Miriam's 7 Local SEO Predictions for 2019

[MiriamEllis]

Greetings to our great Moz Community!

It's been a fascinating year in Local Search, and I thought it would be good to jot down a few of my personal predictions for the year ahead. I'd love you to add yours, as well, so that we can all think together about the local businesses we'll be marketing in the new year. Here we go:

1) Major player weaknesses could lead to a changing of the local guard

Whether it's Facebook's ethics scandals or Yelp's downward stock trends, loss of public confidence could mean a shift in a local search platform hierarchy that's been pretty well established for some years. These brands' ongoing challenges could spell out opportunity for newcomer brands, or could simply drive more people to Google. Google has had its own problems this year, but nevertheless...

2) Google will continue to dominate and monetize local search

For so many users, Google IS the Internet, and that's an advantage no competitor has been able to overcome. In 2019, I expect to see further monetization of local SERPs, including LSA, in-pack local ads, booking buttons, and other forms of lead gen. Local search marketing will become more spendy. For more on creating strategy in this environment, read: Why Local Businesses will Need Websites More Than Ever in 2019. And, for retailers...

3) Real-time Online Local Inventory will become a real "thing"

I'll have an article coming out on this in early 2019 on the Moz blog (Update: Now Published: https://moz.com/blog/taking-local-inventory-online), but in a nutshell, we're on course to cross a new threshold in search. You'll finally be able to search for local inventory and get accurate information about who near you stocks what in their stores. Google's See What's In Store feature will be part of this, but so will emerging third party technology. User behavior will change as a result of this, and just like we've all integrated online mapping/local search into our daily lives, we'll soon be familiar with using search to find local inventory. This is really great news for retailers of all sizes! Meanwhile...

4) The line between brands and people will blur further

2018 has been a fascinating study in what appears to be a rising consumer expectation that brands align with customers at a philosophical level. We saw Nike's stock go to a record high due to their deft read of the nation and company alignment with Colin Kaepernick, while other retailers lost millions over culturally-insensitive content. Big rewards and boycotts represent the two extreme ends of this spectrum in which your CEO isn't really a private person anymore, but rather, a member of the larger society with a voice that will be assessed for its empathy to causes, groups and events. This puts brand employees in unfamiliar territory, having some of their fate rise or fall based on the public stances of company leadership, and it puts a new premium on skillful awareness of societal trends. Because of this...

5) Smart local brands will speed up focus on sustainability

Political pundits are predicting that the 2020 US election may be referendum on Climate Change. This means that US customers will be inundated with messaging and news surrounding this over the next two years. We're already seeing big brands like Patagonia respond by saying that they're "in the business of saving the planet" and Salesforce co-CEO billionaire Mark Benioff promising that his company will be running on 100% renewable energy by 2022. I predict that a growing body of consumers will increasingly expect and reward sustainable brand practices. 2019 will be a very good year for the local businesses you market to do a green audit of their business model, implement change and then promote their Climate-friendly practices. Think big on this, because...

6) Reputation will be key

Everything a local business can do to please and retain customers should sit at the core of the business model. Whatever it is that gets your customers to leave positive reviews, return for repeat business, recommend you via WOM to their friends and family, and view you as a vital component of local commerce will have a serious impact on your reputation, rankings and revenue. Google recently stated that 27% of local searches have an intent of reading reviews about a specific business and our recent State of Local Industry Report here at Moz found that 91% of respondents agree that reviews impact rankings. Reputation, and the awareness of its role, will be very big in 2019.

7) Link building will become more deeply integrated into Local SEO

Local Search Ranking Factors 2018 cited links as the 6th most influential local pack factor. This means that smart local SEOs will double down on their organic skills and start pursuing relevant links for their clients with professional, organized strategies and good tools.  Any Local SEM package that leaves out link building will be incomplete.

All in all, I predict we're in for an exciting, challenging year in which clear vision and a dedication to service will be the keys to local business success.

**Now it's your turn! Where do you see us going in 2019 in the local search industry? Please, share your own predictions! **

[Adlanera]

Nowadays, it's too easy to do Local SEO for your website. I'm working on a project of artificial grass Malaysia that is a local-based project and I have seen many good result in Google.

[sjjani]

I'm also looking for the local SEO solution for my Two Way Radio website that working on the device repairing.

