Thought you had local SEO figured out? Earlier this week, Krystal Taing of Uberall noticed Apple had launched a Web version of Apple Maps:
The news was also covered last week by Localogy’s Mike Boland.
Long-time readers know I am a little obsessed with Apple Maps. Since half the business owners in the world are on Android, they often have no idea how many of their customers find them via Apple. It’s a total afterthought.
I estimate something like 100 million people in the U.S. use Apple Maps and over a billion use it worldwide. That’s a lot of local searches.
So what’s the big deal about the Web version?
Google can index it.
Apple.com is a pretty strong site and is likely to rank well for whatever it publishes. And it has now published a structured data set of virtually every country, city, street, and business in the world.
So what does that mean for those of us in Local Search?
Get ready for a monster domain outranking us for all sorts of queries.
Like points of interest:
Homework help (our poor, ignorant youth):
Government Location Info:
The good news is I don’t see it showing up for many business name searches or any business category searches. Most of the businesses it ranks on page one of Google for appear to be shopping malls, sports stadiums, and public POIs:
But it’s only a matter of time, before it does.
Businesses that are targeting these kinds of queries are in for a challenge. This will also open up a whole new set of tactics to get your business listing on Apple Maps optimized to appear for relevant queries.
BTW I put together some additional thoughts on the Local SEO Guide blog as to why Apple might be doing this now. Check it out at “Why Is Apple Maps Launching a Web App in 2024?”
