#that the named discoveries in his list are more recent and less fundamental

[geeoharee]

I love this fact, it sounds like the fakest thing that 'ah yes we named that after Mister Algorithm'

Here's the link to the video

👏 SAY 👏 IT 👏 LOUDER 👏

[aion-rsa]

Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves

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“NOW WE’RE SUCKING DIESEL! If you don’t get it, you missed a great series.” Stephen King’s recent discovery of British police thriller Line of Duty – as relayed via a series of highly enthusiastic Tweets – was a delight to witness. King’s zeal is enough to make UK fans wish that he hadn’t binge-watched the BBC series from his home inside the sewers of Derry, Maine, but instead watched it at broadcast pace in the UK, where he would no doubt have made a sizeable contribution to the show’s Twitter larks. (King proved himself happy to join in with online TV show speculation when he correctly predicted the killer in HBO/Sky’s Mare of Easttown. You can bet he’d have had a take on the mystery identity of Line of Duty baddie ‘H’.)

Line of Duty isn’t alone in attracting King’s online praise; when the horror author watches a TV show he loves from inside the creepy Castle Rock devil shop he calls home, he lets his 6.5 million followers know about it. Below is a list of endorsements King has made on Twitter in recent years, from the usual sci-fi and horror suspects to a few less expected titles. 

US MODERN CLASSICS

The Americans, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and The Shield

In Stephen King’s house (inside Derry’s landmark water tower, The Standpipe) as of February 2018, only three shows were considered ‘appointment television’: FX Cold War spy drama The Americans, HBO fantasy epic Game of Thrones and Showtime spy thriller Homeland. King describes all three as “a cut above”. Going one further, three days after the Game of Thrones series finale aired, King called out the New York Times’ list of 20 best TV dramas for neglecting to include the HBO dragon epic. He’s glad the Times included FX cop drama The Shield, a show that “fundamentally changed TV”, but feels it should also have tipped a hat to FX motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy. Get it right, New York Times.

INTERNATIONAL DRAMA

Dark, Fauda, Hotel Beau Sejour, Les Revenants, Marianne, Money Heist, To The Lake, ZeroZeroZero

Nothing scares Stephen King, not even subtitles. When he’s relaxing in his converted alien spaceship half buried in the woods of Haven, Maine, he enjoys nothing more than streaming a foreign-language box-set. He particularly rates German sci-fi Dark, which he called terrific, complex and very German, and recommends these explanatory recaps for anybody confused by its multiple timelines. Virus thriller To The Lake was called “a pretty darn good Russian series on Netflix,” while Israeli spy thriller Fauda was described as “all killer and no filler”. King called Belgian crime drama Hotel Beau Sejour “eccentric, brilliant and strangely touching. Supernatural fare for those who don’t ordinarily like it.” Speaking of the supernatural, King’s a fan of celebrated French horror Marianne, which he says could scare even “a sicko” like him. Also in French, he loved atmospheric supernatural zombie drama Les Revenants/The Returned, calling it sexy and scary. Netflix’s Spanish-language thriller Money Heist is “a firecracker” while he found Italian-Anglo crime drama ZeroZeroZero “bone-shaking, chilling, terrifying, epic,” and King found it hard to believe it could be bettered. High praise.

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BRITISH DRAMA

Black Mirror, Life on Mars, Line of Duty, The Stranger

From underneath his massive, transparent dome in Chester’s Mill, Stephen King will often enjoy a bit of British telly. Back in 2013, when it was still a Channel 4 show only just available worldwide on Netflix, King Tweeted that he loved future-tech anthology series Black Mirror, calling it “terrifying, funny, intelligent,” and compared it to an R-rated The Twilight Zone. The show creator Charlie Brooker, told Den of Geek at the time that despite being a huge Stephen King fan, his reaction was characteristically muted: 

“I think I probably smiled? That’s about as effusive as I get about anything, because whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.”

BBC crime-drama-with-a-time-travel-fantasy-twist Life on Mars is another British favourite that King described in September 2020 as one of his favourite shows of all time, “the kind you go to when you’re feeling sad.” That same year, he called Harlan Coben’s mystery thriller The Stranger, starring Richard Armitage, as an excellent, addictive mystery. King’s British TV crush of the moment of course, is BBC crime drama Line of Duty, which he praises for having a central Mulder/Scully-type vibe between main characters Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming.

US THRILLERS

Big Sky, Bosch, Designated Survivor, Escape at Dannemora, Fargo, Mindhunter, Perry Mason, The Good Fight, The Man in the High Castle, The Morning Show

After he’s finished all the two-finger KitKats from the minibar at Room 217 of The Overlook Hotel, where he lives, Stephen King puts a thriller on the TV. Crime thriller, political thriller, legal thriller, alt-history Philip K. Dick thriller… he has time for them all. King is a particular fan of ABC’s murder show Big Sky, which stars Ryan Philippe and Vikings’ Kathryn Winnick. In February this year, he called it the best drama on network TV and said the final three episodes were stepping into Emmy territory. He calls Bosch an excellent detective series, one of the best on TV, with an engrossing story and superb cast. Kiefer Sutherland-starring series Designated Survivor he called excellent, complex and involving after its move to Netflix. Prison drama Escape at Dannemora is TV at its best according to King, who in 2015 described the penultimate episode of Fargo season two as the best thing on television in the last three years. In 2017, he strongly recommended David Fincher serial killer drama Mindhunter, and last year called the Matthew Rhys Perry Mason reboot a “damn good show.” In 2019, King called The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight “the best show on TV”, and found nothing not to like about Apple TV+’s The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston. That was the year he also named Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle season four as “amazingly good”, challenging and involving.

