Moz Local Search report 2014
Yesterday saw the launch of the 2014 search ranking factors report from Moz. This important annual report surveys SEO experts about trends that impact on web performance and takes account of changes Google makes throughout the year and gives useful insight for SEO specialists and business owners.
It seems the latest algo update from Google called Pigeon has had a big impact in the US with the big winners being Domain Authority and Proximity to the searcher. Pigeon does appear to have affected Google+ local ranking with many US SEO companies reporting ranking changes. It is not clear whether the UK has as yet been impacted but it will at some point.
What can you do about it: –
- As ever the quality of citations is a major influencer here and is an indicator of business maturity and authority.
- Optimise your Google+ Local listing
- Post regularly on Google+
- Encourage Reviews
What is also emerging is that SEO is becoming increasingly complex and the move towards semantic search is making it more difficult to workout what will work for different businesses. Its important therefore to take account of many factors unique to each business when developing a local search strategy.