Citations and local listings are back in the spotlight

There’s been a lot of talk about citations in the context of AI search. For traditional SEOs, citations mean unlinked brand mentions, i.e., your business being mentioned in a news article, blog post, or PR, but without a direct link back to your site. While these have always been part of a solid online presence, now these unlinked mentions, along with local citations and listings, are being seen as key for ranking in AI searches.

Obviously, for local SEOs, citations are something we’ve been using for years.

Citations in the form of local listings and aggregators used to be absolutely vital for local visibility. In recent years, they have become more of a foundational task. But with AI-driven search on the rise, they’re making a big comeback, often being referenced directly by these new AI platforms.

For example, Data Axle points out how crucial it is to get your locations synced with major voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri, and to ensure accuracy for GPS services like Uber. If your business doesn’t refresh and rebuild its listings and citations for this new AI-driven world, it’s definitely going to miss out.

Foursquare’s surprising role with ChatGPT

Here’s a real head-scratcher that shows just how important diverse local data sources are: the partnership between Foursquare and ChatGPT. A few months ago, Foursquare teamed up directly with ChatGPT, meaning Foursquare’s location data is now powering many of the AI’s responses.

What’s really wild about this is that Foursquare has pretty much retired its consumer-facing apps and websites. Yet, it’s now a key aggregator for AI search. It’s important to note that Foursquare isn’t necessarily appearing as a directly linked source in the way other citation or listing sites might. Instead, AI models are pulling information straight from their vast database. Reports suggest that a significant 60% and 70% of local results on ChatGPT come straight from Foursquare’s city guide listings, especially for smaller towns or niche businesses.

This really hammers home that listings beyond just Google Business Profile (GBP) and Yelp have real value. If ChatGPT doesn’t find enough info on Foursquare, then it turns to other sources, including Google Business Profile. With over 100 million points of interest in more than 200 countries, Foursquare’s database is a surprisingly powerful player in the AI search game.

Source

What we’re seeing in AI search: All LLMs are using directories for sources, and Yelp is prevalent

From what we’re observing across various AI search platforms, there’s a clear shift in how local business info is being pulled and presented. We did some real-world searching and found the following.

Directories are key for AI search

All LLMs are using directories and citations for business information across every industry.

• Platforms like MapQuest were frequently leveraged by both Google AI Mode and Perplexity, demonstrating that even long-standing directories remain highly influential in the AI ecosystem.
• For specialized sectors, AI models exhibit a strong preference for industry-specific directories.
  • In our dentistry searches, for example, ChatGPT exclusively sourced information from ten different dental directories. Toprateddentist.com appeared as a key source for Gemini, AI Mode, and ChatGPT across these searches.
  • Similarly, sites like Superlawyers.com and Findlaw.com were heavily relied upon by ChatGPT and Perplexity for legal-related queries. This emphasizes the need to be present and accurate within your specific industry’s leading directories.

Yelp is a strong influence

Despite a fluctuating reputation among some users, Yelp remains an undeniable force in AI search:

• Yelp was used as a source in 33% of our overall searches. Perplexity notably used Yelp in every single industry we investigated, though not for every individual search within those industries.
• While Google Gemini was the only LLM that did not directly cite Yelp, Google AI Mode still pulled information from Yelp for multiple industries, including dental, hospitality, and fitness.
• LLMs utilized Yelp not only to extract specific business information but also, crucially, to surface and summarize customer reviews.

Google Business Profile is still essential for Google’s LLMs

Unsurprisingly, Google’s own AI models heavily favor Google Business Profile listings:

Even in instances where GBP wasn’t the main cited source, AI Mode would still display GBP information within its results. It often summarizes key details via text alongside data from other sources before presenting the full GBP listing further down. This highlights its importance for visibility within Google’s AI environment.

Your business website really matters

Perhaps the most reassuring finding for businesses is the continued importance of their own websites.

In our previous ChatGPT source study in December 2024, we found that ChatGPT used business websites as a source 58% of the time. This continues to be the case.

The vast majority of sources across every single LLM and industry were businesses’ own websites. This finding really highlights just how critical it is to have your own, well-maintained website. Your website serves as the ultimate authoritative source for LLMs seeking the most accurate and complete information.

How to Build a Local Business Website From Scratch (Without Screwing It Up)

Learn more

Other notable findings

While directories and your website form the backbone, our research also points to other content types and platforms influencing AI search results:

• For industries like hospitality, blogs and lifestyle-oriented websites frequently appeared as sources, indicating the value of content marketing and partnerships beyond traditional listings.
• Social platforms are increasingly contributing to the AI search landscape.
  • Instagram was cited as a source by both Google AI Mode and Perplexity.
  • Facebook was used by Google AI Mode and ChatGPT.
  • YouTube content influenced results for both Gemini and Perplexity.

This shows your business needs a complete online presence with accurate information, good review management, and engaging content on many different platforms to help AI find you easily.

What this means for your business

The rise of AI search is a game-changer for how your business needs to approach getting found online. To make sure your business stays in the running in this new era, here’s what you need to focus on in terms of citations and listings: 

1. Build and optimize your foundational citations (including niche and key directories)

Our research clearly shows that directories are key for AI search. LLMs are extensively using them across every industry. This means actively working on getting your business mentioned across all sorts of online platforms, both broad and niche-specific. 

Platforms like MapQuest were frequently cited, highlighting the continued importance of even long-standing directories. Also, for specialized sectors like dentistry (where Toprateddentist.com was a key source) or legal (with Superlawyers.com and Findlaw.com), AI models show a strong preference for industry-specific directories.

Our Citation Builder service can streamline this process. Our team of experts finds and builds high-quality citations on relevant directories for you. You can also use our Citation Tracker tool to keep an eye on your existing citations, helping you spot inconsistencies or new opportunities that can boost your online authority.

2. Prioritize Google Business Profile

Google AI Mode consistently relied on GBP as a primary information source, often summarizing its details even when other sources were also used. This highlights that a complete, accurate, and optimized GBP is non-negotiable for visibility within Google’s AI environment.

3. Optimize your website

Our findings show that your business’s own website is often the dominant source for LLMs. This means your website is truly your most important online asset. Ensure it’s up-to-date with essential information, including your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP), detailed services offered, current opening hours, compelling photos, answers to FAQs, customer reviews (and links to review platforms), and comprehensive business descriptions. 

4. Leverage data aggregators

Platforms like Data Axle, Foursquare, Neustar, and others are crucial for making sure your business info gets shared across AI search engines, voice assistants, and navigation systems. These aggregators push your core data out widely, ensuring LLMs have access to consistent information.

As part of our Citation Builder service, we offer direct submissions to the five major Data Aggregator Networks (including Data Axle, Foursquare, and Neustar). This ensures your core business information is pushed out to thousands of directories, apps, and mapping services, widening your reach to where AI models get their data.

5. Stay on top of your listings management

Our research, particularly on Yelp, demonstrates the strong influence of review platforms. Yelp was a source in a significant 33% of our searches, used not just for business info but crucially, to summarize customer reviews. This underscores the need to make absolutely sure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are identical across all your online listings, your website, Google Business Profile, Foursquare, Apple Maps, and social media. 

Keep all your profiles complete, accurate, and up-to-date with details like categories, hours, and photos. And don’t forget to actively manage customer reviews; they play a big part in how AI pulls together information and ranks businesses. Also, using strategic keywords in your listings can help improve their performance in local searches.

Our Active Sync tool ensures your most important business information is consistent and accurate across major platforms like Google, Facebook, Apple Maps, and Bing. It helps prevent unwanted edits and quickly pushes out updates. 

With our Reputation Manager tool, you can monitor reviews across 80+ sites, get notified of new feedback, and even generate more positive reviews, all helping to build the strong online presence AI algorithms are looking for.

6. Cultivate local mentions and PR

Beyond directories and your website, our findings show that other content types and platforms are influencing AI search. For instance, content and lifestyle sites were sources for hospitality queries, with reputable lifestyle publications like Time Out and smaller, more location—or industry-specific blogs.

Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube were also cited by various LLMs. 

Cultivating local mentions and securing links from local news sites, community blogs, and other authoritative online sources is increasingly important. Our research into AI sources shows that these types of online local mentions are key signals in the eyes of AI algorithms. So, investing time in local public relations and actively seeking out these non-directory mentions will play a crucial role in your success.

AI search isn’t something that’s coming; it’s here now. Adapting your local SEO strategies to fit this new AI landscape will put you in the best position to get seen by customers, no matter where they’re looking.

Not even 18 months ago, we found that ChatGPT’s local search capabilities were pretty poor. Fast-forward to now, and ChatGPT-4 enables users to search the web in real time, producing local search results similar to Google or Bing.

Hot on the heels of our recent Business Listings Visibility Study, where we analyzed the types of results Google surfaces for local queries, we got straight to work replicating the study for ChatGPT Search. So, ready to dive in?

Methodology and Terminology Used

In this study, we conducted 800 manual local business web searches in ChatGPT, recording the first ten search sources ChatGPT displays in its local results’ ‘Sources.’ It’s important to note that while Google displays results in the hundreds, ChatGPT’s ‘Sources’ can vary significantly—sometimes showing only a handful of sources and other times showing more than ten.

The image below highlights the difference between what ChatGPT displays as results (or answers) to the user query, and the sources for its answers.

We used the exact search terms used within the Business Listings Visibility Study so that we could provide a direct comparison of the results. As we did in that study, we used one ‘transactional’ keyword (e.g. “coffee shop”) and one ‘informational’ keyword (e.g. “best coffee shop”) in searches across 20 different business verticals, using 20 different US cities.

