Local SEO Update for Q3 2022

Here are some interesting updates on what happened in local search in Q3 of 2022.

Update to Google’s review guidelines

As reported by Joyanne Hawkins Google added some further info to their guidelines about incentivizing users who remove a negative review.

Google just updated their review guidelines to indicate that rewarding someone for the removal of a negative review is also against their guidelines. https://t.co/eQbhsVkzD8 pic.twitter.com/B8rIf39HUa

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) September 12, 2022

A short reminder: Incentivizing content in exchange for discounts or free goods/services is forbidden and considered fake engagement by Google. As we know, planting trees for reviews is not affected because it doesn’t have any personal benefit for the customer leaving a review.

Google Search is testing reviews to find places

Reviews are a true data mine. I’m not surprised to see that Google has been testing a new feature called ‘Find places through reviews’ which uses the review text to find relevant places. Encourage your customers to leave reviews that include your relevant keywords.

"Find places through reviews" – spotted in the wild today! @rustybrick #localseo https://t.co/v42amCE9xg pic.twitter.com/BoMxfvo4FK

— Andy Simpson 🇬🇧 (@ndyjsimpson) June 30, 2022

Longer reviews are better!

Joyanne Hawkins found a relation between the length of a review and the amount of time it is being displayed on a Google Business Profile. Because negative reviews tend to be longer, they’re more likely to be displayed.

Joy's study saw a connection between the length of a review and the amount of time it stayed at the top of GBP.

Since 1-star reviews are usually longer, they are more likely to stay at the top.

👏ASK 👏FOR 👏LONGER👏 REVIEWS #localu pic.twitter.com/SeuoBnBJLq

— Brandon Schmidt (@brandonschmidt) July 28, 2022

1/3 of negative reviews are about communication problems

As reported by Aaron Weiche a lot of negative reviews mention communication problems. Make sure to have a good communication tool in place. Personally, I’m a big fan of Crisp.

Over 1/3 of negative experiences mentioned in reviews mention communication problems@AaronWeiche #localu

— Greg Gifford (@GregGifford) July 28, 2022

FAQ in Messages on Google Business Profile

Do your customers use the messaging feature of Google to get in touch with you? You can now save them and yourself some time and create an FAQ:

New feature for Messages on Google Business Profile:
FAQ

– Create up to 10 FAQ
– Questions max. 40 char
– Answers max. 500 char

Perhaps the best feature: Answers can include links.

Great opportunity to link customers to in-depth content on your website! pic.twitter.com/4z7RmlfMLP

— Stefan Somborac (@StefanSomborac) July 20, 2022

Local Pack now includes time filter

Google is rolling out yet another useful feature for local search. The Local Pack (the local results on the top of a Google search result page) can now be filtered by their opening time. Useful when users search for a restaurant for another day and time. Good reminder to keep your opening times up-to-date on Google.

I think this institute is located at multiple locations. Noticed Hours filter option, we we can select days/open hours@rustybrick pic.twitter.com/pPg2FZbaA2

— Shameem Adhikarath (@shemiadhikarath) July 19, 2022

Google Ads Testing Map Pin Ads with Photos

As Search Engine Roundtable reported, Google has been testing photos as display pins for businesses that use Google Ads.

We’ve started to see these Photo Pins for multiple search types in Google Maps.

Is this a new feature? @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/V4lOAW2xZT

— BrightLocal 🇺🇦 (@brightlocal) September 12, 2022