Technology
Beyond “Near Me”: How Local SEO Helps Clients Find You
In this episode of 'From Keywords to Connections,' hosts Mary and Winnie dive into the essentials of local SEO with Sterling, a Technical SEO Guru from Simplified. Discover how optimizing yo...
Beyond “Near Me”: How Local SEO Helps Clients Find You
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Hey there, you're listening to From Keywords to Connections.
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Are we talk about more than just SEO?
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We explore the real stories, strategies, and moments that help people connect in meaningful
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ways.
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We're your hosts, Mary, and Winnie, bringing you honest conversations about strategy, growth,
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and the connections that matter most.
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We're so glad you're here.
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Welcome back to From Keywords to Connections.
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I'm Winnie here with Mary.
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Our goal is to bring you practical approachable strategies for SEO and digital marketing.
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Today we're driving into local SEO.
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The strategies that help your practice or small business show up in near-me searches and
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Google's local results.
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For helping professionals, this is one of the most powerful ways to reach people who are
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ready to take action right now.
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We've invited Sterling, Simplified's Technical SEO Guru, to join us for this conversation,
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and he's going to help break down what local SEO is, why it matters, and how you can optimize
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your presence in your community.
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If you've ever wondered why a competitor down the street keeps showing up in search when
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you don't, this episode is for you.
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Thanks for having me today.
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God, I'm happy to join.
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Then I appreciate the invite.
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Yeah, we're looking forward to learning more about local SEO.
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Maybe just to start at the beginning and tell us a little bit about what local SEO is.
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Yeah, so local SEO is essentially the process of optimizing businesses online presence to
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better increase that visibility in local search results.
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When I mentioned local search results, a lot of the times in relation to Google, I'm
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referring to the local map pack or Google maps itself.
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A lot of the times it focuses on different geospecific searches, like you mentioned, when
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near me relay keywords are often the culprit.
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Whenever it comes to specific keywords or queries you want to search for or be found for.
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And unlike traditional SEO, it often emphasizes that local map pack result and different location
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based intent.
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And whenever I mentioned that local map pack, I'm referring to whenever you're on the
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Google search and wherever you're looking for a specific thing, sometimes there's something
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that pops up where it shows maybe three different services in your area.
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This is that Google map pack and it's really one of those places that's a prime real estate
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for SEOs.
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I agree.
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So what would you say are the core components that go into local SEO?
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What are the most important things when someone's considering taking on ranking when it comes
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to that local and that map pack rankings?
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Yeah, well, I would say one of the biggest things that comes to mind is in relation to
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Google actually and that is the Google business profile itself.
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A lot of times you can think of this as your digital storefront and as it being a digital
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storefront, you want to make sure that it's accurate, complete and being actively updated.
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You know, that might mean updating hours, adding different categories that better describe
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your business, posting different updates, and this can mean using attributes like LGBTQ
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plus friendly or maybe even wheelchair accessible at one of our relevant queer practice.
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And this also even goes a little bit further as well.
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I know on your Google business profile, there are a lot of different things you can add to it.
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And one of the things that Google really likes to see are photos and videos on.
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They don't have to be too long in terms of videos, but photos, it loves to see when you
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have at least for helping professionals, things that are representing the practice, whether
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it be the waiting room or the therapy room itself or maybe the members of the staff that
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people will be meeting there.
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Gives you a lot of different ways to both provide extra information about your practice in
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the sense of photos and such.
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And it also gives you an opportunity to answer common questions that might pop up such
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as, you know, there's parking available or if you offer other services or offer services
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in specific service areas.
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I have a question.
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I have a question about that.
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I have in the past set, kind of like if there is a question on there that you can answer,
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because like when you go into edit the profile, it has like a bunch of different things that
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talks about the parking, like you talked about, wheelchair accessible, all that sort of thing.
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I have always kind of been under the belief of like, if you have any answer for it, fill it in.
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Is that kind of what you would say is kind of a good rule of thumb of if you can answer about,
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you know, hours, that sort of thing, that's a good rule to practice.
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For sure.
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Yeah.
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I think as much information as you can get Google the better.
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Google like since information.
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Yeah.
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And speaking of ad information, Google, I know within civil society, I know we sometimes
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like to say, you know, Google is kind of like a toddler.
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Absolutely.
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I was about three times today already.