Understanding Definitions Within This Study

For every search result source, we recorded the website name and classification of each website’s ‘type’ using the following criteria:

Search Results Compared

Nearly three-fifths (58%) of all the sources for ChatGPT Search results were business websites. Typically, these were local business websites directly related to the business type or business vertical contained within the search term (e.g. “coffee shop chicago”, “hair salon boston”).

Business websites were also the top result type in the Business Listings Visibility Study (47%). As we noted then, you would generally expect to see business websites dominating search engine results based on the interests and intent of users, so it follows that ChatGPT Search might mimic a similar number of results if it understands intent in the same way.

Business mentions made up more than a quarter (27%) of ChatGPT Search sources across the local searches we conducted. This is significantly chunkier than the 16% we saw for Google’s search engine results. As we’ll get to later on, Wikipedia surprisingly dominates the business mention category throughout this study.

Meanwhile, business directories only made up 15% of ChatGPT Search’s sources. It’s very interesting to note the difference in both the presence and breadth of directory results within this study compared to the business listings study. Not only do directory results show up less for ChatGPT searches than Google searches, but some of the most prominent directories, like Yelp and Facebook, do not appear at all.

The most prominent directory found as a source throughout this study was Three Best Rated, making up almost a quarter of all directory sources (24%), followed by Expertise (18%). Although it seems odd that some of the best-known business directories are missing from the first ten sources, it serves as a reminder that brands and businesses should take the opportunity to boost visibility in all the relevant places, and not just the most well-known ones.

When we look at the breakdown of results for transactional and informational search terms, the pattern stays the same. 

However, informational search terms see more of a level split between business website results (43%), business mentions (35%) and directories (22%), while transactional search term sources are largely skewed towards business websites (72%). 

Healthcare and Wellness

Searches for healthcare and wellness businesses predominantly surface business website results. It largely makes sense when you consider the general nature and urgency of a person needing to find a healthcare business. For more urgent care, they’re less likely to want to spend time comparing business information, and will just want to see which businesses are closest to them on a map.

There are just four terms in this group where business website results appear for fewer than 50% of the first ten ChatGPT sources: ‘best chiropractor,’ ‘best day spa,’ ‘best dentist,’ and ‘best gym.’

In these cases, we see more directory sources, yet there does not seem to be a clear reason for this—particularly when Three Best Rated appears as a directory source for so many different business searches. 

It does make sense that ‘best day spa’ and ‘best gym’ would have a higher percentage of business mentions within ChatGPT Search sources. After all, these are the more wellness-focused businesses, for which potential customers might want to read different types of articles and reviews before making a decision.

Hospitality

The hospitality searches are dominated by a range of business mention results. These include well-known hospitality publications like Thrillist, Eater, and The Culture Trip, while local blogs and news sites like Secret Seattle and San Diego Magazine appear for specific location terms.

It is surprising that directories are not more prominent for hotel searches. While giants like Tripadvisor, Expedia, and Booking.com did appear in source lists, they are largely overshadowed by business mentions. If you think about the results you would see in Google’s SERPs, hotel results tend to be very transaction-led, and travel directories themselves have become commercial comparison or booking platforms—so it could be that this is intentional on ChatGPT’s part.

However, the most common business mention source was Wikipedia, which also seems an odd result for hotel searches. It’s not exactly the glossy, photo-laden review content you might expect from Condé Nast or similar.

Services and Trades

A typical search engine user might expect to see many directory results in the Services and Trades group, such as Thumbtack, Angi, BBB, and so on. It’s surprising, then, that only two of the search terms generated a significant number of directory results in the source lists (“best electrician” at 62%; “best storage facility” at 35%).

It’s also not clear why there is such a difference between the number of directory results appearing for ‘best electrician’ and ‘best storage facility’ searches.

As with the healthcare group, sources for Services and Trades searches are mostly in the business website category. Arguably, there is also some degree of urgency attached to the intent behind local services searches, which might explain why the results are mostly business websites. 

Then again, because ChatGPT Search is still so new, we don’t know enough about how well it understands web search intent.

‘Your Money or Your Life’ (YMYL)

The ‘Your Money or Your Life’ group concerns businesses that can impact clients’ lives, health, and finances. Here, directory results take a stronger share of the sources. 

It makes sense that someone searching for these types of businesses would want to compare professionals and businesses by using directories. Directories provide the opportunity to compare customer reviews and read professional profiles in more of a side-by-side view than simply flicking between business websites.

It’s also notable that these percentages tend to increase for informational terms, where a user is more likely to be looking for a comparison.

Entertainment

The Entertainment group is another interesting one where directories are surprisingly absent, although the findings are similar to those of our business listings study.

Both ‘betting store’ search terms see a very large number of business mentions, which, as we discovered in the Business Listings Visibility Study, is likely due to gambling regulations varying so much from state to state. Therefore, local and trade publications are likely to cover the topics.

Notable Findings

Mentions on Wikipedia

As we touched on in the hospitality and entertainment sections above, Wikipedia makes a surprising number of appearances throughout this study. Generally, where local business searches are concerned, Wikipedia is an uncommon result—particularly to appear within the first ten results. This is likely because, as a largely educational platform, it does not match the ‘informational’ intent behind searches such as ‘best coffee shop’ or ‘best hotel.’

Wikipedia probably appears as a source in ChatGPT Search because the platform is trained on Wikipedia’s articles and media. Although this suggests that LLMs might still have some learning to do regarding search intent, it does highlight the value of a Wikipedia presence—something many business owners and brands might not have previously considered.

The below screenshot highlights an example of a local business with its own Wikipedia entry.

If you’re interested in learning more about the relationship between Wikipedia entries and search engine sources, this guide explains how managing brand entities via Wikipedia can inform Google and influence features like knowledge graphs.

No Forum Presence in ChatGPT

One area we haven’t touched on yet is forums. We first conducted a SERP study to analyze result types in May 2024, when Reddit’s exclusive partnership with Google dramatically altered the types of results being surfaced to users. Since then, the Business Listings Visibility Study found that the presence of forum results had decreased significantly, accounting for just 7% of search results displaying for local business searches.

In the case of ChatGPT Search, it seems to ignore forums completely for local business searches. Although it seems that ChatGPT can access content from Reddit or Quora, based on the response below, there do seem to be limitations preventing ChatGPT from sourcing local business information from it.

Yet, at the time of writing, it appears that the Google-Reddit exclusivity deal is still in place. And it doesn’t explain why other forums like Quora aren’t present in its source lists, other than that ChatGPT might not deem these results ‘helpful’ enough.

How to Appear in ChatGPT Search’s Sources

ChatGPT Search, in its current form, has only been available since October 2024, so it’s unclear just how mainstream it might become as a search engine. Yet we can’t ignore the fact that over 300 million users are using the wider ChatGPT platform weekly, with over one billion messages sent a day. So, that’s a hefty number of people that could use it for local queries.

With that in mind, you want to give your brand the best shot at appearing in ChatGPT Search’s source lists. How?

Optimizing for LLMs

Crystal Carter recently put a guide together on optimizing for large language models (LLMs), so we’d strongly recommend reading this. The document can be quite technical and goes beyond just ChatGPT, but contains actionable insights to consider for ChatGPT, such as:

• Checking release notes and documentation for LLMs to keep up to date with changes
• Reporting inaccuracies regarding your brand as and when you see it
• Optimizing for the search engine that powers the LLM (in this case, Bing powers ChatGPT)

Local Marketing Matters

The good news is that optimizing for ChatGPT Search is not an entirely new area to learn, as the local search tactics that you already employ do make a difference. While the sources for information might vary, ChatGPT generally sources local business information like business reviews and ratings to surface results and inform some of the snippets of information it provides—even including Google reviews.

The prominence of business mentions in this study highlights a significant opportunity in building brand awareness through local link-building. Considering outreach and building relationships with different types of press and publications, like news sites, trade publications, and local blogs, can help secure business mentions in the right places. 

Many LLMs are working on securing partnerships with prominent media outlets to train models on their information, so securing coverage with some of your high-priority media outlets could bring two-birds-one-stone returns.

Summary

As we’ve highlighted, these results are a snapshot of ChatGPT Search right now—and things are moving fast. Even if you’re not quite ready to test the waters of LLM optimization (or GEO), now could be a good time to review your local marketing efforts and ensure your business information is correct and up to date in all the right places.

Have you tested out ChatGPT Search since its launch? Tell us about your experiences, or share your predictions with us! You can catch us over on LinkedIn, X, Blue Sky, or by joining our Facebook community, The Local Pack.

Appendix

Directories as ChatGPT Search Sources

Although business directories only make up 15% of ChatGPT Search’s sources in this study, 50% of all directories were dominated by the following websites:

• Three Best Rated (24%)
• Expertise (18%)
• Tripadvisor (8%)

The remaining 50% of directories are made up of the following:

We’ve been surveying the local search industry since 2011 to help marketers and SEOs assess its state. When you work in such a fast-moving and competitive industry, it’s natural to ask classic imposter syndrome questions, like “Am I doing this right?” or “What does everyone else think of this?”. So, we wanted to help marketers find the answers.

The Local Marketing Industry Survey: Agency Edition examines the experiences of almost 400 local agency marketers, including freelancers and consultants, agency owners, and agency employees of all levels. Let’s take a closer look at the insights. 

Local Agency Marketers at a Glance 

It helps to set the scene by taking a snapshot of how agency marketers are feeling about their roles and the wider industry. But who are we representing when we talk about ‘agency marketers’? 

We aim to provide realistic and balanced representations of local marketers so that our insights can be relevant, useful, and, more importantly, actionable. Below is a breakdown of agency roles and seniority. Aside from the smallest segment for C-suite agency marketers, you’ll see a pretty balanced spread.

