SEO is often referred to as an ongoing chess game, particularly when Google is involved—and local SEO is no different. Google’s local ranking algorithm uses various signals known as local ranking factors. These can become more prominent or less important depending on the current algorithm Google is using to rank local businesses.

In many cases, local SEO reporting will highlight some clear areas for improvement or identify what your competitors are doing better. But what do you do when it’s not obvious?

We thought we’d take a look at a real-life example to try to help.

So today, we’re diving into a real local SEO problem. Using two genuine (but anonymized in this case study) dental clinics within a mile of each other in a small town in the United States, we’ll explore how to read BrightLocal reports to identify areas for further investigation. We’ll also consider the other local ranking factors to investigate beyond those reports.

Throughout the case study, we’ll highlight some key areas for investigation or actions to take, so you can use these as guidelines for investigations with your own clients.

Starting Stats: Local Search Grid

Let’s take a look at a problem you might be faced with. Imagine you’re an agency working with Dentist A, an independent dental clinic in a small town in the northeastern US. You’ve not been subscribed to BrightLocal for long, and you’ve been getting to grips with reading the reports. So far, you’re mostly concerned with local ranking reports.

You’ve added Dentist A’s keywords to Local Search Grid (LSG). The top of your report shows the Average Map Rank for your first keyword (‘dentist’) is 7.3. It also shows 25 green grid points, which means they’re ‘high ranking’ (as in ‘in the Top 3 in the Local Pack). The orange and red points show you areas that need improvement. So far, so good.

Scrolling down underneath the map image, you’re presented with a side-by-side comparison of your top local competitors. This is when you see something confusing. Dentist B, one of your closest competitors in proximity, has an Average Map Rank of 4.9, while yours is 7.3. 

Two other competitors sit above Dentist B. Both have hundreds more reviews, backlinks, and a higher domain authority (DA) than you, so it’s clear why they’re performing well. But when you compare the report’s local ranking factors side-by-side, you should technically be outperforming Dentist B.

Let’s examine these factors more closely.

Despite both dental clinics’ average Google rating of 4.9 out of 5, Dentist A should have an overall advantage for this term—shouldn’t it? Yet its average local ranking is over two positions lower.

Now, we will look at our other BrightLocal reports to see if they uncover anything else.

Further Investigation with BrightLocal Tools and Reports

Local Rank Tracker and Google Business Profile Audit

Local Rank Tracker (LRT) tracks the positions of your keywords in Google and Bing over time so you can see which are gaining or losing visibility in the SERPs. Google Business Profile Audit displays a summary of your GBP’s key information, and its performance for five of your chosen keywords against local competitors. In this section, we’ll cover the two reports together as the insights feed into one another.

As well as looking at the main LRT report to see if ranking positions for keywords change over time, you can also use it to compare rankings with a chosen competitor. Let’s look at how Dentist A and Dentist B perform in Google organic desktop rankings for some of their key terms.

On the date in question, you can see that the competitor, Dentist B, is ranking for more of the key terms and outperforming Dentist A for two of them (dental clinic and emergency dentist). Now we’re getting somewhere.

So, aside from monitoring any downward movement to our key terms in the SERPs to pinpoint any changes that may have caused this, we know that Google is rewarding Dentist B with better organic rankings for these terms. The most obvious case could be that Dentist B has better optimized its website pages for this key term, while Dentist A has overlooked it.

Actions to Take

Review Any Recent Website or GBP Changes

If you have made changes recently, don’t modify or reverse them. It’s not yet clear if this will have impacted rankings, so you’ll want to monitor this over time.

Assess Competitors’ Website Content

If you regularly monitor competitors’ website content, can you see if anything significant has changed? If you’re unsure or you don’t have a record of changes, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective patient and review competitor content, asking:

• Does their website have more comprehensive service pages dedicated to services that match key terms?
• Is the content of good quality? That is, does it demonstrate expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness (as per Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines)?
• Is the location and its surrounding service areas clearly presented in some way?

Audit Competitor GBPs

Look up your competitor’s GBP and make note of the features being used. Compare this against your client’s GBPs to identify any gaps you may have. Ask yourself:

• Does it use Google Posts to share updates with users?
• Has it listed Services that correlate to key terms?
• Does the Q&A section have any questions in it? Have they been answered?
• Are there photos of the clinic, its team, and its facilities?

Review and Update Your Keywords

As businesses change and evolve, new services are added, some may be removed, and new geographical areas may open up. It can be easy to overlook the process of reviewing and updating keyword portfolios to reflect these. However, this should not be underestimated! Tracking the ranking positions of terms that are no longer relevant to your brand is pointless and skews your focus to the wrong things.     

With the above, it looks like we’ve already got a list of things we can do. It’s a good start!

Now, If we jump over to GBP Audit, we see a more visual representation of Dentist A’s GBP.

Each tab at the top lists 10 top competitors for each keyword, which builds on the information presented in Local Search Grid and Local Rank Tracker. However, we can see here several more factors to consider in order to help ranking performance:

• Whether the profile is verified
• % of Key Citations (more on this later)
• Linking domains (total linking root domains, e.g. you might see 200 links, but they might only be coming from 50 root domains)
• Number of photos

This is all well and good, but we’ve still not found the smoking gun—the metrics that really mark Dentist B out from Dentist A. Let’s move on to the next report and see what else we can unearth.

Citation Tracker

Citations are thought to be a local ranking factor, which means it’s important to ensure the businesses you are managing can be found across various online directories. 

Citation Tracker (CT) is quick and simple to set up. Using your business details, CT will locate all of the citation websites you’re listed on and highlight inconsistencies and errors on key citation websites.

Above, we can see that Dentist A’s picture is not too rosy. The Key Citation Score of 28/100 tells us that both the quantity and quality of citations are not up to scratch. Moreover, out of the 23 live citations, only 13 are considered key citations, and 11 of those have errors—that’s close to half of Dentist A’s citations.

Simply scrolling down on this report highlights every citation and its errors. In Dentist A’s case, there are some significant differences in the business name being used across these websites.

Put yourself in the shoes of a customer, and that’s a pretty confusing experience when you’re doing research—especially for an important decision associated with healthcare.

From a customer perspective, the Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023 investigated the implications of incorrect business information on consumer trust and found that 62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online.

Competitor Citations

Adding a competitor as a location within BrightLocal and setting up its own Citation Tracker report is a simple way to compare performance and identify key citation sources you may be missing. It’s up to you whether you choose to run them as one-offs or regularly for a more consistent picture of the competition.

We went ahead and ran Dentist B’s CT report. 

Luckily for Dentist A, Dentist B’s citations are in even worse shape, with just nine in total! However, the dashboard does not highlight any errors, while we know that Dentist A does have some to work on. 

It seems like citations aren’t the make-or-break factor for Dentist B outranking Dentist A, but this doesn’t mean that cleaning up, fixing, and building new citations shouldn’t happen. It’s still important to maintain and optimize listings to ensure business information is accurate.

Actions to Take

Correct Your Citation Errors

Fixing these errors should be the first port of call. In Dentist A’s case, there are only nine to do, so this won’t be too time-consuming. For businesses with dozens of listings to fix, you can see why monitoring them regularly is important.

Within your CT dashboard, you can travel straight to the live citation and edit your listing. Or, if a colleague or client manages citation amends, you can click the status of individual citations to leave notes highlighting what needs to be done.

Find and Add New Citations

CT highlights the relevant citation websites where listings are not found, which can be used as a checklist to work through. You can go through and add these yourself, or consider using BrightLocal’s Citation Builder service for a fuss-free and speedy turnaround.

Reputation Manager: Monitor Reviews

Moving into the realm of reviews, Monitor Reviews is a useful dashboard as it displays review growth over time, as well as a breakdown of star ratings and the sources of where reviews are coming from.

We already know that Dentist A has an average star rating of 4.9, but there are two clear areas that need improvement.

For some reason, Dentist A hasn’t received a new review since January 2024, leaving a two-month gap on the timeline. A quick manual check confirms this, so there is a clear starting point: achieving new review growth.

While the star rating breakdown is positive, the review source breakdown highlights just three sources of reviews: Google (98%), HealthGrades (<1%), and Wellness (<1%).

Diversifying review portfolios is an important consideration of reputation management. According to the Local Consumer Review 2024, 36% of consumers use at least two different review sites before deciding to use a local business. 

Plus, as we highlighted earlier, ensuring consistent information across different sources, such as review platforms and citation websites, reinforces trust with consumers.

Dentist A could consider building a stronger profile on other review platforms, such as Better Business Bureau (BBB), TrustPilot, YellowPages, and Doctor.com.

Competitor Reviews

We set up a Monitor Reviews report for Dentist B to compare the review profiles of the two businesses. Although its review sources are even less diverse and have fewer total reviews than Dentist A’s, Dentist B’s review growth chart shows a constant stream of reviews month on month.

From this, we can conclude that review frequency and recency play important roles in creating what Google deems to be a trustworthy review profile.

Review Responses

Heading over to Dentist A’s review profiles on Google, HealthGrades, and Wellness, another key observation is that it only replies to business reviews sporadically. Google’s guidance on improving local rankings specifically calls out managing and responding to reviews.

Plus, our findings from the Local Consumer Review Survey consistently show that consumers are more likely to use a business that responds to all types of customer reviews, whether positive or negative.

On the other hand, Dentist B doesn’t seem to reply to any business reviews. Although it appears to have the upper hand with review growth and recency, both businesses should absolutely consider review responses a priority. 

Actions to Take

Create Review Campaigns to Encourage New Reviews and Diversify Sources

Clearly, relying on reviews coming in organically isn’t working out for Dentist A. Creating timely, automated review campaigns is simple and effective with Get Reviews. 

Now, we can create email and SMS templates, including email follow-ups, create an NPS system for gathering useful internal feedback, and select the external review platforms we want to ask customers to use.

Local Search Audit

Local Search Audit provides an instant snapshot of your local SEO ‘health’ in an easy-to-understand traffic light system.

As we’ve already analyzed Rank Tracker, Local Listings, Reputation Manager, and GBP Audit, we’ll cover Links & Authority and On-Site SEO here.

Links and Authority

Links and Authority is rated as ‘OK.’ Further down, Local Search Audit shows the following metrics for Dentist A against the average competitor: 

• Google Index count (how many of your pages are Indexed by Google): 42 vs. 20
• Link count: 285 vs. 511
• Linking domain count: 89 vs. 149
• Domain Authority: 13 vs. 14.2

Link building is an important part of local SEO as it helps build awareness and authority, boost organic visibility, and signal that brands are trustworthy.

From these stats, we can see that attaining new links and broadening linking domains should be a key focus for Dentist A to improve on.

Actions to Take

Link building is renowned for being a tricky area in SEO—you can easily dedicate a whole role to outreach. So, while an entire link-building strategy may be a lot to recommend straight away here, you can start small.

Create a List of Target Websites and Publications

Generally, a good link portfolio should consist of relevant, authoritative sources. It’s also wise to consider how you can diversify it—for Dentist A, it could be something like an article on cosmetic dentistry ahead of big events for an authoritative wedding publication.

Set Up Brand Alerts to Find Mentions of Your Business Online

This can be useful for identifying when your brand is mentioned online but has not been linked to, so you can create a list of organizations to reach out to for corrections.

Review Your Backlink Profile with a Dedicated Tool

Semrush and ahrefs are just two examples of tools that can identify your links and linking domains, as well as provide insights on competitor backlinks. Competitor backlink analysis is also a useful way of scouting out ideas for the types of content and topics that are being linked to or covered by journalists.

On-Site SEO

This section of the Local Search Audit report is a small goldmine. It counts the number of pages crawled, the number of internal links, page titles and metadata, mobile rendering, and keyword count, to name just a few.

From a technical standpoint, Local Search Audit rates Dentist A as ‘Good.’ It’s worth noting that Dentist A’s website is fairly small, with just 66 pages. Plus, although it’s given the green flag overall, a few problem areas are highlighted:

• Missing image alt tags
• Sparse content pages (<500 words)
• Google PageSpeed Score

Scrolling down, the Local Search Audit also highlights the presence of ‘Top Keywords’ across the site. Quite astonishingly, ‘dentist’ does not appear here whatsoever! As we suspected earlier in the LRT section, the key term has been completely overlooked here.

Given that Dentist A’s primary GBP category is also ‘dentist,’ this is quite a severe misstep. 

Dentist A can easily begin to rectify this issue by re-optimizing key pages for the correct terms.

Actions to Take

Identify Missing or Low Count Key Terms

When it comes to fitting keywords into your website content, you never want to force it. However, this area of Local Search Audit could highlight if you are under-servicing some of your key terms.

In Dentist A’s case, the website is missing one of its priority, tracked keywords, which also correlates to its primary category in GBP. 

We’ll move on to sparse content in the next section.

Beyond the Tools

We’ve identified plenty of areas that can be improved upon to boost Dentist A’s local visibility, but there are only a few clear areas where Dentist B is outperforming them so far—review regularity and local rankings.

So, with what we’ve learned from the tools and reports, how can we take some of these insights away to investigate further?

On-site Content

Unfortunately, since we’ve anonymized our dentists, we can’t show you screenshots of the websites. But for Dentist A, imagine an HTML-coded Myspace layout circa 2006 (seriously). The navigation is not particularly intuitive, and, as we just discussed, the content across the website is sparse in detail.

Local Search Audit highlighted 45 out of its 66 pages as sparse content—that’s 68% of the site’s content with pages containing less than 500 words. Although content quality doesn’t—and shouldn’t—always correspond with quantity (e.g. word count), you would expect a website in the healthcare industry to have some comprehensive content.

It’s important to have clearly defined service pages, with descriptions that outline what potential patients can expect and answer any questions they may have.

With our auditor caps on, we can already see some clear reasons why Dentist B might be outranking Dentist A from a content perspective. So, we’ve compared the two dental clinics side-by-side, rating key elements of on-site content for local SEO. (Again, we can’t show you the websites, so you’ll have to trust us on this!)

Actions to Take

Page Optimization

At the very least, take the opportunity to optimize website pages. Optimize titles and descriptions with relevant keywords and a concise character limit, and find natural opportunities to include more of your key terms in page content.

Content Refresh

Rewriting website content can be a daunting task, but it’s easier to tackle if you break pages down into priority groups. For example, you could start with your key services and work on them in batches.

Page Structure

Whether you’ll be writing the content yourself, or briefing it to a team member or freelancer, a content brief is a great way to maintain consistency with your page structures. You can include keywords, page titles, headings, and descriptions, as well as dedicated sections that need to be written and included, such as FAQs.

Research Supporting Content Ideas

Would your website benefit from a blog or dedicated area for more informational and supportive content? This type of content can help answer queries that users might search for in their earlier stages of research, so you can target long-tail key terms and diversify what you are ranking for. 

Google Business Profile

So far, the reports have surfaced some areas of GBP that need further investigation, such as categories and photos. Dentist B does not use any secondary categories, whereas Dentist A has two: cosmetic dentist and dental implants.

Considering a relationship has been found between additional GBP categories and higher local rankings, it is surprising that Dentist A doesn’t have a noticeable advantage in its rankings.

While it’s not clear how photos might influence the performance of a GBP listing in local rankings, both Dentist A and Dentist B could significantly benefit from adding more. Dentist A has two, and Dentist B has four.

Knowing that Google’s rankings algorithm takes into consideration user behaviour in SERPs, it stands to reason that anything you can do to make your business more attractive to engage with online will have an indirect impact on rankings.

Adding photos of the business exterior and interior, facilities, team members, and even patients in different clinic areas (having obtained their permission) can help prospective patients feel more trusting of businesses. The Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023 found that the industry where consumers most wanted to see photos of team members was healthcare. Plus, customer reviews with accompanying photos can help to show ‘real’ experiences.

Additional GBP Features

Google is always testing and rolling out new GBP features that make them more helpful to searchers. Some are industry-specific, but many general features can be added to enhance your profile.

