We even took the opportunity to implement a feature that allowed BrightLocal Local Search Grid and Local Rank Tracker users to select the run-time of their reports to ensure reliability in the face of this realization (more on that below).

Now, time as a ranking factor seems to be rearing its head again; in a new twist, Claudia Tomina’s latest case study highlights how Google’s popular times graph seems to correlate with improved rankings. 

Source: Reputation Arm

Does Google’s ‘Popular Times’ feature influence local rankings?

When you opt into Google’s Location History, your information contributes to the pool of data that goes into determining popular times at local businesses. This data is anonymized by the time it gets to the SERP, and can provide users with live visit data, including typical visit duration and the estimated wait time. 

In Reputation Arm’s latest blog, Claudia Tomina found a correlation between a business’s popular times and its local ranking.

In her case study, Claudia ran ranking reports on two businesses side by side and compared them with the popular times data from their respective GBPs. Her research revealed that as popular times increase for a business, so does its ranking visibility for keyword rankings. 

She notes that because many restaurants will have similar popular times (such as a spike around dinnertime), sometimes the rankings boost will come later. For one particular business, this occurred at 8pm, despite not being their peak time. It is near their peak time of 7pm, but vying for less competition; the reported popularity of competitors dies out around 8pm, giving our original business the opportunity to shine. 

A follow-up piece additionally emphasized that these sorts of hourly trends are only one ranking factor in what is likely to be a whole host of influences. 

We asked Claudia to summarize her thoughts on her findings:

Claudia Tomina

Chief Product Officer at Reputation ARM

“​​After examining the Google API leak documents, I discovered GoogleApi.ContentWarehouse.V1.Model.WeboftrustTimeRange, which states:

‘Time range (start time and end time). Used to indicate the times in which a LiveResult is considered “hot” and thus a potential for boosting.’

Could “Live, Busier than usual” on Google Maps’ Popular Times graph signify that a business is “hot,” thereby providing a “potential for boosting” rankings? This potential ranking boost is yet to be confirmed by Google, however, the image below provides strong evidence suggesting this could be the LiveResult Google refers to.

[The image shows] an unverified listing that was able to outrank a popular chain restaurant while displaying the “Live: As busy as it gets” status under the popular times graph.”

What should I do with this information?

While there isn’t much you can do to completely change this particular ranking factor, it’s important to be aware of its significance and how you could move the needle. 

Awareness is key, so be sure to continually monitor hourly trends, track your keywords at an hourly rate, and be conscious of your popular times graph. Understand that while this can influence what you see on an hour-to-hour basis, it’s not the be-all and end-all of rankings—there are still a variety of other factors to consider. 

If you want to try to take advantage of this particular boost, this is a great opportunity to try out targeted promotions to run traffic through your door on those typical “quiet times.” 

Scheduling your local ranking reports

Following the revelation that opening hours affect local rankings, our product team got to work on a new update for the Local Search Grid and Local Rank Tracker.

You can now select a preferred three-hour window for reports to run in your local time. Just head to your report settings to amend the frequency, day, time, and timezone, and voila!

While we don’t recommend running your ranking reports around ‘Popular Times’ (as these are based on user visits and location history and could change at any time!), scheduling ranking reports during business hours will help you get the most accurate ranking data for your brand. Just keep in mind your popular times to add context to your findings. 

As dramatic as it may have been, we’ve been interested to know how things have really changed on the ground for local marketers. Personal feelings aside, does all this have any impact on how businesses and agencies reach their audience?

So, we polled 180 local marketers to find out how their usage of Twitter/X has changed since the takeover began in late 2022.

How were local marketers using Twitter before the takeover in November 2022?

• 54% of local marketers were never using Twitter as a local marketing channel.
• 33% of local marketers used Twitter as a marketing channel at least monthly, prior to its takeover.

Quite astoundingly, more than half of local marketers said they never used Twitter for local marketing in the first place! 

Or perhaps it’s not so surprising. Twitter was often seen as the go-to social platform for ‘microblogging’ and community building and, given the highly contextual nature of Twitter threads and discussions, it can be a tricky social media channel to ‘master’. Simply scheduling a few posts a week and spitting them into the ether won’t do. Business owners and marketers have to dedicate a lot of time into understanding how their audience engage.

So, that leaves us with 46% of local marketers using the platform as a marketing channel, and 33% that were using it pretty regularly—at least once a month.

How did Twitter usage change after the takeover?

• 26% of local marketers now do not use Twitter/X at all for marketing.
• Twitter/X usage has not really changed for 30% of local marketers.

Of those local marketers that did use Twitter, 26% have said they now no longer use the platform at all since the 2022 takeover and subsequent rebrand. So that’s over a quarter that could have moved to an alternative platform, or ramped up their marketing activity on other social channels already used.

