Those who run a local business, or provide SEO services for small business owners, now have a competitive edge over national brands, because the latter don’t have physical locations in cities where most of their customers reside. Local businesses can have the icing on the cake by grabbing the coveted real estate on the first page of local SERPs.

According to the Google research study “Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior”, 4 of 5 consumers use search engines to find local information. Moreover, local-based searches lead to more conversions than non-local searches. But there is a flipside for the local market players, which is that there are constant changes and updates of the Google local search patterns.

Let’s face the problem: in the last few years Google has made it even harder for local businesses to get noticed in local SERPs.  In 2014, Google released the Google Pigeon Update that totally redefined the way we do local search. The local 7-pack block of Google Places results were shrunken to a 3-pack or “Snack Pack.” The redesigned local pack boxes lack call buttons and exact address information (we can only see directions and website link buttons now). The search giant explained it simply; it’s all for the sake of a better user experience and the unification of desktop and mobile search navigation. Maybe some positive-minded folks welcomed this brave new world, especially if they were in the top 3 of Places and saw an increase of the click-through rate to their websites. But most of the small business owners who were listed 4^th  or lower suffered from a drastic traffic drop and a dearth in phone calls. Then another unexpected update from Google followed: the shocking removal of its location filter in search settings. This caused a lot of discontent from many webmasters and business owners who used this feature to see how local results would look from the locations their clients reside in.

The difficulty of local SERP performance tracking intensifies because of the interplay between the dynamics of local SERPs and the personalization of the Google local search results. There are 3 major local search modifiers that embody the personalization of search results:

• Explicit location modifier is provided on the part of a searcher who adds an explicit geographical term (names of country, city, street, district, etc.) to the body of a search query.
• User location modifier is an automatic identification of the user location by device location service data like an IP address, GPS, Wi-Fi hotspots, in order to deliver the most relevant local information without the user having to manually add a location modifier to her search query.
• Browsing history stores some useful information about the user that helps identify the most relevant search results for a specific user.

There are 5 ways to look at local SERPs from the perspective of your prospects

With the above mentioned pitfalls of how Google serves local search activity, there is still some wiggle room for getting approximate ranking positions for your or your client’s location-based website.

Note that the following methods of getting local rankings for target keywords don’t give a rock-solid guarantee of explicit and accurate results. Each of these methods have obvious drawbacks. They are time-consuming, require manual multistep actions and results are difficult to report to clients.

1. Incognito mode or a logged out option can be activated by clicking on a “New incognito window” that is placed inside the settings bar at the top-right corner of your Google Chrome browser. This is a simple way to emulate an average search. On the one hand, an incognito window allows you to surf the web without caching your browser history and deleting all cookies after you close the window. But this doesn’t actually hide your IP address and location. This means that the results for your local business related terms might differ from those that your prospects see in their localized search. However, the Incognito mode  can be a good solution for those who check ranking positions from the nearby location to their prospects. But keep in my mind that if you enter a search query and get results for it, once you refresh the page or do a new search with the same search query, the results may differ from the previous check. Be sure to clear your cache or open a new incognito window.

2. Google’s AdPreview and Diagnosis tool provides a more accurate emulation of a search from the location of your targeted audience. It also allows you to emulate language, device type and set a Google domain for a specific region. You need to be logged in to use the tool.

This is how the second option looks like in practice:

The website we decided to monitor is http://www.harvesttablenewark.com/. Here it is shown in the 2d position in the local pack results.

3. The isearchfrom.com service is similar to the Google AdPreview and Diagnosis tool, however there is a caution under the settings that says:

That means that you shouldn’t rely on the results provided by this free tool which is supported on a rare basis. According to this tool, the Harvest Table site is ranking in the 2d position within local pack results.

4. Geo-location emulation in the web browser is one of the most reliable but timewasting methods. The whole process will be completed within 5 steps :

• Open your browser (Chrome)
• Press CTRL+SHIFT+I in order to open the Google Chrome Developer Tools
• Click on the Emulation tab next to the Console tab:

You can then click on Sensors and put the specific locality coordinates into the boxes of Latitude and Longitude. The longitude and latitude for a specific location you can find here.

• Open a new window and start your local search.

According to this method, my website is 2d in the “3-pack”.