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The thing is though, it's a very, very finicky toddler, I would say.
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Because one of the other big components of local SEO, I would say, is going back to what
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we call NAP consistency or nap consistency.
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That's short for name, address, phone number.
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And this information is important because one of the other factors that come into play with
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local SEO is having consistent nap information across not just your Google business profile,
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but across the internet.
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And this comes into play whenever you are listed on things like directories, still from media,
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but even your website.
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And Google actually uses its consistency as more of a trust signal.
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And so it's really important to make sure that this information is the same on each of these
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sources.
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And so there might be other things like, for example, citations.
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Citations is one of those things where it is kind of like, I like to think of it as a cousin
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to backlinks because citations are essentially online mentions of your business's name,
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address, phone number, on third party websites.
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So, you know, other websites that are not your website.
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And this might be online directories, such as Mac, Yelp, things like that.
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It's a college today, maybe, or other social media platforms.
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And these citations act as essentially, kind of digital signals for search engines
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to help better verify a business's legitimacy, things like their location,
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and of course, their information, like map information.
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And as long as it's consistent, that'll help with visibility and those local search rankings
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in your area on Google Maps.
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But I'd say another big thing that also comes into play whenever it comes to local SEO,
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would be those types of keywords that we want to search for or be found for, I should say.
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Like I mentioned earlier, you know, a lot of times it might go back to including that near me
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at the end of keywords you're trying to rank for.
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But these kind of different geographically based keywords need to reflect
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how people are searching as well.
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So, for example, you might want to make sure you're still ranked for something like,
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let's say, hypothetically, a trauma therapist in St. Louis.
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And you can also maybe include in your bio landmarks if it's relevant.
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But there are other keywords where you might also want to be focusing on.
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Such as, let's say somebody is experiencing issues with anxiety.
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Much more likely that they're going to be searching for something maybe like panic attack help
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near me or something along those lines instead of maybe anxiety clinician or something along
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those lines.
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So, while it is still important to continue with that organic part of SEO, which is more focused on
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just improving your rankings on a larger scale, it's also important to make sure that, you know,
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you're keeping an eye on how these more locally focused keywords are performing as well.
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Because that's really going to be how you're going to be able to help get a better chance of
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being found by people in the search results.
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And so, another thing is going to be localized keywords.
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This is something else that is really important in terms of local SEO because, you know,
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focusing on these different geographic focus keywords, that's really going to be what is going to
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help you show up in things like Google Maps.
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Because when people are searching for things on a more, you know, location focused sense,
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a lot of times it might be more related to things like, let's say,
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trauma therapist in St. Louis, for example, or trauma therapist near me.
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And so, you might want to focus on different neighborhoods or maybe different city wide terms.
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And it also goes back to using that language that people are going to be searching for
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if they need that more immediate help.
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So, for example, if somebody were experiencing issues with anxiety, it might be more beneficial
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for you to try and rank for things like panic attack help near me or something along those lines,
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instead of just going for a more general keyword like anxiety clinician.
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For keywords, do you think if someone is focusing on their on page SEO and their local SEO,
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should they be going for like the same kind of keywords? Like with one thing a lot of times
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with on page SEO, where you say don't focus on the near me keywords because it's a little
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two, like location specifics, so then we do normally suggest local SEO. But for those ones that it's
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let's say it's functional medicine doctor, Kansas City. And that's what they're focusing on their
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on page SEO. Would that be a good keyword to also focus on their local SEO?
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Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I think whenever it does come to local SEO keywords and organic keywords,
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there is still a little bit of overlap in some cases. Of course, you know, I think it's going to be a
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little harder to include something like functional medicine doctor near me in a heading or in the
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content of the page itself. It's going to be client-facing just because you know, it doesn't really
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gel well in a sentence naturally. But yeah, there can still be a lot of instances where you might be
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able to put them in things like the alt text from all titles of photos or you might be able to
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include them a little bit more on location specific pages. For example, other things of that nature.
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And on that point, creating these like more unique landing pages for different locations,
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if you have multiple locations or even have just one, these can also be really beneficial in terms
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of helping to be found on a more local level. And this also includes potentially adding different
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site schema to that page that supports local SEO. I feel like that is the topic where it could be its own
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podcast and it up itself because there's a lot that goes into site schema. But there are a couple
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specific types of site schema, including local business schema in particular that can really help with,
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including more information to better describe your business to Google. And it also kind of provides
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a little bit more, I'd say, background information for things like AI reviews as well.
