<p>Hi Enrique,</p> <p>Thank you for sharing your own reflections on this. This definitely is a complex scenario, as you've mentioned. The subjective nature of reviews is one that business owners have to consider in their efforts to "please the crowd", knowing that there will always be some people whom it is difficult to satisfy. The privacy side of things would be for the review platforms to consider. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!</p>

<p>Hey Jack,</p> <p>Thanks for sharing that GetFiveStars has worked well for you in acquiring authentic reviews. I'm a fan of their product, too!</p>

<p>Hey Paul!</p> <p>I remember you, of course. I hope you're doing well! Thumbs up on the mention of Google's history of reviews going from totally open, to requiring a G+ account and then changing back again. I wish I had access to the numbers of how review spam may have been affected in the different scenarios. </p> <p>Good tips from you. Absolutely agree! Very nice to hear form you.</p>

<p>It'd be nice if everyone just naturally wanted to play fair, but agree with you Clive, it's important to be realistic and prepared. </p>

<p>Thanks for the bookmark, Brendon!</p>

<p>Good answer! Agree this started around 2012 with Yelp, and I'm not aware of this on any other major site.</p>

<p>Here's to hoping Google ups their review-spam-catching game, Richard! It would make things better for all of us!</p>

<p>Thanks for the honest, real review, Andrew :) !</p> <p>Totally agree with you about review spam having become an industry of its own, and Mike's work has been so eye-opening in this regard. I like TripAdvisor very much, too, but I think it's smart to keep in mind that people's expectation vary, even in the complete absence of fake reviews. A good hotel to me may not be perceived as good by someone else. That was nice of you to try to reflect your own, true experience of the establishment, since it was at such variance with other reviews.<br /></p>

<p>That's terrible, David. I'm so sorry to hear your business has had to deal with that. Would you be able to share how you've dealt with this situation? It could help others in the community. Thanks!</p>

<p>Ahhh, Joy, that is is pretty nutty! So, as soon as someone gets fired, go ahead a write a review? Hmm ... Google may want to rethink that one. Thanks for the anecdote!</p>

<p>Hi Fran,</p> <p>May I ask for some clarification here? Online stores are threatening you, as a customer, with negative comments? Is this what you are experiencing? Where are the stores threatening to leave the negative comments? I've not encountered this scenario before.</p>

<p>Hi Kuldeep!</p> <p>Thanks so much for sharing your experience as a Local Guide. In regards to your question, it would make sense to me that a review flagged multiple times would be more likely to be filtered than one that is flagged just once, but I have not seen hard evidence of this. It would be cool if someone would do a study! If you ever do one, Kuldeep, I'd love to read it.</p>

<p>Hi Contrarian,</p> <p>I empathize with the frustration you're expressing, and it's quite true that the GMB forum is filled with business owners who are anxious and frustrated about aspects of Google's product that have a real-world impact on their companies, and for which it can be difficult to get real-world support or transparent guidance. </p> <p>Far from excusing this, the Local SEO industry has taken a strong stance on highlighting problems. If you read the work of experts like Mike Blumenthal, Joy Hawkins, or Linda Buquet, you will find them repeatedly calling Google to task for support or product failures, year after year. I've done so myself, over the years, but the purpose of this particular post isn't to call out Google - it's to offer support to local business owners who need to deal with Google My Business as it is today. While I might get some cathartic value out of a post that points out all of the ongoing issues I may perceive with Google's apparent approach to support, it's my hope that an actionable article like this one serves a better purpose: helping folks with things they are trying to manage right now.</p> <p>In case it's of interest, my own personal feeling is that Google has done an astoundingly good job with some things local, but has room to grow in others, and I'd like to see that growth happen sooner than later, but I don't see myself as a crusader against Google. I see myself as a helper, by giving candid advice to local business owners and candid requests to Google for improvements. One thing that can help is knowing that neither you nor I are alone. There are millions of owners and marketers showing Google pain points, and looking to Google for a demonstration that they care. They've come through on such things in the past, and I'm hopeful that they'll continue to do so.</p> <p><br /></p>

<p>Thanks for explaining that further, Jimmy. Pro tip: over the next year, I'd be watching both listings like a hawk to see if any accidental duplicate listings get created from this process. Use the free Moz Check Listing tool if you're not a Moz Local customer. I'd check at least once a month. </p>

