Things you never knew about the Local Pack

Mordy Oberstein:

It is the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We'll put you on some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very local, the very locally oriented, the very near-me Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter.

Crystal Carter:

Hello, hello, internet people. We are here live and people have looked up directions to how to get to the SERP's Up SEO podcast and they maybe mapped it out, maybe-

Mordy Oberstein:

SERP's Up podcast near me.

Crystal Carter:

SERP's Up podcasts near me, also-

Mordy Oberstein:

Podcast, podcast, SERP's Up New York, New York podcast, podcast.

Crystal Carter:

And top podcast in your local area, all of those sorts of things. These are important things to think about because you-

Mordy Oberstein:

Obviously.

Crystal Carter:

You don't want a podcast that's not in your local area.

Mordy Oberstein:

My favorite, and obviously we're talking about local SEO today if you haven't figured that out, is when businesses name themselves 'Near Me', their actual business name is Dentists Near Me.

Crystal Carter:

For people who are not complete SEO nerds, this is something that SEOs are just like, "Oh yes, this is gold dust," when they see that in the strip mall next to the Little Caesars, and there's Dentists Near Me and on the wall that is like, "Oh, I must tell other SEOs about this."

Mordy Oberstein:

And people are like, "Why are they called Dentists Near Me?" And all the SEOs are like, "We know why."

Crystal Carter:

We all know why.

Mordy Oberstein:

For the older people out there, it's the equivalent of naming your business AAAA whatever, so that you show up first in the phonebook.

Crystal Carter:

It's a real thing. Triple A or AA taxis, Aardvark.

Mordy Oberstein:

Aardvark.

Crystal Carter:

How many businesses are called Aardvark? That was a thing.

Mordy Oberstein:

Why do people love that animal so much?

Crystal Carter:

Also, I feel sorry for young people who've never felt the weight of a full yellow pages.

Mordy Oberstein:

And when you got them both delivered, the white pages and you had to schlub those inside, you'd need a wheelbarrow.

Crystal Carter:

Oh, man. And people would be like, "Can you find something?" And you'd be like, "Well, let me just pull this out."

Mordy Oberstein:

And it made that sound as you opened it up like thump.

Crystal Carter:

Right, and then also there was always the case where somebody would've ripped out the page that you actually needed.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, see that, yeah, that's classic.

Crystal Carter:

But also, sorry, we will get to an actual thing, I'm sorry, we've got a guest who's waiting who's fantastic, but the actual thought of just having everyone's phone number and address in a white pages.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's scary, right?

Crystal Carter:

That's crazy, right?

Mordy Oberstein:

And you had to opt out.

Crystal Carter:

You could find anybody, yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's not like they asked you, you had to opt out.

Crystal Carter:

And you would just see it in like public phone booths, there would just be a public phone booth and there would be a booth that had everyone's first name, last address, phone number available to any person who walked by.

Mordy Oberstein:

What could go wrong?

Crystal Carter:

Simpler times.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right, simpler times. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by simpler times and by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight on wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also up your local SEO game with our Uberall app integration, which means today we're diving into local SEO and in specific the hidden secrets of the Local Pack, the less known but equally awesome features in the Local Pack, things you didn't know helped you appear in the Local Pack, and how the Local Pack functionality has changed relatively recently and what it might mean to help us dig up the secret layers and levels of the Local Pack. Uberall's VP of Solutions, Krystal Taing, will join us in just a jiffy. Plus, we'll help you unlock the gems, offered a nifty little SEO app inside of Wix.

And of course, we have your snappies of SEO news, who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So plug in your console or put those weird little goggle things down that everybody has and hop down a pipe with a man eating plant popping out of it as episode 78 of the SERP's Up podcast helps you find the secret levels of the local back like you are a plumber in a 1985 8-bit video game. Oh, by the way, that plumber is near you.

Crystal Carter:

Great. He also has a great dinosaur. I always like Yoshi.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, that's great. Yeah, but we're just-

Crystal Carter:

On Mario Kart, I'm Yoshi, that's me.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm pre-dating, I'm going a bit 8-bit, I'm pre-dating Yoshi. It wasn't even a thought yet.

Crystal Carter:

Oh, come on, Yoshi's iconic. It wasn't really a party until Yoshi showed up.

Mordy Oberstein:

Truth by the way. So to catch everybody up real, real, real, real, real quick, the Local Pack is that big box that shows up at the way, way, way top of the Google results page when you search for a pizza near me. And it has a big map and it has the listing of these businesses, and you can go to the web, you can get directions, and it appears above the organic results, and it essentially makes the organic results, the actual Google normal results, kind of irrelevant for local queries like pizza near me. And to help us wade through the waters and maybe find the extra life of the Local Pack, please welcome to the show Krystal Taing. How are you?

Krystal Taing:

Hello, hello. Thank you much so much for having me. I will say, unlike a yellow page book, you cannot rip a page out of the Local Pack, so it's exciting to talk about.

Mordy Oberstein:

Wait, but maybe we could rip a page out of your Local Pack playbook.

Krystal Taing:

Yes, yes. I love that. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk about this topic that I am just overly passionate about, which is just local.

Mordy Oberstein:

I wish we still called it the Snack Pack, which was another name for the Local Pack, because Snack Packs are also puddings and pudding is amazing.

Krystal Taing:

Yes, yes. That's what I think, Snack Pack of pudding. So I think we can still call it, we can bring it back 2024, it's a New Year.

