I feel like the first two pieces in this issue each deserve their own dedicated newsletter! The annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey and Consumer Review Survey both came out this week and they are both well worth a detailed read.
Hopefully many of you will have time to give them that read over the next week or so as we head into the Christmas-New Year’s lull. Hard to believe 2021 is just two weeks away!
I’ll be in touch with my own Email Year in Review before then, but hope you continue to have a great holiday season.
David
2020 Local Search Ranking Factors Survey Results
The survey I used to run for several years remains in great hands with Darren Shaw of Whitespark. I always enjoy reading the comments from my fellow local marketing experts as to what they see working and not working.
Bright Local’s Annual Local Consumer Review Survey
This is always my favorite BrightLocal content of the year, and one of my favorite marketing-related pieces generally. I started summarizing in this newsletter but then deleted my summary — the whole thing is worth a read and a re-read. 🙂
SEO Split Testing Lesson: Adding a 2-Step Email Signup Component
This certainly caught my attention — adding a pop-up to collect email addresses is associated with a 4% decrease in organic traffic. Which I’d argue is well worth the trade-off of capturing a subscriber to whom you can later re-market, but I was surprised to see any effect!
Claire’s Complete Guide to UTM Tagging for GMB 🏷
Claire includes an incredible bonus in her updated guide to GMB UTM tagging — an easily copy-able-and-pastable Google Sheet, which could help with your internal process efficiency.
Google Maps Showing Web Results
I was surprised this made such a splash in SEO circles this week, as it’s a feature that’s Google has featured off-and-on on GMB/Places profiles for at least a decade.
Arguably this is the best-executed, shiniest version yet, however. 🙂
Joy Hawkins