HORROR & SUPERNATURAL

Black Summer, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, Servant, Stranger Things, THEM

When he’s not nursing kidnapped novelists back to health in the remote Colorado cabin where he lives, Stephen King goes in for a bit of scare-action on the TV. He called Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House “close to a work of genius” despite not being a fan of revisionism of its kind in general, and praised M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant for its focus, acting and atmosphere, adding “if there’s anything creepier or more binge-worthy than this, I don’t know what it is.” He loved Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ BBC Dracula, calling it terrific and “VERY bloody”, found the first episode of Amazon Prime Video’s THEM scared the hell out of him, and praised Netflix’s Black Summer for reinvigorating the zombie drama: “Just when you think there’s no more scare left in zombies. THIS comes along.” As for Stranger Things, he described the first season as like “watching Steve King’s greatest hits” in a good way. 

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Next week on What Famous People are Watching: is Stanley Tucci really that big on the Westminster Dog Show, or is he more of a The Underground Railroad guy? We find out.

The post Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 274

GEN-ETHIC ANXIETY AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE GENOME PROJECT

The Genome Project was started at a research institute known as HUGO, which is short for the Human Genome Project, in Montreux, Switzerland on October 1, 1990. This important project, with consequences that are not yet understood, was beyond human imagination at the time it was established, and is expected to provide answers to many questions in our minds.

With the full extent of its use not being understood at the time of its establishment, the project emerged mainly with the pharmaceutical mission to predict, detect, treat, and cure diseases that were caused by genetic anomalies by identifying the genetic information in the human organism.

The desire for such a project was something akin to, or even beyond, the desire to climb Mount Everest, for it aimed to find out something that was unknown at the time. In such fields of biology as cell biology, immunology, and neurology the specialists need genetic information from human organism. The genetic information that an individual organism inherits from its parents can open a door to answer the questions of how an individual develops, how long an individual will live, or how the various species on Earth have lived over many generations.

New developments followed one upon another with the emergence of the Human Genome Project. When the famous Scottish sheep, Dolly, was cloned in 1997, it still seemed to be theoretically impossible to clone a human being. American scientists cloned an ape named Tetra which shared 98 per cent of the same genetic information as human beings. Soon after this, the scientists began to suggest that that all that remained to be cloned was humans.

Dr. Richard Nicholson, the editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, noted that there is no danger in cloning humans, as long as the techniques of doing so are kept under control. If a dictator, however, were to get hold of this information, they would be able to produce an army of genotypically identical soldiers.

The most exciting scientific study of recent years of the Genome Project is that it is trying to develop a complete gene map of an individual organism. According to scientists, a human body has between thirty thousand and fifty thousand genes. All genetic features identifying an individual are found in the gene sequences of the DNA molecules. Eye color, character traits, IQ, and all the illnesses a person may possibly develop are all hidden in the genes. The genome carries all the hereditary features that determine all of life's diversity, determining whether an organism is human or another species, or ape; all living things have their own genomes. The human genome, which is the full complement of genetic material, and which resembles large tablets recording the history of ancient civilizations, is distributed among 23 sets of chromosomes. It is comprised of approximately three billion letters and is the biological record of our destiny.

ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIAL ISSUES

In H. G. Wells’ classic novel The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), Dr. Moreau conducts hybrid experiments on animals that result in twisted masses of flesh, half-man, half-animal. When the European Patent Office allowed the Australian company Amrad to obtain new embryos by combining human and animal cells, this led to a revival of genetic fears, more than a hundred years after the story of Dr Moreau was published. Not surprisingly, this event alarmed several civilian organizations, including Greenpeace. In a press statement made in Hamburg, Greenpeace drew attention to the fact that we might face “dangerous creatures” in the future that would be created from such techniques. Probably one of the most disturbing facts was that the patent did not disclose how these creatures were to be used. Greenpeace voiced opposition to this for the following reason: “A patent grants its owner the exclusive control over his/her invention. Therefore, patents on life fundamentally change our perception and understanding of living nature and our relationship towards it. Living organisms, which have been ‘created’ by industry and which can be patented cannot have a value of their own, since they are only considered an invention of human beings. Thus they can be exploited without any ethical concerns.”

According to the patent, the embryonic stem cells derived from humans, mice, birds, sheep, pigs, cattle, goats, or fish could be used. The patent covers a “method of producing a non-human chimeric animal” by mixing human and animal embryonic cells: human stem cells are integrated into animal embryos. As a result, the created chimeras are non-human, but they may contain human organs, body parts, nerve cells, and even human genetic codes.

Experts state that the system of producing chimeras is completely different from that of cloning and they drew attention to the risks involved. For example, a virus like the one that caused mad-cow disease could easily pass from one species to another.

THE MEDIA JOINS THE ISSUE

Thanks to the great interest people have shown in the future of genetic studies, we frequently come across news reports that deal with the topic. However, we would like to note that titles like “the homosexuality gene has been found” or “genetic solution to talkativeness discovered” infuriate genetic scientists. Dr Arnold Munnich says that media aims to raise interest by misinforming the public with subjects like “obesity gene” or “laziness gene”; they merely oversimplify the issue. Dr Munnich emphasizes that a gene means nothing by itself.

