Local Search is really catching up with Traditional Search Results where Google is working really hard to match user intent in the local pack, local finder and maps, which are generated from Google my Business profiles.
(Yup – Google My Business now refers to listings / pages as profiles)
What are Local Justifications?
Justifications are a bolded text snippet that is displayed in the local pack, finder and maps results that match the users search query in the businesses profile display.
Local Justifications can be displayed from information retrieved from:
- Website
- Services
- Posts
- Reviews
- Menu Highlights
- In Stock
All of these can be optimised for, to some degree or another.
Website Justifications
Website justifications are pulled from the linked website to the Google My Business profile. This could be an actual page dedicated to that particular query or mentioned on site. My advice would be to always have a unique page on site for a service or product that you offer, and optimised for local search, not just for justifications.
Service Justifications
Service justifications are displayed from the services section in the Google My Business profile. Fill in your available services. Depending on the scale of your business, these can be displayed in categories of services. Not all business profiles have services enabled.
Post Justifications
Post justifications are snippets of text that are extracted from a post in the Google My Business profile.
Review Justifications
Review justifications are extracted from a users review on the business profile. Sadly these do not apply to the reply from the business. When asking for reviews, you can try and influence their review by prompting them based on the service you provided.
Menu Highlight Justifications
Menu Highlight justifications come from menu images that can be labelled with the dishes name, but only when they become popular enough to be labelled in the menu highlight section and cannot be managed via Google My Business profile, but from maps. These are also susceptible to user suggested edits, so be aware and manage regularly.
More On: Menu Highlight Justifications
In Stock Justifications
In Stock justifications come from Google Merchant Centre or other 3rd party providers, but you can integrate with Google Merchant Centre for free and your CMS may already be able to produce a feed for this.
More On: Local Inventory
Hotel Justifications
Hotels have recently started to benefit from website justifications. These have a different look to the above local justifications because the Hotel Finder is part of Google Travel and a different product although integrated into local search.
More On: Hotel Justifications
Local justifications are a natural by product of an optimised Google My Business profile and website for local search!
Have at it!
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