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That makes sense. We are definitely not have to do another podcast all about like technical
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and site schema because I know we've mentioned it in podcasts before, but we haven't gone in depth.
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And that is terminology that is showing up more and more that people are kind of like wanting to know
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about. Yeah, especially before this stuff that's been happening with AI over the past couple of
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years, I feel like technical SEO is just getting more, more, I wouldn't say ingrained, I don't know if
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that's the right word. But you know, more and not even relevant, I don't want to say relevant because
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there's always been relevant, you know, but it's just been one of those things where I think with AI,
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especially it's just becoming one of those things where it's harder to it's harder to ignore.
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You know, if you want to stay competitive, I do think it's becoming one of those things where,
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you know, you're probably going to need to do some level of a technical SEO for the site,
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which is a whole whole other ball game and trying to explain that is the challenge trying to make
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that, you know, we work really hard to make sure like SEO is kind of simplified and simplified
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SEO. Site scheme is one of those things that even my brain is like, this is difficult, this is
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technical. So we've kind of gone over some of the core components of local SEO, but kind of
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I know that from what I've read with local SEO, it's become even more important since AI kind of
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came onto the scene because AI really and Google really has honed its approach to be more specific,
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to where the person is looking, what they're specifically looking for their area. So I mean,
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is that one of the reasons why local SEO kind of matters even more or what are some of the reasons
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why it matters so much now? Yeah, whenever it comes to, you know, why local SEO matters. In addition to
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what you had mentioned, Mary, I do think that a lot more people are on their phones more than
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ever these days and a lot of times whenever people are on their phones searching for things,
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you know, it's going to be whenever they're more ready to act and more ready to potentially,
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you know, reach out and seek service and in addition to that, there's also, you know, high intent
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traffic that comes into play with things like near me keywords. That's going to get more of those
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kind of purchase intent cases and as a kind of a quick aside, I do want to mention,
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there are essentially four different types of search intent. Whenever it comes to people
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searching for things on the internet, there's navigational, there's informational,
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and that's respectively, you know, navigational, it's going to be when people are searching for a
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certain page and then informational is going to be when people are searching for specific information.
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Then you have transactional and commercial and commercial is going to be whenever people are
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searching for specific services and then transactional is whenever they're actually ready to purchase
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set services for products of course. And so with these near me related keywords and these more
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local keywords, a lot of times these do trend trend to be a little bit more transactional and commercial
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compared to some of the other more navigational, you know, these other types of keywords that might
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lead more folks to your website, but that might not have as much of a chance of converting folks.
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So an example I can think of to kind of represent that is say like someone's working downtown,
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they're really stressed out, their job's not going great and they start thinking,
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Lord, my life is spinning out of control, I need help. So they start looking for maybe a therapist
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that's near their business that they can go to during lunch. So they would start searching for
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that location specific area, you know, therapist near near my building near where I work or near
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some landmark that's there is that kind of how it works in that sense of those high intent
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traffic, you know, that high intent traffic where that person is like actively looking and wanting
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to find something to help them. So they're searching specifically for something near them so they
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can go right out and get started with services. Exactly, actually, yeah, let's try it on the money.
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And I do think that of course, I would say one of the other biggest reasons of why, you know,
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local SEO is important even more these days is because much like tech and Colescio, there are more
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people doing, well, I'll say more SEO in general, but that does mean there are also more folks doing
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local SEO. So it does come back to that kind of competitive edge aspect of things as well.
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You know, if others are doing local SEO and trying to rank for those things on a local level and
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another business is not, well, I think we know which ones most likely to be seen in that area.
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That makes a lot of sense. So what can private practice and group practice owners do to get seen
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for local SEO to make it into that map pack to kind of appear above the individuals who are not
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putting effort into local SEO. So I do think that optimizing that Google Business Profile fully
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is going to be an important part of things like I mentioned earlier, making sure you have things
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like photos that represent your practice, whether that be clinicians, whether that be location
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itself, even like a quick video kind of opening up the door that leads to your practice and kind
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of showing folks what to expect when they walk in things like that. I think the photos on Google
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Business Profile get overlooked a lot like we push the emphasis of photos on like on page
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optimization a lot and your about page and all of that. But I don't think it gets talked about
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enough how important it can be to just put those photos up even if it's just your, you know,
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pictures of your therapist that you're using on your website or photos your office,
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photos of the building outside. I know people have gone and just been like, I'm going to go take
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a picture of the front side of the building. Great. Put it up there. No, and that's very helpful.
