Darren Shaw

Yandex, wow

This is a great example of how knowing your way around a Google Business Profile and having the right tools can help you identify new ranking opportunities that others miss.

We get results like this for all our clients. DM me if you’d like to learn how we can help you achieve similar results, too.

Improvements from adding categories:

- 32% increase in keyword progress
- 21% increase in total interactions vs the previous month
- 41% increase in total interactions vs the previous year
- 5% increase in total views vs the previous month
- 23% increase in total views vs the previous year

Properly optimizing your Google Business Profile categories helps Google understand exactly what your business offers, so it can show your business for more relevant searches. In this case, adding these 7 additional categories opened up 7 new ranking opportunities for our client.

After reviewing the suggestions with the client, we added several relevant categories:

- Boot Camp
- Yoga Studio
- Training Center
- Personal Trainer
- Weightlifting Area
- Weight Loss Service
- Physical Fitness Program

Using the Category Suggestions feature in Whitespark’s Local Rank Tracker, we analyzed what categories their competitors were using that our client wasn’t.

That meant they were missing the opportunity to show up for a lot of related searches.

This one simple Google Business Profile fix unlocked 7 new ranking opportunities for our gym client.

When this client started working with Whitespark, we noticed they were only using one category on their Google Business Profile: “Gym”.

Contact Page Improvement, Bing vs ChatGPT, Google Posts Masterclass |E23 The Whitespark Local Update YouTube video by Whitespark

The statistic that 90% of searches happen on Google is outdated.

The real number is more like 73% according to new research by @randfish.bsky.social.

@clairecarlile.bsky.social and I talk about Rand’s findings and more in today’s podcast episode.

Watch the full episode below!

All the AI SEO bros are telling you to use schema, but it turns out that it’s useless.

There’s been a lot of discussion about this lately, and Mark Williams-Cook’s recent experiment might give us the answer.

Here’s what he did:

So, your SEO task for today is to take a look at your website navigation. If it’s cluttered, clean it up. If it’s already beautiful and optimized, drop a screenshot below and let the comments rate it.

Joy shared results from two real businesses that cleaned up their navigation and removed unnecessary links:

- One saw traffic to remaining pages increase by 40%
- Another saw 89% more traffic and a 25% increase in conversions

Many websites have cluttered navigation menus with too many pages competing for attention (see the page below).

Instead of helping users, cluttered navigation menus often spread authority and traffic too thin across the site, confusing both people and Google.

Here’s a simple SEO tactic that almost nobody talks about, but it can drive surprisingly big results.

@joyhawkins.bsky.social recently shared a 10-step Local SEO Audit checklist, and one tip in there really stood out to me: Consolidate your navigation.

The Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Local Businesses This guide will teach you how to start your social media journey as a local business: from picking the right platforms to creating quality content.

@miriamellis.bsky.social's new guide is here! Read it below to learn how local businesses can utilize social media. Plus, get a free copy of the top 8 things that have worked for me in my personal social media journey!

If you want to test the software for yourself, you can run 8 free 5×5 grid scans with our trial (no credit card required). Go click around. It’s actually fun.

This is one of those features that makes you look really smart on a sales call because instead of overexplaining rankings to potential clients, you can visually show them what’s happening in just a few clicks and they instantly get it.

This data is valuable for:

- Showing prospects who outranks them and how close those competitors are.
- Spotting weak areas and competitive clusters on the map and adjusting strategies accordingly.
- Identifying areas where competitors are farther away and a new location could do really well.

But what I love the most about this new feature is how visual it makes everything. You can literally click around the grid and watch competitors change depending on their location. It makes proximity, density, and competition incredibly obvious and easy to explain to potential clients.

You can even expand it from Top 10 all the way to Top 100.

Yes, we track rankings all the way to 100 (unlike all of our outdated competitors).

When you click “Plot Competitors on Map”, you can instantly visualize your competitors on the map:

- Who’s outranking you at that exact location
- Where they’re physically located
- How close (or far) they are from that grid point
- How competitor clusters shift across the grid

We just launched an absolutely incredible new feature in Whitespark Local Ranking Grids, and you need to see it.

How Google Builds AI Answers, Verification Risks & Review Changes | E22 The Whitespark Local Update YouTube video by Whitespark

@clairecarlile.bsky.social and I discuss this topic on today’s episode of the Whitespark Local Update, plus a whole lot more!

Find the full episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

How do you structure your page in such a way that Google’s AI cites it in its answers?

I love @dejanseo.bsky.social. He recently did some amazing technical research into Google’s “grounding snippets”, i.e. the sentences it selects from your page to then build its answer to the user’s query.

So now you know, third time’s the charm. Don’t give up until you’ve replied twice.

I hope that saves you some frustration.

Google is clearly trying to reduce support costs, so they’ve automated most replies. But if you reply to that second automated email, you will finally reach a real human.

When you email Google Business Profile Support, the first reply you get will be automated. And if you respond to that email, you’ll get ANOTHER automated response.

Ugh! Is there a way to contact a real human at Google Support? Yes, there is. Here’s a little trick most people don’t know about.

Haha. Join the webinar and you'll see what I have to say about that.

Here are some more absolute gems of business names. Happy Friday!