Shortly after the October 2022 takeover, a flurry of excitement grew around Mastodon. Although not new by any means, Mastodon offered former Twitter fans a familiar environment, while running as a decentralized, non-profit social channel. Over a million users flocked to join at the time and, despite numbers dipping again, as of July 2023 it appears to be on the rise once more.

And if they didn’t join Mastodon, there was also the boom in Threads users when that launched in July 2023. Meta’s challenger app, cleverly tied into Instagram, finally gave Instagrammers a place for text-based communication with an existing audience. Yet despite gaining 100 million users in less than a week, active users were said to have plummeted by August.

And so it follows that 30% of local marketers are using X just about the same amount as they used Twitter. Given the amount of us still calling it Twitter (I’m not sure I’ll ever comfortably say X without following up with “or Twitter or whatever”), and the challenger platforms maybe not quite giving the alternative people were hoping for, maybe not that much has really changed?

Bottom line: do local marketers see X as an effective marketing channel now?

• Twitter/X averaged a 3.8/10 for effectiveness as a local marketing channel.
• 20% of local marketers said they do not think Twitter/X is effective as a marketing channel at all.
• 76% rated X’s effectiveness as a five or less out of ten.

Again, personal opinions aside, we wanted to measure what local marketers think of X now. So we asked them how they rated its effectiveness as a local marketing channel, from zero to ten. It averaged a not-so-great 3.8 out of ten.

A quarter of local marketers rated X’s effectiveness in the middle—not good, not bad—and a fifth said “nope, not at all”. 

If we compare these results to the graph displaying how marketers use X now, you see a similar pattern. So it comes down to the the real question of: why are local marketers using X if they don’t think it’s particularly effective?

What social media channel do local marketers rate as most effective?

• 63% of local marketers rate Facebook as the most effective social channel for local marketing.
• Just 2% of local marketers see X as the most effective social channel for local marketing.

Finally, we pitted X against other mainstream social platforms and asked local marketers simply which one they find to be the most effective. Facebook comes out on top by a mile, with 63% of local marketers rating it as most effective.

So, it makes sense that local marketers will find a social media platform effective if their audience are actively using it.

What can we learn from these results?

As noted within the section on X’s effectiveness as a marketing channel, we can see a fair chunk of local marketers are using X more or less the same as they did Twitter. With such a significant amount of them saying they don’t feel it’s effective, why are they there?

Mastering social media as a business owner is tough. Even for social media specialists, it can feel like you have to ‘keep up’ with all of the platforms. If this is you, consider some of these tips for social media in local marketing.

Where does your audience spend time online?

Bring it back to basics and reconsider who your target audience is. Sprout Social is a great resource for up-to-date social demographics and user stats, and even provides tips on the most engaging content types per channel.

And if you’re feeling stuck, find out where your competitors are! It’s easy enough to find which social channels your competitors are using—they may even list them in their website footer or on their Google Business Profile.

Remember the core purpose of social media

Yes, social media can be utilized to drive revenue, but it’s always worth reminding yourself that this should not be your key goal. It could be that you’re present in some of the right places but not really considering what’s important to your audience.

Visibility, engagement and trust are vital elements of the awareness and consideration stages of the marketing funnel. Consider:

• Visibility: Is your business or brand present on the right channels? Does your brand identity and core business information (Name! Address! Phone Number!) match up consistently so that you can be found?
• Engagement: Can users see evidence that you’re actively engaging with your audience? Are you responding to customer queries and issues, not just the positive feedback and good reviews?
• Trust: ‘Real’ content, behind-the-scenes stuff and even sharing your team members can help to build trust with your audience. Combined with the above elements of visibility and engagement, it shows authenticity and helps users verify that you are who you say who are.

Share your thoughts with us

Did these results surprise you? We’d love to hear your thoughts! You can reach us over on X, via our Facebook community, The Local Pack, or by emailing the research team.

When its first iteration of business listings, Apple Maps Connect, was released in 2014, the news flew somewhat under the radar. In fact, many of the tweaks Apple has made to its maps product have. 

Skip forward to January 2023. A big announcement came from Apple: they were re-releasing their listings service as Apple Business Connect, and local marketers were intrigued. Finally, it looked pretty good. Finally, Apple users might consider switching to their device’s native maps app. And, importantly, it was a new(ish) platform for local business discovery. 

So, where are we five months in? Are more users adopting Apple Maps now, and are businesses making use of Apple Business Connect?

Apple Maps vs Google Maps: who uses what?

In terms of device preference, global market share data from StatCounter shows that Android’s operating system takes the lion’s share, with an impressive 72% of the global market in Q1 2023 and iOS at around 27%.

Historically, though, Apple devices and iOS operating systems have been heavily preferred by consumers in the US. I distinctly remember listening to an episode of The Vergecast a few years back and being astounded by the “blue bubble” phenomenon. If you’re an iOS user, you’ll understand what I mean—but for all of us Android (or other) users: essentially, Apple users hate us and our stupid green bubbles.

