SEO News You Can Use: Get Your Free Copy of ‘The State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020’

Miriam Ellis spearheaded “The State of Local SEO Industry Report 2020” for Moz and released it this week. The report was scheduled for publishing a while back, but then the pandemic hit and everything worldwide was placed on hold. Ellis and the Moz team went back to the drawing board. This existing report was packed with invaluable insights. Still, they wanted to wait, gather some more info during COVID-19 and turn in a report that also accounts for the public health crisis and its effects on local business communities.

At the beginning of May, Ellis called for participation in the new COVID-19 Local Search Marketing Business Impact Survey. This call was answered by 1,453 respondents — the participants of which the final report is based. Six weeks later, we have a sturdy document that recounts digital marketing for small businesses during the global pandemic. The respondents are not only marketers or SEOs but also project managers, webmasters and business consultants. The result is a report that unpacks the impact of company infrastructure, tools and software usage, local ranking factors and gaps within the marketplace. Best of all, the report outlines the strategies and tactics that are proven to provide the highest return on investment (ROI).

Any brand that’s recently had to come up with a creative strategy for operating during these times would do well to give this report a read. Local SEO done correctly can really yield excellent results for community-based businesses or multi-location businesses. A robust local SEO strategy is imperative if you’ve made changes to how you interact with your customers or adjusted your value proposition to better suit consumers during these unprecedented times. After all, this is the best way to make sure your existing and potential new customers know that your offering, operation hours or contact information has changed. And if you need help boosting your organic rankings, browse our best local SEO companies listings.

The report indicates what changes have worked best, what to do to better boost your rankings and what online platforms matter the most to win the local SEO game. This document includes clear directions on how to make sure you’re found on local search engines and by new customers.

You can find Ellis’s breakdown of her report here and download it for free here. 

More SEO News You Can Use

New Extension for Chrome Designed to Support its Scroll to Text Fragment Feature: In February, Google launched Chrome 80, which supported a feature called Scroll to Text Fragment, and it was met with controversy because of privacy concerns. This week, Google released the Chrome extension for this feature. Here’s everything you need to know about this feature.

Get Your Google My Business Listing Working Harder for You: Your Google My Business (GMB) listing needs more love and attention if you want it to positively impact your leads and conversions. Jeremy Knauff offers up nine ways to get more from your GMB listing. His best advice is to check and update your listing regularly, so Google doesn’t apply unwanted changes! Check out the article here.

Track Your Listings to Better Understand Your Shoppers’ Behavior: Check out this article on the “Live with Search Engine Land” session with Kirk Williams from ZATO Marketing and Mike Ryan from Smarter Ecommerce. They discuss combining UTM parameters and Google Analytics to discover your users’ behavior once they’ve clicked through to your listing. This is valuable data to consider when planning new campaigns or strategies for your eCommerce site.

You Won’t Believe This! Google’s New Policy Bans Click Bait: Google has a new policy coming into effect in July: No more click bait ads will be allowed. If your sponsored content and ads make use of sensationalist headlines or imagery to drive your audience to action, you better rethink your strategy. Here’s what you need to know, courtesy of Ginny Marvin from Search Engine Land.

Moz Knows Just How to Prep for Your eCommerce Bounce Back: During COVID-19, many eCommerce stores have taken a very reactive approach to try to meet their new consumers’ needs. Moz has a plan for taking a proactive approach to ensure your eCommerce business can withstand the changes and demands from consumers post-pandemic.

Editor’s Note: “SEO News You Can Use” is a weekly blog post posted every Monday morning only on SEOblog.com, rounding up all the top SEO news from around the world. Our goal is to make SEOblog.com a one-stop-shop for everyone looking for SEO news, education and for hiring an SEO expert with our comprehensive SEO agency directory.