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Local SEO strategies targeting “near me” queries in the Local Organic section of the SERPs (the non-Local-Pack/Map results) have been kind of a thing for a few years what with Google making it a default suggestion for most queries it considers even remotely “Local”: While SEOs have been studying the effect of the latest update on […]
A year or so ago, the guy in charge of local search for a fairly big brand wanted to see if we were interested in a project to research if the vendor running their Adwords campaign was “stealing” their local organic traffic by spending millions each month running PPC ads on all of their branded local queries (e.g. “[BRAND] [CITY]”, […]
A couple of weeks ago, I was having a great day and tried to pass on the positive vibes with Lucky To Be In Local SEO! Today I am sure many of our U.S.-based readers have their heads way out the door in anticipation of the three-day Labor Day weekend so I thought I’d try […]
News Flash: Link disavowal research for a hacked client with a ton of backlinks is a huge PITA. Thankfully, I have figured out a cool way to save a huge amount of time keeping spam links in check while maintaining my sanity thanks to Excel’s Conditional Formatting tool. For my very first post on LocalSEOGuide, I figured I’d geek […]
If you have been doing SEO for the past few years, particularly for start-ups, chances are you have had to figure out how deal with SEO for Progressive Web Apps. Progressive Web Apps can be great for users but they are not always the most reliable for SEO. Google has not exactly been consistent in its […]
We often get asked why Google is not indexing the URLs in a client site’s XML sitemaps. There are plenty of reasons why Google may be ignoring these sitemaps. For example: Sitemap URLs don’t work URLs in the sitemaps redirect/don’t work/timeout, etc URLs in the sitemaps are not linked in the UI or are generally […]
I had the opportunity to cover Dr. Pete’s talk at SMX Advanced for Search Engine Land (Andrew isn’t the only one who can repost his content). But seriously, I think the talk was really important for people in all aspects of the SEO space. It’s easy to get carried away with doom and gloom when it comes […]
SearchEngineLand just posted my transcript of the Ask The SEOs session from last week’s SMX Advanced 2016. I started reading it to make sure I had accurately represented the conversation and it occurred to me there were some real gems in there that might benefit from being summarized here. I also loved the shot I […]
Hey Everyone! Andrew and I are about to go onstage and present the results of our 2016 Local SEO Ranking Factors study at SMX Advanced. This study is the largest quantitive look at Google My Business ranking factors done in Local SEO. We hope it can help provide direction on how to prioritize your Local […]
We have been doing some research into Google’s Answer Box and discovered that what is served as an answer is dependent on search personalization. In the screenshots below there are two different results for the search “michael strahan net worth”. This first one is when logged into a browser: And this one is from incognito […]
I just downloaded GBoard, the new Google iOS app that replaces the standard iOS keyboard with a keyboard that allows you to search Google from the board itself – and the results show up as cards at the bottom of the browser. Check it out: Gboard appears when you start to search in an iOS […]
Check out the “342 matches” snippet attached to the MadisonApartmentLiving.com result for “madison wi apartments“: That “342 matches” is only visible on the MadisonApartmentLiving home page when javascript is turned on: So not only is Google seeing content in JS, it considers a number + “matches” relevant enough to put it in the SERP snippet. […]
So Paul Ryan has said he has no interest in running for President regardless of what happens in Cleveland, but Google’s Knowledge Graph seems to have other ideas: To be fair Boehner is still considered “a” Speaker of the House but who is speaker of the house right now? Like I said, don’t trust Google […]
Hey it’s a free tool (thanks guys!) and certainly better than nothing, but #IHaveADream… THE NAME The name, while arguably more descriptive, cannot escape its history as “Google Webmaster Tools”. Maybe in a few years we will all stop trying to say “Google Search Console” while actually saying “Webmaster Tools”. Maybe. HTML IMPROVEMENTS How about […]
Per my previous post, Are You Doing Local Answers SEO?, we have noticed these types of results are becoming more common for queries that have local intent: Click to enlarge these sorry screenshots This is in line with the increasing presence of Knowledge Graph results over the past year. We believe that Google is starting […]
@localseoguide I have absolutely no clue — Gary Illyes (@methode) March 11, 2016 Check out the description snippet in this query for Examiner.com, which is a fairly large news site that has been around for years: Perhaps at some point, maybe a decade ago, Examiner.com was owned by The Journal Newspapers. It’s not now. Check […]
Google’s “Set My Location” option in the Search Tools section appears to have pulled a Google Plus Local… First spotted by the ever-diligent @LennyPham. From @DarrenShaw: “Fortunately, &near=city_name is still working for getting localized results outside of your city.”
