• Women read online reviews more regularly than men.
• Men are most suspicious of reviews on Apple Maps and TripAdvisor.
• Women are most suspicious of reviews on Amazon and Google.
• Consumers aged under 44 years old are most likely to notice fake reviews.
• Younger consumers are the most likely age group to leave a negative review, whereas older consumers are the most likely to leave a positive review.
• High-earning consumers are less likely to leave positive online reviews than low-earning consumers.

Each year, we publish our Local Consumer Review Survey to draw up an accurate picture of how consumers perceive businesses through online reviews.

In this year’s iteration, we decided to ask a whole host of questions about fake reviews, particularly assessing how prevalent they are in today’s society and how their presence impacts consumer opinion.

We also looked at a variety of other areas during this survey, such as where consumers source reviews from, what they specifically look for in them, and when they are most likely to leave a review themselves.

But, after obtaining a general overview of this information, we decided to take a deeper dive into the demographic data of our approximate 1,000 US-based survey respondents.

We wanted to understand how consumers think, breaking down the data into demographic subsets and investigate how factors like age, gender and household income influence consumer perception. So, let’s show you what we found.

Monitoring Reviews

In today’s day and age, online reviews can be found pretty much everywhere online. And, while Google may often be the go-to for the majority of consumers, there are a ton of other review sites that are just as important—if not more so, depending on the industry consumers are searching for reviews in.

As such, we decided to take a deeper look at how the age of the consumer impacted the type of app or review site that consumers use to monitor reviews for local businesses. 

The Impact of Age on Review Site Usage

Looking at the data above, Google was found to be by far the most popular review site across all age groups. However, its popularity appeared to dwindle in consumers aged over 60—approximately 7% less than in the younger age groups.

The same trend was also true of Yelp, with its popularity gradually increasing amongst the younger age groups (53% 18—29-year-olds; 55% 30—44-year-olds; 56% 45—60-year-olds) before plummeting amongst consumers aged over 60 (41%).

On the flip side, younger consumers—aged between 18 and 29 years old—were found to use Apple Maps significantly more than any other age group (26% of consumers), while Healthgrades and Facebook were shown to be much less popular options.

The data also seems to suggest that the Better Business Bureau is more skewed towards older audiences, with its popularity amongst consumers growing over time—from 21% in the youngest age group to 40% in the oldest.

The Importance of Reviews by Gender

As we reported in this year’s Local Consumer Review Survey, 98% of consumers read online reviews when deciding whether to use a local business’ services or not.

But, of this 98%, we wanted to know how frequently consumers read reviews, and whether there is a difference between the regularity in which men and women turn to online reviews?

Interestingly, looking at the data above, 79% of women read online reviews either ‘Always’ or ‘Regularly’, compared to 75% of men.

As such, this would imply that men are ever so slightly more trusting when it comes to searching for local businesses, seeing less need to routinely monitor reviews in the same way as women do. But, is this really the case?

Fake Reviews

As you will likely know already, review sites currently have a major problem with fake reviews.

Whether in the form of a negative review bomb or a competitor simply trying to artificially reduce a business’ average star rating, fake reviews can come in all shapes and sizes. This, in turn, leaves a large proportion of consumers on guard when assessing local businesses—especially in terms of the sites they choose to trust.

The Most Suspicious Review Sites

Looking at the key review sites across the web, we can see that men are generally more suspicious of reviews right the way across the board (a 71% combined average across all the sites, compared to 61% of women).

Women are most suspicious of reviews on sites Google (83%) and Facebook (71%), while men tend to mainly distrust the reviews they see on Apple Maps (87%) and TripAdvisor (83%).

There was also an interesting difference of opinion over Amazon reviews; 84% of women were found to be suspicious of trusting this website compared to 64% of men. However, as alluded to in the Local Consumer Review Survey, this could perhaps be down to the influence of review farms, where consumers flood particular product pages with fake, five-star reviews to try and outrank competitors.

Looking at the influence age has on review site suspicion, consumers aged between 18 and 44 years old were generally the least trusting across the board, with a combined average of 88% feeling suspicious of reviews on both Google and Amazon. Meanwhile, consumers aged over 60 years old were the most trusting, perhaps highlighting a good target audience for local marketers to focus on.

Consumers aged between 30 and 44 years old were also particularly suspicious of reviews on Facebook (77%), TripAdvisor (62%) and Apple Maps (46%), whereas trust appears to increase in Yelp amongst consumers as they mature.

The Spread of Fake Reviews

So, now that we know the websites that make consumers suspicious, are these sites also where consumers encounter the most fake reviews?

Well, according to the data above, men appear to encounter more fake reviews across the board than women, garnering higher respondent percentages across every review site.

However, when compared to the charts listed in the previous section, this makes for interesting reading.

Despite 84% of women being suspicious of reviews on Amazon, only 49% have actually seen a fake review here. Likewise, despite 87% of men saying they were suspicious of reviews on Apple Maps, only 6% were shown to have actually encountered one.

While this could potentially come down to respondents simply not using these platforms, it’s still worth asking why consumers are so suspicious of particular review sites without necessarily having seen actual evidence of fake reviews themselves.

Does this add fuel to the fire that a lot of consumer behaviour and decision making actually comes down to the public perception of specific sites, rather than the facts? Do consumers buy into the reputations they hear about online and follow the crowd, instead of finding out for themselves? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Looking into the age group data, there was a definite trend identified in the number of fake reviews seen on Amazon and Google; a higher proportion of consumers aged between 18 and 44 years old tend to notice fake reviews on these two websites (58% combined average for both), with older people less likely to encounter fake reviews here (38% combined average for both).