Dentist A and Dentist B don’t appear to use any additional features to their advantage. There are no Posts, Services, or specific attributes. Plus, both have unanswered questions from users, so this is an area that should be built out to help manage prospective patients’ expectations.

When performing similar analysis of your clients and their competitors, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the GBP use profile attributes? 

Where appropriate, attributes such as ‘Black-owned,’ ‘LGBTQ+ owned,’ and ‘women-owned’ can help to signal safe spaces for customers within local communities. There are also attributes related to accessibility   

• Have Products and Services been added?

GBP managers can add specific Services to GBPs, which helps users narrow down their searches and find relevant results.

• Build out ‘Questions and answers’

You don’t need to wait for a customer to ask questions. Add questions yourself and provide answers.

• Create Posts

Google Posts are an easy way of displaying what’s new, any recent updates or promotions front and center on a GBP. They’re also a good way of showing business activity to searchers.

Opening Hours

Towards the end of 2023, it was confirmed that business opening hours influenced local rankings. In short, businesses rank higher when they are searched for during the business’ opening hours.

Dentist A and Dentist B have similar opening hours. They are both closed from Friday to Sunday and operate similar hours on their usual business days. In this instance, it doesn’t appear that either clinic has an advantage over the other, but it’s a factor to consider for your own investigations.

Business Listings vs. Practitioner Listings

Dentists and healthcare provider GBPs differ from many other business types because there is an option to add separate practitioner listings.

Dentist A uses its practitioner’s name alongside the business name in its GBP, which seems to have caused issues and confusion with its citations across different sources. Some citations list the dental clinic name, and others list only the dental practitioner.

Considering Dentist A and Dentist B are neck-and-neck in so many areas of local SEO, this could be one of the elements that are harming Dentist A the most.

Social Media

Many local SEOs consider social signals a dwindling local search ranking factor, and they haven’t been included within the last three Local Search Ranking Factor reports. However, recent reports suggest that GBPs may now pull social posts into profiles if Google Posts are absent, so this could be set to change.

Even if not considered an important local ranking signal, social media can be a useful trust signal for E-E-A-T. Having an active online presence helps show searchers that you are who you say you are. It also provides a valuable platform to showcase experience, expertise, and authority.

For professionals such as dental practitioners, where personal branding is considered important, adding ProfilePage markup to website pages helps Google highlight information about experts and creators. If the lead dental practitioner has social media profiles or author pages for online publications, Google can draw on these to associate the E-E-A-T signals.

Dentist A has a Facebook page with 217 followers. The page has not shared any updates since October 2023 and, prior to this, had not posted for six months.

Dentist B, meanwhile, only has a LinkedIn presence. This seems an odd choice for a dental clinic, as professionals largely use LinkedIn to network and engage with employment opportunities. The page is inactive, though, with zero followers and no posts or activity.

For the dentists in this case study, Facebook should be an obvious choice for setting up social profiles, as it also functions as a citation and review platform.

Meanwhile, visual social channels like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok can be hugely beneficial for showcasing services, client testimonials, and experiences. Before and after content can be incredibly powerful on visual platforms, particularly for services such as cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, and orthodontics.

Actions to Take

Update Facebook Profile

In Dentist A’s case, the Facebook page needs to be managed more regularly to inform the community of any updates. It could also benefit from a profile refresh to reflect key services, add recent photos, and use recent client testimonials.

Consider Establishing Yourself on New Social Platforms

As mentioned, both dentists could benefit from a presence on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube to showcase their services and USPs.

When deciding on the best social media platforms for your brand, keep the key objectives in mind. What are you looking to achieve on social media? Who is your key audience? What type of content are you looking to create?

Conclusion

Hopefully, this investigation has highlighted how to get the most out of BrightLocal report insights and why it isn’t always crystal clear why one business may be outranking another—even to the most experienced local marketers!

Although every area of local SEO plays an important part, we’ve identified several key areas for Dentist A to improve on as a matter of priority. We’ve recapped these below:

Some areas of auditing and analysis take practice and even some trial and error, so don’t be disheartened if you aren’t immediately uncovering insights. With time, you’ll find your own ways of working and maybe even develop a process to train other colleagues or client partners, but this case study should be a good start for now.  

Remember, there are communities ready and available to ask for help, too! Check out our Facebook community, The Local Pack, and Sterling Sky’s Local Search Forum.

While much of the physical economy has recovered since the pandemic, there is evidence that it caused a sharp disruption in brand loyalty. Purchase decisions fueled by convenience, value, and proximity have led to new shopping behaviors.

Of course, businesses in every sector will face unique challenges. But only multi-location marketers will know the ongoing chess game of managing a brand at local, regional, and national levels.

We wanted to understand the challenges multi-location businesses face in 2024, how they might differ based on their size, and what drives marketing performance.

To achieve this, we asked 200 marketing decision-makers working in multi-location brands in the USA, Canada, and the UK about their marketing performance, investments, and strategies to build a picture of the current multi-location landscape and understand the key to high performance in 2024.  

Throughout the report, we’ll discuss critical themes of marketing technology, the importance of customer satisfaction and retention, and areas of opportunity in marketing tactics.

Understanding Definitions Within the Report

In the second part of this report, we’ll talk about the ‘High Performers’ of multi-location marketing, creating a benchmark that we’ll refer to throughout. Readers will find this helpful in measuring their performance and that of competitors.

The third section of this research will highlight three key groups: Local Players (11-50 locations), Regional Challengers (51-100 locations), and Big Brands (101+ locations) and compare what they’re doing to the High Performers, so businesses of all sizes have a benchmark to look to.

The Multi-location Marketing Landscape: Key Trends

Let’s kick off with an overview of the market in general. We’ll look at how brand marketers feel they’ve been performing, what channels they’re investing in, and what local marketing looks like for them.

Looking Back: Marketing Performance in 2023

The great news is just 4% of multi-location marketers feel their marketing performance fell below expectations in 2023. With almost two-thirds reporting that performance exceeded expectations, it’s a highly positive perception of their teams’ capabilities. 

The Marketing Mix

The Top Five Channels That Multi-location Brands Are Investing In

A whopping 99% of multi-location brands are investing in social media, with 88% investing a medium-high amount in this channel. This result is significantly higher than the other marketing channels listed, so it’s clear that social media forms a vital part of multi-location marketing strategies.

Paid social, SEO, TV advertising, and local SEO follow as the next most invested in marketing channels. So, brands are investing in brand awareness channels (Paid social and TV) while also focusing on the importance of visibility (SEO and local SEO).

It’s interesting, then, that PPC is at the bottom of the list for channel investment. Sitting lower than traditional forms of marketing (direct marketing, radio, out-of-home advertising), this could suggest that brands do not see the best returns from PPC for brand awareness. Alternatively, it could just be that multi-location brands use PPC for smaller or more targeted strategies and are getting more from their campaigns for lower spend.

Marketing Team Capabilities

As mentioned earlier, multi-location brands will face different challenges than other business types. Consistency is a big theme here, as brands must replicate the same standards, service, and experience they are known for from location to location.

Another challenge is maintaining brand standards when adapting to new areas where local requirements and customs may differ.

We wanted to gauge how marketers felt their businesses were doing in keeping on top of these common obstacles.

The Top Five Business Challenges That Multi-location Marketing Teams are ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’ at Tackling

As with performance, marketing leaders generally reflect a positive sentiment towards their teams’ capabilities, and there don’t appear to be any glaring problem areas. 

However, while 80% of brands said their businesses were either ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’ at understanding ownership of marketing within organizations, we can see that 23% felt that the ability to manage the adoption of marketing initiatives and streamline external communications was just ‘Fair’ to ‘Poor’. This suggests a potential breakdown between the communication and execution of some marketing as responsibilities fall to location levels. 

It could also show that, although 82% of our marketing decision-makers feel their organizations are ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’ at managing internal communications, the messages might not be being received or understood as well as they think further down the chain.

Let’s take a look at where local marketing strategy comes into play.

Local Marketing as a Strategy (Not Just a Tactic)

It’s positive to see that the vast majority (86%) of multi-location brands have dedicated local marketing strategies in place. That leaves 14% where either no dedicated strategy exists or the strategy is unclear

A lack of dedicated local strategy means that crucial business challenges, such as the ones mentioned above, can be much harder to overcome. With no local marketing strategy, how can you expect teams in different regions or locations to fully understand, be on board with, and adopt marketing initiatives?

So, if you’re reading this, you don’t have a robust local strategy, and you’re familiar with some of these marketing challenges, local strategy might be an excellent place to start.

Managing Local Marketing Activities

Now, the way multi-location businesses execute marketing activity at regional or local levels may vary for many reasons, based on industry, differences in area requirements, or franchising requirements. It’s interesting to look broadly at how multi-location brands manage this, though.

Again, if there are gaps in how well your business manages multi-location challenges, considering the different approaches may help you understand why.

Almost half (45%) of multi-location brands use a hybrid approach of centralized marketing teams (at the level of HQ) and branch or location-level local marketing.

What works for one business won’t necessarily work for another, and we’re not saying there is a correct answer. But it is worth considering that plenty of research around change management, business transformation, and product adoption shows that teams often react more positively to change, or are more willing to adopt new processes and initiatives if they feel they have some ownership of them.

Supporting Local Marketing with Technology

Next, we wanted to understand how widely technology was used in multi-location local marketing. 98% of brand respondents say they are using the technology to support local strategies.

Of course, when we refer to marketing technology that supports local marketing, this could include any number of tools, from monitoring local rankings and fluctuations to business location performance data, review management, and more. But what this does tell us is just how crucial marketing technology is in delivering on these tactics.

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The ‘High Performers’ of Multi-location Marketing

In this section, we will take the brands who reported that their marketing performance ‘exceeded’ expectations and use this group to create the benchmark for marketing performance.

Throughout the report, we’ll refer to this group as ‘High Performers.’ The remaining brands we compare against—those meeting expectations or falling short—we’ll refer to as ‘Average Performers.’

It’s important to note that both groups contain respondents representing multi-location businesses of all sizes.

High Performers: Key Findings

Marketing Channel Investments

• High Performers are 17% more likely to invest ‘highly’ in social media than Average Performers (57% vs 40%).
• High Performers are 15% more likely to invest ‘highly’ in paid social than Average Performers (42% vs 27%).
  High Performers are 10% more likely to invest ‘highly’ in local SEO than Average Performers (38% vs 28%).

Using Marketing Technology and AI

• 56% of High Performers are using marketing technology to ‘a great extent’, compared to 22% of Average Performers.
• 36% of High Performers are using generative AI to ‘a great extent’, compared to just 13% of Average Performers.
  

Local Marketing Strategy

• 94% of High Performers have a dedicated local marketing strategy, compared to 60% of Average Performers.
• 52% of Average Performers rate their marketing teams’ understanding of local SEO as ‘Fair’ to ‘Poor’, while 93% of High Performers rate their teams’ understanding as ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’.

High Performers: Top Trends

Marketing Channel Investment

• 95% of High Performers are investing a medium-high amount in social media.
• Just 1% of High Performers do not invest in social media at all.
• After social media (organic and paid), High Performers are investing the most in Local SEO.
• Of the responses offered, the channel High Performers invest in the least is PPC (pay-per-click).

This chart highlights the investments High Performers make across their marketing mix. You’ll notice a lot of green bars, which shows that High Performers are no slouches when it comes to putting their hands in their pockets and investing in a variety of channels. 

Organic social media stands out, with the most significant level of investment: 57% of High Performers rated their investments in the channel as ‘High.’ Just 1% said they do not invest in social media at all.

Behind organic social media, paid social sits as the second most invested in. Paid social is a popular choice for awareness and discovery campaigns to capture new audiences and entice customers away from competitors. These two channels being positioned at the top of the chart suggest that High Performers prioritize customer acquisition and retention equally.

Local SEO sees the third-highest level of investment from High Performers, with 76% making medium-high investments in this area.

As we’ll get into shortly, High Performers are much more likely than other businesses to have a dedicated local marketing or local SEO strategy in place, so it’s clear that a confident understanding and investment in this area is paying off for them, and that local marketing is fundamental to overall marketing success.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC), meanwhile, is the least invested in. 10% of High Performers aren’t investing in the channel at all, while 32% have stated only a low level of investment.

Local Marketing Focus: Strategy, Knowledge, and Tools

While we asked multi-location marketers about their level of investment in local SEO, we also wanted to understand whether this is an area that marketers fully understand. Namely, whether businesses have dedicated local SEO strategies in place and whether their marketing teams clearly understand the differences between traditional SEO and local SEO.

• 94% of High Performers have a dedicated local strategy in place—34% more than Average Performers

There is a clear contrast here, with just 2% of High Performers stating they don’t have a dedicated local strategy, compared to a third of Average Performers.

• 93% of marketing teams in the High Performers group have a ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ understanding of the differences between traditional SEO and local SEO.
• No one in the High Performers group rated their team’s understanding of local SEO as ‘Poor.’
• Less than half of Average Performers have a ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’ understanding of the differences between traditional SEO and local SEO.

Examining Local Marketing Teams

With over half of Average Performers stating their marketing teams’ understanding of local SEO as ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor,’ we broke out their marketing team sizes to see how many people are working on local marketing.

• 59% of High Performers have dedicated more than 40% of their marketing team to local marketing.
• 40% of Average Performers have dedicated more than 40% of their marketing team to local marketing.
• Over a quarter of Average Performers dedicate up to 20% of their marketing function to local marketing.

From this, we can determine that the highest-performing multi-location businesses take local SEO seriously, as they dedicate more resources to teams and strategy in this area. 

Marketing Technology and Multi-location Businesses

From the above data, we’ve seen that High Performers and Average Performers treat local SEO differently. Would things change when we asked about the use of technology in local SEO? Would this uncover some opportunities for Average Performers to take note of?

• 98% of High Performers use marketing technology “to some extent” or “to a great extent” to support local marketing, compared to 77% of Average Performers.
• 29% of Average Performers use marketing technology to little or no extent.

The chart above highlights that 100% of High Performers use marketing technology to support their local strategies, with only 2% saying they use it ‘a little’ extent. This is compared to 29% of Average Performers using marketing technology to ‘little’ or no extent.

Only 22% of Average Performers use marketing technology to ‘a great’ extent, compared to 56% of High Performers, suggesting that High Performers see a more significant benefit from their tools. This could be down to team capabilities and whether they have the knowledge or training to use certain tools or have more team resources dedicated to local marketing. 

There is clearly an opportunity for underperforming businesses to identify how and where marketing tools can better support their local marketing functions—or where additional training is needed within teams.

High Performers: Further Analysis

Comparing High Performers’ and Average Performers’ business priorities highlights striking differences that could help us understand where that better performance is coming from.

Business Objectives and Future Priorities 

We asked marketers what business outcomes their marketing activities are designed around. These core performance areas influence goal-setting (KPIs, OKRs, and similar frameworks) and determine what marketing teams focus on throughout the year.

• 67% of High Performers focus on customer satisfaction—15% more than Average Performers.
• 68% of Average Performers focus marketing activities on customer acquisition —12% more than High Performers.
• High Performers are 15% more likely to focus on customer retention than Average Performers.

The results in the chart above reflect a more measured approach for the High Performers, with reasonably equal weighting across the business outcomes. This level only drops off as we come to location footfall, where fewer than one-third of High Performers have said they’re focusing marketing efforts here.

For the Average Performers, however, there are two stand-outs: revenue growth (80%) and customer acquisition (68%). 

It would be surprising for businesses not to rely on marketing to support revenue growth. Still, it’s interesting to see customer satisfaction (52%) and customer retention (49%) take more of a back seat for Average Performers.

A lot of research shows that your existing customers are better for your bottom line. Focusing on nurturing a loyal customer base can yield more impressive profits. According to Bain and Co., increasing customer retention by 5% can lead to a 25% profit increase. Meanwhile, evidence also suggests that acquiring a new customer can be up to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer.