Salary Averages in the USA: Gender Pay Gap of 31%

The median salary for local agency marketers in the USA in 2024 was $80,000.

We present the median salary instead of the average because it’s a better representation of the ‘mid-point,’ whereas averages can be skewed by numbers in the extremes. When we extracted the same data from 2023’s Local Search Industry Survey, we found no change year over year. So, it doesn’t look like agency marketers are any better off in 2024 than they were in 2023.

However, when we break the salary medians down by gender, a different picture emerges. Male agency marketers are earning 31% more than female agency marketers, highlighting a significant disparity.

According to Salary.com, the median US salary within the professional services industry is $77,454. Based on our findings, female local agency marketers earn 19% less than this, while males earn 3% above the professional services median.

Unfortunately, the gender pay gap disparity is not a new finding and is not just limited to this industry. Earlier this year, Search Engine Land found that male SEO professionals were earning 36% more than females, but it is an enduring issue across industries globally. 

I hope that in providing these figures, female-identifying local SEOs and agency marketers can use these benchmarks as a resource to negotiate higher, fairer salaries. But obviously, it’s not as simple a fix as that. Nicole DeLeon provided some great research and conclusions for Moz in 2020, highlighting areas that need to be improved across the industry (and beyond), such as salary transparency.

Salary Satisfaction Levels

On the surface, the majority of agency marketers feel satisfied with their salaries—67% of all respondents said they were ‘somewhat satisfied,’ ‘satisfied,’ or ‘very satisfied.’

However, we decided to break out freelancers and consultants to provide a view from a self-employment lens and acknowledge that determining (and paying!) your own salary can be challenging. While the pattern largely follows a similar sentiment, it is noticeable that a higher percentage of freelancers and consultants are ‘somewhat satisfied’ compared to ‘satisfied’ (29% vs. 23%), and 6% of freelancers and consultants are ‘very dissatisfied’ compared to just 2% of other local agency marketers.

We also looked at salary satisfaction broken down by gender to see if, knowing what we do about the salary disparity, female agency professionals might be feeling less satisfied with their salaries compared to male agency professionals. Nothing stood out from this view, and the patterns for both groups reflected a similar, generally positive sentiment that looks much like the chart above.

However, when salary satisfaction was broken down by years spent in the industry, one group stood out.

Just 46% of respondents with fewer than two years of industry experience feel satisfied with their salaries.

This could suggest that ‘entry-level’ agency professionals are eager to progress within their roles and earn higher salaries accordingly. It could also show that they feel frustrated at the compensation they’re receiving in relation to the responsibilities and tasks they have to perform. 

Generally, entry-level agency SEO and local marketing roles can involve many necessary but often time-consuming (and sometimes menial) tasks rather than the juicier areas like strategizing. It also tends to be the stage of a career where you’re more likely to need to learn quickly on the job, so the pressure can outweigh salary satisfaction—meaning, it’s easy to see why this group of respondents stands out.

Incentives Beyond Salary

Of course, there are other financial incentives associated with (but not exclusive to) salaries that feed into the ‘package’ an employer provides that will affect salary satisfaction overall. Bonuses, profit shares, commission, and other reward types are attractive incentives that can essentially ‘top up’ salary levels, while the prospect of salary increases and promotions highlights opportunities for career path progression.

So, aside from measuring median salary levels, we also wanted to gauge the other ways in which agency marketers are being invested in by their agencies. It’s important to note that we excluded freelancers and consultants from the chart below.

It’s encouraging that 40% of agency marketers have received a raise in the last 12 months, while a further third have benefited from various bonus schemes.

Almost a quarter (23%) of all agency marketers have not received any additional salary incentives, though. If we examine that group of local marketers more closely, we can see a distinct relationship to lower feelings of satisfaction around their salaries overall.

Incentives and motivation have been hotly debated topics in business and management disciplines for decades. As a business grad myself, I grimace any time a workshop facilitator asks the room if they know about the hierarchy of needs… but I digress. 

While many will argue that financial incentives aren’t a true motivator in the workplace, the fact is that even though inflation has slowed down, prices for just about everything in life remain high.

So, for agency owners or even senior agency marketers, it’s worth considering how you can introduce incentives that recognize your team members more and reflect your commitment to investing in them.

Career Progression and Learning at Work

Clear career pathways and progression opportunities are a big ‘green flag’ for any agency wanting to hire and retain top talent. Yet it’s all too common to hear professionals say that the only progression opportunities for them at work are in line management. 

Line management is a challenging task that requires a specific skill set. It is not for everyone. With this in mind, we asked agency marketers how they felt about their career progression opportunities at work.

The two statements reflected in the chart highlight that the majority of agency marketers have opportunities to develop at work. However, there is an interesting difference between the certainty of having clear progression paths at work and developing new areas of expertise. 

68% of marketers agree that they have clear progression paths within their agencies. In fact, a full 32% of respondents agreed strongly with the statement. Meanwhile, 85% said their agencies would be open to marketers developing new areas of expertise to achieve professional goals. Both are positive statements, but the difference suggests that development at work might be more self-led for some professionals, putting the onus on individuals to shape their development.

For some, that can be an empowering move, but realistically, it can be challenging to make time in your day-to-day life to learn new things. Having clarity in development and progression by ensuring line managers are regularly working with team members on a more formal plan removes that feeling that it’s ‘all on you’.

Training Budgets As An Incentive

Offering employees a personal training allowance, while not directly impacting salary, is a positive indicator that shows a commitment to growth and progression. In many cases, the ‘perk’ has become a desirable part of the overall employer package. It reflects good attitudes towards growth, and the personalization element highlights a sense of autonomy for agency marketers when shaping their development.

While freelancers and consultants can certainly allocate training and development budgets for themselves, we removed them from this dataset to examine how larger agencies approach training more closely.

Last year, we found that just 39% of agency marketers had access to personal training allowances, so it’s great to see how much this has improved, now standing at 57% of marketers.

For the remaining 43%, it might not necessarily mean that training and development isn’t an important part of their agency life. Access to events and industry conferences, product training or training with partners like Google and Meta are often regular parts of the job. Yet, arguably, those with access to a personal training budget are likely to benefit from both the necessary and chosen development opportunities.

We also had to wonder, while a training budget isn’t a direct financial incentive, does this autonomy and empowerment mean agency marketers are more fulfilled with their salaries? 

While we can’t directly compare all salaries here to say that those with training budgets are earning more than those without, it certainly seems like there is a relationship between salary satisfaction and personal training budgets. 76% of local agency marketers with training budgets are satisfied with their salaries, compared to 52% of agency marketers without allowances.

It follows that better access to training and development ensures professionals are learning new skills, therefore placing them in better positions for career progression, and leading to overall salary satisfaction.

Feelings of Job Security

Finally, and arguably more importantly than salary satisfaction, how are local agency marketers feeling within their roles right now?

It seems like we’re never short of ‘big things’ to acknowledge when discussing the current business or economic landscape, from inflation and significant industry layoffs to political unrest and global conflict. Therefore, it is important to gauge how secure marketers feel at work, and hopefully, it can help answer one of those imposter syndrome questions we mentioned at the start of the report.

Overall, the picture is strong, with just 8% of marketers stating they don’t feel very or at all secure. However, looking at this small group of respondents more closely, almost half are business owners, whether consultants or agency owners, so it gives a glimpse into how those with the closest eye on the bottom line are feeling.

Breakdown of job security levels by job role:

Moving Onto New Roles

All of the areas that we’ve discussed so far can become key reasons for wanting to move on to a new role. But there are other reasons for moving on that might sit entirely outside of an agency’s control, such as personal commitments and changes in circumstances, perhaps even a big career change. So, where do local agency marketers sit at the moment? 

Given that we can probably assume those who aren’t sure right now aren’t looking for a new job any time soon, that means approximately 65% of agency marketers plan on staying put for now. For the remaining 35% of marketers, what’s prompting their decision to move?

The main reason is pretty clear, and it comes back to our earlier point that, yes, money isn’t everything… but it is actually also sort of everything. 53% of marketers plan on moving on for a higher salary. Agency owners should wonder why that might be—are you paying your employees what they deserve, and are conversations around salaries approachable? For those professionals that did receive a raise in 2024, were they paid enough?

Meanwhile, improved work-life balance (41%) and workplace flexibility (40%) are two key areas that go hand-in-hand and show that many agency professionals are seeking a job that more closely matches their needs. 

Work-life balance and flexible working have become standard components of discussions around the workplace. You cannot move on LinkedIn without coming across thought leaders discussing their views on hybrid working, workplace flexibility and work-life balance. Even though 2024 seems to have been a big year for ‘return to work’ mandates, it’s clear from our findings that work-life balance continues to take precedence for agency employees.

Agency Health, Life and Approaches to Structure

In the following sections of the report, we’ll examine some key areas of agency life through the lens of ‘high performance.’ To determine who the high-performers were, we asked marketers what their agency’s primary goal had been throughout 2024, and followed up by asking how they’d performed so far towards that primary goal.

For the sake of this section we have divided up respondents into ‘High-performing Agencies’, and ‘Everyone Else’.

• ‘High-performing Agencies’ = Respondents who said their agencies were ‘exceeding’ performance expectations.
• ‘Everyone Else’ = Respondents who said their agencies’ performance has either ‘met’ or ‘fallen short’ of expectations this year.

This view can help us understand what the ‘High-performing Agencies’ are doing differently from everyone else.

Looking at those business goals, we can see that all agencies are largely following the same trend; new client acquisition, increasing revenue, and increasing the lifetime value of existing clients were the top three priorities.

