Local Pack Headers: Curious, Overlooked Clues to the Mind of Google

Which local pack element is hiding in plain sight, has no industry name despite being present in at least 33% of SERPs, and has curious behaviors which, up until now, have been little explored?

It’s the thing I’ll call “local pack headers”, after informally polling my peers and confirming that the local SEO industry has never really dubbed this bold, ubiquitous feature which headlines local packs:

Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Oh, yeah, of course I know what those are, but I’ve never really paid much attention to them.”

At least, that’s what I thought when my honored colleague, Dr. Peter J Meyers, started looking at these with me recently. So, we decided to pull some data and see what we could learn from it about what Google is doing with these big headers, and we found some surprises and a few takeaways I’ll share with you today. After all, the better we know the local SERPs, the smarter we can be at strategizing for our clients.

Methodology

Using MozCast, we pulled in data for 3,392 queries with local packs (derived from 10,000 total queries) to discover original data on the incidence and behaviors of local pack headers, comparing query language to SERPs in a spreadsheet. We combined this with manual lookups of 50 search terms to further observe Google’s handling of this element. Your results may differ based on location, language, and device.

What we learned about local pack headers

Here’s a simple rundown of our three overall findings.

1. The diversity of unique local pack headers is enormous

Out of our 3,392 searches, nearly 2,000 of the headers were unique. As local SEOs, we are so attuned to thinking in terms of standard Google Business Profile categories, it feels a bit surprising that a search term like “50th birthday party ideas” generates a unique local header that isn’t something like “party store” or “amusement center”. You can see familiar categories like these right there in the pack shown above, but the local pack header very often captures the search language rather than the associated category. Nearly two-thirds of the time in our data set, what Google showed as a header was totally unique and not like any other result term within our experiment.

2. The semantic relationships underpinning local pack headers are wild and wide

Only 40% of the time, Google exactly matched the local pack header to our query language. I included in this segment queries and results that were identical except for some small difference in punctuation like “Arbys” vs. “Arby’s”. 60% of the time, they instead mapped our query to a different header they believed to be relevant. In other words, six times out of ten, our search for something like “baby stroller” didn’t result in a mirrored header, but rather brought up a header like “department store”.

What was especially mysterious to me while doing this research was the seemingly random way in which these semantic relationships are operating, and I’ll share just a few illustrative examples.

Why, for instance, does my search for “adopt dog” generate a local pack header for “animal rescue services”:

But my search for “adopt bunny”, which is something you can also typically do at an animal rescue, receives an exact match header:

Why does my search for “mop” generate an exact match header:

But, as if it exists in some utterly different commercial reality than a mop, my search for “broom” earns the “in-store availability” header:

Similarly, why does Google highlight the “in-store availability” of a desk:

But for a couch, you’re on your own calling up “furniture stores” to see what’s in-stock:

Why do my searches for “karate”, “wing chun”, “aikido”, and “jiu jitsu” all bring up the “martial arts schools” heading:

But my “tai chi” query is met with an exact match heading, instead:

Things get really wild once we start searching for something to eat. Google believes that my search for “jasmine tea” will be best satisfied at a grocery store:

But if I want pickles, I deserve a header of my own:

Meanwhile, if I look for “tacos”, Google maps that to a header for “Mexican restaurants”, and if want “pho” Google maps that to a header for “Vietnamese restaurants”, but Google doesn’t seem to believe my search for “spaghetti” is closely tied to “Italian restaurants” and, instead, shows me an exact match header, followed by a pack full of…Italian restaurants:

Why do “pants” exist in “clothing stores” but “t-shirts” exist on their own? Why do “tomato seeds” bring up “garden centers”, but “petunias” have a pack of their own? Why does the search engine know the “in-store availability” of “vinegar” but not of “BBQ sauce”, which gets its own heading?

Suffice it to say, Google’s handling of all this is weird, and suggestive of an underlying semantic logic that often defies description. I’d like to offer a simple explanation, like “these headings stem from primary GBP categories”, but any effort on my part to prove something like that has failed. The language is often quite distinct from category language, and for now, the best I can offer to do is break the local pack headers down into rough types…

3. There are at least five types of local pack headers

These are the five basic buckets into which most headers fit:

• Branded — searches for something like “Chuck E. Cheese near me” receive a “Chuck E. Cheese” heading on the packs.

• Commercial container terms — many searches for specific products and services get headlined by phrases like “grocery store”, “department store”, “chiropractor”, “legal firm”, “plumber”, etc. Whether you’re searching for “vacuum cleaner” or “back pain”, Google will frequently associate your search language with some overall container business type. Sometimes, these terms will exactly match regular Google Business Profile categories, but many times they don’t. For example, my search for “vacuum cleaner” generates a pack that is labeled “vacuum cleaner” rather than the standard category “vacuum cleaner store”.

• Commercial exact match terms — as we saw above, Google will often exactly match the header to product searches like “pickles” or “spaghetti” and they will do this to service inquiries, too, like “tax preparation services”.

• Informational — as in our “50th birthday party ideas” example, Google can take an informational query like this and map it to local results, whether they are commercial like a party store, or civic, like a local park. Informational queries can either result in exact match headings or in headings that don’t match but have some presumed implicit relationship.

• Actionable — the “in store availability” label reads like a local justification along the lines of “sold here” and “in stock”, but this most actionable CTA isn’t obviously linked to the presence of justifications. For example, here is a search I do from time to time for “accent chairs corte madera” to keep an eye on what Google is up to:

As you can see in the above screenshot, all three of the entries in the local pack feature the “sold here” justification, but the local pack header is in the “commercial exact match” bucket rather than earning the “in-store availability” headline. Even the presence of “in-stock” justifications does not necessarily prompt the “in-store availability” header to appear:

What can you do with what we’ve learned?

