I’m a rabid skier and retired travel hacker so for the holidays I booked my younger brother and I some cheap flights to The Alps. Got a deal of $450 round trip. Pretty stoked about that.
While I was researching what to do in Austria I found myself so frustrated by the search results, they were all aggregate sites and not local results – think Tripadvisor or Yelp and not random personal blogs.
This experience is pretty universal, most travelers are looking for local insights, not tourist traps. Millennials in particular fall into this category with searching for novel experiences.
And Google knows this desire for unique results and they are making strides to include this desire for more local driven results. We’re starting to see fewer local SERPs with Yelp results, Trip Advisor results and other aggregator and reviews sites.
Here are screenshots of traffic for Yelp and Trip advisor, rather static in growth over the last year.
So before we dive in here’s some credibility building – I am keen to these spaces because I help clients in a geography specific travel niche space and also help small and medium sized businesses with their local SEO and Google My Business SEO.
Here’s monthly impressions of a travel niche site that is related to a specific geography’s growth over the last 12 months.
Here’s a small business’s Google My Business search impressions over the last 12 months.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s lay down some stats to set a foundation:
- 50% of mobile searches are geographic related
- 20% of desktop searches are geographic related
- Most local results include a local pack
- More SERPs a diverse composition of geography specialized sites in the search results
So let’s talk about this, when I say local pack what is that?
It’s the map section at the top of the results.
Here it is on desktop for coffee shops boise.
Here is that same query on mobile.
Some things I would like to point out:
- this map pack is the only thing users see when the results first load
- The user has to scroll down to see anything else
- This section is not from your website – it is taken directly from Google My Business
This is Google owned source of information and if you haven’t created an account for your business on Google My Business it is very unlikely you’ll be in the local pack results.
Google My Business is also the only vehicle you have to show up on Google Maps results, and Google Maps is quickly becoming the de facto choice users go to for local business searches. Over 1 billion people are using Google Maps daily and majority for local searches.
Now let’s look at the results below the local pack. Blue is aggregators and red it geography specific niche sites.
Notice they are almost even. A year ago it didn’t look like this. You would see listicles for everything. The change we’re seeing is to diversify your results.
Cool, so hopefully at this point you’re realizing this shit is important for local and travel.
What are some simple ways to win?
Google My Business Tips
- Put your businesses keywords in the title and description of your Google my business listing
- Get reviews to your listing
- Be on other local listing sites with a consistent NAP
- Get talked about on other sites
Travel Site Tips for SERPs
- Stay geography centric
- Build links
- Look for keyword arbitrage