Mordy Oberstein:

Vanilla Snack Pack or chocolate Snack Pack?

Krystal Taing:

Chocolate, chocolate.

Mordy Oberstein:

I was always a vanilla Snack Pack person. I'm generally a chocolate person over vanilla, but not for the Snack Pack.

Krystal Taing:

Oh, I was actually a tapioca, but that wasn't one of the options.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, you're just a weirdo at that point.

Krystal Taing:

Yes, I am, I am.

Crystal Carter:

So snacks aside, so Krystal is the Global Director of Pre-Sale Solutions at Uberall, and you are also a Google Business Profile gold certified absolute... What is it, what's your actual qualification on the things?

Krystal Taing:

Way too many words, but it's a Platinum Google Business Profile Product Expert. But like I said, way too many words.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, but you don't just get that out of nothing. I've been in the Google Business Profile Q&A questions and stuff, and Krystal's answering questions in there. Krystal's deep in the weeds. She's like, "No, you got to do this, you got to do that. You got to do all of this sort of thing." So we're so pleased to have you here. Also, Krystal wrote our introduction to local SEO. She knows all of the things about Local Pack.

Mordy Oberstein:

And we did a webinar together.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, and a fantastic webinar with some great stuff there. So it's super important, and one of the reasons why Local Pack is so important is some of the things that you get from it. So just looking at this quote from your recent discussion about the local SEO ranking factors, one of the quotes you said is that businesses that rank in the 3-pack typically get 88% additional clicks in driving directions, 76 more clicks on call and 76 more clicks to website according to your recent Uberall study. That's mega.

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, yeah, it's insane.

Crystal Carter:

Right?

Krystal Taing:

There's definitely a lot more engagement when you're at the top of that Map Pack or 3-pack or result. I will say there's a lot of changes now. So there's not just the ability to rank in the 3-pack, there's the ability for your photos or videos or posts or other elements to rank so there's more opportunity, but being at the top really makes a difference in the amount of customers that have eyes on you.

Crystal Carter:

And so when we think about that, I know that there's a few different elements that can affect what puts you at the top for which queries and things, I don't know if you're able to share a couple of your favorite ways to do that.

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, I'll say my favorite is probably the most boring, but it is what has been the truest since the existence of GBP or GMB or Google Places whenever it started is just complete and accurate detail. Google wants information, they are going to reward businesses that have complete profiles. And the reason why they reward businesses that have all of their information, all of their images, videos, content filled out is because more searchers engage with those types of businesses. So ultimately they want to create a good experience for their customers, they want Google searchers to feel engaged with the content, and so they're going to surface those businesses that have complete data. So it's one of the things that's like if Google gives you a field to promote something about your business, fill them all out, fill it all out to the best of your ability as a business. And really that's one of the most core elements is you can strategize later about content and strategy and promotional material and that kind of stuff, but really getting started is completing your entire profile.

Crystal Carter:

Right, right. It's like the SATs, it's like answer all the questions.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right, put your name there, right?

Crystal Carter:

Right. Make sure you-

Krystal Taing:

Exactly.

Crystal Carter:

Answer all the questions, you have to get involved. And I think some of the things people will sometimes go, "Oh, I don't need to add that attribute that says that we have delivery or that we are wheelchair accessible or that we're this set or the other," but that's not true. You absolutely do need to.

Mordy Oberstein:

Especially if you're selling wheelchairs in which you should probably.

Krystal Taing:

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, no, I always remind businesses that Google isn't just creating this field for fun, they have access to a ton of data, a ton of user behavior data. So when they roll out something like a small business attribute on Google, they didn't just pluck it from the sky and said, "This is part of our calendar this month, we want to pull it." It's typically because they have a lot of search data that says users want to support small businesses, and so we need to surface this somehow and make it easy for businesses to engage. Same thing with dogs available at restaurants, do you know how many searches there are for that? So that became another attribute that was available in the last couple of months. Yes, I'm sure there's lots of Googlers that love dogs and they just want to show it on profiles, but a lot of this is because users want this information,

Mordy Oberstein:

And by the way, it also just makes you look more robust and complete. And if you're looking at other profiles and comparing them like, "Well, how come they have all those shiny little icons and emojis and whatever and that one doesn't? That doesn't seem right."

Krystal Taing:

Exactly, exactly. That's the thing, it's not only do you want to show up, but then once you show up, users need to make a decision and you need to give them all of the information they need to make a decision. So if you've got, to your point, shiny little icons and fun videos and additional content, it's a lot easier to make a decision than one that's missing hours or the photo is super blurry, or it doesn't say, to your point, that they don't accept reservations or those types of things. You're missing potential opportunity by not filling out that data.

Crystal Carter:

So here's another contentious one that I hear about the GBP things. What about posts? What is your stance on posts? How important do you think that is to helping businesses listing to perform on the Local Pack?

Krystal Taing:

So I don't know if you were just stalking my LinkedIn, but I did just actually make a post about Google posts because I continue to see more and more prominence of posts throughout the search experience. So these don't just display on your profile, there are different places that they display whenever users are searching on Maps, whenever they're discovering businesses on mobile. There's a lot of different ways that Google is adding these, and I think Google really likes it because it's unique and rich content. It's images, it's videos, it's promotional details, and the fact that the LinkedIn posts that I included, there's an entire section on Maps called nearby events and deals. It's like Google must have information that people want events and deals about businesses, and this is how they're choosing to surface it. Businesses that add posts, the offer posts, the event posts, these are going to now get surfaced in addition to your business data. So there's a lot of opportunity, and from my perspective, if Google is adding posts in different parts of there, that means they're relevant and that they're going to help impact your business from a ranking perspective. So I am all gung ho on posts.