<p>Ack! Sorry to hear about that, Jimmy. The shared address likely made Google think you were trying to represent 1 restaurant as 2. Google is super sensitive about this sometimes, and since Possum, we're really seeing Google's bias towards diversity in the results, as well. It's upsetting that they did this, even though the businesses have different phone numbers. You'd think that might be some measure of protection. The good news is, you were able to successfully present your case and convince them that, indeed, these are two different entities. What I'm not quite clear on is why you're saying that your SEO work for the larger restaurant has been scrapped. Please, feel free to share more so others can learn from your (unfortunate) experience.<br /></p>

<p>My pleasure, Daniel! So happy to know this helped you.</p>

<p>Glad to hear it, Viral.</p>

<p>That's great, Ewan! I sincerely hope Google will remove that review for you. Sounds like a clear violation.</p>

<p>Best wishes, Toni! Sounds like this post came at an important time for your company. Good luck with the move.</p>

<p>Hi Xisca &amp; Kuldeep,</p> <p>Glad to see robust discussion of the issues we encounter. While I've tried to include common scenarios in this table, you are so right that there are others that will come up that require some creative thinking. Thanks to you both for sharing your experiences.</p>

<p>Good for you, Tim! I'm a firm advocate of reporting spam. Fake listing negative impact consumers, legitimate businesses and Google's reputation. Joy Hawkins and others have been using the Twitter hashtag #stopcraponthemap to document things like what you are seeing: you might like to check that tag out for camaraderie. </p>

<p>My pleasure, Andy! Hope your new week is off to a good start.</p>

<p>Thank you for the kind comment, Aarsun!</p>

<p>Hi Richard,</p> <p>Try to get a Top Contributor to look directly at your case in the GMB forum, linked to in the Helpful Links section of the piece. The TCs are great and will let you know whether they can help, or whether you're stuck.</p>

<p>Cheers, Dainelle! So happy to hear this resource will be helpful. </p>

<p>You're welcome, Pamela, and I know just what you mean. I definitely do recommend trying Google's Twitter support (linked to above) when needed. I've had some very good experiences with them - very helpful folks manning that account. But what you say is true: Google's documentation has never been as accessible or thorough as we would hope. Appreciate your kind comment!</p>

<p>Hi Pete!</p> <p>One of the most interesting takeaways for me in this was that there was almost twice as much domain diversity in the local results as there was in the organic results. I'd hypothesize that this may indicate the difference between the organic and local ranking factors. Organic is one set, and while local has them all, it also has its own factors that further diversify results. So, for example, 400 domains have build enough authority to consistently rank in the organic results for the 5 keyword phrases, but new factors come into play when it comes to the local packs, and that results in a broader mix of winners. Such interesting data and a very worthwhile study!</p>

<p>Good luck with the work ahead, Eugene :)</p>

<p>Hi Ashley!</p> <p>What a nice comment, and you've asked an extremely good question here. Basically, what I believe you're asking is something along the lines of: <em>my uncle owns a sporting goods store, and I took four of my friends to one of his awesome mountain climbing boot camps for a birthday celebration. Two of my friends had so much fun that they left a review. Am I barred from leaving my own review, because the owner is my uncle?<br /></em></p> <p>Let's see what Google says:<br /></p> <p><strong>Conflict of interest:</strong> Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor.<br /></p> <p>And Yelp:<br /></p> <p><strong>Conflicts of interest</strong>: Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group<br /></p> <p>So, surprise, surprise: Google doesn't mention that reviews can't come from relatives, but Yelp does. Yelp's policies generally tend to be more stringent than Google's, and they are even going to the extreme of saying you can't review your friends' businesses, which becomes somewhat problematic as many small businesses <em>actively seek to turn their good customers into friends.</em> It would be a bit ridiculous, in my opinion, for the owner to have to go back to Yelp and say, "Joe wasn't my friend when he wrote this review of my store, but after we took some hikes together, we became friends, so please take down Joe's review now that our relationship has changed." Talk about jumping through hoops! I'd actually love the chance to speak to a Yelp rep about this particular aspect of their guidelines to hear their thinking on it.<br /></p> <p>What I'd take from this, then, would be that it depends on the platform and that the nephew/niece should know the guidelines so that they don't get the uncle in trouble. Now, if the reviewer actually worked for the sporting goods store, Google would have a problem with that, as would Yelp. There are some fine details here to consider.<br /></p> <p>In my case, with the business I was looking at, the person reviewing the business worked for the family business, making the scenario not okay on either platform, and was a clear violation of Yelp's above guidelines. But, it looks like horses for courses here, and the takeaway is to read the guidelines. Now, whether we can expect all of our relatives and friends to read guidelines is another story ;)<br /></p> <p>Thanks for your very kind and thought-provoking comment, and I love that you learned a new word!<br /></p>