The key difference, though, is that ‘High-performing Agencies’ prioritize increasing lifetime value (AKA customer retention) more than ‘Everyone Else’ (20% vs. 14%).

While there’s not a huge difference between the two percentage points, it raises an interesting point that seems to come up repeatedly when discussing business goals: the importance of customer retention. 

Earlier this year, we explored this theme in the Brand Beacon Report 2024, where similar findings highlighted how high-performing brands also valued customer retention more than their average-performing competitors. In that report, we touched on the supporting evidence that shows customer loyalty can have a greater impact on your bottom line than simply chasing new customers.

The ‘Right’ Agency Structure

The way an agency is structured and works with its clients is crucial to its success—but is there a right way of doing things? You know what I’m going to say here: well, it depends.

The overall size of an agency and its teams and the variety of services offered will influence how things are run, and it may change as the agency scales or diversifies. We were interested to see how agency marketers are typically set up and also whether we could glean any insights from those ‘High-performing Agencies’. 

Overall, there is a fair mix of team structures, which you’d expect to see. Aside from our freelancers and consultants, the top agency team structure is one where the account manager is a primary point of contact for all client work. It is also by far the most common structure for ‘High-performing Agencies’.

At first glance, I was surprised at these results, mainly based on my own experiences working within smaller, more collaborative agency team structures. Perhaps there is something to be said for the efficiency of running on this model, leaving channel specialists to actually spend time executing the work. 

Obviously, we’re not going to recommend restructuring your agency based on these insights, but if you ever find yourself wondering if there are better ways of doing things, it might give you some food for thought.

Choosing the Right Marketing Agency Structure

Read more

Approaches to Billing Clients

Billing is another area that completely varies based on the nature of the work you do, how your agency is structured or, as a freelancer, how you like to work. It’s also an area that has a lot of new agency owners or start-up consultants scratching their heads, so it’s useful to benchmark the approach. Again, is there a right way?

Monthly fees based on deliverables (or retainers) are still the most common billing method, although it’s very interesting to note the downward shift year-over-year (54% vs. 64%). Coinciding with this, there appears to be an upward trend in agencies billing by project (41% vs. 39%) and those calculating retainers based on hours (29% vs. 22%).

A monthly retainer based on hours suggests that these agencies have a very clear idea of how much their service products cost. On a similar note to the team structure section, it could also nod to a sense of efficiency in how agencies deliver their services. Alternatively, an hourly retainer model could be more attractive to some clients in that they can work with account managers to spend the money on the services they need accordingly.

What Should My Agency Be Charging for Local SEO?

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Local Marketing Services Provided

Which services are agencies packaging up into their core local marketing offering?

Before delving into a more comprehensive list, we’ve summarized the most commonly offered local marketing services in the chart below.

The majority of what we’d call the ‘fundamental’ local marketing services sit at the top of the list of services most commonly offered to clients. Although website design appears to be a surprisingly high (60%) offering for local marketing agencies, in this case, it is more common than local SEO pillars like citation management and review management.

The full list of local marketing services is shown below.

Based on previous benchmarking surveys, we expected review management, PPC, and social media to appear higher in the list. However, both PPC and social media require very different skill sets, and it’s not uncommon for clients to use multiple agencies based on their specialities. 

It is interesting to see that less than half of agencies offer review management (down by approximately 2% on 2023’s Local Search Industry Survey). Could it be that, rather than providing this service, agencies are encouraging and educating clients to implement these strategies themselves? This might also show that businesses and brands themselves have become more savvy about owning these areas of local marketing in-house.

The areas lower on the list, though, can also act as a gap analysis of sorts by highlighting that there is space in the local marketing agency market for ventures into these areas.  

Client Lifespan and Turnover

The aim of a successful agency is not necessarily to have the most clients but to have clients with fruitful and mutually beneficial partnerships. Sometimes, these partnerships come to a natural end as a project wraps up, while others are based on longer-term strategies and vision.

It’s an amazing feat to be able to say you’ve worked with a client for five or ten years, but you want to make sure that the relationship is still fruitful for both of you.

At first glance, the pattern for ‘High-performing Agencies’ versus ‘Everyone Else’ is largely similar, and it looks like the sweet spot for everyone is a client partnership between one and five years.

However, it’s also notable that ‘High-performing Agencies’ seem to retain the longest partnerships of 10 years and over more commonly. So, what are the top reasons for client turnover when they do inevitably move on?

It’s not surprising that budget cutting is the most common reason for client turnover. Whether you’re a high-performing agency or not, if clients are looking to save dollars, partner services and tools are often the first things to be scrutinized.

The reasons for turnover appear fairly even across all local agencies, but what is the least common reason for ‘High-performing Agencies’ is actually the second most common reason for ‘Everyone Else’: project work. Again, we’re not going to make any bold recommendations about overhauling the way your agency is doing things, but if your agency isn’t performing against expectations or is struggling with client turnover, it could be useful to examine the ways you are selling and billing work.

Reacting to Developments in Search

We can’t discuss the state of the search marketing industry without acknowledging some of the developments, innovations, and—let’s face it—shakeups influencing the way agency marketers do their jobs.

You don’t need me to point out how often things change within SEO. Along with constant developments and improvements to key local marketing products like Google Business Profile (GBP) that can change the tactics businesses in different industries use, the industry has seen plenty of big swings in 2024. I am, of course, referring to Google’s AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience), ChatGPT Search, and other changes in the way people search for things and get information online.

When big news breaks, agency marketers quickly turn to industry news outlets, experts and peers to see the reaction. But how aware are their clients of what’s going on?  

86% of local marketers agreed that their clients are aware of how new developments in search could impact their business visibility and rankings. 

Over the years that we’ve been running industry surveys, we’ve asked local marketers whether their clients see reacting to algorithm changes as an important focus. Considering algorithm updates are usually something you don’t ‘see’, Google overhauling its SERPs with AI Overviews has been big news. 

66% of agency marketers said their clients feel reacting to algorithm updates is an important focus in 2024, up 5% from 2023. It makes sense that clients want to stay on top of such changes.

Yet, as we know, the nature of local search is changing in ways beyond traditional search and the ways in which people discover businesses are changing. What about developments beyond Google? 

73% of local marketers agreed that clients are aware of the importance of ranking beyond Google. Although lower than the awareness of algorithm changes, it’s positive to see this in such high numbers. With the news of ChatGPT Search still hot off the press, it will be interesting to see how this might change in the coming months.

Local Marketing Agencies in 2025 and Beyond

With such big developments in the industry continuing to roll out, and absolutely no sign of the AI hype dying down, exciting opportunities lay ahead for agencies and their clients.

AI and Big Opportunities

Alongside big tech swings in 2024, we’ve also seen a real return to basics in terms of the impact of foundational SEO. E-E-A-T continues to be at the top of experts’ minds when highlighting the importance of focusing on end users. At the same time, those specializing in certain verticals or niches are quick to highlight the benefits of new GBP features. 

On the whole, where do agency marketers think the biggest opportunities are for their clients in 2025?

As a content purist, it fills me with joy to see that E-E-A-T is front of mind for agency marketers as the top opportunity (24%) when it comes to their local marketing strategies. Of course, being at the behest of Google’s guidelines, you could argue that it leaves little choice for those wanting their clients’ content and websites to be found. But, a strong focus on creating content and experiences that are truly helpful to the end user can only be a good thing.

I’d expected to see alternative search engines and new advertising platforms with higher percentages, particularly with how platforms like Reddit have gained such visibility in SERPs and become an attractive advertising option.

Perhaps it’s too soon to expect agency marketers to have strong thoughts about strategies beyond Google. Although ChatGPT Search is using Bing’s Index to power its search engine functionality, it’s still early days.

In the areas of local marketing that agency marketers believe to be the biggest opportunities in 2025, it’s no surprise that the most common answer is AI and machine learning. 

As the biggest opportunity for their agencies, it makes sense that it’s also the most common area in which agencies want to improve their own knowledge. 

59% of agency marketers want to develop their expertise in AI, and it’s a sensible answer too, no matter your thoughts or skepticism on AI. There is a lot out there, with baiting email subject lines and constant streams of new articles on the subject, and clients often expect agencies to be up to speed on the ‘latest’ thing. So, wanting to get to grips with AI beyond a general understanding is a good business decision.

Plus, despite the healthy sense of optimism around the opportunities AI can bring, agency marketers seem to be also conscious of how it’s being sold to them.

79% of agency marketers said that they feel some businesses are overselling the capabilities of AI. And, if you think about how often you see ‘do x with AI’ shoehorned into meta titles in Google results now, you can’t blame them.

As we pointed out in our generative AI case study last year, it is ever-evolving, and professionals should remain cautious of its capabilities for now, particularly as far as accuracy is concerned. We are increasingly seeing cases of ‘AI-washing‘ throughout various industries, in which businesses are being held accountable to inflating the capabilities of AI in relation to their own products.

It’s particularly interesting, then, that despite a sense of caution and skepticism, agency marketers still expect potential tech partners to actively incorporate AI into new products. Following generative AI’s explosion into the industry in 2023, we started asking local marketers about their expectations of AI moving forward.

Not only do agency marketers still expect tech partners and tool providers to incorporate AI into their products, the sentiment appears even stronger in 2024.

So, wait a minute, what are we saying here? Let’s summarize:

• 33% of agency marketers think the biggest opportunities for their agencies lay within AI.
• 59% of agency marketers want to develop their own knowledge in AI.
• 79% of agency marketers think that some businesses are overselling the capabilities of AI.
• But, 84% of agency marketers still expect potential tech partners to actively incorporate AI into new products.

It’s a slightly confusing message overall, but in my mind it suggests that there is a sense of wanting to be seen to do the right thing or be known for keeping up with the latest tech developments. 

