Google has rolled out an autocomplete feature to include local listings. Users can trigger autocomplete while performing a search directly on Google. Jason Brown tested this by typing San Diego Personal Injury lawyer and was presented with an option of a local listing. Google showed the full business name and address for the business in question. Google implement auto-complete as a method to cut down on additional clicks. When clicking on a local result from the auto-complete, Google will display the business’ knowledge panel, KP, and various results about the businesses.
The auto-complete also works in the local finder. Local finder is when you click on more results below the map pack. When a user searches on Local Finder and selects a result, you will only see the result of the business in the local finder result.
This new feature will come in handy for multi-location brands that have several locations in a given city. Users can now select the business based on the provided address. One of the biggest complaints Jason would hear from franchisees is that Google makes it harder for their location to appear. He expects SEO’s to start fielding questions of “why is my listing not showing up higher?” We have not able to decipher the sort order. So far, Google is not showing results based on your location. This will count as a direct result in GMB. I expect to see an increase in direct visits inside the GMB dashboard.
This appears to be a slow rollout as not all brands are receiving the autocomplete results. It appears that hotels have been included in this rollout. While fast-food chains are missing out, sit down restaurant chains were included. At this point, we are seeing a lot of results for single-location businesses.