Do you ever get the giggles when reading headlines raving about how smart AI and machine learning have made search because you’ve seen so much proof of the opposite? Do you ever give a sigh when a developer claims a machine is now as intelligent as a human (and secretly wish these folks would set the bar higher to like … a dolphin or something, given abundant evidence of the evolution we humans need to go through before we can be pronounced intelligently self-sustaining)? With that in mind, let’s take a second look at 50th birthday party ideas:

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure whether Dr. Pete or I would want to spend our august semi-centennial celebrations at Cucu’s PlayHouse or the other entries here which reviewers are praising as great fun for little kids. Maybe? I’ll have to ask Pete, but in the meantime, this local pack presents dubious evidence of Google’s smartness in associating a 50th birthday parties with:

• Review justifications talking about “kiddos” and “sons”

• The primary category of “language school” (albeit, that would make a fun party for philologists)

Google is, I suppose, trying hard with “party store” and “amusement center”, but the overall relevance leaves something to be desired here.

The truth is, search technology is barely out of kindergarten, and the local businesses you market are going to have to help it learn its ABCs. That’s why studying an overlooked element like the local pack headers could be a competitive advantage for you. Try this checklist:

1. Run your core searches and see which local pack headers are coming up for each term.

2. Have you optimized for those header terms on relevant pages of your website? No? Do it.

3. Are you writing review requests in such a way that they generate review justifications that contain those header terms?

4. Are you listing products on your site and Google Business Profile and via Pointy so that Google knows that a header they are using matches something you’ve got? Not yet? Better do that, too.

5. Do you have any gaps in your GBP categories that could be filled with missing categories you are seeing reflected in the packs associated with certain headers? Add them!

While I can’t prove that fields and features like categories and justifications are part of the underlying semantic mapping going on that is informing how Google is filling up packs under these vastly diverse headers, what I do know is that literally anything you can utilize to signal to Google, “hey, I’m relevant” is worth considering. Let Google know you’ve got the pickles, and the accent chairs, and the solution to back pain, every possible way you can.

Today, I’ll leave you with a sentiment I heard expressed by multiple speakers at MozCon 2022 (video bundles coming soon!) that has stuck with me. Presenters urged attendees to ask the question,

“What is search for me today?”

The barrage of SERP features is so bewildering, my colleagues at Near Media are comparing Google’s results to Las Vegas, and you have to be intentional about making time to actually sit down and study all the shiny, but sometimes not too bright, objects that are representing the businesses you market to the public. Things constantly change in this interface, and you’ve got to look at what search is for you (and your customers) today, and then look again tomorrow to see if some big-pixeled promotional element like a local pack header is actually hiding right under your nose.

In today’s case, we’ve got a feature that’s as large as the sign on a mall or the label on a package that is signaling to us how Google is struggling, succeeding, and failing to match intent to their assets. And since those assets also happen to be yours, your awareness and experimentation belong here. If you decide to do your own study of the local pack headers and end up detecting new patterns that we haven’t covered here today, @ me on Twitter and we’ll keep learning local together!

What Are the Best Tools for Storytelling With Data Visualization?

Storytelling with data is a crucial part of any content marketer’s toolbox. Whether you are using data visualization to illustrate a point you’re trying to make, or you want to showcase data from an analysis your team has done, proper data design is key to creating effective visuals that everyone is happy with. Charts and infographics can be pretty, but if they aren’t also properly breaking down data in a way that makes an impact on the audience, they are likely not worth the time and effort.

Below, we discuss how storytelling ties into data visualization, and what tools can help you bring more data into your content. We also recently updated our Learn Center article about storytelling with data, to highlight how data transforms our content and legitimizes the points we're trying to make, no matter the topic. Be sure to check it out for even more insights!

How does storytelling tie into data visualization?

Visualization is the act of taking data and breaking it down in a visual way that helps the audience understand at a glance what the data is telling us. This could be something like taking population data from a town and creating a pie chart that shows the age ranges of all residents or looking at a bar chart to see that the number of apps an average user downloads on their smartphone has slowly increased over time. Then, after this data is introduced, we use storytelling through content to further explain what the data is telling us.

For instance, if we know that the average user downloads two more apps to their phone then they did five years prior, we can deduce that users are likely using their phones more. This can help us introduce our main point or solution, such as an app cleaning utility to help users remove apps they no longer use, or behavioral modifications for users that want to be on their phone less.

The best tools for data visualization

If you're looking to create your unique data visuals, which is recommended so you don't use someone else's data without their permission, there are several tools you can use to gather data that will influence the main points in your content narrative. These free and paid tools range from the following:

• providing the data for you in a chart format

• giving you raw data to build into graphics

• allowing you to import your raw data so you can build the visuals you need to properly summarize the data points

Creating your own data visualizations can help you create imagery that illustrates your point, influences users to take action, or helps you explain your points in a visual way. Whether you need data trends over time or an analysis of your data to determine next steps, these tools can help.

Google Trends

Most SEOs are aware of Google Trends, but almost any industry can use it to get a quick pulse on what is trending in their specific field of products or services. For instance, if you are an e-commerce, you can check out the Google shopping trends to see what products are being searched for most recently. The page also points out large spikes for specific product terms for e-commerce, such as “y2k aesthetic.”

Additionally, Google Trends also shows daily overall trending search topics in specific countries. This is really useful if you're looking for data that applies to a specific country or the pulse of a certain area overall, such as music or current events.

The main section of Google Trends allows you to compare multiple topics as once to see how user interest has ebbed and flowed over time.

This data can be an effective way to showcase how specific audiences have gained or lost interest in a topic over a set period of time.

Google Charts

If you already have data that you need to plot into charts, Google Charts under Google's development tools is a great way to do that. It allows you to import data which you can create visualizations from and then place on your website.

It’s free and completely customizable. It also has a gallery you can browse for examples of available charts, which can help you decide which is best for your data.