Investing in the Future

Overall, the future of local marketing agencies paints a fairly strong picture. Along with an appetite to develop marketer expertise (and, therefore, agency services) in relation to AI, agencies appear optimistic about their growth, both in terms of increasing team sizes and maturing their existing tech stacks.

66% of agencies told us they’ll be hiring in 2025. Although we didn’t ask agencies about AI roles specifically within their agencies this time around, it will be interesting to see whether we see changes in team structures or service product offerings throughout 2025 that can be attributed to how AI is influencing the workplace.

Meanwhile, almost three-quarters of local marketing agencies plan to invest more in their stack stacks next year. It’s important to remember that investing in technology doesn’t always mean adding ‘more’ to the stack and often involves maturing. Streamlining platforms for better visibility across teams, improving integrations, cutting loose outdated or redundant tools, and investing in new products to support the demand for new services are just a few obvious benefits of investing more in technology.

So, it’s encouraging to see that marketers are willing to make the investment rather than shy away from making potentially grand investments.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for taking the time out to read the Local Marketing Industry Survey: Agency Edition. Once again, we owe a huge thanks to the local agency marketers who participated in the survey—we really can’t do it without you!

We hope you found these benchmarks useful. Anything you’d like to share or discuss from this report? Be sure to tag us in your posts on LinkedIn or start a post in The Local Pack, we always love to hear your commentary and feedback.

If you’d like the opportunity to contribute to research like this, make sure you’re signed up to receive the BrightLocal newsletter.

About the Local Marketing Industry Survey: Agency Edition

The Local Marketing Industry Survey was conducted via across August and September 2024 using BrightLocal’s subscriber channels, social media, and peers within the community.

The survey population is made up of 385 respondents, of which 53% identify as male, 44% identify as female, 1% identify as non-binary, and 2% prefer not to disclose gender.

Publishers are welcome to use the charts and data outlined within this report, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this article’s URL. If you have any questions about the report, please contact sammy.paget@brightlocal.com or research@brightlocal.com.

Even as the way people search changes, business directories continue to lead the way in business discovery. As of the Local Consumer Review Survey 2024, Google, Facebook, and Yelp were consumers’ top three online sources for finding local businesses.

What we don’t talk about so often, though, is how consumers get there—or, rather, how search engine giants like Google surface these websites in search results. After all, aside from optimizing your brand website for better local rankings, understanding how to maximize your presence in SERP real estate can be a game-changer.

With all of this in mind, we wanted to find out how prevalent business listings are in search engine result pages (SERPs) for searches with local intent, along with other types of business mentions, to give a sense of where your marketing dollars are best spent to try to appear behind one of those coveted top ten blue links.

Methodology

In this study, we conducted 800 manual Google searches for local businesses and recorded the first ten organic search results (AKA the first “ten blue links”) for each, for a total of 8,000 search results.

We used one transactional keyword (e.g. coffee shop) and one informational keyword (e.g. best coffee shop) in searches across 20 different business verticals. We repeated these 40 searches in 20 different US cities to provide a broad set of terms and locations. 

So that we could compare the presence of forum results in local SERPs, we used the same 20 business verticals and 20 US cities as in our previous Reddit SERP study 

Note: For this study, we did not record any AI Overviews (AIOs) because the study focuses purely on organic results. However, it is also worth noting that a recent study (August 2024) shows that AI Overviews match organic results in the top ten organic results almost 100% of the time, so it’s fair to assume that the information that appears in organic results influences AIOs.

SERP Results Compared 

Our study found that business directories make up almost a third (31%) of the top ten organic search results overall, providing users with several options beyond Google’s results to view local business information. As the average local search surfaces three directory results within the first ten, you’re going to want to make sure your brand is present and accurately represented in the most visible and relevant directories.

Meanwhile, it’s generally no revelation that business websites make up a large portion of the top ten organic results for local searches. Whether the intent is informational or transactional, it’s arguably in users’ best interest to visit different brands’ websites to a) complete a transaction or b) gather the information they’re looking for.

One surprise, however, is how the visibility of forum results has changed since our Reddit SERP study, where we found that Reddit made up 11% of organic results for transactional searches and 52% of informational searches (31% across all search terms tested).

While that study focused solely on Reddit results and not any other forums, it’s worth noting that we found that Reddit makes up 89% of all forum results recorded in this Business Listings Visibility Study. As of October 2024, forum results make up just 7% of the top ten organic search results. 

When we look at the breakdown of result types for transactional and informational search terms, the pattern remains largely the same, but with one exception…

The biggest difference is in the proportion of website and directory results displayed in the top ten for informational searches. For informational searches (e.g., best coffee shop), directories take the larger share (37%) over business sites (32%).

Screenshot of SERP for ‘best coffee shop buffalo,’ where multiple business directories are present

Why might directories be this prominent for informational searches? The business listings found on today’s modern directories provide users with a detailed snapshot of several key business factors, not just contact information, particularly where industry-specific directories are concerned.

In addition to contact information and opening hours, information such as photos of facilities, listed products and services, and customer-submitted content such as business reviews help to inform user research and enable consumers to compare multiple businesses in one place.

Therefore, if a consumer is searching for the ‘best’ type of local business (a search with informational intent), it makes sense that Google would consider directory results relevant.

Business directory result (Tripadvisor) for ‘best coffee shop seattle’

The difference between how often business websites are shown in results for transactional searches (61%) and informational searches (32%) gives us a clear indication of how Google measures user intent.

For a transactional search like ‘car dealership chicago’, Google recognizes that the user is looking for relevant businesses in a local area, whereas for an informational search like ‘best car dealership chicago’, Google understands the consumer is looking to do some research and compare findings. 

Business mentions and forums also have a larger share of organic SERP real estate for informational searches than transactional ones. Again, where users are searching with the intent of researching or gathering information before making a decision, it follows that Google might generate results with informal opinions in the form of blog articles or discussions.

Next, we’ll take a look at how these percentages change for specific business verticals.

Healthcare and Wellness

Search terms within the health, medical, and wellness categories tend to lead to business website results for both transactional and informational searches. 

Directory visibility is surprisingly low in SERPs for the searches ‘dentist [location]’ (3%), ‘vet clinic [location]’ (3%). At the same time, these are two of the search terms where business websites saw the largest share of organic search results in our study.

It could be the case that, as these business types can be associated with more ‘urgent’ needs, Google understands the intent of these search terms and knows that users need information now, and therefore might be less concerned about ‘shopping around’.

However, this changes when we look at informational search intent. When a consumer is looking for the ‘best’ dentist or ‘best’ vet clinic, directory results jump back up (34% and 23%, respectively). If you consider some of the less urgent needs for these business types, but where a consumer is looking for the ‘best’, things like cosmetic dentistry spring to mind, where it’s likely you would want to shop around before making a decision.

‘Best gym [location]’ sees some of the most forum results in this whole study (18%). When we analyzed some of the USA’s top gym brands in the recent Brand Review Index, we found strong themes of community, culture, and lifestyle. Gym reviewers tend to advocate for their gyms based on very specific factors, and it seems that Google recognizes the need to return search results that reflect this.

Forum result (Reddit) for ‘best gym milwaukee’

Hospitality 

When it comes to hospitality-related searches, you would expect to see a variety of results in SERPs, where professional reviews feature in established lifestyle publications, local blogs host listicle-style articles, and threads on local food scenes are common across forums.

As you’ll see below, the ‘coffee shop’ searches reflect this the strongest, with business mentions in the likes of Eater, Edible, The Infatuation, and Best Coffee Guide all appearing in the SERPs. 

Both transactional and informational searches for ‘fast food restaurants’ and ‘hotels’ show a heavy weighting towards directory results. Hotel results surface the travel-specific listing websites you’d expect, like Tripadvisor, Kayak, Booking.com, and Trivago, where users can compare prices, hotel ratings, and real customer experiences all in one place.

Fast food directories generate a lot of third-party delivery partner sites and apps. Although technically similar to travel-specific directory sites like Booking.com, which have transactional features, fast food third-party sites are unique in that the focus is on getting something right now. So, it is interesting to see the likes of Uber Eats and Door Dash appearing prominently in organic SERPs for informational search terms. Of course, we don’t necessarily recommend listing your fast-food restaurant on all of the delivery apps unless you can handle the customers!

Interestingly, the search term ‘fast food restaurants’ also sees the highest proportion of directory results than any other search term in this study (72%). It shows how far industry-specific directories have come and how they’re continuing to evolve. DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grub Hub, and their competitors are hybrids of a directory, map system, and ordering platform, as each vendor is listed with NAP information.

Services and Trades

While we know from the Local Consumer Review Survey that long-standing directories like Better Business Bureau (BBB) still play a part in consumers’ decision-making, this study reinforces this by showing a strong SERP presence for directories in both transactional and informational search results pages. 

While all transactional searches see more business website results appear in the top ten search results than other types, we can see that some informational terms generate more directory results. ‘Best electrician’ and ‘best HVAC contractor’ lead the way, surfacing a variety of typically more trade-specific directories such as Angie’s List, Expertise, Thumbtack, and BBB.

The clear exception is for ‘car dealership’, where 100% of organic results lead to business websites. It’s the only instance throughout this study where one result type completely dominates the top ten organic results. This shows that SERP real estate for car dealership businesses is incredibly competitive, at least in the USA.

‘Your Money or Your Life’ (YMYL)

‘Your Money or Your Life’ refers to content that provides information that can impact a user’s life, health, and finances, which is why we’ve grouped our attorney, realtor, and tax advisor searches here. The end goal of a user researching these types of local businesses is essentially to instruct a professional who will provide financial, legal, or property advice—pretty life-changing stuff.