5. Emulation of location via using a location-specific proxy. This is a relatively easy way to hide your local network data and get precise local ranking results for your website. The only problem with this method is the rake-through for a legitimate proxy for an accurate emulation of your targeted locality. This is how it works:

• Go to your browser settings (Chrome) and click on Show advanced settings
• Click on Change proxy settings and configure your Internet Properties by adding a location-specific proxy in order to transmit your emulated local address to the web.

Using this method of location emulation, I found my website in the 1st position of local pack results.

I want easy-to-read reports with more accurate local rank tracking now!

And that’s what we are here for! With the Web CEO Local Rank Tracker you can just forget these unhandy ways of local rank tracking that take a great deal of your time.

The WebCEO Rank Tracker in action:

• Sign up for a free 14-day trial.
• Add your site URL to the WebCEO new project wizard
• Go to the Rank Tracking tool and click on the Keywords tab in the settings of the tool. Add your targeted keywords and local terms.

• Click on the Search engines tab in order to add all the search engines you want to track your site positions on. We provide our customers with the ability to add country specific search engines (you can add up to 50!), including mobile ones and you should also add a specific location (e.g. state, city, ZIP code) in order to emulate search results as if you were tracking right from your customers’ locations.

• Scan your ranking report in order to see if your site has any positions among organic and vertical (3-pack, ads results etc.) local results. On the screenshot below you can see two digits (1:1) which means that our website has the 1^st position within the local pack Google Places results. We consider the local pack box on Google as the 1^st position and we see your site’s Google Places listing as a subordinate number to that first position held by the local pack When you click on a keyword in your ranking reports, you can see cached results for the keyword from the actual SERPs.

We also let you set a scan schedule on a regular (weekely, daily for an Agency Unlimited plan) basis  for you to keep a close eye on fluctuations, hopefully improvements, in the rankings you track in your local campaigns.

What other features of WebCEO can serve you in your local SEO?

1.  You can track your site listing positions for branded local terms on third-party local business listing directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zomato etc. To do this, go to the Rank Tracking settings and click on the Alternative URLs and paste your business listing page URLs (if you have them) from business related directories.

And start tracking your Yelp and local directory business listings performance.

2.  Track your site positions alongside with your competitors’

3.  Submit your business details like name, description, address, phone number, categories etc. to high authority manually scoped local business-related directories in the Content Submission tool (Local section)

TL;DR

You must have noticed that the first  2 or 3 results pages are often saturated with local business listing sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, HappyCow, Zomato, etc, which can list your website among others or even present a special page for your business that gets a direct listing on Google, but your own URL won’t be shown in Google. If you really want to be easily found on the first page of Google local search results for localized terms and non-branded keywords, you should definitely evaluate your local business SEO strategy.

The post 6 Ways to See Local Business Rankings Like Your Customers Do appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Today, we will talk about the evolution of Google SERPs, the extinction of organic listings, the onrush of vertical SEO and various ways to be visible on vertical search engines.

How often do you hear questions like “How can I get first page rankings in organic SERPs?” or “How can I rank #1?” These questions are asked by many of today’s marketing managers and SEO specialists look pretty silly in the era of the Web 2.0. Why? De facto, there are no first, second and even third positions on Google organic search.

Let’s have a look at a screenshot of the first page results for a keyword “string theory” query run on my laptop (res.: 1366×729):

You can see that the first organic listing (for a Wikipedia article) occupies only the #3 spot, but positioned by Google as the #1 ranking position. Organic listings are followed by image and video results. Totally we have 12 result positions per page and 8 of them are organic. So what is going on with organic search? It seems obvious that, under the guise of high-end user experience, Google is taking searchers away from organic search and pushing them to click more on paid (Google AdWords) vertical search results or Google products (Google Maps, Google Play Apps), or default (knowledge graph and direct answer boxes) listings which are all incorporated into a universal search results set.

For those who are not familiar to the concepts of organic, vertical and universal search, let’s go over this. We have Google search results that are split into Organic, Universal and Vertical SERPs.

Organic search returns naturally generated web page listings that are relevant to this or that search term.

Universal Search provides you with a blended set of organic listings (content sites), paid results (ads) and specialized results (video, maps, images, news, deep articles etc.) delivered for a given query.

Vertical Search returns specialized results which represent different types of content for a query. You can search for images in Image Search, for videos in Video Search, for news in News Search, and local shops or restaurants in Maps Search or specific search engines like Yelp, Open Table etc. Vertical results are returned by Google within universal search results.