This correlates with the data above as well, where older consumers were found to generally be less suspicious of the reviews they see online.

Leaving Reviews

Having looked at the review websites that consumers most commonly use and trust, we wanted to know what some of the factors that could stimulate them to leave a genuine, positive review for a local business themselves were.

When do consumers leave positive reviews?

According to our data—and as you would probably expect—consumers across all age groups were most likely to leave a positive review in circumstances where the business went above and beyond to deliver an exceptional experience.

Interestingly, a higher proportion of younger consumers were also shown to be more likely to leave a review when they felt the business’ low average star rating was undeserved (77% of 18—29-year-olds, compared to 67% of consumers over 60).

As such, it could be argued that young people tend to feel more confident in their own opinion than other generations, feeling more prepared to leave reviews in cases where they disagree with the consensus given by other reviewers.

Conversely, consumers aged over 45 years old are the most likely to actively help a business, especially in cases where a local business goes out of its way to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

However, this may come down to this generation simply having more time on their hands than younger consumers, who may be more inclined to leave a negative review—as highlighted in the chart below.

Which types of consumers help or hinder local businesses?

Correlating with the finding above, these charts appear to again prove that older consumers are more willing to help local businesses, with 39% saying they would only leave a review for a positive experience and just 4% saying they’d only leave a review for a negative experience.

Meanwhile, consumers aged between 18 and 44 years old were both the least likely to only leave a positive review and the most likely to only leave a negative review. So, will we start to see more negative reviews appearing from this generation as time goes on?

Younger consumers are more likely to leave reviews after a negative experience than a positive one, after all, whereas older consumers are the most likely generation to leave positive reviews. Therefore, local businesses could soon need to focus on providing the best experience possible for both of these age ranges—but for very different reasons; younger consumers to avoid receiving a negative review, and older consumers to attract more positive ones.

Moreover, approximately 20% of consumers aged between 18 and 60 years old were found to not have left a single review—whether positive or negative—over the past year. As such, it could be said that—despite having a distinct lack of trust in particular review sites and a firm recognition of the wealth of fake reviews published online—a large proportion of consumers appear to be unwilling to stem this tide.

But, why is this the case? And does it have anything to do with the amount of household income consumers earn? Well, looking at the data above, there are a couple of particularly noteworthy trends.

Firstly, consumers earning less than $100k were the most likely to leave a positive review, perhaps due to being able to better appreciate the hard graft that many local businesses often have to put into boosting their authority—especially when only just starting out.

And, secondly, consumers earning more than $200k are the most likely to leave a review for both positive and negative experiences. This is perhaps to be expected though, especially when you consider the types of high-end products and services earners in this category will be sourcing from local businesses.

Generally speaking, the stakes when using a high-end product or service will often be higher, placing a bigger pressure on the experience itself. If, for instance, a more well-off consumer were to receive a service they believed to be sub-par or poor value for money, they would be more likely to speak their mind about it online.

Conclusion

So, there you have it—a deep dive into the demographic data behind consumers and online reviews. We hope you enjoyed it! Be sure to check out the original Local Consumer Review Survey for more information, statistics, takeaways and interesting insights.

Also, please feel free to use any of the charts and data included within this piece of research, crediting BrightLocal and linking back to this URL. Alternatively, send us an email or reach out to us in the comments section below and we’d be happy to answer any follow-up questions or queries you might have.

Now into its eleventh year, this survey aims to compile the thoughts and opinions of those working in local search, helping to illustrate what the world of local SEO currently looks like.

We recognize that the chopping and changing nature of local search can make it difficult to know not only how to implement appropriate strategies, but also to understand how to keep up to date with your potential competitors. So, we thought we’d try to help.

In this year’s survey, we questioned 400 local marketers around the world, gathering valuable insights. From agency workers to freelancers to employees in local businesses, we aim to provide a useful measure of life as a local marketer on a year-by-year basis, assessing the attitudes, experiences and finances of people working within the world of local SEO.

So, without any further ado, let’s see what 2022 has to offer.

Publishers are welcome to use the following charts and data, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this article’s URL. If you have any questions about the report, please get in touch with the content team, or leave a comment below. Information about the demographics of the survey can be found at the end of this post.

The Outlook for 2022

As we speed on through the first quarter of the year, it appears that many local marketers are hopeful about what the rest of 2022 has to hold—albeit not to the same extent as in 2021.

As the chart above shows, 23% of respondents believe that it will be easier to achieve local SEO success in 2021—down from 26% in last year’s Local Search Industry Survey.

However, with the majority of respondents saying it will be neither easier or harder (42%, up from 37% last year), this means that, overall, more local marketers are expecting this year to be almost as difficult as last year (36%, down from 37%).

Local SEO Salaries

The Average Salaries for Local Marketers in the UK, USA, & Canada

N.b. More than two-thirds of this year’s respondents were self-described as being a senior level local marketer, which could have had a bearing on the average salaries calculated above.

Salaries can vary pretty drastically within the world of local marketing but, we wondered, could you earn more for doing the same job in a different country?

Well, according to our data, yes you can.

We discovered that the median salary in the USA ($75,800 per year) was significantly higher than the median salaries in both the UK ($59,218 per year when converted into USD) and Canada ($66,275 per year when converted into USD). This correlated with the trend that we found in last year’s Local Search Industry Survey, with US-based local marketers bringing in a higher average salary overall ($90,664 per year).

