Community Discussion: Miriam's 2017 Local SEO Predictions ... And Yours?
-
I want to start this thread by thanking everyone in our community who has started and contributed to great threads this past year. You guys are an inspiration!
I want to offer up a few predictions for the Local SEO industry in 2017 and ask you to contribute your own:
-
Attribution will be big in 2017. Google will roll out a more thorough set of attributes in the GMB dashboard as we move forward through the new year.
-
We'll see further rollout out of paid packs in service industries in which Google can play the middle man role. Free-packs won't be gone by the end of the year, but there will be fewer of them.
-
Even SMB local businesses will have to start to tackle the ramifications of voice search.
-
Local SEO will continue to merge with traditional, offline marketing.
-
Local business websites will still matter, but Google will continue to do all it can to keep users within layers of its own local product, and some people will find this maze a bit bewildering.
-
Reviews will finally be recognized as an integral facet of citations, rather than as something separate from them.
Now, please, look into your own crystal ball and share your predictions with the community. What are your predictions for Local SEO in 2017? I'd love to know. And, while I'm at it, please let me wish each of you a busy and profitable new year in our exciting industry!
-
-
Hi Julie,
I wouldn't predict that happening in 2017 (or any time soon). Google has simply positioned themselves too well. That being said, Facebook is definitely one of the major deterrents to Google having the whole pie, and Apple Maps has made some improvements in the past year that could lead to them taking a little bit of a larger slice
-
Do you think anyone can make a dent in Google's dominance? I had expected Facebook to gain some share this year, but it doesn't seem like they've made an impact.
-
Nice predictions, Brett! Count me as one of the folks who thought G+ was simply irrelevant for most local businesses after the big G+/Local break-up. Lo and behold, I've spoken with industry folks I respect who have told me they are still getting traction from it in 2016 for some clients. I'd love to see more people writing about the specifics of this.
-
I see Google focusing on mobile more and more. The launch of Pixel was specifically done to maintain search share (people rarely change default browsers on mobile devices, which Microsoft used to their advantage in Europe by releasing phones preloaded with Bing).
That said, mobile friendliness will be ever more important. This means the mobile first index will be fine tuned, and I expect to see more ad revenue focused on mobile this year. Site speed will continue to play a factor, and further integration of video into the SERP and paid ads is where I'll put my money.
HTTPS is already a ranking factor, but I expect that to become more important in the future once a certain threshold is crossed. Once Google can force the issue without impacting their own search quality I'm sure it will happen. Unknown if that will be a 2017 advancement or further down the line.
And of course Google will continue to try and make G+ relevant
-
I can see that, Donna. The race will be to the swift, for sure. Go small local businesses, go!!!
-
Good ones, Gyi! Thank you for contributing. Agree with everything on your list ... with the possible exception of (hopefully) less spam. This always seems to be at the bottom of Google's own list. Haha
Really enjoyed your points.
-
Small business owners' frustration will grow as Google continues to add layers and nuances to an already crowded and overly-complex process making it harder for them to allocate the time and resources needed to compete.
-
1. Paid Local Packs
2. (Hopefully) Improved local pack data (i.e. Google My Business, local phone tracking).
3. More SERP to lead capture (i.e. schedule appointment, message, etc).
4. (Hopefully) Less spam.
5. More local packs appearing lower in SERPs (i.e. organic outranking packs).
6. Links will still matter.
7. More local pack filtering options.
-
Good ones, Sean! Thanks for contributing to this. Especially like your prediction about 'near me' searches
-
Hey Miriam,
Whatever happens, I would LOVE Google to roll out a more comprehensive way of exporting Google My Business data - the API is still massively limited and the manual process of exporting data for clicks, calls, website visits etc. is an absolute killer!
Referring to your prediction number 3 on voice search, I'm thinking there's going to be way more of a focus on geolocation and we're going to see another huge rise in 'near me' searches.
All the best,
Sean
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Local Site stuck on page 2 for years. Can’t penetrate page 1! Help!
Hey there Moz community! This is the first time I've ever asked a question here so please forgive if I slip up on any etiquette. I manage a website for a small Orlando Florida family law and divorce law firm who are targeting search phrases that include those "Orlando divorce attorney" variants. The site is located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/ If you run a search for "Orlando divorce attorney" along with close variant search terms our law firm website for about the past two years has hovered at the top of the second page of google but has never actually penetrated page 1. When you examine metrics such as page authority, domain authority, trust, and other traditional metrics it tells you that our site should be on page 1 but alas it's not happening. We have, however been featured quite often in the three pack for the local listings for the target search terms. Though valuable, our goal has always been to be featured in the top three of the organic search results. To add to the confusion we have a practice area page located at https://www.affordablefamilylawyer.com/orlando-divorce-lawyer/ dedicated to divorce and expected that page to rank for these divorce attorney search terms but it will not rank for the search terms and instead our homepage ranks for them every single time regardless of how we swap around the optimization on the page. Never had any manual actions. any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated and I really appreciate your time!
Local SEO | | Seanthewood1230 -
To Keep My Company's CO.UK Page Or Redirect It...
