Miriam's 7 Local SEO Predictions for 2019
-
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! **
-
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.
-
I'm also looking for the local SEO solution for my Two Way Radio website that working on the device repairing.
-
Definitely a good addition, Alex!
-
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.
-
Thanks so much, Taylor! Do you have any predictions of your own to add?
-
This is seriously a great list.
And very well-written to boot!
-
Andrew, thank you for sharing such thoughtful observations, especially in explaining what you've seen work best over the past year. Useful!
-
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. _
-
Glad you found this interesting, Andrew! Thanks for stopping by. Do you have any predictions of your own to share?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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!
-
Thank you, John! Any predictions of your own to share?
-
This is great stuff! Thank you for sharing!!
-
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!
-
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?
-
Pahahahaha! Thank you, Michael. That made my morning.
-
I think most of the community is currently Christmas shopping online...and making decisions based on fake reviews :-p.
-
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!
-
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.
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 SEO in business acquisition context
Hi everyone, I have a client who just acquired 4 business. Basically, the 4 compagnies will stop existing and my client will integrate the production at his own adress under his compagny name. My issue here is that my client wants to know what is the best solution for his local results. The 4 compagnies still have a website that present the new business name will a CTA redirecting to the new website. Their GMB account are still active. I was about to delete the 4 GMB accounts so when a customer do a brand research, the organic result will show the old business website that will present the new business with a CTA on the website. My thinking is that since the old and the new compagny will compete on the same keyword since they are in the same industry, I don't want the old compagny to be in competition with the compagny of my clients. Is there a better solution that could benefit the local SEO ? Thanks y'all !
Local SEO | | alexrbrg1 -
Community Discussion: When The 'Coupon Drawer' Is More Influential Than Your Best Friend ...
Howdy To Our Super Community! When I was a kid, I was always fascinated by ladies who spent hours combing through newspapers and mailers, clipping coupons to put in a coupon drawer for future shopping excursions. It seemed like a lot of trouble to go to in order to save a a few bucks, especially given that I grew up in an era that still boasted a pretty stable middle class, but, it turns out, those ladies of yore were really onto something. A recent survey by Bazaarvoice and CMO Council found that coupons and discounts drive way more return/loyalty business amongst modern shoppers than any other factor, including recommendations from family and friends and paid advertising. Another survey by ROTH and Research Now discovered that 70% of millennial moms sought and downloaded mobile coupons while doing their shopping chores. There are a couple of facets of these findings that should interest any e-commerce business or local retailer. We've learned from a variety of studies that it can cost up to 7x more to earn a new customer than to retain an existing one, making loyalty programs smart business. Meanwhile, publications like the Wall Street Journal have made it clear that, in the U.S., the middle class is no longer the majority. These two factors seem to lend themselves to an important discussion for our community here at Moz, and in the marketing world at large. What is driving 70% of young mothers to use mobile coupons, as per the above study? Is it tight budgets, the love of a deal, pride in outsmarting 'the system' with a little extra effort? Is your company using coupons? Which ones have you seen convert most highly? Is there some element to them you've discovered to be a real winner? Interestingly, price is repeatedly cited as a minor factor in customer complaints, and yet, I've personally seen discounts/sales drive business like mad in both e-commerce and retail settings. Just how powerful is the love a deal? I would love it if you'd contribute your coupon/discount savvy to a discussion here, to help our community better latch onto this massively powerful influence. What are your thoughts and first-hand experiences?
Local SEO | | MiriamEllis2 -
Local SEO Website Structure.
Hi everyone, This might be quite a long post so please bear with me. I am currently rebuilding my website. My previous website was built by a web designer and was very basic. 5 page html site consisting of home, services, gallery, testimonials, contact pages. None of them were great - thin content, not optimised as well as could be - no h1's etc. To be fair I knew nothing about websites and didn't bother much with the site. As a new business I used it simply as a place for people to visit for more information after receiving a leaflet and never bothered much about driving traffic to the site. A few years down the line and I have realised I need the website to be working for me as opposed to alongside me. I am building it myself via wordpress as web designer didn't want to work in wordpress. I have done my keyword research and I'm working on pages as we speak. Previously my homepage - around 80% of visitors landed here for my main keyword (driveway cleaning glasgow) as it was number 6 in the organic listing. With my services page appearing directly underneath in 7 for the same keyword. I have starting building a new page for that keyword which contains (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) in the url. I have 301'd my previous services page to this url. Now for my questions...