UK local marketers were also seen to have a higher average salary this year than in 2021, bringing home an average of £47,130 per year—a £1,416 increase on last year’s data. The findings appear not to be so rosy for Canadian local marketers, though, with the average salary declining by $5,267 between 2021 and 2022.

So, why do you think this might be the case? We’d love to hear your thoughts so please let us know your theories in the comments section below.

Local Marketer Salaries in the USA, UK, & Canada by Gender

Delving into the salary data a bit further, disparities were also found between the average and median salaries earned by male and female local marketers across the USA, UK, and Canada.

In the US, male local marketers received approximately $20,500 more per year than their female counterparts while, in the UK, there was a £7,500 difference between men and women. However, Canadian local marketers were shown to have the largest gender disparity, with a $25,000 difference in median salaries, according to the data above.

Overall, women were shown to earn around 26% less than the men in this survey—though there were fewer women defined as working in ‘senior’ positions. So, this makes us question whether women in SEO are getting the opportunities they need to grow into the highest-paying and most senior roles? Our recent blog, entitled ‘How We Can Support Women in SEO: Advice for Women, from Women’, offers some great insights into this area, so let us know what you think!

The Average Salaries for US-based Local Marketers by Business Type

N.b. This analysis was only performed for US-based local marketers due to currency discrepancies with other countries.

Since this year’s respondents came from a whole host of different backgrounds—local search agencies, national marketing agencies, local businesses, multinational businesses—we decided to question how the average salaries may differ between each type of local marketer.

Looking at the data above for just US-based local marketers, we can see that respondents who worked for either a local business with a single location or a multi-location business earned around $10,028 more than the combined average salary.

However, since many in-business marketers will have SEO and digital marketing tasks as just one of their many responsibilities, this news should be taken with a pinch of salt; the salary they receive won’t necessarily be a true reflection of the specific local search duties that they are expected to perform.

At $68,000 per year, freelance local marketers were found to bring in the lowest average salary, overall; approximately 26% less than agency workers, 62% less than single or multi-location business employees and 27% less than they were earning on average in 2021. As a result, this finding could be representative of the transition away from the pandemic, with it now becoming increasingly harder for freelancers to obtain new work.

Unfortunately, the news wasn’t all good for local marketing agency workers, either. Last year, the average salary for this type of local marketer was estimated to be $91,468 per year, meaning that this year’s figure has declined by approximately 4% on average.

Local Marketer’s Satisfaction with Salaries

In light of the various salary disparities seen in the data above, you might be wondering how local marketers actually feel about the money they receive for their efforts. We were too and, interestingly, we found that the majority (39%) appear to still be satisfied with the salary they receive.

That said, this percentage has decreased by almost 10% since last year’s survey, with a higher proportion of respondents (46%) now feeling only ‘somewhat satisfied’ with their salary.

Looking into the difference between male and female local marketers, we also noticed that a higher proportion of female local marketers (18%) were less satisfied with their salaries than their male counterparts (10%).

This is, of course, to be expected when you consider the significant differences in income between male and female local marketers outlined in the salary comparison above.

However, what’s not to be expected is the ratio of male and female respondents who said they were either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with their salaries—found to be the same at 38% each. This accordingly makes us wonder whether female marketers’ salary expectations are therefore lower than male marketers’, resulting in an increased salary satisfaction despite earning less than their male counterparts. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Working in Local SEO

Annual Revenues for Local Marketing Agencies & Freelancers

N.b Respondents were asked to provide their annual revenue data in their local currency. Only converted currency data from US, UK, Canada and Australia-based respondents was used within the analysis.

Looking at the revenues of local marketing agencies and freelancers, there was a small rise in the number of combined businesses earning up to $100,000 this year (27%) than in 2021 (23%). There was also a slight decline in the number of businesses earning between $500,000 and $5 million this year (28%) compared to last year (35%).

But, when you break down the data individually, how did each type of local marketing business fare on a year-by-year basis?

N.b Respondents were asked to provide their annual revenue data in their local currency. Only converted currency data from US, UK, Canada and Australia-based respondents was used within the analysis.

According to the data above, we found that freelance local marketers generally had the lowest amount of annual revenue, with many (84%) earning less than $250,000—a 7% decline on last year’s data. That said, however, more freelancers were also found to earn more than double this figure, with 9% earning more than $500,000 in annual revenue compared to just 5% last year.

The majority of web design agencies (52%) were also shown to have annual revenues around the lower end but—with the remaining 48% of respondents earning $250,000 or more—this represented a 27% increase on last year’s data. However, since the web design respondents from this year’s survey differed from last year in both numbers and seniority, this finding may simply be due to the change of audience.

However, the same trend was also true of national marketing agencies, which were found to be the most profitable type of local marketing business; 22% earned more than $5 million in revenue this year compared to just 13% last year. This corresponded with a 19% drop in the number of respondents earning between $1 million and $5 million, effectively demonstrating that national marketing agencies are now earning significantly more this year compared to last.

Local marketing agencies weren’t too far behind, though. Approximately 25% earned more than $1 million in revenue in 2021, while 75% earned at least $100,000. But there was a 21% decline in the number of local marketing agencies earning more than $500,000 this year, perhaps suggesting that the bigger, national agencies are picking up more clients from these smaller types of marketing agencies.

Overall, when combining the data together, our results show that there has been a 9% decline in the number of freelancers and agencies earning more than $500,000 in revenue each year: 41% this year, down from 50% last year.