Vertical search platforms are the new intermediaries for searchers to complete their desired actions, be it informational or transactional intent. Vertical search has a lot of advantages over universal search:

– There may be a specialized type of content wanted

– A faster indexation occurs

– There will be less competition within a specific category

– More accurate results ensue

Even taking all the advantages into account, there are no guarantees that you will get high rankings in vertical search. The problem is that some really big vertical sharks (producers or curators of content) who have gotten their teeth into their niche-specific traffic pie, which benefits them with direct traffic to their platforms. On YouTube, there are channels that practically own certain categories in terms of YouTube search results. Outside Google, searches are conducted directly on Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Kayak, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Open Table etc. With the popularity of some vertical sites and platforms, Google loses a lot of search traffic. No wonder that Google wants to make an aggressive effort to retain users by providing them with more exciting search listings, including knowledge Graph, Direct Answers, Google Map and Places results etc.

Such a difficult multi-layered Google ecosystem structure didn’t happen in a clap. It took more than 20 years for Google to build the current search experience with a strong algorithmic ranking system and a user-friendly interface. Let’s take a glance at the evolution of Google search results.

Evolution of Google Search

1996 – Google’s birth as a research project.

2000 – Google launched Google AdWords and incorporated ad results next to organic SERPs.

2001 – Google launched Image Search with more than 250 million images available. In 2012 Google updated its image search engine by providing users with an image search where you drag and drop an image into the query field.

2002 – Google News was launched with 4,000 news sources.

2002 – Google launched Froogle (Lately renamed Google Shopping).

2004 – Google introduced Google Local with relevant neighborhood business listings, maps, and directions. Today, organic local listings are combined with Google Maps, a Local Carousel and local pack results.

2005 – Google added a Weather box and a “Google Q&A” box with direct facts on famous people, planets, places and landmarks, movies etc. Today, Google provides direct answers for many queries.

2007 – Google introduced universal search with verticals for video, news, books, image and local search results all integrated together into a single search result page.

2010 –Google Instant (lately Google Auto-Suggest) had been added. It supplies users with relevant suggested search queries as you type so you can quickly find what you need.

2012 – Google Knowledge Graph was launched.

2013 – Google announced app indexing.

The behavior of Internet users who conduct searches on Google has also changed drastically. In 2005, searchers viewed fewer search results but spent more time on each listing (circa 2 sec), while in 2014, searchers viewed more search results but spent less time on each listing (circa 1.17 sec). It means that users’ search behavior is tending towards vertical thinking and scrolling, especially when it comes to mobile search.

3 arguments in favour of Vertical SEO

In the course of Google SERP evolution, the term “organic listings” has become subtle, giving way to vertical, paid and default search results.

• Less than 15 % of purchase-oriented searches are run on classic search engines.
• By the end of 2014, 39 % of U.S. online shoppers started their purchase process searching on Amazon, while only 11 % of buyers did their transactional search on Google.

[Tweet “Less than 15 % of purchase-oriented searches are run on classic search engines. 39 % of U.S. online shoppers started their purchase process searching on Amazon. Only 11 % of buyers did their transactional search on Google. “]

5 Vertical Search Engines you need to optimize your content for.

There are many kinds of vertical search engines you can and should optimize your content for. However, there are several core vertical search engines you should generate and optimize your content for.

1. Image Search Optimization

Considering that image search is the most popular vertical after web search, one cannot miss the opportunity to win additional traffic and rankings on image search engines. There is a classic Google Image Search and there are vertical websites and mobile app platforms which have a huge number of active users continuously growing at an exponential rate. Pinterest and Instagram are perfect image platforms for you to raise your brand awareness and lead generation. Here is a handful of useful SEO guides for Pinterest, Instagram and Google image optimization.

2. Video Search Optimization

Videos are as popular as images and have their own rules for optimization. Everybody knows that Google Video Search is the synonym for YouTube Search. This is in fact the №2 largest search engine in the world, so you need to make every effort to succeed on YouTube and win more rankings on its engine for your top performing keywords. Here is a detailed list of advanced SEO tactics to become a million view leader on YouTube.

3. Apps Search

Today, in the era of mobile-friendly web search, the App Store Optimization (aka ASO) should be one of your top-level priorities on the way to website search engine domination. Make sure you have an effective ASO strategy following the ultimate guide to App Store Optimization.

