-mageddon). All I can say is keep learning, keep testing and just keep doing the best you can with the resources you have available to you. It’s good to test things on sites to see what does/doesn’t happen, results may not happen overnight so give your testing time (weeks).”
– Andy Simpson

“Always be optimizing for your customer.”
– Ben Fisher

“Stop looking at rankings? ;)”
– Carrie Hill

“Don’t expect the ranking dial of keywords in the GMB name to be turned down anytime soon. But keep in mind, if everyone is doing it, the ranking power tends to neutralize itself on its own.
Make sure you are using geo-grid ranking trackers. If you aren’t doing this by now, you are falling behind your competitors, big time.”
– Colan Neilson

“We have seen tons of variation across industries, data sets, etc — RUN YOUR OWN ANALYSIS AND TEST YOUR OWN HYPOTHESES! What works for one industry may be harmful in another (e.g. service area listings perform worse in a primarily brick-and-mortar industry but having an address listed in a service-area-based industry can hold back performance).”
– Cori Graft

“As you review the data ask yourself each time:

• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What can we improve?”

– Crystal Horton

“Don’t spam your GMB listings. As a business owner, I understand it is easy to add keywords in your business title and get a boost in rankings. But one day it will all come crashing down and the artificial traffic inflation you have built your business on will bring you to a grinding halt.”
– Darcy Burk

“Capture as much real estate on SERPs as possible (Ads, Local Pack, Organic), but measure everything. Some terms you may think are important for leads may turn out to be vanity terms. Apply proper UTM parameters to everything you can to always test & measure.”
– Eric Rohrback

“You can’t ONLY do GMB and call yourself a Local SEO. You’ve got to be multi-faceted and include website content, technical SEO, and link building if you want to ensure great results”
– Greg Gifford

“Don’t take our word for it. Test these factors with your own sites and listings. What works for some, doesn’t work for all. Remember that we are in the business of improving local search visibility and that makes us biased.”
– Gyi Tsakalakis

“The basics still work. There is not need to chase shinny objects tactics as they don’t have the staying power. Your business is your reputation and your reputation is your business. You can’t fake it or mask it. People will see through it.”
– Jason Brown

“I have worked on a lot of cases in the last year where the business owner had their Google My Business listing suspended and Google issued a new listing instead of reinstating the old one. This can have a massive, instant impact on rankings (negatively) as the new listing doesn’t rank anywhere, even if it has all the reviews.
Review gating is the one review-based policy that we’ve witnessed Google actually implement. I have seen cases where businesses have lost all their reviews due to review gating. It is not worth risking.”
– Joy Hawkins

“Ranking factors are not applied equally to industries, regions, or business types. I love to use these as directional guidance and test new and different tactics and suggest this for other”
– Krystal Taing

“Note: We chose Google Hotel Finder (GHA) as our number one criteria for Local Finder as that in the lodging industry, if you do not provide inventory to Google your placement in the local pack will be lower than competitors who do provide inventory. As that there are few ways to pass inventory to Google other than through an OTA (Online Travel Agency), GHA is now being embraced in our lodging industry through many of our reservation systems. This is very different compared to other types of businesses such as doctors, plumbers and lawyers, as that the Google local 4 pack ends up displaying in Google/Travel where inventory is King!”
– Lisa Kolb

“It’s incredibly important to know what moves the needle, what you should and shouldn’t do, but it’s really easy to get caught up on specific ranking factors that you can lose sight of the big picture. If you cover your basics and share accurate, valuable, and relevant information you should do well!
Google can make some weird, sometimes frustrating moves and knowing what’s important for your customers/clients first, how they will find your information, and what makes sense to your business, will help you navigate any unfriendly updates.”
– Liz Linder

“Non-Ranking factors and negative factors for localized organic rankings which pairs with the suggestion of CWV related items.”
– Matt Lacuesta

“Forecasting what will happen fills me with dread!”
– Noah Lerner

“Always do your own research.”
– Nyagoslav Zhekov

“Don’t try to do more than 3 things at any given time. Those 3 steps will change throughout your local SEO effort, and there will always be more to do. But don’t try to overhaul the site AND build citations AND earn links AND earn reviews AND fight spam AND create new pages AND shoot videos – and so on – all at once. Stagger the work. Otherwise, you’ll spread yourself thin and not do anything to maximum effect.”
– Phil Rozek

“The pandemic has shown us that Local Search and local presence is more important than ever. It is still a mystery to me why so many – especially large enterprises/multi-location businesses – invest so little time and effort in Local Search. The value online and most importantly offline is significant when done right.”
– Rasmus Himmelstrup

“There is lots of (well justified) complaint that Google puts too much weight on GMB business name as a ranking factor.
That used to be the case for proximity as well. This great 2018 study shows how the local finder was largely ordered by proximity: https://getstat.com/blog/whitepaper-how-distance-intent-shape-a-local-pack/
It used to be easy to bring up examples of a local finder in which each business was further away than the one ranking above it. It was almost as though the businesses were simply ranked by distance. I think that’s changed significantly in the last year or two. It appears (to me, anyway) that Google is putting more weight on other ranking factors and has turned down the dial on proximity.
Perhaps they’ll eventually do the same for keywords in the business name.”
– Stefan Somborac

“Links are not everything – a well run business, with a great product and some thoughtful coverage can often be enough.”
– Tim Capper