Legal and financial advice is not something you want to rush into without plenty of research. Therefore, comparing the experience and reviews of professionals on recognized directories is a ‘must’ in any consumer’s decision-making process.

So, it makes sense that the SERPs for these terms are dominated by directories and business websites rather than informal mentions or discussions, allowing users to do thorough research and compare professionals on trusted directories.

Searches related to attorney and tax advisor businesses (‘attorney,’ ‘best attorney,’ ‘best tax advisor’) generate a particularly large amount of business directory results—in fact, more than half of the top ten organic results for these searches were directories.

Top Citation Sites for Attorneys

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The anomaly in this group is that 43% of informational realtor searches are business mentions. As with car dealerships, I would estimate that this finding is pretty unique to the USA because its real estate market is largely fronted by individual realtors, where face, reputation, and personality are key.

SERP for ‘best realtor chicago,’ highlighting multiple business mentions in results

The business mentions recorded tend to be realtor profiles, as users are likely to want to spend time reading up on the professionals themselves. The example below from PropertySpark was a common result across the different US locations used with our search terms, and you’ll note the significant focus on agents’ social media profiles.

Realtor profiles found on PropertySpark

I have a feeling that if we conducted informational searches for a UK equivalent (e.g., ‘best estate agent london’), we would not see such a high level of business mentions! 

Entertainment

The groupings below for entertainment-related search terms don’t appear to show a pattern in the types of search results generated. The amount of SERP real estate taken up by each result type is pretty varied, but then again, so are the business types reflected by the search terms. It would be worth researching the types of search results for businesses in a similar niche—for example; a toy store could be compared against other types of children’s retailers.

However, it was very surprising to see that 60% of ‘best betting store’ search results were business mentions. A closer look at ‘betting store’ results highlighted many intricacies around legal betting in different states, which explains why so many local news sites or betting publications surfaced in the SERPs. So, this is likely a very specific occurrence in US-based searches. 

Some examples included press releases from online trade publications or articles on local news sites announcing the arrival of new sports books in the respective city. It’s likely that these occurrences would be particularly ‘newsworthy’ where some states have seen the re-introduction of legal gambling as recently as 2018.

A business mention result for ‘best betting store denver’ highlights why a store opening is particularly newsworthy

This raises an interesting consideration for businesses that are held to varying state laws or sit within regulated industries where online advertising can be tricky to navigate. Creating educational and authoritative content that explains these complexities on your website and pitching these topics to relevant publications can be an effective way of building credibility, reinforcing the pillars of E-E-A-T, and possibly supporting your local visibility. 

Other Notable Findings

Variety of Directory Results

We’ve touched on the presence of industry-specific directories throughout this study, alluding to a great variety of directories appearing for different searches within the top ten organic results alone. The chart below summarizes which of the study’s search terms generated business directories for more than half of the first ten organic search results.

We’ve collated some examples from our study data below to provide you with an idea of the variety that appeared in our search results—and, hopefully, some inspiration for other places to get your brand or clients listed.

However, despite the variety of directory results appearing in SERPs, we can’t ignore the fact that some—and I’m sure you can guess which ones—dominate the space. That’s right, we’re talking about Yelp and Tripadvisor, of course. We found these long-standing websites appeared for a whopping 28% and 10% of all directory results in this study, respectively.

Opportunities for Securing Business Mentions

Several of the search groups saw business mentions take the largest share of organic search results within their group, winning out over business websites, directories, or forums. So, we pulled these together to examine areas of opportunity for securing business mentions as a local marketing tactic. 

We’ve already touched on how niche businesses or those bound by regulations and varying state laws, like betting stores and sports books, can contribute their expertise to third-party sites as a way of boosting visibility. 

Similarly, businesses in the hospitality industry, such as coffee shops and restaurants, can seek out relevant lists and publications to contribute to and be included within, whether it’s a popular consumer-facing publication or a trade-specific publication. It won’t be as easy as just asking to be included in a ‘Top 10 Best’ listicle but think about ways that you can be creative in pitching your brand or its team—an interview with a head chef, for example.

How can I use this information?

The good news is that such diversity in the results shows how each listing or mention ‘type’ has its place in local SEO, and there are plenty of actionable tactics you can adopt in your local marketing strategies accordingly.

The bad news—depending on the type of person you are, I suppose—is that different tactics can mean more work, but at least this study should help you prioritize based on what types of results get the most real estate in your (or your client’s) vertical.

Directories

The business directory landscape is constantly evolving. Given the presence of different business directories within SERPs across this study and the fact that SERP real estate is an incredibly competitive space, your brand quite simply can’t afford to miss out on being listed in the right places. 

According to the Business Research Company, a combination of factors, such as digital transformation, increasing consumer demand for digital content, and the growth of digital advertising platforms, has propelled the global directory market in recent years. With this comes a greater need for specialized directories.

They might not be the first sites to cross a user’s mind, compared to key platforms and search engines like Google, Yelp, Apple, and Facebook, but niche and industry-specific directories are important research tools for consumers. And clearly, Google believes they are relevant, too. Some of the examples we recorded in this study include Healthgrades, Thumbtack, BBB, ClassPass, Gymbird, Booksy, CarFax, and DoorDash.

Each trade directory is designed to reflect its niche. You might be aware, for example, that online directories specializing in beauty and wellbeing often use calming hues of blue, green, or pink, place emphasis on high-quality photos of their facilities, and highlight key or popular services. Meanwhile, healthcare or medical directories focus on practitioner profiles, official trust accreditations, and testimonials. SAB directories generally emphasize key contact information and pricing for services you need to get done.

Some of these directories might not be free for businesses to join, but it’s a good idea to do some research and see what sites come up in your search results and where your competitors are to see where your brand could be missing out!

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Business websites

As we’ve seen, business websites are shown for almost half of the first ten organic results (47%). So, if you want your brand to appear in the local pack above organic results, you’ll want to give the business’s website the best possible chance of ranking organically for these kinds of local-intent searches. 

It’s certainly not as easy as getting into a business directory, but getting your business website into the top organic rankings starts with nailing the fundamentals of SEO. As a reminder, here are some of the basics to consider:

• Defined website structure with a home page, dedicated product or service pages, category, and local pages.
• Optimized website content that has been informed by keyword research.
• Creating high-quality content that is unique, helpful, and follows E-E-A-T guidelines.
• Optimized metadata to boost chances of click-through from SERPs.

Improving On-page SEO for Local

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Forums

As discussed in our Reddit SERP study, there is little you can do to directly influence your brand’s presence on forums unless you want to come across as inauthentically self-promoting—or worse, spammy.

However, it is a useful reminder to keep an eye on forums for brand mentions if you haven’t been doing so already. In their own way, forum discussions can be a local PR tool if you’re lucky enough to have customers advocating for you! And if you don’t, then there’s another good reason to really hone in on your customer service and retention efforts.

There are also ways of ‘officially’ representing your brand within forums in a way that won’t rub users up the wrong way. Consider creating brand representative accounts and interacting with relevant discussions in an authentic or helpful way. A simple site search can help uncover where people might have questions about your brand or relevant products and services that you offer.

The best way to increase your chances of appearing in forum conversations? Deliver the best service at the most competitive price, and work on your brand to get the exposure and word-of-mouth your business needs.

Brand mentions

Local PR strategies can sometimes fall to the wayside, whether they’re too time-consuming or hard to prove as a good investment of resources. However, the breadth of business mentions in this study’s results highlights how influential they can be in building brand awareness and reaching new audiences.

In the above examples alone, we can see a variety of official local and nationwide news sites, local blogs, trade publications, lifestyle blogs and publications, and social media.

As with forum mentions, you can’t always directly influence the likelihood of someone featuring your brand in a TikTok, so the best advice for creating brand advocacy is really giving your customers a reason to want to shout about you.

As for local and community PR, there are certainly tactics you can adopt to reach your local news sites, specialty blogs, and trade publications.

Conclusion

Of course, the dream scenario is that your business appears in the map pack as the first organic search result, followed by your business listing on multiple authoritative directories, and with glowing reviews and forum testimonials bringing up the rear…

But there really are only so many hours in a day.

That’s why we hope this study has given you food for thought and that the nuances of different business verticals have given you some inspiration for local marketing tactics you can implement that you might not have considered.

If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out which directories might be suitable for you, we have a plethora of citation and listing resources available to help.

Appendix

The table below shows the full breakdown of search result types for each search term. As a reminder, each group of search terms contains 20 different searches, where 20 US cities were used as a suffix for local intent (ie. coffee shop buffalo).

SEO is often referred to as an ongoing chess game, particularly when Google is involved—and local SEO is no different. Google’s local ranking algorithm uses various signals known as local ranking factors. These can become more prominent or less important depending on the current algorithm Google is using to rank local businesses.

In many cases, local SEO reporting will highlight some clear areas for improvement or identify what your competitors are doing better. But what do you do when it’s not obvious?

We thought we’d take a look at a real-life example to try to help.

So today, we’re diving into a real local SEO problem. Using two genuine (but anonymized in this case study) dental clinics within a mile of each other in a small town in the United States, we’ll explore how to read BrightLocal reports to identify areas for further investigation. We’ll also consider the other local ranking factors to investigate beyond those reports.

Throughout the case study, we’ll highlight some key areas for investigation or actions to take, so you can use these as guidelines for investigations with your own clients.

Starting Stats: Local Search Grid

Let’s take a look at a problem you might be faced with. Imagine you’re an agency working with Dentist A, an independent dental clinic in a small town in the northeastern US. You’ve not been subscribed to BrightLocal for long, and you’ve been getting to grips with reading the reports. So far, you’re mostly concerned with local ranking reports.