Taking the average from the data listed above, the same trends quickly become apparent.

At just over $2.5 million, national marketing agencies earned approximately 58% more than local marketing agencies, while the average annual revenue for freelancers was found to be less than $500,000.

How many clients do Local Marketers personally work with? 

Having assessed which type of local marketing business is typically the most fruitful, we were keen to determine whether the total amount of revenue earned was a reflection of the amount of effort put in per marketer in the business. So, we decided to investigate.

We can see that, on average, each local search employee will work with an average of 16 clients on an individual basis. But, when looking into the data further, our findings show that local marketing agency and web design agency workers tend to work with a higher average number of personal clients (19 and 18 clients, respectively) when compared to freelancers (14 clients) or national marketing agency workers (16 clients).

These findings effectively show that working in a national marketing agency will provide employees with fewer clients to work with on a personal basis, while rewarding them with an improved salary and a higher total annual revenue—as per the data above.

However, this goes against the general idea that national marketing agencies tend to work with fewer, but bigger, clients, with our data suggesting that each affiliated employee works with almost as many personal clients as smaller local marketing agency workers.

On the other hand—and perhaps as expected—freelancers will typically earn a lower amount of income despite working with a similar number of personal clients to other types of local marketers.

The Average Lifespan of a Local SEO Client

Almost half of this year’s respondents (49%) said that their average client lifespan was approximately three years or more—the same percentage as found in last year’s survey.

This is welcome news to hear, especially considering the tumultuous past couple of years the industry has faced in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Winning new clients can take up a lot of time and energy, after all, so being able to retain them over a longer period is crucial to getting the best results—especially from an ROI perspective. As such, it’s great to see so many long-standing relationships between local marketers and their clients despite the economic difficulties faced in recent times.

But, how exactly have local marketers been able to retain these clients over such a long period?

Services

The Local SEO Services Most Commonly Offered by Local Marketers

N.b. Respondents were asked to share all of the local marketing services that they offered.

Due to the varied jobs that local SEO can entail, not every agency or freelancer will be able to—or even want to—offer every type of service to their clients. As such, many local businesses wanting to choose a consultant will often have to think carefully about the specialities they really desire.

According to our data, the local SEO services most commonly offered by local marketers in 2022 were found to be:

1. GBP Optimization / Management (92% of respondents)
2. Content Creation / Optimization (88%)
3. SEO Audits & Analysis (83%)
4. On-site Optimization (82%)
5. Citation Building / Cleanup (79%)

As you might expect, Google Business Profile optimization—the biggest factor that affects local rankings—takes the crown as the most commonly-offered service, corresponding with our finding that almost two-thirds of local marketers believe the platform has improved over the past year.

Meanwhile, 5% more respondents are now offering content creation and on-site optimization compared to last year, while the rest of the top five results have more or less stayed the same as last year’s survey.

However, there have been a number of other interesting areas of growth and decline this year, some of which appear to go against what many expert local marketers may have predicted.

As you can see, 6% more local marketing agencies and freelancers are doing competitor research this year compared to last year, while video marketing services were shown to grow by the same percentage.

More interestingly, however, GBP spam fighting and Google Local Services Ads (LSA) management have both dropped in offering, by 6% and 13% respectively. This is a little surprising, especially when you consider the overall value many local marketing experts say they get from LSA.

Sterling Sky’s Joy Hawkins, for example, mentioned during our ‘The State of Local Search 2022’ webinar that Google is now showing photos in more results, including LSAs. This, coupled with the fact that LSA has now expanded to cover a wider range of industries, means that many local marketers could be potentially missing out on a big opportunity within this area this year by failing to recognize its importance.

After analyzing each individual respondent, we set out to determine which local marketing techniques were the most valued by those with a minimum client retention rate of five years or more, in an attempt to learn the habits and tactics of the most successful local SEOs.

N.b. Respondents were asked to share what they felt were the five most valuable services used within local marketing.

As seen in the data above, more than two-thirds cited GBP optimization as the most valued local marketing technique—albeit at 6% lower than other local marketers.

Services like content creation (a 6% increase), on-site optimization (a 5% increase) and website design (a 4% increase) were also shown to hold more value by this type of respondent, while other local marketing services like online reviews management, email marketing, PR, link building and outreach showed decreases in value, at 13%, 6% and 6% respectively.

As such, this data appears to suggest that—while GBP optimization may be important to all marketers—those that successfully retain their clients often look beyond it, advocating the value and implementation of other types of local marketing services.

Therefore, new agencies and consultants should strive to follow the same model, delivering a range of highly valued services that—along with GBP optimization—should include:

• Content Creation / Optimization (54% of respondents)
• On-site Optimization (48%)
• Citation Building / Cleanup (39%)
• Website Design (36%)

How Clients’ Understanding of Google Business Profile has Changed

Google Business Profile optimization is not only the most commonly offered local marketing service but it is the most valued as well. In simple terms, it is an essential component to local SEO success.

However, with the vast number of changes Google consistently makes to its platform—such as the recent Vicinity Update—it can be difficult for local marketers to keep up to date with their level of understanding, let alone educate the clients they work on behalf of.

So, with this in mind, and after another year of updates and changes, we thought we’d take a look at how clients currently perceive and understand the software.

In last year’s survey, we found that approximately 56% of respondents actually understood GBP better than before, with only 10% understanding it less.

However, this time around, that same trend has massively slowed, with only 41% of respondents understanding GBP better in 2022 than they did in 2021. Similarly, a higher percentage of respondents (17%) now understand GBP even less than last year, with the remaining 42% staying at the same level of understanding.

