Local SEO.
It’s a fun subject for me, but for others, they’re left scratching their heads, and twiddling their thumbs wondering what’s next, what’s the next change that’s going to shake up their business?
In 2015, we saw more Panda action, mobilegeddon fear mongering, Google exploring paid placement, reducing the pack from 7 to 3, among other things!
In this post, I’m going to share with you my thoughts on what the areas of focus need to be, and what you need to do in order to get results for yourself and your clients in 2016.
5 Areas of Focus in 2016 for Local SEO
1.) On Page Optimization is STILL Crucial and Will Continue To Be
You guys have heard it from me before, on page SEO is the most important thing you can do. One of my most popular posts shared on this blog, is where I talked about just using on page optimization to rank a site in lots of different cities for lots of different keywords.
Maybe this one isn’t really a surprise, but I continue to see people preaching “more backlinks” or “more citations” every day; when the foundation for good results with local search, is based upon solid on page.
On page optimization doesn’t end with the website itself. In 2016, on page optimization of your Google My Business listing, citations, and other properties also play a big role.
Remember, local SEO is all about relevance. Location relevance and industry/keyword topic relevance.
As co-occurrence continues to gain steam in SEO, this makes proper on page optimization of your website, and business properties (listings, social media, web 2.0’s, etc.) one of the most, if not THE MOST important thing.
Important Tip: Don’t focus on one keyword, you want varied keywords that support the same range of topics. Industry relevance.
2.) Citations Still Important But NAP Consistency Not As Much
Citations have actually been decreasing in importance over the last couple years.
That doesn’t mean that they aren’t important, they certainly still are. After all, I created a guide on building citations that dispelled a lot of misconceptions surrounding the topic.
However, the way you think about citations has to change.
If you follow certain groups of people, they will tell you all the Google guidelines you should follow. They act as a cheerleader squad for Google’s web spam team.
I think most of the guidelines are fine. I think most are accurate and should be followed, but I’m not a sheep that believes what everyone says without testing things out on my own, and I hope for you to be the same!
There was a day, where citations were the local search’s backlink. Those days are over.
So How Should You Treat Citations?
Very rarely will you see citations be a difference maker in the results, especially now with the 3 place snack pack instead of the full 7.
The value of citations, aren’t as much about how many you can have, but how you can use them to bring in traffic and impact your rankings.
For sources that allow you to connect your social media accounts, or link to other properties OTHER than your website, you should take advantage of that.
Citations are about increasing your clients’ or your business’s reach or digital footprint. Of course, there is some ranking benefits to it, but it’s less about having your NAP, and more about striking a strong reach of co-occurrence between third party sites, you, and your business.
You could also use some citation sources as a buffer site, or parasite platform to further your efforts without risking a penalty.
Is NAP Consistency Still Important?
Here’s the deal… you should WANT your citations to be consistent. You don’t want conflicting information out there, but if it happens, it’s not a big deal.
The Google Local SEO cheerleading squad will tell you how devastating it is to your rankings, but the reality is that there is very little correlation that suggests problems in NAP consistency will be reflected in the SERPs.
It benefits you to have consistent NAP. As of right now, and from what I can tell in the direction Google is heading, NAP consistency will become even LESS important and LESS of a factor (if it even is one) than it is today.
So if you have a client that moved their office to another location, or some citations have a tracking number instead of the regular number…. it’s no big deal. Sure, you don’t want your customers to be confused, but really, it isn’t a big deal.
I’ve seen countless top 3 rankings where people had a mess of citations. Some only had as little as 10 citations in a very competitive field, but they were still doing well.
In the coming weeks, I’m going to share a post on how to use citations in a new way, that actually DOES make a big impact in local search. However, the reason they make an impact, isn’t because of name, address, phone number format, but because of a more macro approach.
3.) Panda Will Be Adjusted to Impact Local Search
One of the best kept secrets of Google My Business, or Local SEO in general is that you are almost immune when it comes to many of the Google penalties.
How could Panda have hit local results for businesses that don’t have much to talk about? Can you imagine a locksmith have 2,000 word posts on their site? The fact is many of the local businesses out there don’t have a need for content rich sites.
Does that mean they’re going to be targeted for having “thin content”? Probably not.
Something I’ve always believed about Panda, is that it is less about having thin content, and more about reducing PR flow throughout a website. Yes, PR, even though it isn’t publicly updated anymore, and we don’t know what the PR of a site is, Google does use it as an internal metric.
Will will see some version of Panda or maybe it will be something else, that will hit many of the local results.
I have a feeling, it will be more targeted at directories than it will businesses in GMB. After all, if Google is wanting to make a run at pay to play results, it is in their best interest to hit some of the directories that dominate local organic search.