This tool may require more developer knowledge since you’ll have to HTML5 and other code to pull in the data.

Additionally, Google Data Studio is similar to Google Charts, where you can import several different data sources to create graphics and live charts based on API-connected data. However, it is focused more on providing an internal data dashboard rather than public-facing charts for content pages.

Moz

If you’re looking to share keyword research or search data over time, consider using Moz. Moz Pro allows you to track your campaign data over time (as well as research competitors), and the suite of free tools lets you view data on specific keywords or links.

This data analysis can be used in marketing pieces to describe trends in search over time, or you can use this type of data in your internal stakeholder content, such as when you want to illustrate the success of your organic content campaigns or how the number of links to specific pages has increased over time since you started updating old posts.

Tableau

Tableau is arguably the most well-known data visualization tool available. It has paid and free versions. The free version, Tableau Public, requires a software download, but then lets you create data visualizations for free (with some limitations that are lifted in the paid version).

To see some of the data visualizations that were created using Tableau, they have their free 3D VizGallery that lets you walk through a 3D “art gallery” of real projects. Here’s an example covering “Work Like an Artist: Daily Routines of Famous Creatives” from a user who adapted information from books on creatives’ work schedules by Mason Currey, Wikipedia, and blog posts.

External data from company user data

If you were looking for data from large companies, many make some of their data public, which can be pulled to create a data analysis or trend report over time. Two good examples of this are:

Spotify Charts

If you want to see how specific music or other media hosted on Spotify is performing over time, check out Spotify Charts, which shows you trends in specific genres of music or by country.

Amazon Sales Data

You can also view trends in Amazon products, such as its best-selling books list or lists of top-selling products in specific categories. External tools, like Amzscout, pull this data to help you see how specific products are selling over time.

Pivot tables

If you want the most simple way to chart your raw data, don’t discount the power of pivot tables and charts in Excel or Google Sheets. These can automatically provide you with charts and other data graphics fast, right within your saved data spreadsheet. There are lots of resources to create effective charts and graphics. It’s important to note Google Sheets may have slightly different formula functions than Excel in some cases.

In conclusion

To learn more about storytelling with data, don’t forget to review our recently updated Learn Center page. Whether you are using a simpler tool like Google Sheets or want to build a beautifully-designed infographic in Tableau, data visualization is a great way to further your storytelling narrative by illustrating your point and growing users’ understanding of the topic at hand.

To see more examples of great data visualizations, check out Juice Analytics’ thoughtful roundup of examples across several different topics and industries.

Social Media Competitor Analysis: The Complete Guide

According to Sprout Social’s survey, 85% of companies rely on social data as a primary source of business insights. And with almost 4.6 million people on social media networks, they are a crucial part of your growth strategy.

It’s no longer news that there’s fierce brand competition — in every industry — roaming the web. So, how do you outcompete your brand competitors and grow your business on social media? By doing social media competitor analysis.

When you learn your competitors’ moves, you find ways to reinforce your brand strengths, improve on your shortcomings, and take advantage of opportunities. In this guide, we’ll go over what social media competitor analysis means, its benefits, the steps to take when performing this analysis, and a list of the tools you need.

What is social media competitor analysis?

Social media competitor analysis is the process of evaluating your competitors on social media to find opportunities and build strategies for brand growth. Performing this analysis allows you to identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to develop a working social marketing strategy. It also reveals relevant information about your target audience, why they’re interested in competitor brands, and how these brands do better at social media marketing.

Why is social media competitor analysis important?

Social media competitive analysis has its own advantages outside the strategy you use to examine your SEO competitors. It allows you to:

1. Understand your ideal clients better

Performing a social media competitive analysis lets you gain deeper insights into who your ideal clients are. Knowing your customer personas empowers you to get more marketing results because you understand:

• What social media platforms your ideal clients use

• How they consume content

• The types of content they’re searching for

• What pain points they need solutions for

• What time they’re active on social media

2. Build a better social strategy

When you understand how and why your competitors are performing better than your brand, you can create a working social media strategy, or improve it if you already have one.

A social media competitor analysis challenges you to do your best because it compares your methods and results against the competition. Also, you can identify gaps to leverage for brand growth, and threats you need to deal with.

3. Create relevant content

It’s only natural that your ideal clients choose the brands whose values and content they align with. A social media competitor analysis will make you top of mind among your ideal clients.

This is because you’ll identify the types and formats of content they want to see. Also, you can take advantage of the content gaps you discover to create fresh, valuable content for your audience.

4. Better marketing and positioning

By conducting a social media competitive analysis, you can leverage your social platforms for more effective marketing. When you see what’s working for your competitors, you’ll start to use relevant, underused social media features and strategies.

More so, this empowers you to come up with a positioning strategy to differentiate your brand from the competition — and become an authority in your industry.

Six competitive analysis tools for social media

Alongside your traditional analytics tools, which we’ll talk about later, you need specific social media tools to perform efficient competitor analysis on these platforms. We’ve included six options below:

1. Not Just Analytics

Not Just Analytics, formerly called Ninjalistics, is an analytic tool for Instagram and TikTok. With this social media competitive software, you can monitor the growth of competitor profiles, the hashtags they use, and their engagement rates.

All you have to do is enter your competitors’ profiles into Not Just Analytics and analyze them. For example, after analyzing Isis Brenna’s Instagram profile, marketing strategist for business coaches, here’s what Not Just Analytics displays:

2. SocialMention

Social Mention by BrandMentions is a search engine for collecting user-generated content on social media, blogs, news, and videos.

Once you enter a competitor brand, Social Mention tracks and shows you all the conversations about them — who’s talking about them, what they’re saying, and on which platforms:

3. Socialbakers

Socialbakers is a social media management tool that makes it easy to monitor all your social media platforms in one place. It works best for agencies.

