Click Through Rate
Your Clickthrough rate (or CTR), refers to the number of times people have clicked on your listing or link to be taken to your website or page. Google hasn’t given away any specifics about this ranking factor, and there has been a lot of debate about how much it affects your Local Search Score. Evidence from respected search engine experts such as Rand Fisher from Moz.com demonstrates it does have impact though. When it comes to Local Search, Google sees clickthrough rate as an indication that searchers in a specific location see your business as relevant.
What you can do to improve it: To boost your organic clickthrough rate for local search, you need to make sure you have area specific title and tags, and appealing, relevant meta description on your webpages. Getting a significant number of positive Google My Business reviews will also help, as more people will click through to visit your business page if they see other people rate your brand highly.
Personalisation
Thanks to Google services, many of us are always signed into our accounts on every device we own and the behavioural data we generate is being collected and analysed by Google. Google tracking collects a whole lot of information, including the websites we’ve visited and interacted with, our locations, and invoices sent from brands to our Gmail accounts. Whenever we make a local search, Google takes this information into account, before it returns the results. Brands we’ve previously interacted with online, nearby businesses, and businesses we’ve purchased from, all get priority in the tailored search results we see.
What you can do to improve it: Every searcher sees a different result, so you need to concentrate on getting as many people as possible to look up your brand. Focus on engaging with your customers, so they regularly visit your page, and encourage them to spread the word to friends and family, so you attract more area specific visits, and generate data that Google will use to inform future search results.
Knowledge Panel Interactions
Knowledge panels are displayed in Google search results whenever users look up people, places, information, or things. They give searchers a brief overview of a topic, usually by outlining the most important essential information and can include contact details. Google automatically creates Knowledge Panels, using information drawn from several different sources around the web, including your Google My Business Profile. When local users search, Google now displays a higher percentage of Knowledge Panel results, which has resulted in a lower number of click throughs to branded websites – under 50% currently. The actions local searchers perform within these Knowledge Panels give a serious boost to your brand in Google’s eyes, as the company views them as a more serious indication of interest in your brand than a website visit. If you have filled out the contact number option on your Google My Business profile, it will appear as a clickable icon in search, within your business’s Knowledge Panel box. This gives mobile searchers the option to call you via the Knowledge Panel using Google’s mobile click to call option, to request driving directions, or click to book. When they do, Google collects this data and counts it as an endorsement of your business from searchers in that location. The most important Knowledge Interaction is when people request driving directions, as this shows Google they have a serious intention to visit that location. Google will evaluate the number of people from geographic locales who make Knowledge Panel requests for your business. The information Google collects will go towards assessing your brand location relevancy, which affects where you rank when users make a local search.
What you can do to improve it: To ensure as many people as possible make Knowledge Panel interactions with your brand, ensure all your online information is filled out, particularly the information in your Google My Business profile. This will ensure Google has plenty to work with when it creates the Knowledge Panel results people see. You can also offer people the option to book online if possible, as this option will be displayed in the Knowledge Panel, if your business offers it.
Offline transactions
Google collects data on the purchases people make offline AND online, through mobile payments like Apple Pay. Due to its recent partnership with several major credit card companies, it also now tracks 70% of all purchases made with a credit card. Though there is no exact data, the number of mobile payment and credit card transactions your business receives is highly likely to impact the way Google views the popularity of your local business. This will impact on how Google positions you in local search, as it is considered an extremely high-quality, personalised signal, and is the ultimate endorsement of your brand. Though it likely only plays a small part, the importance of these personalised transactions will increase over time, as more people pay through their smartphones, and Google expands its tracking to monitor more transactions.
What you can do to improve it: If you can boost this signal, you likely already have a thriving brand, as it means plenty of people are buying from you! The only thing you can do here is ensure you create a strong business, using a combination of solid products and services, fair prices, and an effective marketing strategy. This is ultimately what will encourage as many people as possible to make a purchase with your brand. So, spend time on nurturing customer relationships to retain custom, as well as reaching out to win more. And of course, you must optimise both your local and general SEO approach, to make sure your business details are easily discoverable in the first place.