<p>I appreciate your nice comment, Dom. Thank you!</p>

<p>Hey Brent,</p> <p>Local SEO can be hard, it's true. There's so much to learn. But one thing you might like to know is that it can be really fun, too. It's such a good feeling to steer a local business in the right direction so that they are closer to becoming a very solid service in their local community. That aspect of this form of marketing keeps me energized!</p>

<p>Glad to hear it, Scartletsnow!</p>

<p>Thank you, Patrick, for sharing your thoughts on this topic. It's so helpful to hear what our community thinks and what their experiences teach. </p>

<p>Hi Luca,</p> <p>I hope you'll find all of the free learning resources here on Moz helpful to you in eventually achieving a spot in the local packs. In particular, study of this year's Local Search Ranking Factors survey should help: <a href="https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors" rel="nofollow">https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors</a></p>

<p>I like that, Randy! It's almost like a lyric from a song :)</p>

<p>Hi Vaib,</p> <p>I'll keep working on keeping the Local SEO content fresh and interesting here on the Moz Blog. I'm so glad you find it helpful. </p>

<p>Hi Kuldeep,</p> <p>Right, I'm not advocating that you add any keywords to your business name because of Google's policy on this. Unless you want to legally change your business name, you should represent it as it appears in the real world on all of your local business listings.</p> <p>My opinion on Google's policy? I'm fine with it. I think it makes sense. I just want them to uphold the policy by not rewarding spammers with high rankings. That's the part I'd like to see change, but the policy of representing your business exactly as it appears in the real world makes good sense to me. <br /></p>

<p>Hi Liam,</p> <p>I just want you to know, I warmly, warmly welcome questions and discussions on any of my blog posts. I love talking shop when it comes to Local SEO. I could talk about it all day (and most of the time, I do - until I start talking about what to fix for dinner at night!). Please, always feel free to add anything you'd like to the discussion. It's appreciated!</p>

<p>Hi Inmo &amp; Anita,</p> <p>Yes, while its so important to earn reviews, and most entities with the exception of Yelp are fine with owners asking customers for reviews, incentivizing them is another matter. Let me link to a couple of sources for further reading on this topic:</p> <p><a href="http://localu.org/blog/do-not-incentivize-reviews-not-even-a-little-bit/" rel="nofollow">http://localu.org/blog/do-not-incentivize-reviews-...</a><br /></p> <p><a href="https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/reviews-incentives-and-the-law/" rel="nofollow">https://www.getfivestars.com/blog/reviews-incentiv...</a><br /></p> <p>Hope these prove useful reads.</p>

<p>Hi Kuldeep!</p> <p>You raise a variety of good points here. I'll try to respond to each.</p> <p>- Yes, keywords in the business name remain a strong local ranking factor. It's a good thing to consider when naming a new business. Unfortunately, it's a also a ranking loophole for businesses that add erroneous keywords to their business name (like adding a city name or some other modifier) in order to rank well. People report this practice moving their listings up an average of 1-4 spots, and I recently saw an SEO reporting that it moved a listing up <strong>6</strong> spots (see the comments on this post: <a href="http://blumenthals.com/blog/2017/05/20/should-you-add-city-to-your-business-name-at-google-my-business/" rel="nofollow">http://blumenthals.com/blog/2017/05/20/should-you-...</a>). Google just isn't doing a good job in upholding their own rule on this which states absolutely clearly that they forbid the practice of stuffing the business title. So, for now, both legitimate keywords in the business title and forbidden keywords in the business title are still highly influencing rank.</p> <p>- In your particular case, if you've legally changed your business name with appropriate gov. agencies to "Apple Service Center - Apple Fix" then you will need to update all of your citations, your website and any other references to your business name to reflect that change of business name. A product like Moz Local can help you automate this when a re-brand happens so that you can achieve consistency once again. However, if you've simply edited the Google My Business business name in order to improve rankings, then this would be a guideline violation. As Mike Blumenthal is discussing in the post I've just linked to, many business owners debate whether they should break Google's guidelines if it will improve their rankings, and it can be tempting to do this because of Google's lack of enforcement of strong penalties for rule-breakers. </p> <p>My advice is not to go down that road. We have seen many historic examples of businesses getting away with certain practices for years, and then a new update or filter is put in place that has significantly negatively impacted the businesses involved, resulting in massive ranking loss, suspensions, etc. Right now, Google appears to be sitting idle while countless businesses are breaking the guidelines surrounding keyword stuffing business names, but I personally wouldn't want to tie any client's business to a practice that relies on Google's permanent idleness. I wouldn't advocate this type of risk taking.</p> <p>So, my suggestion to businesses in this situation is to either legally re-brand their company, or, keep their brand and try to focus on other factors that can hopefully increase rank while reporting any competitors who are breaking guidelines. It's not a perfect model, but it's, at least, a safe one. Hope these thoughts are helpful!</p> <p><br /></p>

