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Google’s Biggest Local Search Update in Five Years

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Many local businesses may have noticed huge fluctuations in their local search rankings over the last few weeks, with Google now confirming an important update to the local algorithm.

Rolling out between November 30th and December 8th, this update has been named ‘Vicinity’. This is the largest change to the local algorithm since Possum in 2016 and has caused widespread ranking disruption.

What Is Vicinity ?

This update is named after the fact that it seems to primarily target proximity as a ranking factor.

Although proximity has long been an important signal for local search results, it’s also been the case that businesses can optimize to successfully rank far from their actual business location.

Through the Vicinity update, Google now appears to be clamping down on this, which will naturally make local search results more relevant to the user. In terms of the benefit to businesses, this gives them a greater chance to rank well in relevant local searches, as they’ll be competing less with businesses that are further away.

When it comes to adding keywords into the business name of a Google Business Profile (GBP) listing, the update has decreased the potential advantage of doing so.

Businesses using keywords (inappropriately) in their name have now largely seen a drop in search rankings. This is likely to be a win for the businesses who have consistently followed Google’s guidelines on keyword stuffing, and for those who have invested their time in fighting name spam.

What does Vicinity mean for local business owners?

In the tweet confirming the change, Google said, “General guidance for businesses remains the same”, alongside a link to guidelines on how to improve local rankings.

The guidelines explain that the algorithm determines results based on relevance, distance, and prominence—so nothing’s changed here. Within this advice, Google also suggests that in order to boost visibility, local businesses should:

  • Enter complete data
  • Verify locations
  • Keep opening hours accurate
  • Manage and respond to reviews
  • Add photos

As Google continues to develop the local search algorithm, it’s to be expected that the user experience is always going to be at the heart of any resulting changes.

Local businesses will have to continue to adapt to the landscape and closely adhere to the guidelines in order to achieve sustainable search success.

The Importance Of Utilizing AdWords

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If you’re unfamiliar with AdWords, it’s simply a pay-per-click service which allows you to create and run ads for your business. These clickable ads are then displayed in Google’s search results. By using the right keywords for your target audience, you’re already ahead because you’re reaching people you have an interest in your product or service.

1. AdWords is Measurable and Flexible

One of the main advantages that online marketing has over traditional marketing channels, like TV or print, is that it’s extremely easy to measure. However, it can be a challenge to effectively measure your SEO campaign since you can’t always get a precise measurement on what increased or decreased your rankings. Enter AdWords PPC. This is probably one of the best resources you have to measure what’s working and what is not because it comes equipped with plenty of PPC metrics that do that task for you.

2. Faster Than SEO

A huge drawback with SEO is that it can take months before you notice any results thanks to competition and the time it take to “prove itself”. This is not the case with AdWords. Once your AdWords campaign goes live, ads will appear and you’ll get instant results, like visitor data.

3. More Engaging

Google is constantly improving AdWords because it’s one of its primary sources of income. Along the way Google noticed that product listing ads and in-video ads on YouTube get more more clicks from users. These engaging ads mean more revenue for Google, and advertisers as well because of new ad formats and extensions.

4. Can Control Your Advertising Costs

Here’s something that’s really awesome about AdWords. You can set a maximum cost per day for your campaign. And, it’s help to you on how much that amount is set at. How does this help your business? It allows you to budget your campaign accordingly without worrying if you’re going to go over budget. The worst case scenario is that the amount of ads will begin to decrease as your budget gets lower. However, you can increase your budget accordingly. This scalability is a nice option if you want a lot of leads in a short amount of time.

5. Helps Beat Your Competitors

Because of the speed of AdWords, when compared to SEO, you have a major advantage of your competitors. Because you’ll already be appearing in search engines, your site will be receiving more clicks from search results than all of the other companies in your industry.

If your company utilizing an effective PPC strategy? Contact RSM today for a free, no-risk evaluation. Get Started!