Local Search Industry Survey: Local SEO Pay, Pricing & Performance

Back in 2011, we decided to launch the Local Search Industry Survey—a large-scale analysis of the local marketing landscape.

Now into its eleventh year, this survey aims to compile the thoughts and opinions of those working in local search, helping to illustrate what the world of local SEO currently looks like.

We recognize that the chopping and changing nature of local search can make it difficult to know not only how to implement appropriate strategies, but also to understand how to keep up to date with your potential competitors. So, we thought we’d try to help.

In this year’s survey, we questioned 400 local marketers around the world, gathering valuable insights. From agency workers to freelancers to employees in local businesses, we aim to provide a useful measure of life as a local marketer on a year-by-year basis, assessing the attitudes, experiences and finances of people working within the world of local SEO.

So, without any further ado, let’s see what 2022 has to offer.

Publishers are welcome to use the following charts and data, crediting BrightLocal and linking to this article’s URL. If you have any questions about the report, please get in touch with the content team, or leave a comment below. Information about the demographics of the survey can be found at the end of this post.

The Outlook for 2022

As we speed on through the first quarter of the year, it appears that many local marketers are hopeful about what the rest of 2022 has to hold—albeit not to the same extent as in 2021.

As the chart above shows, 23% of respondents believe that it will be easier to achieve local SEO success in 2021—down from 26% in last year’s Local Search Industry Survey.

However, with the majority of respondents saying it will be neither easier or harder (42%, up from 37% last year), this means that, overall, more local marketers are expecting this year to be almost as difficult as last year (36%, down from 37%).

Local SEO Salaries

The Average Salaries for Local Marketers in the UK, USA, & Canada

N.b. More than two-thirds of this year’s respondents were self-described as being a senior level local marketer, which could have had a bearing on the average salaries calculated above.

Salaries can vary pretty drastically within the world of local marketing but, we wondered, could you earn more for doing the same job in a different country?

Well, according to our data, yes you can.

We discovered that the median salary in the USA ($75,800 per year) was significantly higher than the median salaries in both the UK ($59,218 per year when converted into USD) and Canada ($66,275 per year when converted into USD). This correlated with the trend that we found in last year’s Local Search Industry Survey, with US-based local marketers bringing in a higher average salary overall ($90,664 per year).

UK local marketers were also seen to have a higher average salary this year than in 2021, bringing home an average of £47,130 per year—a £1,416 increase on last year’s data. The findings appear not to be so rosy for Canadian local marketers, though, with the average salary declining by $5,267 between 2021 and 2022.

So, why do you think this might be the case? We’d love to hear your thoughts so please let us know your theories in the comments section below.

Local Marketer Salaries in the USA, UK, & Canada by Gender

Delving into the salary data a bit further, disparities were also found between the average and median salaries earned by male and female local marketers across the USA, UK, and Canada.

In the US, male local marketers received approximately $20,500 more per year than their female counterparts while, in the UK, there was a £7,500 difference between men and women. However, Canadian local marketers were shown to have the largest gender disparity, with a $25,000 difference in median salaries, according to the data above.

Overall, women were shown to earn around 26% less than the men in this survey—though there were fewer women defined as working in ‘senior’ positions. So, this makes us question whether women in SEO are getting the opportunities they need to grow into the highest-paying and most senior roles? Our recent blog, entitled ‘How We Can Support Women in SEO: Advice for Women, from Women’, offers some great insights into this area, so let us know what you think!

The Average Salaries for US-based Local Marketers by Business Type

N.b. This analysis was only performed for US-based local marketers due to currency discrepancies with other countries.

Since this year’s respondents came from a whole host of different backgrounds—local search agencies, national marketing agencies, local businesses, multinational businesses—we decided to question how the average salaries may differ between each type of local marketer.

Looking at the data above for just US-based local marketers, we can see that respondents who worked for either a local business with a single location or a multi-location business earned around $10,028 more than the combined average salary.

However, since many in-business marketers will have SEO and digital marketing tasks as just one of their many responsibilities, this news should be taken with a pinch of salt; the salary they receive won’t necessarily be a true reflection of the specific local search duties that they are expected to perform.

At $68,000 per year, freelance local marketers were found to bring in the lowest average salary, overall; approximately 26% less than agency workers, 62% less than single or multi-location business employees and 27% less than they were earning on average in 2021. As a result, this finding could be representative of the transition away from the pandemic, with it now becoming increasingly harder for freelancers to obtain new work.

Unfortunately, the news wasn’t all good for local marketing agency workers, either. Last year, the average salary for this type of local marketer was estimated to be $91,468 per year, meaning that this year’s figure has declined by approximately 4% on average.