As such, this makes us hypothesize: is it good for local marketing agencies and businesses to have clients with less of an understanding of GBP? Or should there be more of a push to educate clients on how to use it effectively?

Let us know what you think in the comments below. And, if you think that clients should be better educated on GBP, make sure to check out our Learning Hub dedicated to doing exactly that.

Attracting New Clients

The Most Valuable Channels for Attracting New Clients

N.b. Respondents were asked to share the five most valuable channels for attracting new clients.

Retaining clients may be one thing, but attracting new ones is a whole other matter—so, how do local marketers do it?

Well, looking at the data above, the five most common ways of attracting new clients appear to be:

• Word of Mouth (57% of respondents, up from 53% in 2021)
• SEO (46%, up from 38% in 2021)
• Content Marketing (38%, up from 33% in 2021)
• Local Business Groups (26%, the same as in 2021)
• LinkedIn (26%, up from 19% in 2021)

Word of mouth has been the clear front-runner for a number of years now and this year’s survey is no exception. In fact, after last year’s dip from 63% to 53%, it appears that word of mouth-based recommendations are becoming more and more crucial for local marketers again this year, perhaps thanks to the increased ability to network again following the pandemic.

Interestingly, the only new entry into the top five channels for winning new local marketing clients this year is LinkedIn, which has overtaken Facebook for the first time (24% this year, down from 26% last year).

This movement could be down to two key things. Firstly, more and more freelancers are now using LinkedIn as an alternative to their own website, increasing their reliance on the platform for gaining new work.

And, secondly, due to the number of privacy and ethics issues that Facebook has faced over the last few years, consumer trust may have now diminished—a finding we also identified during our recent Local Consumer Review Survey.

Industry conferences are also no longer used to attract new clients in the same way as last year, seeing a 9% decline in support. This is another likely result of the pandemic, with more local marketing businesses now feeling more comfortable with using alternative networking strategies, instead of relying on in-person opportunities.

However, looking ahead, it will be interesting to see whether industry conferences regain their popularity again during next year’s survey. Will the trend reverse itself as we move further into the post-COVID era, for instance? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Local SEO Pricing

How Clients Are Billed for Services, and The Prices That They Pay

We’ve looked at how local marketers bring in new clients but, once they’re on the roster, how are they charged for the services they receive? And how much do they typically pay for the pleasure?

N.b Respondents were provided with several options to choose between and were able to select more than one answer where applicable.

Most local marketers charge clients using either a monthly fee based on deliverables (58% of respondents, up from 51% last year) or on a ‘per project’ basis (51% of respondents, up from 37% last year).

As such, this demonstrates more of a movement towards billing clients using fixed-cost methods—a risk-averse system likely to have become a lot more popular in light of tough lessons learnt during the coronavirus pandemic. What’s more, the data also appears to show that local marketers are now offering more flexibility on how they bill their clients.

As a result of these changes, charging by day rates and per lead were found to be much less commonly used billing methods by local marketers, despite still being offered by some (5% and 4%, respectively).

Looking at how local marketers charge for their services, the average hourly rates appear to have stayed more or less the same over the last year in the USA, Canada, and UK.

However, when converting these figures into USD, a clear discrepancy between the average hourly charges across these three countries becomes more apparent; US-based local marketers charge approximately $48 (£36) more than their UK counterparts and $38 ($49) more than their Canadian neighbors.

But, what influence does this have on the actual money local marketers charge their clients?

Well, according to our data, monthly rates tend to be a bit more standardized across the three different countries.

Therefore, despite UK-based marketers charging a lower hourly rate, the average monthly cost they bring in per client appears to be significantly higher proportionally than in either the USA or Canada. In fact, the UK had the only monthly charge seen to actually increase across the three countries since last year, by approximately £102 per month.

Life In-house for Local and Multi-location Business Marketers

Working in the world of local marketing doesn’t only relate to agencies or freelancers. Therefore, we decided to include respondents in charge of local marketing across both local and multi-location businesses in the conversation as well—a group which included approximately 24% of our total respondents.

The Content Management Systems Most Commonly Used by Local Businesses

During last year’s Local Search Industry Survey, WordPress was by far and away the most popular choice of Content Management System (CMS) amongst local businesses, accounting for 42% of the vote. This year’s survey showed an even greater dominance by the platform, with 75% of respondents now stating they use WordPress as their main choice of CMS platform.

No respondents in this year’s survey were found to use either Squarespace or Weebly, with the remaining 16% trusting custom CMS platforms in place of the more typical website builders.

These findings both were and weren’t surprising. After all, with WordPress now said to power around 43% of all websites, its dominance in this year’s survey was to be expected.

However, with more and more CMS platforms now available, some local marketers may have thought that WordPress’ dominance would dwindle over time. As such, this is perhaps an area to monitor with interest over the coming months and years.

How Much Local Businesses Spend on Local Marketing

Between 2019 and 2021, we had been seeing a gradual decline in the number of local businesses spending more than $5,000 on local marketing each month. However, this year’s survey appears to have finally bucked that trend, showing a 4% increase on last year’s data.

Likewise, only 28% of respondents were found to spend less than $499 on local marketing each month, representing an 8% increase in the proportion of local businesses investing more than this amount.

Looking at the average across the data, local businesses were found to spend approximately $139 more each month in 2022 than last year—corresponding with the trends shown above.

Again, these changes may have occurred due to the transition away from pandemic-related restrictions, with more local businesses now feeling a lot more comfortable about investing in local marketing once again.

