What are you doing differently after Carousel?

[JohnVanDekker]

Especially Restaurant and Hospitality marketers, have you changed your SEO or (as in my case much of my) overall online strategy for your Hospitality Clients after Carousel?

Carousel's functionality as a SERP is so different that it does seem to have larger implications for businesses that will be presented in this SERP format. Now rather than one click to a client's website where you have much more control over the experience, Carousel will create more clicking and comparison shopping within the SERP. Clicking on a Thumbnail in Carousel doesn't click through to the business' website, instead it now returns a new SERP with a search phrase on the business name.

As a result, things like online ratings sites (Yelp, Urbanspoon, etc) are much more relevant to the client's overall digital presence. Hence in many cases the need on the part of clients for more digital marketing services.

And while on first blush, it appear to potentially be a negative for SEO and a boon to other disciplines, I am currently of the belief that this raises the stakes for SEO for restaurants in competitive markets immeasurably. All of the Carousel SERPs that I've seen have been limited to two panels of horizontal thumbnails. If your restaurant doesn't appear in those results, you're much less likely to have online traffic turn into real world traffic. Interested to hear the input of the community, especially those that specialize in Hospitality Marketing.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi John,

While I don't own a hotel or restaurant or other entertainment-oriented business, I have been working in Local SEO since the mid-2000s. While I'm not sure that it's necessary to do anything 'different', I do think the carousel may prompt Local business owners and Local SEOs to do some things better. Namely:

1. You have got to be on top of your citation sources. Because clicking on a business in the carousel now brings up a big list of citations in the SERPs, reputation management has just been pointed up as more important than ever. Crummy reviews on your Yelp profile or bad NAP data on your Yahoo! Local profile are going to have a greater impact on any user who actually scrolls around through that page of branded SERPs. Keeping your citations up to date, responding positively to negative reviews and working hard to earn good reviews simply matter more than ever now for carousel-included businesses.

2. Images matter more than ever now. There was a completely awesome forum post about how to control which image appears for your business. Go to: http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-search/8819-case-study-images-businesses-carousel-local-results.html The author's test was relatively small, but his order of operations for getting a preferred image to appear in the carousel make sense to me. I'll quote here:

"The whole point of this is to inform you that; you have control over the images that show on the new results. Here is a quick breakdown of what Google is looking for.

1. Listing verified and managed in Google Places (This is the easiest method of control)

2. Gathers User Photos for unverified listing

3. Uses Citation Sources as a last resort for photos.

4. Adds a map image when nothing else can be found."

At the same time, actually choosing which image will make you stand out in the lineup matters a lot now, too. Mike Blumenthal touches on this in this piece (http://localu.org/blog/google-introduces-new-carousel-display-for-local-results/) but I have yet to see a real study of tactics that make an image stand out. For example, is it better to have a closeup of food or an image of your building as your main photo? What about the use of color? Does using red make your image pop? Etc. This is deserved of experimentation, for sure.

3. Where you're at in the carousel lineup matters, based on early heatmap studies. Mike Ramsey wrote a good piece on this and a study of the heatmap is helpful in understanding this:

http://localu.org/blog/a-heat-map-click-study-for-googles-local-carousel-results/

4. Expect change. Google is experimenting with this right now. Just this week, I was discussing with a member here at Moz the fact that some people are seeing a toggle button in the carousel that is totally absent for other people. This kind of behavior is indicative of testing. And, the whole thing with the Zagat-based ratings is in flux right now, too. So, the carousel we are seeing in mid-July may be quite different from the one we're seeing in December later this year.

Overall, I don't really see the carousel as a game changer. I see it as incentive to continue to do better at the core work of Local SEO. Having a violation-free Google+ Local page, building strong, clean citations, earning diverse reviews, managing your reputation, etc.

I hope others will contribute to this important topic John has brought up!