Post-Possum Update: How Local Brick and Mortar Businesses Can Beat the Competition

Possum has been launched, the algorithm is in full effect and search results are starting to reflect the change. As a local business, this can mean good news if you are playing your cards right.

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Possum has been launched, the algorithm is in full effect and search results are starting to reflect the change. As a local business, this can mean good news if you are playing your cards right.

How is the new Possum algorithm supporting local brick and mortar stores?

Let’s take a step back. Prior to Possum, if you were the biggest company in your industry in the local areawith a great website, the odds were that you had enough strength in your domain to rank first. Post-Possum, it comes down to the effort you put into your site regarding organic and local content. No longer do you get a first place ranking just because you and your website are the biggest in the area. Now, the effort you put into providing local, organic content to your relevant audience affords you the opportunity to be the big fish in your local pond.

How to break away from the cluster of like businesses

Before Possum, Google would lump together all of the similar businesses as a search result. Unless you are in a town of less than 1,000 people, this isn’t much of a help finding a “local” solution to your search. Now, Possum looks at where you are as much as what you’re looking for.

For example, if you are looking for an Italian restaurant in Chicago, you preferably don’t want one an hour away on the other side of town. You are generally looking for results closer to home. Thanks to the new Possum algorithm, the closest Italian restaurants with good local and organic content rank highest in the results.

What this means for my local brick and mortar business

If you are a business ownerwith a high level of competition in your town, it’s on you to make sure your local organic content is up to snuff, and that you have a schedule to keep it updated, and most importantly, relevant to your audience. If you do these things, Google has made sure that with Possum, you’ll get noticed, and displayed as a high rank result to searches for your services or products. This can give you the clear advantage over e-commerce sites that don’t have the local presence but do look to compete in your market.

Unleaded Group is committed to providing solutions that fit your company. If you have questions about your local organic content or any other impacts to your digital presence, contact us today at 720-221-7126 to set up a consultation.