Largest Local SERP Study Spanning 49 Local Business Categories

Local search has become a critical battleground for businesses seeking visibility and customer engagement. Our comprehensive study delves into the intricate world of local search results, analyzing data across an extensive range of 49 diverse local business categories.

Our research reveals a nuanced picture of local search result pages. We analyzed over 130,000 local search result pages across 250 US cities.

Key Findings

This study takes a deep dive into the anatomy of local search results, examining how different types of business mentions populate search engine result pages (SERPs). We've analyzed ‘near me’ searches with local intent across 49 business categories to uncover the precise landscape of online business visibility. Our goal is to provide businesses and marketers with a strategic roadmap—revealing where marketing investments can yield the most significant returns in capturing those crucial top search positions.

Methodology

How to read this data?

We’ve measured the prominence of certain platforms, directories, and types of pages by comparing their percentage share of the total search results for that category (or across all categories). While absolute percentage shares may not give you any useful insights, comparative analysis can tell you which platforms are most prominent and which are least, so you can prioritize accordingly. When we mention "websites", it includes websites of local businesses, aggregators, media companies, blogs, and other types of websites.

Distribution of Types of Websites Ranking Across All Categories
Distribution of Page Type Across All Categories

We also looked at specifically what type of pages are ranking across these business categories. On average, home pages (27%) and internal pages (29%) of websites dominated search results. This was closely followed by listings and mentions (26%) accounting for the results. The majority of the internal pages also included service pages of such businesses. We noticed that the home pages that were ranking had an average word count of 522, while for internal pages the average word count was around 770

A significant chunk of the SERP real-estate was taken up by the local pack (4.65%) which has also stayed consistent across all categories. Next, we noticed location pages (3.8%) also gain prominence, with a higher share for certain categories like Clothing Stores, Banks, Furniture Stores, and Grocery Stores. The rest of the spots were taken up by FAQs, ads, social media pages, images, and videos.

Which directories and forums were most prominent?

What’s Ranking Higher?

While industry averages gave us a decent picture of local SERPs, diving deeper into specific industries uncovered insights we otherwise would have missed. Local businesses should prioritize platforms and directories most visible for their industry. Looking at the type of pages that are ranking, you can get a gist of what elements, like store locators, to focus on.

We plan to refresh and expand these insights periodically, running experiments to see how presence on top platforms affects rankings for different industries. If you’d like to see more data points related to a specific industry or want us to gather insights into a specific aspect of local search, feel free to drop us an email at hello@synup.com.

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What happens next?

  • Our brand analyst will contact you to get your instance of Synup setup
  • Through a personalized product demo, our solutions consultant will show you how our product can simplify profile marketing for your business
  • You will get takeaways on how to convert more customers from your online profiles
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