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Because I mean, I don't know about you guys, but when I go somewhere new, I like to know what the
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building looks like. I like to know what I'm expecting. You know, I like to know all of those things
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because it makes me feel more comfortable as a consumer to have those expectations already met,
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that you kind of know what you're getting into. You kind of know what to expect when you walk in.
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So you just feel more comfortable. And I think you're hitting the nail right on the head when you're
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saying that those pictures are really important to kind of build that trust initially with potential
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and I do think that another thing that we could probably don't need to get super deep into,
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but it's still important. I would say it's also creating locally focused content that is, you know,
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of course related to your services, but is also integrating your surroundings. What are that be,
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say, local events, local venues, areas that folks might be able to visit that relate back to your
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services? I know one example I like to give folks is like, let's go back to that anxiety aspect
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of things or anxiety example, you know, if somebody is experiencing issues with anxiety,
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well, as an anxiety therapist, maybe you could create a blog or something that is more centered
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around different parks in the area where folks might be able to don't practice mindfulness techniques
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or kind of, you know, reconnect with with the earth or something along those lines.
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Like five places I go whenever I feel anxious in the city or whatever, just something like that.
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Yeah, I had an idea, an example pop up for our functional medicine doctors is,
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especially if they're treating like someone with a big part of their process is like working with
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individuals with diabetes, listing restaurants and the area around them of the places that have
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diabetic friendly meals and that sort of thing. Yeah, absolutely. That's a great idea.
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And yeah, I'd say it does come back to that brainstorming part of things can be sometimes the
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hardest just because you're trying to figure out how to integrate your part.
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Yeah, and so, yeah, I do think blogging of course is another big thing that is important
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whenever it comes to local SEO. And this is kind of going back to the Google Business profile part
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of things. Okay, so, you know, as helping professionals and particularly therapists,
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we have to worry about HIPAA and whenever it comes to views, a lot of times folks will say,
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hey, thanks for, you know, your help with ex-service or whatever. And so it's important to still
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actually respond to those reviews. Yes, even if it's a five star, even if it's a one star,
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but to do that in a HIPAA compliant way. Right. So there might be just thanking clients without
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providing any identifying information or PHI or personal health information or also addressing
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concerns that folks might have from those one star reviews. Yeah. I know a great way to actually go
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about kind of addressing those is to often suggest that folks reach out to the business or the
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practice using an email in order to, you know, give you an opportunity to respond to that review
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in a professional way while also giving the individual an opportunity to address their concern
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to professional. That makes sense. Would you say there's like, hey, ideal time limit on how quickly
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you answer these? Like I've heard before, like realistically, you and I have respond within 24 to
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48 hours. I know responding is better than not responding, but is there like an ideal like
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time frame? Yeah, the perfectionist in me is just saying, kind of,
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immediately. ASAP. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to do it now within a minute.
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Responded. No, but yeah, it is one of those things where I would I think you're on the money
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there with like the kind of a 24 48 hour range overall. I think that, you know, as long as you're
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responding to it, that is the biggest thing that Google wants to see. But in terms of time frame,
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you know, it's more as soon as you can, you know, timely. And I'm going to, but in here, because
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I know this is one of my favorite things just because I'm a small business owner and I've done this.
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But getting earning the backlinks and the mentions and citations, a lot of people are hurt
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hear the word backlinks and are like, oh, I'm mercy. I can't do that. That's so time consuming.
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But if you think about it from a local perspective within your community, there's lots of things that
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you can do that are not really labor intensive. Like you, like you have here, it's like your chamber of
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commerce, your local directories, go to your, you know, your local health department and ask if
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they have a directory for mental health providers or helping professionals that you can get on,
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things like that. I mean, it's really not that hard to reach out within your community and find
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different organizations that support what you do and interact with them, get on their, you know,
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directory, interacts and build a relationship and earn those citations like you talked about
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earlier and earn those mentions and build that trust within your local community to really get
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established as, you know, the go to person within that local area, within that neighborhood.