Crystal Carter:

If people aren't aware of what posts are, if you have a Google Business Profile thing, sometimes they refer to them as updates so it'll say add an update in the backend for your business, and you have an option where you can add text, it's up to 1500 characters, you can add photo to it, and then you can add a link, you can add a button that goes to a link directly to somewhere in your site and you can add for booking or order online or buy or learn more or sign up. And you can schedule these things using other tools to disseminate information and when people look at your business, they show up at the bottom. I'm so glad to hear you say that because I've definitely seen this work for clients to see an uplift to sort of add new life into a sort of existing standard listing. So yeah, I'm glad to see that they were saying this is still a valuable and interesting thing going forward.

Mordy Oberstein:

Let's backtrack in the funnel just a little bit before you get to the GBP profile, perhaps you're getting to that profile from the Local Pack, and I think we look at the Local Pack and be like, "Okay, pretty straightforward. There's the name of the business, there's reviews there, whatever," but there's a lot more in there and there's sort of these little hidden Easter eggs or tidbits. I wonder if you can maybe talk about what's in the Local Pack that you may not be aware of is actually in the Local Pack?

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, there's so I would say two things really to pay attention to. So one of the things that we touched on already were attributes. So Google's got all of these, kind of think of them if you're familiar with more organic tags for your business, these are just features and functionalities that you offer. This is, to your point, are you wheelchair accessible? Do you offer delivery? But then there's other things like as a restaurant, do you serve vegetarian food? There's oftentimes these are going to be surfaced based on the search query. So if a user searches like 'vegetarian food near me', if you have that as an attribute, it's going to then be surfaced in the Local Pack on your business when normally it may not show, Google is associating that to the search. So attributes are a huge one.

The other thing that is growing in prominence are videos. So Google is really leaning into short form video content and they've started ranking this very, very high. So if you've got a video on your profile, whether a user loaded it or you as a business, it'll start displaying in the Map Pack and position two next to your images. For different industries, not all industries are showing it that prominently, but I would definitely double down on videos on your GBP profile because they really have an impact. And again, to your point, when you're making a decision about a business, if it's a restaurant or you're going to a salon or something, if you are able to see a quick 10, 15 second video of what it looks like inside and you don't have to wonder if this is going to be a good experience, that's huge in terms of impact for customers.

Mordy Oberstein:

There's so much in there and I think if you're an SEO who's not so in the local space and now you have a client that is in the local space or you're a local business yourself, Google something, Google 'pizza near me', Google 'doctor office near me', Google all sorts of different things, all sorts of things show up if I Google pizza near me, I get Joe's Pizza, which I hear is completely overrated by the way, it's in fact most famous pizza place in New York City. I'm like, "Yeah, New York City style counter slice shop," it gives a description of the business in there and the next one's like counter for slices and pizza and calzones, or if you Google 'doctor office near me', I get all the 'accepts Medicaid'.

Krystal Taing:

Exactly, there's a lot of additional content there. What I also, to that point, is as an SEO or an agency doing searches on different surfaces is really important. So what do you see on desktop on search, desktop on Maps, mobile search, mobile Maps are all different and they all highlight different elements. And again, Google does that based on user behavior and what they think users want to see on different journeys. So I am a huge advocate for making sure you're doing those searches yourself because they do show you what Google is surfacing to customers during those times.

Crystal Carter:

So that touches on another point. So in terms of Local Pack, and so in your Uberall study you talked about personalization and I think that that mobile versus desktop thing is going to affect that personalization. So for instance, if Joe's Pizza Shop, if you're in Times Square and Joe's Pizza Shop is also in Times Square, and if you search near me, then literally it's near you, right?

Krystal Taing:

Exactly, exactly.

Crystal Carter:

So footfall might potentially affect that. So how important is it that you localize your test searches as well? So if you're an agency and if you're, say, an agency in Philadelphia and your client is in New York and you're testing the 'near me' and they're like, "I'm not seeing I myself on the thing," and you're like, "But I am," how much does the localization affect the Local Pack result?

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, that's a really great question. So the distance of the business from where the search is taking place is a huge impact and it's a huge ranking factor. So to your point, that happens all the time. It's like, "Hey, I googled my own business and I'm not showing up." The first question is, what was your search and where are you located? Everyone's going to have incredibly different searches, especially if you're on mobile and if your location services are activated, or maybe you're doing a search and you're saying, "I'm planning a trip and I'm going to Chicago, but I'm currently in San Diego." Even if I search for pizza restaurants Chicago, my results are going to be very different from someone that is physically located in Chicago. There's a lot of plugins that allow you to kind of maybe spoof your location where you can say, "Put me in this area," but it's just important to know that that is going to impact your search results unless you are at the exact same place that someone's searching. Google, especially for a near me or local search, they're going to adjust the results based on businesses that are nearby.

Crystal Carter:

Okay. So I think that in that regard, when people are thinking about maybe, and this is interesting because I always like the sort of intersection of IRL stuff and online stuff, so for instance if you were maybe a business that was outside of Times Square, but you wanted people to Google you or maybe it might be that that's where you put your sign flipper person, is it a place that would drive more searches? I mean, is that something that people should think about, like driving searches from certain places that are nearer them? Am I spit-balling too much there?