4. Local Search

Local businesses can generate effective revenue only when business owners know the fundamentals of local SEO (these drastically changed after the Google Pigeon Update) and apply them for the effective online promotion of their product benefits. With this Local SEO Guide you can learn some of the core principals of up-to-date local SEO for small and medium businesses.

5. Shopping Search

Shopping is the most competitive market of all. If you run or plan to start your online business in this niche, you should be ready to compete with such mighty beasts as Google with its AdWords and its upcoming shopping platform, Amazon and eBay. You can benefit from running your advertising campaigns with the help of Google Adwords and selling your products via Amazon or eBay. Since Amazon and eBay are search engines themselves with their own system of SEO factors and hierarchies, you should take a nuanced approach to their vertical shopping SE optimization. While optimizing your eCommerce site, be sure to provide an intuitive, mobile-friendly interface and usability, since this is what makes Amazon and eBay do better than Google and other competitors.

What are medium sources I can benefit from other than Google and the leading vertical websites?

Optimizing for each of the verticals and for Google organic search may seem frustrating and time-consuming.

The SERPs game may take a lot of your effort to become a lord of the SERP kingdoms (Search Engine Result Page Kingdoms). But you should not forget that you can become a popular brand and attract a lot of traffic via alternative digital mediums like email marketing, social media marketing/remarketing, blogging and native advertising etc. For example according to research in 2013, 44% of email subscribers made at least one purchase via commercial newsletter. 

Is it possible to track all of my multi-vertical rankings from one single dashboard?

With Web CEO you can easily monitor your ranking success thanks to the cross-channel integration of most search engine verticals, including organic, paid, local, YouTube and image. Try the WebCEO Rank Checker for free in order to see how vertical search affects your rankings and traffic.

The post The Game of SERPs: Become the Lord of Vertical Search appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.

Recently, I came across an article about the supposed obsolescence of rank tracking tools. This caused me to think about the latest issues with rank checking. It is true that Google is getting more and more personalized and returns only the most relevant results based on specific algorithmic variables:

–  Personal search history of logged in users;

–  Geolocation of searchers;

–  Specific devices searches are made on;

–  Social connections weight.

An old-school one-way focus on your targeted keywords will no longer always bring your website to the top search engine positions unless you have turned back the hands of SEO time, when all you needed to do is to stuff your site with: “Click here to order pizza and get your tasty pizza delivered in 30 minutes” and so on and so forth. It was a time of spam links and exact match anchor text jungles. But Google is no longer a wild place. It is now a civil, organized and user-friendly search medium with strict rules for a better user experience. If you want to live in this new civilized world, “pay taxes” to Google in the form of relevant and quality links, relevant and useful content etc.

Yes, search has become more personalized and smart about user experiences. But now we have the Google Hummingbird Algorithm that helps understand the users’ intent. What you need is to detect all the possible search queries used by qualified searchers in order to reach your site. Google Analytics and Search Console are great at providing detailed information about the traffic to your site and your content’s performance. Website analysis is also tightly bound to some internal and external parameters, like internal links, backlinks and competitor metrics, which are not presented in Google Analytics and Search Console reports (there is an external links report in GSC).

WebCEO is a great value-added SEO platform for comprehensive website SEO analysis, including:

• Keyword Research that provides a list of terms and phrases based on Webmaster tools suggestions and selected competitors’ targeted keyword bases.
• Internal Links Optimization with an in-depth analysis of your internal site links and anchor texts.
• Backlink Quality Check with the Toxic Links clean-up reporting tool.

As for the WebCEO Rank Checker, it serves all the requirements of SEOs. It provides the opportunity to monitor site rankings from any place in the world. You can narrow keyword tracking from a country to a city level and run local rank tracking. Go to the WebCEO Rank Checking Tool in order to monitor keyword rankings on a regular basis and receive clean and awesome SEO reports on:

–  Your average rankings trend;
–  Ranking positions detailed, by page or by tag;
–  Historical ranking results;
–  Competitive rankings.
Shortly, you will be able to track rankings for mobile search results.

Real SEOs and Internet Marketing pros know that Rank Tracking is not a final goal. It is a means towards an end, which is a conversion. Stop being obsessed with your rankings, pay attention to all the aspects of your online marketing: content (not just standalone keywords) creation and distribution, link building, social media marketing, competitive metrics research and analysis etc.

The post Is Rank Checking Useless For Today’s SEO? appeared first on SEO tools & Online Marketing Tips Blog | WebCEO.