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And I think that that's, you know, I don't know how important that is, but I don't think it's as
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hard as a lot of people think it is. If you just really kind of sit back and think about, well,
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you know, what organizations are in my community that kind of, you know, do what I do or part of what I do.
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And, you know, I think that that really demonstrates that you have an expertise in that authority
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of your community, which reflects on the expertise authority and trust with Google as well.
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Very true. Very true. And kind of in that same vein of local resources, I think even using
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things like Haro, that can be a really valuable source for that. I know Haro has had an interesting
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story over the last couple of years. But I'm glad that back is back. Yeah, great resource.
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I'm happy to hear. But yeah, I'd say, yeah, of course, the local part of things is very important,
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you know, those local directories, local resources. But whenever it comes to local SEO, it is kind
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of a multi-pronged approach. And so while there are these more local citations or backlinks that you
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can accrue, I do still think that getting more backlinks or citations from larger entities as well,
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whether that be things like, what's the word? Thrive works, I believe, psychology today, things
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of that nature. I think those can also be really important spots to be listed on. I just to, you know,
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make sure you're still improving your relevance and overall domain authority.
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Good point. And one of the other biggest things I just remembered as well in terms of optimizing
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for local SEO, has to be, well, this is once again kind of, we're kind of leading over into
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technical SEO again. It's prioritizing things like your mobile speed and your page speed. Because,
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you know, people love to be on their phones, like we mentioned. And so even if you have an awesome,
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awesome desktop site, it's not going to translate over well to your mobile. So you've got to make
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sure your mobile is also up to stuff. We've talked about that a lot. So that whole making sure that
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things don't bleed together, they don't jump around like having buttons, things like that, is that
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what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. Just anything you can do to help the site load easier,
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like you said, including buttons, things of that nature. And, you know, depending on the,
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the type of website builder you're using, whether it be things like WordPress,
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Squarespace, there might be differing, differing levels of access you can have to the website.
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And so, you know, there might be some cases where, you know, there might be a proprietary thing on
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Squarespace that you just can't get rid of because it's hard coded into the website itself. You know,
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there might be instances like this where you're looking for ways to improve the website and improve
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overall page speeds, but, you know, not every site is exactly the same. And so there will be some cases
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where, you know, there might be things that are just a part of the website that you can't change.
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And, you know, and that's all right. Sometimes it does come to, it comes to a place where you have
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to kind of figure out, you know, what is going to be, what is going to give us the most return
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for the time that we're putting into it? And what might not be really worth the time? You know,
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there might be something where it could save you a half a second on load times. But if you're,
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if that thing is, you know, a font that you really like or a specific theme that you're using,
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that's your favorite, well, then, you know, maybe it's not worth, you know, getting rid of that
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font or that theme just to get that extra half second. Yeah. You know, it does come back to
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making sure that everything comes back to that balance. Exactly.
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I was just going to say so we know that like prioritizing
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mobile and site speed is becoming more important because more and more people are on their phones,
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especially with local SEO. How else is local SEO changing? What else, especially in the age of AI,
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where I feel like everything has been pretty consistently changing over the past year with updates
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and getting ranking in AI, is that affecting the local SEO game? Yeah. And whenever it comes to
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SEO and how local SEO was changing, I know the AI aspect of things, it has been, it's been interesting.
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AI overviews and that whole search-generative experience can influence the local search and
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visibility. And so this does require businesses to start to create more of that AI-friendly content.
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For example, including different types of schema that are going to support local SEO,
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like that local business SEO, or maybe even creating schema that is going to support FAQs.
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You know, the questions and the answers that people are searching for,
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things like FAQ schema as well can be really important because that's going to give you an
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opportunity to potentially be shown in the AI overviews for, you know, those different questions
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and answers that people are searching for. What those FAQs is it important for them to make it
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their Google business profile post? Are you saying it's important to be like having an FAQ page?
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So I do think that having a dedicated FAQ page on the website is going to be a great source
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for this information. But in addition to that, I do think that creating a different Google
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Business Profile post or updates or whatever they're called, those can also be a great place to
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include some of these commonly asked questions and better give you an opportunity to answer those
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questions and come off as more of a more of a trustworthy authority on the subject.
