Surprise: ‘Near me’ brand names don’t rank higher for ‘near me’ searches
‘Near me’ searches continue to grow, but the tactic of optimizing for these terms can now do more harm than good for local search rankings.
“Near me” has been one of the term optimizations that many of us have recommended for local SEO benefit for years now.
But, there are reasons to think this tactic has completely jumped the shark, making it a waste of time.
And for those who optimized by creating a business name around the phrase, Google’s changes have essentially destroyed their brand name search in Maps.
‘Open now near me’ searches up 400%
In March, Bill Ready, president of commerce, payments and next billion users at Google, penned 2022 Retail Marketing Guide: Drive foot traffic and in-store sales. This part grabbed my attention:
“Searches for “open now near me” have grown globally by over 400% YOY.”
“Near me” searches are queries for local products or services that include qualifier terms like “near me” when consumers want to narrow down to see the businesses closest to them only or primarily.
Also, during its Q1 earnings call, Google revealed that Maps searches for [shopping near me] were up 100% globally year-over-year.
“Open now” is a similar type of qualifier that is often used outside of the typical 9-to-5 timeframe or used later at night, such as to find restaurants that are still open, or clinics and other types of stores that stay open late at night.
While searches for businesses “near me” or “open now” separately are used more frequently, it is not surprising that both qualifying phrases might be used simultaneously in queries.
The rise of ‘near me’ search optimization
If you’ve worked in local SEO for a good length of time, this isn’t particularly surprising. We’ve known for about a decade that “near me” search optimization held huge potential for many types of businesses in many markets.
The 400% YOY growth rate is eye-opening, indicating that consumers have increasingly grown to expect that these qualifiers will help them locate more precisely what they need.
The rising use of mobile devices when conducting searches has influenced the “near me” trend a lot and has helped to drive overall increases in the volume of local searches.
Google Trends demonstrates the increasing popularity of “near me” searches, which is what Ready based his statement upon:
show considerable growth over time:
, keyword research showed that no other competing attorneys in the niche were using “near me” phrases. I created an optimized page for his “near me” specialization phrase. His referrals increased by about 20%.</p>
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Optimizing for “near me” phrases was a solid gold recommendation for a long time in local search. It was nearly a slam-dunk.
Why?
Because when you had a website and webpages that included a page or pages for “near me,” along with the industry business category name, for many businesses where people wanted local providers this would connect local consumers with webpages and Google Maps boxes for those businesses that had optimized for it. As a great many businesses were clueless about the optimization, this provided a stealth marketing weapon that virtually guaranteed valuable referral increases.
The rise of ‘near me’ businesses
In the last few years, several businesses have taken this optimization to the next level.
How?
By engineering their business name itself to include “near me”.
If you check the business registration databases across the U.S., you quickly find there are a number of businesses across the U.S. that have included “near me” into their official business names.
This includes many business categories beyond just a few of the more predictable kinds (e.g., locksmiths).
Clearly, many companies took the idea of optimizing for “near me” queries and made it into a core piece of their strategy that could be expected to return a lot of referrals.
With all of their online collateral materials associating “near me” with their business, how could they not rank for these searches?
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