THE DANGER OF ABUSE

The researches who have worked toward improving gene technology have performed some good for humanity; this is without a doubt. However, there is the risk of abuse. The discoveries in this field may be worth a great deal financially; when we add the rivalry between companies and countries, it seems highly likely that legal bans and ethical rules will be ignored. Some people even object to all kinds of genetic research, not only their abuse. They say that the abuse of seemingly useful genetic technology practices in the future is possible, as has happened in other fields of technology; nuclear researches and laser technology also used to be innocent studies at the very beginning. But we cannot object to the use of electricity just because it is also used for executing people with electric chairs.

Governments and international organizations are quite sensitive to ensure that gene technology will only be used for the good of humanity. There are several international organizations interested in the ethical dimension of the issue. There are certain rules and regulations that establish the fundamental principles that will prevent the abuse of genetic studies, and protect the biodiversity and ecological balance. It is forbidden to carry out research on human cloning and altering human embryos. In the past, dictators like Adolf Hitler attempted to abuse gene technology in this respect. The ruthless Dr Joseph Mengele tried to clone his Fuhrer from the epitel cells he took from him.

WILL CONFIDENTIALITY BE RESPECTED?

Another concern brought about by new diagnosis methods and tests is that the principle of patient confidentiality, which has existed for centuries like a secret agreement between doctors and their patients, has begun to be debated, even violated. We usually talk about such “confidentiality” when the information is likely to be harmful for the patient if publicized. From this perspective, the results obtained by genetic tests can be evaluated as such. It is one of the duties of doctors to maintain patient confidentiality. On the other hand, if the relevant data is also likely to harm society, the hospital staff, and those around the patient, then the doctor can face a dilemma.

Some of the possible problems that may be faced due to the mapping of human genome will be that employers could be provided with forehand knowledge about the potential genetic diseases of applicants; they may know whether the person to be employed will be a future financial burden to the company if they carry such genetic risks as cancer or Parkinson’s. In this way new standards of employment will be developed. Even though systematical public surveys do not indicate any significant dangers at hand, it would be nearly impossible to stop rumors. Several people may be denied insurance if they have the genes for a fatal disease. Another may be dismissed from their job for the same reason. In the USA, it is illegal in 39 states to issue insurance policies according to genetic test results, and it is also illegal in 15 states to expel employees according to these. However, employers and insurance agents take advantage of the gaps in relevant laws and they secretly make use of genetic tests. According to research carried out in 1999, 30% of medium-sized or small businesses use such tests to promote and dismiss their employees.

Psychologically, it does not seem likely that people would consent to their status being determined by genetic tests. Would you really like to face your genetic disadvantages? A survey made with cooperation of Time magazine and CNN revealed that half of the participants did not want to know.

THE FATE OF AN UNBORN BABY

Deciphering the book of life unfortunately brings along ethical problems. The discovery of our genetic codes can also lead to other humans controlling the future of the human race. The critical question is “Can scientists produce human beings with the desired physical and mental qualities?” If so, genomic science may enable biologists to prepare a list of spare parts, parents may “order” a baby, and as altering our children or ourselves gets easier, we may be less tolerant against those who have not been altered. Lori Andrews of Kent University wonders if we were to be informed of mental defects, obesity, shortness or other undesired characteristics beforehand, whether the parents of those babies would still allow them to be born into a society that scorns such qualities. Even now, it is not uncommon to see some doctors and nurses criticize the parents of babies who are born with pre-detectable defects. If we assume that all parents have “ordered” babies, God knows what kind of a world we will have.

WHAT SHOULD THE AIM OF SUCH PRACTICES BE?

Genetic studies should aim to prevent or treat illnesses, not to “enhance” genes. The opportunities offered by genetics should not be a mass elimination medium used by employers or a mechanism of spotting potential criminals in the hands of oppressive regimes. The Almighty One Who has been running the order of our universe so perfectly has granted us some keys to its mysteries. Why should we not do our best and use them for the good of humanity?

[drummcarpentry]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[lakelandseo]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[bfxenon]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[nutrifami]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[xaydungtruonggia]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[camerasieunhovn]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[ductrungnguyen87]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[gamebazu]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/3nyEilF

[kjt-lawyers]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[noithatotoaz]

2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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2021 Local SEO Success: Expert Tips & Predictions

Posted by MiriamEllis

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Buddhist teacher

Image credit: Maulvi

My warm New Year’s greetings to all local business owners and local SEOs reading my column today. Add to this my sincere sentiments of solidarity for what we went through together in 2020 — we won’t soon forget it, and our stories from the journey contain important teachings for our market and industry.

I often find that the best local SEO takeaways sprout from the real-world anecdotes of colleagues and friends, and you’ll find those here today along with my personal predictions for the year ahead. Let’s get learning!

Teachings from the real lives of local SEOs

In a year when we were physically distant from one another in unprecedented ways, I’ve found memorable lessons in how local business owners broke down barriers to keep communities connected. I asked four wonderful colleagues to share a personal anecdote with me about a local business they transacted with, both prior to and during the pandemic. As you read these brief stories, see if you can identify six common threads running through them.

Amanda Jordan, Director of Local Search at LOCOMOTIVE Agency

“One of my favorite businesses that I have used before and during 2020 is Pete's Diner. I first found out about them by driving by, but they have been in the community for decades.

Before the pandemic, my husband and I would have breakfast with his parents every Saturday at a different local restaurant. It became one of our regular breakfast spots because their food is great and it's pretty close to our home. They also carried a hard-to-find, high-quality olive oil that we would buy in large quantities while we were there.

