TL;DR Moving a business can significantly impact local search rankings. Moving closer to a city center can improve visibility in the local pack. Relocating away from competitors can reduce filtering and boost rankings. Ranking changes can happen quickly after updating…
Embrace the power of Google Reviews as a valuable feedback channel, leverage your reviews to continually improve your business, and provide stellar customer service. Do I Need to Reply to Google Reviews? Yes. Reviews, and how you respond to them,…
TL;DR on how to remove a GBP To remove your Google Business Profile (GBP), you can mark it as temporarily closed, permanently closed, or delete it entirely, depending on your situation. Marking a business as "permanently closed" keeps the profile…
How Much Do Local Pack Results Depend on Location? It's no secret that SEO pros spend a lot of time looking at search results and map packs. So much time, in fact, that sometimes we start to notice patterns. When…
TL;DR The Ultimate Ranking Signal: Adding core keywords (e.g., "Plumber") to your business name is the most powerful way to trigger a massive, near-instant ranking boost. Instant Volatility: These gains are tied strictly to the name field; if keywords are…
TL;DR In 2022, Google removed over 115 million fake reviews, but fake reviews continue to be a persistent issue, with some businesses buying fake reviews to improve their ratings on Google and Facebook. You can report fake reviews through Google's…
Google has a section inside Google Business Profile that helps businesses understand the keywords searchers typed into Google to find your business. This section is often extremely valuable for businesses and marketers to find out where they are ranking on…
Many people think that local SEO is all about the 3-pack rankings, but we disagree with this.  Over the years, we have tracked a ton of local SERPs. We are fascinated to see recently that a lot of big…
This article is part 5 of 9 from my LocalU presentation from March 2020. If you missed the event, the videos are available for purchase here. TL;DR Keywords in a Google Business Profile name can significantly impact ranking in Google…
As we near the end of our case study on reviews, this next bit of information is probably the most mind-blowing thing we have learned about reviews in the last decade.  When someone is leaving you a review, they can…
TL;DR Check if your business pin is outside the city you’re trying to rank in, as this can cause ranking issues for geo-modified keywords. Look for recent algorithm updates that might explain the ranking drop, using tools like Bright Local’s…
TL;DR • Offering donations to a charity in exchange for reviews still counts as incentivizing reviews. • Google’s guidelines prohibit any incentive that could influence the content of a review. • Even if the reviewer doesn’t receive money directly, donations…