This in theory, would be a welcomed event for most local business owners.
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4.) Exact Match Domains Are THRIVING with Local SEO
In January of 2015, I wrote a post on here about 3 myths of local SEO, and one of them addressed the hype around exact match domains (EMDs) and its’ “decline” in SEO.
A while back, there was an announced update by Google that exact match domains would be given less weight.
As with any Google announcement or public change, there were a lot of people crying about it, saying they don’t work anymore, that you’re better off going with a branded domain, etc.
I mentioned earlier, the 3 pack stack and local search in general seems to be a bit immune to a lot of the updates that happen. This was and is, no different.
Maybe Google did reduce the weight that EMDs carried. A reduction in weight, doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. If you lose 5 pounds, does it mean that you’re no longer there? Maybe you carry slightly less mass, but you’re still there, breathing and living life.
I have seen absolutely no evidence that EMDs are not useful for local SEO. The announcement of the reduction of weight given to these domains, was over 2 years ago.
If EMDs aren’t working…. then why are the results for local searches, showing a TON of EMD’s in the snack pack and in organic?
Look for yourself… In some cases they will be partial match domains, but it’s still the EMDs getting a lot of love by Google!
5.) AMP Will Be About as Effective as a QR Code
I still remember at some point in 2011, maybe 2012, I was telling people to forget about QR codes. The Mobile gurus, product creators, and blind followers thought I was crazy, or stupid, maybe both!
My argument was that it isn’t practical. Your potential market is reduced, you need people that have smart phones in their hand, that have a QR code scanner app, in order to even see your “special offer”.
In my opinion, it was a marketing gimmick that didn’t work. When Google dropped QR code support for their local listings, that was the death of the QR code. No more. It’s over, it’s done, it’s dead.
Now what does this have to do with AMP?
For those that don’t know, AMP is Accelerated Mobile Pages. Supposedly Google will have an icon or something that says “fast” by the search result.
By no means, am I suggesting AMP will be worthless like the QR code, but I do believe you’re going to hear a lot of hype around it, and you will see product creators taking advantage of that hype even though it likely won’t make a major difference.
Mobile browsing is still relatively new. AMP may be a standard for a year, but technology is evolving rapidly.
Those big into technical SEO, think it’s going to be a HUUUUUGE difference maker.
It won’t be.
As of right now, a non mobile compatible website or non responsive website, still performs quite well on mobile searches.
Google said that it will/does factor in page speed for mobile searches. How much? Very little. After AMP is widely implemented, it will probably factor in, a tiny by more but not enough to justify all the hype.
Don’t buy into the hype or the hysteria that follows the hype.
This wouldn’t be the first Google project that goes nowhere, and won’t be the last. Remember Buzz? Dodgeball? Google Answers? Jaiku? Didn’t think so… Google+ and AMP will join their cousins in the digital cemetery soon enough.
Final Thoughts
We’re already in February, but still have a long way to go to the end of 2016. A lot of things can happen, and I’m sure we’re going to be in for some surprises.
What do you guys and girls think? Am I wrong, right? Did I miss something? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments below!
Right on the money as always.
About the citation though, you’re right, but there’s another seo that called my client to let them know about NAP inconsistencies. Had my client questioning things even though they dominate their terms.
I’m actually going to send this to them in a minute.
Yep.. people mistakenly place so much focus on it, the data suggests you shouldn’t! lol. Thanks for the comment SEO dude, and feel free to send them over here.
Thank you man.
I love your blog posts and I love SEO and your post on the subject of local SEO!! lol.
Anyway, what is your opinion on Schema markup data stuff being a ranking factor for local SEO now??? I don’t think you have ever mentioned anything about it before, unless I missed it, I don’t think so.
I heard a lot at the end of last year(Fall) about how important Schema is for local SEO and that Google loves it.
What says you on Schema, Nate? Do you use it, and can you confirm if it is a ranking factor for local?
Thanks!
Marc
First of all Marc, thanks for your comment and great question. Glad you enjoy the local SEO posts!
I think when it comes to whether schema is important, or a ranking factor, we have to look at the facts. Google has said time and time again that Schema will not impact rankings. Integration within search, is simply a UX feature, which could in theory increase your CTR’s. However, there’s nothing to suggest schema is a ranking factor. Even if it were though, it would be so minuscule you would not see a difference.
You heard a lot about it because different SEO news sites reported that someone at Google said it could be a ranking factor. Unfortunately, they didn’t listen to the entire video and hear the context in how he was talking. It initially talked about the aesthetic uses of structured data, and eventually said he thinks it may be something added in the future. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, and the Google employee’s specific thoughts have been contradicted numerous times.