During the pandemic, we decided to do our best to continue to support local businesses. Pete's really has adapted to the current climate by offering online ordering and delivery without raising prices significantly or compromising on the quality of their food. Moving into 2021, I recommend that local businesses continue to offer delivery and online ordering even after the pandemic is over. Use Google Posts to keep customers up to date on specials or new services and products.”

John Vuong, Founder of Local SEO Search Inc.

“I discovered my favorite Vietnamese pho restaurant three years ago. I was on the hunt for something that was close to my home, was family-run, and that had an amazing Vietnamese bone broth noodle soup that would remind me of my childhood (my family immigrated to Canada from Vietnam).

Like many SEOs do, I found it through Google Search. I always check Google reviews to see what a company's online reputation is. The first time I stepped foot in their restaurant, they recognized that I was new. They took the time to explain their business and tell me their most popular dishes. They took the time to build a personal relationship and rapport with me by asking my name and sharing theirs. It felt like there was a real personal touch. And of course, the food was amazing, the service was quick, and they topped it all off with complimentary dessert. I was hooked!

I'd been going to this pho restaurant weekly — that is until the pandemic hit. I didn’t visit them for a little over three months when lockdown first went into effect. But when I did, I was so happy to see that they had implemented all of the necessary health precautions to make their customers and staff feel safe. I noticed a huge influx of takeout orders.

I think my best local marketing advice for 2021 would be to take care of your customers! Listen to them intently and go over and above what you typically would. Treat every single customer like they’re your family and they will feel the love! Don’t expect anything in return, and you will be rewarded when you least expect it!”

Niki Mosier, Head of SEO at Two Octobers

“There is a local cafe/coffee shop near me that I would frequent, especially for their homemade doughnut Fridays. The proximity of the location (two blocks away), the quality of the food, and the customer service made me a repeat customer.

The business was quick to offer delivery (even for two blocks away), which has been amazing — who doesn't want Irish coffee and fresh doughnuts delivered to their door on a Friday morning? They’ve added other fun takeaway options, too, like bake-your-own cookie dough, meals, and a Thanksgiving pie and beer collab with the brewery down the street. Think outside the box and don't be afraid to pivot. Focus on customer service and your customers will stay loyal.”

Garrett Sussman, Head of Marketing at Grade.us

“Some might argue that Wegmans, the northeast grocery chain, has a cult following. It's easy to understand why. I first discovered the store from my father. He raved about the way they had special baked goods, quality produce, and an assortment of branded products. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and I was hooked after my first visit. Maybe it was the takeout sandwiches, the fresh sushi, or the large and open layout of the store — and it didn't hurt that they were about five minutes from my apartment at the time.

Since then, I’ve learned more about the brand and appreciate their philosophy: 'Employees first, customers second.' I want to go to a store that takes care of their employees. They've even invested $5 million dollars in employee scholarships. How cool is that?

In 2020, they adapted to the pandemic by being one of the first grocery stores to implement mask policies, glass splash guards, and social distancing. They increased their employees' wages in March by $2.00, and had hand sanitizer at entrances very early on. If I had to give them one piece of local search marketing advice, I'd recommend utilizing Google Posts more frequently. Adding a post once every couple of months is better than nothing, but it's such an opportunity to attract more customers to their grocery stores.”

6 common threads for 2021 local SEO strategy

Image credit: RJP

Did you spot the commonalities in the four stories? When I distill them down into local SEO themes, here’s what I see:

1. Essential local businesses take pride of place

When I asked for a story about a favorite business, Amanda, John, Niki, and Garrett all chose an essential business — a restaurant or grocery store that fed them! Eating is the most fundamental of all activities, as recent times have highlighted for us all. One of my major takeaways from 2020 that I’ll be bringing with me into 2021 is that operating an essential business which fulfills the basic structural needs of a community is the wisest entrepreneurial strategy.

If you’re adjusting your business model and its inventory, opening a new business this year, or advising local entrepreneurs, learn to map community essentials and create a business plan that puts basics before luxuries.

2. Local business discovery is multi-channel

Getting found is the preliminary step to every local business transaction:

Amanda found a restaurant while driving

John looked at Google listings and reviews

Niki needed a spot in close proximity to her workplace

Garrett heard by word-of-mouth from a family member

Being there for the customer means being discoverable both online and offline, via vehicle, foot traffic, web-based local business platforms, and by word-of-mouth recommendations. Your visibility strategy for the year ahead needs to cover all these bases.

3. Local businesses can deliver multiple types of value

The local businesses you’re marketing have the best chance of success if you can unlock the secret of what patrons value most. These examples abound in our four anecdotes:

Great selection — Amanda’s olive oil, Garret’s baked goods, John’s pho, Niki’s Irish coffee.

High quality — clearly, all of these foods are extra delicious!

Convenience — everyone wanted something nearby.

Brand affinity — John wants a family-owned business, Garret wants employees to be cared for, Niki likes businesses that partner up with one another, and Amanda likes a brand that maintains quality without raising prices too much.

Brand adaptability — all four brands made safety adjustments to keep serving the public.

This year, find out what your customers and potential customers value most, and make common cause with them.

