If any of the themes below pique your interest, we hope you’ll consider subscribing as an All-Access member.

Without further ado, here’s our take on the biggest themes of the past 11 months:

Google doubles-down on self-preferencing

Six multinational gatekeepers, including Google, were due to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act as of March 2024. The most relevant provision of this Act for local search marketers is article 6(5) prohibiting self-preferencing.

Google introduced a number of new user interface elements to the local SERP as part of its DMA compliance response, but in our analysis of over 700 European consumers’ search journeys for restaurants, hotels, and home services, these elements received fewer than 2% of all clicks.

Meanwhile, Google’s own Business Profiles continue to eat 50%-80% of all user engagements when users see them. (The lowest engagement we’ve seen occurred in the Hotels vertical, where barely 50% of users scrolled past the ads at the top of the SERP).

At the public compliance workshop hosted by the European Commission in March, Google jaw-droppingly attempted to argue that Google Business Profiles, featuring the company’s own business data and first-party reviews from Google users, which resolve to Google.com URLs, were somehow not subject to the DMA’s provision against self-preferencing.

A European Commission decision on Google’s compliance in Flights, Shopping, and Hotels is due in the first part of 2025.

Google continues to double- and triple-down on displaying more and more modules featuring first-party local, flight, hotel and shopping data. Aside from the financial risk of regulatory penalties in Europe, Google’s product decision to continue to bloat the SERP with these modules (AI-organized or not) is even more bizarre when you compare the cognitive load required for searchers to process them vs. SearchGPT’s minimalist responses.

High-profile hacks & fakes continue to plague Google Business Profiles

Despite Google’s assurances of addressing fraudulent activities, it remains alarmingly simple to alter a business’s phone number on its Google listing, posing significant risks to both businesses and consumers.

Despite being reported in March 2024, the “Map Pin Hack“—where malicious actors manipulate a business’s Google Maps pin to a different location, adversely affecting its visibility and customer directions—remains unresolved, with Google yet to implement a fix.

A meme originating in Tennessee has led to numerous schools worldwide being (humorously?) renamed “Hawk Tuah School” on Google Maps, highlighting ongoing vulnerabilities for massive business harm posed by Google’s “suggest an edit” feature.

While not a hack per se, Google has added unauthorized “Reserve with Google” booking buttons to healthcare providers’ Business Profiles, allowing third-party platforms to manage appointments without the providers’ consent, leading to patient confusion and scheduling issues.

Despite a high-profile lawsuit and subsequent $5 million consent decree against Seattle’s Allure Esthetic for falsifying online reviews and suppressing negative feedback, Google didn’t remove the fraudulent reviews from its platform, continuing to display 4.8 stars and over 900 reviews–not to mention a keyword-stuffed business name–even today.

Google’s decision to allow such rampant malicious activity on Business Profiles, especially while amplifying their visibility, fits FTC Chair Lina Khan’s characterization of a monopoly as “too big to care” to a T.

SearchGPT’s makes a genuinely impressive local search introduction

While I don’t expect SearchGPT to overtake Google anytime soon, it could make a meaningful dent in Google’s market share as soon as 2026. Here’s why:

Content Generation: SearchGPT excels at creating detailed content outlines from simple queries, outperforming many paid SEO tools specializing in this exact task.

Context Retention: It maintains context across multiple searches, enabling natural and refined interactions without the need to restate details.

User Interface: The platform offers concise and relevant local search results with a dramatically cleaner interface compared to Google’s module- and ad-heavy pages.

Personalization: SearchGPT leverages user history to personalize results, enhancing relevance (but posing challenges for tracking visibility and rankings).

Distribution via Chrome extension & Apple Search: Alongside the SearchGPT rollout, OpenAI has aggressively promoted its chrome extension which prompts users to replace their default search engine. While Apple’s Text-to-Siri interface is largely hidden from view in its current beta incarnation, it appears Text-to-Siri (backfilled by ChatGPT search results) could be a pixel-for-pixel replacement of Spotlight Search in the iPhone interface.