So, while focusing on attracting new customers is good for revenue growth, it’s important to consider how marketing teams can contribute to the shared responsibility of customer satisfaction.

• 39% of High Performers are prioritizing customer satisfaction in 2024, compared to 27% of Average Performers.
• 38% of High Performers highlighted increasing locations as a top 2024 priority, compared to 25% of Average Performers.
• 35% of High Performers highlighted increasing AI and automation as a top 2024 priority, compared to just 17% of Average Performers.

Comparing the two charts above, we can see that High Performers are prioritizing things with a measured approach that aligns with their core marketing outcomes.

We see a continued commitment to strengthening existing customer relationships and building brand loyalty—and plans to increase locations (38%) and acquire new customers (35%).

The data from Average Performers, on the other hand, tells a markedly different story. Customer acquisition sits at the top of their 2024 priorities (63%), followed by increasing brand awareness (50%) and increasing overall efficiency (47%). 

Considering the Average Performers have reported only just meeting performance expectations—or even falling short—and are also looking to increase efficiency in 2024, you’d hope to see a more balanced approach in their priorities. Customer acquisition sitting squarely ahead of other key priorities, like improving customer satisfaction, suggests a misunderstanding of what it takes to achieve business (and revenue) growth.

As we’ve touched on, customer satisfaction and retention can be significantly more cost-efficient for brands. But from a reputation perspective, we mustn’t underestimate the sheer power of brand loyalty here, too. While your existing customers are often happier to try your new products and services, you should also consider how a base of loyal customers can lead to brand awareness via their advocacy.

Implementing Local Marketing Tactics

Let’s look at the marketing tactics businesses are working with. In doing so, we might be able to highlight just what the High Performers are getting right—and understand some areas where our Average Performers are missing opportunities.

• High Performers are 25% more likely to use video as a local marketing tactic than Average Performers (63% vs. 38%).
• High Performers are 16% more likely to focus on reputation management as a local marketing tactic than Average Performers (46% vs. 30%).
• Average Performers are 13% more likely to be using outreach for local marketing than High Performers (59% vs 46%).

Similar proportions of High Performers and Average Performers use social media, paid advertising, and local content as local marketing tactics.  

The key areas where the High Performers are focusing more are video, local rankings optimization, reputation management, and local citations. However, the local marketing tactic that Average Performers rely on significantly more than High Performers is outreach (59% vs. 46%). This finding, and their focus on customer acquisition above all else, suggests that Average Performers have been over-reliant on outreach marketing to fulfill this goal. 

Video marketing can be tricky to implement if the budget and talent are hard to find, but it’s clearly an area that High Performers are taking advantage of more than Average Performers. If you’re reading this and your brand isn’t currently working on video, it’s worth considering where you can start. Could you take a handful of your locations as a test and see what results it yields?

While video sits much more in brand awareness and engagement, the remaining three tactics that High Performers use more than Average Performers (local rankings optimization, reputation management, and citations) are fundamental to ensuring visibility in the right places, so that the right people can find you with the search terms you want to be found for.

Analyzing Multi-location Strategies by Business Size

Challenges, tactics, and strategies all change with scale. The more locations you work with, the more complex the marketing will be.

Now that we’ve looked at what marked High Performers out against the rest of the pack, let’s take a look at how multi-location businesses of different sizes compare.

First, let’s recap how we defined these business sizes:

• Big Brands: businesses with 101+ locations
• Regional Challengers: businesses with 51-100 locations
• Local Players: businesses with 11-50 locations

We’ll start by looking at business objectives for the coming year.

Business Objectives, Priorities, and Challenges

• Regional Challengers are prioritizing customer satisfaction (51%) and customer retention (54%) the least out of all groups, but prioritizing profit margin (57%) and location footfall (41%) significantly more than the other sizes.
• Big Brands are prioritizing profit margin the least out of all the groups (46%).

The Top Three Marketing Objectives Multi-location Businesses Have Been Working Towards

Much like the High Performers, Big Brands appear to show the most consistency in evenly weighting their business priorities. The two lowest priorities, where the percentages drop more, are profit margin and location footfall.

However, the biggest gaps between the groups appear to concern the Regional Challengers. 51% of Regional Challengers said their marketing activities focus on customer satisfaction, compared to the High Performers benchmark level of 67%. The next biggest gaps appear in gaining market share (41% against the High Performers benchmark of 54%) and customer retention (54% compared to the High Performer benchmark of 64%). 

If your brand falls within the Regional Challengers group, you might see this as a chance to review your current marketing output. Are there some missed opportunities around these areas?

As we’ve already found, a relationship exists between underperforming brands and their prioritization in attaining new business over satisfying existing customers. It looks like Regional Challengers are following a similar pattern.

Another interesting difference is how Regional Challengers appear to focus on specific location footfall over the other groups. Again, it does suggest a ‘quantity over quality’ imbalance. Are Regional Challengers focusing too much on increasing feet through the door when they could be increasing the average basket spend, for example?

• The High Performers benchmark for customer retention (45%) is significantly higher than individual business sizes.

The Top Three Marketing Priorities for Multi-location Brands in 2024

When looking at the different sizes of multi-location businesses and their priorities, we can see some interesting differences between the groups.

Firstly, the Local Players, Regional Challengers, and Big Brands are generally far behind the High Performers benchmark with customer retention. It’s a theme that keeps cropping up and provides all the more reason for multi-location businesses of all sizes to pay attention to this area.

You’ll notice that nearly half of our Big Brand respondents (49%) have highlighted AI and automation as a focus area for 2024.

Artificial Intelligence in itself is not a new concept. However, the constant—and very newsworthy—developments in generative AI throughout 2023 have put the words into every marketer’s mouth.

Since the boom of generative AI, larger brands and market leaders will likely face higher pressure to adopt new AI-driven technologies than smaller-sized organizations. There is somewhat of an expectation to “keep up” with the others in the big leagues. 

Retail, hospitality, and entertainment feel like obvious examples of where you might expect to see this in the mainstream. Plenty of brands are rolling out implementations of generative AI in digital environments to aid customer experiences. Will we start to see this in physical environments, too?

• 42% of Big Brands cite increasing labor costs as a key challenge for 2024, against 24% of Regional Challengers.
• 39% of Local Players feel increasing material costs will be a big challenge in 2024.
• 35% of Regional Challengers cite increasing competition as one of the biggest challenges in 2024.

We asked marketers about their top three challenges for the year ahead, and the groups have some notable differences.

As we’ve seen with Big Brands prioritizing AI in 2024, it’s a no-brainer that they’ve also placed emerging technology as one of the biggest challenges for this year. Their top challenge, however, is increasing labor costs, with 42% of this group agreeing that this is one of the biggest current issues. Without getting too conspiratorial, is one of these challenges seen as an opportunity to resolve the other?

It’s worth looking further at the responses around technology here: compared to the 42% of Big Brands, only 19% of Regional Challengers are worried about emerging technology in 2024. Yet when it comes to updating their existing tech stacks, 32% of Regional Challengers see this as a big challenge for 2024. This is higher than Big Brands (19%), Local Players (25%), and the High Performers benchmark of 29%.

What could this suggest? Perhaps Big Brands don’t view their tech stack as a problem, or maybe their focus is slightly clouded by the genAI race. If the latter is the case, it would be interesting to see what challenges they may encounter later, in terms of integrations and streamlining.

We can see that Regional Challengers aren’t currently getting the most out of their tech stacks, and may well seek to update these in 2024. 

Regional Challengers see increasing competition as the biggest challenge (35%). This goes hand-in-hand with their top priority for 2024:  brand awareness (51%). There’s clearly an awareness of, and a need to, raise brand profiles to remain competitive.

Local Players see increasing material costs as their biggest challenge in 2024. It makes sense, as smaller brands may have less bargaining power in the buying market and will likely feel the squeeze of increasing costs more than larger competitors.

If this is their biggest business concern, it also makes sense that they would be less concerned with technological advances, either in their tech stacks or in adopting emerging technologies.

Local Marketing Deep-Dive

The Importance of Strategy and Knowledge

When putting together our questions for respondents, we hypothesized that the bigger the brand size, the more mature its local marketing strategy would be—that is, having a dedicated local strategy in place and a team with a strong understanding of the nuances between local and traditional or typical SEO.

• 92% of Big Brands have a dedicated local marketing strategy, the closest to the High Performers benchmark of 94%.
• Businesses with 51-100 locations (Regional Challengers) are the least likely to have a local SEO strategy in place (16%), followed by Local Players (11-50 locations).

Proportionately, the Big Brands show more local SEO maturity, with 92% stating that a dedicated strategy is in place. This is just two percentage points behind the High Performers benchmark, which generally reinforces an assumption that Big Brands would have more mature local SEO practices.

As we found earlier, 10% of all businesses do not have a local marketing strategy (and 4% were unsure if they did). So, we can see from the chart above that this segment is mostly made up of representatives from Regional Challenger and Local Player-sized businesses.

However, you’ll notice that Local Players are more likely to have a local marketing strategy in place than Regional Marketers. Why might this be?

It could be that Local Players, having a smaller (and possibly more concentrated) portfolio of branches, have a better understanding of their markets and local area requirements. Brands in the Regional Challengers group are more likely to have experienced a rapid period of expansion in recent times, meaning that a more comprehensive strategy is needed—or that their previous one no longer fits.

• Regional Challengers appear to have the biggest gaps in local SEO knowledge, with 27% claiming their teams have a ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’ understanding.
• Local Players are the closest group to the High Performers benchmark (94%), with 90% stating a ‘Very good’ or ‘Good’ understanding of the differences between traditional SEO and local SEO.

90% of Local Players rate their marketing teams’ understanding of local SEO as ‘Good’ to ‘Very Good’, compared to 83% of Big Brands, 73% of Regional Challengers, and against the High Performers benchmark of 94%. Why might Local Players be the most knowledgeable?

It could well be that that greater local marketing maturity is not achieved simply by being a larger business that has existed in the space for longer. Instead, it could suggest that local marketing maturity is ‘elastic’: it develops and changes as the requirements of a brand also change. 

Understanding of local area requirements will vastly differ when a business goes from 11-50 locations to hitting a milestone of 100 and scaling up further to the nationwide level. 

Local Marketing Tactics in Action

• Big Brands appear to be the biggest users of local-specific content (58%), while just 40% of Local Players implement this tactic.
• 69% of Big Brands and Local Players use paid ads as a local marketing tactic, compared to 59% of Regional Challengers and 61% of High Performers.

Analyzing local marketing tactics by business size, we can see that Big Brands broadly follow the High Performers benchmark by investing in a wide range of tactics rather than a select few. 

Citations and business listings are important for brands of all sizes to ensure that business information is consistent and uniform online. This challenge only gets greater for Big Brands, as having hundreds or even thousands of locations to update and maintain becomes more difficult and time-consuming.

We’ve covered just a few of the detrimental effects of incorrect business information on brand reputation in the Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023.

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There are some tactics that Big Brands appear to be investing in more than High Performers, which could suggest that they are spending too much time (or money) in some areas. The most notable example of this is local-specific content (58% vs. 46% for High Performers).

Too much content can be a problem, particularly if it confuses or cannibalizes your SEO efforts or jeopardizes your user experience. This could even be a legacy issue as SEO best practices have evolved. 

While content is still vital for boosting visibility and building trust by reflecting your expertise and authority (see: Google’s E-E-AT), there was a time when brands and agencies thought that churning out reams of ‘fresh’ content was the answer. Some brand marketers may not be up to date on the latest SEO best practices or no longer work with agency partners, so could be over-reliant on some tactics they feel they understand well.

In the data above, Regional Challengers appear to be using social media, email marketing, and paid advertising the most as local marketing tactics. Against the High Performers benchmark, the gaps that highlight some potential opportunities for them are video, local rankings, citations, and reputation management.

While we previously highlighted the difficulties of video marketing, this tactic may actually present an opportunity for some business sizes and types. Where Big Brands are pretty much using the tactic in line with High Performers, we notice a gap between them and Regional Challengers and Local Players, suggesting there may be a chance for the latter two groups to learn from what the most successful brands are doing.

Email marketing tells a similar story to video, highlighting how Big Brands use it more than Regional Challengers and Local Players. It’s always a good idea to look at what competitors are doing, or even brands in other industries, to highlight areas of opportunity and improvement in your own marketing. Could Big Brands be using email as a customer loyalty tool, nurturing customer segments with tailored content that isn’t just sales-led?

Gap Analysis: Search Marketing Tactics 

Local rankings and reputation management are two areas in which Local Players seem to be fairly behind, compared to both the High Performers benchmark and their peer groups. They’re also the least likely to use local content (40%) out of all the groups.

If we group all of the marketing tactics by the outcomes they’re designed to impact, we can see a theme as far as content, reputation, local rankings optimization, and citations are concerned: the importance of search visibility.

It’s worth remembering that your competitors aren’t necessarily just the biggest names or the market leaders in your industry. In the multi-location world, you must also consider who else is in your potential customer’s proximity.

Without focusing on key visibility tactics and hoping to get by on brand name alone, you run the risk of failing on other fundamental areas that can turn people away—being outranked in the local map pack, incorrect or inconsistent business information causing confusion, and avoidable negative reviews.

Other Findings: AI, Economic Outlook, and Channel Investment and Impact

Despite only hitting the mainstream at the start of 2023, generative artificial intelligence has already caused a dramatic influx of new ‘AI-assisted’ tools aimed at both business and consumer audiences.

In August 2023, our own Local Search Industry Survey found that 93% of local marketers had already experimented with AI tools. So, in the question below, we wanted to know to what extent generative AI is now used at the multi-location scale.

• 88% of multi-location businesses are already using generative AI.
• 28% of multi-location businesses say they are using generative AI “to a great extent”.
• Only 11% of multi-location businesses aren’t using generative AI “at all”.

70% of marketers state that generative AI is used “to some extent” or “to a great extent,” suggesting that the technology has made waves within these organizations.

Furthermore, when asking those who are investing about the returns seen so far, it appears that generative AI mostly exceeds expectations.

• 64% of multi-location businesses said the ROI of generative AI has exceeded expectations.
• 98% of multi-location businesses said the ROI of generative AI has “met or exceeded expectations”.
• Just 2% of multi-location businesses felt the return of their generative AI investments fell short of expectations.

We’ve seen many examples of brands using generative AI in fun and clever ways for digital and out-of-home advertising and social content. It can leverage strong brand USPs and positioning surprisingly cost-effectively: take this advertising battle between McDonald’s and Burger King, for example. 

So, where do multi-location see the biggest opportunities with the continually evolving tech? We asked marketers to select up to three areas.

It looks like marketers are looking for assistance with more technical endeavors than creative ones. 36% of marketers highlighted data analysis as an area that generative AI can impact the most, while 24% highlighted SEO, and 23% cited forecasting and prediction. 

While it’s easy to first think of generative AI’s capabilities to create new, original media, there are a whole host of genAI tools in the market specifically designed to assist with—and speed up—data analytics. Creating engaging data visuals and summarizing vast amounts of data to provide impactful insights are just two use cases for such tools. 

However, that’s not to say that ‘data analytics’ can’t lend itself to other areas, like personalization, in order to create unique experiences. Think about personalized menu recommendations for restaurants, virtual ‘try-on’ experiences in retail outlets, or custom fitness profiles in gyms and health centers. This term also encompasses ‘forecasting and prediction’, of which data analysis is the very heart.

As the technology continues to evolve, though, there’s no doubt we’ll see opportunities and use cases for all industries unfolding.

Economic Optimism in 2024

How are multi-location marketers feeling about the year ahead? The good news is that businesses say they are looking pretty resilient and, as we’ve seen above, are already making strides in how they’re adopting and adapting to new technologies.

Despite economic challenges, the sentiment among multi-location marketers for the year ahead is high, with 77% feeling optimistic about 2024’s economic conditions. 