Krystal Taing:

No, no. I mean, I think a lot of businesses think that. It's also one of the challenges Google has with spam is because location is so impactful from a ranking perspective, that's a great example, people want to rank in downtown New York, but they might be located an hour outside, but based on your business, people might be willing to travel an hour outside. So that's where you do have to get unique. You do need to understand how users are searching for you, where they're located, and then understanding how you stretch your visibility. Oftentimes that's where you layer on the on-page elements, that's where you layer on back link strategy and those types of things because you probably are competing with a business that is located in downtown or is located in Times Square and that can be a challenge to businesses. But I think the most important thing is making sure that you're ranking where you're located first really, really well, you're really well optimized, and then you can start expanding that. In some cases, I've seen businesses actually relocate their offices because it can be a big challenge.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's a real challenge. It could be a really, really big problem.

Krystal Taing:

Yeah. And especially for service-based businesses.

Mordy Oberstein:

I was going to say that.

Krystal Taing:

So again, you think of an attorney where someone is willing to travel quite far or maybe they're doing some of their services virtually, so it's fine that they're an hour outside, but guess what? They want that downtown clientele.

Mordy Oberstein:

Exactly. If I'm looking for a lawyer or an accountant, I'm not going to the accountant's office, I don't care.

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, exactly.

Crystal Carter:

So you brought up service level businesses, and I know that particularly on Google Business Profile, let's say you were somebody who was based in Long Island, but you were able to service people who were in Manhattan for your service where you're like, "I'll drive to you, it's fine, it's not a big deal. I will come to collect your dry cleaning," whatever it is. So what are some of the things that affect service area businesses for Local Pack?

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, I think the biggest thing to understand is that physical address where you originally create your business, which can be hidden, it doesn't have to display, is still from a location perspective where Google's going to rank you. And so I think a lot of times people think they add in these service areas because there are zip code cities, regions you can add to your service area, Google just uses that to draw an outline on the map, but it doesn't mean they're going to start ranking you in those addresses or in those areas. And that's what is a challenge for service-based businesses where you have to kind of really expand. You are a little bit more limited. Of course if you're a business that can show your address, that's always going to be helpful because sometimes hiding your address does limit where you can rank. But I think that's the most important thing to know is you are going to rank from a location perspective where your original business address is and sometimes that's your home even if the address is hidden.

Crystal Carter:

So I have another one, I have another one because I love Local Pack, I love local. Okay, so the other one is reviews. So I've seen it sometimes, for instance, you mentioned like vegetarian food, I don't do dairy but I do like donuts, so I'm like vegan donuts, where are vegan donuts? And I sometimes see that you get a highlight that says, "Oh, I had great vegan donuts here," that's a review, but isn't necessarily in any of their information. And so to my mind, reviews are very important, certainly as a user I find reviews to be very important. How impactful do you find reviews for Local Pack rankings?

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, that's another good point. I will say when you're building out a GBP profile, Google is controlling to a point everything you can publish. Reviews are one of the areas where it's kind of like freeform content. And when we talk about this, this is the review content a user leaves. As a business owner, you should respond to all reviews, Google wants to see that and they're going to reward you if you're responding to all reviews. They don't necessarily care what's in that content because you can spam it with whatever you want, you don't need to worry about adding keywords to that. But Google really values user-generated content, they kind of trust it more than what a business says, it's a little bit more unbiased.

So as much as you can encourage users to be more specific in their reviews, saying things like, "We'd love to hear your feedback about our vegan donuts," can kind of put that in their mind to leave those keywords in the reviews to be a little bit more specific. If you are a business and you're asking for reviews, whether that's via email, text message, those types of things, if you can prompt it or ask for more detail, that's going to be valuable because Google does, they pull these out, they're called justifications, but it's really Google is justifying to users why they're showing your business for that query. And if you don't have vegan in your category, you don't have it in your image tag, you don't have it on your website or your menu, they need to basically tell users why they're seeing this business and it's because multiple users left a review and they talk about vegan donuts. It is a source of information that Google's mining. So huge, huge impact in terms of content in your reviews.

Mordy Oberstein:

Let me switch gears a little bit. I want to ask you a question. I don't know if you know, I'm asking you, I don't put you on the spot, but a while back or somewhat a while back... Let me rephrase this, Google's constantly changing how the Local Pack functions. It used to be back in the day it was a map and then a very small rectangle-ish kind of map, or an actual rectangle, not rectangle-ish, and then underneath there were the three listings and it had the reviews and it had directions or whatever it was. Now on desktop at least you have the results on the left-hand side, a much bigger map on the right-hand side, and there's all sorts of functionality. If you hover over the map, the results disappear. If you hover over a pin now, you'll get a little call-out with the reviews and some images from the location. Has that changed anything in terms of what you see happening in the Local Pack? Are businesses affected by that change at all, or is it just business as usual? No pun intended.

Krystal Taing:

I'll say I haven't seen too much impact from businesses, but what I have seen probably for the last four to five years is a transition in user behavior where a lot more searches are beginning on Maps. If you look back pre-2020, 90% of all business views on Google started on desktop. And I even know for myself, I will just go to Maps and instead of doing a search on Google search, I just zoom in and then I click around and I might put some keywords in or some filters. But I like that from a discovery perspective a lot more. So I think, and this is a complete assumption, I think Google sees that and they're trying to merge these experiences because users like to engage a little bit more and I think Maps gives you that more than a search result.