This tool allows you to measure and compare your content performance to improve brand growth. In addition, Socialbakers has free competitor analysis tools for Instagram and Facebook, and you can analyze up to five competitor profiles.

4. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a suite of social media management tools for better brand marketing. It has scheduling, analytics, and competitor analysis tools for all business sizes and types.

Sprout Social's competitor analysis feature allows you to monitor your competitors' audience growth and publishing schedules.

5. Sociality.io

Sociality is a full-service tool for social listening, scheduling, and competitor analysis.

With this social media competitor analysis tool, you can gain insights into your competitors' paid ad campaigns, social media performance metrics, and content strategy and history.

6. BigSpy

BigSpy is a free tool for analyzing your competitors’ ads on social media. This ad library holds a database of advertisements on different social networks.

BigSpy helps both small businesses and large enterprises find campaign inspiration from their competitors to create better marketing campaigns and social media strategies.

How to do social media competitor analysis

Performing social media competitor analysis doesn’t have to be a hassle. Whether you use Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, or YouTube, here are the five steps to analyze competitor businesses.

1. Figure out your brand goals and metrics

Before examining and comparing competitors’ performances, figure out what you want. It’s important to always start with the end — your brand goals — in mind.

Determine the answers to questions like:

• What are your goals for marketing on social media?

• How do these fit into your overall brand goals?

• What key performance indicators (KPIs) will you track to measure success?

• Who are the ideal clients you want to reach?

2. Identify your brand competitors

It’s impossible to analyze your competitors on social media if you don’t know who they are or which social platforms they use.

Watch out for both direct and indirect competitors — that is, businesses that offer similar products or services and those that solve the same problem as you. Then, list your top five competitors.

You can find out your competitors by:

Using Moz’s free SEO competitive research tool

Enter your site domain and click Analyze domain. You’ll get a list of your top competitors and keywords you can target. You can head over to their websites, find their social handles, and see what they’re doing.

Using Google search

By using the search engine result page (SERP), you can find competitors ranking for your keywords on social media, although this can be a tasking process.

Enter your target keyword and take note of the websites, and especially social media profiles, that pop up during your search.

For example, if you enter the keyword “launch copywriter,” here’s what you’ll find on page one:

From the screenshot above, the websites ranking are likely competitors for that keyword. However, you need to check their social profiles to see if they are also social media competitors.

Foro this query, there’s an Instagram profile ranking as the fifth result and the only social media profile on page one. So, if you were looking to build a strong social presence as a launch copywriter, you’d analyze this profile for their strategies.

Searching on the target social platform

If you’re looking to grow your brand visibility for a specific product or keyword on a social media platform, enter the term in the search bar of that platform and go through the accounts or hashtags that pop up to see if there are competitors you’d like to analyze.

Screenshot from Pinterest’s search bar

Screenshot from Twitter’s search bar

3. Collect and analyze data

Data analysis and collection make up the majority of this process. To make it easier, you can choose a convenient analysis tool from the ones mentioned above to study, analyze, and compare the performance of your competitors.

And while you might have your brand KPIs, here are the important social media metrics to track during competitive analysis:

1. Account reach/impressions

2. Number of followers

3. Engagement rates

4. Social media ads insights

5. Share of voice

6. Estimated organic traffic to the page

7. Quantity of keywords the competitor

Using a simple tool called Keywords Everywhere, figuring out metrics 6 and 7 can be easy.

Install the Chrome extension for this tool. Once done, type “[the social media platform] + [brand name]” in Google Search. Then, move your cursor over the metric kw(us):

For example, when you enter “Instagram.com gucci,” here’s what you get:

This shows that Gucci’s Instagram page ranks for 312 keywords and gets up to 24,600 visits per month.

To further simplify your social media competitor analysis, here are some of the questions you should consider:

• What is your competitors’ audience growth rate?

• How does their content strategy look? What content type do they focus on — informational, entertaining, aspirational, or promotional? Which content formats do they use? Is it videos, texts, lives, carousels, etc.? What is their posting schedule?

• Which posts get the highest engagement, such as likes, comments, and shares?

• What is their engagement rate, on average?

• What other social media marketing types do they use, apart from organic promotions? Is it sponsored posts, collaborations, paid ads, referrals, or influencer marketing?

• How does their hashtag strategy look? Which hashtags do they use? How many, and how often?

Now, compile everything you’ve analyzed so far into a spreadsheet. This makes it easy to track and evaluate data at a glance:

Bonus: instead of creating a spreadsheet from scratch, you can use this social media competitor analysis template by Sprout Social.

4. Create a social media strategy

Data analysis is important when evaluating your social media competitors, but data interpretation is more necessary. Everything in your spreadsheet is only lines, figures, and charts if you don't know how to use the data collected for business intelligence.

Meagan Williamson, Pinterest marketing expert and business coach says, “When your competitors have impressive metrics, it’s essential to understand what they are doing well to build a better social media strategy. Also, their weaknesses (that is, what they aren’t doing well) can be opportunities for your brand growth. Build a data-driven strategy that allows you to look at what’s working and what’s not, and how you can take advantage of these insights to accomplish your business goals.”

With this spreadsheet information, create a four-part SWOT analysis table for your strategy.

SWOT analysis is a well-thought overview of your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to help you make informed business decisions.

5. Keep tabs on account progress

After doing your social media competitive analysis, that’s not the end. You need to keep tabs on your profile and, of course, the competition. This allows you to:

• Monitor brand progress

• Notice new competition quickly

• See if your social media strategy is working

• Identify new growth opportunities

• Keep your marketing plan up-to-date

It’s crucial to stay on top of both industry and social media trends.

Stick to a routine to regularly analyze your social media competitors — whether that’s monthly, quarterly, mid-yearly, or annually. Also, ensure that you update your competitor research spreadsheet to identify new opportunities or threats.