You’ve added Dentist A’s keywords to Local Search Grid (LSG). The top of your report shows the Average Map Rank for your first keyword (‘dentist’) is 7.3. It also shows 25 green grid points, which means they’re ‘high ranking’ (as in ‘in the Top 3 in the Local Pack). The orange and red points show you areas that need improvement. So far, so good.

Scrolling down underneath the map image, you’re presented with a side-by-side comparison of your top local competitors. This is when you see something confusing. Dentist B, one of your closest competitors in proximity, has an Average Map Rank of 4.9, while yours is 7.3. 

Two other competitors sit above Dentist B. Both have hundreds more reviews, backlinks, and a higher domain authority (DA) than you, so it’s clear why they’re performing well. But when you compare the report’s local ranking factors side-by-side, you should technically be outperforming Dentist B.

Let’s examine these factors more closely.

Despite both dental clinics’ average Google rating of 4.9 out of 5, Dentist A should have an overall advantage for this term—shouldn’t it? Yet its average local ranking is over two positions lower.

Now, we will look at our other BrightLocal reports to see if they uncover anything else.

Further Investigation with BrightLocal Tools and Reports

Local Rank Tracker and Google Business Profile Audit

Local Rank Tracker (LRT) tracks the positions of your keywords in Google and Bing over time so you can see which are gaining or losing visibility in the SERPs. Google Business Profile Audit displays a summary of your GBP’s key information, and its performance for five of your chosen keywords against local competitors. In this section, we’ll cover the two reports together as the insights feed into one another.

As well as looking at the main LRT report to see if ranking positions for keywords change over time, you can also use it to compare rankings with a chosen competitor. Let’s look at how Dentist A and Dentist B perform in Google organic desktop rankings for some of their key terms.

On the date in question, you can see that the competitor, Dentist B, is ranking for more of the key terms and outperforming Dentist A for two of them (dental clinic and emergency dentist). Now we’re getting somewhere.

So, aside from monitoring any downward movement to our key terms in the SERPs to pinpoint any changes that may have caused this, we know that Google is rewarding Dentist B with better organic rankings for these terms. The most obvious case could be that Dentist B has better optimized its website pages for this key term, while Dentist A has overlooked it.

Actions to Take

Review Any Recent Website or GBP Changes

If you have made changes recently, don’t modify or reverse them. It’s not yet clear if this will have impacted rankings, so you’ll want to monitor this over time.

Assess Competitors’ Website Content

If you regularly monitor competitors’ website content, can you see if anything significant has changed? If you’re unsure or you don’t have a record of changes, put yourself in the shoes of a prospective patient and review competitor content, asking:

• Does their website have more comprehensive service pages dedicated to services that match key terms?
• Is the content of good quality? That is, does it demonstrate expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness (as per Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines)?
• Is the location and its surrounding service areas clearly presented in some way?

Audit Competitor GBPs

Look up your competitor’s GBP and make note of the features being used. Compare this against your client’s GBPs to identify any gaps you may have. Ask yourself:

• Does it use Google Posts to share updates with users?
• Has it listed Services that correlate to key terms?
• Does the Q&A section have any questions in it? Have they been answered?
• Are there photos of the clinic, its team, and its facilities?

Review and Update Your Keywords

As businesses change and evolve, new services are added, some may be removed, and new geographical areas may open up. It can be easy to overlook the process of reviewing and updating keyword portfolios to reflect these. However, this should not be underestimated! Tracking the ranking positions of terms that are no longer relevant to your brand is pointless and skews your focus to the wrong things.     

With the above, it looks like we’ve already got a list of things we can do. It’s a good start!

Now, If we jump over to GBP Audit, we see a more visual representation of Dentist A’s GBP.

Each tab at the top lists 10 top competitors for each keyword, which builds on the information presented in Local Search Grid and Local Rank Tracker. However, we can see here several more factors to consider in order to help ranking performance:

• Whether the profile is verified
• % of Key Citations (more on this later)
• Linking domains (total linking root domains, e.g. you might see 200 links, but they might only be coming from 50 root domains)
• Number of photos

This is all well and good, but we’ve still not found the smoking gun—the metrics that really mark Dentist B out from Dentist A. Let’s move on to the next report and see what else we can unearth.

Citation Tracker

Citations are thought to be a local ranking factor, which means it’s important to ensure the businesses you are managing can be found across various online directories. 

Citation Tracker (CT) is quick and simple to set up. Using your business details, CT will locate all of the citation websites you’re listed on and highlight inconsistencies and errors on key citation websites.

Above, we can see that Dentist A’s picture is not too rosy. The Key Citation Score of 28/100 tells us that both the quantity and quality of citations are not up to scratch. Moreover, out of the 23 live citations, only 13 are considered key citations, and 11 of those have errors—that’s close to half of Dentist A’s citations.

Simply scrolling down on this report highlights every citation and its errors. In Dentist A’s case, there are some significant differences in the business name being used across these websites.

Put yourself in the shoes of a customer, and that’s a pretty confusing experience when you’re doing research—especially for an important decision associated with healthcare.

From a customer perspective, the Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023 investigated the implications of incorrect business information on consumer trust and found that 62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online.

Competitor Citations

Adding a competitor as a location within BrightLocal and setting up its own Citation Tracker report is a simple way to compare performance and identify key citation sources you may be missing. It’s up to you whether you choose to run them as one-offs or regularly for a more consistent picture of the competition.

We went ahead and ran Dentist B’s CT report. 

Luckily for Dentist A, Dentist B’s citations are in even worse shape, with just nine in total! However, the dashboard does not highlight any errors, while we know that Dentist A does have some to work on. 

It seems like citations aren’t the make-or-break factor for Dentist B outranking Dentist A, but this doesn’t mean that cleaning up, fixing, and building new citations shouldn’t happen. It’s still important to maintain and optimize listings to ensure business information is accurate.

Actions to Take

Correct Your Citation Errors

Fixing these errors should be the first port of call. In Dentist A’s case, there are only nine to do, so this won’t be too time-consuming. For businesses with dozens of listings to fix, you can see why monitoring them regularly is important.

Within your CT dashboard, you can travel straight to the live citation and edit your listing. Or, if a colleague or client manages citation amends, you can click the status of individual citations to leave notes highlighting what needs to be done.

Find and Add New Citations

CT highlights the relevant citation websites where listings are not found, which can be used as a checklist to work through. You can go through and add these yourself, or consider using BrightLocal’s Citation Builder service for a fuss-free and speedy turnaround.

Reputation Manager: Monitor Reviews

Moving into the realm of reviews, Monitor Reviews is a useful dashboard as it displays review growth over time, as well as a breakdown of star ratings and the sources of where reviews are coming from.

We already know that Dentist A has an average star rating of 4.9, but there are two clear areas that need improvement.

For some reason, Dentist A hasn’t received a new review since January 2024, leaving a two-month gap on the timeline. A quick manual check confirms this, so there is a clear starting point: achieving new review growth.

While the star rating breakdown is positive, the review source breakdown highlights just three sources of reviews: Google (98%), HealthGrades (<1%), and Wellness (<1%).

Diversifying review portfolios is an important consideration of reputation management. According to the Local Consumer Review 2024, 36% of consumers use at least two different review sites before deciding to use a local business. 

Plus, as we highlighted earlier, ensuring consistent information across different sources, such as review platforms and citation websites, reinforces trust with consumers.

Dentist A could consider building a stronger profile on other review platforms, such as Better Business Bureau (BBB), TrustPilot, YellowPages, and Doctor.com.

Competitor Reviews

We set up a Monitor Reviews report for Dentist B to compare the review profiles of the two businesses. Although its review sources are even less diverse and have fewer total reviews than Dentist A’s, Dentist B’s review growth chart shows a constant stream of reviews month on month.

From this, we can conclude that review frequency and recency play important roles in creating what Google deems to be a trustworthy review profile.

Review Responses

Heading over to Dentist A’s review profiles on Google, HealthGrades, and Wellness, another key observation is that it only replies to business reviews sporadically. Google’s guidance on improving local rankings specifically calls out managing and responding to reviews.

Plus, our findings from the Local Consumer Review Survey consistently show that consumers are more likely to use a business that responds to all types of customer reviews, whether positive or negative.

On the other hand, Dentist B doesn’t seem to reply to any business reviews. Although it appears to have the upper hand with review growth and recency, both businesses should absolutely consider review responses a priority. 

Actions to Take

Create Review Campaigns to Encourage New Reviews and Diversify Sources

Clearly, relying on reviews coming in organically isn’t working out for Dentist A. Creating timely, automated review campaigns is simple and effective with Get Reviews. 

Now, we can create email and SMS templates, including email follow-ups, create an NPS system for gathering useful internal feedback, and select the external review platforms we want to ask customers to use.

Local Search Audit

Local Search Audit provides an instant snapshot of your local SEO ‘health’ in an easy-to-understand traffic light system.

As we’ve already analyzed Rank Tracker, Local Listings, Reputation Manager, and GBP Audit, we’ll cover Links & Authority and On-Site SEO here.

Links and Authority

Links and Authority is rated as ‘OK.’ Further down, Local Search Audit shows the following metrics for Dentist A against the average competitor: 

• Google Index count (how many of your pages are Indexed by Google): 42 vs. 20
• Link count: 285 vs. 511
• Linking domain count: 89 vs. 149
• Domain Authority: 13 vs. 14.2

Link building is an important part of local SEO as it helps build awareness and authority, boost organic visibility, and signal that brands are trustworthy.

From these stats, we can see that attaining new links and broadening linking domains should be a key focus for Dentist A to improve on.