Mordy Oberstein:

It makes a lot of sense because you see, by the way, Google started testing out AI or an SGE kind of experience in Maps. And I think by the way, that makes a lot of sense to have there because I find jumping from one query to the next query to the next thing inside of Maps, a pain in the rear end.

Krystal Taing:

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Crystal Carter:

I know that you're a big fan of categories, you've got your categories on Google Business Profile, which effects, which queries you show up with on the Local Pack. And I think that that also is reflected on Google Maps. So I think that that's one of the things I think is so interesting about Local Pack, local et cetera, is that there's a whole ecosystem around it. So for instance, I was recently in Switzerland and we went to one town and literally nothing was open and it was like, "Okay, I want a coffee. How am I going to find a coffee?" And then I looked at this other town and I was just generally hovering for cafes and then open now, and a bunch of them showed up. And so I just headed to this general area because I found that because it has all of these filters.

So that goes back to the things that you're thinking of, and that also goes back to people going to Maps first because I don't know what any of the restaurants are called, so I couldn't possibly search for one. And sometimes they might call it a cafe, sometimes they call it a restaurant, but I just want a coffee. So I think that that goes to sort of how people can show up with those. Do you find that people need to make the same optimizations? Are the optimizations exactly the same for Maps as they are for Local Pack? Or do you that people need to make additional specific considerations for Google Maps?

Krystal Taing:

So there's not necessarily anything different. It's more about understanding how Maps works. I will say Maps is not a separate entry point for businesses, you still create your GBP profile and that's what's reflected on Maps. However, Maps does have different types of integrations. So you think of searching for fuel stations or petrol stations, there's oftentimes when you're going to see the prices, that is not connected to Google Business Profile, that's a complete separate Maps integration. Same thing with movie times. So it's good to be aware, but there's things you can't control.

I will say one of the things with Maps in the discovery process is there are different levels at your zoom where businesses will show. And this is one of, I think, the most common questions I see, they're like, "How come my map pin doesn't show when I'm on Maps?" But you have to zoom in maybe two levels closer and you will see a map pin that is a slightly different ranking on Maps than it is on GBP search, on the search result. So that typically is prominent. It's a lot of different elements like reviews. It's similar elements to the search result, but it's not the exact same and there's not an exact science yet really about that. But that is the most common thing I see is businesses will only show at certain zoom levels on Maps. And then Google has come out and they did the branded map pins through ads, which I think a lot of businesses have taken advantage of because they realize how many people are going directly to Maps. So I think Google's offering that to businesses too.

Mordy Oberstein:

With that, I don't want to put a pin in it, but where can people find you, near where?

Krystal Taing:

They can search for Krystal Taing near me. But yes, absolutely, feel free to connect with me. I think I've been on LinkedIn a little bit more frequently than on X/Twitter just because my Twitter algorithm these days, I don't know, it's a little bit weird. I'm still on Twitter, feel free to DM me, but definitely LinkedIn, I've been active there.

Mordy Oberstein:

Amazing, and definitely check out Uberall.

Krystal Taing:

Yes, please do.

Mordy Oberstein:

And for the Wix users, check out the Uberall app, which we're going to discuss in just a minute. Thank you so much, Krystal and Crystal. I can't believe I only just made that joke now.

Crystal Carter:

Yes, thank you.

Krystal Taing:

Awesome. Thanks so much for having me, always a pleasure.

Mordy Oberstein:

Great. Definitely make sure you give Krystal Taing a follow. I really do feel like disappointed in myself for not making more Crystals jokes because there were so many Crystals on the call.

Crystal Carter:

I mean, hey, the whole conversation was full of gems, so it's all good.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, you crazy diamonds. Anyway, shine on you crazy diamonds, a little Pink Floyd for you there. Okay, so as you mentioned earlier, we gave a little hint at an app that can help you with local SEO, but it really does a lot more than local SEO stuff, it helps you actually distribute content for a local business. So here is our segment called Tool Time as we dive into, guess what, the Uberall within the Wix app market.

So I'm going to say maybe a year ago, I'm not good with time, Uberall added an app into the Wix app market, and if you forgot Krystal, not our Crystal, the other Krystal, Krystal Taing works for Uberall. Okay, so Wix has an integration, a partnership with Google Business Profile, and one of the feature requests that we had was can we upload, as both Crystals were talking about, Google posts from Wix to the Google Business Profile and with our partnership with Google, you can, but with the Uberall app.

Crystal Carter:

You can.

Mordy Oberstein:

You can. And not only that, you can also upload posts across social networks like Facebook, X, Instagram, I'm running out of social profiles, all the kind of social profiles you want to share content. So if you're a business that you're working with, as I say, a Facebook page, and you want to upload the same post that you added to Google posts you want to put on the Facebook page, you can use the Uberall app as basically a content distribution app for local businesses, which is cool.

Crystal Carter:

This is super important I think because with local businesses it's very often the case that local businesses are particularly active on social media. So if you're able to keep those channels going and those channels full of new information in an efficient manner, that's super valuable. So I mean, I don't know about y'all, but we have a local moms group, we have local parent groups for schools. I know that there's people who are like, "They didn't pick up the bins today. What's going on?" There's people who have spotted in Poughkeepsie or whatever, and those local recommendations carry a lot of weight. So if you have presence on there and you are in the local groups, you're able to post into local groups, you're able to post onto local Facebook accounts, local channels there that can give you some incredible, incredible reach and people will vouch for you. People will be like, "Yeah, I used that painter decorator. They were really great, they made my shed look fantastic." I keep talking about sheds these days. But yeah, I think it's a great tool and it's really, really, really useful for-

Mordy Oberstein:

Distributing content as a local business is super important. So if your clients are a local business, they may not always have the budgets to start running social media ads or Google ads, so having that organic social cadence and social presence can be a big factor for a local business so it definitely makes sense to do that and the Uberall app can help you do that.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, and I think like Krystal talked about events for instance, because events take place in a local place that can also help to connect.