The Metrics Most Valued by Local Businesses

N.b. Local business respondents were asked to share the five local marketing services they believe to be the most valuable for attracting new clients.

As per last year’s findings, the most valued metrics by local businesses remained more or less the same this year—with one surprising exception:

1. Google Local Rankings (57% this year, the same as last year)
2. Google Organic Rankings (49% this year, 54% last year)
3. Organic Traffic (41% this year, 47% last year)
4. Number of New Reviews (40% this year, 44% last year)
5. Phone Calls (39% this year, 51% last year)

New leads and enquiries have now been replaced in the top five of local businesses’ most valued metrics. Taking its place, local businesses were found to favor the number of new reviews instead, despite there being a 4% drop in its overall percentage.

Rankings on Google remained as local businesses’ most important metric for measuring marketing success—whether that be local or organic. This is particularly interesting as it goes against the general consensus many local marketing experts tell their clients, in that rankings aren’t necessarily as important a success metric as phone calls or sale numbers.

In fact, large decreases were actually seen in the value of metrics like phone calls (12% decrease), new customers (19% decrease) and overall website traffic (6% decrease). As a result, this could suggest that local businesses may not be paying as close attention to what they’re being told by local marketers as initially thought.

Future Plans

Will local marketing businesses hire more SEO-related staff in 2022?

Almost half of the agencies and freelancers surveyed said they were ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ likely to hire more SEO-related staff over the coming year—roughly the same percentage as last year.

On the flipside, 34% of respondents said they either ‘definitely wouldn’t’ or that ‘it’s unlikely’ they’d be making any more hires—a 4% increase on last year.

These findings seem to suggest that, while businesses may have prioritized getting more digital marketing experts on board over the past year, that same necessity and trend is now slowing down in light of the pandemic-related restrictions becoming more and more limited.

But, how has this change in hiring impacted local marketers themselves?

The Proportion of Local Marketers Moving Jobs in 2022

Well, according to our data, eight out of every ten local marketers plan on staying in the same jobs as they work in now, representing a 6% increase on last year.

As such, the same disparity we established within this area during last year’s survey appears to stand up once more; the proportion of companies expecting to hire more SEOs doesn’t correlate with the proportion of marketers expecting to change roles this year.

This, therefore, puts the power in the hands of marketers, potentially giving them more autonomy, a larger choice of jobs to choose from and a lower level of competition. As a result, local marketers could soon be able to request higher salaries and source better benefits, purely based on the lack of competition expected when searching for a new role.

The Proportion of Local Marketers Planning to Freelance in the Future

We hypothesized that, in light of the growing transition towards working from home, more local marketers would now be thinking about becoming freelancers.

As the above data proves, 42% of this survey’s respondents either work as a freelancer already or are planning on becoming one within the next three years (14%). In fact, only a third of our sample believe it is unlikely they will start working as a freelancer in the future—the same proportion as identified during last year’s survey.

These findings are interesting to see. While freelance work may not be for everyone, it appears that many local marketers are either picking up extra work on the side already or are keen to do so as time moves forward. This will certainly be an area to monitor as local marketers adapt to today’s new way of working.

About the Respondents

The Local Search Industry Survey is shared with BrightLocal’s audience and customers, but it’s also promoted in other places local marketers frequent to gather as representative a sample as possible.

During this year’s survey, 70% of respondents were from the US, 8% from the UK, 7% from Canada, 4% from India, 3% from Australia and the remaining 11% from 21 other countries. All of our results represent these countries, with the exception of salary and pricing questions, which only take into account respondents from the US, UK, and Canada for ease of comparison.

In terms of gender, a similar split was seen as per 2021’s Local Search Industry Survey; 35% of respondents were female, 62% were male and 3% declined to share their gender. 26% of our respondents were aged between 18 and 34 years old, 52% between 35 and 54, and the remaining 22% were aged 55 or older.

In terms of experience, the majority of respondents (70%) self-described themselves as a senior-level local marketer, with 24% as mid-level and just 6% as junior. As mentioned previously, this could have had a potential bearing on the average salaries calculated and discussed earlier within this article.

Types of Business

There was a broadly similar split between agencies, freelancers, and people working within businesses compared to both the 2021 and 2020 survey. However, this year’s survey did bring in approximately 3% more freelancers than previous years, as well as 7% more web design agency workers.

The Number of Employees in Local Marketers’ Businesses

In terms of the number of employees across each individual business, there was a fairly similar split to ones we have seen in recent years. The only real differences of note were the 9% rise in the number of businesses with 2-5 employees and the 4% decline in businesses with 251 employees or more.

Looking at the number of years our respondents have worked within the industry, with 70% rating themselves as being a senior-level local marketer, it will hardly come as a surprise to hear that 65% had worked in local marketing for a minimum of six years. In fact, over a third were shown to have worked in local marketing for over a decade or longer.

Conversely, we found that only 9% of this year’s respondents had less than 2 years’ worth of experience—a 4% drop from last year’s survey. This, again, could have had a bearing on the salary data discussed above.

When considering the seniority and working longevity of this year’s respondents, the majority (65%) rated themselves as having a level of local SEO knowledge as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’.

Only 9% of respondents were shown to have a ‘Fair’ or ‘Poor’ understanding of local SEO—the same percentage as found during 2021’s Local Search Industry Survey.

That’s All, Folks!

We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s Local Search Industry Survey.

