“SEO takes time” is the mantra you will hear from most SEO companies and marketing agencies. At Hoopless, we don’t accept industry jargon as law – nor do we think in black & white.

While we can’t make guarantees or over-the-moon predictions, the truth is we often do see extreme fluctuations in local search results very quickly (as in weeks… not months or years)

That’s because Local SEO is unique due to the existence of Google’s Local Pack, aka the “Map Pack”

For local businesses, such as a spa, Map Pack visibility is often more valuable than traditional organic search rankings. Local customers on average engage with Google Business Profiles (previously known as Google My Business) far more than organic search results for local intent queries, such as “massage near me”

Not only that, but ranking “first” in organic search for local intent queries isn’t as shiny as it might seem on the surface. Since Google’s Local Pack appears before the organic search results, the first organic result is more accurately the 4th result on the page.

And just like the 4th result in traditional organic results for national/non-local intent keywords, the first organic result in local receives less traffic compared to the first three results (the Local Pack)

Below is an example of the Local Pack vs Organic for the search term “massage therapist near me”

Organic search results require spiders (like Google’s algo bot) to crawl & index websites, including web pages, new backlinks, on-page SEO changes, etc. This does certainly take time.

Google Business Profile, on the other hand, is a native Google product – so they don’t need to crawl a GBP to notice changes. It all happens in real time. 

That means Google Maps rankings operate more like a filter. For example, if you change your hours, you are immediately going to rank worse during your closed hours – even on the same day as the change.

Equally, all sorts of other optimizations can shake Local Pack rankings on an immediate basis. So, yes, optimizations from a Local SEO specialist can sometimes cause real-world measurable impact even within 24 hours.

Don’t get too excited though. Your GBP isn’t the only factor in play. Your website does affect Local Pack visibility as well, so Google still will crawl your website when determining Maps rankings. Plus, if your GBP is already optimized, then you will usually have less drastic results immediately.

Background: A Massage Therapist in Boulder, CO had been intending to look into more marketing efforts, but was simply too busy. She had a company help with social media ads who said her SEO was actually “really good” so she didn’t give SEO much thought.

After having subpar results with the social media ads, they ultimately canceled the campaign. That’s when we were asked to give an opinion on how she ought to proceed to grow her business.

What we found: While the business had OK organic rankings and did have some Local Pack visibility, we didn’t find “really good SEO” (at least by our standards). The business lacked Map Pack visibility for valuable terms such as “massage therapists Boulder” – particularly in the most populated parts of an already small city.

Here’s what their Local Pack visibility looked like for that keyword:

The business lacked many GBP categories, services, posts, and other optimizations. Their website also lacked many basic SEO best-practices, such as headings, title tags, and so on. We determined there was both market opportunity and very little SEO effort in place.

The client decided to move forward for a starter Local SEO package that could fit in her small business needs, which we also felt was enough to deliver SEO impact.

Because this client had exsceptionally little SEO implementation, they enjoyed fairly drastic results in short order. In fact, they doubled their traffic and had a 16 point gain in Share of Local Voice (SoLV)

Here’s the same scan as above for “massage therapists Boulder” 2 weeks later:

Below is a shot from Google Search Console, which reported all-time records for both impressions and clicks, with clicks up 100% compared to the previous month:

And no, these clicks and impressions weren’t for random blogs and traffic from around the world. The client doesn’t even have a blog!

All traffic and impression gains were for transactional local intent, bottom funnel keywords, such “massage near me”, “massage Boulder”, and “couples massage Boulder” 

Unfortunately, the client did not have Google Search Console set up in the previous year, but below is a shot comparing the first 20 days of our campaign with the previous 20 days:

Sadly we see this all the time. An unsuspecting small business is told they are good on SEO and then convinced to spend money on Ads instead. 

For something as important as your business you’ve worked hard to build, it’s never a bad idea to seek a second opinion!

We aren’t anti-advertising. Digital marketing can be a powerful tool for many businesses. However, Local SEO results can not only be fast, but also deliver a far greater ROI compared to ads. That’s why we always recommend that most local businesses at least attempt Local SEO before utilizing their entire marketing budget on lower-margin channels.

Tired of jumping through hoops with SEO companies and marketing agencies? Well, that’s why there’s Hoopless! 

We’re a fractional marketing team built on simple terms, data-driven strategies, and bankable results. With no long-term contracts, vanity metrics, or filler deliverables – you can eliminate uncertainty around your small business marketing investments & start getting results.

We specialize in Local SEO for healthcare businesses, medical practices, beauty practices, spas, and more. Contact us today to book your free consultation & discovery call.