By Sara Smith

While 2017 saw more updates than any previous year, the first half of 2018 has already seen at least three confirmed and sweeping algorithm updates and strong indications of many more to come, particularly involving the mobile index. These algorithm updates were accompanied by major changes to a typical Google SERP, fundamentally changing the focus of local SEO. Based on these updates, local SEO should begin to focus on leveraging Google’s own properties in addition to their own websites, optimizing and speeding up sites for the mobile-first index, and enhancing user experience.

DATE	GOOGLE	TYPE	DESCRIPTION/EFFECT
17-Jan	CONFIRMED	Mobile Page Speed Update	Page Speed to be an official part of a mobile page’s placement
21-Jan	UNCONFIRMED	Algorithm Update	Moderate to extreme fluctuations
3-Mar	CONFIRMED	Core Algorithm Update	Week-long fluctuations peaking on March 9
13-Apr	CONFIRMED	Broad Core Algorithm Update	Unknown pattern in ranking fluctuations that lasted 10 days.

These changes have shown that Google has become more focused on featuring its own products on any given SERP, rather than serving up traditional organic web results. The Google knowledge panel is turning into more of an interactive feature than a static data entity, making it as transactional as possible. Optimizing Google My Business & the Google Knowledge Panel is crucial in keeping their results in a primary position on a SERP. New features to update and manage include:

Google Posts
Questions & Answers
Appointment URLs
Direct Messaging
Services
Reviews & Social Media Profiles
Website Builder

In addition to the SERP real estate used by the Google Knowledge Panel, Featured Snippets are becoming more and more prevalent. A Featured Snippet occurs when a user asks a question and Google presents an extracted summary of an answer in a snippet block. To win these valued snippet positions, we recommend structuring content to answer frequently asked questions by your target audience.

The real estate used by both Featured Snippets and the Knowledge Graph becomes even more significant when the device screen shrinks to mobile, an experience that becomes more important than ever as Google’s index switches to predominantly crawling the mobile version of a site’s content to determine its rank in search results. The use of mobile device internet traffic has surpassed desktop use and currently accounts for slightly more than half of total traffic. In fact, by 2019, an estimated 80% of global internet traffic will come from mobile devices.

In January, Google announced the “Speed Update”, describing the importance of page speed as a mobile ranking factor, and encouraged use of the updated “Page Speed Report.” This tool demonstrates the impact of slow load time on sites by estimating the average loss of visitors. To improve mobile performance and keep visitors flowing to your site, digital marketing pros can incorporate the following features, where possible:

Leverage browser caching
Optimize/minify Javascript
Eliminate render-blocking Javascript
Compress all images
Avoid redirects
Keep server response time to a minimum
Compress images
Prioritize visible content

Google’s recent updates have indicated that, in order to stay relevant, your site needs to serve up the exact content that local people are searching for, and have an excellent user experience once users navigate to your site, whether on desktop or mobile. A slight change recently made across one of our partner’s sites to the power of user experience. After using the heat mapping tool “Crazy Egg”, we identified a specific area of improvement on the home page of select, high traffic sites – a navigation element taking up a lot of real estate that was barely ever clicked on. We updated this element to be image based and interactive, rather than description based. After this update, mobile CTR increased 96% and desktop CTR increased by 195% to the pages within this navigation. Slight improvements to user experience can have major effects on the behavior of your site’s users – keeping them on your site and learning more about your product or service.

Along with Google features, mobile-first and user experience optimizations, it’s important to keep a strong SEO foundation – continue with efforts like review management, keyword research and back linking. While SEO and digital marketing are constantly changing and it’s important to keep up, your site needs a strong foundation to build on to establish high rankings, organic search traffic, and in turn generate leads for your business.

About the Author

Sara Smith is SEO Team Lead at ChoiceLocal. Outside of work, you will find her traveling to new places, reading a good book by the fire, hiking with her dog, or spending time with her family.