d-tags 
Loading...- What is Local Search Anyway?
- Google Local Search Changes - What to Expect in 2022?
- Local Search Drives Business Success
What is Local Search Anyway?
Local Search is simply the optimizing of criteria that allow people local to you to find your service or business easier. Both on- and off-site planning can increase visibility in search results for local users, causing them to find you more easily. In order to optimize traffic to your business or website, it’s important to get as much local traffic as possible. This is exceptionally useful if you are a brick-and-mortar business, like a restaurant, but all businesses can benefit from local optimizations.
There are many guides out there about how to properly optimize for Google’s Local Search functionality, so familiarizing yourself with them is a crucial step before new Google Local Search changes come!
Find out more about local SEO and get your business to the top of SERPs! Of course, we can help you achieve that!
Updates for Google Local Search in 2021 – A Timeline
Google Local Search changes are nothing new, here is a running tally of recent changes made in 2021. January- Older posts were placed in the knowledge panel
- The local pack contained opening dates
- Staff added to the knowledge panel
- The “Available Online” label was added to maps
- Review stars added to the snippets on the knowledge panel
- No 3-pack on mobile SERPs
- History and Owner tabs added to the knowledge panel
- Review sentiments functionality added
- Estimated costs functionality added
- New label on reviews
- Reviews updated with Date Visited
- Highlighted Updates
- The ability to hide your phone number was added.
- Smiley faces added to the Review filter
- Review Topics filter added
- ‘New on Google’ functionality added
- Review averages on maps for restaurants added
- The review section for restaurants was expanded
- ‘Areas Served’ labels updated
- ‘New’ view in the local pack
- 3rd party sites now have review counts
Google Local Search Changes - What to Expect in 2022?
There are many things to consider for 2022, from important tools to optimization practices, but some of the most important factors regarding Google local search updates should be considered when planning content into the future. Here are some of the things to think about for the new year in order to best optimize your website!Google Business is Being Re-branded
While this might not be directly relevant to your website, it’s always important to keep track of the changes with the company in charge of driving SEO practices themselves. My Business is becoming Google Business Profile in order to make local SEO more convenient for everyone. This update contained many beneficial changes and allowed all kinds of editing for your business listing.
Addition of Better Visual Elements
In order to further efficiency for Local Search, Google added many advanced website marketing strategies and allowed access to very beneficial updates, including:- Integrated visual search, which improves the visual searching of similar items. This is activated by the integrated visual search button.
- Better functionality for info-graphics – broad queries can now be helped with a variety of informational sources allowing for a greater depth of understanding for difficult topics.
- Improved carousels which allow local customers to access more relevant information for their searches.
Local News Improvements
By introducing modern elements and modern features into local SERPs, users can find additional help in looking for local results in their news feeds. Google has released many local search updates in order to improve the quality of local-based news searches and will include many things on the local news carousel, like top stories, more news, and even local tweets.
This is a great sign for businesses as it encourages proper optimization in order to get on this search carousel!