Only 10% of multi-location businesses feel pessimistic about the economic conditions ahead of them in 2024.

On top of this, brands also have a good appetite for business expansion.

81% of multi-location businesses told us that they are likely to open new locations in 2024. So, despite the challenges discussed earlier in the report, the multi-location business landscape is staying positive and ready to tackle what comes its way.

Channel Investment and Impact 

We’ve previously discussed marketing channel investment at a high-performance level. In this next section, we’ll go further to take a look at the impact that marketers are seeing on their revenues as a result of channel investment.

We’ve summarized each group with some key findings below.

High Performers vs. Average Performers

• High Performers invest more than Average Performers in 9 our of 10 marketing channels.
• Average Performers invest more in PPC than High Performers.

• High Performers see a good impact on revenue from SEO, considering their investment level (7.0 Investment Score vs. 7.3 Impact Score).
• Despite lower investment than Average Performers in PPC, High Performers see a better impact on their revenue in this area (5.9 Investment Score vs. 6.6 Impact Score, against 6.3 respectively for Average Performers).

Local Players

• Local Players see the most impact on revenues from social media (7.6/10).
• The channels seeing the highest impact on revenues are PPC and Direct Mail.
• Local Players are investing the least in PPC among their marketing mix.

Regional Challengers

• Regional Challengers see the most impact on revenues from social media (8/10).
• The channels seeing the highest impact on revenues are Radio, Direct Mail, and SEO.
• Regional Challengers are investing the least in radio advertising out of all channels—but the impact for those investing is fairly strong (5.6 investment score vs. 6.5 impact score).

Big Brands

• Big Brands are seeing the highest impact on revenues from paid social (7.5/10) compared to the other channels.
• The channels seeing a higher impact on revenues are PPC and Paid social.
• Out of all the channels listed, Big Brands invest the least in radio advertising.
• Big Brands appear to see the least impact on revenues from SEO (7.7 investment vs 7.5 impact).

Summary

If your marketing performance fell short of expectations in 2023, we’re not here to tell you to increase your local marketing function by a certain percentage or that adopting new marketing tech will immediately boost your results.

But the beauty of benchmarking is that it allows you to lift your head out of the sand (or various other reports) and consider opportunities for improvement: to compare what competitors in the multi-location marketing space are doing and pinpoint why they may have been outperforming you. 

Perhaps your team has even had a hunch about implementing a particular tactic or tool and has not quite had a case to prove to unlock some budget. We hope that this report’s findings will help strengthen that case for you and highlight new areas to think about.

One thing stands out for sure, though, and that is the overarching importance of local marketing in contributing to brand performance. It’s clear from our benchmarking that brands with dedicated, knowledgeable local marketing teams and local-specific strategies in place are outperforming others. 

When looking at individual local marketing tactics, too, we can see that High Performers are implementing many that others aren’t yet. Local rank tracking and optimization, reputation management, and citations reflect the continued importance of ensuring and maintaining brand visibility in increasingly competitive local environments. 

So, how is your brand measuring up? If you have any thoughts about the Brand Beacon Report 2024 research and findings, we’d love to hear from you. You can share your thoughts with us on X, LinkedIn, or our own Facebook community, The Local Pack. Alternatively, you can contact research@brightlocal.com with any questions.

Publishers and individuals are welcome to share findings and charts from this report, crediting BrightLocal and the URL https://www.brightlocal.com/research/brand-beacon-report/. 

Methodology

This research was conducted in partnership with Sapio Research, a B2B market research company, to survey a panel of 200 marketing decision-makers for multi-location and franchise businesses in the USA, the UK, and Canada. A comprehensive screening system was implemented to ensure only respondents fitting the criteria could participate.

Breakdowns of survey respondents by geographical location, industry, and business type can be found below.

This post will provide some foundational understanding of the ad type and how to think of it in your marketing plan. We will be doing a more advanced companion piece that will dive into more specific questions folks face when running these campaigns, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled!

What are LSAs?

First and foremost, LSAs are ads. This means they require a budget to serve. While they benefit quite a bit from local SEO, they are still, first and foremost, an ad. They are charged based on recorded phone calls that last at least two minutes or messages that get sent through (if you opt-in to that feature) that come via the ad.

Think of LSAs as business cards, allowing your customers to identify and communicate with you directly. They allow white and blue-collar professionals to appear at the top of the Google search engine result page (SERP) for queries relating to the specific type of business they offer. 

An LSA placement can appear on a mobile or desktop device and can include: 

• A photo of the professional
• How long the business has been in business 
• Ratings 
• Link to the website (if provided)

LSAs require you to choose whether you are open to more “general” inquiries or if you require the leads to be more specific. If you opt not to go for the volume of general leads, you retain the right to dispute calls/messages that do not align with the categories you select.

Where do LSAs appear?

LSAs can appear on all types of SERPS (and have been spotted in Google’s AI Search Generative Experience). That said, they are predisposed to have a higher mobile focus. This is because the main call-to-action is “call”.

The user is presented with three ads on both desktop and mobile. At the bottom of the ad unit, the user can click or tap to view additional ads for businesses.

The number of ads in a market and within specific categories can vary considerably. You might see only a few, or you might see dozens. It just depends on how many businesses are in that market category. The most ads I’ve seen after clicking through to view the entire list for a specific search is 100, so that may be the maximum.

This is what you’ll be presented with if you choose to expand the ad unit on desktop:

Which countries are LSAs available in?

Currently, LSAs are only available in a small number of countries. These are:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Spain
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• United States

Benefits of LSAs for Local Businesses

There are many benefits to LSAs, though depending on your business model, you may be predisposed to value some more than others.

They’re cheaper than traditional paid search

First and foremost, LSAs are typically cheaper than traditional paid search. This is due to their ad format. It’s not bound by the same auction as paid search is. As such, you might pay anywhere from 10-40% less per call/message lead than you would otherwise. 

However, before you fully commit budget to LSAs, it’s important to remember they don’t always show and can be subject to far more volume volatility than traditional search. This is why it’s typically a good idea to include them as part of a holistic marketing strategy.

Your local SEO efforts benefit them

The second big benefit is that they draw directly from solid local SEO practices. You’re golden if you’ve set the foundations well for your Google Business Profile, structured your site well (i.e., easily crawlable), and are active in your review responses/acquisitions. If those things aren’t true, you will likely take longer to ramp up your LSA profile.

You only pay per lead

Finally, LSAs charge based on recorded phone calls or messages. This is a huge benefit over most other marketing channels because you can pay per lead. However, if your intake/sales team isn’t able to respond to the leads promptly or you’re not able to service the volume, you won’t just lose money; you’ll begin to lose rankings for your profile. 

What types of businesses are eligible for Local Service Ads?

When LSAs first hit the market in 2016, there was a huge waiting list to get onboarded. Now, it’s fairly straightforward, and most local verticals are accepted. So long as you’re a local business that accepts clients through lead gen (as opposed to software that would let a person sign up on the site or buy a product directly), you’re likely eligible.

The main distinction is between white collar vs blue collar work (i.e., is this a professional service where the customer will likely come to the business or vice versa). 

However, eligibility varies greatly from region to region, as seen in the examples below.

The list for the UK, while made up of many similar verticals, is much shorter.

If you’re in a region that doesn’t yet support LSAs for your industry, don’t despair. Google (and Microsoft) see the need and desire for this ad product and are constantly adding new regions and verticals. The full Google list can be found here. 

How LSAs Work

LSAs behave slightly differently from traditional paid search campaigns. Rather than bidding on keywords or audiences, brands designate services you are interested in. In doing this, you gain a far simpler targeting method but lose the ability to “outsmart” the algorithm through more manual intervention.

Unlike Local Search Ads (the map pack), you do not appear automatically just for connecting your Google Business Profile. These ads don’t require keywords, audiences, or ad creation (like traditional search ads or Performance Max). 

They require you to either set up a separate account or allow your LSAs to share the same client ID (CID) as your existing Google Ads account. You’ll rank better or worse based on the information you provide, the bids and budgets you set, and how well you respond to leads.

Getting Google Guaranteed

Setting up LSAs is much simpler than it used to be; however, it still requires careful planning. You’ll still need to verify your ad account and go through a background check to get the Google Guaranteed component.

What is Google Guaranteed? 

The Google Guarantee is a badge displayed whenever your LSA is shown. It sends a trust signal to customers.

What You Need to Get Google Guaranteed

The background check component used to take as much as two weeks to complete. Now, it’s usually a matter of a few business days. 

You’ll need the following information to set up your LSA profile:

• Name of business (and any DBA)
• Your legal name
• Phone number (this can be a call recording number—but can only be changed through a Google rep)
• Website (if any)
• Photos of your business 
• Photos of you
• Business Insurance
• Year your business opened/years of experience.
• Professional License  

I find it’s best to collect the info you’ll need before you begin rather than trying to fix it once launched. This means setting up call recording numbers beforehand (use a non-dynamic number).

LSA Best Practice

As we discussed, you cannot do much to manage LSAs. However, the things you can do have a big impact.

Consider your budget and bid aggressively early on

First and foremost, your budget and bid will greatly impact how often your ad serves and where it serves in the LSA bracket. As a general rule, budgets should be set more aggressively than you intend actually to spend. This will give Google the room to ramp up while also ensuring you are competitive in the auction. 

For example, if you intend to spend $10K per month, the budget should be set closer to $30K-$50K per month during the first 60 days of the profile. Once your account is running, you can experiment with dialing the budget back.

Experiment with manual bids

If you’re struggling to get traction, you can experiment with manual bids, which will let you set more or less aggressive bids by the services you’ve opted into. While this usually isn’t ideal once an account is running and bringing in steady leads, it can be a useful tactic to help get the campaign going/improve performance during a slump.

Be disciplined about the services and locations you target

On the subject of services, it’s important to apply a disciplined approach to the number of services and locations you opt into. Profiles can’t really support all eligible services and markets—you’ll want to create multiple profiles to support multiple markets. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to focus on no more than three main services and locations. This way, your budget can do the job you want it to do, rather than being spread too thin. 

While the three maximum is a good rule to live by, it’s also important to be practical. If you’ve historically valued leads the same and/or there isn’t enough volume for a service/location to get its own profile, it can be ok to include it. Just be aware that LSAs do factor proximity into ranking.

Make sure your images include elbows (yes, really.)

Finally, here’s a note about the images you use for your team members. Google has been known to disapprove of images that don’t show the elbow of the person in them. So make sure your headshot highlights at least that much of you. 

Monitoring the Performance of Your LSAs

The lead volume and cost are the main things to keep an eye on with LSAs.

Lead volume is tracked based on calls and messages received. Reports will show you how many leads you received and how many you were charged for. You can also see a breakdown of new, active, and archived leads. 

Archiving a lead means it didn’t work out, so you couldn’t get the business. Disputing a lead means the lead flat out isn’t right. Disputing is a way to potentially get money back and teach Google that they need to amend the kind of traffic they’re sending you. 

Cost and cost per lead are shown in the reports section. It’s normal for lulls in the middle of the month and spikes at the end/beginning. This is due to Google doing its best to spend your budget. 

We also gained impression share in 2023. This means we can get useful insights into whether the volume we’re getting (or not) is due to competitiveness or lack of market.

Get Started with LSAs

Local Service Ads are a powerful channel and are absolutely worth testing if you’re a local business. They have a “first person mover advantage” mechanic, so if you haven’t set them up yet, you may find main metros to be competitive. Consider targeting slightly outside the main metro, and don’t be afraid to restart a profile if it seems to be stuck. 

Don’t forget about Microsoft’s Bing. Microsoft launched a professional service ad offering that harnesses the same functionality as traditional campaigns. If Google is crowded, that’s a way to bypass the competition. 

With eleven years of insights behind us, we’ve reported throughout some of the biggest and most unprecedented events to shake the industry, and the wider economic environment as a whole. 

The information provided by local marketers enables us to compile the current picture of the industry, from salary averages and overall satisfaction at work to a run-down of how agencies and freelancers are offering and billing for their services. 

So, let’s dive straight into this year’s findings. 

Local Marketers at a Glance

Firstly, who do we mean when we talk about ‘local marketers’? We surveyed 534 representatives with roles in marketing or SEO functions involving a local focus. This included freelance consultants and representatives from agencies, small businesses, and multi-location businesses. 

While you can find the summary of this year’s survey participants within the research methodology in full (at the bottom of this page), it’s important to note that 72% of this year’s respondents identified as local marketers based in the US. The remaining 28% represent the UK (6%), Canada (5%), Australia (3%), and 24 other countries (14%). 

For that reason, salary averages have been converted into US dollars at the current rate, so that we can provide an accurate representation.

Salary averages

We compared the average and median salaries of local marketers in the US to data from our 2022 and 2021 surveys.

As well as a clear upward trend in the average US pre-tax earnings since 2021, we can also see that the increase in 2023 is significantly larger than that seen in 2022. Between 2022 and 2023, the average local marketing salary has increased by 15%, compared to an increase of 5% between 2021 and 2022.

Interestingly, while the median salary range has also increased since 2021, the percentage increase is 6%. Comparing the increase in average salary to the increase in median salary, it tells us that there are outliers weighted much more towards the high-earning end of the scale.

Correspondingly, as we’ll delve further into in a few sections’ time, 71% of survey respondents self-described as being in ‘Senior’ positions within their organizations.

How satisfied are marketers with their salaries?

It’s one thing to measure average earnings within the industry, but how satisfied do marketers feel with their salaries in general?

• The majority of local marketers feel ‘somewhat satisfied’ with their salaries (46%).
• The percentage of local marketers feeling generally unsatisfied with their earnings has increased from 14% in 2022 to 19% in 2023.

Broadly, it appears that most local marketers feel okay about what they’re taking home, and this has not changed from 2022—with 46% of marketers responding as ‘somewhat satisfied’.

However, there also appears to be a trend showing that more local marketers are unsatisfied with their salaries in 2023 compared to 2022. 19% reported feeling unsatisfied in 2023, compared to 14% in 2022, while the percentage of satisfied respondents has decreased from 39% in 2022 to 35% in 2023.

So, while it seems that local marketers are earning more on average in 2023 than in 2022, they’re also feeling less fulfilled by it. There could be several reasons causing this, with the biggest and most obvious external factor being the rising cost of living across so many parts of the globe.

And, although salaries tend to increase annually in line with inflation, it could also be the case that some marketers are not feeling enough of a difference against rising costs elsewhere.

Do job seniority and knowledge levels affect earnings?

We wanted to take a closer look at factors specific to the local SEO industry and how they might affect salary satisfaction. First, we examined the relationship between job seniority and salary satisfaction.

• 42% of senior local marketers are ‘Very’ or ‘Extremely’ satisfied with their salaries, compared to 21% of mid-level marketers and 17% of junior marketers.
• Junior local marketers are the most unsatisfied with their salaries, with 48% reporting being either ‘Not very’ or ‘Not at all’ satisfied with their earnings.

The chart presents a clear picture: senior local marketers are much more likely to be satisfied with their salaries than those working at mid- or junior levels. It makes sense, considering it is generally the case that more senior roles have higher salary bands attached to them.

However, as noted previously, 71% of survey respondents identified as senior-level marketers, including a significant amount of business owners, CEOs, and directors, so you would expect to see these within the high-earning bracket.

So, we analyzed the relationship between salary satisfaction and expertise, first asking: how do local marketers rate their levels of local SEO knowledge?

• 92% of local marketers rate their local SEO knowledge as ‘Good’ or better.
• Just 1% of local marketers believe they hold poor levels of local SEO knowledge.

We can see here that being more senior doesn’t necessarily equate to being an expert—in this case, holding ‘Excellent’ levels of local SEO knowledge. Just over a quarter of respondents rated their expertise as ‘Excellent’.

Generally, though, local marketers rate their knowledge levels as good, with only 8% highlighting ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’ knowledge levels.

