The 25 Year Journey from Lawyer to Local Marketing Pioneer

Greg's journey is fascinating. He was a politics philosophy major in college, went to law school, became a lawyer, and did civil litigation for almost nine years. Tried cases, took depositions, all of that.

He hated it. Absolutely hated it. Took him a very long time to get out.

When he got out, he did it by doing freelance writing. He was a content creator in the very earliest days of the internet (98, 99). He wound up doing content creation for some internet sites and got hired by one called AllBusiness.com, which is actually still around but has had multiple owners.

The idea was to aggregate a small business audience and sell that audience to bigger companies that wanted to sell software or services to small businesses. It was ahead of its time.

Greg did legal content and other content creation for them, was there for a couple years, then went to a company called ZDTV (Ziff Davis Television). The magazine publisher was doing tech publications and video. That was also ahead of its time.

It became an independent company called TechTV with a bunch of shows about the internet. Greg was a producer on one called "Working the Web," running the website and generating web content. It was all about small business and how they can leverage the web, do e-commerce.

"It was like eight years ahead of the right time for this," Greg said.

Then he went to an analyst firm called The Kelsey Group. They were small and focused on the Yellow Pages industry and to some degree newspapers. The idea: how is the internet impacting those traditional media businesses?

Greg was initially editorial, managing editor there, but shifted into the role of analyst.

The First Local Search White Paper Ever Written

This is where it gets really interesting. Greg thinks he was the first person to ever write a white paper about local search and what local search was going to be as a threat to Yellow Pages and newspapers and the traditional media industry.

This was 2002, 2003ish. Believe it or not, that was an open question.

Traditional media had salespeople, a lot of content, all these small business relationships. Google and comparable entities didn't have any of that. No salespeople, no real local content in those days.

There was a question about whether they were going to be able to deliver the kind of experience for consumers that would cause adoption of those media and what they had to offer to small business advertisers.

"One of the central issues in those days was that the small business could not see their ad in these media. Whether it was a display ad or search ad, Overture preceded Google and was the first kind of paid search platform. The challenge was the small business couldn't see the evidence of their ad," Greg explained.

In traditional media you can see the ad on TV or hear it on the radio or see it in the Yellow Pages or newspaper. But they couldn't see it online because it was dynamic. This was a big issue and a big challenge.

Greg was there at The Kelsey Group for about six years, ran conferences for them, did reports, helped do research.

Then he left and did consulting on his own for quite a while, advising companies trying to reach small business sellers or trying to come into the United States market. He did a lot of work: consumer surveys, small business surveys, different types of work for different companies.

After that, he was hired by what was the old Yellow Pages trade association but became the Local Search Association to be the VP of Strategy. Did conferences, did research, a lot of interesting things there.

This was 2014. There were still directory publishers and agencies selling yellow pages, but they had a whole bunch of members that included Microsoft, Google, Yelp, all the big guys in the space.

They spent five years there doing workshops and small events around the country for small businesses trying to educate them about digital media and marketing.

"This was 2014, 15, 16, pretty late in the game, but there were still a lot of people who didn't really know a lot of stuff. They didn't know who we were for the most part and it was very challenging to get them into the room. But once they got into the room and heard presentations from a bunch of experts, these business owners were really grateful," Greg said.

They were grateful for the exposure and for not being sold. Most of what small businesses get exposure to is sales pitches.

What Near Media Actually Does

In 2019, Greg went to work for Uberall, a listings and reputation management company based in Berlin, Germany. He was VP of Insights, basically a content role doing speaking on their behalf and blogging.

They did really interesting research there, including the first report really ever done at this level of scale with the Transparency Company (Curtis Boyd) on review fraud on Google, Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. 20 markets, 20 different categories.

Then the pandemic hit. Greg couldn't go to Berlin anymore (which was part of the fun). It was relentless work, just working all the time. He burned out and left at the end of 2021.

Since then he's been doing consulting and Near Media and the Local Dialogue program.

At Near Media, the main thing they do is user user testing and research.

"We get a client who says I'm in healthcare, legal, or some vertical. We compile a panel depending upon the scope of the project, could be 100, 200, multiple panels, multiple countries. We give them a scenario: you want to remodel your kitchen. Then they go and look at primarily it's been focused on Google," Greg explained.

They watch them search. They watch them refine queries. They watch them click. They watch their interaction with reviews and images and all these different elements on the SERP, specifically the local SERP.

What they've observed (and they narrate these videos, talking about "oh I don't click on ads" or "this one doesn't have enough reviews") is that consumer behavior by vertical is quite different.

The Shocking Finding: Behavior Varies Wildly by Vertical

This is one of the primary takeaways from all that research cumulatively: consumer behavior by vertical is quite different.

People tend to generalize: "oh people rely on reviews" or "people don't go below a certain number of results" or "there's zero click behavior and X% of queries result in zero clicks."

