How will Google Venice affect your website’s SEO?

If you’ve been wondering how the Google Venice update changes things, it means that Google is upping the ante in as far as local search is involved. Search queries no longer need the searcher to promote location specific words for Google to deliver location-based results.

For Google, it is about providing relevancy. By automatically delivering SERPS that are location specific (regardless of mobile, laptop or desktop), Google is making it clear that intent on making its SERP even more bespoke for the user and in doing so, even harder for us SEO consultants to benchmark clients accounts.

Check your search ranking results

If your site was ranking well for a search term that was considered ‘universal’ before the update (i.e. totally non-location specific), you could well be affected. These could be phrases along the lines of:

Bed and breakfast
Car garage
Eye tests
Indian takeaway
Carpet fitting

Arguably all location specific, but I haven’t once specified a location.

Next steps for your SEO

So what does this mean and what should you do now?

• Review your location SEO strategy. If you don’t have one, get one
• Review and test to see whether your services and products could trigger the Venice update
• Think about implementing new, location specific keywords
• Get your business listed in the Places directory and other directories such as Yell, Scoot, Qype etc.
• Start experimenting with test landing pages that target more generic key phrases that were too competitive prior to the Venice update
• Monitor in Google Analytics
• Let your clients know

Small SME’s should benefit most out of the Google Venice update, gaining traffic from the more generic keywords from larger and more national business. Being a Google cynic makes me believe that Google is all too aware of this and hopes that the larger companies will have to leverage their organic efforts with paid. Sneaky.

Is increased localisation a better ingredient within the SERP recipe or would you rather Google entrusted the user to specify a local search via localised keywords? Will this raise the levy on local paid search?