When Google rebranded Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console SEOs were going wild over the new Search Analytics report. However, as the resident skeptic I’m not so quick to worship at the feet of Google’s data. Rankings Up, Impressions Down It seems pretty intuitive to say as your rankings increase, so too should your site’s […]
From the #Duh! department: In case you are still arguing with your developers about how much time they should be spending fixing site performance issues, I thought I’d pass on the following screenshots: Click to enlarge
It’s kind of big news in the Local SEO biz that Thumbtack.com* has received a manual action penalty from Google for unnatural linkbuilding. If you study Thumbtack’s backlink profile or read some of the articles on the subject, you can see that perhaps parts of their backlink strategy may have gotten them into trouble, which […]
When SEO Roundtable reported that Google had fixed a problem with the Local algorithm, I checked some of the local directories that I had earlier reported had been doorwayed and lo and behold: So Google taketh away and Google giveth back…for now…
It’s really important to update your <title> tags when re-launching or re-branding a site It helps create a better search experience, and decreases confusion related to your branding. For example, oDesk recently rebranded and relaunched their site as UpWork: Their <title> tags are properly updated and there is no disconnect when you do a branded […]
UPDATE June 1, 2015: FALSE ALARM! May 23rd is a day that shall live in Local SEO infamy… (Click to enlarge) Seeing this across several U.S.-based local directory sites. Not across the board, but more than a few. See Did Local Directories Get Hit By Google’s Doorway Page Algo? to see how directory rankings may […]
If SEMRush data is directionally correct, this may be a reason why Yelp is looking to sell. Should rebrand as Yikes! pic.twitter.com/UqplA4ZLSq — Andrew Shotland (@localseoguide) May 11, 2015 Perhaps SEMRush is still updating but if its organic search traffic graphs are even close to accurate it looks like May is the month that Google […]
MobileGeddon: The MobileTastrophy is upon us and so far nothing has really happened. This is good news since I’m not quite sure Google understands what mobile friendly actually means. Remember this is an algo update that is supposed to run at the page, not site level. Here is an example of a page that I […]
Update 4/11/15: According to a little birdie who spoke with Gary Iyles at the BrightonSEO conference, Gary “guaranteed” pack rankings won’t be affected. Guess we shall see… Google’s pending Mobile-Friendly algo update has become the Apple Watch of SEO – I can’t look at my Twitter feed without a blur of “How to get ready for […]
Today Google published “An update on doorway pages”. The post implies that Google will soon be updating its algorithm to weed out offending doorway pages from the SERPs: Sites with large and well-established doorway campaigns might see a broad impact from this change. While sites with spammy set ups such as multiple exact match domains […]
Last week, Google started to switch out its local Carousel results for a new set of mobilish-type pack results that appear to rely heavily on its local Knowledge Panels, so let’s call it a Knowledge Pack, or “K-Pack”, for the purposes of this post. In his seminal post Some Thoughts On The New Pak Results […]
Last week I posted some theories on why Google’s Pigeon update may have hurt the local rankings for some big local brands. While we have seen a lot of positive rankings improvements for our local clients, we have also heard of some large multi-location brands that got hit with 5-10% traffic losses. My take was […]
The answer is when Google My Business is aggregating and averaging out your reviews. In Google My Business math these nine different 5 star reviews average out to a measly 4.9. For a company that has ~2,000 Ph.Ds in it’s employee, has written one of the most sophisticated computer applications in human history and is […]