Actions to Take

Link building is renowned for being a tricky area in SEO—you can easily dedicate a whole role to outreach. So, while an entire link-building strategy may be a lot to recommend straight away here, you can start small.

Create a List of Target Websites and Publications

Generally, a good link portfolio should consist of relevant, authoritative sources. It’s also wise to consider how you can diversify it—for Dentist A, it could be something like an article on cosmetic dentistry ahead of big events for an authoritative wedding publication.

Set Up Brand Alerts to Find Mentions of Your Business Online

This can be useful for identifying when your brand is mentioned online but has not been linked to, so you can create a list of organizations to reach out to for corrections.

Review Your Backlink Profile with a Dedicated Tool

Semrush and ahrefs are just two examples of tools that can identify your links and linking domains, as well as provide insights on competitor backlinks. Competitor backlink analysis is also a useful way of scouting out ideas for the types of content and topics that are being linked to or covered by journalists.

On-Site SEO

This section of the Local Search Audit report is a small goldmine. It counts the number of pages crawled, the number of internal links, page titles and metadata, mobile rendering, and keyword count, to name just a few.

From a technical standpoint, Local Search Audit rates Dentist A as ‘Good.’ It’s worth noting that Dentist A’s website is fairly small, with just 66 pages. Plus, although it’s given the green flag overall, a few problem areas are highlighted:

• Missing image alt tags
• Sparse content pages (<500 words)
• Google PageSpeed Score

Scrolling down, the Local Search Audit also highlights the presence of ‘Top Keywords’ across the site. Quite astonishingly, ‘dentist’ does not appear here whatsoever! As we suspected earlier in the LRT section, the key term has been completely overlooked here.

Given that Dentist A’s primary GBP category is also ‘dentist,’ this is quite a severe misstep. 

Dentist A can easily begin to rectify this issue by re-optimizing key pages for the correct terms.

Actions to Take

Identify Missing or Low Count Key Terms

When it comes to fitting keywords into your website content, you never want to force it. However, this area of Local Search Audit could highlight if you are under-servicing some of your key terms.

In Dentist A’s case, the website is missing one of its priority, tracked keywords, which also correlates to its primary category in GBP. 

We’ll move on to sparse content in the next section.

Beyond the Tools

We’ve identified plenty of areas that can be improved upon to boost Dentist A’s local visibility, but there are only a few clear areas where Dentist B is outperforming them so far—review regularity and local rankings.

So, with what we’ve learned from the tools and reports, how can we take some of these insights away to investigate further?

On-site Content

Unfortunately, since we’ve anonymized our dentists, we can’t show you screenshots of the websites. But for Dentist A, imagine an HTML-coded Myspace layout circa 2006 (seriously). The navigation is not particularly intuitive, and, as we just discussed, the content across the website is sparse in detail.

Local Search Audit highlighted 45 out of its 66 pages as sparse content—that’s 68% of the site’s content with pages containing less than 500 words. Although content quality doesn’t—and shouldn’t—always correspond with quantity (e.g. word count), you would expect a website in the healthcare industry to have some comprehensive content.

It’s important to have clearly defined service pages, with descriptions that outline what potential patients can expect and answer any questions they may have.

With our auditor caps on, we can already see some clear reasons why Dentist B might be outranking Dentist A from a content perspective. So, we’ve compared the two dental clinics side-by-side, rating key elements of on-site content for local SEO. (Again, we can’t show you the websites, so you’ll have to trust us on this!)

Actions to Take

Page Optimization

At the very least, take the opportunity to optimize website pages. Optimize titles and descriptions with relevant keywords and a concise character limit, and find natural opportunities to include more of your key terms in page content.

Content Refresh

Rewriting website content can be a daunting task, but it’s easier to tackle if you break pages down into priority groups. For example, you could start with your key services and work on them in batches.

Page Structure

Whether you’ll be writing the content yourself, or briefing it to a team member or freelancer, a content brief is a great way to maintain consistency with your page structures. You can include keywords, page titles, headings, and descriptions, as well as dedicated sections that need to be written and included, such as FAQs.

Research Supporting Content Ideas

Would your website benefit from a blog or dedicated area for more informational and supportive content? This type of content can help answer queries that users might search for in their earlier stages of research, so you can target long-tail key terms and diversify what you are ranking for. 

Google Business Profile

So far, the reports have surfaced some areas of GBP that need further investigation, such as categories and photos. Dentist B does not use any secondary categories, whereas Dentist A has two: cosmetic dentist and dental implants.

Considering a relationship has been found between additional GBP categories and higher local rankings, it is surprising that Dentist A doesn’t have a noticeable advantage in its rankings.

While it’s not clear how photos might influence the performance of a GBP listing in local rankings, both Dentist A and Dentist B could significantly benefit from adding more. Dentist A has two, and Dentist B has four.

Knowing that Google’s rankings algorithm takes into consideration user behaviour in SERPs, it stands to reason that anything you can do to make your business more attractive to engage with online will have an indirect impact on rankings.

Adding photos of the business exterior and interior, facilities, team members, and even patients in different clinic areas (having obtained their permission) can help prospective patients feel more trusting of businesses. The Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023 found that the industry where consumers most wanted to see photos of team members was healthcare. Plus, customer reviews with accompanying photos can help to show ‘real’ experiences.

Additional GBP Features

Google is always testing and rolling out new GBP features that make them more helpful to searchers. Some are industry-specific, but many general features can be added to enhance your profile.

Dentist A and Dentist B don’t appear to use any additional features to their advantage. There are no Posts, Services, or specific attributes. Plus, both have unanswered questions from users, so this is an area that should be built out to help manage prospective patients’ expectations.

When performing similar analysis of your clients and their competitors, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the GBP use profile attributes? 

Where appropriate, attributes such as ‘Black-owned,’ ‘LGBTQ+ owned,’ and ‘women-owned’ can help to signal safe spaces for customers within local communities. There are also attributes related to accessibility   

• Have Products and Services been added?

GBP managers can add specific Services to GBPs, which helps users narrow down their searches and find relevant results.

• Build out ‘Questions and answers’

You don’t need to wait for a customer to ask questions. Add questions yourself and provide answers.

• Create Posts

Google Posts are an easy way of displaying what’s new, any recent updates or promotions front and center on a GBP. They’re also a good way of showing business activity to searchers.

Opening Hours

Towards the end of 2023, it was confirmed that business opening hours influenced local rankings. In short, businesses rank higher when they are searched for during the business’ opening hours.

Dentist A and Dentist B have similar opening hours. They are both closed from Friday to Sunday and operate similar hours on their usual business days. In this instance, it doesn’t appear that either clinic has an advantage over the other, but it’s a factor to consider for your own investigations.

Business Listings vs. Practitioner Listings

Dentists and healthcare provider GBPs differ from many other business types because there is an option to add separate practitioner listings.

Dentist A uses its practitioner’s name alongside the business name in its GBP, which seems to have caused issues and confusion with its citations across different sources. Some citations list the dental clinic name, and others list only the dental practitioner.

Considering Dentist A and Dentist B are neck-and-neck in so many areas of local SEO, this could be one of the elements that are harming Dentist A the most.

Social Media

Many local SEOs consider social signals a dwindling local search ranking factor, and they haven’t been included within the last three Local Search Ranking Factor reports. However, recent reports suggest that GBPs may now pull social posts into profiles if Google Posts are absent, so this could be set to change.

Even if not considered an important local ranking signal, social media can be a useful trust signal for E-E-A-T. Having an active online presence helps show searchers that you are who you say you are. It also provides a valuable platform to showcase experience, expertise, and authority.

For professionals such as dental practitioners, where personal branding is considered important, adding ProfilePage markup to website pages helps Google highlight information about experts and creators. If the lead dental practitioner has social media profiles or author pages for online publications, Google can draw on these to associate the E-E-A-T signals.

Dentist A has a Facebook page with 217 followers. The page has not shared any updates since October 2023 and, prior to this, had not posted for six months.

Dentist B, meanwhile, only has a LinkedIn presence. This seems an odd choice for a dental clinic, as professionals largely use LinkedIn to network and engage with employment opportunities. The page is inactive, though, with zero followers and no posts or activity.

For the dentists in this case study, Facebook should be an obvious choice for setting up social profiles, as it also functions as a citation and review platform.

Meanwhile, visual social channels like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok can be hugely beneficial for showcasing services, client testimonials, and experiences. Before and after content can be incredibly powerful on visual platforms, particularly for services such as cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, and orthodontics.

Actions to Take

Update Facebook Profile

In Dentist A’s case, the Facebook page needs to be managed more regularly to inform the community of any updates. It could also benefit from a profile refresh to reflect key services, add recent photos, and use recent client testimonials.

Consider Establishing Yourself on New Social Platforms

As mentioned, both dentists could benefit from a presence on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube to showcase their services and USPs.

When deciding on the best social media platforms for your brand, keep the key objectives in mind. What are you looking to achieve on social media? Who is your key audience? What type of content are you looking to create?

Conclusion

Hopefully, this investigation has highlighted how to get the most out of BrightLocal report insights and why it isn’t always crystal clear why one business may be outranking another—even to the most experienced local marketers!

Although every area of local SEO plays an important part, we’ve identified several key areas for Dentist A to improve on as a matter of priority. We’ve recapped these below:

Some areas of auditing and analysis take practice and even some trial and error, so don’t be disheartened if you aren’t immediately uncovering insights. With time, you’ll find your own ways of working and maybe even develop a process to train other colleagues or client partners, but this case study should be a good start for now.  

Remember, there are communities ready and available to ask for help, too! Check out our Facebook community, The Local Pack, and Sterling Sky’s Local Search Forum.