5 mins
OpenHow Important Are Citations In Local SEO?
by Laura Heffernan
2 mins
What Does The Future Hold For Local Search?
There are some very exciting things coming up in the world of local search. Understanding local search and knowing what the future likely holds for this niche could give your business an extra edge over the competition.
by Aidan Milan
11th October 2016
Local searches are often made by users at the purchase stage of the buying cycle.
Local search produces results which are relevant to a searcher based on their current location.
But why is local search so important, and what does the future hold for this particular niche?
Contents
Why you should care about ranking in local search
Local searches are often made by users at the purchase stage of the buying cycle. This means that effective optimisation for local search leads to in a higher conversion rate on average.
Instead of having to compete with everyone in your industry in search engine results pages, local search narrows this down so that you only have to compete with businesses which are both in your industry and in your area.
Understanding what the future could have in store for local search can allow your brand an opportunity get a leg up on the competition in a big way.
Maximize your location authority with links from relevant local websites.
Search is getting more hyperlocal
Some experts in the SEO industry have been noticing a definite trend towards Google narrowing its local search radius.
They have reportedly found areas which are now showing roughly half the results they had previously. Some suspect that this Google attempting to make room for ads in local packs.
To increase your chances of showing up in local search, it’s important to maximize your location authority with links from relevant local websites, preferably containing anchor text with town, city or neighbourhood names in them. Also create detailed local content on your site.
Local search will grow as mobile search does
Global mobile data traffic grew 75% in 2015 alone, and it’s predicted that by 2020, the number of mobile-connected devices per capita will be 1.5. That’s one and a half mobile devices for every person in the world.
Since as their name suggests, they’re portable, mobile search is very closely linked to local search. In fact, around 30% of all mobile search is related to location. Therefore it stands to reason that as the frequency and importance of mobile search grows, so will that of local search.
As the frequency and importance of mobile search grows, so will that of local search.
The same goes for voice search
Not only will 50% of search will be voice search by 2020, but voice search and local search are intrinsically linked in the same way that mobile search and local search are.
And with corporate giants like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are all vying for their share in the huge voice search market, this technology is showing no signs of losing momentum. So optimising for conversational voice search is a must!
