Local SEO

Local SEO

Core Update Wiped Your Website? Check Your Map Pack First

Google's December 2025 core update knocked out your website traffic, and every fix on offer is expensive. Google's own documentation points you to a content self-assessment. The recovery guide ranking beside it prescribes keyword fixes and a 3 to 9 month wait. Joy Hawkins at

Local SEO

Google Gave Back Post Views. It Kept the Clicks Buried.

Post view counts are back inside Google Business Profile this month, and the local marketing world called it a win. It is not much of one. Google restored the safe number, the one that goes up even when no customer does anything. Post button clicks, the action closest to a

Local SEO

Your Two Google Dashboards Disagree. Neither Is Your Scoreboard.

You opened Google Business Profile Performance on Monday and saw people searching "emergency dentist near me" and "same day crown." You opened Search Console for the same week and saw your own practice name, over and over, plus a page about teeth whitening you forgot you

Local SEO

Google Now Bills You For LSA Calls You Miss

Every service business has an hour it does not talk about. Lunch, a two-man crew on a roof, one person at the front desk running a card payment while the phone rings out. Starting October 1, 2026, that hour has a line item. Google is changing how Local Services

Local SEO

Most Google Business Profile Updates Do Nothing. Five Do.

You posted for three weeks straight, added a few photos, watched your ranking stay flat, and quietly stopped. That was a rational response to advice that never told you which updates carry ranking weight and which are housekeeping your customers see. Five of them carry weight. The rest buy engagement

Local SEO

It's Not ChatGPT Taking Your Local Leads. It's Google.

Somebody told you AI ate search and the story fit your quarter. Your rankings held, your map pack position held and the phone still went quiet. ChatGPT became the obvious suspect. It is the wrong suspect. ChatGPT did not take your local leads. Google rearranged its own results page and

Local SEO

Google Is Grading Your Local Services Ads Phone Calls

You did the checklist. Hours matched to when people actually search, reviews pushed past the threshold every guide names, an answering service that picks up before the second ring. For two quarters the Local Services Ads leads came steady, then they thinned out and the dashboard gave no reason. The

Local SEO

The Local Signals AI Reads, and the Order to Fix Them

You rewrote the homepage for AI. You chased a dozen fresh reviews. Meanwhile the machine deciding whether to recommend you is reading four versions of your phone number, three of your address and two spellings of your business name. It hands the answer to the competitor whose facts agree with

Local SEO

Your New Google Address Won't Move Your Rankings

You typed the new address into your Google Business Profile, Google ran the verification, the dashboard says verified, and eight weeks later your listing still shows up strongest in the neighborhood you left. You did not break anything on your end. The address text you edited and the map pin

Local SEO

Google Is Calling Your Front Desk and Editing Your Listing

While every local SEO consultant on LinkedIn argues about AI Overviews, Google has been doing something far more direct. It has been phoning small businesses with an automated assistant, listening to whatever the person who answered said, and publishing that answer straight onto the public Google Business Profile. Not a

Local SEO

Google Suspended Your Profile? The Reinstatement Playbook.

A plumber in Sacramento opens his laptop on a Tuesday and his Google Business Profile is gone. Not edited. Gone. No warning, no email that means anything, no phone number to call a human. By noon he has made a string of frantic edits to the listing, opened multiple support

Local SEO

Your 4.8 Stars Aren't Winning You Customers. The Work Is.

You paid someone to get you more five-star reviews. The number moved from 4.7 to 4.9, and the phone rang about the same as before. That is not bad luck, and your vendor did not exactly lie to you. The star average on your listing is a