The mobile usage has exceeded the desktop usage in the year 2015. Not only that, there are a number of people using multiple devices. In fact, there was a decrease of 32% on people using only a single device. In 2017, the numbers even dropped to 14% meaning more and more people having multiple devices.

Name, Address, Phone.

Now this becomes a problem to the local businesses mainly because when a user move from say desktop to mobile phones, their search results will be different. This is the reason why NAP the acronym for your businesses Name, Address, and Phone should be consistently be placed across the web. Having a uniform NAP is vital your local rankings because humans use online directories and social media websites.

The Start of a Journey.

• People say that the beginning of a user journey and brand experience actually starts when the user asks its first question; if not, when the user spends a lot of time on the website. But the truth is, it started much sooner than that.
• Google data says that there are 5 points that often leads to a conversion, purchase, or any positive reaction from a user:
  • Made use of any search engine.
  • Paid a visit to a physical store
  • Browsed the retailer’s website or mobile application.
  • Browsed a similar website or app.
  • Utilized of a map.
• Finding your business on their search results online, on a map, or having stumbled upon a physical store is the start of a user’s journey. Likewise, local search is an important especially because 78% of mobile searches yield a visit to a business’ physical store.
• This is why having an updated NAP is so vital to allow the user to continue. Often, we think that users our business or any pertinent information through the official website, the several posts on social media, but the truth is, users find business through different ways like online portals and directories.

Be a part of the User’s Journey at the Search Stage.

• Your chance to impress the user is during their first attempt in searching. If your business appears in the notable places like search engine results, you would invite them to click on the given content.

Lazy Local Pages or Doorways.

• When users search for your business, surely, there are tons of search results that offer help. However, not all results are relevant. There’s what you call a “lazy local page.” It is a web page that offers no value or importance to the one searching.
• The purpose of these pages is to boost or rank that particular website. Users end up wasting their time because these lazy pages are as not useful as they seem to be.
• Google’s officially defines these pages as:
  • “Doorways are sites or pages created to rank highly for specific search queries. They are bad for users because they can lead to multiple similar pages in user search results, where each result ends up taking the user to essentially the same destination. They can also lead users to intermediate pages that are not as useful as the final destination.”

In 2016 of September, the Google Possum update greatly influenced the results of these futile searches. It offered a solution in handling poor quality searches. Now, many businesses that located in main cities or hubs have a greater chance of appearing in search reaches than they did before the said update.