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The Metaverse will evolve from distraction to (virtual) reality for brands
While many believe Facebook’s rebrand as Meta and focus on the metaverse is a strategic distraction from bad press fueled by the Facebook Papers, we believe at Anvil that its horsepower, deep investment in the metaverse, along with additional investment by other major players like Microsoft, will inspire many brands to dabble in the virtual world in 2022. While consumers maybe a few years from caring about the metaverse, early adopters will embrace the novelty and utility. We’re hoping that the 2022 iteration of the metaverse is more than just a glorified Second Life.

Web 3.0 will become ubiquitous
Consumers’ concern over data security and creating a safer online environment to share personal data will be driving forces that fuel the growth of Web 3.0 technology in 2022. The evolution of blockchain technology in particular will provide a safer user experience (UX) for consumers, where they will feel safe sharing first-party data and know exactly how third-party platforms are using personal data. Combined with improved AI functionality, semantic metadata and 3D graphics – Web 3.0 will deliver an improved and better UX for all users. As full data transparency is on the horizon, this will accelerate the transition and put control of data back to where it belongs – the user.

Video marketing will become a vital part of any online marketing strategy
Consumers rely increasingly on the video to make decisions about the products they are buying. Video platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok feature live streams, unboxing, and testimonial product videos, which are going to gain popularity in 2022. As a result, video optimization and advertising on TikTok and YouTube will be increasingly necessary. Google has also rolled out structured markup features like clip markup which help users find important individual parts of videos, increasing the need and value of optimization for commerce. Using new and emerging markups on a brand’s most popular videos will help to improve user experience and Google’s ability to digest and index the video content.

MUM will strengthen Google’s ability to understand more complex searches
Google is always working to get users quicker, more seamless access to information. MUM, or Multitask Unified Model, uses AI to formulate an understanding of the context behind searches and will have a greater influence on search results in 2022 and beyond. Google recently demonstrated how MUM works, showing that search results would attempt to fully answer a search query with text, imagery, maps, and more. With MUM, content strategies will need to provide unprecedented depth, in order to provide searchers with all the information in a single result. The days of providing only topical information on a given webs page in order to gain organic visibility in target searches are numbered.

OTT will gain traction as ad targeting options decrease
Security and privacy demands are creating problematic limitations with third-party cookies and data tracking. Facebook, Apple, and Google Chrome are limiting data collection capabilities. Social media and search engine platforms will become much more generalized, with decreased targeting capabilities. Ad platforms will eliminate audience targeting, limiting advertisers to first-party data collection. These changes will encourage more brands to explore connected TV, podcasts, and platforms like Spotify that have their own internal marketing platform where the user controls what content they want to see. Products like Google’s smart TV and the new Roku TV are allowing viewers to stream content and enjoy gaming, utilizing click-to-buy on-screen ad placements. Smart TVs will be getting smarter with shopping from your own home with enhanced OTT streaming advertising options.

More businesses will move to DTC eCommerce
Due to the pandemic, businesses ranging from psychiatrists to car dealerships have begun marketing and selling products and services direct-to-consumers (DTC) on their websites. Companies are tired of losing profit by selling wholesale to distributors and evolving technologies have made eCommerce approachable to even the smallest business. Even larger retail chains are starting to focus more on DTC eCommerce, limiting physical store locations, retail footprints, and headcount. Brands like Nike are limiting distribution of its footwear and apparel so they can sell more direct and other brands will follow suit in 2022. The additional margins gained by DTC eCommerce sales can be reinvested in digital marketing to further increase profitable revenue. We predict brands will sell on select marketplaces (like Amazon, Walmart.com, and Target.com) to augment reach and revenues, but will still rely primarily on DTC.

More companies will offer retail media networks leveraging first-party data
With the impending loss of third-party tracking cookies in 2023, companies and marketers alike will be exploring new opportunities to reach prospective customers. Companies such as Target, Walmart. Recently, Lowe’s launched its own media network, allowing advertisers to utilize its company’s first-party data and reach customers as they shop online. As the pandemic accelerated the adoption of online shopping, we expect retailers will offer additional advertising opportunities on digital storefronts in the coming year.