But what Near Media found is significant variation by vertical across a lot of different criteria.

"The things that people are relying on in any given category, healthcare is very different from self storage. Restaurants are very different from legal. The same elements are in the mix, but the emphasis and how far people are going to go into the local finder or look in the page or whether they click through to websites varies considerably," Greg said.

That was really one of the most interesting takeaways from all the research cumulatively.

Healthcare: People Go Deep into the Finder

Let me give you a comparison. Self storage or restaurants versus legal or home remodeling or medical.

In healthcare, they asked people to look for primary care physician or OBGYN. What they saw: people were going deep into the local finder to find doctors that had photos and had enough reviews.

There are a lot of doctors who don't have any reviews or just a tiny number. A lot of doctors don't have images. People want to see the doctor, they want to see the offices, they want to see the staff, they want to see enough reviews to satisfy them.

"We were seeing people going very very deep, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling for reviews. They wanted to find doctors because it's a very important decision," Greg said.

There's always been this belief that people don't click through to the finder. They look at the top three in the local pack and don't go any deeper. But they were seeing people go very very deep scrolling for reviews.

They also looked at situations where they were clicking through the websites and they often did that in that context. They wanted to see real photographs. They didn't want to see stock photographs. Stock photographs really turned them off because they want to see the doctor, they want to have a sense of who they're going to be seeing.

Legal: LSAs Get a Third of All Clicks

In legal, there were also very high click-throughs to the website. Legal also saw Local Services Ads perform really well.

LSAs tend to get attention in a lot of categories, but in legal, when they showed up, they got a lot of clicks. As much as a third of the clicks came through LSAs.

"One of the things that we learned is that people didn't know that they were ads because they don't look like ads. They have reviews, they have the Google Guaranteed badge or the Google Screened badge, they have a picture and stars. People don't see these as ads in the same sense as conventional ads. They just saw this as another search result and it was at the top so they were really clicking through very heavily," Greg explained.

Self Storage: Price Beats Everything

In contrast, self storage and restaurants were different. In self storage, proximity was a top two consideration. Reviews were a consideration, but reviews were not as meaningful in that category as price.

A lot of the title tags had discounts: first month free, 10% off, whatever X% off. People were really clicking through on those title tags that had those price incentives.

They didn't care so much about ads. In some categories people really care about organic versus ads (notwithstanding the LSA stuff). A lot of times they'd hear people say "I'm just not I don't click on ads, they don't have any credibility with me."

But in self storage, people clicked on ads. They made no differentiation between ads and organic links because it didn't really matter. They were looking for a commodity at the best price that was close enough to them and wasn't in a high crime area.

They saw people looking at photographs in self storage, going through all those GBP carousels to see: where is it? How is it? Is it a safe area?

Restaurants: No Click-Through to Website

For restaurants, very often you're not going to get a click-through to a website at all. There are a number of categories like this because there's enough information on GBP for them to make a decision.

There's a menu, there's a whole bunch of pictures of food and the atmosphere. They can see the reviews, they can check how close it is.

One thing that was really interesting: people talk about ranking in the local pack as a critical factor. But in situations where you get a map (especially true on desktop more than mobile), you get a map and you can browse around.

You get a little bubble that pops up and you can click through to that and load the GBP profile. That's totally independent of ranking. There's no ranking there, it's just location.

"People were very very involved and they would look at lots of those. They would go around and say well this is close to my work or this is close to my house. They would look at those and make decisions after having looked at the GBP material. It wasn't necessarily about the three-pack. The three-pack caught their eye, but the map on top, they expanded the map and started engaging with it. Sometimes they were picking businesses that were not in the three-pack at all but were present on the map," Greg said.

The Shocking Review Behavior

One of the pieces of main findings coming out of Near Media research (this varies by category) is that most of the audience, most of the consumer audience does not read review text.

They will not spend a lot of time reading reviews. But what do they do?

They say reviews are really critical, reviews are one of my top two consideration factors. But what they do is they look at stars, they look at the rating (4.5, 4.8, 4.6), and then they look at the number of reviews. That's how they screen out businesses.

Sometimes a minority (whether it's 20% or 30% or 40% depending on the category, and this to some degree is tied to consideration like if you're looking for a doctor versus if you want to get some Indian food), people will go in and read reviews.

Typically what they do is they look for negative reviews or critical reviews. That's one of the things that savvy review consumers do: they'll look at what are the criticisms of this business.

"Which is why it's really important to have a response because they'll assess that: oh that sounds reasonable or whatever, that person was a lunatic and I see that now," Greg explained.

The 57% Stat That's Shocking

On the Local Dialogue side (not Near Media), Greg asked local businesses what marketing channels they use, what they think is most effective.