So, with this in mind, would we find a relationship between expertise and better salaries? We took the pre-tax earnings of our US respondents to calculate the average earnings against the level of local SEO knowledge.

The results speak for themselves, but we were still surprised by the jump between salary averages from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Excellent’ knowledge levels. It goes to show: the more you know!

Now, returning to all local marketers and not just the majority earning in USD, we compared salary satisfaction against self-proclaimed knowledge levels.

To quote a certain US sitcom legend, could it be any clearer? Not only are individuals who possess ‘Excellent’ levels of local SEO knowledge earning the most on average, but they’re also the most satisfied with their salary.

The biggest takeaway here for local marketers should be that you don’t necessarily need to reach director levels to become an expert in your work. Honing your expertise within your field and building on your local SEO knowledge will help you to become a subject matter expert and, as it happens, you can put a price on that!

Working in Local SEO

We’ve compiled a snapshot of the individuals working in local marketing, but what’s it like to work on it, day-to-day?

Annual revenue for agencies and freelancers in the local marketing industry

Looking at freelancer revenue alongside marketing agency revenue can be a useful measure for freelancers when considering billing methods and pricing services.

• More than half of freelancers see less than $50,000 in annual revenue.
• 22% of agencies earn between $1mil-$5mil in revenue.

We can see that revenue is fairly evenly distributed across the range for agencies, reflecting the various sizes and types that make up our agency participants. 71% are earning up to $1mil a year in revenue, 22% see between $1mil-$5mil revenue, and 6% earn over $5mil in revenue annually.

For freelancers, however, we can see this is very heavily weighted towards the ‘lower than $50,000’ bracket. 52% of freelance local marketing experts earn less than $50,000 in revenue.

While it should be noted that many of our freelance respondents told us that their consultancies run part-time alongside other employment, this finding still highlights the challenging environment for the self-employed—or those thinking about becoming self-employed.

• The percentage of freelancers earning less than $50,000 in annual revenue has increased from 24% in 2021 to 42% in 2022 and 52% in 2023.
• 94% of freelancers are earning less than $250,000 in annual revenue in 2023.

When we isolate freelancer revenue and compare it to 2022 and 2021, it tells an even clearer story: we can easily see that freelancers are bringing in less revenue each year.

Annual revenue for single and multi-location businesses in the local marketing industry

Looking at annual revenue for single and multi-location businesses, we can see it is more weighted towards the higher end of the revenue brackets.

• 61% of single and multi-location businesses see over $1mil in annual revenue.

This information is useful for freelancers and agencies assessing their service pricing. Freelancers, particularly, may find they are pricing services too low—or perhaps billing in ways that end up disadvantaging themselves—so, it’s always good to see what businesses and brands are bringing in.

What are the most important local SEO metrics for success?

Everyone sees success slightly differently, which of course is why we have metrics in place to measure how we’re doing on the local front. But even key metrics tend to vary from business type to business type.

So, how do those marketing in-house measure local marketing success, compared to agency and freelance local SEOs?

• 45% of businesses highlight Google organic rankings as important for local marketing success.
• 44% of businesses highlight Local Pack rankings as important for local marketing success.
• Google Local Pack rankings is the most important metric for both agencies (54%) and freelancers (50%).
• The top three local SEO metrics for agencies are Local Pack rankings (54%), new leads (45%), and Google organic rankings (39%).
• The top three local SEO metrics for freelancers are Local Pack rankings (50%), phone calls (45%), and new leads (35%).

We can see that businesses across the board are in agreement that Local Pack or Local Finder rankings in Google are one of the most important local SEO metrics. This makes sense, given the hierarchy and visibility these results tend to have within the SERPs. If you’re not displaying in the Local Pack, potential customers are not going to have easy access to key information like your business name, description, address, and phone number.

It is interesting to see that a higher percentage of agency marketers place high importance on new leads (45%) compared to businesses (40%) and that businesses are the most concerned with their organic rankings overall (45%).

Of course, improving (or maintaining) organic rankings have long been a desired goal for businesses of all types in the SEO world. But, with agency marketers highlighting new leads and freelancers highlighting phone calls (45%) as important success metrics, perhaps this goes to show that they are more familiar with the fluctuating tendencies of organic ranking and are more concerned with contributing to their clients’ bottom lines, showing value in doing so.

Generally, SEOs with wider industry experience keep abreast of things like algorithm changes, industry news, and ranking fluctations on behalf of their business clients. So, it makes sense that agency and freelance marketers look outside of organic rankings to secure local SEO success—because we all know unpredictable it can be out there!

Reacting to Changes in Local SEO

Each year, we ask local marketers a variety of questions around core elements of local SEO, namely whether reacting to algorithm updates continues to be a priority for them and their clients, as well as their thoughts on how, or if, key products like Google Business Profile (GBP) have improved.

• 61% of marketers agree that reacting to algorithm changes is an important priority, down from 64% in 2022.

The numbers haven’t changed drastically year on year, but we can see a slight shift in how marketers are perceiving the importance of algorithm changes.

Google can take many months to confirm algorithm changes and, with so many unconfirmed updates throughout the year so far, you can’t blame SEOs for perhaps prioritizing them less than before, perhaps ‘waiting and seeing’ rather than reaction right away.

While fluctuating or disappearing rankings can be confusing and frustrating, it’s fair to say marketers are much savvier to the various different ways local SEO success can be achieved.

• 43% of marketers think GBP has improved in 2023, compared to 57% in 2022.
• 24% of local SEOs feel GBP has not improved in 2023, compared to just 9% in 2022.

It feels like Google Business Profile has changed a lot already in 2023, but it’s interesting to see that local marketers just aren’t loving it this year.

It’s worth noting that 2022’s survey was conducted and published before changes such as the NMX came in, bringing that flurry of bugs and annoyances along with it towards the end of the year. So, while a lot of significant changes have been made to GBP through 2023, it’s quite likely that some marketers are still pretty put out by those events.

Still, the floor is open. We recently reported on some positive new updates to GBP in July, so perhaps attitudes will change. Or could it be a sign that change is on the horizon? Perhaps local marketers are simply spreading their efforts across more local SEO tools and tactics.

A Day in the Life: Agency and Freelance Marketers 

It’s always interesting to gauge how many clients local marketers have. In 2022’s report, local marketing agencies averaged 19 clients, while national marketing agencies averaged 16, and freelancers averaged 14.

How many clients do local marketers have?

• 69% of freelancers have between two and ten clients.
• 33% of agencies have over 51 clients!

The sweet spot for freelancers appears to be having between two and ten clients (69%), but we were pretty shocked to see that a third of all agencies said they had over 51 clients! Even for some of the larger organizations, this seems like a lot.

Of course, all clients are different. You may have a variety of clients on retainer while working on one-off projects at the same time, and clients may come to you for very different services. Yet, seeing the polarizing results for freelancers and agencies here, it feels like a similar pattern to what we saw in annual revenue; freelancers way down at the lower end and agencies at the opposite side of the scale.

While freelancers don’t have the luxury of multiple colleagues on hand compared with agencies, it does raise the question of whether freelancers might simply be offering their small sets of clients too much in terms of services or output. If this is the case, time could easily be eaten up by a small number of clients, making it a challenge to find time for new client acquisition.

Average Client Lifespan 

It’s interesting to consider the average lifecycle of a client partnership: if you have five clients that you’ve worked with for several years, that could be a highly valuable relationship. But if your two to five clients are turning over every six months or so, you may find yourself scrambling to pull together pitches for new business.

• 25% of freelancers have clients with an average lifespan of 12 months or less, compared to 12% of agencies.
• 23% of agencies and 22% of freelancers have been working with clients for five years or more.

On the whole, it looks like agencies and freelancers are doing well at maintaining some lengthy client relationships. 96% of agencies work with clients for at least a month, although this is lower for freelancers at 75%.

It got us thinking, though: does a turnover of clients affect revenue? Would working in shorter cycles be more costly to the marketer overall, or would long-term partnerships end up benefitting a client more? What would be the ‘sweet spot’? 

We took US revenue ($) and calculated the average for each client lifespan bracket.

There’s clear evidence to show that local marketers should be aiming for anything over 12 months for a more fruitful partnership. Meanwhile, the Goldilocks duration appears to be between two and three years. But don’t take that as a sign for binning off any of your long-standing clients! You obviously know what works for you, but it’s a really useful indicator to bear in mind.

What local SEO services do agencies and freelancers offer?

Seeing what local marketing services are—or aren’t—widely available is a great way to understand opportunities to expand the services you offer.

The graph above highlights the top five most commonly offered SEO services, and charts the changes year-on-year since 2021. These areas have largely held steady across the years, highlighting how they remain fundamental local SEO services.

As for a full run-down of services, let’s take a look at who’s offering what to their clients:

It’s no surprise to see that all of the ‘core’ local SEO services such as GBP management, content creation, auditing, analytics, and citation management are high up there for both agencies and freelancers. Although, there are some notable discrepancies:

• 72% of agencies offer reporting and analytics, compared to 56% of freelancers.
• 76% of agencies offer technical SEO, compared to 53% of freelancers.
• 64% of agencies offer PPC, compared to 33% of freelancers.

As agencies tend to have a variety of different experts in a team, it makes sense that they can offer such a breadth of local SEO services. However, as we discussed earlier, around the value of becoming a subject-matter expert, the lower figures for services provided by freelancers highlight some niche areas that could be very lucrative for clients. As we’ll come to below, clients do place value in some of the more niche marketing specialisms. 

As well as technical specialisms like analytics, PPC, and technical SEO, there is a huge gap in the percentage of freelancers offering video (17%) or influencer marketing (5%).

Despite being low down among the services offered, we can also see, however, the growth for video marketing and influencer marketing since 2022. With the introduction of video content to GBP profiles and Google Perspectives now rolling out and incorporating user generated content (UGC), it seems some local marketers have already switched onto the opportunities to offer services in these areas.

Moreover, the Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 found that 20% of US adults are using TikTok for new business discovery. Whether inciting influencers to create video content or encouraging local businesses to get on the platform themselves, it’s a lucrative area for local marketers to get involved in.

What local SEO services are considered the most valuable?

You know how it is. You’re proposing a strategy based around several key tactics, and a client chimes in with something like “oh, but I saw this thing on TikTok and…”

It’s always interesting to see which services marketers feel are the most valuable for their clients. However, this year, we also asked them what they think their clients believe are the most valuable.

• The top three local SEO services that marketers see as most valuable are: GBP management (76%), content creation (53%), and citation management (43%).
• The top three local SEO services that clients see as most valuable are: GBP management (52%), content creation (39%) and website design (34%).
• 29% of clients see PPC as one of the most valuable local SEO services, compared to 23% of local marketers.

It’s encouraging to see that clients are fairly aligned with marketers in terms of priorities, which hopefully makes collaborating on strategy or getting buy-in from other stakeholders a little easier. However, it’s clear with services like website design, PPC, and social media that clients place importance in services that involve very immediate or visual changes.

It makes sense, in many ways: clients like seeing where their money is spent—or, even better, where the return on investment is coming from—but it can make pushing the case for more technical and behind-the-scenes elements like technical SEO a challenge.

You’ll note that citation management is not seen as a priority for clients, with less than a fifth of agencies and freelancers saying that their clients (18%) would highlight it as one of the most important services. As you may already be aware, citation management can be a tricky service to explain, and clients may not always understand the full scope of it as a service.

Local Listings Management Explained: Google Maps, Apple Maps, Facebook, and Bing

Learn more

How are agencies and freelancers billing their clients?

It’s always useful to see what other people are doing, particularly if you are a freelancer or starting out as one. How should you bill your clients? There are a variety of methods by which agencies and freelancers prefer to bill, so we summarised the findings:

It’s interesting to see that very few marketers are working on day rates, whether freelance or agency-based. It appears the general way to go is charging clients a monthly fee based on the deliverables they receive, with 61% of agencies and 53% of freelancers opting for this method. 

However, 43% of freelancers are still billing at an hourly rate. Of course, it always comes down to preference, but hours can be a tricky figure to quote for some local SEO services—particularly in more creative areas such as copywriting and content creation or social media management, where tasks can end up taking a lot longer than you’d planned (or hoped).

Local Marketer Learning and Development

This year, we wanted to introduce the theme of learning and development, to find out not only where local marketers are seeking expertise, but whether they’re afforded the benefit of professional development as part of their employment.

As we know from the findings above, the more knowledgeable employees are the most satisfied with their salaries, so it should make sense that businesses want their employees to continue developing. But, how many local marketers have the opportunity?

Do local marketers have personal training budgets?

• Just 39% of local marketers are certain they have a personal training budget in their role.
• More than half of local marketers do not have a personal training budget.

It’s quite a sorry picture, with 54% of marketers not given a personal training allowance. Meanwhile, 7% of marketers were unsure, which suggests their organizations either do not offer the benefit or do not communicate them well enough. It’s a familiar sight to see vague mentions of ‘professional development’ and training within job specifications, but it’s very different for businesses to actively encourage their people to learn.

Despite this finding, local marketers are undeterred. A whopping 98% of marketers are putting time aside to learn within their roles, budget or none, with nearly two-fifths of those spending two hours or more learning. We love to see it!

Where are local marketers seeking expertise?

• 81% of local marketers are spending time researching to build their local SEO knowledge.
• 66% of marketers learn via webinars.

Unsurprisingly, the top methods of learning on the job (considering so few marketers have access to dedicated budgets) rely on the do-it-yourself approach. Research, webinars, YouTube, and industry news are generally all free—albeit timely—methods of learning, and it’s very encouraging to see there is a strong level of commitment in the industry.

Looking to the Future: New Tech, Optimism, and Hiring Trends

We’ve got a clear picture of how marketers are doing in local SEO right now, but what about next year—and beyond? With much of 2023 already dominated by discussion around developments in generative AI, competitor brands, and changes to SERPs, how do marketers feel about achieving local success in 2023?

There has been a decrease in the percentage of marketers feeling optimistic about achieving local SEO success in the next year, from 23% in 2022 to 19% in 2023.

Alongside this, we can see a corresponding increase in the percentage of marketers feeling pessimistic about their chances of local marketing success, from 36% in 2022 to 46% in 2023. 

As well as the aforementioned developments in generative AI that have hit marketers thick and fast so far this year, there have been other significant changes within the industry that could contribute to feelings of apprehension about 2024.

Despite this fast-growing innovation, the start of 2023 saw plenty of turbulence with lay-offs affecting some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Not to mention the chaos at Twitter, now X, which impacted businesses of all sizes as marketers grappled with the potential loss—and still ever-changing nature—of this important marketing channel.

Moreover, with Google’s new generative AI-led search functionality, Search Generative Experience (SGE), likely coming at some point in 2024, this adds another key component to marketers’ growing lists of things to master.

POLL: Are Local Marketers Ready for SGE?

Spoiler alert: No, not really. Read on to discover who feels confident about the imminent roll-out of Search Generative Experience (SGE), and how marketers feel it will affect local search results.

Read

Will marketers be hiring in the near future?

With a sense of apprehension around achieving success in the industry, how does this leave marketers feeling about growing their businesses with new hires? 

• 44% of marketers will not be hiring this year, compared to 36% in 2022 and 30% in 2021.

The chart shows a clear trend in business hiring activities, with decreases in the percentage of marketers looking to hire since 2021. The most significant drop comes under the ‘definite’ statement, from 21% in 2022 to just 14% in 2023.

Although there is evidence to suggest that inflation is easing in the US, the cost of hiring and retaining employees is often the biggest outgoing for businesses, so it’s a decision that can’t be taken lightly.

Generative AI in Local Marketing

Meanwhile, local marketers are feeling hopeful about developments in generative AI and what it could mean for business.

While our recent generative AI case study highlighted that 73% of US adults have not used generative AI tools, it’s a very different story within the local SEO niche. Just 7% of marketers have not used generative AI to experiment within their roles. Of the 93% that have, these are the tools they’ve used:

And it seems, for the most part, local marketers are impressed by what they’ve seen so far. We presented several statements around the use of generative AI within local marketing, whether for their roles or wider businesses as a whole.

