“Local SEO,” has so many meanings nowadays. Especially in a country with over 350 million citizens from literally all walks of life. So it’s no surprise that there are more Local SEO Myths than there are Local SEO strategies. That’s not even including the fact that a Local SEO strategy in, say, a major downtown city is completely different from a rural urban area that gets a weekly newspaper made of mostly ads, public notices, obituaries, and high school sports scores.
And that’s if you only have one location…
Yeah. Local SEO is intricate, heavily dependent on brick & mortar “location, location, location…” and engagement. Books can be written on such strategies. I’m talking good books. Page-turners. Probably. Ones you curl up with and read with an orange bowl of Orville Redenbacher. popcorn and…well, anyway…
With respect to Local SEO being mostly Google-centric because of their monopolistic-ish market share, let’s dig in to the biggest Local SEO Myths we know of:
Local SEO Myth #1: Facebook doesn’t matter in Local SEO.
Hard Truth: Oh, trust me, I wish that was true. If I could deactivate my Facebook account, I would. Twice. Once just for catharsis.
The hard truth is that not only do Facebook Pages have reviews and Open Street Map access (that you can easily peer edit) and essentially all the essential local SEO tools of Google Maps, but more importantly is their convenience in areas with limited local media.
Approximately 15% of the country lives in what’s classified as “deep rural” and “rural urban” areas. That’s about 51,000,000 residents. Many of those areas have limited local media & press coverage. Some don’t have any at all. Facebook fills those cavernous voids. Facebook groups, especially. And while much of it is vigilante, gaslighting, ranting, and other notorious demarcations of human decay, the hard truth is that in several places, it’s the only voice being heard. So you have to learn to discreetly listen to the shouting there. As a small business trying to show up online, this can be especially important.
The good news is that there are tools out there you can use to keep as much out of the fray as possible. Facebook’s Meta Business Suite allows you to schedule to your page and those local groups. Other tools like Hootsuite and Social Pilot allow you to syndicate to all sorts of social media accounts. Tools like BrightLocal – a favorite of both myself and our VP of Marketing, Rodney Hoover, allows for Local SEO behavior of Facebook so you don’t have to jump into the cesspool to check the activity.
Bonus point: File this under “offline helping online and vice versa.” Speaking of those weekly papers, if you have a location(s) in these areas with a weekly paper, write a column in it. Some of these publishers are starved for content support. If they pay, they typically pay in stipends that barely will be enough to send you a W-9, but what it gives you is a chance to be in several homes throughout the area for time & materials minus stipend. “Free advertising,” as it were, and nearly as important, it offers proactive reputation and brand management opportunities.
Local SEO Myth #2: Only 5-star reviews matter.
Softer Truth: Your Google Business Profile can have a major impact on your visibility. While 5-star reviews are causes for celebration, what’s even more important in Local SEO is engagement with the reviewers. Google, in most all its offerings, remains true to one constant, and that constant is that their content must be relevant. If it’s just 5 stars without a written review, they typically – from my understanding – don’t weigh it as much as those who put some proper time & effort into a review.
Google wants you to:
- Be informative and insightful
- Be authentic
- Be respectful
- Write with style
- Avoid personal and professional information
- Avoid general commentary
Their words. Not mine. Feel free to read Google Help’s full post on this link.
Reply to every review.
Take the conversation as deep and as positive and as long as possible.
Not only will the current customer appreciate it, future customers will see it, too.
Local SEO Myth #3: 1-Star Reviews are death.
More-Accurate Truth: Just like 5-star reviews, the review of any number, while important, is not as important as the engagement behind it.
The cliché is true here: 1-star review is an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. Or a failure into opportunity. And you don’t even have to convert them. You just need to give the solid, above-board effort with grace and dignity. While it might feel like another case of being on the high road and yet somehow being steamrolled by someone from the low road, remember this is all a journey and not a sprint. As I tell my toddlers Peanut & Prophet, we all learn at different rates, and all have a thing to work on.