Local SEO | | sfrediktru8
My 2nd keyword based on volume is driveway cleaning. How do I optimise for this or will the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page rank for this also as the words are contained within this page? I plan on having the same structure for the remaining services - pressure-washing-glasgow, monoblock-cleaning-glasgow etc, etc. As I am building new pages for each service with location built in, where does this leave my homepage? Should I be targeting keywords for this page? It is still my strongest page and apart from the (driveway-cleaning-glasgow) page which will get some help from the 301 these are all new pages so I would expect perhaps initially to lose some traffic. But as I am not ranking well for anything other than the main 2 keywords mentioned above it can only be beneficial long term when google recognises the specific pages for each service. And when I start using Adwords I will have a specific landing page for each service. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks0 -
Local Rankings
Hi all, I do hope to get some insight into this problem. I look after a webiste - http://www.crownhilldentalpractice.co.uk/ - and the age used to rank for 'dentist plymouth' in the middle of the first page of the SERPS on Google. The ranking then slowly slipped at the beginning of this year and following the Penguin update it has fallen to the bottom of page 1 and is sometimes seen on page two. Their competitors are mostly in plymouth, but there is a site whose physical location is close to my client, and yet they maange to rank more highly. I have tried to see what this domain has been doing - they have a marginally higher domain authority, but the clients domain is older. Checekc Webmaster, (no messages) re-submitted site map, built up internal links, optimised images, bilt up Google + with reviews too. They have some social signlas from facebook too. Any ideas of how to get these guys back up to above the fodl on poage one for that keyword? Kind Regards Carrie
Local SEO | | dentaldesign0 -
When you think you know Google, but realise you don't
I've just typed "Private Investigator" into Google, location set to "Coleshill" (it's near Birmingham!)
Local SEO | | Solid_Web
The search results were surprising:
Position 6: <cite class="_Rm">birmingham-privateinvestigators.co.uk</cite>
Position 8: <cite class="_Rm">privateinvestigator-coventry.co.uk</cite> Both sites are the same source of information altered to suit the city - INCREDIBLY SPAMMY. They are just full of SEO text stuffing. No doubt any city you enter they will appear with [city]-privateinvestigators.co.uk..
How are they ranking with such old-skool dirty SEO tactics? You can't say they will be found eventually, because Google has released algorithm after algorithm updates to penalise sites like this. Could it be the importance of having a local phone number and (supposedly) physical address?0 -
Local Printing Company Moving to a new IP - Will Our Rankings Change
I operate a local print and direct mail company located in Houston called Catdi Printing (www.catdi.com)We do very well with our local rankings and rank 2 or 3 in our main keywords ( Houston Printing , Direct Mail Houston & eddm Houston ) We are looking to upgrade our online quoting and ordering system. The software is very expensive and the only way we can incorporate this new system is to move our site and redirect our domain. The new hosting provider is located in California and might even be hosted by Google but im not certain on this point. Our current host provider is Hostgator and they are based in Houston so im not this provides any benefit. I guess my main question is will this new change affect our overall regular and local rankings? I would hate to see our positions and ranking fall because of this change. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks CATDI
Local SEO | | ChopperCharlie1 -
Dynamic websites & SEO
Hello Mozzers, I would love some advise from some seasoned SEO people PLEASE. The company I work for are replacing their static website for a new dynamic website which affectedly serves blocks of generic content based on the users activity. Currently we rank really well, especially for local long tail terms - however I am very unsure and apprehensive as to how this new approach will affect our rankings. Can Google index content pulled together on the "fly"? Can anyone recommend an article, website, white paper - explaining how to limit the change to SEO? Kind regards Ben
Local SEO | | Bendall0 -
Citations for a non-local campaign?
Is it worth building citations if one is targeting a national campaign with NO local keywords? Even if they have some effect, are they really worth the time, effort and costs?
Local SEO | | Gavo0