Where is local SEO in the buyer’s journey? Are local searches inherently transactional? We took a look at when featured snippets and local packs live on the same SERP to find out.
Back in November, when we re-upped our featured snippets study, we discovered something interesting — while featured snippets can co-occur with many SERP features, they almost never appear on the same SERPs as local packs.
This is a snapshot of 2.3M US/desktop Google SERPs from April 20, 2022:
See that orange sliver of pie? In this analysis, only 0.2% of Google desktop SERPs in the US had both featured snippets and a local pack on page one. We tend to equate featured snippets with informational intent (often answers to questions), so does this imply that local searches are inherently transactional?
Digging into the 0.2%
First, let’s take a closer look at those rare cases of intersection. Here’s part of a Google SERP for “otolaryngology” (from my home office):
Here, the intent of the search is a bit ambiguous. Are you looking for an otolaryngologist or do you just have no idea what that word means? This seems to be pretty typical of the 0.2% — many of these SERPs were for broad or ambiguous terms where the searcher intent is unclear without more context.
Local informational intent
Clearly, there is such a thing as a local question, so why aren’t those queries returning featured snippets? Consider for example “When does the Post Office open?” (a question I just asked Google yesterday):
There’s no featured snippet or answer box in this case, because Google is answering the question directly in the local pack (which appears first in my results). How about a search for “Where is the Space Needle in Seattle?”
Here, Google pulls the answer directly from the knowledge graph (and the [not shown] local knowledge panel in the right-hand column). Since the question is inherently about a single, unique location, no local pack is displayed.
Local transactional intent
In many cases, though, a specific local search signals a desire to do or buy something locally. Consider a search for “I need me some tacos, stat!” (yes, I could’ve just searched for “tacos near me”):
Am I interested in the history of tacos at this moment? No, Google has rightly determined that I want to find conveniently located tacos and put them in my mouth.
Similarly, consider a search for “Where can I rent snowboards?” While the question has an informational feel, it’s unlikely that my quest is hypothetical:
While I’m asking about a service and not a product, that service requires an in-person interaction, and Google is surfacing results based on mentions of rentals on the websites for these local shops. Again, Google has answered the question directly in the local pack, in this case via the local justifications feature.
From a content perspective, these results illustrate the importance of having service-relevant website content. It’s no longer enough to have solid local ranking factors if your local business isn’t relevant to the searcher’s need.
Where does local SEO live?
So, where is local SEO in the buyer’s journey? In many cases, even the “informational” questions have a transactional intent. I’m not idly interested in the phone number for the pharmacy or when the bank opens — those questions signal future action.
While I live and breathe SERP features, I freely admit that I’m a local SEO amateur, so I asked my teammate and local SEO expert Miriam Ellis for her take:
“From examining Google’s behavior in which the overlap of featured snippets and local packs is so incredibly limited, it seems clear that Google views the latter as largely transactional. In point of fact, many experts are writing about Google’s promotion and monetization of the inherently transactional reality of local search. Google is actively promoting their Pointy device to get more local inventory and sales happening within Google’s purview. Additionally, industry analysts see local search as the ace Google has up its sleeve in its battle with Amazon over control of shopping. Given all this, it’s a good guess to assert that leadership at Google is convinced of the transactional nature of local.”
Miriam raises a critical point — even if searcher intent isn’t always transactional, Google has a vested interest in driving local transactions, and SERP features will always reflect Google’s interests.
When Google is interpreting a search as transactional, your informational content may not be well-positioned to compete. Ultimately, maybe local packs and featured snippets don’t collide because they reflect two different goals for Google, and acknowledging that reality is essential to our SEO efforts.
