Local SEO will increase in importance over the next few years, making it tougher for local businesses to make it to the top of search results

The importance of local search will continue to grow with 46% of searches on Google already having local intent. Moreover, almost every local search converts into a sales either online and offline. This means, more and more businesses will try to make it to the top of the local search results, making local SEO tougher than before. Here are some things to consider: By 2020, around 50% of searches will be voice-based so there will be less typing involved. This will give rise to a higher number of long tail keywords and hyperlocal searches. Reviews will play an important role in businesses having more positive reviews ranking higher on the local search results. User engagement will be the…

5 sources and a process to help identify a penalty which reduces yours organic search traffic

Given the importance of organic search to many businesses, keeping on top of the latest ranking factors for SEO and, in particular, the changes to Google's ranking algorithms and webspam penalties, is a major concern for most businesses and a full-time job for many today. If it's not your full-time job, discovering about a penalty will be a nasty shock and the names of the different webspam penalties can be confusing.  To help keep marketers up-to-date with the changes that matter, we regularly update our 7 Steps guides summarising the latest changes and in this post we recommend 5 sources and a process shown in an infographic. [si_guide_block id="5750" title="Download Expert Member resource – 7 Steps to Successful SEO" description="Our comprehensive SEO Bible aimed at explaining the main ranking factors and penalties to marketers so they can improve…