Third-party cookie data will begin to sunset itself
With the anticipation of platforms eliminating third-party cookie data, marketers are forced to produce workarounds. Even though Google has pushed out its third-party data sunset date to the end of 2023, users and businesses have been preparing for the loss of critical targeting data with various workarounds, including the increasing use of first-party data. With Google failing to find a viable solution that meets everyone’s needs thus far, we predict there will be some sort of industry compromise by mid-2022, resulting in third-party data naturally sunsetting by year’s end on most popular platforms.

Influencer marketing will fuel sCommerce
Influencer marketing has gained notoriety within the digital marketing ecosystem as an essential strategy in the past few years. At Anvil, we believe the next evolution for influencers is to become the foundation for successful social media eCommerce (aka sCommerce) in 2022. In addition to important metrics such as engagement rates, influencers will be commonly compensated based on a commission structure related to conversion rates (leads or sales). With a greater focus on performance metrics, influencers will achieve a higher level of credibility with brands. Micro-influencers will rise significantly in popularity due to their accessibility to small businesses and the appeal of being able to target nuanced audiences. Retail eCommerce brands invest in direct shopping formats on popular social platforms, including TikTok.

Multicultural representation in marketing will continue to increase in importance
The digital age, accelerated by COVID-19, has created a world that is more interconnected than ever before. The term “global village” carries increased weight as even extremely remote areas see mobile device use continuing to reach saturation point. The success of international content breaking into the US mainstream has also led to an acceleration in engagement and demand for global representation. South Korea’s Squid Game on Netflix is the latest example, following the Spanish global hit Casa de Papel (Money Heist). With content publishers leading the way, brand advertisers will follow suit, developing new strategies to maximize the relevance of multicultural inclusion within marketing messaging, including messaging from the US’s own backyard.

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1. Link Signals – Get involved in your community and it will be easier to get links. Consider, for example, local newspapers, charities, organizations, schools, etc.  Asking the right questions when onboarding new clients will help with this.  Also, pay attention to your internal link strategy.
2. Content Signals – Unique content is no longer a differentiator. Create content that’s localized and provide an exceptional user experience.  Optimize for city and/or state in the tags and use local content silos to build relevancy.
3. GMB Signals – It’s critical that you choose the right categories. Upload plenty of photos and change them often.  It’s also important to add UTM tracking to your website link to ensure clicks are attributed correctly.
4. Citation Signals – This is mostly a foundational tactic. Your citations must be consistent.  Pay attention to both structured and unstructured citations, and remember that all of your citations play together.  Check your top 15 citation sources using Moz Local’s free tool, or go even deeper with Whitespark’s tool.
5. Review Signals – Spread reviews between platforms i.e. Facebook, Google, industry sites, Yelp) and consider using a review survey system such as getfivestars.com. Make sure your responses to reviews are well-written.  Remember – you can’t fake caring about your customers.

Greg ended his presentation with a generous Q&A session addressing a wide range of audience questions.

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February 7, 2017 – SEMpdx welcomed two SEO experts to speak at our February event.  Kevin Chow, from Webfor, shared his insights on the future of local search, and David Portney, from 3Q Digital, discussed real-world SEO strategies and tactics that everyone can start implementing right away.  Following are a few key take-aways from the evening:

• Centroids are not always located downtown. With desktop search, the centroid is located where the cluster grouping is for each vertical.  With mobile search, the user is the centroid.
• When it comes to data aggregators, consider the overhead. Kevin recommended Whitespark as a good primary resource.  For example, you’ll find citations by industry, by location and by country.
• Make sure your Google My Business profile is fully implemented. Include the correct name, address and phone number (NAP), and list the correct categories.
• A few of the negative ranking factors to look out for are an incorrect business category, the presence of malware on your site and the absence of crawlable NAP on your site.
• The SEO keyword mapping process includes four main steps:
  • Keyword mining: Grab as much keyword data specific to your site from as many tools as you can.
  • Keyword expansion: Take at least 5-10 of your most important keywords and plug them into your tools one at a time. Identify all of your competitors’ keywords that you don’t rank for and export each data set to Excel where you can then de-duplicate the list.
  • Keyword analysis: Categorize and classify each keyword. For example, brand versus non-brand, relevance, funnel level, commercial intent, difficulty, etc.  Include whatever categories and classifications matter to you.
  • Keyword metrics: Use a keyword ranking tool such as SearchMetrics, Authority Labs, or another favorite tool you have to retrieve your engagement and conversion data. Pivot the data table in Excel to help you identify low hanging fruit.