Hi Moz'ers - I have a question... Just to set the stage, we're a small recruiting firm, with an even smaller marketing department. I'm essentially a one man wrecking crew and don't have a ton of extra time. That being said, I know that page rank (and local office rank) are critical to our inbound lead generation, so I'm willing to invest some of my time into doing it right. The issue I'm having is ranking high as a local business in Austin, New York, San Francisco, and London, UK (to name a few). So far I've solved this through building dedicated subpages on our .com site and link building key word anchor text towards those pages. The only page that's not really gaining traction is our London page. So I decided to clone (most of) the site, tweak the text (to try and avoid dup text), and try and get that page to rank. I'm also having it hosted on a local server, have it using a local domain address suffix (co.uk), using local hreflang (on our .com site), created dedicated web 2.0 sites, and done my best to do some link building. The problem I'm facing is crapy local ranking, and limited bandwidth to maintain two sites. Should I: A) Scrap the co.uk site and focus on the .com (and subpages)
Local SEO | | bettsrecruiting
B) Keep the co.uk domain, and just redirect the URL to our .com page
C) Keep the co.uk domain, send all links from the home page to the relevant page on our .com page, and set up 301 redirects for all other relevant pages.
D) Hire someone to clean up, rewrite, and upkeep the co.uk site because it has the most SEO value in the long run and is the only way I'm going to be able to rank locally in London. What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance! Tim Our European Site - http://bettsrecruiting.co.uk/
Our US Site - http://bettsrecruiting.com/0 -
Getting Schooled in Local by 'Lesser' Brands?
Hi Moz! First question I've asked here. I've been working on campaign for my company (regional solar installation company in Northeast USA) for close to 7 years, we've always done well in local search but recently have noticed sites that, for lack of a better word, we 'school' in terms of all the usual metrics - better/more consistent local listings, better domain strength, better backlink profile, bigger company (in the real world), brand recognition, etc... However recently we have started seeing smaller competitors beat us in state-specific rankings, using stuff I would call 'old school' SEO that is no longer really tolerated, in theory - stuffing keywords onto page, keywords in domain, etc... domains of much less strength pulling #1 or #2 terms. Based on data I don't actually think keywords like "solar + state name" are actually that powerfully but frankly it is bit embarrassing to get crushed by 1-2 person companies when you have a 150+ company with a three-person in-house digital marketing team. My strategy so far has consisted of building a better Google review solicitation process, adding schema markup to our project gallery, and some SEO 101 stuff like reworking keywords and title tags. I've noticed a strong uptick on our site of leads from outside our territory (like folks from all across the USA who are NOT in our service territory) - I'm almost thinking I've done 'too good' a job of building a nationally relevant website and not enough state-specific options. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Any clever strategies beyond the obvious? Can share more specifics if it'll be helpful. Cheers,
Local SEO | | revisionsolar
Fred0 -
Is using emoji's in meta descriptions a good or bad idea ? - I haven't seen it used much hence my query
Hello Mozzers, We need to redo some of our meta descriptions as our CTR's are not to good. I've noticed one of my competitors using emoji's which I personally think looks pretty good. They are using the Phone icon and ticks - as calls to action etc However, I can't see hardly anyone else using them on general serps ...so I am wondering , is it a bad idea ? thanks Pete
Local SEO | | PeteC120 -
SEO: Directory Listing Help with Two business locations in different states
Hello! I am in the process of building my second location, and will be moving to Nashville TN. My first location is located in ohio, and I am changing my primary location to nashville, but still want to keep my clients in Ohio... At least for the first year. As for directory building, what is the best option? 1.) Should I create two separate directory listings for each location and then direct www.domain.com to Nashville directory, and then www.domain.com/ohio-wedding-photographer/ to the Ohio listing in the directory? Or do you create one directory and mention I have offices in both Ohio and nashville? Is it bad to have two listings for each location if they have different addresses and phone numbers? Thank you!
Local SEO | | jean78780 -
Local SEO Best Practices for 2,000+ 'location' service area business
Hi Moz Community! We operate a business where we have a network of 2,000+ technicians around the country who help people repair their mobile phones. These techs do the fixing at the customer's location, making them service area businesses. Even after scouring all of the go-to places on local SEO, I'm struggling to find best practices for this type of situation - the fact that our techs are operating in service areas presents a number of challenges. The biggest one, it seems, is that inevitably service areas are going to overlap. When I talked to a Google rep on this he said this "might" cause our locations to get de-listed and we'd just have to test and find out. Other challenges include the fact that we cannot bulk upload the service areas of our techs, and we cannot bulk verify - meaning there is a ton of work to do at our scale. Any suggestions on where to go to find resources on this specific topic, or an example of someone doing this well we can model? Thanks everyone!
Local SEO | | JohnGroves1 -
How worthwhile is schema markup for a local business?
One of our clients was told that they need to implement schema on their website, and now they're very concerned that the lack of schema might be holding them back. We could certainly implement it for them, but I'm doubtful how much of a difference it will make. The client is a plastic surgery practice, so their content is fairly straightforward (services, locations, photo galleries, etc.). We're planning to add schema markup to their name, address and phone info in their website footer, but we're not sure if it's worthwhile doing anything beyond that. (I'm assuming schema markup for customer ratings would best be handled by a dedicated review management system like RealPatientRatings.com). What would you recommend for schema implementation?
Local SEO | | ClearPivot0 -
Question about Multi-Locale/Lang Sitemaps
If you have one site with multiple language and locale variations how best should one approach the sitemaps. Here is what I believe the options to be: sitemap_index.xml which includes all of the difference lang/locale sitemaps on the site create 1 main sitemap that includes the rel=alternate href lang for ever alternate page to the main US version. Do the sitemap_index.xml for all the other sitemaps and also include the rel=alternate href lang in those separate ones as well. I have these in this order because it goes from least to most work....Thoughts folks?
Local SEO | | DRSearchEngOpt0