<p>Hi Viral,</p> <p>I'm glad you found this piece easy to follow. You're so right about the plague of fake reviews. Mike Blumenthal (whose work I've referenced in the post) continues to explore and document that review spam network that is getting up into the hundreds of thousands of players involved. I truly hope Google will up their game in this regard, as fake reviews undermine their own product's credibility (as well as the confidence of consumers). We'll stay tuned to see what happens next with this. Thanks for your good comment.</p>

<p>Well said, Hiren. Thanks for reading!</p>

<p>Thank you so much, Nicholas! I'm hoping that folks at agencies can share this one with their teams and their clients to advocate for the development of strong review management programs. I really appreciate the kind words.</p>

<p>Hi Cory,</p> <p>What you've observed is correct - there are countless examples of businesses with less and worse reviews outranking those with more a better reviews. I mention this in the section about the fast food restaurant outranking businesses with many more positive reviews than they have earned. So, yes, we're still at the point in which it's hard to pinpoint the correlation between high ratings and high rankings, but the couple of examples I've given of Google clearly increasing their focus on this metric are a big hint to us that they are at work on this, particularly the "best X in city" searches defaulting to packs made up of businesses with 4+ star ratings only. I believe we're reaching a tipping point with this, based on what we're observing Google doing. </p> <p>So, a good way to think of this might be that, yes, there is a formula; it's Google local ranking algo, but there are believed to be several hundred factors being taken into account when Google orders its local rankings. Because of this, when you see a business with fewer and worse reviews outranking one with more and better reviews, you have to assume that factors other than review count or sentiment are causing this. It could be the age of the listing, domain authority, user factors like clicks-for-directions, spam, or a variety of other things, combining to push one business up above its competitors. You basically have to do a competitive audit to try to identify what is moving the needle in a specific set of results, and even then, you'll have to make educated guesses, because we don't know ALL of the ranking factors that are part of Google's algo. </p> <p>Good comment, Cory. Thank you so much for discussing this further!</p> <p><br /></p>

<p>My thanks, Ben, for the kind words! So glad to you're advocating a consumer-centric approach to your clients. Nice!</p>

<p>Hi Jason,</p> <p>If you're looking for a good, single consultant on that list, you might like to contact Phil Rozek whose company, Local Visibility System, is featured there. Phil is very respected in our industry and also quite a nice guy. He knows Local SEO backwards and forwards. Hope this suggestion helps. All of the companies listed are ones Moz recommends, but for a single consultant, Phil would be a great person for you to chat with. </p>

<p>Hi Martin,</p> <p>Exactly - it definitely does pay to focus on customer service, because what happens in the store will definitely be reflected on the web :)</p>

<p>Hi Gabrio,</p> <p>Interesting question, as where I live, the main energy provider has local offices in a variety of cities and makes in-person contact with customers (coming to check and upgrade meters, replying to emergency calls, etc.). There are also offices where you can go to pay a bill - not in every city in my state, but in many of them. Because of these elements, the local energy company is eligible for local listings in the cities in which they are physically located. Is your business model 100% virtual (no face-to-face contact with customers) and does it have only a single office? Please, feel free to provide further details.</p>

<p>Lamento que eu não falo Português, mas obrigado pelo seu comentário, Lukareze.</p>

<p>Excellent comment, Kevin. I definitely think this is the way the industry is heading, and what you've been feeling about this is a mark of good marketing insight. Keep up the smart work!</p>