As of 2023, market research highlights that Apple’s iOS takes between 55-57% of the US market share, with Android claiming between 42-45% (ranges use data from both Financial Times and Statista research). But does that mean all of those iOS users automatically side with Apple Maps? Not necessarily.

While Apple Maps is exclusive to iOS devices, any user can download Google Maps. We polled our social communities across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to find out their overall preference, as consumers, between Apple Maps and Google Maps.

• 88% of people use Google Maps, compared to 12% who use Apple Maps.
  

It’s important to note that our social communities cover mostly US, Canadian, UK, and Australian audiences, so there will be a broader representation of Android users. But the results are staggeringly clear—Google Maps is the clear victor!

As for delving into the reasoning behind their choices, some of our community volunteered their thoughts:

Obviously very biased to Google Maps and as an android user it’s my default for everything anyway. My wife, Debi, plans all our trips via Google maps (using saved lists) even though she is an Apple user. Debi just finds Apple maps frustrating compared to what she can do with G…

— Andy Simpson (@ndyjsimpson) May 18, 2023

When researching places to go, I like to use Google Maps since it’s connected to Google reviews whereas Apple is connected to Yelp.

— Andrew Prince (@AndrewPrince16) May 18, 2023

“As a consumer, my phone is Android so I use Google Maps for my GPS. Also, when friends use Apple Maps to navigate to our house it always sends them to the wrong place. We always have to tell them to use Google Maps or they won’t make it. Google is simply a better, more accurate product at this time.”

– David Byrd, via The Local Pack

It’s clear that, even after many improvements to Apple Maps in recent years, users see Google Maps in a much more favorable light, whether due to better location accuracy, a more enjoyable interface, or familiarity and trust in its linked Google Reviews.

Are Businesses Using Apple Maps?

Either way you look at it, Apple has previously stated that Apple Maps has hundreds of millions of users.

When you spend so much of your working day in Chrome browsers (and generally at the behest of Google’s guidelines) it can be easy to forget about claiming and optimizing an Apple Maps listing. But if your business isn’t correctly listed, you’ve got a lot of people to potentially annoy–and many that won’t find you altogether!

 

Quick tips from Claire

Advice from our resident Local Search Expert, Claire Carlile

 

“It’s important to make sure your business details are correct as Apple Maps is the default map app for all iOS devices, plus you need to keep in mind that Apple Maps data is used in various other places, such as the DuckDuckGo search engine.”

 

Who’s claimed their Apple Maps business listing?

We wanted to find out how many businesses are making use of the listing service, so we polled our customer base to find out 1) if they have claimed their listing on Apple Maps and 2) whether this was claimed before or after Apple Business Connect was released.

• 58% of businesses have not claimed their Apple Maps business listing.
• Just 18% of businesses have claimed their Apple Maps listing since new features were released.

Although this is along the lines of what we expected, it’s quite shocking to see that almost two-thirds of businesses are missing out on their Apple business listings altogether. In its most basic form for businesses, Apple Maps is a credible and important platform for ensuring your name, address, and phone number (NAP) consistency. Additionally, as Claire highlights above, it’s also really important to consider what other services may be relying on Apple Maps, such as DuckDuckGo.

 

Quick tips from Claire

Advice from our resident Local Search Expert, Claire Carlile

 

“Claiming and optimizing an Apple Maps listing is always one of the foundational pieces that I suggest when starting work with a new client. At present there aren’t as many ‘moving parts’ to ABC as GBP – but make sure you get the basics right at the outset – name, address, phone number, map pin, and any other fields that are available in the interface.”

 

Do Businesses know about Apple Business Connect?

We also wanted to explore the awareness levels of Apple Business Connect among businesses and whether those that have claimed their listings were actively using the tools. While January’s announcement was covered in local SEO and digital marketing news, we know that some of these can fly under the radar—particularly as far as Apple Maps is concerned. Has this knowledge reached the audience who arguably need it most: small businesses?

Again, we polled our customer base and highlighted several of Apple Business Connect’s features, announced in January 2023, to measure their awareness.

• 59% of businesses are not aware of the tools available via Apple Business Connect.
• Only 16% of businesses say they are using Apple Business Connect features.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a similar picture, with just as many businesses who haven’t claimed their listings on Apple Maps also completely unaware of the newer listings tools.

With 8% of businesses saying they are unsure, it suggests that they are probably unaware of the listings tools available, although it’s also possible that their listings are managed and optimized by an agency or consulting partner.

The bottom line is: awareness of Apple Business Connect is low. This means missed opportunities for optimizing your business listing with engaging content, such as professional and inspiring imagery, or raising awareness of unique offers with custom Showcase cards.

What should marketers do with this data?

First of all, if you haven’t already: claim your Apple Maps business listing! Whether you’re a local marketer working with clients or a small business managing your local SEO, you should consider claiming your business listings across prominent platforms as a foundational element.