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And while we're on the topic, I think another way that AI has really impacted local SEO is that
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AI-dream and search really focuses on this conversational tone. So people who are using
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it talk to text who are just talking into their phone saying, you know, I'm looking for such and
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such near me or, you know, personalized results is what AI really focuses on. So it's, that makes
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it really important for businesses to be accurately represent themselves to give that, you know,
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that concrete name address phone number that you were talking about that, you know, be completely
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present and search results. And I think that that's one of the things that AI is really doing
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in even Google in the way that it's kind of changing how it how it pulls search results is,
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you know, really emphasizing those conversational queries, those personalized results. And I think
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that's one of the reasons why we see AI having such a big impact on local SEO. And I could be way
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off, but that's just what my understanding of how things are working. Yeah, I would say you're not too far off.
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So we talked about a lot of different things, AI and local search. I know that even AI, you know,
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you can even get AI help you to help you manage your responding to reviews and use chat GPT to help
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come up with suggestions to review responses. And so AI can actually be used that way. And so I
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think that there's a lot of ways, like you said, the AI is really kind of impacting local SEO.
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What are what are some common local SEO questions that you find that people often ask, like whenever
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you have a consultation and we have people coming in. And because I I'm not good at explaining local
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SEO, it's not in my wheelhouse, Winnie and I kind of look at each other and go, oh, maybe we should
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get sterling on this call because I have no idea what the hell is going on. So what are some
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questions that you see people asking frequently that they really don't understand about local SEO.
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Yeah, I do think that one of the first things that comes to mind is, you know,
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do I really need local SEO if I'm already ranking in the organic Google search results? I say,
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yeah, I'd say it's still one of those things that, you know, whenever you're trying to rank
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on a local level, it is still different from, you know, trying to broaden your reach across,
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say, a state level or an international or interstate level without having these more local
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signals like your Google business profile reviews, things like citations, you're going to probably
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miss out on that map pack visibility. And that's going to be where a lot of those mobile folks
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are going to be clicking from. That's a good point. I like that. So how long does it usually take
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to see results from local SEO? Like are we talking? Because this is a question. Yeah, this is a question
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we get a lot. When will I see results? That's everybody's favorite question. And I'm yeah,
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I don't know what's asked your link. I'd say typically we're probably looking at a range between
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three, six months for noticeable traction. But of course, this can vary. It's going to be depend
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on things like how competitive a certain area is, how optimized things like your content that you're
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creating and your profiles are and how consistent you are with things like updates and responding
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to your reviews. Is that one of the reasons why we suggest logging kind of going hand and hand
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with local SEO. So we have that fresh content to kind of back up on and just show on Google your
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Google business profile. For sure. Yeah, I do think that yeah, alongside doing local SEO,
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starting to create that blog content that is more locally focused is pretty invaluable.
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Cool. And I think the continuing to kind of get used to brainstorming those ideas of how you can
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either do outreach to your community or create more blog content that is locally focused and
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incorporate your community into that blog content. I think that's a really important part of
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continuing to build and see local SEO results. What's the best way to monitor and see the results?
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Because like with on page SEO, my go to is monitoring like Google search console. We have the
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dashboards for anyone who has like a package with us is I know you do heat maps with our local SEO
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package. Is that the best way to monitor local ranking specifically or is there another way for
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kind of individuals to be able to track that? So I do think that heat maps are a really good place
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to track that rankings for those locally focused keywords that you're trying to search. But we found
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on a local level. I do also think that places like your Google Business Profile can also provide
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some pretty valuable information of how things like your website clicks are going, how many folks
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are clicking on things like your call button for example. I didn't even think of that. Yeah,
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even things like the people trying to find directions to your practice as well. I think they're
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yeah, a couple different places like that that are really good sources for tracking outings are going
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on a local SEO level. Because helping professionals are part of that your money, your life,
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demographic that Google kind of takes more seriously about what they put out. Do you feel like that
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makes local SEO even more important for our type of helping our type of client or helping professionals
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our therapist because it's really demonstrating that local trust within the community and building that.