<p>Hi Eugene,</p> <p>I think the challenge many small businesses face (from my experience consulting with them) is budgetary. The owner has to get to the point where he or she views hiring an expert as an investment rather than a cost. For example, if the business invests $500 a month in professional consulting and starts making $2000 a month in new sales because of this relationship, the owner can realize that they are experiencing ROI rather than a drain on their funding. Or, if the website needs a total overhaul, the one-time cost of that can parlay into several years of increased conversions that will basically make the website pay for itself, and everything beyond that is pure gravy.</p> <p>But, it's true - many business owners are still not at the point where they can envision bringing a pro aboard to take them to a new level. In that case, their best bet is to teach themselves everything they can. Happily, our industry is literally loaded with free information, and if they can learn to recognize the good stuff, they can invest their time, rather than their money, in getting as far as they can on their own. Some of the best Local SEOs I know started out this way - promoting their own businesses, and they got so good at it, they became consultants :) !<br /></p>

<p>Hey Jules!</p> <p>Provided that your relative meets with his clients face-to-face, then his business model is, indeed, local, and he can stick to listing himself on those local business listing platforms that enable the user to enter the address (his home address) but have it hidden. Phil Rozek of Local Visibility system has written several articles on this that you'll find if you look up "phil rozek hidden address directories". That should be a good place for your brother-in-law to start planning is local search marketing campaign. Hope this helps!</p>

<p>Hi LureCreative!</p> <p>Excellent points in your comment about not just needing to be found, but needing to be found with a sterling reputation that persuades searchers of the value of the business. Sounds to me like your agency is doing good work out there! Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know this article matches your experience.</p>

<p>Good for you, ColemanConcierge! You've really reflected here a point I strongly wanted to make - we're not reinventing the wheel on the web. We're standing on the shoulders of centuries of businesses and their traditional practices to serve customers and market themselves. Hard work and honesty will never go out of style! That's the heart of good business. I really enjoyed your comment!</p>

<p>I'm so pleased you enjoyed this. Thank you!</p>

<p>Hey there, Blue Corona,</p> <p>I'm not quite sure of the definition of "personalized" you reference, but believe you are talking about city landing pages. If I've understood your question correctly, then, yes, it's absolutely still important to develop these, and is, in fact, critical in many cases. Proximity matters - you're so right about that, but there are some searches where it appears not to matter at all. For example, if I'm in San Diego and I'm looking for a contractor in Santa Fe to fix my auntie's roof there, proximity doesn't really come into the scenario as I'm too far away. It's also so important for multi-location businesses to get store locators and their associated landing pages right, or they may simply not be surfaced well at all for local searches. </p> <p>So, basically, yes, regardless of the proximity factor, our websites still need to "deliver the goods", letting both consumers and search engines know our areas of specialization so that both groups can fully understand to which types of searches our businesses are relevant. Thanks for asking a good question!</p>

<p>Hi Shakoat. Glad you found this one useful. </p>

<p>Hi Brendon,</p> <p>Great question! This is one of those instances in which our job as marketers is so important, because it's up to us to set client expectations correctly by teaching them the rules of the game. In the scenario you're describing (which is a very common one) the game is being run by Google, and what needs to be taught to the client is that Google's local results are biased towards physical location. Because of this, unless the business is in a very rural area or an industry with little or no competition, they are only likely to rank in the local packs for searches that either stem from devices in their city of location or include their city of location in the search term. They are not likely to rank in the local packs for any city in which the business lacks a physical location. In other words, if your office is in Dallas, you can hope to rank locally for Dallas searches, but if it's in Sugar Land, you should not expect to rank locally for Dallas searches. This is just how Google works, with few exceptions. </p> <p>Because of this, what the business <em>can</em> do is seek local rankings for their physical location, and seek supplementary <strong>o</strong><strong>rganic</strong> rankings for any other nearby city they are targeting. These organic rankings must typically be earned via a combination of extremely competitive content + the links that content earns. This is not easy to achieve, but it is possible, whereas going after local rankings for this scenario is often not possible at all. </p> <p>Where this fails (as in cases in which the organic competition proves to be too stiff for you to get your content into the mix), the business may have to rely on PPC and Social outreach for cities in which the business lacks a physical location.</p> <p>Virtual offices, on the other hand, would not be something a savvy marketer would recommend to a client as they violate Google's guidelines and can lead to hard suspensions of the fake Google My Business listings. In other words, they risk wasting the investments of the business and can end up associating their brand with spammy practices. So, those should be avoided.</p> <p>Hope this helps!</p>

<p>Hi Robbin,</p> <p>Glad this post matches with your experience and what you've learned works. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your own tip. </p>

<p>Rand, this is the most amazing WB Friday. I'd like to just add a little pro tip for local businesses and their marketers. Add geography to almost any of these strategies and you've got endless potential for blog posts that tie industry, audience and geographic interests together. A winning combo!</p>