Schema isn’t bad… it’s a good thing, but useless as far as rankings go. I don’t talk about it because in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t important to me. lol.
Let me throw a wrench into this one… Google says the markup is NOT a ranking factor.. Im good with that. BUT, aesthetically a tagged listing is going to draw more eyes and more clicks. The ultimate ideals of SEO is? to get more clicks right? I think there is still even more here. Google says Schema gives them a better idea of what the page is about. Enter Hummingbird… users intent is now a goal… cross the 2 together, and Google wants to match intent with information and Schema tells Google what the page is about. The TAG may not have ranking ability, but defining content to match intent sure as heck seems to me like it would and from some testing I would say it does ( redefining a pages tags can and will increase / decrease rank )
I would have to say I agree with Savidge4’s take on schema. Think you’re right Nathan that in itself it isn’t a ranking factor, but as as he said, it tells Google what your content is supposed to be about, and if combined with good on-page, etc, does indeed help. But we’ll see where it goes, lol (things seem to change with G)
Won’t be the first time I disagreed with him! I just haven’t seen any data that supports it. It’s almost like saying that meta descriptions are a ranking factor, even though we know that they aren’t. It’s still early days for schema, so we have plenty of time to see what develops. Will be interesting, as always. Thanks for the comment!
We also must realize that even without schema, Google knows what a page is supposed to be about. As it gets even more sophisticated, I just don’t see a use… As with all things in regards to SEO, time will tell!
Hey, I really like your stuff, and you may be right, and more informed than me, but here’s another example: I also haven’t seen anything that will back up what people were saying about G penalizing slow sites, BUT, this is also something that indirectly affects rankings- if a site is slow, then people won’t generally stick on your site as long, or see as much of your content, and that will affect your rankings…..that;s my take on schema, same kind of indirect influence- no data probably to back that up either, so I can’t really say for certain….hmm, I’ll keep testing 🙂 (hey, and what do you use for comments? is this using WP and Jetpack?)
Well, pages per session and time on site would be considered behavioral metrics, but not metrics used in rankings. Page speed isn’t a factor on desktop searches, as long as the site doesnt time out for the spider. For mobile, it is an issue, but as long as you load in 10 seconds you’re good(that is sure to change though).
You may be right.. but I think we still need to ask ourselves, Is Google not sophisticated enough to know what a page is about without schema?
WP and jetpack for the comments! And by the way, thank you for your comments, always interesting to see other people’s take on certain things.
I think quality of citation is more important this year. Looks like some citation sites has no value for your local seo campaign. Right now we are moving up our standards like we do not use less than 19 of a Trust Flow. We also consider the sites domain authority and citation flow.
Seems like you have a reason to say great things about citations. Is that a conflict of interest? lol. Trust flow, in my opinion is another BS metric people waste time on. Good luck to you though.
Haha! I respect your opinion. We have been using any sites in the past regardless of any metrics and we saw it works for most of our clients. But it is different story this year, so we tried to use some metrics to select the best sites to use.
Sometimes with SEO, we all look for certain metrics or certain things to help us make sense of things. Google can be a tough, confusing nut to crack. Wish you guys the best of luck this year!
lol those good for nothin cheerleaders. I’m going from 0 to 100k by the end of 2016 so make sure these posts keep coming. I messed up bad last year because I stopped asking questions. Be prepared for many questions this year you Bully!!
Look forward to it John… 2016 is your year my friend!
Interesting to read your comments on AMP. I’ve watched the hype start over it at the end of last year steam roll into product (plug-ins) and training course launches. Glad I didn’t ‘buy’ into the hype. I’ve decided to watch from the sidelines and glad I did so after reading your post.
Every single time there is some announcement, product creators see an opportunity to build additional hype, and profit. lol. Hey, maybe I’ll be wrong and it will be the best thing since sliced cheese… but I don’t think so. Far more important things to worry about than that. Thanks for the comment Mike!
Money as always. Question for you Nathan. I have a client site that doesn’t have location in the url. We have a services (with content), then we have individual services pages. So the site looks like:
domain.com/services/service1.html
We have 6 services pages, so I’m wondering my options. Should I do:
domain.com/services/location/service1.html
I saw your other post about ranking the guy in lots of local areas from last year. I’m trying to make sure that we don’t get hit going forward.
I would think setting it up like that probably wouldn’t be as beneficial. If you’re going for the snack pack (3 listings) then you will have just as much of an impact by including those services in h2/h3 tags on your city specific landing pages. Now if you’re going for organic, you would likely want a setup similar to what you described.
Good article with some points not usually brought up, I am with you on AMP hype hype and not good for much
Thanks for the comment Mike, we’ll see for sure soon enough, but I have a feeling we’re both on the right end on this!