Spam is taking over Google My Business, damaging rule-abiding local businesses’ chances of appearing in the local pack due to spammers gaming the system. This epidemic of fake listings, keyword-stuffed business names, and falsified reviews affects local businesses everywhere, and it’s up to local marketers to set businesses straight. In our ‘How to Fight Spam… Read More

Rosie Murphy
February 15th, 2019

Spam in Google My Business comes in many forms. While we know spam is a big concern of the local SEO elite, we wanted to know how the local marketers using BrightLocal were dealing with spammy GMB listings. Ahead of our webinar, ‘How to Fight Spam and Influence Rankings‘, we asked BrightLocal users a series… Read More

Rosie Murphy
February 13th, 2019

The Local Search Industry Survey is an annual study that uncovers what it’s like to work in local SEO today. It explores how business practices, pricing, services, and salaries change each year. The seventh yearly report is based on responses from 650 local marketers from a range of agencies, local businesses, franchises, and freelancers. Participants… Read More

Rosie Murphy
February 1st, 2019

For the final webinar of 2018, we gathered a panel of SEO experts to discuss the findings of recent SEO research against the backdrop of this year’s Google algorithm updates. So throw away those crystal balls and join Andrew Shotland (Local SEO Guide), Dana DiTomaso (Kick Point), and Darren Shaw (Whitespark) to find out what… Read More

Rosie Murphy
December 11th, 2018

Welcome to this year’s Local Consumer Review Survey! We’ve compiled the latest trends in online reviews for businesses, giving you all the statistics you need to develop your online reputation management strategy for local businesses. When we first released this report way back in 2010, we could never have imagined how important reviews would become… Read More

Rosie Murphy
December 7th, 2018

The mobile-first index should have come as no surprise to local businesses. Google announced its plans for mobile way back in 2016, and its slow rollout has given businesses plenty of time to adhere to the new expectations. In July, many local businesses received notifications that mobile-first indexing was now enabled for their sites. And… Read More

Rosie Murphy
November 9th, 2018

It’s official: review signals are becoming even more important to local SEO rankings. We know Google values trustworthy businesses, and frequent and positive reviews are one way to assess who comes out on top. And while plenty of other review sites exist, Google reviews’ visibility in search results is helping make Google the fastest-growing reviews… Read More

Rosie Murphy
October 31st, 2018

Welcome to the Local Services Ads Click Study! Local Services ads, or ‘Local Services by Google’ as they’re more formally known, are Google’s latest in-SERP advertising option for local and Service Area Businesses (SABs). With Google launching LSAs in more and more locations and for more types of businesses, we wanted to find out: What impact… Read More

Rosie Murphy
October 19th, 2018

At the start of August, Google confirmed they were rolling out a broad core algorithm update. This seemed to focus on YMYL websites with low E-A-T. Now that algorithm and SERP analysts have had sufficient time to investigate who the real winners and losers were, we brought together three of the most experienced local search… Read More

Rosie Murphy
October 4th, 2018