<p>Hi Paul,</p> <p>Your comment is one of the most gratifying I've received. I have always learned best by example, and I'm so happy to know that by including these type of references in my posts here at Moz, others who learn this way are coming away better informed. I love knowing that and your comment really made my day! Thank you!<br /></p>

<p>Hi Ria,</p> <p>That is so true, Ria. Google has rolled out updates like Hummingbird and RankBrain in their never-ending quest to understand user intent, and we're in the same boat, as marketers. The business that really knows and serves its customer base is the smartest in town!</p>

<p>Exactly, Hani! Well said :)</p>

<p>Hi Juan!</p> <p>Thank you so much for favoriting. No, none of these are my clients. Just examples I've found that I really liked. I'm always on the hunt for examples of local businesses getting it right!</p>

<p>Hi Tim!</p> <p>I'm always so honored by your comments on my post and yes, that travel site nuance fits perfect here. I'm truly happy thinking of you sharing this with your team, and you've summed up beautifully what I was trying to do here: show what a local business website and its supporting assets should look like :)</p>

<p>Hi Patrick,</p> <p>I'm delighted that you found some good ideas here. I like yours about adding a bit of humor to FAQs. In the right spirit, I agree it could engage consumers! Thanks for reading.</p>

<p>Hi Abhishek Singh! You are right, NAP is a keystone of Local SEO, for sure.</p>

<p>Appreciate the bookmark, Brendon! This really was a download of my brain on this topic, with the goal of providing brief but thorough best practices for each of the types local business content a company can create. So glad you liked it!</p>

<p>Glad to hear it, Alice. Thank you!</p>

<p>Hi Phil,</p> <p>Can you add a few more specifics to your query? That's a broad topic you've raised. Please, feel free to provide more specifics. Thanks so much for your comment!</p>

<p>Hi Gerry!</p> <p>That is so nice of you to say :) Thank you very much. Happy to have you here.</p>

<p>Hi David!</p> <p>So, basically, this is how Google's bias works when it comes to location:</p> <p>1) If you're outside of city borders, you are unlikely to rank well LOCALLY for searches stemming from that city or containing that city as a keyword in the search. *Sometimes you can, but it depends on the competition of your unique situation (are you the only gas station serving a 10 mile radius or are you one of 5,000 lawyers located outside of LA - it makes a difference!). Also, there were some funny things observed surrounding the Possum update regarding outlier businesses with city postal addresses but outside of Google's conception of city borders moving up in the ranks, apparently, but these nuances tend to be the exception rather than the rule.</p> <p>2) So, if you're unlikely to rank well LOCALLY in the nearest major city because you lack a physical location there, your typical strategy will be:</p> <p>- Represent your physical location accurately. It's the only allowed way to get a Google My Business listing. Represent it accurately on your website and all of your citations.</p> <p>- Go after ORGANIC rankings relating to your relationship to the nearest city via the website content you develop.</p> <p>- Build social content surrounding your relationship to that nearest city</p> <p>- Fill in with PPC where local and organic fail.</p> <p>Hope this helps!</p>

<p>Hi Ewan!</p> <p>Yes, I particularly wanted to highlight things like that in this article because of the way the Local SEO community is experience the merging of the worlds of offline/online experience. Exciting times. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post :)</p>

<p>No doubt about it, Kevin - reviews are incredibly influential content! You bet!</p>

<p>Hi Joseph!</p> <p>I've really enjoyed creating that type of content for hotels, too. And when I'm visiting a new place, I honestly find it super helpful for the hotel to make recommendations on their website of things to do in the area, so this passes muster as a resource that is of genuine use to human visitors. It's like a website version of all those little brochures they have in hotel lobbies for local restaurants, parks, adventures, etc. Enjoyed your comment.</p> <p>Hi Martin!</p> <p>Great point about video - it can be truly engaging and useful. </p> <p>Hey Adam!</p> <p>What is your take on the importance of user engagement in the RankBrain environment in which we are all now operating? I sense you have more to say about this and welcome hearing it :)</p>

<p>Hi Cory! Thanks so much for your comment. I am also curious about the mention of hiding content. </p>

