There’s never been a more relevant moment than this one for doubling down on your stewardship of your Google Business Profile. Today, I’d like to tell you why that is and then show you why you should prioritize making the most of nine fields on your listing that demonstrably impact your visibility in Google’s search engine results. Plus two additional fields that have just been discovered as looking like strong ranking factor candidates.
Today’s column is a very simple one, but if you follow the advice in it. It could have a meaningful impact on the revenue of any local business you’re marketing!
Why is local search visibility more important than ever?
I calculate that I’ve been overseas data tuning into Mike Blumenthal’s take on local search for about 20 years now. There’s a reason his voice has become such a trusted one in the industry. And I want to summarize something he recently wrote which strikes me as elegantly encapsulating this moment in local search time:
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There is a ton of talk at the moment in the larger SEO industry about Google self-preferencing its own results. At a legislative level. Google favoring its own products so that third-party assets are less visible has become the subject of antitrust inquiry.
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A historical example of Google self-preferencing is the 2007 removal of a highly visible link to MapQuest. Which has been cited as contributing to the downfall of that once-dominant brand, while the self-preferenced Google Maps rose to near-monopoly status.
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When it comes to self-preferencing, Google’s local graph is an asset they are extremely interested in protecting. As Mike Blumenthal states in his piece,
At the EU EMA hearings in
Brussels…Google was quite clear that they would not be talking about Local Search results or their entity graph in the context of “self-preferencing.” By attempting to set up this boundary. They’re trying to protect one of their important sources of proprietary data that encourages zero-click behaviors: the local graph.”
Every local business owner and SEO should best sports venues 2022 read Mike’s full article. Local Search Is Evolving, Here’s Why You Need to Pay Attention. In the context of these realities and of the overall state of search in 2024. These are my three top takeaways and tips:
1. Unpopular SERP changes
There is absolute chaos going on this year in the organic SERPs due to a variety of updates coupled with the rushed rollout of elements like AI Overviews, which set a new high bar when it comes to self-preferencing. Most of Google’s recent asb directory developments are not big wins for publishers/business owners whose content is being scraped and turned into AI hash and whose own sites are struggling for organic visibility amid content farms and other low-quality entities.