And if someone is low-roading you in a review, others will read it. And they will read your response. Again, that “opportunity” might not be with the one who left the review, but with the others reading it.
(Sure. And Google’s system is reading it, too. But Google will eventually detect if you’re writing for them. While there is optimization for Google (and it’s kid brother Bing), the only way to truly write for Google is to write for prospective readers, customers, clients…your stakeholders and market. That’s it.
Recommended: Schedule your SEO audit today.
Local SEO Myth #4: An Agency can guarantee me a #1 ranking.
Reality: We had this one come up in an internal marketing automation meeting. An agency out west is guaranteeing #1 Google rankings.
No. No-no-no. No-no. No. No….No. Nope. Nope-nope. Nada.
From Google Developer’s SEO fundamentals document.
“No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through the URL Inspection Tool, by submitting a Sitemap, or for more specialized content, using the Google Indexing API. You can do any of these yourself.”
And if you think a competitor, or an agency on behalf of a competitor, is doing shady tactics to out rank you, Hit up Google’s Business Redressal Complaint Form. Call them foo’s out.
Local SEO Myth #5: Google Maps is the only one that matters.
Truth: Okay, this one is about 80% true. And that’s because Google’s market share is well over 80%. But Bing Maps ain’t (completely) nothin’.
Give them 1/5th the time, but not 1/5th your effort.
There are subtle variances, but so long as you fill out the fields, give original, proper NAP (Name, Address, Phone) descriptions and high quality photos, and stay actively engaged in reviews, you’re essentially doing it right.
And of course, there are tools to help with that. Enter BrightLocal again. Not cheap, but definitely a good investment.
All those non-Google players:
- Bing Maps
- Apple Maps (ick)
- Open Street Maps
- Yelp!
- If you’re in or around tourist destinations, Trip Advisor is still valuable.
- Etc…
Make sure to check your niches and your respected industry blogs and directories, especially government & educational websites. They’ll all play a good hand for you.
And, most notably, Social Media sites don’t factor into the Search Engine Market share reports, but they are local tools that factor into your business. Keep them in your strategy.
Local SEO Myth #6: A business can’t encourage Local SEO reviews.
Truth: It’s not that companies can’t encourage reviews. They absolutely can. What they can’t do is incentivize those reviews.
- If someone gives you a 5-star review, and out of generosity without the reviewer believing there was any reciprocity or quid pro quo, you decide to give them a gift card or a T-shirt or something in support, it’s a little gray area, but typically okay.
- BUT, if you offer a gift card (or a Maserati) for a 5-star review, not only are you breaking the Local SEO industry leader’s TOCs, but you are also splashing around in FTC waters.
That’s about where the line is. And, likely, always subject to change so MAKE SURE to be on constant vigil. We’ll do what we can to help as well.
- Don’t offer incentives
- Don’t publish anything about how you’ve “randomly” gave a gift cart to a 5-star review
- Don’t let anyone believe the level of product / service will be changed with a 5-star review
And you’ll be okay. Probably.
Hear a Local SEO Myth too good to be true?
Please, tell us. We love a good urban legend. Or rural urban legend. He’ll help debunk (or confirm) it for you.
Lastly, the movie I recommend this time for Rodney Hoover, our VP of Marketing: Hoosiers.
“If you put your effort and concentration into playing to your potential, to be the best that you can be, I don’t care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we’re gonna be winners.” – Coach Normal Dale (Gene Hackman [RIP]. Hoosiers)
We call him, “Finn,” AND “Nat Finn.” He’s our resident digital gunslinger. SEM (PPC AND SEO). Social Media (Organic AND Paid). UX AND CRO. He has Twins he publicly calls Peanut AND Prophet. And he’s had a habit of finding things to fix AND Grow, both companies AND cities alike, all to possibly push back finishing hisBooks of Blues.