Wrap up

Social media competitive analysis is vital to your brand growth, as it allows you to build a solid social presence, customer trust, and brand credibility.

By mastering the steps above, you can conduct this analysis for any of your social media profiles. Figure out your brand goals and turn analyzed, organized metrics into context-rich insights to improve your social media strategy.

Transitioning to GA4: Is this the Right Analytics Move for Your Team?

Back in March, Google announced that the current version of Google Analytics Universal (commonly known as Universal Analytics) will be deprecated as of July 1, 2023, in favor of the new version, GA4.

As a part of this transition, Google will be dropping support and tracking for Universal Analytics (UA), which has been the standard reporting tool for millions of websites since 2012. According to Google, historic data from Universal Analytics will be accessible for "at least six months" after the July 2023 retirement date. Keeping it ambiguous, Google adds:

"In the coming months, we'll provide a future date for when existing Universal Analytics properties will no longer be available. After this future date, you'll no longer be able to see your Universal Analytics reports in the Analytics interface or access your Universal Analytics data via the API."

While 2023 may seem like ample time to prepare for this transition, the truth is you need to check a few boxes sooner rather than later, especially if there are important year-over-year (YoY) metrics that need to be tracked without disruption. In short order, capturing data for next year's YoY metrics means that your business will need to take action before the end of summer 2022 to ensure:

• Seamless tracking

• YoY reporting (including access to historical data) – the full functionality you want/need from your data and analysis toolset

• Your team is prepared to use the new tools (regardless of what new solution you choose)

Though Google "strongly encourages" users to make the transition to GA4 “as soon as possible”, we’d argue that – given the scale of the change and the work/resources it will require to properly transition to GA4 (as outlined in more detail below), now is the right time to pull up and evaluate your data tracking stack.

It’s too easy to make assumptions about needs and requirements being met based on “what we’ve always used,” and end up backed into a corner.

Instead, let’s explore this in detail and consciously select the right platform for your needs.

How is this different from the last GA platform change?

The transition from GA Classic to Universal Analytics was simple. All you needed to do was update the tracking code on your website. Your data was the same. The interface, metrics, etc. – all largely the same. That's not the case this time around.

How are GA Universal and GA4 different?

Google made some big changes in GA4 that may take time to adjust to. This has many implications, including large differences in:

• the interface for navigating and setting up the reports

• the base skills/knowledge set needed for people using the new platform

• the data set itself (GA Universal data is not compatible with GA4 data)

• your ability to access and use YoY data

• access to certain (well-loved) functionality, and even some metrics. Some will no longer be available OR require a thorough setup to access.

In short, GA4 is quite literally a re-imagining of how to track and measure website interaction. Much like the transition from USB to USB-C, this means changes to systems/processes, tools, skills/training, and potentially your annual budget, to ensure a smooth transition.

1. Reimagined reporting interface

The most glaring difference between Universal Analytics and GA4 is the reporting interface.

Compared to Universal Analytics, GA4's interface is more simplified and streamlined. This is because some of the metrics, views, and reports you see in Universal have either been removed or replaced.

The updated interface looks much like Google Data Studio in the way analytics are presented. So if you're familiar with Data Studio, then navigating GA4's interface may be more intuitive for you.

The Universal Analytics reporting dashboard.

The new GA4 reporting dashboard.

Still, changing from what's known and normal always comes with some level of pain and processing. Even for those who are well-trained in the world of Universal Analytics, adjusting to a new reporting interface will come with some confusion – and perhaps some roadblocks and resistance.

2. Evolving terminology

Once you start perusing the new interface, you'll notice that Google has changed some of the terminology. "Behavior" is now "Engagement", "Segments" have become "Comparisons", and "Channels" is now "User Acquisition". The "All Pages" reports have been renamed as "Pages and Screens".

Google has also reorganized the "Audience" reports, and the information that used to be in the "Audience" reports are now in other sections, including "User" and "Acquisition" sections.

Navigating GA4 won't necessarily be a frictionless experience, especially for those who are regularly immersed in Universal Analytics.

Access to reports have been reorganized and renamed. Compare UA on the left, and GA4 on the right.

The new GA4 exploration feature.

3. Updated measurement models

Universal Analytics and GA4 use different measurement models. While UA relies on a session- and pageview-based data model, GA4 stands on an event-based model. With GA4, any interaction can be recorded as an event.

The somewhat confusing thing about this change is that, in UA (and all previous versions of Google Analytics), an event has an action, category, label, and its own hit type. But in GA4, there is no action, category, or label.

ALL hits are events, and events can contain parameters.

…They don’t have to, though.

For example, in GA4, you can have an event called page_view, and this event can contain parameters: page_title, page_referrer (previous page URL), and page_location (current page URL).

Events in GA4 are grouped into four categories:

1. Automatically-collected events: You don’t have to manually activate these events. GA4 automatically tracks them when you install the GA4 base code. Examples include first_visit, session_start, and user_engagement.

2. Enhanced measurement events: GA4 also collects these events automatically, but you’ll need to enable (or disable) enhanced measurement settings in your Data Stream depending on your website functionality. These events include outbound clicks, scrolls, file downloads, and site searches.

3. Recommended events: These events are not implemented in GA4, but Google recommends that you set them up. If you need an event that’s not collected automatically or is not a part of the enhanced measurement events, you can check for it in recommended events. Examples of recommended events include sign_up, login, and purchase.

4. Custom events: These are events that you can create and implement by yourself. You should only use custom events when you need to track an event that you can’t find in the first three categories. You’ll need to write and design custom code to implement the custom event you want to track. Fortunately for the less code-savvy, Google has rolled out a tool to assist in importing custom events from Universal Analytics to GA4.

Overall, this approach actually allows more flexibility and configurability to WHAT is measured on your site.

However, with more flexibility comes more set up and forethought, so having a documented measurement plan is HIGHLY recommended for GA4.

