The Year in Local Search – 2020

2020 has nearly come to an end (cue sighs of relief!)�

While this year presented many challenges, especially for local businesses, it also created the opportunity for triumph. Google My Business introduced more new features than ever, and we saw the good side of many organizations that strived to provide extra resources and relief to those in need.

Although we may all be glad to see the back of what’s been a pretty hectic year, we’d be remiss not to look back on all the exciting things that have taken place. For us, it’s been a year filled with GMB news, updates, and changes, and we even had some laughs along the way too, (Four Season Total Landscaping anyone?)

So, before we say “so long†to 2020 for good, we invite you to join us in reflecting upon the year in local search.

What would a year in review be without GIFs? Keep your eyes peeled throughout and let us know how many TV shows or films you recognized in the below!

January

January Jones GIF

Suffice to say, the year started out strongly, if not a little stressfully (when isn’t that the case for local SEOs?) We saw the introduction of new features in Apple Maps, as one of Google Maps’ biggest rivals strived to achieve feature parity through the introduction of “Collectionsâ€, real-time transit information, and indoor maps.

Arguably, what shook the local SEO community more though, was news of a featured snippets shakeup. 

Originally spotted by Mark Barrera, it was later announced by Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan that sites ranking in a featured snippet position would no longer be able to rank with that same URL on the same page of SERPs. 

Sure, this is old news now (literally), but at the time it shook the local SEO community and raised a whole host of questions, such as “are featured snippets worth getting?â€

Here’s what local SEO Twitter had to say at the time:

I think people are nervous this will have a detrimental impact on CTR and thus their SEO efforts.

The last study Ahrefs did had featured snippet CTR at 8.6%. That is horrible compared to the typical 20-30%ish CTR of #1 organic result.

— Ben Poulton (@BennyPoulton) January 22, 2020

So you were optimising your content to get more of those “sweet†Featured Snippets?

Well.. I guess say “bye-bye†to you search traffic now.

Back when we studied the CTR of FS it was ~8.6% on avg. While the #1 organic position (without FS) was getting ~26% on avg.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://t.co/a5ZzKx0uAG pic.twitter.com/Y32hKnadoU

— Tim Soulo (@timsoulo) January 23, 2020

February

In the month of Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day, and of course, National Ukulele Day (yep, it’s a thing apparently!) local SEO news was uncharacteristically quiet. Perhaps Google was recovering from the unprecedented excitement that the featured snippets shakeup caused?

What we did notice, however, was a big change in the local SERP display for users in Europe. 

On February 21st, what’s known as the “find results carousel†was spotted across European SERPs. This new feature saw third-party directories such as Yelp, Yell, and Tripadvisor appear front and center in local search results, like so: 

Dentists in Brighton EU SERP

At the time, there was some speculation that this update might have been Google’s response to the EU’s hefty antitrust fine. 

So far, this SERP feature has stayed firmly in Europe, but one BrightLocal reader did suggest they’d like to see it rolled out elsewhere:

It would be nice if they released this everywhere. A lot of people choose not to use directories, yet they take up a large portion of the SERPs. This way would allow them to be separated and other, more useful, websites to populate those positions.

Sarah, BrightLocal Reader (New Local SERP Display Puts Directories Front and Center)

March

As Spring rolled around, so too did the first effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on local businesses.

While the month got off to a positive start with the launch of our very own Local Search Industry Survey, we were soon brought down to earth as Google announced the suspension of many of its most popular features.

In a post published on Friday, March 20th, Google announced that it was temporarily disabling and limiting some key features in Google My Business.

During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services. 

Google

Among the features suspended were: new reviews, review responses, Q&A, adding/claiming/verifying listings, and editing business information.

At first, it’s safe to say that this came as a huge blow to local businesses, many of which were relying on new reviews to help tide them over and keep them front of mind in hopes that they’d be a top choice to customers when they reopened. (See the #5starchallenge below…)

Done!#5starchallenge Post a review for a biz you love, share a pic & tag 3 people & challenge them to do the same. Small businesses are struggling but reviews can help them bounce back when we can visit again.

Tagging @ingobousa @surfpunkian @TashaWoodford https://t.co/6vim5Z3dla pic.twitter.com/n0CUKjWEZj

— Claire Carlile🕊🌊🥑🦥 (@clairecarlile) March 19, 2020

Additionally, GMB Product Expert Jason Brown noted at the time that Google Posts were also “failingâ€, due to being disabled. 

Seeing a spike in Google posts being rejected. If your post fails, you are not alone. pic.twitter.com/mkYv1vUjuk

— Jason Brown Dumpster Fire (@keyserholiday) March 23, 2020

That said, GMB by no means left us high and dry. While some features were suspended, new ones were introduced, such as ‘mark this business as temporarily closed’.

There is finally a “temporarily closed†button inside the Google My Business dashboard! pic.twitter.com/7QJy6M6aJj

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) March 25, 2020

April

Sadly, we’re now firmly into the Covid-19 territory of the year. As the impact of March’s news and local business closures worldwide continued to be felt, we reached out to our customers to see how they had been impacted.

We don’t need to tell you, but at this point, the landscape was looking pretty bleak. 

How local businesses are handling covid-19



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