Anyone do Local SEO and see the latest change?

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mqs1000

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When you did a search for a local business, Google used to usually show the top 7 listings (nicknamed the 7 pack). As of a couple of months ago it now only shows the top 3. See image below. It was hard enough to get into the top 7, now you have to make the top 3? Or do you think you can promise the client that you'll get them in the top 10 even though it doesn't show more than 3 unless you click on "More Places". That's the thing - most people don't go past the first page of Google on organic results so I can only imagine the same principle applies with the local results. Any advice on what to do? Selling and delivering local SEO just got a lot harder.

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I noticed this too, and ya people are not going to want to pay for a top 10 when you have to expand to get there nor should they.
 
wowhaxor said:
I noticed this too, and ya people are not going to want to pay for a top 10 when you have to expand to get there nor should they.
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Exactly, so selling / doing local SEO is pretty much fucked now, right?
 
mqs1000 said:
Exactly, so selling / doing local SEO is pretty much fucked now, right?
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It is really not... there is a ton of business out there that one can get and still provide a quality product getting their clients a good return on their hard earned dollar.
 
This is *great*

So New York City has THREE dentists Google will recommend eh. This shows what a monopoly in online search will do. No algorithm on Earth can choose from New York dentists to select THREE motherfucking professionals. That is BULLSHIT.

Search for any popular product, you open the top 3 or 4 pages and it's like Google's RankBrain pulled them out of its ass. In one particular niche the top result is a TABLE based layout with 1990's style links all over the page floating up and down and spinning everywhere.

The new Google AI ranking algorithm is to take a random sample of relatively good sites and randomly shuffle them for a few months.

Repeat: choosing THREE DENTISTS OUT OF NEW YORK CITY and promoting them like that is not search, it's BULLSHIT.
 
I agree with the masses on this the Google local stuff is so screwed up... I help maintain one of the largest law firms in the state I live in with several locations throughout the state and over 100 attorneys. They handle all the big cases even murder charges and Google local results keeps showing bull crap one man out of a trailer law firms with no reviews, pics or anything on their local profiles. Meanwhile we have tons of reviews pics of all the firms for each location with attorney profiles and can't seem to stay in the top 3. LOL
 
BassTrackerBoats said:
It is really not... there is a ton of business out there that one can get and still provide a quality product getting their clients a good return on their hard earned dollar.
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But in order to provide them with a good return you now need to get them in the top 3 which now (as said by BigBuddy) changes every day. It is now extremely hard to rank a company in the top 3 and KEEP them there in order for them to get a good return. So how exactly do you work with this?
 
Snack pack is butt. Google is butt. They are contracting local search to expand in future. Like the lull before the chorus in a song. Get everyone mad. Then show prettier local search.

Like orgasm the frustration builds. Then explodes into your face.
 
mqs1000 said:
But in order to provide them with a good return you now need to get them in the top 3 which now (as said by BigBuddy) changes every day. It is now extremely hard to rank a company in the top 3 and KEEP them there in order for them to get a good return. So how exactly do you work with this?
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The snack pack can be a bear in {some|most|a lot of} situations so you need to look at not only that but also other ways you can generate traffic and awareness for your clients.

Odds are they are in the dark as to what things they can do to advertise properly online for their products and services and, as a local SEO, you find those online opportunities for that client, in his market area, and provide that service as part of your overall package.

Local is 90% small business and the small businessman is already wearing about 47 hats so knowing the ins and outs of all the little nuances of Local digital marketing is usually not in his skill set yet it is important that he have an effective presence there.

I don't see most of Local SEO as solely SEO, I see it more as building a digital footprint for a client that is focused on marketing, brand awareness, online public relations and community presence.
 
Thats Google, they tend to change things and experiment performance of their money making content.
 
BassTrackerBoats said:
The snack pack can be a bear in {some|most|a lot of} situations so you need to look at not only that but also other ways you can generate traffic and awareness for your clients.

Odds are they are in the dark as to what things they can do to advertise properly online for their products and services and, as a local SEO, you find those online opportunities for that client, in his market area, and provide that service as part of your overall package.

Local is 90% small business and the small businessman is already wearing about 47 hats so knowing the ins and outs of all the little nuances of Local digital marketing is usually not in his skill set yet it is important that he have an effective presence there.

I don't see most of Local SEO as solely SEO, I see it more as building a digital footprint for a client that is focused on marketing, brand awareness, online public relations and community presence.
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Local SEO is local SEO. These other things you're listing like brand awareness, public relations, community presence are a different bag of tea and a different service. SEO involves making your client's business show up on Google. At the end of the day, the client will want to see themselves there. If they don't see themselves showing up after the first few months, all of the work you're doing will be questioned and they will probably cancel.
 
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This just gives you the opportunity to charge more for the Map listings (supply & demand). If you could rank in the old 7 pack why can't you rank in a 3 pack? Be sure to optimize every link you acquire. It may take more than throwing up a 100 un-optimized local citations on directories but it can be done.
Also some won't be willing to give the extra effort it may take in getting into the 3 pack, so some competition may become weak.
 
Local SEO is NOT dead. The game has been changing for sure, though. It's going to get a lot harder to rank in the coming days but then it's part of life.
 
Yeah, I noticed this as well. If you want a good laugh, you should take a look at the current top 3 dentists near my city.

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A 1.1 rating... There are dental offices with much better ratings that only appear on pages 3-5.
 
Just charge separately for them. One service for organic and one for pack. And price pack higher...
 
mqs1000 said:
Local SEO is local SEO. These other things you're listing like brand awareness, public relations, community presence are a different bag of tea and a different service. SEO involves making your client's business show up on Google. At the end of the day, the client will want to see themselves there. If they don't see themselves showing up after the first few months, all of the work you're doing will be questioned and they will probably cancel.
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Taking the definition that literally, I think your right. Technically, I guess those are other services. But I agree with what he said completely. Things are changing, as you noted in the OP. If you don't change with them you probably will have a lot of people cancel. A lot of that will go with how you communicate with the clients and where you set the expectations with them. Not everyone will always show up in the first 3 months regardless of how many are in the pack, and if you can't get ahead of that you're screwed anyway.

I haven't seen any where you have to click to see more than 3 results. You have to click if you want to see the rest of the pack, but there's organic results under them too.


Screen Shot 2015-11-14 at 12.33.41 AM.png
 
mqs1000 said:
Local SEO is local SEO. These other things you're listing like brand awareness, public relations, community presence are a different bag of tea and a different service. SEO involves making your client's business show up on Google. At the end of the day, the client will want to see themselves there. If they don't see themselves showing up after the first few months, all of the work you're doing will be questioned and they will probably cancel.
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You are right, SEO is SEO and that is what many offer to clients. What I try to offer is a bit more comprehensive to them as what they are really looking for is a return on their digital marketing dollar and SEO is just part of their digital marketing.

If I offer a client a package that costs them 800.00 a month, which includes SEO, brand awareness, online public relations, community presence, social media, etc, and their return is 1600.00 a month, they are pleased as punch. The typical client does not have the understanding that you do, and I can see that you clearly do from your postings, of many of the other ways that targeted traffic can be sent to them from the various online sources.

They are concerned with getting a positive return on their advertising dollar and unsure of the best ways to go about that. You are concerned about providing a quality service to your client so they get that return as well as making a nice living in the process.'

Offering more of a package gives you a bigger ticket item, gets your client much more exposure and can be a win/win if you do it correctly.

You are also not relying on the whimsical nature of Google's algorithms as being the end all in the results of your efforts on behalf of your client.
 
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