<p>Darren, congratulations and full tribute to you for being such a good captain of the LSRF 2017 ship. It was really good of you to take this on so that the study can continue and I found it truly valuable this year to watch the shift in some of the top local pack ranking factors, even where the shift was small. My gosh, after all these years, I still LOVE our industry and feel such respect for each of the colleagues in the trenches who take the time to answer the annual LSRF call. Local has come a long way since year one of this study and we've all gotten to watch our discipline mature and grow. Fun and energizing!</p>

<p>Hey Casey!</p> <p>Excellent read. I'd add one thing to your list of spam forms: competitive edits of your listing by third parties. This is a particularly malicious genre of spam, making it very important for business owners to regularly monitor their GMB listings for changes. I wrote about this here on the Moz Blog when I heard Map Maker was shutting down: <a href="https://moz.com/blog/map-maker-shutdown-google-nap-change-alerts" rel="nofollow">https://moz.com/blog/map-maker-shutdown-google-nap...</a> with a pro tip for Moz Local customers that Moz Local will alert you if anyone edits your listing.</p> <p>I really appreciated your sharing the response you received from Google about 1 star ratings and this is something they seriously need to reconsider. Particularly in a case like the one you've cited, where a pattern of abusive spam is so obvious, Google needs to act on this. If they don't take their own guidelines seriously, why should anyone else? Until then, we'll all just have to keep documenting the spam we see, in hopes that Google will improve their handling of it in future, given the direct impact it has on the revenue of millions of local businesses.</p> <p><br /></p>

<p>Good Morning, Blue Corona!</p> <p>I appreciate the kind words very much, and I'm especially glad to know that the links for further reading are ones you've bookmarked. The Local SEO industry, collectively, publishes such fantastic free educational materials and I really enjoy being able to bring the work of different experts together along the lines of a specific theme. We can learn so much from one another! Many thanks for your comment.</p>

<p>Hi Steven!</p> <p>Yes, I felt it was really important to include offline in this big-picture overview. Something I've found fascinating in watching the evolution of Local SEO since its early days is the way in which the connection between on and offline practices has grown closer and clearer with each passing year.</p> <p>In the early days, I might have left any offline marketing to the business owner, assuming that he was the expert in this area of marketing about which I knew little. These days, the smart Local SEO is going to be in on all of those meetings, helping make decisions. Should a vanity number be used in a radio ad? Where will a billboard drive traffic? Are in-store staff being trained to ask for reviews? Etc.</p> <p>Online and offline should now be seen as co-influencers, working in tandem to create a desired experience for the consumer (and for the business!). Thanks for taking the time to let me know you enjoyed this piece.</p>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, Patrick. Hope this adds some meaningful touchpoints to your client conversations.</p>

<p>Hi Cody!</p> <p>Very glad you found this to be food for thought. One of the best things about Local is that there is literally ALWAYS something new to learn. Keeps us all on our toes!</p>

<p>E-A-T! That's nice - I like it! Delighted to know this article will help you build on the structure you've created. Thank you for letting me know that :)</p>

<p>How nice of you to say, Denilson. Thank you!</p>

<p>I absolutely agree, Juan, and this is why I've emphasized two tasks in this article: one, talking to clients in the manner most meaningful for them and two, keeping full technical documentation of what you are doing for whatever needs may arise in terms of accountability. </p> <p>You are quite right that the customer wants to know how he can be helped, and for him, a list of technicalities may be about as fun and enlightening as I find it when my dentist refers to my teeth by numbers. I honestly wouldn't think of teeth having numbers and never have any idea what he's talking about when he says,"Tooth 30 needs a crown." I'd be better served if he said 'that back tooth on the lower right'. That would be talking my language.</p> <p>Thanks for the thoughtful comment!</p>

<p>What a good question, Gregory. You know, almost since those terms were first coined, they've been used a bit loosely with some interchange. I've come to use them in tandem for a couple of reasons:</p> <p>1) Some readers may recognize one term more than the other, and the meanings strike me as close enough to make it helpful to include both, just so I'm making all readers most comfortable that they are already well-acquainted with the topic at hand.</p> <p>2) Local SEO just doesn't really stand on its own. Technically, it stands for Local Search Engine Optimization, but it would be pretty limiting if all the title represented was doing work to influence search engines. In effect, search engines are just a medium, and what we are really trying to do in either Local SEO or SEM is influence <em>consumers</em>. So, a full Local campaign is going to include things you do for local packs, for local organic rankings, for organic rankings and also for social media, video, and quite possibly PPC. Is this SEO or SEM? Beats me! It's honestly just marketing that goes by a number of industry terms, and the fine shades of meaning of these terms struggle to encompass just how multi-disciplinary our industry has become over the past decade (just like traditional SEO).</p> <p>Very good topic, Gregory. Thanks for raising it!</p>

