Richard Beverly's Blog

 I’ll let you into a little secret. If you’re super-duper into local SEO, and you’re not already attending LocalU Advanced you’re missing a trick. This is where the top minds and actual practitioners in the space get together and share ALL-NEW content including research, case studies, how-tos, and much, much more. I got the chance to attend the last event on August 31, and, as always, I bloody loved it. So much that I wrote up the key takeaways from my favorite talks from Joy Hawkins , Rachel Anderson , Greg Gifford , Dana DiTomaso so that you can enjoy them too! Joy Hawkins: Make Your Images Worth a Thousand Words Ah, I do love Sterling Sky’s Joy Hawkins , I always get some great takeaways any time I listen to her speak, and using images more effectively is something I’m always looking to upskill on! Joy starts by summing up three objectives for having great images: Look better Rank better Get more leads Let’s start with ‘Look better’ Marketers often forget to check how im

Keyword research is one of the most important activities in SEO, and should be at the top of any priority list when it comes to digital marketing.  For any beginners, keyword research is the process of finding the words that potential customers use to find solutions to their problems.  Essentially, every time somebody searches the internet, they are using keywords.  This means that keyword research is a prerequisite for building an effective local SEO and content strategy. If you don’t know the types of terms people are searching for, how are you going to plan and write content that attracts and converts them? There are also things specific to local SEO that will help take localized organic performance to new heights.  How to Master Local Keyword Research Which is why we’re proud to announce the next free course to land in BrightLocal Academy : “How to Master Local Keyword Research”. This highly-practical course has been created in collaboration with local search expert Claire Ca

Approximately 22% of customers will leave a business after receiving just one negative review, whereas around three negative reviews can drive away 59% of customers. Reviews assist consumers in making quick decisions about purchases in their research by providing a clear picture of your company. Studies show that of businesses who respond to bad reviews, 33% turn around and post a good review, and 34% delete the original negative review . Whether a review is good or bad, it makes sense to respond. When someone leaves a negative review about your company, it can be really difficult to know how to respond. There are many ways you could handle the situation, but one of the best responses is simply asking for more information and trying to find out what went wrong. Despite your natural feeling of frustration, make your best effort to remedy the situation. Resolve the problem by apologizing and repairing it. If you resolve the issue, many customers will be happy to change their reviews.

You’ve probably noticed that things look a little different around here. That’s because we’ve just launched our new brand identity! Taking our brand forward We’re big believers in the power of brand, which is why we’ve continued to invest in ours over the years. We’re confident that we have one of the most recognized and trusted brands in local SEO, but as with everything we do, we’re not going to rest on our laurels. We have a restless nature that urges us to always question what could be improved and how we can do things better. This isn’t the first time we’ve refreshed our brand. After all, we exist in an industry that is constantly evolving. Sitting still is not an option. Our business is constantly evolving, too. In the years since we last refreshed our brand identity, we’ve welcomed over 70 new faces to the BrightLocal team and expanded our offering with Local Search Grid , Showcase Reviews , BrightLocal Academy , BrightLocal Agency Directory , Local RankFlux , and much mor

Want to find out why your competitor’s page is No. 1 in Google organic SERPs? Well, now you can! (To the extent that Google is willing to tell you, anyway.) That’s because Google yesterday announced a feature that shows a selection of reasons for ranking individual pages in SERPs, bringing some much-needed transparency to search. via GIPHY Source: Google This feature is a section called ‘Your search & this result’ but it doesn’t have a catchy name yet, so we’re calling it the ‘Ranking Factors Box’, simply because, well, it’s a box that displays ranking factors! The Ranking Factors Box is an extension of the ‘About this result’ box, which is accessible by clicking the ‘three vertical dots’ at the end of a search result and was originally launched back in February of this year . Where is the Ranking Factors Box currently live? According to Barry Schwartz’s excellent overview for Search Engine Land , the feature is currently live for around 10% of English-language queries in t

In the months since we launched Local Search Grid, we’ve been hard at work adding new functionality and updates to make it the de facto geo grid of choice. Alongside the usual, subtle quality-of-life updates you’re not supposed to notice, we’ve launched some big new features that take understanding and improving your local search performance to the next level. Here’s why there’s never been a better time to put your rankings on the map! New Key Metrics in Competitor Tables One of the really neat things you can do with Local Search Grid is to track your competitors and find out why their Google My Business profiles might be winning in local SERPs. You can view the business category they’re using on GMB, see the number of reviews and their average review rating, and find out where you might have an angle to beat them. We’ve since added two key on-site SEO metrics to this table, number of backlinks and website Domain Authority , so competitor espionage can uncover more routes to win

30-second summary: Search engines are laser-focused on improving user experience and voice search plays an increasingly key role With 100+ global languages, people are prone to searching in their native language How do you optimize your website for multilingual search while keeping a natural and conversational tone? Atul Jindal accurately guides you through the process Google is now recognizing 119 different languages on voice search. Which is great for user experience. But it makes ranking a bit more challenging for website owners, especially those who host multi-linguistic traffic. Website owners must act to cater to these people who are taking a different linguistic approach to search. That’s where multilingual SEO comes in, done with voice search in mind. But before we begin digging deeper into multilingual SEO for voice search, let us first introduce the search of the future aka multilingual voice search. What is Multilingual Voice Search? With the evolution of technolo