4. New BigQuery functionality

If you use BigQuery, then you'll be happy to know that GA4 connects natively to it. With Universal Analytics, the only way users can export data from GA is through the enterprise version (GA360). But with GA4, users can export data at no additional cost.

Keep in mind the way data is structured in GA4 is different from how it's structured in Universal Analytics. So you might need to remap your GA4 data before you'll be able to move it into BigQuery (we find this GA3 to GA4 tool helpful in formatting historical data to align with GA4.) Once you've done that, you'll be able to run SQL queries more easily.

The BigQuery integration is available, so we definitely recommend setting it up ASAP. Why? Well, GA4 only stores data for a maximum of 14 months (and default settings are only two months), so for accurate YoY comparisons, you'll need to rely on this year’s BigQuery datasets you gather now or suffer the losses.

5. Removed functionality

Some existing features like views, custom metrics, and content groups will no longer be supported. If your team relies on these existing features, adapting to GA4 will likely involve figuring out how to fill certain measurement gaps. And if the transition becomes too compromising and painful, keep in mind that there are alternatives.

As you've likely gathered, moving from GA Universal to GA4 is not a light undertaking. Between adapting to GA4's new reporting and measurement models and learning its revised labeling and terminology, it's going to be a heavy transition no matter what your situation entails. Consequently, now is the time to verify that the outcome of all this work will in fact meet your needs.

What does this mean for you and your company?

All users of Universal Analytics (that's close to… well, everyone, really), will need to start planning for how and where to continue measuring your website performance.

You'll also need to take action to save your data for 1) posterity and 2) YoY reporting, given that the data set is NOT compatible, nor will be available to you (if you don't take steps to preserve it). AKA: we also need to plan for when this needs to happen.

In terms of the how and where, ultimately, there are three primary options (four if your team takes a hybrid approach of combining options 2 and 3), each of which is outlined below.

1. Adopt GA4 and update any current measurement programs

The first option is the big one on most people’s minds. That is, opting to use GA4 and taking the proper steps to preserve data integrity and seamless measurement.

If you determine that GA4 is the right fit, the major boxes to check involve identifying measurement gaps and revising KPIs (or measurement protocols) to fill these gaps. You'll also need to start collecting data (now) for later YoY reporting needs, as well as ensuring your team is up-to-speed on the new GA4 interface.

Given that the interface in GA4 is considerably different from the interface in Universal, any teams currently using the latter will likely require additional time and training to adapt to the new structure.

2. Move to a different hosted analytics platform

Due to some of the identified gaps, we're exploring options for both free and paid alternatives to GA4 for our own team. Among the free analytics tools worth considering are Clarity, Clicky, and Mixpanel. While the free versions of these tools are great, some offer upgradeable paid options for more robust capacity/capabilities.

Some businesses may find that their requirements are better met by moving to paid tools or premium versions of certain analytics products. Of those worth exploring are Matomo, Adobe Analytics, Heap, Kissmetrics, Heap, and Woopra. The latter two offer free plans but, in our experience, they’re highly limited.

Keep in mind that not all of these analytics tools offer the same level of utility and features, and don’t forget about privacy and security to support GDPR and CCPA regulations, a growing concern for many brands.

While any new tool would require onboarding, many of them offer training as part of the client onboarding process. Most of these analytics options also offer a free trial, so you can vet a platform hands-on before committing to it.

3. Implement an on-premise/first-party data tracking solution (enterprise solution)

On-premise/first-party enterprise solutions can deliver greater utility, privacy, and compliance, depending on how they’re leveraged. Platforms like Matomo and Countly do offer on-premise implementation, meaning that your company would own ALL of the user data, instead of being passed through to Google Analytics (or any other third party).

If you have other owned digital platforms, coupling an on-premise analytics suite with solutions like Looker (owned by Google!) or PowerBI can allow you to access data across different teams and properties easily.

Please note that the implementation of this approach requires fairly heavy dev/engineering collaboration.

How should you evaluate alternative analytics tool sets?

When exploring alternative analytics options, there are many important considerations you’ll want to evaluate. Here are several key factors to help get you started:

• Data ownership: Who actually owns the data? This can be a much larger conversation for companies in regulated industries where more than just marketing stakeholders are involved.

• Privacy concerns: More than data ownership, where is the analytics data being hosted? This means the physical location of the servers where this data is stored. If you require GDPR-compliance, this is essential to know—and get right.

• Accessibility: Will you have access to raw data? How long is data retained? Some analytics platforms will vary.

• Native reporting: What sort of native reporting capabilities are there, and does the platform integrate into your company’s preferred reporting tools (e.g. Google Data Studio, Tableau, PowerBI, etc.)?

• Attribution modeling: How are certain events like conversions determined and assigned across user touchpoints and channels? Does their model align with your attribution definitions? Think about last touch, first touch, etc., across the entire user journey.

• Event & transactions tracking: What out-of-the-box event tracking is available? How do you add user ID tracking, and is it still secure and compliant? E-commerce stores and affiliate marketers may have unique challenges here, especially when it comes to communicating with your web platform, e.g. Shopify.

• Campaign tracking: How does the system report on custom campaign metrics? These include things like UTMs and tracking URLs you get from the various ad platforms you may use.

• Custom tracking: Is custom tracking an option? Does the platform provide their own tag manager, or can you use the tried-and-true Google Tag Manager (that’s probably already installed on your website)? Are there server-side tracking options?

• Cross-domain tracking: Is the analytics platform capable of tracking user activity across more than one domain that you own?

• Data importing: Can you import your old Google Analytics data, seamlessly or otherwise?

• Cost: More than just ongoing monthly/annual fees to use the platform, what set-up fees, implementation costs, and ongoing maintenance efforts are required of you and your team?

