subject: Prepare to explain the new Google search update to your customers [print this page] Prepare to explain the new Google search update to your customers
Doing routine search engine position checks late in the evening for a company's client may sometimes lead to an injury. It might not be particularly obvious how a UK SEO consultant can get badly hurt on the job, but it happens. For example last night, performing the last task of the day before finally leaving the office at 8pm one of the UK SEO consultants was checking client's search engine position in Google for "Hair extensions" when he suddenly jumped on his chair, hit his knee, knocked a cup with freshly brewed therefore very hot coffee on his lap while also not forgetting to knock his elbow hard on the hardwood table before landing into his seat again with a loud "ouuuuuch". Several employees of the SEO consultancy company in the UK rushed to his side wondering what could possibly have caused such inadequate reaction to only discover that Google has changed the way search results are displayed on the page.
Turns out he typed the keyword into the search engine and waited for the results to see the customer's company appear in the top5 - precisely where the client wanted to see it and where it was just half a day ago. However instead, the search engine displayed top3 natural search results and 6 local results before continuing to the other natural search results for that keyword. And those were not average local results: name of the company, 125 characters description, address, website link and a map which also stays on the right hand side on the window when you attempt to scroll down, going over all PPC ads as if reminding you to pay attention to local results above everything else. Every SEO consultancy in UK or anywhere else has a full right to feel annoyed about it.
It seems in a bid to make search results more and more relevant the search engines perceive that local results are more relevant than global, which is a case of looking for an "Italian restaurant" on a Friday evening is most probably the case. But it's the dissatisfaction with local offers, the narrowness of local variety, the interest in the outside world beyond their neighbourhood that is bringing people to use internet in the first place. Sore would argue there are some addicts who search for everything even their left shoe when going out, but most of us reasonable people have good local knowledge, which doesn't need such aggressive enhancing. And of course UK SEO consultants and SEO professionals can't help feeling betrayed when their hard work and their customer's investments suddenly disappear down the drain when instead of being in the top 5 they find their companies in the bottom of the page after all free local results. Just when the global competition has been seized with search engine optimisation suddenly local competition has returned and stabbed us in the back.
Now the desire of being in the top 3 will become almost blinding, and companies who are currently holding these positions will need to beware of the actions taken by their rival UK SEO consultancy companies because clients will no longer be satisfied with being in the old top 5 or top 10. They will demand that UK SEO consultants have an explanation for why local search is given such high priority and why nobody seems to care about efforts and investment in the search engine optimisation, and even less so the search engines themselves.