4. Pandemic adaptations drive loyalty

The four businesses our contributors highlighted are successfully weathering an incredible storm via the praiseworthy changes they made to keep serving the public safely, like:

Implementing new sanitary policies

Implementing digital commerce

Offering home delivery

Doubling down on takeout service

Increasing employees’ wages

Trying new things, like meal kits

Forming new cross-sales partnerships with fellow businesses

Taking maximum safety precautions, delivering at the curb or the front door, facilitating online purchasing, and experimenting with new ideas are all must-haves for 2021.

5. There’s even more that good local brands can do

I asked our experts what they’d suggest if they could offer once piece of local SEO advice to their favorite businesses for 2021. They recommended:

Maintaining all new sales and service channels, even after the hoped-for end of COVID-19.

Making consistent use of Google Posts as a communications channel.

Listening intently to evolving customer needs.

Putting customer service at the center of everything.

Making customers feel loved.

6. The most important local SEO factor is the human factor

These are the parts of the stories I like best, because they show businesses making us feel less alone, despite our necessary distancing.

Amanda found a place a family feels so welcome, they made it a regular multi-generational hangout.

Niki found a place that added a sense of fun to life with their creativity.

John found a place that not only served a beloved dish from childhood, but where the staff took the time to build a personal relationship with him.

Garrett found a place where he can feel good shopping because they take genuine care of their staff.

Philosopher Thích Nhất Hạnh might say that each of these businesses found a way to shatter the illusion of separateness, in the midst of a pandemic, by making each of these patrons feel like valued members of the community. Any local business you market in 2021 can definitely do the same.

My own local SEO predictions and tips for 2021

Here we go!

1. Your local business website will be more essential than in any previous year

Image credit: Robbert Noordjiz

It’s hard to believe that just three years ago, I felt compelled to publish a piece on why you still needed a website, pushing back on the narrative that the amount of zero-click-type SERPs was making websites irrelevant. Nobody can claim this in 2021, and recent stats from Moxtra’s Small Business Digital Resilience Report make the “why” of this clear. Consider:

66% of respondents say the pandemic made them more likely to do business with SMBs in the future (and I’ve seen higher numbers than this in other surveys).

But, 2020 saw 30% growth in consumers requiring that digital capabilities be present to facilitate transactions (think e-commerce and telemeetings).

And, 84% said if these capabilities were lacking, they’d consider looking elsewhere for a brand that could serve them online (84% is a huge number!).

Local digital sales are where it’s at in 2021, so finding the best possible e-commerce provider should be the top priority for all relevant brands. Don’t worry too much about zero-click SERPs this year. Yes, Google has its shopping engine and has even ramped up its “nearby” filter in 2020, but focus on pulling in every bit of traffic you can to your website’s own shopping cart this year. This goal will build stronger-than-ever bridges between local and organic SEO, so this is the time for local-focused agencies to double down on organic skills.

I’m also watching with interest the rise of medical devices and apps that monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and other vitals. There’s a telemedicine revolution going on, which should seep into other professional services that could improve customer convenience via secure telemeetings, any time face-to-face appointments aren’t essential.

Has anyone ever really enjoyed sitting for hours in a waiting room to speak to an accountant, a consultant, a banker? I don’t think so. In 2021, websites for professional service providers should be optimized to drive online bookings for as many remote meetings as possible.

2. The triumphant return of the milkman and the everything-delivery person!

I’ve been predicting the return of the milkman for many years here at Moz, and 2020 made it happen. Thousands of customers signed up this past summer to make standing orders with Alpenrose Dairy in the Portland area, after a 40-year absence of home delivery service. Under new leadership, the old dairy invested in a fleet of trucks, drivers, branded delivery boxes, and even dog biscuits to toss to barking pups along the way. As their success grew, Alpenrose began partnering up with other local brands to deliver all kinds of treats and groceries, and their social profiles are being rewarded with nostalgic, happy praise from locals and a ton of transactions.

What I find absolutely key to this story is that Alpenrose is managing delivery in-house. They aren’t outsourcing to a third party and losing something like one-third of their revenue. If a local business you’re marketing can deliver, it definitely should.

Further, I’d urge digital marketing agencies to have vital conversations with clients in Q1 about the problems inherent in outsourcing customer experience to a third party. As I’ve learned from both restaurateurs and grocers, it’s generally too costly and too risky to let another company get between you and your customers. This means that a key problem to solve in the year ahead is the employment and transportation of in-house drivers.

“Oyster man. Oyster manny-manny-manny!”

A vintage cookbook tells me this is the song residents of mid-century New Orleans heard each day as a seafood wagon came down their streets. When I look through and beyond 2021, my best inspiration comes from examining the past, with its bountiful produce trucks making rounds, and ladies coming onto porches to purvey gumbo file powder. Ask your elders for reminiscences to inspire 2021 opportunities, because everything old is becoming new again, and whenever I ask around, customers who have gotten a taste of home delivery want it to continue beyond the hoped-for end of the pandemic.

But here’s one problem I need help to solve: If I’m predicting the continued expansion of delivery, and I’m looking back in time, I see lots of households with somebody available to accept perishable orders. In June of 2020, 42% of the US workforce was working at home, but if and when we return to formal workplaces, who will be in situ to bring in the meat and dairy before they spoil?

Will the return of the milkman necessitate the return of the outdoor icebox, or at least some form of it, like a fridge on the porch, a cooler the driver knows to fill, an apartment complex cold case? Inventors, please speak up, because there’s just no way I’m going to let Amazon into my house.