There's clearly a lot to consider when weighing various analytics alternatives. The thought-starters above offer some of the most important considerations to keep in mind. But deciding which data solutions will check the most pertinent boxes for your business can be a time-consuming undertaking in and of itself. To help make this vetting process a bit easier, you can make a copy of this Google Sheet template: Data Solution Option Vetting, which already lists several alternatives.

When should you make the transition from Universal Analytics to GA4?

In the case that you and your team decide to make the transition to GA4, you'll need to get your ducks in a row sooner than later. The summer of 2023 may seem like ample time to prepare, but your team should start to take prompt action in:

• deciding on a measurement solution,

• preserving historic data, and

• potentially implementing this solution prior to the end of summer 2022, and certainly prior to year's end.

"Potentially" because some solutions – #3 from above – will simply require more time to implement.

Your data is safe for now: Google will not be removing/deleting your Universal data until the end of 2023. However, to reiterate, if you want to preserve your ability to do YoY reporting, you should take action sooner versus later.

There are some paid solutions to aid this process, but no one is really leading the pack on this one yet. This tool mentioned above can be helpful, however, a complete data export is still a necessary heavy lift.

For now, you can certainly export any of your favorite Google Analytics reports to Excel or Google Sheets using the Export function within the Google Analytics interface. Currently, only GA 360 users have seamless options for exporting their Google Analytics Universal data.

Moving forward

While many current Universal Analytics users will naturally default to GA4, hopefully by now, you're well attuned to your options. It's one thing to follow the herd, but it's another thing to understand the features and limitations of GA4, as well as other analytics platforms, and how those considerations align with your needs and potentially those of your clients.

Outstanding Local SEO Takeaways from MozCon 2022

It would be hard to overstate the value of the education offered at MozCon. From the impressive accreditation of seasoned speakers to the novel thinking of newcomers, MozCon 2022’s presenters delivered a level of actionable advice and inspiration that resoundingly reaffirmed why this event is one of the best-loved in the SEO world.

As a local SEO, it’s my practice to attend the livestream with ears pricked to catch any takeaway that could be useful to local businesses and their marketers. Local was the core focus of a few presentations, but while the majority of MozCon talks are not local-specific, nearly all of them featured applicable expert advice that we can turn to our advantage. Today, I’ll provide my personal rundown of the best tips I gleaned for local businesses from MozCon 2022, I highly recommend pre-purchasing the video bundle to go beyond my recap to a detailed understanding of how to excel in your marketing.

1. Let’s really talk about landing pages

The SEO industry has zoomed in on the critical role both location and product landing pages are now playing in marketing. The former will come as no surprise to local SEOs, and the latter has become an increasing part of our world as the pandemic has driven local businesses to incorporate shopping into their websites. Some of the brightest ideas shared at MozCon 2022 surrounded what belongs on these landing pages.

Recently, you may have read my column encouraging local businesses to emulate actionable Google Business Profile features on their website homepages, and I was gratified to see this strategy echoed and expanded upon by both Amanda Jordan and Emily Brady in regards to location landing pages.

Ross Simmonds made a very strong point that content does not equal blogs, and Amanda Jordan emphasized that it isn’t copywriting that makes a landing page great — it’s features, like:

• Booking buttons

• Reviews

• Social proofs

• Customer UGC, like photos

• Original stats that are strong enough to earn backlinks

• Polls and surveys

• Awards and recognitions

Emily Brady added to this list by encouraging the inclusion of Google Business Profile attributes on location landing pages. She further urged local SEOs to use the 145 types of local business schema to actually inform content strategy for these pages – a suggestion I don’t believe I’ve ever heard before. She noted that SMBs have few enough landing pages to make it feasible to manually create best-in-market, unique content as a competitive advantage.

Amanda Jordan did a study of the top 10 location landing pages across 50 cities and noted the high percentage of them that emphasized these features:

By focusing on features that customers really want, local businesses can solve the longstanding issues Amanda cited as being associated with location landing pages, namely, duplicate and thin content, low user engagement, and lack of conversions.

On the topic of product landing pages, I’ll quote Areej AbuAli who emphasized that, “Filters can make or break an e-commerce website.” Anyone who has ever shopped online knows the truth of this. Her presentation was a deep dive into the care that must be taken to build a strategy for commerce architecture and indexing that takes details like these and more into account:

Meanwhile, Miracle Inameti-Archibong’s presentation on web accessibility was highly applicable to any business that publishes a shopping website and her talk was filled with moments that honestly shocked me. I’ve never used a screen reader before, and I had no idea what terrible UX websites lacking accessibility best practices provide for the 12 million Internet users who have visual disabilities. I also didn’t know that 80% of what we all learn is done through the medium of vision. These facts should be a wake-up call for all website publishers:

• 1 in 8 Americans have a disability.

• People with vision loss consistently report having advanced internet proficiency.

• Working-age people with disabilities cumulatively possess $490 billion in after-tax disposable income.

• 83% of people with accessibility needs shop on sites with accessibility standards, even if prices are higher.

• 97.4% of homepages have accessibility errors.

• Missing alt text accounts for 61% of all homepage accessibility errors.

Miracle Inameti-Archibong had us sit with her though the terrible experience of trying to use a screen reader in this environment and imagine what it is like to try to shop, manage personal finances, or perform other essential day to day activities online, and I was especially moved by her reminder that all of us have causes we care about, but that implementing accessibility is one SEOs actually have the hands-on opportunity to do something about!

In addition to encouraging everyone to download a screen reader to experience their websites in a new way, she extended this Colab resource to help us all begin tackling alt text issues at scale. With a commitment to supporting the agency of all people, we can ensure that both our product and location landing pages are accessible to everybody.

2. Let’s be part of big trends in thought and tech

Local business owners and marketers will benefit from understanding the evolution of both perceptions and possibilities happening in the wider industry.

