A few months ago, a Google algorithm update came in quietly and it took a bit of time for web designers and SEO specialists to fully appreciate just how important it was. We’re talking about the Google Venice update, a change that makes it clear local search is now even more important than ever before.

With many local search results now being prioritised (to check this out, go onto Google and type in a term such as ‘web designers’ – you should be given results local to you even if you didn’t specify a location), it’s definitely worth making sure your website is optimised for the local sphere.

For example, making sure that you target local keywords is definitely a wise option. Even if you don’t have an office in some of the places you are targeting but you still do work there, it’s worth doing what you can to optimise your site for those locations. One option that quite a lot of sites are employing is to have location-specific landing pages.

One thing you need to be careful of if you decide to do this is duplicate content; you can’t just copy the bulk of the content from one page to another and simply alter the keywords. If you do, you could end up falling foul of another important Google algorithm change – last year’s Panda update, which was designed to weed out duplicate and low quality content. Your content all needs to be unique, relevant and properly optimised for SEO.

Overall, local search is something that is important for all businesses, no matter where they are based. The impact of Google Venice means that now is definitely the time to take action.

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