Kevin and David both provided hands-on strategies and a generous selection of tools to consider using in our own companies.

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• While the “table stakes” are still important (i.e. store locator, location data), other factors increasingly matter as well. For example, brands and authority, in-store visits and more.
• Organic local search results are becoming unrecognizable. In fact, there is no longer a standard search result.  Google has become very smart about user behavior.
• As the space continues to fragment rapidly, unpaid local search on Google faces pressure. With this is mind, it’s essential to focus on traffic sources far beyond Google.
• Barnacle SEO will help drive long-term visibility for your business. Authority barnacles work well on Yelp, Facebook and TripAdvisor, among others.
• In a recent study, 90% of participants said they would give a review if they’d had a positive experience with a company. Of those, only 7% were asked to leave a review.  The takeaway, of course, is this: engage your customers in reviews.  They can impact your search efforts.

Once again, David brought us a jam-packed session on local search, leaving us with several action items to consider.  Attendees also benefited from his generous Q&A session afterwards.

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1. Customer experience is the next big thing – This brings together content strategy and user design.
2. Content quality over quantity – Before creating any new content, take care of your existing content. Think ROT: redundant, outdated and trivial.
3. Cooperative content takes center stage – Cooperative content includes a topical plan, user-generated content and employee-generated content.
4. Video becomes de-facto – With new apps continuing to roll out, video shows no signs of slowing down. Find a way to tell your story with video.
5. Paid social as important as organic – This is a mind shift for us, but nevertheless a new norm. If you want your message to be seen, be willing to pay a little money.
6. Owned social comes roaring back – Start thinking about what you can be an expert at.
7. Search teams up – Modern SEO is complex! It involves technical consultation, themes, content strategy, user experience and integration across multiple channels.
8. Local gets it right – It’s critical to get that local ranking, yet we still see missing information in search results. Be sure you’re covering best practices – everything from local search platforms to aggregators to tactical integration and more.

Focus on these themes in 2015 and you’ll be well on your way to making effective gains in your digital marketing strategy and, ultimately, your bottom line.

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When I went to Pubcon last month, I got invited to the first annual US Search Awards, as a guest of SEMpdx advisory board member Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink.

About 2pm on the day of the awards, I was checking to see what time I had to be there, and I noticed it was “Black Tie Requested”. Uh oh. Anywhere I go at a conference has been pretty informal and a few years ago I quit bringing even a tie and sports jacket, so all I had were cargo shorts and jeans.

I didn’t want to be “that one guy”, so I panicked for a minute… Then I thought about just buying something acceptable, but there really was almost no time after the sessions ended, so I whipped out my phone and I searched for “tuxedo rental”.

The first thing I saw of course was a Google Adwords Ad and a call button, so I clicked it. I got a message telling me to leave a message, so I hung up and called the next one, and a guy answered the phone.

Six hours later I looked like this:

Now I think Al did an amazing job,  by performing an urgent service in the most fantastic way possible,  so like any good customer might do, I left him a quick review at Google, and wished him well, thanking him profusely.

This is a snapshot of my review, that I just happened to notice while dinking around at home on the weekend…

Wait, what?

What could possibly be the problem here, Google? My review doesn’t adhere to your policies? I’ve read them throughly, and there’s nothing that could possibly be misconstrued.

Anyone working for the local search reviews quality team (does that exist, @davidmihm?) could EASILY look at my profile and see that I’m a real person, clearly not leaving fake reviews, so why would you punish him?

Google has arbitrarily decided to take away not only a possible ranking factor for him but a likely influencer of another customers decision whether to hire him or not.