• 83% of marketers are actively looking to incorporate generative AI into their roles.
• 73% of marketers are actively looking to incorporate generative AI into their business.

• 75% of local marketers feel that generative AI will bring new business opportunities.
• 75% of marketers expect potential tech partners or new tools to be actively incorporating generative AI into products.

So, while we’re not saying you absolutely should be jumping on the bandwagon, it’s good to keep in mind what your peers and competitors are doing with generative AI. With 75% of marketers agreeing that generative AI will bring new opportunities, it might be worth carving out some time to discover what these might be for yourself.

Moreover, for digital marketing or web design agencies and marketing software organizations, the finding that 75% of local marketers expect tech partners and tools to be actively incorporating generative AI into their products definitely cannot be overlooked!

Generative AI in Local Search: A Case Study About Pizza

Read case study

Share your thoughts with us

Thanks for reading this year’s Local Search Industry Survey report, and we’d like to say an enormous thank you again to the local marketers who participated in the survey!

We hope you found these benchmarks useful. Does the information ring true for your experience in local search, or do you have any differing experiences you’d like to share? Please consider joining the conversation with our community of over 2,000 local SEOs over on The Local Pack, drop us a tweet, or mention us on LinkedIn.

About the Local Search Industry Survey 2023

Local marketing audience data

The Local Search Industry Survey was conducted via SurveyMonkey and received a total of 534 responses through our subscriber channels, customer base, social media, and peers within the community.

Although SurveyMonkey only asks participants for binary gender information and therefore doesn’t provide a wholly accurate representation of our audience, 37% of respondents identified as female, 60% identified as male, and the remaining 12% preferred not to disclose their gender.

We surveyed local SEO and marketing representatives from the following business types: 

72% of this year’s respondents identified as local marketers based in the US. The remaining 28% represent the UK (6%), Canada (5%), Australia (3%), and 24 other countries (14%). 

Publishers are welcome to use the charts and data outlined within this report, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this article’s URL. If you have any questions about the report, please contact sammy.paget@brightlocal.com or research@brightlocal.com.

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. 

Business text messaging is here to stay, and businesses that adopt it now will have an early advantage over competitors late to the party. With that in mind, let’s explore the benefits and considerations of business texting.

What the Numbers Say

A recent survey showed an eye-popping 89% of consumers want to initiate and reply to two-way conversations with brands via messaging channels and apps. 76% of consumers currently receive text messages from at least one business they work with.

Leadferno’s survey of 2,000 consumers surfaced that SMS is the most popular communication channel — topping calls, emails, and other messaging channels.

The adoption numbers and trends show that it’s time to leverage text messaging to grow your local business and for your agency to recommend it to clients.

7 Ways Your Local Business Can Benefit From Text Messaging

The benefits of communicating with your prospects and customers using SMS are many, but let’s focus on the seven that can have the most impact on businesses. The great news is that it’s not just your customers that benefit, it’s your team and company too.

1. Real-time Communication

Text messaging allows businesses to communicate with their customers and team members in real-time, enabling quick response times and faster decision-making. Compared to email, SMS replies, on average, are 60 times faster. Just 90 seconds for texts and 90 minutes for emails.

Text messages also boast an open rate of 98% so leveraging this real-time communication channel is important. It’s always with customers on their phones, and in the app they use most.

2. Lead Capture With Web-to-text

You’re already spending time and money on driving traffic to your website with SEO, local SEO, social media, paid ads, and traditional marketing. You want to maximize conversions of that traffic to leads and a web-to-text widget can help you. 

A web-to-text widget allows your visitors to immediately start texting with your business. Connecting via SMS might be the lowest barrier to entry for prospects to ask questions and start a conversation.

Web-to-text offers advantages over live chat for many businesses because it’s familiar to your customer, personalized, fast, and easy to manage. They’re not stuck in a chat window on a web page where they started the conversation, and they aren’t waiting for an agent to help them. 

It’s an easy-to-manage asynchronous conversation where they get reply notifications, can think through responses, and engage on their schedule.

A web-to-text widget is always available to collect leads on desktop, tablet, and mobile websites. There’s no “Agent offline” message typical of chat widgets. Our survey found 57% of users left a website when clicking a live chat button that then stated the chat agent was offline or unavailable. That’s an incredibly leaky conversion funnel.

Texting is also easier to manage for your staff. As consumers’ reply expectations move from just minutes with live chat to same-day responses with texting. That leaves your team more time to delight your prospects and customers and use a channel both sides are already familiar and comfortable with.

Lastly, texting, unlike chat, allows you or the customer to restart the conversation at any time. Texting becomes an ongoing connection, live chat is just a session that has to revert to email once the moment has passed. 

3. Updates and Reminders

Reminders are where SMS proved its value early on for business communication. Appointment reminders from your dentist or an update on your appliance delivery have been very handy. Don’t limit your business use case to just reminders. You can grow to accommodate two-way communication and reminders.

Texting is a great way to keep customers updated on any process. An email might get lost and a phone call might be an inconvenience all the way around. Texts are a fantastic way to keep customers updated on any meeting, needed information, or other details.

Texting can increase the quantity and quality of your customer touchpoints and processes. Better yet, as you’re using them for reminders, with a two-way texting solution, your customers can start a conversation with you about the reminder you just sent.

4. Customer Experience

When you’re easy to work with you become a business that customers want to rave about, refer, and review. Being easy to work with is the new golden rule of business. Offering 2-way texting for your customers makes working with you easy and supports a solid customer experience. Just look at this review:

When users are willing to note the benefits of texting in a review, you can clearly see the impact. Great communication is a differentiator that can bolster your reputation and brand, especially as a small business. 

5. Connection

Humans crave connection, text messaging can help to improve connection with customers by providing a convenient, personalized, and instant form of communication that can help to build stronger relationships and increase customer satisfaction.

Building and maintaining a great connection with your customers is especially important during an economic downturn. As many businesses found out at the height of the pandemic, being connected to your customers is a lifeline. Connection can help rally the support of your customers and take their loyalty to new levels.

These strong connections to your business will lead to repeat purchases, referrals, social media mentions, positive reviews, and more.

6. Requesting Feedback and Reviews

Online reviews and customer feedback are incredibly important to local businesses. They build trust with prospects, improve Google rankings, influence decisions, and help businesses understand their customers better.

Following up with customers and asking for reviews with a text message is both easy and efficient for the business and the consumer.

When you have already been communicating by SMS with your customers, requesting a review over text is both personal and natural. They’ve already communicated in this channel with you, and you’ve likely delivered a great experience, leading to that 5-star Google review.

7. Improved Staff Efficiency

Businesses look to technology and software to help save time and increase productivity for their teams. It’s a double bonus when it saves your company AND your customer’s time.

With text messaging your customers win by communicating in their most familiar way, and the channel is easy to manage for your team. A true win-win scenario for both.

Sales teams can engage with more prospects, service reps can handle more customer needs, and technicians and installers can spend more time on their work than tied up on calls.

A study from Benchmark Portal showed that the average sales and services call time is 5 minutes and 58 seconds. In that time frame, a team member can engage with anywhere from 6 to 10 text conversations. All without a decline in service levels or customer satisfaction. 

The increase in productivity with texting compared to emails as well as phone calls is similar. On average text replies are 60x faster than emails averaging just 90 seconds for a text reply, compared to 90 minutes for email replies.

Text messaging as a channel and business through software like Leadferno offers features that scale communication and save time.

What Do I Need to Know to Start Texting With My Customers?

Permission and Opt-in For Texting

First of all, you need to get permission to text your customers.

If you are planning to send text blasts or do SMS marketing (more on that next), you absolutely need to get permission. These text campaigns are often sent in weekly or monthly intervals for special offers, sales, and updates. Because you are sending to many recipients at an interval you decide, you need consent.

If you are texting using 2-way text messaging where the prospect or customer has initiated the communication, consent is now implied, and you don’t have to do anything special in the US. Many web-to-text widgets that allow consumers to text you from your website have a disclaimer that sending the first message is consent. 

The standard of implied consent was upheld in a recent legal ruling involving Facebook where the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that companies engaging in text messaging from their website or platform when the customer initiates the communication don’t violate the TCPA in the United States. The TCPA protects consumers from auto-dialing and mass messaging when they have not given consent. 

Getting permission is still your best move in texting. Here are the most popular ways to get permission to text your customers:

• Web-to-text-widget with a disclaimer that sending the first message is the same as giving consent for SMS communication.
• Written consent on your intake forms or other customer paperwork.
• Checkbox for consent on a web or contact form.
• Consent via text by directly asking the customer to respond with approval to receive text messages from your business.

Once you have received consent you want to store it in case you would ever need to review it or prove that you obtained it.

If you are gaining consent for text marketing or blasts you will also need to provide an automatic way to unsubscribe, just as you do with email marketing. For SMS, this is most often letting the consumer know they can reply with STOP or QUIT to stop receiving your messages.

Lastly, keep in mind that regulations and laws vary by country. For example, Australia requires a double opt-in process for business texting, so do your research on consent before starting.

SMS Marketing Blasts 

SMS marketing or text blasts is a way of sending a message to many recipients at once. It’s similar to email marketing but sees a higher open rate and engagement when done right. SMS marketing is popular in retail and e-commerce to drive interest and purchases with offers and sales. 

One thing for sure is that your business needs to have permission from your customer to send them marketing texts as we outlined before, along with the ability for subscribers to opt-out. Your consent process and policies need to be airtight.

Is SMS marketing right for local businesses? That answer has a few layers to it, so let’s take a look at them. 

On the pro side, the ability to reach many customers at once is always appealing. A local business with the right content, offers, and timing can be successful with text blasts.

On the con side, there is a very real risk of our customer unsubscribing or worse marking your text as spam. Your direct connection is cut off. Many small businesses are challenged with actually delivering valuable content and offers. Just like email marketing, campaigns without value eventually are unsubscribed.

While the business feels it’s the message of “buy now and save 10%” that will generate new business, the consumer might feel annoyed and opt out of you being able to text them.

A local business should strongly consider these strategic items when deciding on whether to send text blasts or not:

• An SMS subscriber consent and compliance process
• The ability to deliver valuable content and offers
• Timing of blasts that meets customer expectations  – too frequent should be avoided

In the end, if you can’t succeed with the elements that SMS marketing requires, focusing on 1:1 text communication will be far more effective, without upsetting your customers.

Data Security

It can be hard for small businesses to plan for data security, but they are just as vulnerable to data breaches as larger companies. While it might not make the news, the impact of a breach can be just as devastating.

Instead of employees using their own SMS app on their phones and having conversations, contacts, and customer data outside of your control, a business texting app centralizes and secures your data.

In addition to the physical security of customer data, protecting valuable customer and prospect contact information centralized when a salesperson or team member joins or leaves the company is a must. 

Data security and centralization are a big benefit to using a business text messaging app when using text messaging for business. 

Industry Regulation and Verification

The text messaging industry continues to evolve quickly. One can only look at the abuse and spam of email and phone calls to see why the SMS industry is looking to work faster to prevent and manage spam and bad actors. 

In the last year, both local (10DLC) and toll-free numbers that wish to text now have to go through a verification process when activating the number for SMS use. Carriers like AT&T, T-mobile, Verizon, and others continue to tighten their delivery of messages from unauthorized numbers and are trending to zero tolerance. 

The number verification process should be part of any business texting solution you utilize. Depending on the number type and other factors this third-party verification process can take a few days or up to many weeks, but once completed it ensures delivery of your text messages to customers.

This space will continue to change and ultimately is for the good of the industry to preserve texting as the valuable business communication channel it is. 

This is Your Notification, Business Texting is Here

There is no doubt that consumers desire and some even expect text messaging to be a communication channel option with your business. How and where you deploy it can make a big impact in growing your business.

SMS can help you capture more leads, and improve communication, connection, and customer experience. These benefits can be had and even reduce effort and workload on your business and staff when planned and executed right. 

So all that’s left to do is check your text messages because business texting has arrived.

To work alongside your current efforts and local SEO tools, here’s a rundown of what local digital PR is, how it can help your client’s business to grow, and how you can measure its success. 

What Is Digital PR? 

Digital PR is the combination of traditional PR and an SEO strategy that works to increase a brand’s online presence. With its roots in link-building (or even link-earning), the practice looks to secure relevant media coverage and backlinks to a site, to improve the site’s ranking on the SERPs. 

Brands and businesses of all sizes employ digital PR strategies. While it originated as a way to generate links, and so boost ranking positions, it has broadened into an effective marketing strategy to improve public perceptions of brands and heighten visibility. In other words, the perfect mix of SEO and PR. 

A successful digital PR campaign will earn topical links to your client’s site from relevant publications which can help to elevate their ranking positions and experience, expertise, authority, and trust (E-E-A-T).

How Is Local Digital PR Different?

Local digital PR differs from other types of digital PR because of its focus. Rather than trying to boost a brand or business in front of the whole world, it focuses on where that brand operates. This way, the added awareness will be more meaningful, often directly translating into leads.

While international links will still help local businesses shoot up the rankings—and contribute to a healthy link profile—it is the targeted aspect of local digital PR that works so well alongside your existing local SEO efforts. 

While the campaigns themselves can be national, they are designed to establish a business as an expert in a local geographic area. This is done through gaining links from local publications, boosting SERP position generally, and ensuring the website ranks for local keywords. Any good SEO company should be able to do it, but it’s often best performed by a specialist local SEO company. 

Creating a Digital PR Strategy

In most cases, a digital PR strategy will highlight ideas and plans to secure external links, gain off-site coverage and boost brand awareness. Technical audits, backlink profile analysis, and competitor backlink investigation are typically included in local digital PR strategies in the analysis phase. We’d always recommend performing research on what you need to do, before going full steam ahead.

Cornerstones of an Effective Digital PR strategy

There are many aspects of a solid digital PR strategy, each worthy of dedicating time and attention to.

Identifying Target Publications

Not all links are created equal. Links from high authority websites are always appreciated, but aren’t super helpful if they’re not from a relevant website. Links from websites that are relevant to your client’s niche will always be more beneficial because they tell search engines that your client’s website is an authoritative one in that industry or for that topic.

With local digital PR, you can add another layer here, too: localization.

While a link from a high authority international website would do amazing things for brand awareness, it may not do quite as much for your local visibility. For instance, if you’re a restaurant looking to improve your local rankings, getting a link from a local press site or blogger could do more for your SEO than a link from a huge international news site.

The sweet spot would be a site that’s local to your area and thematically relevant to your niche.

This is why digital PRs will target specific outlets, to ensure they are sending the digital PR campaigns they create to:

1. People who will be interested in the campaign
2. Journalists who will be likely to share it
3. Publications that can get them in front of their target audience

Decide on Your Target Pages

Once you’ve identified your target publications, you’ll want to think about the pages of the website you wish to target. Links to the homepage are, relatively, easier to earn. But links to deeper pages, where product pages and content reside, can be more valuable in terms of SEO. 

By encouraging links to deeper pages, search engines more easily crawl the whole website, and are more likely to rank them for niche searches that are relevant and that the page seeks to answer. It also helps pass authority and equity to deeper pages that are more likely to convert customers.

You will need to consider that some publications may not link to deeper pages, and will only offer homepage links. Others may not link at all, or only supply ‘no-follow’ links. This doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying to target specific pages, though.

Consider Your Target Anchor Text

Anchor text is the written part of a hyperlink. It will fall naturally within a sentence, but when clicked it will take users to a separate webpage. A great tip for SEO and digital PR is to use the keywords for the page you’re linking to as the anchor text. This tells both search engines and users what the page is about, but also has the extra benefit of helping search engines to categorize the page. 

An effective local digital PR strategy will include campaigns to target different anchor texts. For example, while you may target your client’s homepages for most of your digital PR efforts, you can make sure you keep a healthy link profile by including variations of the anchor text. 

