Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
According to Google, more than a third of small businesses say increasing business growth is their primary goal over the next year.
Fortunately for local and independent businesses, ‘near me’ Google searches hit a record high in 2019. There was 14 times more search interest for these searches than in 2014 and 400 times more than ten years ago.
The top searches (aside from Tesco, Asda, Co-op and other chain retailers) are:

Shops near me
Chinese near me
Pubs near me
Local news
Taxi near me
Supermarket near me

Pub owners will be raising a pint as search interest for local pubs is at the highest level since 2009, tripling over the last decade. Top related searches feature ‘local pub food’, ‘local pub quiz’, ‘local pub restaurants’ and ‘dog friendly pub near me’.
Even though they’re looking locally, consumers are still doing their research online. A huge 90pc of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) shoppers who visited a store say they searched online first. Yet 23pc of small businesses don’t publish any contact information of their stores on their website, meaning that they could be losing out to their web-savvy competitors.
Google My Business
You’ve probably seen Google My Business (GMB) before when

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