Does the fact that I’m an internet marketer in my Google+ biography somehow invalidate myy review? And if so, then why not invalidate all of my reviews?

Jeez, it’s not as if I was his page manager or something… Is Google implying that I might be leaving fake reviews for pay? I’m offended!

Small Business Saturday

Today is Small Business Saturday, so I thought I’d show my support by helping Al out, and helping Google out by reposting the review here, and I even used structured data so they can figure it out..

To be clear to any lurking Google spam team members with nothing better to do, he is not a client, and I have no dog in the local tux market in Las Vegas or anywhere else.  I am simply a happy customer that left him a great review, but you’ve chosen to disallow it, so I’ll leave it for you again here.

My review:

Al Phillips Formalwear

“Can you guys get me in a tux in three hours?” was my question on the phone, and “where are you staying?” was the answer.

 

From the time of my phone call to the time he arrived at the door was about 35 minutes, and he measured me and had the tux back to my room about an hour later. Amazing!

Everything fit perfectly, but just in case, he sent an extra pair of pants and an extra jacket. They even threw in two types of tie because I wasn’t quite sure which I wanted when he asked.Great service – HIGHLY recommended!

Written by: Scott Hendison

Date published: 10/23/2013

5 / 5 stars

He Deserves The Review

Local SEO rankings aside, he deserves a link too, one that is *not* nofollowed,  and shouldn’t have to be.   He did not pay me to link to him, or give anything in trade (other than provide great service), Google, so don’t even be thinking about penalizing his organic rankings either with some sort of manual action.

Just like there was nothing illegitimate about my review, there’s nothing illegitimate about the editorial link I’ve placed here either,   and if it happens to help him rank better for “Las Vegas tux rental” because of it, then don’t hold it against him either.  He deserves it.

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Among the top 7 changes that have occurred in local is the importance of Google+.  It’s amazing to consider that Google+ Local is just under a year old.  Aggressive changes continue to roll out and now more than ever, brand plus location is paramount regardless of your company size.  Help Google help you by implementing rel=publisher and rel=author tags and imbedding your map from My Places.

Another big change in Local Search is with Google’s backend.  Google Map Maker has decreased the amount of time it takes to review and it’s also improved the quality.  And believe it or not, reporting a problem to Google actually works now.  In all, it’s much easier to clean up data problems.

David closed the evening by sharing two process suggestions for improving time management: assign fundamental tasks to the agency and high return projects to the client.

If you’re not an SEMpdx member, join now and benefit all year!

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Please find the presentations below for:

Demystifying SEO, Social Media and Digital Marketing

The Presentations:

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Chris Silver Smith of Argent Media

Local and Social: Trends and Tips for Growing Your Business

Google Local Rankings 2012

• Now over 200 Ranking Factors used
• Human ratings of webpages included
• Humans perform varying levels of local listing verifications too.

Classic SEO elements still effect local rankings: Title, description meta, domain name, image alt text, keywords in text, etc.

Categories that Influence Local Ranking Factors

1. Relevance: keywords in the business name, keywords in classic onpage SEO, business category match
2. Distance: radius of distance from city centroid, City/ZIP code outline region, user’s geolocation (IP address/cellphone)
3. Prominence: relative popularity determined by pagerank, this can be effected by a business. Mentions and citations also play a factor, as well as “PlaceRank”–the popularity of a location.

Google matches business listing data with website data. Basic business listings info from data aggregators effect your local listing, aggregated from its own data as well as third party business listings. Make data matching easy for Google–use semantic markup to ensure Google interprets your local business site properly. USE BOTH:

• hCard Microformat/RDFa
• Micro Data – Schema.org

Both aren’t that difficult to implement so it’s best to use both on your local business site.

Google uses citations throughout your site and across the web to figure out your listing. Number of mentions of your business name plays a factor, mentions of your street address and telephone also play a factor. Links are also influential.

Business Data Sources for Basic Citations

Superpages.com, New York Times, Hotels.com, Yellowbook, Dex, any business directory. Register for free on as many of these as you can. This process can be done by hand or paid for via a 3rd party service.