Next, ensure your key business information is displayed and correct, such as your NAP, opening hours, website, and any other crucial information (think restaurant menus, payments accepted etc).

Take your efforts up a notch by optimizing your listing with Apple Business Connect’s tools. If you’re a marketing consultant or agency, speak to your clients and ensure you’re not missing out on any key offers or updates. Aim to educate them in the power of these tools and encourage good communication so they stay up to date. While they’re likely (hopefully!) aware of the importance of their Google Business Profile, remember that potentially millions of people use Apple Maps as a default, or may visit alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo. 

So, are you surprised by these results? Has this information made you more likely to consider spending time on your Apple Maps listings? We hope you found it useful and that it’s given you something to think about for your business(es) or clients! Please feel free to share your thoughts on the topic with us over at The Local Pack or via our Twitter.

Methodology

Our consumer poll “Do you use Apple Maps or Google Maps?” was conducted across Twitter, within BrightLocal’s Facebook Group The Local Pack, on Instagram stories, and on LinkedIn. A total of 143 votes were received. It’s important to acknowledge the small sample size and likely limitations around demographics here, but it helps us to form an overall picture of the current appetite for Apple Maps within the local marketing world.

The BrightLocal customer poll was conducted within our tool platform and received 384 responses from local SEO consultants, agencies, single-location businesses, and multi-location businesses. 

Unsurprisingly, these announcements centered around AI. Yup, it’s the bots again.

It’s worth noting, though, that there were a couple of other things announced that weren’t specifically AI, but could be important to local marketers across the planet (starting in the USA, as is often the case).

In this piece, we’ll cover everything you need to have on your radar.

There’s a New Google Generative Search Experience

Undoubtedly the biggest change for businesses and marketers is the integration of generative AI into the search experience. It’s powered by PaLM2, the Large Language Model underpinning Google’s AI efforts. While they’d been toying with Google Bard’s generative qualities, they were also developing this search experience.

Crucially, it’s a generative AI that’s been specifically designed for search. It’s not just “Google Bard but in the SERPs”. Bard was designed as a showcase of logic learning machine (LLM) technology. What was announced yesterday is an entirely new approach to search.

This new integration has been called Search Generative Experience, or SGE (yup, that’s another acronym you’ll need to learn; I’m sorry). It’s their direct rival to BingGPT, and it’s going to shake up how people can use search. Or at least, that’s what Google is saying.

The goal appears to be to allow people to make granular searches, right off the bat, which could change the traditional search journey. A couple of key examples of what this means were highlighted in the talk.

Google AI Search for E-Commerce and Beyond

The first was a more traditional e-commerce search, for dresses. It showed that, rather than doing a series of broad searches to answer a complex question, you could just do all of it at once. It then showed a slightly more local example, which we’ll come to shortly.

Basically, rather than searching for each of these individually… e.g.

• Family activities Bryce Canyon
• Family activities Arches National Park
• Is [activity] dog friendly

…they’re saying you’ll be able to do all of that in one giant, long-tail search and receive granular answers.

i.e. “what’s better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, bryce canyon or arches national park”

Then you can then make it more granular with the click of a button. Whether that’s a ‘ask a follow-up question’ or selecting one of the suggested questions they offer up.

As you can see, this is displayed front-and-center at the top of the SERPs. Although for anyone worrying that Google won’t want to take your money anymore, Google has confirmed that ads will still be displayed up there, too.

Currently, there’s a waitlist in the US for the SGE that will eventually be rolled out to everyone.

Google AI Search and Local Business Discovery

As ever with a lot of these announcements, Google used a couple of local search examples to highlight how it can look in those instances.

Hospitality is always an example they jump to, as it has such broad appeal, and this time it really highlights how it could affect more local searches when consumers have a strong idea of what they are after.

Here’s an example of them asking SGE to ‘compare two lunch spots near me that are good for big groups’

As you can see from what we’ve highlighted on that SERP, it surfaces key information from a business’s Google Business Profile, like reviews and particular dishes, as well as overall cost.

Not only that, it’s letting people directly compare a couple of institutions. This is something that the traditional Local Pack did ambiguously. It showed you all that information but it wasn’t saying “Here’s how they compare, side by side”.

With the generative aspect of the search, it also lets you dig even deeper. So if you wanted to add a specific business to this comparison, you can do that, as shown in the follow-up question above.

And, if you wanted to search by a specific dish, somewhere that was good for groups or, by the looks of it, somewhere that just matches your vibe, you’ll probably be able to do that. Basically, the context is carried over each time you ask a question within this conversation.

Google Has Learned, and Added Citations and Links to Publishers

One of the big annoyances (and concerns) that many people had about Google Bard was the lack of citations for their informational source. (For once, we aren’t talking about local citations, either.)

