iO study: majority of retail chains missing out on local SEO benefits 

The 2023 Local SEO Benchmark Report  published by iO  reveals that the majority of Dutch and Belgian retailers are missing opportunities in the field of local SEO. Although the optimisation scores have increased compared to previous research, there is still a lot to be gained for retail chains in the Netherlands and Belgium.   

Supported by data partner Flipstream, iO researched around 100,000 business locations in 14 retail branches, in 36 cities in both the Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders). Each company in the dataset was assessed on 14 points, using public data from Google Maps. The overall conclusion is that the online visibility of most retailers in their specific geographic areas is poor.  

Key takeaways from the 2023 Local SEO Benchmark Report: 

Robin van der Sar , local SEO lead at iO:  

"The last Local SEO Benchmark Report was published by iO in 2020. Generally, use of Local SEO has improved since 2020. The final conclusion, however, is that while retailers often invest sufficient budget in the physical decoration of their location, the digital decoration of their locations are overlooked. Of the business locations surveyed, more than 50% are only lightly optimised, or not optimised at all. It is evident that there are plenty of opportunities for further optimisation. Especially in the bank, supermarket and garage and car wash industries. The investment for the optimisation is negligible at branch level, while the impact of this can be significant if you look at the increase in physical store visits. So there's a lot of work to be done. And that is essential, because Local SEO is only gaining relevance – even with the rapid developments in the field of AI."  

In addition to Robin van der Sar, the  2023 Local SEO Benchmark   was written by iO's Team lead SEO, CRO & MA Clarissa Filius and Flipstream founder Michel Kant.