The Local Stack Rollout - A New Day In Local
-
Hey There, all my fellow Local SEOs!
Yesterday morning, I was searching for a car wash and was really puzzled to see my search return snack pack-style results, given that I wasn't looking for a restaurant, hotel or an entertainment venue. Sure enough, what I had run into was the rollout of Google's latest local SERPs, which for the sake of clarity, let's call the Local Stack. This is happening in multiple countries and across thousands of keywords and your local clients (or your local business) are likely to be affected by it, so I thought I'd post a heads-up here.
Good Reading:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/08/06/7-pack-becoming-3-pack-with-mobile-like-snak-pack-rollout/
That last one has a bunch more great links in it.
In June, I wrote a post here on Moz itemizing my concerns about the Snack Pack and its impacts on the hospitality/entertainment industries. Now, these same concerns are coming to me local-search-wide, with the rollout of the Local Stack. My early days key points from looking at the new Local Stack:
-
No phone numbers without clicking through to Local Finder, which I consider to be really poor usability, given the invention of the cell phone and the way we use it call businesses.
-
No links to the Google+ Local page, meaning that consultants like ourselves may have a really hard time explaining the value of creating a Google listing when so few SERPs will now actually lead to that listing.
-
3 chances to rank when your city has dozens or even hundreds or businesses in a single industry seems next-to-impossible. It's not a good reflection of the diversity of the business scene in the real world. There aren't 3 Italian restaurants in San Francisco or 3 lawyers in Boston. There are scores of them. Google's Local Stack is a poor reflection of the real world, in my view, and makes every city look like a one horse town.
-
On the other hand, the baldness of the Local Stack is making the 'more' link at the bottom of it really jump out at me, and if you click through, up to 20 businesses will show with the Local Finder. So, I'm a bit torn on this. Are the 4 businesses that just fell out of prominence with the removal of the 7 pack worse off or are 13 businesses now jumping for joy because they are in a sort of pack today that they weren't in 2 days ago? I guess this depends on how willing consumers are to click that 'more' link.
-
Given the meagerness of the Local Stack, organic is likely a great deal more important now for every local business, but I'm concerned by SERPs I'm looking at which are mainly taken up by directories rather than any actual local business websites.
So, those are some first thoughts from me and I would totally love to hear yours on this thread as you are trying to assess how you see this impacting your clients or your business. It's definitely a new day in Local!
-
-
That's a little odd. I'm still getting the old results.
-
A three pack.
-
What do you get for 'Plumber NYC'?
-
I'm seeing snack packs on my iPad.
-
Interesting thing... I was spoofing my user agent in developer's tools. Queries from Nexus and iPad tablets still return the old map pack et. al. Interesting. I kind of thought of mobile and tablet as 'one thing', but apparently it's not - at least at the moment.
Confirmed it on physical tablets I have laying around. Yay internet appliances!
-
Think of desktop search as a dying breed. That real estate doesn't really exist on mobile and tablet.
-
Those that have an address listed tend to have the Directions icon. Which isn't terribly useful for businesses that don't typically generate foot traffic. Poor SABs.
I initially thought The Googles were attempting to do away with the phone part of NAP confusion, for people. You know, click the Website icon... more than likely they'll get access to a good phone number. It may be unthinkable if all the listings have been well managed, but I would imagine that's the exception and not the rule.
I really want to know what they were thinking when they made packs for restaurants. No directions... no phone number... until one clicks through on a listing. Then you get what you wanted to know about to begin with (the actual listing... with phone, directions, menu...) followed by results related to the actual company. There's a difference between the click through display on desktop and mobile, but the gist is similar.
It seems like The Googles has been listening to an exceedingly drunk and confused focus group.
-
Yes, I don't expect that space to remain vacant for long. It's so hard for small businesses to compete. I really hope we don't see Google try to monetize it.
-
Hey Donna,
Agree with you. So much white space on so many SERPs, it looks like a blizzard. One thing I've been thinking about regarding this, as many Local SEOs are speculating that this could be a step on the path to monetized packs and also considering Google's move into the home service fulfillment arena - what if we will see an iteration of this in future where you have to pay to get your address/phone to show? And on mobile, what if Google started charging for clicks on the phone icons? I wonder...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!
-
Hi Travis,
Yes, I'm seeing phone icons on mobile, but not on desktop ... and no addresses.
-
Disappointing.
I suppose not supplying the phone numbers will encourage a few more folks to click on the "more" link at the bottom (hoping to find one). It'll certainly be interesting to watch.
One thing that strikes me is the all the wasted real estate off to the right where the map used to display. When Ads are available, they're posted but often there is nothing but white space. I have a hard time imagining Google plans on leaving the space vacant for long.
-
Desktop Fun:
Well, if a listing doesn't have a site linked to their Google MyOMGWTFBBQ (If they can't make up their mind, that's what I'm calling it.) and they rely on service calls, that business is kind of screwed for the time being.