For those that weren’t aware, Google Bard didn’t provide sources or links for any of the information it surfaced. The good news is that SGE absolutely does.

Not only does it provide sources in the immediate SERP, as highlighted above, but there’s an option to ‘Toggle Deeper’ in the top right of the screen.

This should help reassure people that a zero-click apocalypse is slightly further off than people feared. And it highlights that creating content will still be useful, as Google will be highlighting where they got the information, even if it then merges it in the SERP.

It does still mean that zero-click searches will likely increase though, and even if you rank first you could still be a long way down the organic page due to all the non-traditional content.

I’m not freaking out about this – Google will continue answering questions and trying to meet users’ needs right there in the SERP. As search marketers we’ll need to assess how this will affect the search experience for our potential customers and we can do this when we get to test SGE and actually see how our potential customers will be experiencing search results based on the queries that we know are important to us as businesses. Then – as always – we’ll need to get our heads around the new opportunities to gain visibility in the SERP. And – of course, we need to make sure we don’t have all of our eggs in Google’s basket!

Claire Carlile, Local SEO Expert, BrightLocal

Google Is Being Careful

Unsurprisingly, as the international mood around generative AI is yet to settle, Google is perhaps wary of a backlash, or of people making potentially risky decisions based on an answer generated by its own AI. This means there are certain types of questions that you can’t ask in SGE.

Google has discussed responsibility at length in their documentation on SGE (which you can find here). But a quick snapshot of the kinds of things they aren’t allowing currently includes anything they deem as “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) content such as financial and health advice, which they touch on in the previously linked document.

At the very least, if they are unsure about the safety or accuracy of something, they will include a disclaimer.

Things you currently can’t ask SGE include explicit or dangerous topics, i.e. self-harm (where they’ll surface helplines instead) and medical advice queries, where a disclaimer will be displayed.

The SGE Includes Vertical Search

While not specific to all local businesses, the inclusion of vertical search is an interesting one for anyone that offers e-commerce capabilities. Essentially, SGE will be able to include Vertical searches like Google Shopping and pull large lists of information that could help users find the right products for them that are available in real-time.

When you click on one of the bikes in Google's AI-generated answers (including products), it brings up a sidebar with multiple options for where to buy.

Good for merchants, not so great for product review sites.

*But* at least Google does show 3 links to publisher/review sites pic.twitter.com/TskcC6NNet

— Lily Ray (@lilyraynyc) May 10, 2023

Reminder: SGE and Bard Are Two Different Tools

Essentially, SGE is Google’s attempt at catching up with Microsoft and OpenAI’s BingGPT, in order to offer generative AI within search.

Bard, on the other hand, will be a completely separate thing, and be used more for content creation than search, in the same way that ChatGPT, which can do anything from writing scripts (and causing Hollywood writers to, quite rightly, strike) to website code.

To summarise, then:

• Bard, ChatGPT: Generative AI tools designed to create content
• Google SGE, BingGPT: Generative AI tools designed to answer questions in search

The above isn’t exclusive, but it should help us define their uses a little better, especially as we’re still in the relatively early days of generative AI being a popular thing and things are likely to get a lot more complicated still.

If there’s a lot of goodwill behind Google on this, there’s a chance that SGE could nip that sudden increased market share Bing saw for a couple of months in the bud.

I think Google is definitely re-establishing it's street-cred on all thing related to AI and the future today. Pretty cool stuff!! I love it. It does make it exciting to be an SEO – at least for me!! #GoogleIO2023

— Cindy Krum (@Suzzicks) May 10, 2023

Google Maps Got in on the Action

“What about Google Maps??” I hear you cry. Well, that got a little love, too. Not quite at the same level, with a lot of these updates being a bit smaller, but there are a few things to be aware of.

There’s Now an Integration for Maps in Google Bard

While SGE and Google Bard are different things, people will still undoubtedly use Bard to perform some searches. The good news for local SEOs and businesses is that they’ve announced an integration to display Google Maps within the conversation on Bard.

Here’s a screenshot of this captured by the good folks at Search Engine Land (excuse the low res image):

As you can see, though, we’re not having quite so much luck over in BrightLocal HQ yet…

Ah, well. As the (other) bard once wrote, “To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.“

Aerial View Offers an Immersive Experience

While this won’t change the game right away, they’re something that some businesses may want to keep an eye on when it comes to their presence on Google Maps. They include:

• An ‘Aerial View’ API for developers. This will let devs include a birds-eye view video of a specific area on their website or apps. This could be a great way for businesses to showcase what they have to offer. An example, from an early partnership with Rent.com, shows how they can help renters see the surroundings of a property.

• Immersive Brand Experience. Google now offers the chance for businesses to provide 3D video and a whole new experience for businesses directly in Google Maps.

These updates offer businesses new opportunities to try and stand out from the crowd in Google Maps.

