Google is at it again, and this time the search engine giant is releasing a new algorithm designed to target local markets. If you operate a local business, you will want to sit up and pay particular attention to this latest update. Designed to offer more relevant, accurate, and useful local search results, the results of the new update will be most visible in Google web search results and Google Maps search results. Due to the new update, local businesses may notice increases or decreases in leads and web site referrals.
Nicknamed Pigeon by Search Engine Land, the new algorithm update was officially released by Google on July 24. Since it is still relatively new, SEO marketing firms are still attempting to determine the significance of the update, but one thing that has become clear is that local businesses are being impacted by it. In the past, when a user searched for a local business, he or she would receive a wide assortment of results, many of which often included individual businesses. For instance, if you operate a restaurant and the user searched for restaurants in your local area, he or she would often see an assortment of results that might include Yelp and Urbanspoon reviews. Based on the results of the Pigeon update, users are now increasingly receiving local directory results with individual restaurants often not showing up until the second page.
What this means for you is that while directories will obviously benefit from the update, if you are a local business, your results could suffer. Pigeon is not technically a penalty-based update like Penguin and Panda, but ultimately, this means that websites that have strong, solid SEO signals are going to perform better in terms of search engine rankings. Local businesses will need to work much harder in order to ensure they stay at the top of the search engine rankings and do not get left behind directories.
While the new changes might not sound exactly fair to you and many local businesses are already decrying that the Pigeon update is for the birds, it does serve to underscore the continuing importance of local SEO marketing. In the past, local businesses often preferred to handle their own online marketing and often did not invest in the services of professional SEO marketing. With the release of Google’s latest local SEO marketing update, it has become painfully obvious that such a strategy will no longer work.
In order to succeed and stay ahead of the competition, which now frequently includes directories, local businesses will need to allocate resources for local search engine marketing. So, what can local website owners do to boost the ranking of their site and ensure it does not get lost in the shuffle?
First, it is important to ensure you are working with an experienced and knowledgeable Internet marketing company. Taylored Ideas stays focused on all of the latest algorithm updates and ensures that each website it manages is able to adapt to new releases without losing online exposure.