[MiriamEllis]

Definitely a good addition, Alex!

[Xiano]

I think one thing missing from your list is the impact of voice search. I think voice search will continue to grow everywhere, including in the local search area.

[MiriamEllis]

Thanks so much, Taylor! Do you have any predictions of your own to add?

[TaylorRHawkins]

This is seriously a great list.

And very well-written to boot!

[MiriamEllis]

Andrew, thank you for sharing such thoughtful observations, especially in explaining what you've seen work best over the past year. Useful!

[Andrew-SEO]

These are not much of a prediction as they're already happening but.....

I think clicks / pogo sticking is going to continue to influence rankings heavily. We may even one day see internal site navigation influencing this process (possibly through analytics etc - maybe not if GDPR does not allow)

I think we will see more of the idea of less content, in terms of less keyword cannibalisation and one highly targeted, high authority, highly ranking piece of content. _This could be good or bad. I like the idea of less poor content but I'm not sure about single "authorities" on a subject. _

As snippets evolve, schema will become ever more crucial. I like snippets as they are a very immediate form of content delivery however they also have the ability to block people out so again this is a double-edged sword.

The most successes I have had this year has been through combatting index bloat, implementing pagination were possible, getting the index lean, getting the right pages indexed, reconnecting backlinks and improving internal linking. _All these consistently deliver. Pretty basic stuff but it works and should be maintained. _

[MiriamEllis]

Glad you found this interesting, Andrew! Thanks for stopping by. Do you have any predictions of your own to share?

[MiriamEllis]

Thanks for reading, Joe! Agree with you that Internet users are demonstrating an exceedingly high level of tolerance for Big Tech misbehavior. What's in front of us is a whole new year to see whether we see fundamental change at these brands or more and worse disasters that could bring us to a tipping point. I'm hoping for the former, but worried we may see the latter.

[Andrew-SEO]

Thanks Miriam this is an interesting read.

"Google will continue to dominate and monetize local search" - This is worrying as this directly affects my sector. More of the walled garden.

[jasongmcmahon]

Great read Miriam, It'll be interesting to see how the social media landscape will actually change, people may leave Facebook, but _may _come back once the noise dies down; there is no real competition to them. Just like Bing & Google!

[MiriamEllis]

Thank you, John! Any predictions of your own to share?

[JohnSammon]

This is great stuff! Thank you for sharing!!

[MiriamEllis]

Thank you for sharing your prediction, Donna! Agree with you that reputation management and link building (including linked unstructured citation building) will be recognized as competitive difference makers. I believe structured citations will remain table stakes in 2019 (something you have to have to get in the game).

As for major players, yes, I think there's a possibility we may see a change. I won't go so far as to name a particular brand, but there are several majors who appear to keep making the same mistakes to their own detriment as far as public sentiment is concerned. Unless we see learning and change from these mistakes, they could be in trouble. We'll see!

So glad you added your thoughts. Hope we'll see more community members join in. Wishing you a wonderful new year, Donna!

[DonnaDuncan]

Related to your #7, I think citations will continue to diminish in value to the point where unrelated and unauthoritative sources will no longer "move the needle" or be worth acquiring. Local SEO companies are going to shift gears and put more emphasis on providing education and services around reputation management and link-earning. I realize some of that is happening already. I just think we're going to see more of it.

You think there might be a big change in local players this year? That's interesting. Are you thinking of any one company in particular?

[MiriamEllis]

Pahahahaha! Thank you, Michael. That made my morning.

[MichaelC-15022]

I think most of the community is currently Christmas shopping online...and making decisions based on fake reviews :-p.

[MiriamEllis]

Ah! That's a good one, Michael, but I get why it's more of your wish than a firm prediction. David Mihm hopefully predicted Google would focus in on review spam in 2018 and was sorry to have to report it did not happen. Maybe 2019 will be the year - here's hoping!

Thanks for reading and for adding your smart take. I hope our community will keep this thread rolling with more good guesses!

[MichaelC-15022]

Great predictions, Miriam!

I'll add one more...maybe it's more of a wish than a prediction...that Google will make some sort of serious strides towards cracking down on fake reviews (both positive and negative).  Hopefully not as over-the-top as Yelp's approach (which throws a lot of babies out with the bathwater!) though.