Everything Else Announced, From ‘About This Image’ to ‘Perspectives’

Okay, deep breath, you’ve already taken in a lot of information, but there’s more to come. These ones may not require you to put so much thought into them at this stage, but are things you should keep an eye on.

About This Image

In its quest for accuracy and fight against misinformation, Google has introduced a new tool to add context to images. It will give you information on the following:

• When it first got indexed by Google and when they indexed any similar images
• The site it originally appeared on
• Any other platforms it may have appeared on. i.e. news, fact-checking sites, or social media

It’s also worth noting that they added a markup for AI-generated images that will appear in the original file when they are created through their platform.

Perspectives

This is something Google actually started testing a little while ago and was live in some places from March. However, it’s only now that they’ve officially announced it. It will highlight long-form written posts, videos, images, and even social media posts to help give people a diverse range of perspectives.

It’s been added as part of Google’s desire to offer users better ways to understand a specific topic.

The Helpful Content System is Getting an(other) Update

Since the initial rollout of the Helpful Content Update last year, Google has made some updates. This next one is apparently to help surface content that Google sees as ‘hidden gems’ by focusing on individual contributors’ experience and expertise.

This sounds like a boosting of the much-discussed E-E-A-T ranking signals, but it will be nonetheless interesting to see what that actually means.

What do you need to do now?

Right now, there’s not a lot you can do. For starters, this is all rolling out in the US first. Some of it, like the aerial views and Perspectives, is live and available to play around with. However, for the SGE you’ll need to wait a little longer to truly see it live and in action, regardless of where you are.

If you’re in the US you can request to join the waiting list for Google Search Labs, which will give you access to play around with the new SGE before it goes live.

With talks around SEO and data, content, careers, and more, it was an amazing day full of knowledge and inspiration. 

During the day, our roving reporters took the tiny microphone to hear the big ideas from those at the event. We asked everyone to share their top tips and advice for SEO at the moment.

Here’s what they had to say…

Update, March 3rd, 2023: Google has now fixed the “bug” described below, in which listings not using Google Ads but that were otherwise complete weren’t showing as “complete”. Thanks to Ben Fisher for confirming this.

: Google has started to roll out a new label for Google Business Profiles, visible to all managers on the GBP NMX (New Merchant Experience). This was tested back in June 2021 but now appears to have been rolled out worldwide.

While this information was previously available in another part of the profile, what’s particularly interesting is how this, and data such as ‘customer interactions’ and ‘views’, is being surfaced much more prominently in the NMX, clearly in an effort to encourage more engagement with the platform. Claire Carlile noted those performance indicators being made more visible last week:

*NEW* (to me!) today – seeing profile view metrics from Google Business Profile 'Performance' being pulled into GOOGLE MAPS (not into the local knowledge profile on search) and an 'interactions' metric in the NMX pic.twitter.com/TxWJfYo8yJ

— Claire Carlile (@clairecarlile) February 15, 2023

What is the ‘profile strength’ label?

It’s a traffic-light-based label that shows managers how complete their Google Business Profile is. You’ll see a circular label in the top right-hand corner of the NMX, colored in either orange (for a partly complete profile), or green (for a fully complete profile).

Underneath any incomplete profile, there is a call to action for managers to complete info. Underneath any complete profile, there is a label that says ‘Looks good!’. 

So far, we’ve not seen a profile less than partially complete, so we cannot comment on what this looks like.

What does this mean for local businesses?

For anyone managing a Google Business Profile, this profile strength on the surface seems to provide a fairly simple way of quickly establishing whether or not your profile is complete or not, and if there is more information to add (or more likely, features to use).

However, what constitutes ‘completeness’ doesn’t seem to be objective, as Google clearly has a goal in mind for a truly ‘complete’ profile, as this example shows:

2. You get this modal saying:
"Customers are twice as likely to interact with businesses with more information. Complete the steps and get discovered by more customers on Search and Maps." pic.twitter.com/vsCm8KFkaC

— Darren Shaw (@DarrenShaw_) February 17, 2023

Google seems to have money on the mind. When clicking the ‘Complete info’ button on an incomplete profile, the NMX takes you to a new screen, explaining the benefits of completing your profile. When following this user flow, it takes you to a screen inviting you to sign up for Google Ads, with the option to claim $600 free advertising credit. 

We’ve also seen reports that incomplete profiles are also labeled when a business hasn’t opted into Messages. As local SEO expert, Claudia Tomina, points out:

“Not all my clients want to opt into messages. That will also make you incomplete.”

What does this mean for local SEO agencies?

So far, we’ve heard of some frustration from agency clients seeing their GBPs as incomplete. Colan Nielsen, VP Local Search at Sterling Sky, has said that clients have already approached him, worried about incomplete profiles. 

We've had clients reaching out freaking out because their profile strength wasn't 100% and I've just been telling everyone to simply ignore it.

