2019 State of Local Search & How to Get Your Business In Front of Users

we put you in front
of your customer
2019STATEOFLOCAL
How to get your business in front of users?

Confidentialwww.milestoneinternet.com | 1-408-200-2211
OURPANEL
JakeBrennan CarrieHill KanikaThakran
(Moderator) Co-founder – Technical SEO
Ignitor Digital Marketing
Director of SEO & Social

MILESTONE–DIGITALPRESENCEPLATFORM
W E D R I V E O N L I N E R E V E N U E A N D L E A D S F O R L O C AT I O N - B A S E D B U S I N E S S
Finance | Hospitality | Restaurants | Retail | Automotive | Healthcare
Silicon Valley ● Chicago ● D.C. | 2,000+ customers | 500+ Awards
Full Service Digital AgencyThe Presence Cloud
Software for digital marketers Platform independent services
CMS Local
Reviews Insights AnalyticsSocial
Design Content SEO & local
Paid
Marketing
Social content
marketing
Analytics &
consulting
Schema Voice

TRUSTEDBYTOPBRANDSANDOVER500AWARDS

Confidentialwww.milestoneinternet.com | 1-408-200-2211 @MILESTONEMKTG
2019BUSINESSGOALS
1.INCREASEBRANDAWARENESS
2.GROWSALES
3.INCREASEREPEATUSERS

HOWAREUSERSSEARCHINGFORBUSINESS?
46% of queries had local
intent.
51% of mobile users discovered
a new brand/product.
50% of mobile users to visit
stores within one day.
Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics

ASOLID LOCAL
STRATEGYIS KEYTO
SUCCESS!
If you’re not investing in local SEO
that means your competition is
converting those searches into sales
8

WHATARESOMEOFTHEMOSTPOPULARSERPFEATURES?
Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query by a searcher.
GOOGLE
Local
Carousel
SERP
Features
Local
“Pack”
Results
Local
Knowledge
Panel
Site links
Review
mark-up
Featured
snippets or
People also
ask
Image or
videos
block

NON-BRANDEDSERPSFEATURES
Bothimpactmorecompetitivequeries”Location+category”andarereshapingthelocalSEOlandscape!
@MILESTONEMKTG
LocalCarousel Local“Pack”
A horizontal Carousel display of local search results A SERP feature that shows local businesses related to search query

BRANDEDSERPSFEATURES
Showupforbrandsearches&providefindkeyinformationaboutlocalbusinesses
@MILESTONEMKTG
SiteLinks
Reviews
Imageblock
Knowledge
Panel
providekeyinformation
aboutlocalbusinessessuch
astheiraddress,phone
number,hoursofoperation,
topquestions,reviews,
eventsandmore

OTHERSERPSFEATURES
Showupforbothbrandsearches&takethezeropositiononthescreen
@MILESTONEMKTG
Peoplealsoask
Relatedquestionsshowuphereandthis
featureiscontinuingtogrow
FeaturedSnippet
Thiscanbeforbrandedornon-branded
queries
Tips on how to rank for featured
snippets:
1. Ask and answer a question
on the website.
2. Have structured data – FAQ
3. Build links to that content,
both internal and external

TOPFOCUSAREAS OF 2019
LOCALSEO STRATEGY

TAKECONTROLOFYOURGOOGLEMYBUSINESSLISTING
Leverage new features & keep your Google My Business profile optimized a 100%
INFORMATIONON
PRODUCTS&
SERVICES
FOCUSON
GOOGLEPOSTS
&Q&A
NEWEVENTS
FEATUREONGOOGLE
MAPS

INFORMATIONONPRODUCTCATALOGINGMB
Launch (April 4, 2019) : Product Catalog in the Business Profile on desktop Search

INFORMATIONONSERVICESONGMB
For all the spa services offered at this resort the details are updated in
Google My Business

AUTOMATEDGOOGLE-POSTSFROMREVIEWS
Types of Google posts available for businesses Posts show to users on knowledge
panel and maps searches
1. Google posts expire in 7 days
2. Events last for a set time period
3. Google is also testing auto-
suggest option on posts.
Example

NEWEVENTSFEATUREONGOOGLEMAPS
This feature is great for hotels as Google posts are not
available to hotels.

MANAGEINFORMATIONONALLKEYCITATIONS/DIRECTORIES
Top Tier Citations are important and invest 80% of your time managing those 20% top citation
Local Search
Engine
& Hyper Local
Listings
Data
Aggregators
Niche directories (Restaurant)
Social ChannelsMaps
APPS & LISTINGSMilestone Presence Cloud
Source Tier 1 Citations
Apps &
Channels
End-points
Inadditiontothecorecitations,focusingonNichecitationswillALWAYSbeimportant.