By including the links you desire with targeted anchor text within a press release, you encourage journalists to simply use it the same way. Out-and-out asking for specific anchor text can get a bit murky, as various laws and Google link spam guidelines touch on this. Many journalists and writers may not like it either, so using optimized anchors in your outreach can give them the gentle nudge they may need without having to specifically ask.

Create Story-first Content Ideas

Before you’re able to send out any digital PR campaigns, you need to come up with ideas first. These need to be interesting enough that your target publications will want to cover them, but also relevant to your client’s niche to help boost their authority.

We’d always advise you to think story-first when you’re creating an idea, rather than format first. Rather than thinking ‘We need an infographic!’, think ‘What would resonate with our target audience?’ or ‘What would our target publications, and their journalists, find interesting?’. Then, once you’ve worked this out, you can consider the type of campaign you’ll want to create and whether you’ll need to get things like data.

Do You Need Data?

Data isn’t necessary for all digital PR campaigns, but it can provide the basis for great ones. Data-focused campaigns offer irrefutable information on compelling topics. There are generally three types of data campaigns:

• Internal Data that only your client has access to. This data is completely unique to you or your client, and as such can provide exciting opportunities. Whether it’s anonymized customer data or a data set that only you can scrape. It also provides unique linking opportunities, as well as the potential for organic linking opportunities.
• Commissioned reports. If you haven’t got any internal data that’s newsworthy, you can still get your hands on data that’s completely unique to you, whether that’s commissioning a survey through a reputable company or running focus groups.
• Open-source or third-party data sets. There’s a startling amount of data available to tap into online. Again, you don’t always need to have access to your own. In the UK, for instance, the Office of National Statistics releases data on all kinds of things, from road usage to housing statistics. This is just one example, too, and many are free to use. You can put in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, scrape other data sources, and create your own story or angle.

Each of these will come with its own advantages and disadvantages. Often this could be cost or lead time, which is why internal data can be so useful.

Create Graphics or Visuals

Graphics and other visuals, like tables, are a great way to provide information in an accessible way. Reams of numbers and jargon can be mind-boggling, but a cleverly designed graphic can hold all the same information and look great at the same time. 

Whether it’s graphs and charts to show the data, tables with all the data laid out clearly, or images that drive a point home—visual aids draw attention and help to keep it.

A clear and simple data visualization can be the difference between a passing mention in a piece and a proper feature with a link, where they’ve sourced the image. So always consider that, too.

Not only that, but in some cases, a truly beautiful data visualization could be the reason you get links at all. A bit of design flare can make a real difference.

Craft the Perfect Press Release or Outreach Email

Press releases are packets that digital PRs send out to journalists. They include a summary of the information and the data, as well as pointing toward any particularly interesting findings. Journalists can use these directly to craft their articles, though usually, the press release provides a link to further information.

Press releases themselves aren’t quite as widely used as they were. Some digital PRs opt for a shorter and punchier outreach email that gives the receiver as much information as possible up-front. It’s down to you to decide which you think is better. Some publications will prefer a press release, for instance.

Perform Your Outreach

Once your campaign is ready, and you’ve written your press release, it’s time to send it out. 

Even the most brilliant digital PR campaign, rich in data and insight, needs to be seen by the right journalists if it’s going to do what it’s created for. This is why digital PR experts will curate a list of contacts while the campaign is still being developed, so they will be able to send it out as soon as it’s ready and the information is at its freshest and most relevant.

Companies that specialize in local digital PR should have studied the local area, picked out publications where the target audience hangs out, and tailored their outreach to these to provide maximum SEO and awareness benefits.

A good campaign may even have multiple angles that let you tailor specific stories for each individual publication or niche that you outreach too.

Different Types of Local Digital PR Campaigns

Expert Comment

Expert comments are pretty much what they sound like. They are a comment from an expert in the industry being discussed. This could be a case of the CEO of a cleaning firm offering advice in an article on tackling carpet cleaning, or a manicurist offering tips on caring for dry cuticles.

In this example of an expert comment, the experts at Construction2Style offered advice and styling tips for a post by MidWestHome called “2022 Ideas to Steal”. Their advice focused on wood, in particular a brand of furniture that uses wood, and how it benefits their clients and themselves. 

This helps to establish Construction2Style as experts in home decor and house styling while earning a link back to their own website. So, not only is their website positively affected but their brand reputation too. 

Reactive and Newsjacking

Reactive campaigns, also known as newsjacking, are digital PR campaigns that piggyback onto current news or events. This could be a chocolate company reacting to Valentine’s Day, or a sportswear company taking advantage of the Super Bowl.

In response to the warmer weather returning, the experts at First Choice Environmental released an infographic on battling pests in the garden. This also leads to data-led digital PR campaigns, as it contains both expert comments and some useful statistics. 

This led to more links for First Choice Environmental, as well as establishing themselves as experts in their local area. 

The ideal reactive local digital PR campaign focuses on your client’s realm of authority and expertise. This typically takes advantage of trending news or holidays, and pairs this with information only experts in your client’s industry would know.

An example of this kind of reactive, and local, digital PR campaign is the one below, on how damaging pumpkin guts can be to drains and pipes. It is reactive because it was created in response to a national holiday or occasion—in this case, Halloween.

The plumbing experts at Roto-Rooter released a statement, advising the public of the dangers of flushing pumpkin guts down the drain. 

By writing about Roto-Rooter in conjunction with some important keywords, it establishes them as experts in the area. It also results in their website earning more links and more traffic, and has the benefit of directing customers to the expert they need if they do flush pumpkin guts down the drain.

Product PR

Do you think all those lists of ‘the best pillows to buy 2023’ are all just organic? I mean, in some cases they may be. But the reality is that many lists just like that one will include PR products and a link back to a product or category page.

This will often work in a similar way to expert commentary or reactive PR. Often a journalist will put out a request for products, whether that’s the dehumidifiers or places that do afternoon tea in a particular city. Then PRs have an opportunity to submit their client for consideration. Many people do this proactively, which is a staple of more traditional PR.

Sending out gifts and samples or inviting people along to try out an experience or meal can get you featured when these sorts of lists are created.

This can get you links to product or category pages that would otherwise be awkward to create, and it’s not just limited to people with physical products.

Data-led Campaigns and Reports

A data-led campaign focuses on information or statistics—this can be from a survey, scraping websites like Twitter, or from reputable external sources. This could be a review of hygiene ratings in local restaurants or sentiment analysis of the nearby green spaces.

In the above example of data-led digital PR, or content marketing, Blacktower US Financial Management Group looked into which US states were best to retire in. By looking at the crime rate, the average age of the population, cost of living, life expectancy, and property prices, they ranked US states from best to worst. 

A data-led campaign brings a multitude of benefits. For one thing, providing data that no one else has brings exclusivity, so even competitors will link to your client’s site if the information is compelling enough. 

Being so heavily data-focused makes the content more believable, even though the information may be surprisingly astounding. As with any statement in the modern age, you need to bring the receipts to back it up. This also makes the content more interesting and compelling. 

Providing new, highly relevant data also shows your client as actively contributing to their industry, establishing themselves in the eyes of audiences and Google as thought leaders.

A thoroughly researched data-led campaign can end up being cited long after your outreach phase has ended, gaining links over years rather than just weeks.

Examples of these kinds of campaigns from BrightLocal include their annual Local Consumer Review Survey, which doubles up as a valuable industry report offering unique insights into consumer reviews, and a piece that can attract links from respected publications.

Another is BrightLocal’s Big Brand Review Showdown on which states prefer McDonald’s or Burger King, based entirely on Google reviews, which taps into a slightly more wide-appeal, consumer-focused type of data-led campaign.

Benefits of a Robust Digital PR Strategy

Credibility is hugely important to any brand, including local businesses. In today’s digital world, most of that credibility needs to be established online. Gone are the days when you’d hire a service or make a purchase based solely on word of mouth—87% of consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022.

Google is becoming smarter every single day, whether it’s shutting down fraudulent business profiles or fighting against disinformation. It’s more able to filter out any dodgy businesses, so it’s important to differentiate your client from their competitors. 

If you can showcase on your client’s website all of the wonderful publications and outlets that they have been featured in, your client will gain instant credibility with all site visitors.

1. Digital PR Increases Online Presence 

Improving credibility is just one of the benefits a robust digital PR strategy can bring. A great digital PR strategy will also grow your client’s online presence, making it easier for customers, old and new, to find you. 

Digital PR uses proven SEO techniques to rocket your client’s brand up the SERP and into the spotlight. The higher a SERP position, the more likely a result is to be clicked. 

2. Digital PR Improves Brand Recognition

Digital PR doesn’t just improve a website’s standing in terms of SEO—it can also be used to boost brand recognition across the board, whether that’s by getting your brand’s name into national papers, or ensuring their status as an expert in a certain area. 

3. Digital PR Provides Audience Connection

Digital PR can be laser-focused. What we mean by that is, you can target the exact audience or demographic you want, and tell them exactly what you want them to hear. This helps your audience to understand exactly what your brand is about and what to expect from you. 

4. Digital PR Drives Traffic

As your brand is noticed more and regarded as an expert, more people will visit your website. This begins a cycle of more websites linking to yours, which only boosts your SEO and SERP standing, which leads to more visitors to your website. 

How Digital PR Ties In With Local Link Building

Link building is the process of earning links to your client’s website from other websites. Digital PR is just one way to do this. 

Digital PR is a process of truly earning links, by providing useful or interesting information that others will want to write about and share. The idea is, when they share this information, they provide a link to its source—your client’s website. 

Local digital PR and link building go together like peanut butter and jelly, and the same is still true when it comes to local link building. The tactics just shift slightly. By focusing efforts on publications, outlets, and other trustworthy resources in a specific area, a brand gains credibility and authority in that region. 

Whether this is a full on-site asset, laden with data, on a local-area-based blog, or an expert comment in the local paper, getting your client’s brand name out there works wonders. 

Which Metrics Should You Track in Local Digital PR?

Historically, digital PR has focused on links and links alone. While counting the number of links is still important, there’s a lot more to digital PR success than sheer volume—there’s a lot more nuance than that.

Keyword Rankings

Improving a brand’s or website’s SEO is one of the primary reasons that digital PR exists and is practiced. A healthy backlink profile is the stuff that SEO dreams are made of!

Relevant links are the bee’s knees. When a website ranks for the keyword they are targeting, the cycle begins. The higher the ranking, the more likely the website is to be referenced and linked to. 

Social Media Engagement

If the digital PR campaign you’re crafting for your client has a social media element, then tracking social media engagement is vital. The specific metrics vary depending on which social media you will be focusing on. 

For Instagram, likes and follows will be the most significant. On LinkedIn and Facebook, shares come into play more. 

Overall, tracking the audience size and the number of impressions, as well as what sort of post earns more impressions, will be vital to ensure further success. 

Keeping an eye on social media is also important if you’re relying on potential customers to perform social media searches to find your client’s business! 

Leads and Conversions

It’s not always the case that blog posts and social media lead to sales, but it can happen. That’s why it’s important to use Google Analytics to keep track of your client’s leads and conversions. By monitoring those who come onto the main campaign page, and seeing the pages they navigate to next, you can keep track of campaign successes. 

Referral Traffic 

Links are awesome in helping your client’s site rank for the keywords important to them, but that’s not the only benefit to measure. What is also important is the number of people who click on those links, also known as referral traffic. 

Referral traffic will indicate how many real human customers out there find your campaign interesting, and monitoring things like bounce rate as well as referral traffic will give a clear picture of that. 

Inbound Links 

The number of total inbound links a campaign earns (and the number of referring domains they come from) is one of, if not the most, important metrics to measure. 

By monitoring the backlink profile for a campaign, you can track how many links are earned. This can be used as a metric for success. It’s also possible to monitor the quality of the links earned. 

The key for any campaign is to look beyond the sheer number of links. You want to aim for links from the target sites you identified earlier, then measure all links by their value to the website you’re working on, asking yourself how relevant they are. Are they in the right niche and the right location?

Don’t always simply look for overall stats like domain authority when you’re performing local digital PR. You need to look at the whole picture. Some niche local sites may have lower overall authority but incredibly high relevance to your local area and industry. 

This backlink profile also allows monitoring the sentiment of those linking to your client’s website. Are they waxing lyrical about the amazingness of the campaign, or are they saying “look what these clowns did”? Google doesn’t seem to care either way, but it can help to know how people feel from a traditional PR standpoint, especially if they’re your client’s neighbors and potential customers.

Local Digital PR for Your Clients

Local digital PR can have an incredible impact on your client’s website standing and business overall, and there are many approaches to get there, to suit all brands and businesses. 

Whether your client is a local gym that wants to do a data-led piece on how much protein that protein products actually contain, a hairdresser who wants to jump on a reactive about Zendaya’s latest look, or a therapist who wants to lend an expert comment on Christmas stresses, the benefits of local digital PR will ensure an ROI. 

In addition to your existing local SEO tools, it can be beneficial to add SEO extensions for Chrome to your digital toolkit. To help you make the most of your new Chrome SEO extensions, don’t forget to check out our local SEO resources for useful business listing information, citation sites, and review platforms.  

What are Chrome extensions and why are they useful?

Think of a Chrome extension as a small piece of software that adds an extra capability to your standard Chrome browser. Once downloaded from the Chrome Web Store, your extension will usually appear as a small icon next to the address bar of your browser. You can then click on it to perform the task that that extension has been designed to carry out.

Chrome extensions are useful as time-saving devices. They empower Chrome to accomplish a specific task that it may not have the functionality to achieve as easily or seamlessly otherwise. They also allow you to tailor your Chrome experience so that it behaves in a way that’s aligned with your specific needs. 

For example, if you want to know when you have new messages but don’t want to continually log in to Gmail or have an open tab, you can use a Gmail Chrome extension. Once installed, it will monitor for new email messages and offer a new message alert without you having to manually navigate to your Gmail inbox in the browser window.

There are a number of extensions that have been specifically designed for SEO, so we’re going to run through the best.

Chrome Extensions for Keyword Research 

Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a powerful keyword research tool. It packs in a whole host of useful information and handy functionality including ‘people also search for’ suggestions.

You can use Keywords Everywhere to quickly find search volumes for any keyword, see the cost per click on Google Ads, check competition levels, and view trends data.

If you’re keen to spy on your competitors, Keywords Everywhere will also show you the top 5,000 keywords any webpage is ranking for. Use this data to plug gaps in your own keyword strategy by discovering terms you aren’t targeting, but should be. 

Keywords Everywhere: Additional Information

Is it free? 

No. Keywords Everywhere works on a credit system. One credit equals one keyword. Credits are priced at $10 per 100,000.

What makes it useful?

Keywords Everywhere provides very useful keyword data, right within the browser window so you don’t need to waste time flicking back and forth between windows or applications. 

Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keywords-everywhere-keywo/hbapdpeemoojbophdfndmlgdhppljgmp?hl=en 

Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner makes light work of keyword research for any local business hoping to dominate on Google, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, or Etsy.

To use this Chrome SEO extension for local businesses, simply enter a search term into your chosen platform. The extension will then display a list of related search terms below the search box. The keyword lists make it easier to identify keywords that consumers may be using that you aren’t yet targeting. Incorporate them into your SEO activity to grow your visibility on any of the supported platforms.  

As well as keyword lists, Keyword Planner provides useful reference data to help you prioritize new search terms. This includes search volume, competition levels, and cost per click.  

Keyword Planner: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No. 

What makes it useful?

The extension uses supported platform APIs so you can generate relevant lists of long-tail keywords specific to Google, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, or Etsy in seconds. 

Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/keyword-planner/ohffmmbmebhcljgcdijjlepjaoladfag?hl=en 

Universal Keyword Planner Box

Another easy-to-use keyword extension for Chrome, Universal Keyword Planner Box does exactly as its name suggests. Simply head to one of the supported platforms, type in a search term, and then review the list of associated keywords displayed below the search bar.