Local Marketer’s Satisfaction with Salaries

In light of the various salary disparities seen in the data above, you might be wondering how local marketers actually feel about the money they receive for their efforts. We were too and, interestingly, we found that the majority (39%) appear to still be satisfied with the salary they receive.

That said, this percentage has decreased by almost 10% since last year’s survey, with a higher proportion of respondents (46%) now feeling only ‘somewhat satisfied’ with their salary.

Looking into the difference between male and female local marketers, we also noticed that a higher proportion of female local marketers (18%) were less satisfied with their salaries than their male counterparts (10%).

This is, of course, to be expected when you consider the significant differences in income between male and female local marketers outlined in the salary comparison above.

However, what’s not to be expected is the ratio of male and female respondents who said they were either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with their salaries—found to be the same at 38% each. This accordingly makes us wonder whether female marketers’ salary expectations are therefore lower than male marketers’, resulting in an increased salary satisfaction despite earning less than their male counterparts. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Working in Local SEO

Annual Revenues for Local Marketing Agencies & Freelancers

N.b Respondents were asked to provide their annual revenue data in their local currency. Only converted currency data from US, UK, Canada and Australia-based respondents was used within the analysis.

Looking at the revenues of local marketing agencies and freelancers, there was a small rise in the number of combined businesses earning up to $100,000 this year (27%) than in 2021 (23%). There was also a slight decline in the number of businesses earning between $500,000 and $5 million this year (28%) compared to last year (35%).

But, when you break down the data individually, how did each type of local marketing business fare on a year-by-year basis?

N.b Respondents were asked to provide their annual revenue data in their local currency. Only converted currency data from US, UK, Canada and Australia-based respondents was used within the analysis.

According to the data above, we found that freelance local marketers generally had the lowest amount of annual revenue, with many (84%) earning less than $250,000—a 7% decline on last year’s data. That said, however, more freelancers were also found to earn more than double this figure, with 9% earning more than $500,000 in annual revenue compared to just 5% last year.

The majority of web design agencies (52%) were also shown to have annual revenues around the lower end but—with the remaining 48% of respondents earning $250,000 or more—this represented a 27% increase on last year’s data. However, since the web design respondents from this year’s survey differed from last year in both numbers and seniority, this finding may simply be due to the change of audience.

However, the same trend was also true of national marketing agencies, which were found to be the most profitable type of local marketing business; 22% earned more than $5 million in revenue this year compared to just 13% last year. This corresponded with a 19% drop in the number of respondents earning between $1 million and $5 million, effectively demonstrating that national marketing agencies are now earning significantly more this year compared to last.

Local marketing agencies weren’t too far behind, though. Approximately 25% earned more than $1 million in revenue in 2021, while 75% earned at least $100,000. But there was a 21% decline in the number of local marketing agencies earning more than $500,000 this year, perhaps suggesting that the bigger, national agencies are picking up more clients from these smaller types of marketing agencies.

Overall, when combining the data together, our results show that there has been a 9% decline in the number of freelancers and agencies earning more than $500,000 in revenue each year: 41% this year, down from 50% last year.

Taking the average from the data listed above, the same trends quickly become apparent.

At just over $2.5 million, national marketing agencies earned approximately 58% more than local marketing agencies, while the average annual revenue for freelancers was found to be less than $500,000.

How many clients do Local Marketers personally work with? 

Having assessed which type of local marketing business is typically the most fruitful, we were keen to determine whether the total amount of revenue earned was a reflection of the amount of effort put in per marketer in the business. So, we decided to investigate.

We can see that, on average, each local search employee will work with an average of 16 clients on an individual basis. But, when looking into the data further, our findings show that local marketing agency and web design agency workers tend to work with a higher average number of personal clients (19 and 18 clients, respectively) when compared to freelancers (14 clients) or national marketing agency workers (16 clients).

These findings effectively show that working in a national marketing agency will provide employees with fewer clients to work with on a personal basis, while rewarding them with an improved salary and a higher total annual revenue—as per the data above.

However, this goes against the general idea that national marketing agencies tend to work with fewer, but bigger, clients, with our data suggesting that each affiliated employee works with almost as many personal clients as smaller local marketing agency workers.

On the other hand—and perhaps as expected—freelancers will typically earn a lower amount of income despite working with a similar number of personal clients to other types of local marketers.

The Average Lifespan of a Local SEO Client

Almost half of this year’s respondents (49%) said that their average client lifespan was approximately three years or more—the same percentage as found in last year’s survey.

