Happy Local New Year from Miriam

[MiriamEllis]

First, I want to thank all of our awesome community members here who continuously post interesting, tough and good Local SEO question in the Moz Q&A forum. I love chatting with you all, and I hope you'll keep asking away, giving us all the opportunity to muse and learn together.

I think 2018 is going to be challenging and fun, and have a few thoughts on that I'd like to share, hoping you'll reply with your own tips and predictions. In the new year, I believe:

1. Quality is going to further solidify as the most apparent differentiator of local businesses, giving those companies with the most considerate and excellent service and policies the upper hand. Memorably good customer service will drive the high-star reputation and word-of-mouth marketing that leads to success.

Small local businesses have an advantage here, in their agility to implement the most genuine home-town excellence, but bigger brands can strive for this, too. From skilled phone service, to adequate in-store staffing, to employee training, to dedicated management of all online local assets, to initiatives that make a lasting, positive impression on consumers, quality is the key ingredient to loyalty, which is what every local business should most pursue in 2018.

2. Speaking of loyalty, I would especially advise SABs to leave no stone unturned in earning it. Google's LSA program will be a serious disruptor of business-as-usual in this sector, changing the makeup of local SERPs and striving to become the middleman in the service industries. SAB owners won't love having to rent back their customers for a fee to Google, so developing Google-independent streams of leads and repeat customers will be vital in any city where LSA rolls out in the coming year. Serving in a smaller town? Begin working on Google-independence anyway, particularly via word-of-mouth marketing so that you have these streams running in advance, should LSA move beyond the more densely-populated areas.

3. While developing Google-independence, don't overlook Google opportunities that are still free. I think Google Posts was the most interesting development of 2017, and there has been some anecdotal evidence that weekly use of this form of knowledge panel microblogging may give a small ranking boost. Be an early adopter and take advantage of that.

4. 2018 may be the year in which Google finally cracks down on two things: keyword stuffing of the business title and review spam. I'm sure they're tired of the complaints surrounding the former and if Google's commitment to identifying quality remains in place, sooner or later, they have got to deal with this false signal of relevance the same way that have with EMDs. As to the latter, Google's increased focus on reviews over the past year is apparent in the sheer number of emails they are now sending out regarding them. Also fascinating to see that we're closing out 2017 with third-party reviews finally reappearing in Google's local products, after years of absence and trouble with the FTC. Overall, Google knows that their review corpus is dependent on consumers trusting it, and better spam detection methodologies and better/faster response to review spam reporting has got to be on their to-do list. This could be the year!

For local businesses, protection lies in abandoning any type of spammy practice (from keyword stuffing to self-reviewing). And, being proactive if you are the victim of review spam. Report it. Raise a polite but firm hullabaloo. Let Google know you hold them to reasonable standards of accountability in their role as public arbiter of brand reputation.

5. The best Local SEO agencies and local business will dig deeper into the history and tactics of organic SEO than ever before. We need to understand Hummingbird, RankBrain, and matching content to the buyer journey with the best of them. We need to master not just linkbuilding, but the relationship building that makes it most authentic and of most lasting value - and this is an area in which local businesses have a massive advantage over virtual ones, in that we can actually meet our neighbors face-to-face to build beneficial bonds. And we need to get a real handle on the technical side of SEO, understanding how site structure, handling of the robots.txt file, and the management of indexation and accessibility issues impact us. When we put high-level knowledge of all these considerations together with our Local SEO know-how, we can be successful in new, exciting ways we may have overlooked in the past.

Oh, there's so much more I could say about the interesting things I see coming in 2018, but I'd love it if you'd talk now. What do you see in our industry's near future? I'd love to know. And let me take this opportunity to wish you all a fun, exciting and prosperous new year!

[VeroBrain]

Hi Miriam,

Thanks for your good wishes and thoughts of hope!

Starting this 2018 full of hope.
When it comes to Local SEO and Google, some headaches do not go away.
It comes to my mind a client with only 11 though honest reviews in Google.
Trying to achieve some success, though his main competitor who bought over 1.000 self/fake reviews, is top listed everywhere.
This is the moment when it is hard to tell a client: "your competitor is clearly cheating. Please, do not do the same".
It is the right thing to do, hopefully will be rewarded some day, but when!.
In the meantime, he is losting a hugh of potential sales.
Clients/visitors truly believe that over 1,000 reviews are for real.

Hope a new algorithms update soon, I mean if a list has more than 1,000% reviews on regard its ecosystem, at least a double check should be in place.

Happy New Year 2018!

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Veronica!

That is, indeed, such a difficult situation. I hope you and the client are aggressively reporting the spam, and yes, maybe this will be the year in which we see Google step up its game in this regard. Crossing my fingers! Thanks so much for the good wishes

[TheDahv]

Great post Miriam, and thanks for sharing. I'm also pretty excited for this year. Most of my fascination tends to be drawn toward the geeky plumbing of getting data around:

• How larger companies/agencies can nail their store pages at scale optimized for Local SEO. I've been poking around at large sites and have been so fascinated with all the variation (Schema.org, sitemaps, storemaps, etc.)
• How Google is evolving the Maps and Local SERP experience to be even richer and more engaging. I tweeted about some fun stuff I found in downtown Seattle one day when I should have been looking up which bus to take to meet my wife for an appointment
• How Schema.org lets companies tag their businesses on their web sites, and if and how that matters

But there's always so much to do, and it's all exciting. Let's get going!

[MiriamEllis]

Happy New Year, David! I love that you're exploring that geeky plumbing. Nice list you've added here, and I hope I'll get to learn from your investigation

[NickW816]

Great predictions Miriam! I also hope Google cracks down on fake Google listings and/or listings used for "selling leads" within an industry. 100% agree with your 5 new year tips and predictions, if I had to add a sixth one, i would say....

6). On-Site User-Experience Metrics. I am predicting that site user metrics such as bounce-rate, time on site, and pages viewed will become more of a ranking factor in 2018, and compared to your competition may lead to more SERP volatility than we have seen. Also CTR from a SERP on your listing may be more focused on, so write Meta Titles not just with your Keywords in mind, but with being compelling enough to receive clicks as well. My recommendation, get Google Analytics installed if you don't already to keep track of a lot of this website metrics! Heat Mapping Software/Plugins will also help with U/X improvements.

[MiriamEllis]

I like your thinking, Nicholas! Some good tips here and intriguing predictions. Thank you so much for contributing to this thread.