Mordy Oberstein:

Events are local?

Crystal Carter:

Yes, they're in a place with a geographical location, and so that's really good for connecting your business to that particular geo and things like that. So yeah, I can't recommend enough getting involved with citations and listings. It's also a good way to get back links. Citation links don't necessarily cater the same weight as an organic back link, but they are still links as in they still get crawled and still drive traffic, can drive traffic to your website.

Mordy Oberstein:

They drive traffic for sure.

Crystal Carter:

And can still help Google to understand where the important parts are of your website. So absolutely get involved with citations and sometimes those sites will rank higher than your business in other parts of the web so it's worth making sure that you're getting involved with those, particularly in a local space.

Mordy Oberstein:

Now do you know who we like to cite when we're talking about the SEO news? I'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Larry and his last name rhymes with Schwartz, well is Schwartz, it's Barry Schwartz.

Crystal Carter:

Quartz, Quartz.

Mordy Oberstein:

Quartz, damn. God, how did I know not...? I was spitballing, I was like, "Damn, you don't have a rhyme," but Quartz.

Crystal Carter:

Crystal knows all about the gems here. We're talking about crystals.

Mordy Oberstein:

You know why? Because nothing rhymes with Oberstein so I don't have any good last name rhymes.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I was on the phone and sometimes when I explained my name on the phone they're like, "Oh, can you spell your name?" I'm like, "Yeah, it's Crystal like the glass," and then one time I said, "And Carter like the trolley," which is like-

Mordy Oberstein:

The trolley?

Crystal Carter:

They were like, "What are you talking about?" As soon as I said it, you know when you say something and you're like, "That is silly."

Mordy Oberstein:

You should be like, "Carter like that Stallone movie," which is a remake of another movie.

Crystal Carter:

Get Carter, Get Carte.

Mordy Oberstein:

Get Carter, Carter.

Crystal Carter:

Originally with Michael Caine.

Mordy Oberstein:

Michael Caine, yeah, yeah.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, "Blow the fricking doors off," or whatever. "I could blow the bloody doors off," I think that's what he says.

Mordy Oberstein:

People really don't like the Stallone movie. I liked it, I don't know why people don't like it, I thought it was good.

Crystal Carter:

It was all right it was kind of like gritty late '90s, early '90s kind of cinematography. But you know who really loves Sylvester Stallone movies?

Mordy Oberstein:

Barry. And you know who's Gritty? Barry. So here's the Snappy news with Barry and other people who cover the SEO news.

Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Oh, do we have some news for you this week? Oh man, where do I even start? I guess we'll start with Barry Schwartz over on Search Engine Land. Okay, Barry writes, "Google releasing massive search quality enhancements in March 2024, core update and multiple spam updates." At the start on March 5th, Google said that they have released the March 2024 core update and then a bunch of spam updates along with it. It's a lot to parse out and to digest so let's just take it, and I'm going to try to break it down as honestly as I possibly can because there's a lot to this.

Okay, so per Barry Schwartz, "Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Search at Google told Search Engine Land that the update will help reduce unhelpful content in Google by 40%. We expect that the combination of this update and our previous efforts will collectively reduce low quality unoriginal content in search results by 40%." That is a big, big number because this is a big, big update. Google is saying that multiple systems are being updated and tweaked and released during this update, is going to take them weeks upon weeks to actually roll out. Chris Nelson from the search quality team of Google is quoted by saying that it's a more complex update than our usual core updates, and that's why it's going to take so much time with so much rank fluctuations and so forth. Don't be scared, don't be scared.

Part of this is the helpful content update is now going to be a part of the core update. Google will no longer announce iterations of the helpful content update being updated, instead, it'll be part of the core algorithm like Panda was pushed into the core algorithm and it'll just be part of the core algorithm updates, which would be part of why this is taking so long and why there'd be so many rain fluctuations. Now, I initially thought, well, if the helpful content update becomes part of the core update, then the helpful content update kind of becomes diluted a bit by the other call it elements within the core update that weigh in and decide what should or should not be impacted in terms of rank.

I think I'm wrong, I think I was wrong, I think I'm right now. I think when instead is happening is that the helpful content update is getting a very, very prominent role in the core update itself. If you go back to what Barry wrote earlier in the article, which I quoted before, but I'll quote it again here just to remind you, Barry said, "Elizabeth Tucker, Director of Product Search at Google told Search Engine Land the update will help reduce unhelpful content in Google search by 40%," meaning Google's targeting low quality, unhelpful content trying to reduce it by a massive percentage, 40%, that's an insane percentage. So just let that resonate for a minute.

And I think what's happening is not what I originally thought, which was okay, the helpful content update will be integrated into the core algorithm and as a result it'll be a small fish in a large pond and it'll have a diluted effect. I think the opposite. I think Google's trying to make a very massive move here by saying that the helpful content will, unlike let's say Panda, which was out for a while, by the time it got moved into the core, it already kind of did its thing, that's not the case with the helpful content update. The helpful content update is a rather new update and it's not being integrated like, "All right, its impact is already there, we're moving on to other technologies and other parts of the algorithm that'll help us do new things like bird," that's not the case like it was back, in my opinion, with Panda.