Yeah, one would have a higher likelihood of clicking on the business name section - if we're only talking about pixel height and width. But that graphic, though. People look for buttons, even if that button is only 84x106 on desktop.
People click on graphics. They don't visit plumbers.
Developer Console (emulated mobile):
I'm getting the little phone handset (what an anachronism) icon.
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
-
GMB listing not showing for local searches
Hi all, I've optimised an existing GMB listing that has been in place for over a year. The client is a yacht/boat broker and marine repair outfit based in Mallorca. When I search for terms that they 'should' be ranking for on Google and on a Maps search, they are nowhere to be found, yet their listing does show when you type in their company name. I've read lots of Local SEO guides and followed their advice but I'm not sure what I'm meant to do next?
Local Listings | | Bee1590 -
Never Removed My Local Listings?
Hi Local SEO experts, A while back we created Google My Business listings for a few of our company locations. A couple of months ago we removed them, because we realized that G might not consider them company locations as they weren't constantly staffed. Only problem is that they started showing up again. Truthfully I don't mind, but I just want to make sure the business won't get penalized for it. They say "claim this business" on the local listing because it's not claimed by us anymore. Is this okay or can we get in trouble for it? If it's not okay, how do I go about removing them if I don't have access to it? Thanks for your time, Rachel
Local Listings | | Rachel_J0 -
Moz Local and NAP
Hi, I go to moz local and i get 4 listings and is shows 2 as verified: Verified
Local Listings | | dansum
Northumberland Ave, Bury Saint Edmunds, Verified
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St Edmunds, Both of them tell me I have 13% inconsistency and the two words that are underlined in red as inconsistent are:
Ave, Saint My google places has it listed as:
Northumberland Ave
Bury St Edmunds My website and 4 of the 11 listings have it as:
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St. Edmunds The other 7 listings have it as:
Northumberland Avenue, Bury St. Edmunds Is this a problem do you think these very slight inconsistencies matter? If so should they all match what google places says the address is (I did try changing this from Ave to Avenue on google places but it wouldn't change)?1 -
Multiple locations and local directories
Hello, A client has opened a new office in another city. I have created a local landing page for this city. Now I want to build citations for it. However, I have already set up directories like Yelp/Yell with the primary/original address in the original city. Is it OK to set up new citations using the new city local address. The company name stays the same obviously. So I will have duplicate listings on the directories for the same company. Will this work? Thanks for any help
Local Listings | | AL123al1 -
New google maps listing was showing & now is not
Here is a brief description of what I am doing and what happened. I recently acquired a new client who had an unclaimed google business listing. We claimed the listing and within 2 days it was showing up for its main search term on Google. Almost immediately my client was receiving new calls from the listing. Within a week the listing no longer shows up with the other listings on the home page but does show up when searching on google maps. Does anyone have a lot of experience with Google+ & business listings? If yes, what are some of the most common reasons listings might be removed, shuffled around, increased or decreased in ranking, etc. Sincerely, Garret
Local Listings | | eWebify0 -
2 listings on Google Local....Need Help!
Hi All, One of our client have 2 business listings on Google Local for same business (same NAP but different website). Actually, their first website was under Google Penalty. They tried to remove the penalty but could not get rid of it so they bought a new domain and started working on it and listed the same business with new website URL. Now, their business is having 2 listings but with different URLs. How can we merge these two? Please advice. Thanks in Advance.
Local Listings | | sachin-sv0 -
How do we setup renting space without hurting our local seo?
Currently, one of our offices has two businesses in it that our owned by the same person. The law firm and the title company. They both use the same address, but they both rank locally for this area. I'm worried that having another company rent space here that is not affiliated with the owner AND is using the same address will hurt us. What are our options here? The best thing I can think to do is have them add a suite number or something to their listing, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. Do I need to get the post office is to verify that? Will google and the rest just overturn it, if it's not in their records? Anyone know how best to proceed with this? Thanks, Ruben
Local Listings | | KempRugeLawGroup1 -
Local SEO Brand Name Question
I have a franchisee client where the standard practice is to list their brand name as (ex: "[Brand] of San Diego, CA") on their website. I don't think that's the legal business name of the company, just how corporate chooses to organize the franchisees. The client often uses this name in the offline world so it seems to fall within Google's guidelines for creating a listing on Google My Business. https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en&ref_topic=4540086 I've heard conflicting answers from Google Places reps on whether to use brand + location or just brand. I've also seen articles that state if your business name is greater than 40 characters it can often be shortened if directories choose to pull your business data from a different source and that would make the listing name inconsistent. I'd like the added benefit of keeping the location in but I know large franchises like Subway don't bother adding location though. Anyone have any experience with this?
Local Listings | | GSO0