I’m a novice birder and one of my favorite birds to watch and even hear — is the hawk. They’re incredible — kings of the bird kingdom! And I think that it’s no coincidence that Google chose to name their latest update after this formidable and highly revered raptor.
Google’s “Hawk” update, which went into effect on August 22, mostly affects local rankings.
Let’s get started on how this may or may not affect your local service business.
But first, let’s rewind to the Possum update that took place one year ago in 2016. The main thing that this update did was to filter out results of businesses that could belong in separate categories, but were shared phone numbers and addresses. A good example of this is a carpet cleaning company and a restoration business. Formerly, these two businesses could have been dominating first page results. With Possum, Google did away with this.
At that time, they also introduced the proximity search. Now, when people are searching on their cell phone, they’re going to find those that are closest to where they are. Now, for example, if you drive three miles down the road, you’re going to get different results on your mobile phone.
For the hawk update, they’ve narrowed it down. Now it’s down to one mile, or less. What they didn’t want was 2 carpet cleaners close together. They only wanted to rank one of them. Now, it doesn’t matter. Google desiced to do away with not ranking one business due to proximity.
What Matters Now
- Clean, consistent citations
- Homepage – make big title on your page contain the exact category page as your G+ (Google MyBusiness accout) page H1
- Getting Google Reviews – Starting to take Google reviews more seriously
What Will Continue to Matter
Aside from this, what matters now is what has always mattered — content. Google is most concerned with providing the best results to its users. And because of this, it has 2/3 market share. It’s truly the best search engine in existence today because it continues to evolve and has the best interest of users (not SEOs! ;0) in mind.
So, when you’re thinking of what you can do to stay in the game and outlast these periodic updates, there’s only one thing you need to focus on and and that’s content. Continue to add valuable content to your website, make sure that your NAP info (name, address, phone number) is consistent across the board and make sure that your website is mobile friendly.
Call us anytime to set up a complementary evaluation of your website and business listings. We’re happy to help — and if you don’t feel that we’re a good fit there’s no obligation to buy.