3. My tossed salad of local search marketing predictions

Image credit: Slice of Chic

So, solving for local digital sales and delivery are the two biggest stories I’m focused on in the year ahead, but here are my mixed greens of other developments I think we’ll see in the next twelve months:

1. Google’s Core Web Vitals is coming, and it will be felt on local business shores. But the truth is that — as recently as 2019 — one-third of small businesses still reported having no website at all (hence, nothing to optimize for Google’s latest initiatives). While local SERPs make it clear that it’s quite possible to rank a site-less local business in even moderately competitive packs and finders, 2020 turned the lack of a digital presence into a dire disadvantage for the smallest brands. Even a free website will be better than nothing in the year ahead.

2. Google will push harder on Google Messaging, and brands and agencies will need to decide whether to invite them into customer communications to this degree. If Google Messaging ever fully takes off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google sunset Questions & Answers as a result.

3. Google’s purchase of Pointy should start to surface more clearly as key to their strategy for a local transactional future. I strongly believe Google’s greatest growth potential lies in facilitating local online shopping through a mapped interface, and I’m expecting their game plan for this to be more obvious by the end of 2021.

4. Reviews will continue to be absolutely central, but unless Google does something more about vetting the quality of reviews and Q&A responses from its Local Guides program, searcher experience will suffer. We won’t see a massive erosion of trust to threaten Google’s review dominance in 2021, but review spam and poor content will continue the confidence leak at a slow, aggravating trickle unless Google plugs it up.

5. If Apple launches its search engine this year, the local SEO industry’s necessary hyper-focus on Google could see some welcome variation. Moz Local already distributes to Apple Maps, so if you’re a customer, you’re ahead of the Apple game, but coverage of optimizing for Apple search will deserve your closest attention to be an early bird.

6. The rise of Nextdoor for local business visibility will hit a new high, and hopefully prompt the company to start developing more agency-friendly solutions. Nextdoor is the structured citation platform in which I’m most interested for the new year, and Moz Local now offers a top tier plan with a solution for agencies to help get all their clients onto Nextdoor (a function that’s absent from the platform’s own interface). Watch the Moz Blog for further coverage this year!

7. Local medical and personal service providers may need to expand hires (at least temporarily). Once a truly successful COVID-19 vaccine has been widely implemented, expect a glut of bookings from clients who have put off all kinds of appointments during lockdown. Now is the time to investigate good booking software and also evaluate Google’s options for this, because online reputation will be impacted by the ability to see clients in a timely manner once it’s safe to do so.

8. Public-brand affinity will set conscientious local businesses apart. Centering deep concern for whatever your local public cares about most will be increasingly important in the coming year. Whether through brand activism or allyship with major movements like Black Lives Matter or climate change addressal, or diligent support of local programs to alleviate poverty or increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, company reputations will become further tied to actions for the common good.

In summary

I’ll sum up by saying that there’s never been a tougher year than 2021 for making marketing predictions. After all, how many of us foresaw the harsh realities of 2020? But, as I look to the sunrise of a vaccine, and couple this with multiple polls indicating just how strongly the public wants to support local businesses, I think there’s both reason for optimism and genuine opportunity ahead.

2020 reminded us of just how interdependent we all are, for the basics of daily living and for human support, encouragement, and hope. Everyone benefits from inhabiting well-resourced, sustainable communities and if your brand or agency can help with this, the future belongs to you.

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Park Igls Mayr Clinic, Austria

Have you ever heard of the Mayr cure? I hadn’t, until Park Igls Mayr Clinic came on my radar. Going for a detox in Austria was never on my list – until life changed a bit for us and, in all honesty, it was one of the best experiences I have had to date.

Was it a pleasant one? Well, it depends how you look at it, where you are in your life and how the concept of a full detox appeals.

There aren’t many reviews of the Park Igls Mayr Clinic – I found two which you can read here and here. Luckily for me, I do know Jess and was able to ask her some questions before I made my way to Innsbruck (which is served by BA from both Heathrow and Gatwick). Tatler considered it the most effective medi-spa in 2015 and it remained on Conde Nast Traveller’s Top 35 spas in the world list. Awards aside, here is how my stay at Park Igls went.

  What is the Mayr method

Early in the 20th Century, the Austrian doctor and scientist Franz Xaver Mayr developed a theory that would fundamentally influence the course of preventive medicine. He based his approach on the fact that most common lifestyle diseases originate in the digestive system.

Preventive medicine at the Park Igls Mayr Clinic is based on six principles: alongside Cleansing, Supplementing, Self-discovery and Exercise, Modern Mayr Medicine adds the pillars of Rest and Education to achieve sustainable results and allow guests to enjoy a new and much improved quality of life.

You can read more about it here – but the principle is that you will be going on a detox programme, eating very little (therefore you will lose weight – which is not the goal in itself, but obviously will happen as you will be on a calorie-controlled diet), but the journey begins just there.

  What Park Igls offers

Park Igls operates as a normal hotel (you can just book a room and turn up) but most guests are there to go on a personalised Mayr programme.

There is a variety of options, as derivations of the traditional programme. If you have a look at Park Igls Mayr Clinic website, you will see the various choices you have. I was on the de-stress programme, which included the following:

The Basic Programme

2 craniosacral therapy sessions (50 mins each)

2 talk therapy/coaching sessions (50 mins each)

3 combination heat packs (hay flowers and moor)

4 partial body massages – primarily acupressure & connective tissue massages (25 mins each)

1 metabolic detox bath

The classic programme costs 1254 Euros for a week, and the destress programme costs just under 1887 Euros for a week. Accommodation is charged separately and starts at 1000 Euros per week (and the price is the same almost for single or double occupancy).