You can copy and export the keyword suggestions presented, making it easier to analyze the keyword lists later. From there, you can pinpoint keywords to add to your local SEO strategy to close any gaps that may have appeared.

At present, Universal Keyword Planner Box is compatible with Google, YouTube, Aliepress, Amazon, eBay and Etsy.

Universal Keyword Planner Box: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

The ability to export keyword suggestions is very useful, as you can then refer back to your data later.

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/universal-keyword-planner/niaagjifaifoebkdkkndbhdoamicolmj 

Chrome Extensions for On-page SEO

Lighthouse

Source: Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an excellent way to review your site’s Core Web Vitals. You can use it to audit specific pages on your domain. It runs a number of automated tests, at your request, to review various page performance metrics.

You simply need to install it, then run it on a page to be given a series of scores and insights across performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO. Each of these has a top-level score and a number of things it looks at, like page load speed, first contentful paint, problematic code, crawlability of links, and more.

It’s an excellent way to spot issues quickly and create a plan for improvement.

Lighthouse: Additional Information

Is it free?

Yes, Lighthouse is completely free.

Does it have a premium option?

No

What makes it useful?

The statistics and actionable insights it provides are incredibly valuable for all kinds of different SEO tasks, whether it’s tech or content.

Link:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk?hl=en

Ahrefs

Ahrefs also makes an appearance on our top SEO tools list. If you’re looking for an SEO extension for Chrome, Ahrefs has you covered with a range of features.

The Chrome extension gives you some of the same capabilities as the standard Ahrefs tool. This includes the ability to perform on-page audits, view link profiles and check for broken links, review content including images and headers, and track redirects.

Using the Chrome extension means much of this work can be done directly from your browser window. This means you can see relevant on-page SEO information, for your own and competitor sites, without having to tab between application windows. 

Ahrefs: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

Yes. $99-$999/mo.

What makes it useful?

Even without the premium subscription option to unlock Ahrefs metrics, you can still access a wealth of useful on-page data to inform your SEO strategy and conduct competitor research.

Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ahrefs-seo-toolbar/hgmoccdbjhknikckedaaebbpdeebhiei?hl=en 

SEOquake

SEOquake brings together a range of on-page SEO tools to lighten the local search load for local business owners. It’s ideal for assessing your own on-page performance and snooping on competitors.

Accessing a wealth of on-page SEO information is as easy as hovering over the icon once you’ve landed on your target page. At-a-glance information includes domain information, indexing data, and backlinks analysis. You can also dig deeper to view internal and external link reports, view an on-page SEO audit, and check keyword density.

If you have a Semrush account, you can connect to SEOquake to unlock additional on-page metrics. 

SEOquake: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

If you want to benchmark performance, you can add additional URLs and compare domains against each other for easy analysis. 

Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/seoquake/akdgnmcogleenhbclghghlkkdndkjdjc 

Serpstat

If you want an easy way to see how a competitor is performing in local search, Serpstat SEO website checker does just that directly from your browser window. In addition to checking in on competitor performance, you can use this SEO extension for Chrome to keep tabs on how your own local business website is faring.

Simply navigate to any website and hit the Serpstat icon in your browser window to get a full SEO breakdown. This includes search visibility, competitors, traffic, and keywords. 

There’s also the option to check rankings and perform a full domain analysis, making this a useful extension for checking your own SEO progress and that of your rivals. 

Serpstat: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

Yes. $55-$399/mo.

What makes it useful?

Serpstat brings together more than 20 different tools to help keep track of your SEO effectiveness and conduct competitor research. 

Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/serpstat-website-seo-chec/fcgbopaomlpldhbinhgebmkcnkfconmn?hl=en-US 

SEO Minion

SEO Minion is a free Chrome SEO extension which helps local business owners to perform seven local search tasks directly from their browser window. 

Use it to perform on-page analysis for any web page quickly and easily (this could be your own or that of another local business for competitive insight). 

Broken links can easily derail your local search visibility and frustrate website visitors. SEO Minion’s backlink checker will flag up broken links and allow you to sort by status so you can prioritize remedial action.  

There’s also a multi-location ranking checker, allowing you to recreate search listings from any location to get a better overall picture of your local visibility. 

SEO Minion: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

The collection of seven different tools makes light work of everyday SEO tasks for time-poor local business owners.

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/seo-minion/giihipjfimkajhlcilipnjeohabimjhi 

MozBar

The MozBar Chrome extension is especially useful for conducting competitor research. The free version of the tool offers six functions.

One of the most useful is the on-page highlighter which enables you to highlight keywords and link types on the page. If you’re more of a visual learner, the ability to color code the page while studying a competitor URL can make analysis much easier.

You can also click to bring up a page overlay. This allows you to see HTTP status, page elements, and markup.

Many SEOs and digital PRs also use the MozBar to look at a site’s Domain Authority (DA), which is Moz’s way of ranking the overall authority of a site.

A Moz subscription unlocks further features such as at-a-glance keyword difficulty ratings for any keyword in the search results page and on-page optimization suggestions. 

MozBar: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

Yes. $99-$599/mo. 

What makes it useful?

It’s a fast way to uncover lots of useful SEO information, and you can export your findings to CSV for further study later.

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mozbar/eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp 

Chrome Extensions for Google Business Profile 

GMB Everywhere

GMB Everywhere (yes, the name hasn’t changed since the update from Google, we know) is one of the top Google Business Profile extensions in the Chrome Store. It helps you to conduct competitor research by making it easier to snoop on other local business listings.

Once installed, navigate to a local search results page. From there, you can use GMB Everywhere to see which primary and secondary categories other local business listings have chosen.

You can also use it to analyze review profiles and benchmark performance against your own reviews.

If you’re new to Google Posts, the Post Auditing feature enables you to dive into your rivals’ Post strategy and understand their approach. Use this information to finetune your own Post content. 

GMB Everywhere: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

Yes. $25/mo. 

What makes it useful?

GMB Everywhere makes it quick and easy to delve into your competitors’ Google Business Profile strategies. The Teleport feature is also helpful for conducting searches as if you were in another location.

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmb-everywhere-gbp-audit/oibcaeeplepnjfjhokfcabnaafodppik

PlePer Local SEO Tools

The PlePer GMB extension can perform four different local search listing analysis types from Maps results. Pull it up to understand what categories other listings are using to obtain their rankings. 

You can also use PlePer to dive into the review profiles of your local competitors. The extension will give you data such as number of reviews, average star ratings, the number of listings without reviews, and the maximum and minimum number of reviews obtained. 

As reviews are a core component of local search visibility, this insight can help you understand how your own review profile holds up against your closest competitors. PlePer will also show you business hours and business attributes directly from Maps listings.

PlePer Local SEO Tools: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

PlePer’s level of detail from Map results is incredibly helpful for understanding how others are approaching their local listing optimization. 

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pleper-local-seo-tools/cpdkchkkmcpnfgbpjjgfhcbcaceeandd 

Chrome Extensions for Rankings

GMB Crush

GMB Crush (another that fell foul of the GBP name change) could easily function as a Google Business Profile Chrome extension but it’s also incredibly helpful for exploring your local rankings in more detail.

You can search from your physical location or, if you want to see search results for other zip codes, change your geo-location directly in GMB Crush. From there, you can see which of your competitors are ranking well in other areas and where your own business is appearing.

If your listing isn’t doing as well as you’d like in zip codes that matter to your business, use one of the GMB extensions to understand why. 

GMB Crush: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

The ability to perform zip code-specific searches gives you an accurate understanding of where your listing is ranked away from your immediate physical location.

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gmb-crush-gmb-audit-tool/aakkhbloifflgelkkikmbakldbhllbfj 

Semalt SEO Extension

The Semalt SEO extension for Chrome shows you which keywords your site is ranking for in Google search. If you’re time-poor, the ability to see rankings at a glance directly from your browser window can be extremely beneficial.

The extension covers search positions one to 100. And in addition to quickly checking up on your own progress, you can use this same extension to keep tabs on your competitors. Semalt will record whether you’re ranking for more or fewer keywords over the last day or months. You can also view the keywords any website ranks for, helping you to identify new phrases that competitors are targeting but you haven’t yet considered. 

Semalt SEO Extension: Additional Information

Is it free? 

Yes.

Does it have a premium option?

No.

What makes it useful?

Semlat provides an abundance of ranking intel. A particularly helpful feature is the ability to generate a top 100 competitor list for any keyword you’re interested in ranking for. 

Link: 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/website-ranking-and-seo-c/npapojppkmfhefbokolngnomlgkkpcnc 

We surveyed over 400 BrightLocal customers, from small local businesses and marketing consultants to multi-location businesses and agencies, to gauge confidence within the local SEO space going into 2023, and to better understand some of the key challenges they’re frequently coming up against. 

Spoiler Alert: the even better news is that, as you’ll see below, business leaders are feeling pretty positive.

Key Findings

• Across the board, 90% of marketers feel optimistic about their business health over the next 12 months.

• 76% of marketing agencies and consultants indicate that they will look to introduce new services.

• Over half of agencies and consultants are planning on increasing the price of services over the next 12 months.

• 54% of small and multi-location businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in the next 12 months, as a result of inflation.

• 33% of agencies, freelancers, and consultants are finding it harder to win new business due to inflation and concerns about a recession.

• As well as reporting fewer new and lower quality leads, consultants and agencies are finding that new or prospective clients are currently more price-conscious and apprehensive to commit.

Business Health and Optimism Is Strong

Perhaps the key headline of this research is the striking sentiment that 90% of respondents feel either somewhat or very positive about their business health in the next 12 months. You can see the breakdown by business type in the chart and table below. While confidence levels vary somewhat between different business types—notably smaller businesses and independent consultants—you’ll note the optimism flows across the board.

	Very optimistic	Somewhat optimistic	Somewhat pessimistic	Very pessimistic	Not sure
Multi-location businesses	70%	24%	N/A	3%	3%
Marketing agencies	55%	37%	5%	1%	2%
Small businesses	56%	31%	7%	2%	6%
Freelancers and consultants	34%	53%	6%	2%	5%

Industry-wide, it feels like businesses of all types are taking the challenges of inflation, and threats of a recession in the last year, in their stride.

By seeking opportunities to diversify, and adapting to continually evolving changes in consumer behavior, businesses will be better placed to meet customers’ needs. Naturally, one of the key solutions for being better able to meet your customers’ needs is looking to introduce new services.

We found that over three-quarters of consultants and agencies are looking to introduce new services within the next 12 months, as a result of the upheaval inflation has brought about.

It is interesting, however, to look back throughout 2022 at separate reports on the subject of business optimism. The results have shown plenty of fluctuation up until this point:

• The Small Business Optimism Index (by the NFIB), reported a decline in October 2022, having previously seen steady rises for four consecutive months.

• JPMorgan Chase’s Business Leaders Outlook Pulse survey notes that leaders of mid-sized businesses remain optimistic about their own organization’s performance (71%), even with only one in five feeling positive about the wider economy. 

From findings in our own research, as well as the third-party reports mentioned above, we can see that while current factors in the wider economic environment do influence business optimism, they are not directly responsible for marketers’ feelings towards their own business health. The fact that 76% of consulting local SEOs plan on developing their service offerings reflects this optimism further.

Local Businesses Up Marketing Budgets Amid Inflation Turbulence 

There is, then, a general sense of confidence, but how are service prices and marketing budgets changing?

While inflation fluctuations are part and parcel of life, at the time of writing, global inflation sits at some of, if not the highest levels in decades, squeezing consumer spending, upheaving supply chains, and driving up the costs of goods and general running costs for businesses.

It won’t come as a surprise then, that more than half of the agencies and consultants polled are looking to increase their prices in the next 12 months. This may result from businesses having avoided the inevitable thus far, as 2022 has already seen waves of businesses across the US and the UK reluctantly having to pass on increases to their customers.

As you’ll see below, it’s perhaps surprising to see that 54% of small to multi-location business customers actually plan on increasing marketing budgets (if they haven’t done so already), compared to just 13% that either have or will be looking to decrease their marketing budget in the next 12 months.

A significant learning for many within the first year of the pandemic—along with the uncertainty and changeable restrictions that came with it—was just how much consumers need local businesses, and how important local and broader SEO services are for businesses to survive.

So, in continuing to navigate the ongoing turbulence of a global outbreak, and coming face-to-face with new economic threats and political unrest, it would be logical to assume that businesses—from small and independently-owned businesses to large, multi-location organizations—now much more widely recognize marketing efforts as integral to business success instead of a “nice to have” and are reflecting this in their budgeting.

Agencies and Marketing Consultants Face New Business Challenges 

Despite high levels of optimism across the board from different business types, there are challenges that will inevitably come from concerns around a recession.

We surveyed marketing agencies, freelancers, and consultants on the issues arising from inflation, and how they impact existing clients and new business alike.

This research highlights an interesting contrast in the challenges faced by agencies against how small and multi-location businesses plan on spending in marketing budgets going forward.

As discussed in the budgets and services analysis above, we’ve unearthed that over half of local businesses plan to increase their marketing spends. Yet, among agency and consultant respondents, 44% cited existing clients looking to spend less as a key challenge, with 33% also experiencing more difficulty in winning new business.

One possible way to explain this contrast is revealed by looking more closely at local businesses’ intentions for the year ahead: with almost a third of these spending more on software and business tools, it could be that they are considering taking some marketing services in-house, and factoring this into increased budgets as part of their growth plans or changing ambitions.

Additionally, what may suggest difficulty in winning new business, or hesitance towards long-term marketing commitments, could be a reflection of how many businesses are reconsidering pricing strategies and services moving into 2023, potentially pausing agency commitment.

We decided to explore these new business challenges even further, and presented five different areas to respondents, to see where agencies and consultants feel they are most affected (this is to be compared with experiences before the impact of inflation set in):

• price sensitivity of prospective clients
• length of time to commit to agencies
• quantity of new business leads
• new business win rate
• quality of new business leads.

While we identified the price sensitivity and lack of commitment from prospective clients as the joint leading concerns, you’ll see below that a significant proportion of marketing agencies, freelancers, and consultants have expressed each area of concern as affecting their ability to win new business.

The biggest takeaway from these circumstances? As a marketing professional, you need to ensure you’re providing your current clients with a strong reason to stay with you (and your expertise), and be sure to stand out from any competition when pitching to prospective clients.

The contrast in our findings also highlights an opportunity for agencies and freelancers to consider gaps in targeting, where local businesses have an appetite for investing in local SEO services. Could revisiting your targeting and positioning strategy highlight significant changes in customer behavior and potential new audiences? Or maybe you’re now in a better position to meet the needs of what had previously been a smaller customer segment?

Alternatively, there could be an appetite for additional general and local SEO services that have grown in importance and that consultants aren’t currently providing. So ensure you are continually thinking about how you can add value to your existing clients’ service and consider this in new business pitching.

Summary

Despite ongoing fluctuations in economic optimism on a local, national and global scale, the Local Marketing Confidence Survey finds a strong sense of optimism towards business health, a sentiment that is reflected in other key business research from throughout 2022.

It seems there is an appetite across all business types and sizes to grow and diversify their offerings in 2023, which should act as a reminder—or a catalyst—to marketing professionals that it’s not enough to rely on how things have always been done until now.

As post-pandemic life and pressure from inflation continues to shape consumer behavior, remember that this, too, influences the needs and behaviors of businesses.

Methodology

The Local Marketing Confidence Survey was distributed to BrightLocal customers in September 2022 and received 417 responses. Of these respondents, 76% were located in the US, 9% in Canada, 9% in the UK, 4% in Australia, and 1% were categorized as ‘Other’.

Regarding business type, 61% of respondents represented agencies, 15% were marketing consultants/freelancers, 15% small businesses, and 9% multi-location businesses.

Publishers are welcome to use the charts and data, crediting BrightLocal and linking the URL of this research. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions, feedback, or observations about this survey.