— Colan Nielsen (@ColanNielsen) February 17, 2023

Meanwhile, Andy Simpson, Senior SEO Specialist at Digital Law Marketing, has also reminded people that profile strength is not a ranking factor, and not to worry about an incomplete profile. 

FACT: Your "Profile Strength" is not a ranking factor!
…you need to be running Ads + Messaging enabled to get 100% = Google #localseo #SmallBusiness #dontpanic https://t.co/WLBqzH41GU pic.twitter.com/BC7MdT5aQG

— Andy Simpson (@ndyjsimpson) February 20, 2023

What is Google trying to do with this more prominent label?

Well, we know there is a strong prompt to get business owners and profile managers to sign up for Google Ads if they aren’t doing so already. This seems to be one of the main blockers which keeps you from having a ‘complete’ profile. 

The profile strength label could be a useful feature for profile managers to make sure their new GBPs are set up as much as possible. However, good local SEOs have the expertise to know when a profile is completed, especially if their clients don’t want to use such functionality as Google Ads or Messages.

Our advice echoes Colan’s: ignore the label if it is telling you to complete your profile but that you know yourself, as an expert, the profile is as complete as you need it. However, as mentioned above, you’ll need to work fast to let your clients know about this before they see it, and to prove to them that your work is more reliable and successful than Google wants to admit.

Always, remember, though: don’t just set it and forget it. Your Google Business Profile is something you should monitor and optimize regularly. It’s a continually evolving environment, with new features added to it regularly. It’s important for local marketers to check the progress or quality of your business profile over a period of time, and make sure you’re not missing out on features important for ranking or conversions.

Introducing Bard

Google recently announced Bard, “an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA”. (Language Model for Dialogue Applications). 

Bard will simplify and make sense of information when answering questions. For example, you can ask it to explain the pros and cons of buying an electric car. You can then ask it to plan your next road trip and ask it to tell you the best places to stop at along the way and show you interesting things to do with your family. 

Google says it “draws information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses.” 

Whilst tools like ChatGPT have the capability for content creation, and that’s what we’ve seen most SEOs using it for, it feels like Bard could remain more of a search engine, with increased power for business discovery. 

Bard is launching to Trusted Testers this week before launching broadly in the future. 

Like Microsoft, Google has also now made a valid effort to remain responsible in this new world of AI, highlighting that it has been in their DNA from the start.

NORA – No One Right Answer

The latest acronym to come from the event is NORA (No One Right Answer) which displays multiple sources of information at the top of search results, alongside additional questions for the user to explore more around their search query.

Currently, Google uses featured snippets for quick, factual answers to a query, but because people might actually want a diverse range of opinions, Google is using generative AI to search results, to give users more choice of results to find the answer they’re looking for.

What this might mean for local SEO however, is a little more unclear. When searching for “best pizza in Brighton”, the search intent there is to find one specific pizza place. If NORA starts sharing multiple choices, then we might as well continue with our usual search on Maps. 

Source: Google

Immersive View

Immersive View was announced at last year’s Search On event, but Google has given us a few more visuals into how it will look and how it will work as it rolls out globally. 

When using Immersive View, you can get a sense of what the area is like at different times of day, how busy the area is, and get a sense of what else is surrounding the place you’re searching at. You’ll also be able to use it to explore things like restaurants in the area, plus take a look at what the restaurant is like inside.

This technology uses 2D images alongside AI, to create 3D images of the locations you’re in. For local SEOs, the importance of great photos of your location could become vital for this new technology to be effective. 

Source: Search Engine Roundtable 

Augmented reality is another new way to interact with the map. Search with Live View uses AI to find things nearby. A quick search for coffee shops near you, whilst holding your phone up to the street in front of you, will show you nearby businesses. The AR view will show the business’ star rating and the number of reviews, as well as how busy it is at that time. 

But how useful is this for users? Whilst a more visual map is fun to use, the key thing here is there’s not a lot you can’t get already from Maps. In real life, you can see the business name and how far away the business is just by looking up, so what this AR view really highlights, is the business’ reviews. There’s now even more of a business case for local businesses to consider reviews, as it’s another place reviews are surfaced. 

Source: Search On 2022

Bug affecting Google Business Profile image uploads

If you had the issue recently where you couldn’t upload images to Google Business Profile, then rest assured you were not alone. It happened to most people at the time but has since been resolved. 

Source: Tim Capper, Twitter

Google allows reviewers to add more details about chosen attributes 

When you edit your attributes in Google Business Profile, you may see a box under the attribute to “say more about” it. This allows a reviewer to add more details about the attributes chosen. It seems Google has been beta-testing this since around November 2022.

‘Check wait time’ button added to Google Local

Available for a few months now, searchers can hit the ‘Check wait time’ button on local listings to find out how long they’ll have to wait to receive services, such as a takeaway meal from restaurants. 