<p>Exceedingly glad to know you can quickly think of a scenario in which this article would be applicable, Pratibha. Yes, you're right - some clients really do not want to know the technicalities of their marketing. While I think this is a mistake, I also understand how incredibly busy many business owners are, and can understand that they don't want to become an SEO themselves :) So, hopefully, breaking this down into the less technical terms they do care about will hold their interest and inspire them to fund the work that needs to be done to help them succeed. Enjoyed your comment!</p>

<p>Hi John,</p> <p>Yes, this post should still be 99% relevant in 2017. Some new things have emerged, but the advice here should still be solid. Thanks for asking!</p>

<p>Hi Blair,</p> <p>I'm so sorry - I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with Schema for virtual businesses. You might want to consult with David Deering's company, Upwork.com, to speak with a very smart Schema expert. </p>

<p>Hi Bill!</p> <p>Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading about these patents. Thank you so much for taking the time to reference and explain them.</p>

<p>Hi EGOL,</p> <p>Excellent comment, and I'm sorry I was out of the office with a bug when it came in. I concur with your wish to see real businesses outranking directories with inaccurate or limited data in them. And, at the same time, I wish those directories would up their game, given the prominence they enjoy. Some directories (like Yelp) do an amazing job, as a resource for finding businesses, but some of the niche ones are all but useless. Really good point.</p>

<p>Hey Faisal!</p> <p>We're on the same page on this - Google's idea of relevance (based on their algo) does not always match my idea of relevance. I often see very poorly presented businesses far outranking others for reasons you have to really hunt down to even begin to guess at. I'm positive this is something Google wants to improve, so we'll have to stick with them for the long haul, as it's been a work in progress since day 1.</p>

<p>Hi Sergio!</p> <p>I'm so glad you enjoyed our team effort. I think maybe we need some more articles here on the Moz Blog about voice search to address our community's questions and concerns. Thanks for raising this point. </p>

<p>Hi Sarathbhaskar,</p> <p>Good question! I do think user metrics are playing an increasingly important role ... in local search, what I'd be focusing on would be clicks-to-call, clicks-for-driving-directions and clicks-to-websites. I'm less confident in saying that user metrics outweigh links as a ranking factor, because that would really depend on the authority of those links. Could a small clothing boutique outrank Macy's because it's earning more user actions? It's possible, but maybe not a common scenario. Thanks for taking the time to read our predictions!</p>

<p>Hey Mike!</p> <p>You know, I have these moments working in digital marketing where I say, "Oh my gosh, just how LAZY are we all?" But then I remember that there is seldom anything new under the sun and that convenience has driven commerce for centuries. Voice search is just one new convenience, and it looks to me like it's going to take root. Appreciate hearing a healthy dose of skepticism, though.</p>

<p>Hey Kevin!</p> <p>I agree completely that review platforms will continue to enjoy great importance. Anecdotally, I had to have a locksmith come out to my home this week to replace a broken lock. I got into a conversation with him about his local search marketing and he told me how reliant he has become on Yelp. This didn't surprise me, as it was how I found him, and he'd earned a really healthy portion of positive reviews there. He told me he has earned those reviews by always treating his customers well, and I can attest that this was how I was treated. He arrived on time, charged the price he quoted me over the phone, and, as a nice extra, he gave me a free can of lock oil which he said would make my lock last twice as long. That's how you build trust!</p>

<p>Aw! Thank you, Ria. Happy Valentine's Day to you, too, and I think we may need to pass out handkerchiefs to many businesses as the pay-to-play scenario becomes more widespread. On the one hand, the vetting behind some of Google's programs can, in fact, be a safeguard. On the other hand, SMB budgets will feel some pain in stretching to compete. Thanks for sharing your good thoughts. </p>

<p>Agree with you, Sergio &amp; Stefan ... and I think the rise of attributes is showing us just how granular Google wants to go. It's as though the whole concept of relevance to the query is being refined into smaller and smaller elements. Good thinking, guys!</p>

<p>Hi Praveen!</p> <p>What I have heard is that we are headed to a point in which we'll be seeing results within feet of us - imagine that! But I'm not sure when we'll see this. I like your idea of street-based and then area-based SERPs. Google should take notes :)</p>

<p>Hey Egol :)</p> <p>My gosh, I know exactly what you mean about that. I truly share your wish!</p>