On keyword research

Wil Reynolds noted that keyword research is how we gain empathy for our customers and Dr. Peter J. Meyers’ presentation of why we need to stop fixating on the bottom of the sales funnel and embrace the messy middle was, in my opinion, some of the best storytelling of the conference.

Both Dr. Pete and Tom Capper urged us to think not in terms of massive keyword volumes but of groupings by human intent, weaving around and about the complex loops of evaluation and exploration. Indeed, an overall theme at MozCon 2022 was that SEOs are rethinking old views of keywords and reenvisioning them in terms of entities, intent, and topics. If we stop trying to continuously sell and focus, instead, on being there in the messy middle, we will be getting so much closer to real journeys than what we see in familiar funnel structures. Tom Capper further advised us to stop thinking of keyword research as grunt work suitable for junior staff and to employ the skillful art of understanding intent so that we end up actually knowing our customers. He also mentioned that this type of research, done well, can help local businesses discover which of their locations are deserving of the most investment.

On content and content marketing

“Google is capable of recognizing first-person expertise,” was a quote from Lily Ray that underpinned her outstanding presentation on why E-A-T should be moving us all to:

• Write in the first person on our websites

• Provide step-by-step instructions and objective advice without selling

• Offer honest pros and cons

• Use first-hand experience to back up claims

• Publish unique images

• Explain why we are qualified to author our content

In her talk on why E-A-T is the most important ranking factor, Lily Ray shared this persuasive screenshot from one of her clients who had been hit by the Medic update and then re-launched a site that emphasized their expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness:

E-A-T is, in my opinion, a gift to local business owners because so many of them possess the kind of expertise that only comes from a lifetime of working in their field. Our role, as local SEOs, is to capture and promote that expertise in a way Google understands.

Meanwhile, Ross Simmonds reminded us all that the phrase “content marketing” includes the word “marketing”. Hitting “publish” is not the end of the journey. Instead, we’ve got to:

I particularly latched on to his suggestion to give out awards and found myself imagining the local links that could flow in if something like a local grocery store formalized giving out awards for “best of county” foods, or a bookstore did the same for best regional authors, or an environmental organization recognized the greenest local businesses. Take this idea and run with it.

Speaking of earning links and publicity, Amanda Milligan told the story of beleaguered local newspapers who are actively seeking content featuring trends in employment and real estate, ways to avoid scams, and “news you can use” articles. She highlighted how some 2,200 local papers have folded since 2005 and explained how those struggling to keep going could be very interested in your contributions to their sections on lifestyle, money, entertainment, sports and news. Gather some original data and offer it to your local and regional newspapers for some highly-relevant press.

And, finally, Crystal Carter’s presentation on visual search re-emphasized the message that content does not equal text. As she noted, “Visual search makes the camera a primary tool for understanding the world.” Crystal is a Level 6 Google Guide and, reminding us that Google can definitely parse images, she encouraged businesses to strategize for solid, consistent, well-lit, unobscured real-world branding, like this:

She also proffered an excellent tip of auditing the photos your customers have uploaded to Instagram and Yelp. Is your branding on the dinner plates of your restaurant? On the uniforms of your staff? On banners at events you sponsor? What is the “that pic” for your business, where customers pose to photograph themselves? Are you uploading great owner photos to your citations so that customers are encouraged not just to shop with you, but to photograph your aesthetics themselves? All of it belongs on your website and Google Business Profile as we enter a multisearch reality and find new opportunities in an environment in which photos have become, not just great content, but queries.

3. Let’s be aware of trends on our periphery

Pretty much anything SEO-related is also part of our local SEO playbook, but sometimes the things SEOs prioritize for remote businesses may exist on the edges of our strategy, rather than at the center, and yet can still be important for us to consider.

A prime example of this is link building. Most truly small local SMBs will not likely have to invest heavily in earning links because our markets are typically finite with a limited number of direct nearby competitors. Nevertheless, more competitive local brands should pay attention to Paddy Moogan’s mention of the fact that 21 of 35 link building tips he presented at MozCon 10 years ago are still good-to-go in 2022, but that he’s observed four trends that have him worried:

1. Asking for links isn’t sustainable — more than half of SEOs spend 1-5 hours trying to build a single link

2. Questionable link relevance — who believes that Google wants to reward a business that builds up a massive, but irrelevant, volume of links?

3. Too much reliance on campaigns — it’s a mistake to focus on big, shiny link building campaigns instead of on actual business impact

4. Unintegrated link building — for agency and in-house link builders, if your work is happening independently of other departments, you face the risk of being squeezed out in times of economic downturns.

Paddy called on SEOs to solve these problems by reframing links as the outcome of an effective content strategy, using the actual and very messy customer journey to spot link building ideas, focusing on evergreen projects instead of one-off campaigns, and being integrated in multi-department work from the get-go. All of this advice is applicable even to small local businesses and their marketers who want to get the most out of smaller budgets of time and money.

Wrapping up, there was one other talk given by Ruth Burr Reedy on remote workplace culture which might not have seemed laser-focused on local SEOs and their clients, but which really stood out to me as having universal wisdom. Whether your local business staff is still fully in-office or has become a hybrid or fully-remote workplace due to the pandemic, the development of an atmosphere of “psychological safety” is valuable for every kind of team.

I’ve been a strong advocate for many years here in my column of the reputational benefits that result from employers trusting employees enough to use their own initiative to support and delight customers. Ruth’s presentation depicting a working environment that encourages staff to be able to ask anything without risk made me think more deeply about the hard work local business owners need to put into developing a full and healthy culture behind the scenes that is felt by every customer who walks in the door.

MozCon 2022 was absolutely replete with deeply technical, practical, and cultural tips that I’ve only been able to touch on briefly today. For the full experience, you’ll need to watch the videos, with their speaker enthusiasm, beautiful decks, and bountiful guidance. Pre-purchase today!