It has been a very fast year with lots of developments in SEO & Digital Marketing. As customer informational needs have grown and local markets have also become more competitive, Search engines also have adapted to meet these new requirements of the customers.
Business owners, Agencies, SEO professionals, businesses have now new tools & more data, and easier access to both as compared to last year.
And Customers/consumers, are getting more information they require through a creative, engaging, and seamless local search experience.
Google & Changing Customer/Consumer Buying habits disrupt Local Search
In current years, many of our most important & top local search engine updates are from Google, but it doesn’t come as surprise:
Due to the Covid Pandemic, Google quickly responded to the changes in the customer buying habits & remains the dominant force in the market.
- Currently, Google has a nearly market share of over 92.4% in the search engine domain worldwide.
- 83% of local customers use Google Search to find details about local products & businesses & 90% will purchase in nearly one week of their initial search.
- Currently, Google facilitated more than 2 billion connections such as reviews & reservations between local shops, businesses & shoppers per month in 2020.
- [Available near me] Google Searches increased rapidly by 100% in 2021; [now near me] Searches by 200% in 2021, and [along my route] Searches 1000% in 2020.
That means understanding the changes to local search engines through in 2021 & adjusting & applying your 2023 strategy accordingly. So below are the most important & updates of 2021, that you should know –
Google My Business – Google Business Profile Listing Made Local SEO More Convenient For Businesses
When Google Re-Branded the Google My Business to Google Business Profile, This new name also bring many new features & updates with it.
Which most important is that now business owners no longer need to use any application to update/edit their business details & correct their business listings. Now Business owners can directly change/update the details, Add business hours, contact details, pictures of the business directly from the Google Search engines & Google Maps.
Now Business owners also can complete the business listing & verification process & resolve issues like search pause, business shifting. Making an easier presence in the local search results.
Google makes it easier to find and understand the latest local news
In the searches history [Show near me] searches triples in the search history the worldwide. Google has recently added features to its local SERPs to the creation of local news & easier to find.
Google Launched two new projects for this, which help journalists, enrich their stories & local data & information for the local news. Details are given as below –
Scheme Project
It collects, analyzes & visualizes data collected and then processed by the Associated Press about a locality for the local search news.
General knowledge project
It analyzes data at the local, county, state, and national levels by accessing their comparisons, charts, and visualizations.
The search engine made it easier to locate local news stories & nearby information in SERPs with these updates:
- local news library: Local news library consists of the local news relevant to the user query/searches & appear at the top of SERPs, It makes them to fines the local information & publication
- Show episode of the most important news: Many Trusted local news sources appear in the major application, which users/consumers have previously searched.
- More news in search: Google has improved its quality & ability to associate news with broad queries.
- local tweets – Local journalists & publications also appear in local news in tweets rather.
Bing added more visuals and rich results
In March 2021, Microsoft Corporation released five major updates in Bing, which are focused on the local search & Relevant results with the rich & smooth experience by improving the visual elements & text base search results. These updates are–
Expandable Rotors – it gives additional information on hovering the search result
Similar infographic Result – it gives similar infographic results as shared by the consumer.
Intuitive highlights – it extracts detailed information like – ingredient list, calories & other information from the page without clicking on the link.
Integrated Visual Search – it allows users to search visually for similar items.
These changes are modes to focus on the local search & its optimization for the more attractive & relevant searches.
Everyone gets new attributes
Google Regularly updating it & releases new themes, which changes the complete look & feel of the Google listing page, Also it keeps adding new attributes like online appointments, grades, online classes, products, services, digital sponsorships.
Domestic e-commerce got a boost with pointy
In June 2021, 50% of American shoppers said that they are intended to check online about the products & their details like inventory, price, and features. This means that adding your products to Google’s business listing & keeping the details & inventory updated is very helpful. Its might some time to keep everything up to date. For this Google Also gave some pointy integrations to integrate your store with it.
The rollout of the first mobile index is still in progress
Indexing offering the first mobile device has been on the horizon since Google announced it at the end of the year 2017 firstly. Since then there have been many ups & downs including a delay in Sept 202o which the Search engine stated that it would postpone mobile indexing until march 2021. In which source of the problem? As Google cited many tags including meta tags for bots, lazy loading, blocked assets, core content, mobile images, & videos.
Google Search tells us about its stats ie. 76% of the user uses smartphones to search for something nearby & nearly 28% of them result in a sale. So If you don’t offer a smooth mobile experience then you need to get it.
New Free Local SEO Insights & Tools
SEO professionals & Local businesses should always keep looking for new tools & updates from the search engines. There are many tools offered by search engines to keep updated & get the right information & Insights.
One important tool is Local-Pack-O-Meter, developed by Local SEO Guide, using this we can search different types of data & Google searches including local packages, Knowledge cards, shopping, job posting, and many other things.
If you are looking for more data & information about your local SEO & strategy for 2023, then you should check the latest updates & opportunities. Although these points have critical in the 2023 local search engine strategy, they are not the only content you should concern about.
If you are starting with the local SEO make sure you should set up the local listing & update the important details there like products, services, online appointments, contact details, inventory details other which your consumer might look for. If you still want more information & looking for your business listing contact us.