In this case, the helpful content on that is new and novel and wouldn't be what I would expect to be integrated into the algorithm right now, although Glenn Gabe has predicted it will go into the algorithm way, way, way, way in the past, and he's right obviously because they are integrating into the algorithm, but I'm not surprised that they're integrating it into the core algorithm, I'm surprised that they're doing it now, being that this algorithm update is not old, it's new, or it's new-ish for an update for an algorithm it's pretty new. And I think it's going to have a massive role in the core algorithm and that the other elements of the core algorithm are going to adjust to it, not that the helpful content is going to adjust to the core.

And I think that's why it's going to take weeks for this to roll out, like Google is saying, and that's why there's going to be a lot of fluctuations because they're not just putting the helpful content update into the core and letting the helpful content update sort of adjust and integrate in a mesh and become like a stew into the core, they're re-aligning the core to align with the helpful content update. That's my theory. Again, say it very clearly, that's my theory. I don't know for sure that that's happening, but that's what makes the most sense to me, and I'll tell you why. Because Google has a perception problem, it has a real problem with the search results and it also has a perception problem. And Google has to, A, create the impression that is going to be making a seismic shift or a seismic change on the SERP and to what it's showing on the SERP so it's making this announcement.

But it can't just make an announcement and not have any backbone to it, any substance to it, they actually have to make it an actual move. What's the actual move? Is the actual move to integrate an algorithm that already exists, the helpful content update, into the core algorithm, in which case the helpful content update would essentially be diluted as it aligns with the other elements in the core algorithm rather. Is that the move? That's not really a move, that's not going to change anything. What would change something would be integrating the helpful content update into the core algorithm and giving it a place of prominence, that would be a seismic shift and a seismic change. And again, what's really interesting about that is that the helpful content is a learning algorithm and it's relatively new, has it learned enough to have such a role? If I am correct, which I think I'm correct, but who knows for sure? Only Google does.

Along with this, if that wasn't enough for you and that was a mouthful, Google is releasing a few spam updates. There's the March 2024 spam update, which includes a bunch of things. First off, it includes going after what they call scaled content abuse, basically programmatic content even for example AI content, which you're just building tons and tons of this garbage, thin, unhelpful, ridiculous content to try to rank. Google's saying, "Yeah, we're going to go after that with this update. We're also going to release lots and lots of manual actions to go after the site." And that leads us to Barry's other article from Search Engine Round Table where Barry writes, "Google unleashes manual actions galore after search spam policy updates." Google has gone hog wild releasing manual actions according to some, like Glenn Gabe, there's been at least that we know of around 1400 manual actions sort of enough to maybe train an algorithm in my personal opinion.

But okay, Google has gone after these websites, and Glenn, thank you for sharing a couple of examples on this so I can see it where it's just absolute pure AI garbage, it's the entire website, there's really nothing of actual value there, the website is just trying to manipulate Google into ranking the content, it's not actually trying to target users, provide users with anything of value. And Google has killed off these websites with manual actions. So that's one part of this whole spam update bonanza.

Going back to Barry's Search Engine Land article, we're just bouncing from Barry to Barry here, there's two other elements of the spam targeting. One is expired domain abuse, which is now going to be considered spam officially. Basically, you have an old domain, you buy the domain, that domain, let's say it was very strong reputation for years and years and years about selling bicycles. You're like, "All right, I'll capitalize on the authority that this domain has, and I will start writing content about all sorts of nonsense that I want to target, not about bicycles at all. And I'll sort of trick Google into thinking that, "Hey, this is still that same old website, that same old domain with all that great authority and money, whatever, whatever, all those back links but I'm writing a bunch of garbage content,"" that's going to be considered spam and Google's going to go after that.

Along with parasites or Google calls site reputation abuse. That's basically where I go, "Hey," I don't know, "Sports Illustrated, because you would never do anything like this, let me buy some space rather on your website, and you'll host my articles on your website. So I'll write about the power of whatever, I don't know, magic pill, magic bean that I'm selling, and I'll host it and I'll pay you, Sports Illustrated," just as an example, "To host this on your website, and I will get the authority of Sports Illustrated for my ridiculous content." So that is going to be considered abuse, and Google is going to go after it. Google said, "Such content ranking highly in search can confuse or mislead visitors who may have vastly different expectations for the content on a given website." Google said that this doesn't include all types of advertorial articles on websites, Google said that, no, sometimes that's actually fine, right? Not all third party content is a violation in this way. It's only when it's hosted with what Google says is, "Without close oversight and is intended to manipulate search ranking."

So Google said, "Many publications host advertising content that is intended for their regular readers rather than to primarily manipulate search rankings, sometimes called native advertising or advertorial. This kind of content typically wouldn't confuse readers or regular readers of the publication when they find it on the publisher site directly or when arriving at it from Google search results." So I'll give you an example, Search Engine Journal hosts advertised articles, paid articles, and they're usually from an SEO tool, I think, well, Wix Studio, we've done one-on-one about how you can use Wix Studio to manage clients and manage your SEO team, yada, yada, yada. It's in line with what Search Engine Journal talks about, which is SEO, digital marketing, so those articles align and they clearly say it's an ad announcement, it's paid so you know that it's paid, but topically the content makes total sense. Sure, it makes sense that Semrush would write a paid article on Search Engine Journal because what Search Engine Journal talks about and what Semrush does are pretty much very much the same thing, so that makes sense. It's when you would have, let's say, some kind of medical magical pill having a sponsored article on Search Engine Journal, that wouldn't make any sense, that would be confusing, and that would be basically to manipulate all sorts of stuff. So that's out.