Analyze competitors place pages to discover more citation opportunities.

Wikipedia data has been integrated by Google for quite some time. Wiki mentions can place prevalence on your local place page.

Participate in local events, street fairs, etc., and get mentions to bolster your local presence.

Unorthodox Citation Sources

• Wikipedia Articles (your business, it’s historic building, shopping center, founder page, etc., if they’re noteworthy enough.)
• Wifi Hotspots–add your free hotspot to hotspot directories for citations
• Geo Cache Locations
• National Register & State Historical Marker Locations–is your business in a historic building or location?
• Chamber of Commerce Websites (and other member organizations)
• Pressed Penny Machines, pinball, classic video games, ATM locations
• Weather reporting stations
• Specialty directories–spanish speaking business, asian-owned business directories, etc.

Rapidly Developing Location Popularity Signal: Check-In Services

Google may be starting to use check-in data to rank business. There has been some correlation between check-ins and relevance of local search results. Encourage employees, customers to check in on sites on 4Square, Facebook, etc. Google Latitude has implemented Leaderboard to gamify check ins in the Google social scape. It’s only a matter of time until we’re able to find proof of check ins effecting local search results. Google+ and Hotpot Data is being incorporated into local search results.

Mobile Ranking & Optimization Factors

Web pages that have been optimized for mobile may be getting a bump in local SERPs. The user’s geolocation can effect SERPs. Make sure your Google Map page is optimized. Hours of operation is particularly important on Bing, so having hours of operation may be an important factor in appearing in the local search result.

Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence

If You’re Not Doing Mobile . . . You’re Committing Marketing Malpractice

Google in Q3 2011: 79% of its top advertisers didn’t have a mobile-optimized site.

In Q4 2011, only 37% of Internet Retailer 500 had mobile sites.

Mobile Web vs. Mobile Apps

Perennial debate; both will co-exist (mobile web won’t “win”). Mobile sites are a must for all search marketers. Mobile HTML sites have 100% reach.

• Smartphone penetration: 48% (over 50% for younger, affluents)
• 120 Million us mobile internet users
• Mobile first: 25% of smartphone owners say they mostly go online using their phone
• iPads/Tablets: 45M in US (doubling by 2014)
• Android has a larger user base; Apple OS drives more traffic.
• Mobile is still only 9-10% of web traffic–but growing.
• For women, Facebook is the top Android app after Android Market (Nielsen 7/11)

Mobile Advertising

Time Spent vs. Ad Dollars: 1% ad spend per mobile media vs. 23% time spent on mobile media.

US Mobile Advertising 2012: $2B+

The mobile ecosystem consists of:

• Search (Google PPC, Click2Call)
• Display (Publishers/Developers, networks, ad exchanges, mediators, banners, rich media, video)
• Networks (Google, Apple, Millennial Media, Jumptap, Microsoft, others)

Mobile Display Ad Unit Standards have been winnowed down from 60 formats to 6.

Both Google and Yahoo are pursuing cross platform targeting in search and display.

Mobile Search

The top categories searched in mobile are news, restaurants, maps, shopping, entertainment, sports.

Mobile search is stimulated by a response to a traditional media/ad, word of mouth, seeing something in a store, responding to a mobile ad, or responding to an online ad.

Google reports 29% of restaurants search queries are coming from mobile. Hotels 19%, Autos 16%, Consumer Electronics 15%.

Mobile Optimization Required by Google

Mobile optimization is now part of AdWords quality score for mobile and will be for organic as well.

Mobile-only campaigns drive 11.5 percent more CTRs than campaigns simply imported from PC AdWords. Why? Possible reasons: use of location, phone extensions, greater relevance and more precise targeting of mobile.

Mobile Bidding Advice from Google

You must be in the top 2 slots. Nobody’s going to scroll. Ensure are you are bidding for positions 1 or 2. Try bidding 2x as much as desktop ad campaigns.

Use click to call. Conversion metric is easy to track ROI.

Local numbers in search ads have a higher CTRs. Have one.

Location is a ranking factor. Optimize your geolocation.

Local content boosts CTR.

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