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Google Posts insights discontinued

Google Posts insights are no more! The service has been discontinued according to Google Business Profiles API documentation. However, Google Business Profile users will continue to have access to a number of profile insights like profile views, number of calls, messages, bookings and others.

Google publishes content on restrictions for user-generated content

For the first time ever Google has broken down the various types of restrictions for posting user-generated content (UGC). The restrictions refer to things like user-uploaded photos, videos, and reviews.

Some local results in Google showing double justifications 

Google’s local search results have a feature to highlight a review in the map pack and local search results snippet. These highlights or summarizations are known as justifications. 

Google was testing this feature in 2020. It officially went live in 2021 and the double justifications is new for 2023.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Any vehicle dealer can now list inventory on Google Business Profile

Until recently, only US-based car dealers could list their inventory on their Google Business Profiles. Now, anything that has a Vehicle Identification Number is eligible to be listed. That means motorcycles, RVs, powersports, and Commercial vehicles are all allowed. Importantly though, this feature is not yet available internationally. 

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

Well, if you didn’t think Google would let us all rest over the holiday period, turns out it actually kind of did. The announcement that its Helpful Content Update would be delayed was welcome news for some, albeit slightly frustrating for those waiting for the rollout to be done … and waiting. As far as other updates are concerned, it was a quieter month in all. 

What’s new with Google Updates?

Google begins rolling out another iteration of the Helpful Content Update

After an initial launch midway through 2022, the Helpful Content Update got a refresh. The global algorithm update aims to help searchers find useful content by promoting more helpful websites and content. Initially predicted to take several weeks to roll out, Google confirmed an extension was taking place, before a slight pause in the holiday period. The pause of the holidays has now ended.

December 2022 Link Spam Update rolls out

Initially expected to take a couple of weeks to roll out in December, Google has confirmed that its Link Spam Update is also rolling into January… so keep an eye on any ranking fluctuations.

Introducing E-E-A-T

After everyone finally got used to E-A-T and what it meant for local content, Google decided to update it with an extra E. The concept of E-E-A-T marks a significant update to Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines, introducing ‘Experience’ as a key indicator of trustworthiness.

Refined search capabilities rolling out on mobile

After months of testing and a feature at Search On, Google is rolling out topic filters at the top of some search results pages. Using “dinner ideas” as an example, users can narrow down their results with filters such as “vegetarian” or “healthy” and find more relevant content.

Image: SERoundtable

Latest Updates to Google Business Profile

A bug affecting photo and logo uploads 

Another day, another Google Business Profile (GBP) bug! It seems mostly newly verified businesses were having issues being able to upload photos and logos to business profiles. This was resolved around a week later.

Disclaimers added to appointment providers

Business profiles with associated appointment providers now have a disclaimer, reading: “providers are listed in random order.” —however, this can be expanded to explain that if the business does have a preference, then this provider will be displayed first.

Option to download your Google Business Profile when removing a listing

When users navigate to the option to remove a GBP listing, they can now ‘Download content’ to save their listing data.

…but they made it a little too easy to delete your GBP altogether

It was noted by Claudia T on Twitter that the option to permanently delete your GBP was possibly a little bit, well, reckless.

From what I understand there is no way to reverse it. Only owners can remove the business.

— ClaudiaT (@ClaudiaTomina) December 15, 2022

Photos added to GBP are now marked as ‘pending’

Notices have been spotted on images added to Google Business Profiles to reflect that they are pending approval.

Services now showing on GBPs via desktop

An expandable list of services can now be seen on Business Profiles when using a desktop interface. Where categories are limited, this update is helpful for local businesses as they can be more visible to prospective customers.

NMX allows custom maps to be created for websites

The new in-search editing interface now allows users to pick a design and show a custom Google map on their websites – this is particularly useful for businesses with multiple locations.

Latest in Reviews News

Studying the influence of review count on conversion

SOCi’s State of Google Reviews report examined the Google profiles of 31,000 chain and franchise businesses to measure the influence of review count on conversion, further highlighting the importance of actively working on your business review profile.

What do we know about the new Reviews algorithm?

Following the chaotic bug causing the removal of GBPs in November, Mike Blumenthal of NearMedia examines the new review filter. Findings show their benefits but, as we know, there have been cases of false positives and plenty of confusion, too.

Local Guides Do Matter!

A case study by Joy Hawkins has found that business reviews by Google Local Guides stay at the top of reviews for longer, as do those from reviewers with profile photos. 

Local Marketing

BrightLocal releases first Local Marketing Confidence Survey

As well as a generally positive outlook for marketers in 2023, we delve into some of the biggest challenges agencies and consultants face with winning new clients.

What does Continuous Scrolling mean for advertisers?

Continuous results scrolling has been confirmed as rolled out on desktop. But what does this mean for ads? Advertisers may see higher impressions and a lower CTR on Search, Shopping, and Local Ads, says Search Engine Land.