LOCALPAGEFORYOURSTORESORBRANCHES
Great place to link GMB for individual locations & drive more organic traffic to the website.
Store
Locator
Products and
Services
Information
(hours, location)
Meet Store Staff
Consumer
Reviews &
Social
Local Content
and Offers
Community
Events
ANATOMY OF THE IDEAL LOCAL PAGE

@MILESTONEMKTG
Optimize your pages
for WHERE you are &
WHAT you do
Location &
contact info
Reviews
Products &
Services
Events &
Community
Local
content
Customer
offer

BUILDQUALITYLINKSNATURALLY
Links specific to that location, built to that store/location page are best!
Link
Building
Trade links
with
supporting
business
Local
sponsorships
Content
based links –
Blogs, PR
Brand
mentions

MEASURING SUCCESS OFYOUR
EFFORTS ON LOCALSEO

CITATIONCONSISTENCYSCORE
NAP+W consistency on core channels/citations is the key!
@MILESTONEMKTG
1. Being present on the top
tier citations is the first
part
2. Having consistent
business information is
the other critical part
• How often are
maintenance
activities being
performed?
• What happens to
GMB updates
coming from users?

GOOGLEINSIGHTS–BRANDVISIBILITY&ACTIONS
Bank with local branch pages
January
February
M
arch
April
M
ay
June
July
August
Septem
ber
O
ctober
Search Impressions for branch pages increased 129% in
3 months
More consumers reaching out to the local pages
• Increase of 112% in the number of searches for branches
• 51% increase in requests for driving directions
• 35% in phone calls to branches from “click-to-call”
1. One central dashboard to
see performance of all
the locations under one
view is critical
1. Top performers
2. Locations that need
more attention
2. Phone tracking & UTM
tags placement on GMB
is recommended for most
accurate reporting on
leads

LOCALPACKKEYWORDRANKINGS –NON-BRANDVISIBILITY
Boutique hotel in Sedona, AZ
@MILESTONEMKTG
Jun'17
Jul'17
Aug'17
Sep'17
O
ct'17
N
ov'17
D
ec'17
Jan'18
Feb'18
M
ar'18
Apr'18
M
ay'18
Jun'18
Jul'18
Aug'18
Sep'18
O
ct'18
N
ov'18
Citation management
New website
30 days after site live: 814% increase in keywords on local pack 1. Measure visibility on
local 3 pack and
impact when local
SEO is done full (on-
page + off-page)
2. Tools – SEMrush,
BrightEdge, Milestone
Insights, BrightLocal,
Whitespark

TECHNICALHEALTHOFTHEWEBSITE
Platform
Performance and
Site Speed
Optimization
Crawlability
Optimization
Search
Optimization
Minimize
HTTP requests
Minify
JS & CSS
Optimize
images
GZIP
components
HTML
validation
CSS
validation
Link checker /
internal links
Canonical
tags
XML sitemap
(images, video)
Optimized
meta tags
Header tags
(H1, H2, H3)
Alt Tags for
images
Schemas
markup
Social
tags
@MILESTONEMKTG

#ENGAGE2018
TECHNICALHEALTH
SCORE
1. Ongoing review of the
website technical health is
critical.
2. Ability to compare key
elements – Speed,
Schema, keyword rankings
etc. against competitors
may provides key insights
on what are your strengths
and which areas are
opportunities for your
business.

TRAFFIC&CONVERSIONSFROMLOCALPAGES
AUTO dealership (10 Locations)
3X Increase in Traffic to Website
At 3% conversion, 180 new cars over 3 months
Website launch
1. Measure before & after traffic
to the website and
specifically to the local pages
2. Key KPIs:
1. Google Search Console
1. Impressions
2. Clicks
3. Ranking
2. Google Analytics
1. Traffic to the local
pages
2. Bounce rate/ time spent
on-page
3. Soft & hard conversions

LINKSAREIMPORTANTFORLOCALSEO!
Link placed on the
website
1. Impact of link building is
hard to measure. Some
links can drive referral
traffic but others could help
with building brand
awareness or impact page
authority
2. KPIs for link building:
1. Quality & quantity of links
2. Traffic/leads driven from
those links to the website
3. Impact on page authority
score

KEYTAKEAWAYS
• Have a robust Local SEO strategy
driven from your business goals
• Google My Business listing
• Key citations/directories
• Local page for your location
• Build quality links naturally
• Don’t forget to measure success
of your local efforts
• On-page
• Off-page

QUESTIONS?

ENGAGE.MILESTONEINTERNET.COM

2019 State of Local Search & How to Get Your Business In Front of Users

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from Milestone Inc

More from Milestone Inc (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

2019 State of Local Search & How to Get Your Business In Front of Users