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Do you feel like that's the case that it's even more important for like your money, your life
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businesses to really develop that local SEO if they have a brick and mortar office? Certainly. I know
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Google does take what's it called eat as a ranking factor which is short for expertise, experience,
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authoritativeness, trustworthiness. And so I do think that trying to rank on a more local level is
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only going to help with accomplishing that. What are some common mistakes that people can make
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when it comes to their local SEO? Like for example, in on page of you we talk about keyword
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stuffying we talk about not having photos and optimizing them. What are some that are specific to
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local SEO? Yeah, so one of the unique things about local SEO and the aspect of being listed
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on different websites across the internet is that if you are not going back and making changes on
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those other websites whenever your information changes then you're going to have inconsistent
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NAP information. So I would make sense. So how quickly if someone is changing, let's say they're
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changing their updating their phone number or their address or their business name, who knows?
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How quickly do they need to start that process to get stuff switched over? I mean, should they
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start it like preemptively? If they know they're going to be moving their business to a new location,
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should they wait till the day of the move to do it? Should they do it preemptively to kind of
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get a head start? What should they do to kind of update their profile in the time frame kind of
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space? Yeah, so I think if in that like using your example of, you know, if an individual is going
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to be moving their physical location to another area, I do think that it is best to have that
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information ready to go in your back pocket or even on its own Google Doc to say you can very
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quickly and easily apply that information to the updated listing or even your Google business
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because having that inconsistent information can be of course a detriment, but I would say as long
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as you are minimizing the amount of time it takes between updating that information, I think it's
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probably still your best bet. Overall, I would say if you can do it preemptively,
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I might. Yeah, I was wondering, would it hurt you unless you're like stopping seeing clients
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like a couple weeks ahead of time before the move or there's a transition period, but from what
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you're saying, maybe doing it like the day of or as soon as possible after you make the actual move
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is probably the best course of action so that there's not that overlap or confusion during the
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transition. Yes, correct. I do think that whenever it also does come back to your Google
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Business Profile in particular, Google can be a little finicky sometimes whenever it comes to
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things like getting re-verified, especially after you change your location. Okay.
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And so if, for example, you're needing to get your Google Business Profile listing re-verified,
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well, you're likely going to need some specific information that you can only have if you are
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actually at this location. Right. And so yeah, say as long as you have access to that location,
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you can probably start to get that information changed. Awesome. So when in doubt, people need a plan
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to do all these updates as soon as possible. Yeah. As soon as possible. When they're moving,
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maybe the next day, add that on to like a moving checklist. Yeah.
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Well, I think we've covered a lot of information. Sterling, this was really helpful.
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Thank you so much for coming because Local SEO is not my jam. I'm totally just, I don't know why.
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I cannot wrap my head around it very well. It's just one of those things that I look straight at it
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and it's just a black hole. I don't know what the problem is. I just don't get it. But I think at the
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end of the day, SEO and Local SEO are really, like you said, they're about connection. They're about
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whether, you know, whether you're a small business, a private practice or a big group practice,
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you know, showing up online means showing up for the people who are already looking for you.
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And then from what you said, I think that, you know, that's hugely important in today's AI age.
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You know, strengthen your Google business profile, making sure you're not just visible,
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but you're credible. And you're doing all the things to kind of build that trust within the
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community within your area and becoming that go-to person, that people in that area are going to find.
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Because that's what you want to be ultimately if you have a brick and mortar place, you want to be
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that go-to resource, that go-to person. Thank you so much, Stirling, for joining.
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Yeah, and I just want to mention, I know you said this because Google is finicky,
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but if you're having trouble with Google verifying your Google business profile, don't give up.
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Eventually, you will get it. Yeah, eventually, you will get it. They make you jump through all the hoops.
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All the hoops. It's like trying to reason with a two-year-old who hasn't had a snack and has
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got the wrong juice in their sippy cup. They're just a mac. And it's a picky eater.
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Picky eater. Yeah, just, you know, all of this information has been really good. And we hope that
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you really got something out of it. And I am thankful that you guys joined us on this journey of
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this podcast. And I'm thankful for Stirling for being here. We absolutely love him as part of our team.
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And we'll have him on here again, because maybe one day we'll dive into the depths of Saiskima
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and confuse the hell out of everybody. But until next time, guys.
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We'll be rehire goethics. Yeah, and basically, until next time, guys. Thank you. We appreciate you.
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Bye. Bye.
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You've been listening to from keywords to connections, a podcast from Sipa Fied SEO,
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produced by Rational Designs. Your online journey starts here.