We hope that the results discussed above will provide some useful benchmarks for local marketers to not only understand what their peers are doing, but help shape their ongoing local marketing strategies for the coming year as well.

As mentioned during the article, we would also love to hear your thoughts on any of our findings so please let us know all of your theories, feedback and opinions in the comments section below!

Focused on impacting proximity, the Vicinity update was seemingly designed to not only make it harder for businesses to rank when searches took place far away from their office but also to crack down on businesses with a heavy reliance on keywords in their Google Business Profile (GBP) names. 

Google, in essence, appeared to make it so that less-established businesses located closer to the user would now have the potential to rank higher than the more overpowered businesses located further away. It dialed proximity up as a ranking factor, causing a wide variety of local businesses to either benefit or lose out as a result. 

But, who exactly were the real winners and losers of the Vicinity update? And what impact did the use of keywords in GBP names have on local search performance? Were GBP names rich in genuine keywords, spam keywords or no keywords favored by the update? 

We decided to find out. 

Venturing into Vicinity

After announcing in December that it had concluded its local search update, Google released a relatively vague Tweet stating it had ‘rebalanced various factors’ that its algorithm considers when generating local search results.

Our November 2021 local search update has concluded. It began Nov 30 and ran through Dec 8. It involved a rebalancing of various factors we consider in generating local search results. General guidance for businesses remains the same as covered here: https://t.co/uyXFfmUEIR

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 16, 2021

What these factors were exactly remains somewhat of a mystery but, inspired by Sterling Sky’s own experiences of what this update did to spam, we sought to determine the impact of Vicinity on businesses with various types of GBP business name.

Had Google finally decided to push back on businesses that were using an abundance of spammy keywords within their GBP name? And, if so, did the Vicinity update achieve what it was set up to do in combatting these commonplace tactics? Let’s find out.

Our Methodology

Using data from Google’s Local Finder, we recorded and analyzed 5,019 keyword data points from 391 US-based Google Business Profiles (GBP), assessing the impact of the Vicinity update both before and after it took place. 

These GBPs were taken from a wide range of businesses across multiple industries—from plumbers and dentists to lawyers and pest control services—before being cross-compared with the relevant registered business name. 

These registered business names were taken from each business’s individual website, using information from the ‘About Us’ webpage, website footer and the main logo to determine how they each referred to themselves away from their GBP profile. This process closely matches Google’s own requirements for a GBP business name:

“To help customers find your business online, accurately represent your business name. Your name should reflect your business’ real-world name, as used consistently on your shopfront, website, stationery and as known to customers.” – Google, Guidelines for representing your business on Google

The business names from the GBP profiles were then individually assessed to determine whether they contained relevant keywords, spammy keywords or no keywords, using the following definitions: 

• Keyword Rich: The registered business name is either exactly the same as the GBP name, or both the GBP name and registered business name feature legitimate keywords. For example, ‘locksmith’ in ‘SupaLock Locksmiths’.
• Keyword Spam: The registered business name is either not the same as the GBP name or features keywords that are not included in the registered business name. For example, the registered business name is ‘Platinum Braces’ but the GBP name is listed as ‘Diamond Braces Orthodontist: Braces & Invisalign’.
• No Keywords: Neither the registered business name or the GBP name feature any keywords within them. For example, this would include businesses with names like ‘Lighthouse’ or ‘Exponia Development’.

Of the 391 GBP listings used within the study, 85 were identified as having ‘Keyword Spam’ in their GBP name, 149 as having ‘Keyword-Rich’ GBP names and 157 as having ‘No Keywords’ in their GBP name. 

As a result of the varying sample numbers for each type of GBP name, 255 GBP listings were used within the data analysis (i.e. 85 ‘Keyword Spam’ GBP listings, 85 ‘Keyword Rich’ GBP listings and 85 ‘No Keywords’ GBP listings) to ensure fairness across the results. We then cross-compared each type of GBP name with one another, using the relevant keyword data points to assess three key areas: 

• The impact of the Vicinity update on local search rankings (rankings of Google Business Profiles in the Local Finder).
• The impact of the Vicinity update on keyword ranking performance (the number of new keywords businesses ranked for).
• The impact of the Vicinity update on GBP names with varying character lengths.

So, without any further ado, what did our data show us? Let’s take it one question at a time. 

Vicinity vs. Local Search Rankings

As the chart below shows, GBP profiles rich in keywords or containing spam in their name were the hardest hit in local search rankings.

Keyword rich GBP names were seen to move down an average of 7.9 places in search results after the Vicinity update, whereas spammy GBP names decreased an average of 5.5 places. 

On the flipside, GBP names with no keywords in their name ranked an average of 4.1 places higher in local search results.

As such, the data clearly suggests that the Vicinity update favored businesses that didn’t have any type of keywords in its GBP name—whether genuine or spammy. This, therefore, shows that, while Google’s update may have intended to crack down on keyword spammers, it also appears to have unfairly punished GBP businesses with legitimate keywords in their names.

But could the same be said of keyword performance? Did the number of keywords that GBP businesses were ranking for prior to the update fluctuate depending on their GBP name? 

Vicinity vs. Keyword Performance

Well, after analyzing the movement of keywords that each individual GBP profile ranked for both before and after the Vicinity update, we decided to investigate the extent of the impact on each type of GBP name. 

As the data above shows, a similar trend was seen to that of the local search rankings, with both keyword rich and keyword spam-filled GBP names seeing small decreases in their overall number of ranking keywords, compared to GBP names which contained no keywords.  