Most people go on their own – but you will also see couples and groups of friends, so anything goes. Obviously ‘full board’ is included (!) and there will be no bar bill on check-out.

One thing I would like to make clear is that you are not going on a luxury holiday with a wellness element, like The Golden Door, which I recently reviewed (and thoroughly enjoyed) in California. Park Igls Mayr Clinic is a medical facility (with a rather nice hotel and wellness component) – it offered a truly unique experience which may or not be right for everyone, but for me, at that time and place, was exactly what I needed – and more.

My programme was less medical and more focused on my mental wellbeing – I enjoyed my ‘talk therapy’ sessions, and I was seen by a doctor three times during my 7-night stay. I had daily massage treatments – but again, they weren’t ‘spa massages’. Christine was my therapist for the whole week and she ‘gave me what was required. My reflexology session was incredibly painful – but much much needed. She talked me through all the pressure points like no one has before. I had two sacro-cranial massages included in my package, but they were so good, I added some more. She told me I had to cry, because she could feel sorrow inside me. I had visions of a German-speaking lady beating me up – it so wasn’t like that.

Doctor Kolnig, which was ‘my doctor’ explained to me that the reason why I hadn’t lost the weight that I put on in the last 12 months (I stopped smoking and had 2 rounds of IVF, in addition to the 2 the year before) was because of stress. It didn’t matter how much I was eating or exercising – my emotional side was preventing the physical side from reacting. I wasn’t expecting to hear that from an Austrian doctor – and this is one of the parts of the experience I appreciated the most.

I loved how they were incredibly ‘medical’ – other guests were doing blood tests, MRIs, liver cleanses, pre-diagnosing Alzheimers, getting heart problems diagnosed. But the team at Park Igls believed in alternative therapies – like acupuncture and reflexology and I found the way they combined both to be absolutely perfect. I tried laser acupuncture for my tennis elbow and could not believe it.

You see the doctor the next day you arrive – so whatever you do, do NOT arrive on a Saturday like I have. I was told not to – but I did it anyway and I would recommend you do arrive any other day of the week, so you can actually start your programme when you see the doctor.

You are measured and weighed and put on a numbered programme. The Mayr cure ranges from zero (total fasting) to level 7, where you are combining all sorts of food, and throughout your stay, and depending on your progress, you move up the ladder (and eat more!).

I started on level 3, which is around 900-1000 calories a day, and I stayed there until the last two days, where I was moved on to levels 4-6 (but more on that later).

  A typical day at Park Igls Mayr Clinic

Breakfast is served between 7.30-9am so you wake up at whatever time you want and the first thing you have to do is drink the bitter water, which you take up to your room the night before and mix up with tepid water in the morning.

The bitter water is bitter (duh!), and will make you go to the loo exactly 3 times a day. It took me 2 days to get to that level and you will see people sometimes running from breakfast to the loo. Everyone is on the same boat, so to speak and it does work a treat.

For breakfast, you will be given a stale bread roll, and your choice of one of the Mayr foods as well as 30g or 50g of a protein of your choice – and you can see the list below (on a different image).

You also have to chew every bite 40 times – that produces saliva which then helps digestion. And also tells your brain when you are full. You are encouraged to not speak during meals and/or read or play with your phone. Focus on the food and enjoy the moment. I thought this was a bit weird – but as the days went by, I really did savour everything in a completely different way. You do not drink anything during your meals – interestingly, it wasn’t as hard as I thought.

A tip: have your bread toasted. It makes it a lot more bearable. My strategy was to have foods that weighed less so I could visually have more of it – so I only had coffee on the first day. My typical breakfast was the low fat yoghurt, the bread and alpine cheese or a scrambled egg.

You also have to drink 3-4 litres of water a day, outside of meals. This means a LOT of peeing, namely in the first couple of days, but things go back to normal at around day 5.

You have a daily programme of scheduled activities – like your massage, doctor appointments, beauty treatments (I highly recommend a pedicure there) and you can sign up to various exercise classes, as well as sightseeing activities.

I started each day with a Bath treatment called Kneippen, which involves sitting down with your feet in a bucket of warm water and every 5 minutes go for a lap in a VERY cold mini pool. If this did not wake you up, nothing will.

My programme included some treatments and that meant getting naked every day for those private treatments. I am not a naked in public person and I think more people saw me naked that week than in the last 10 years. These people were the therapists and attendants, who, I have to say, were incredible.

I had an issue whereby the classes I wanted to do clashed a lot with my scheduled appointments. Half the classes are in English, but I wonder if there is a way to make yoga in German work for everyone? I had to compromise and I did yoga once, went for a morning walk twice and for a swim three times.

I also napped a lot (as I felt exhausted on some of the days) and read 3 books and 9 magazines during my stay. Make sure you take these with you (and then leave behind for other guests). There are daily English newspapers and as people shared their reading materials, it made for quite a good selection in English. Naturally, most items are in German.

Lunches and dinners were for me soup, 2 sesame crackers and 50g of protein. Whilst I was hungry for the first 2 days, I did enjoy the selections. I almost always had mozzarella, smoked salmon, cream cheese or the alpine cheese. And delicious hummus.

On the 6thday I was given cooked food (rabbit and fish, I seem to remember) and blimey, it was interesting to go back to it.