Only 43% of these local businesses (one to 499 headcount) had claimed their business profiles.

Shocking. Greg would have thought everybody is now focused on Google, everybody recognizes the Google value proposition. But Google has made it really frustrating for a lot of business owners and really difficult.

There's not a lot of support. Product experts do a great job but they're frustrated. The verification process, suspensions, they don't know what the rules are.

"What's much more straightforward for them and easy and intuitive is social media and they're all on social media as a result. Google tried for a while to educate small businesses and they've kind of given up that effort. They're relying on people like you or people like Mike Blumenthal or whomever is out there giving advice. The education and support function has largely been outsourced to people like you guys," Greg said.

It's too bad because this is the lifeblood of many businesses. This is the bottom of the funnel stuff. If you're there and you have an optimized presence and it's engaging, people will choose you. If you're not there, you're missing out. There are a lot of businesses for whom this is make or break.

Where Local Is Going Next

I asked Greg where he sees local going in the next few years.

Google now, if you think about what is the competitive differentiator that Google has, it's these knowledge graphs. They have all this data. Specifically local, they have better and more local data really arguably than anybody else.

Microsoft has a lot of data, Apple has a lot of data, Yelp has data. But nobody has the kind of comprehensive data set that Google does.

That is their big differentiator versus something like ChatGPT or some of the others. That's one of the reasons why they're probably doing this whole JavaScript thing to block people from scraping them, because they don't want their content incorporated into other competitive sites.

"Local isn't going away. It's not going to be buried, it's not going to be reduced or marginalized. But it will evolve and AI is going to be a central feature of that. We may see more and more verticalized experiences in Google," Greg said.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest lesson from talking to Greg is that 25 years of local marketing experience reveals one critical truth: generalizations about user behavior are almost always wrong. The data from Near Media's user testing proves consumer behavior varies wildly by vertical in ways that completely change optimization strategy.

Greg's journey from lawyer who hated litigation to writing the first white paper ever on local search in 2002/2003 positioned him to see the entire evolution of the industry. When he started, it was an open question whether Google could even compete with Yellow Pages because small businesses couldn't see their ads and Google had no salespeople or local content.

The user testing methodology Near Media uses is painstaking but reveals insights you can't get from SEO tools or surveys. They compile panels of 100 to 200 people, give them scenarios, watch them search, watch them refine queries, watch them click, watch their interaction with reviews and images. They record every single thing, produce quantitative and qualitative reports. It's hours and hours of watching videos and capturing where people clicked, what position the link was in, how many ads appeared, whether they refined keywords, whether they went through to the website.

The shocking finding about reviews changes everything: most consumers don't read review text. They look at stars, look at the rating (4.5, 4.8, 4.6), look at the number of reviews. That's how they screen businesses. Only a minority (20% to 40% depending on category) actually read reviews, and when they do, they look for negative reviews or critical reviews to assess criticisms. That's why response is critical.

The LSA discovery in legal is a game changer: as much as a third of clicks came through LSAs. People didn't know they were ads because they don't look like ads. They have reviews, the Google Guaranteed or Screened badge, a picture, stars. People saw this as another search result at the top.

Healthcare versus self storage versus restaurants proves the variation: in healthcare people go deep into the finder scrolling for doctors with photos and reviews, clicking through to websites wanting to see real photographs not stock. In self storage, price beats everything and people clicked on ads with no differentiation from organic. In restaurants, there's often no click-through to website at all because there's enough information on GBP.

The map browsing behavior undermines ranking assumptions: on desktop especially, people expand the map and browse around clicking on businesses not in the three-pack at all. They're picking based on location (close to work or home) totally independent of ranking.

The 57% of local businesses that haven't claimed their Google Business Profiles is shocking. Google made it frustrating and difficult with verification processes and suspensions. What's straightforward is social media, so businesses go there instead. Google outsourced education and support to people like us in the local SEO community.

And critically: small businesses are ahead of enterprises in AI adoption. Their sophistication is less but in raw numbers they're ahead. They have high awareness (unprecedented versus other historical marketing innovations) and are eager to deploy AI where it can help them be more efficient. They're using Gemini or ChatGPT, figuring stuff out on their own, doing inventive things with training manuals, data analysis, marketing copy, email writing.

Want to learn more from Greg? Visit nearMedia.co (not .com) for Near Media user testing research. Visit LocalDialogue.com (with .com not .co) for the dialogue AI tracking program. Find Greg on Twitter at @gsterling or email him at greg.sterling@gmail.com. Subscribe to the Near Memo podcast and newsletter for local marketing insights. The paid newsletter is a monthly subscription, and dialogue is an annual subscription capturing data on how AI is impacting the local market.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of Greg's insights on 25 years of local marketing evolution, the user testing data that changes everything, and why consumer behavior by vertical matters more than any generalization about local search.