Keyword rich GBP names, on the other hand, were not only found to be the most negatively impacted by the overall change of ranking keywords, but they were also shown to rank for fewer new keywords after the update as well.

As the data above demonstrates, keyword rich GBP names ranked for fewer new keywords than GBP names with spammy keywords or no keywords at all. 

This, again, suggests that GBP names without keywords were favored by Google’s Vicinity update, ranking for two more new keywords on average while also improving the performance of the keywords that they had already been ranking for prior to the update. 

Meanwhile, it appears that the update has tarnished genuine keyword rich GBP names with the same brush as spammy GBP names, with Google seemingly unable to identify between the two. But is this really the case? And, if so, why? 

Vicinity vs. GBP Name Length

Since our data seems to suggest that Google struggles to tell the difference between keyword spam-filled GBP names and keyword rich GBP names, we hypothesized that this could be due to the overall length of the GBP name itself. So, we decided to investigate. 

Firstly, by looking at the overall data for all three types of GBP names, we can see that GBP profiles which featured 31 or more characters in their business names suffered significantly bigger drops in rankings than businesses with shorter GBP names. 

In fact, GBP names with 10 characters or fewer were found to actually move up in rankings following the Vicinity update, again suggesting that Google’s update focused on favoring shorter GBP names with few to no keywords.

This finding was then further merited while delving further into the data, assessing the number of characters in each individual type of GBP name against its ranking performance.

But, that wasn’t the only interesting discovery to catch our eye.

As you can see in the chart above, GBP names that were both without keywords and less than 20 characters in length showed a steady increase in rankings. 

Interestingly, however, GBP names that included spammy keywords and ranged between 21 and 30 characters in length actually showed the biggest increase in rankings, moving an average of 16 places up in search rankings. 

On the flipside, spam-filled GBP names more than 30 characters in length were the hardest hit in terms of search rankings, moving down an average of 25.2 places. So, what does this all mean? 

Well, for starters, it appears to suggest once again that Google struggles to decipher between keyword rich GBP names and spam-filled GBP names, punishing genuine businesses that feature a natural abundance of keywords within their GBP names. 

That said, however, the data also appears to show that the Vicinity update may be using GBP character length as a proxy for spam, assessing GBP names as ‘spammy’ because of their overall length rather than their contents. This was hypothesized because GBP names of 31 characters or more were seen to show significant declines in their ranking performance when compared to GBP names under 20 characters in length. 

Moreover, the research appears to suggest that Google has started to crack down on businesses that have used—and still use—keyword-stuffing techniques within their local search strategies. Instead, it appears to now be prioritizing businesses that abide by its representation guidelines, reflecting their real-world business name on their GBP listing.

What did the Vicinity update teach us? 

Generally speaking, the Vicinity update appears to have favored smaller, less established businesses in local search results while punishing competitor businesses that use underhand non-Google-friendly marketing tactics. 

But, as our data shows, the changes have not been entirely flawless.

As such, you may now find yourself asking what all of the information we have gathered actually means—so, how can you use our findings to ensure you stand out in local search results? 

Well, we’ve got you covered. Listed below are a few key lessons we think you should take away from our research into the recent Vicinity update, using the expert advice and insights from our very own Local Search Expert, Claire Carlile.

Consider Removing Keywords From Your GBP Name

“The propensity for businesses to legally change their business names to pure keywords and modifiers looked, quite frankly, ridiculous in the map pack and businesses lost their ability to make their brand stand clearly apart from the melange of ‘me too’ businesses.” — Claire Carlile

Unless they are absolutely necessary and a part of your registered business name, Google appears to be cracking down on GBP names that contain keywords—whether they be spam or actually relevant to your business. 

Since our data found that GBP names without keywords outperformed spam-filled GBP names and keyword rich GBP names in both local search rankings and keyword ranking performance, this appears to suggest that having a huge array of keywords in your GBP name might not be as beneficial as it once was.

Keep Your GBP Name Short

“The Vicinity update should hopefully encourage businesses to re-engage with the basic marketing tenets of business naming conventions. I’ve always found that a unique brand name plus the primary service keyword can work really well – for example ‘Porter’s Pizza Place’ or ‘Sparkle Co Cleaning Services’.” — Claire Carlile

Our data suggests that GBP names featuring more than 30 characters in length are becoming more frequently recognized as spam by Google, with many longer GBP names showing a poorer ranking performance following the Vicinity update. 

Therefore, you should try to keep your GBP name as short and as succinct as possible to help improve your ranking performance. 

Continually Monitor & Optimize Your GBP Listing 

“Businesses need to be aware that using a primary product or service keyword in the registered business name can be excellent for SEO and for clearly signaling to a potential customer what the business does. However, it can also be potentially limiting if a business expands in terms of their service provision, or if the name no longer adequately describes the type or breadth of products or services that they offer.” — Claire Carlile

Since the benefit of using keywords in your GBP name appears to have been dialed down by Google, you should now put more effort into monitoring, optimizing and improving your GBP listing via alternative tried and tested strategies. 

From gaining reviews to building citations, you can find out more about how to monitor your Google Business Profile in our detailed guide.

Focus On Your Primary Location 

While we didn’t research this area ourselves, data from Search Engine Land discovered that primary business locations took a greater hit after the Vicinity update than those with secondary office locations. 

As such, try to prioritize proximity by improving your local search performance in the locations that are most relevant to your business. 

Are there any other lessons you are going to take from our research into the Vicinity update? We’d love to hear your ideas, so please join the discussion by sharing your thoughts in the comments section.