Google’s BEDLAM Update and Local Opportunity Finder - What Are They All About?

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The Bedlam Update – What You Need To Know

After the Possum update in 2016, the month of November marked the biggest ranking shift in Local SEO. With the Possum update, the Local Search industry saw its first big Proximity update by Google. This shift enables SEO experts to develop tools and strategies considering ‘location’ as a pivotal aspect in ranking.

The recent update (dubbed as Bedlam), too, indicates that Google will be focusing more on proximity.

Key Observations From The Bedlam Update

  • The results aren’t industry-specific. They have and still are shifting across the board.
  • There were HUGE Google Maps ranking changes noticed on November 5th.
  • Most changes that this update brought were mainly on the zip codes the business was NOT located in, with the proximity dial being turned up.
  • More changes were added by Google back into the Local Pack changing them back to 3-packs from 1-packs that we’ve been seeing.
  • This wasn’t a spam update at all. However, it has uncovered a lot more spam listings, which is a part and parcel of big changes like these.
  • If found to be too close to another similar business or if they share the same name or phone number with another location, Google My Business listings are being filtered out.

Final Takeaway

  1. When big changes like these take place, you only need to sit back and wait for things to settle down a little bit.
  2. Check out your local rankings using our dashboard and get a hold of the changes that have taken place to see what impact they have had or will have on your business. To see what the different results look like to users from different locations, you can use browser add-ons.
  3. When you see legitimate Google Maps spam listings competing with you, don’t forget to report them to Google.

Google Rolls Out Local Opportunity Finder To Help Businesses Up Their Local SEO Game

Google is set on helping out small businesses with Local SEO. Google recently announced through its Google Small Business handle on Twitter and Facebook that they are rolling out a brand new tool – Local Opportunity Finder.

The Idea Behind This New Development

Local Opportunity Finder is said to be designed to help small businesses understand how Local SEO can benefit them and discover how people nearby generally search for businesses like theirs. Simply put, the tool analyzes what, where and how people from a specific area are inclined to search for a particular type of business.

When a business name is entered on Local Opportunity Finder, the tool breaks down all the information necessary to improve its online presence into the following categories:

  • Business Profile – A brief overview of the number of searches made per week for businesses like theirs in that region.
  • Business Info – Insight to the kind of information people nearby look for when they search for such businesses.
  • Posts – The ideal time to put up a post about their business based on the daily peak time when people search for businesses like theirs.
  • Reviews – The importance of reviews for such a business and how the company, in particular, is doing in this area.
  • Photos – How important a role the photos play in Local SEO for such businesses.
  • Summary – Steps that the company can take to improve its presence on Google Search and Maps.

Our Takeaway

It sure looks like Local Opportunity Finder be a huge help for small businesses when it comes to understanding what they need to do to bring their Local SEO strategies to fruition. However, it seems that as of now only businesses in the US have access to this new tool developed by Google.

Pay-per-Click (PPC) Updates for December 2019

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