So a lot of updates, a lot of things going on. It's going to take weeks for this to roll out. We'll see if my theory is true. Let me know on Twitter, or X, whatever you want to call it, if you think that you like my theory, if you hate my theory, I'd love to hear from you. I think it's a really interesting conversation. I think the stuff is fascinating in the sense that you get to really kind of see and theorize about how Google's functioning. But of course, it's also terrifying because algorithm updates can be just terrifying. But it'll take weeks to roll out, don't freak out, don't change things on your website because you see fluctuations, things go up, things go down, there are reversals within algorithm updates. So wait, it takes time, be patient and don't freak out. That's my best advice for you. And that's this week's snappy news.

Boy, is he gritty, huh, that Barry?

Crystal Carter:

I bet he also likes climbing stairs. I bet that's also a thing that he's into.

Mordy Oberstein:

Climbing stairs? Yeah, totally, yeah. What's that, true grit? Another movie, Barry's True Grit.

Crystal Carter:

True Grit, that's not a Stallone movie.

Mordy Oberstein:

No, not a Stallone movie at all. It was another movie, talking about movies. True Grit was with, I'm pretty sure it's a remake, but it was with-

Crystal Carter:

Wasn't it originally John Wayne?

Mordy Oberstein:

I don't know, I'm not that old. I'm old, but I'm not that old. It was with The Big Labowski, Jeff Bridges.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

But the first one, I don't remember who was in the first one. I'm pretty sure it was-

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, no, the original one, yeah, it's John Wayne.

Mordy Oberstein:

John Wayne? Didn't see it.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I've never seen it. I just know-

Mordy Oberstein:

Ask me if I've ever seen a John Wayne movie ever. I think I've seen one because my grandfather liked John Wayne a lot.

Crystal Carter:

I don't particularly remember ever seeing one, but I live on Earth, so I've heard of him.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm sure we've seen them, like the Channel 11 Sunday afternoon matinee.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if we're going westerns, I watched all the spaghetti westerns. Yeah, I watched all them.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh yeah, hands down for me. Womp womp womp.

Crystal Carter:

Love that.

Mordy Oberstein:

Which brings us obviously to our follow of the week, literally logical progression of this, which is a local SEO superstar. She does all sorts of studies and they're freaking awesome, I love them, keep doing them. Joy Hawkins from Sterling Sky. You can find Joy on X Twitter, whatever you want to call it at Joyanne, J-O-Y-A-N-N-E-H-A-W-K-I-N-S. Well, that's a long one, JoyanneHawkins on Twitter, on X, whatever it is. She's part of local university. She runs Sterling Sky. She puts out all sorts of amazing content around local SEO. So please, please, follow her and Joy, keep doing those local SEO studies that Barry often covers, because I think they're fascinating.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, Joy is fantastic. She's also really active on video platforms as well, so sharing content that way as well. And she's going to be speaking at Mascon this year, so yeah, I'm speaking there, last year I spoke and I referenced one of her studies because it was brilliant, and she was in the audience and she was like, "Yeah, do y'all see that study? It's right here." And I was like, "Yeah, Joy, tell the people, tell them all." Yeah, so she's speaking this year, and I cannot wait to see her speak because she's like wicked smart. It's like-

Mordy Oberstein:

I didn't know you did a Boston thing.

Crystal Carter:

That's a local joke because for local people in Boston, they'll know that. I literally only know that from Goodwill Hunting, but I've never actually been to Boston, but she's wicked smart, that's true, that is true. And so, yeah, follow Joy, she's great.

Mordy Oberstein:

I feel like Boston had a good baseball team. They're the worst, the Red Sox.

Crystal Carter:

I do not endorse that comment. I have no dog in that fight.

Mordy Oberstein:

No. Oh, really? I thought you would support me in this.

Crystal Carter:

I don't know. Sports rivalries get heated. I'm not-

Mordy Oberstein:

I think they're fun. If you're listening, you're a Boston Red Sox fan, I would say I apologize but as a Yankee fan, I don't, but I still love you. I still love you.

Crystal Carter:

See, again, that's some local knowledge there.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, see, it's all about local, yeah. There's a lot of local rivalries in sports, particularly New York where I'm from, and Boston.

Crystal Carter:

This is true. This is absolutely true. I mean, I guess I'm kind of a Raiders fan, and they just have rivalry with everybody. They're just like-

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, you know who's a Raider fan? Glenn Gabe is a Raider fan.

Crystal Carter:

Boom. I think they're the only football team I've ever gone to see. I saw them at the Coliseum back in the day.

Mordy Oberstein:

Back in the day, back in the day when John Madam was the coach?

Crystal Carter:

I can't remember who was the coach.

Mordy Oberstein:

He was, I think, before in the '70s.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, no, not that. I don't go that far back, damn.

Mordy Oberstein:

Honestly, I don't know. I don't want to... No.

Crystal Carter:

We digress.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, I think at this point we've gotten all the rails too far, so thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episode as we dive into the practical value of understanding entities for SEO. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub or wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars and resources on the Wix SEO learning at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace and love and SEO.