By following the Mayr diet you will obviously lose weight – I lost 3kg in 5 days. But the point of the whole exercise is not just that (or that at all). I had been having an issue with my skin due to the IVF drugs – and no matter how many facials I tried, nothing cleared my skin up. My skin was even worse during the first days of my stay – but after I left, I have my face back, so to speak. I get the odd spot before my period as normal, but everything else is gone. I booked a facial too (with proper extraction, Germanic style), and I think it was the best outcome I could have hoped for.

One of the things worth mentioning: you will be caffeine-free, so expect some real headaches on the first couple of days. Everyone has them – this is where I smugly say I did not as I have been caffeine-free (90% of time) for the last year, so I did not have to deal with that. But I still did not sleep well – and the doctor did give me some magic sleep drops.

I signed up to a cooking class one afternoon – the soups they serve at Park Igls Mayr Clinic are outstanding and I wanted to understand how they made them.

I have recently rounded up some healthy cookbooks.

I also went on a sightseeing trip to Seefeld, which was a gorgeous town 40 minutes away. One day, I went to Innsbruck for some shopping – you are given a free return bus ticket a day during your stay, and it takes about 15-20 minutes to get to the city centre.

It was very hard to walk past bakeries – it seemed to be that every shop was a bakery, but I overcompensated with some very good shopping. There aren’t a lot of shops in Innsbruck, but I found a handful of very well curated designer shops (Einswaller) and quite a few great home shops. It made for a nice afternoon, anyway!

    Having the evenings to yourself

  Dinner ends at around 7.30pm and I had a chat with my new friend Carina every evening and we parted ways at around 8.30pm. I never go to bed at that time at home and I was a bit nervous to what I would do each evening.

I will make a small comment on the ‘common living room’ decor which was quite.. strange. The whole facility is quite modern and this room just didn’t flow (in my opinion).

You are encouraged to have a hot water compress (a hot water bottle in other words, but with a bit more skill) on your liver each night – and I really enjoyed it. I took my Amazon Fire and watched some films every night which was lovely. And I read. I read more that week than in a whole year, I think.

I left my phone in the room for a few meals and that was quite liberating!

    The room and bathroom

The rooms are all modern and very functional – everything works well and I would recommend you book the best room you can, as I personally spent a lot of time in the room and loved having the separate seating area.

I had a ‘junior suite’ which came with the most generous hanger selection I have seen in a long time – and of course I took WAY too many clothes and shoes. There are sockets everywhere and I used my desk every day as I did have some work commitments I had to honour.

The bathroom came with a separate bath and shower (with excellent water pressure), and only an organic shampoo + shower gel. You were asked not to use moisturisers during your stay so they wouldn’t interfere with the detox process – and guess what? I did not and did not have a problem. I took make up but I never used it. I also used up some face masks I brought from home (why not) and ordered every pillow from the excellent pillow menu, until I found the perfect combination for me. In Austria, they tend to offer 2 pillows of different sizes and I needed some larger ones. I also gave the leg pillow a try and loved it. There is no turndown service (and definitely no chocolates on your pillow every night).

  The staff at Park Igls

I thought the service was second to none – and I mean it from my heart. You are set up for success – everyone is on your side. But I thought people could be a bit cold and ‘too medical’ – and it was the exact opposite. Anything I asked for, it was always a pleasure.

  What to wear at Park Igls

Things are pretty casual at Park Igls and during the day, most people wear their robe (and also to dinner sometimes).

You take your own workout clothes and people did make an effort for dinner (normal trousers and shirts for men, top and trousers and flat shoes for women). I would suggest taking your own flip flops and, of course, swimwear. Walking shoes (or trainers or something) are highly advisable too. No need for heels either.

  Final thoughts

A medical detox is something that isn’t, of course, for everyone. If you asked me last year, I would very politely decline the invite (or have zero interest). With where I was in my life, I said yes and was on a plane two days later.

As I made my way to Park Igls Mayr Clinic , I was a little bit nervous – I had never been on my own for a whole week, I thought I would be uncomfortable and it did not happen. I loved being on my own, I needed for nothing, and yes I was hungry at times (very hungry some times), but things got better.

I think the fitness aspect of the programme could be improved – you can book personal training sessions, but I personally missed out on many classes. I was unlucky that I went on a week where the Pilates instructor was away – but I think some reformer machines would actually be incredibly popular. If Park Igls is trying to appeal to a younger audience, I think this is an area where there is room for improvement. The daily walks were popular (I went at 7am on the first day, but then slept late on the other days) as were the post lunch nordic walks.

But overall, my body reacted to the treatment and I feel like a cloud has lifted from my shoulders.

We have done a 5-day Mayr cure at home post Christmas and we felt amazing and lost the same weight. But we felt amazing and then resumed normal life with a healthier approach.

Park Igls Mayr Clinic gave me more than just a detox and I will go back. I am making plans to do so, and also for my husband to go. But separately – because in all honesty, I think it is an experience to be enjoyed alone.

If you are considering a medical detox, I do recommend Park Igls Mayr Clinic 100%.

Mrs. O

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  Disclaimer and fact box: I was a guest of Park Igls Mayr Clinic during my stay and opinions are all mine. Whilst not a walk in the park, I did have a life changing experience. 

The classic programme costs 1254 Euros for a week, and the destress programme costs just under 1887 Euros for a week. Accommodation is charged separately and starts at 148 Euros per night, based on double occupancy or 153 Euros, based on single occupancy, totalling 1071 Euros for a 7-night stay. Full board is included, and no bar bills

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