This is welcome news to hear, especially considering the tumultuous past couple of years the industry has faced in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Winning new clients can take up a lot of time and energy, after all, so being able to retain them over a longer period is crucial to getting the best results—especially from an ROI perspective. As such, it’s great to see so many long-standing relationships between local marketers and their clients despite the economic difficulties faced in recent times.

But, how exactly have local marketers been able to retain these clients over such a long period?

Services

The Local SEO Services Most Commonly Offered by Local Marketers

N.b. Respondents were asked to share all of the local marketing services that they offered.

Due to the varied jobs that local SEO can entail, not every agency or freelancer will be able to—or even want to—offer every type of service to their clients. As such, many local businesses wanting to choose a consultant will often have to think carefully about the specialities they really desire.

According to our data, the local SEO services most commonly offered by local marketers in 2022 were found to be:

1. GBP Optimization / Management (92% of respondents)
2. Content Creation / Optimization (88%)
3. SEO Audits & Analysis (83%)
4. On-site Optimization (82%)
5. Citation Building / Cleanup (79%)

As you might expect, Google Business Profile optimization—the biggest factor that affects local rankings—takes the crown as the most commonly-offered service, corresponding with our finding that almost two-thirds of local marketers believe the platform has improved over the past year.

Meanwhile, 5% more respondents are now offering content creation and on-site optimization compared to last year, while the rest of the top five results have more or less stayed the same as last year’s survey.

However, there have been a number of other interesting areas of growth and decline this year, some of which appear to go against what many expert local marketers may have predicted.

As you can see, 6% more local marketing agencies and freelancers are doing competitor research this year compared to last year, while video marketing services were shown to grow by the same percentage.

More interestingly, however, GBP spam fighting and Google Local Services Ads (LSA) management have both dropped in offering, by 6% and 13% respectively. This is a little surprising, especially when you consider the overall value many local marketing experts say they get from LSA.

Sterling Sky’s Joy Hawkins, for example, mentioned during our ‘The State of Local Search 2022’ webinar that Google is now showing photos in more results, including LSAs. This, coupled with the fact that LSA has now expanded to cover a wider range of industries, means that many local marketers could be potentially missing out on a big opportunity within this area this year by failing to recognize its importance.

After analyzing each individual respondent, we set out to determine which local marketing techniques were the most valued by those with a minimum client retention rate of five years or more, in an attempt to learn the habits and tactics of the most successful local SEOs.

N.b. Respondents were asked to share what they felt were the five most valuable services used within local marketing.

As seen in the data above, more than two-thirds cited GBP optimization as the most valued local marketing technique—albeit at 6% lower than other local marketers.

Services like content creation (a 6% increase), on-site optimization (a 5% increase) and website design (a 4% increase) were also shown to hold more value by this type of respondent, while other local marketing services like online reviews management, email marketing, PR, link building and outreach showed decreases in value, at 13%, 6% and 6% respectively.

As such, this data appears to suggest that—while GBP optimization may be important to all marketers—those that successfully retain their clients often look beyond it, advocating the value and implementation of other types of local marketing services.

Therefore, new agencies and consultants should strive to follow the same model, delivering a range of highly valued services that—along with GBP optimization—should include:

• Content Creation / Optimization (54% of respondents)
• On-site Optimization (48%)
• Citation Building / Cleanup (39%)
• Website Design (36%)

How Clients’ Understanding of Google Business Profile has Changed

Google Business Profile optimization is not only the most commonly offered local marketing service but it is the most valued as well. In simple terms, it is an essential component to local SEO success.

However, with the vast number of changes Google consistently makes to its platform—such as the recent Vicinity Update—it can be difficult for local marketers to keep up to date with their level of understanding, let alone educate the clients they work on behalf of.

So, with this in mind, and after another year of updates and changes, we thought we’d take a look at how clients currently perceive and understand the software.

In last year’s survey, we found that approximately 56% of respondents actually understood GBP better than before, with only 10% understanding it less.

However, this time around, that same trend has massively slowed, with only 41% of respondents understanding GBP better in 2022 than they did in 2021. Similarly, a higher percentage of respondents (17%) now understand GBP even less than last year, with the remaining 42% staying at the same level of understanding.

As such, this makes us hypothesize: is it good for local marketing agencies and businesses to have clients with less of an understanding of GBP? Or should there be more of a push to educate clients on how to use it effectively?

Let us know what you think in the comments below. And, if you think that clients should be better educated on GBP, make sure to check out our complete guide dedicated to doing exactly that.

Patrick is BrightLocal’s Research Content Specialist. He is responsible for BrightLocal’s research into local SEO trends, pulling in BrightLocal data, surveying the community and drawing on his own data journalism experiences to provide valuable local SEO insights.