The Top 4 changes in Local SEO in 2015
2015 was again a busy year for SEO. Within this constantly changing industry, our team here at Dental Design stay prepared as possible for any changes/updates, or techniques that need to be deployed to maintain your websites rankings for your chosen keywords.
I’ll be highlighting the big changes we have seen in the Dental Design SEO team through 2015, what they mean and how we have dealt with them.
April 2015 – Google’s ‘Mobilegeddon’
This industry-named update was less apocalyptic than some thought.
However, before, during and after this update, the advise to our dental practices is to make sure their dental website is visible to their target audience, who inevitably will at some point be using a mobile device to look up a treatment in their area, search specifically for a dentist, or try to find your details having been given your practice name by word-of-mouth.
8 months later, we continue to see a rise in mobile devices being used to get to our dental practice websites, with 50% +
of traffic coming from mobile devices being the average.
May 2015 – ‘Quality Update’
Whilst some believed this was just an updated Panda update, Google seemed to denied this, but did allude to the fact that there was a change to its core ranking algorithm in terms of how it processes quality signals.
Nevertheless, we did see some shake-ups, and again continue to encourage better website build, aimed at users and improve overall quality.
August 2015 – Local three-pack
Following the display on mobile for the SERPS, Google updated the local pack (Google local listing) to only show three listings. This has meant a big fall in traffic for those who were ranking fourth or fifth in this pack and are now no longer on the front page.
Alongside this change, the full address is no longer visible, with just the street name showing forcing the user to click on one option to find the full address.We believe this is actually a good thing, as the user is forced to make a decision to either find directions or visit the website.
We continue to work with practices to encourage Google reviews (more on this later), and keep us updated with opening hours to ensure their listing is populated with complete accuracy.
This Google Local listing is actually a ‘integrated listing’ , meaning the overall SEO of the website (how Google sees the website and then decided to rank it), also affects this listing.
In that regard, we continue to encourage our websites to let us have fresh unique content, reviews and monitor the health of the website on a regular basis. All of these techniques, amongst many others, are advised by google directly as having a positive affect on rankings.
November 2015 Google Plus Update
Reviews, reviews, reviews…. we know we sound like broken records, but it cannot be over state how important these are for a local dentist. Google reviews are the top ones to get and as such we constantly keep up to date with how Google allows a user to leave this, bearing in mind that our practice website is a great resource to use to direct patients to leaving one.
This update saw the blanket removal (and a few sharp words from the SEO manager), of the following on a Google + page:
- Reviews (!!!)
- Stars
- Categories
- Directions
- Photo uploads
- Interior uploads
- Maps
- Hours
- Opentable/app integration
It seems as though Google has decided to separate the local listing from the Google Plus page (having only had them connect for 3 year).
This meant we have had to update the link across all our websites in order that a patient wanting to leave a lovely review is met with the right location to do so.
We look forward to working with your site in 2016! Call the team on 01202 677277 to discuss all things SEO.
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