How to Rank in Local Search (Even in Competitive Niches) | Claudia Tomina

Struggling to rank in local search, even after posting, optimising, and hiring agencies?

In this episode, Local SEO expert Claudia Tomina (Reputation Arm) breaks down EXACTLY what moves the needle today in Google Business Profiles, Local Packs, and Maps results. 

Whether you're a restaurant, home service business, personal injury lawyer, clinic, or multi-location brand… this is the most practical Local SEO breakdown you’ll ever watch.


What You'll Learn

✔ How to rank in competitive niches (lawyers, restaurants, home services)
 ✔ Why your Google Business Profile isn’t ranking — and how to fix it
 ✔ The most important ranking factors:
   • Primary category
   • Review recency
   • Meta titles
   • Consistent hours
 ✔ How to manage multi-location Google listings the RIGHT way
 ✔ Local Service Ads (LSA): when you must run them
✔ How AI is changing Local SEO
✔ How to optimize menu items, services & attributes
✔ The truth about NAP consistency (and what actually matters)
✔ When service-area businesses should show or hide their address
✔ Why citations and Yelp matter again
✔ How one category change turned a red map grid into green overnight


About Claudia Tomina

Claudia is a Google Product Expert and founder of Reputation Arm, specializing in Local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization, multi-location SEO, and review management. She is a contributor to the Local Search Ranking Factors study from WhiteSpark. 

Follow Claudia on LinkedIn for powerful local search insights.

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro
 00:30 – Why every business needs Local SEO
 02:08 – Local SEO vs Organic SEO
 03:14 – How to set realistic SEO expectations
 05:39 – What LSA ads are (Local Service Ads)
 07:47 – How to keep clients happy without guaranteed rankings
 11:40 – Why review recency matters more than review count
 14:26 – Multi-location SEO problems to avoid
 18:25 – How to optimize franchise listings
 21:02 – Posting on Google Business Profile
 22:43 – Top Local SEO ranking factors
 24:58 – Business name, categories, and recency
 31:16 – Should service businesses show their address?
 33:31 – Local landing pages explained
 41:30 – AI's impact on Local Search
 46:17 – How to turn a red ranking grid into green
 48:18 – Real case study: restaurant & halal rankings
 55:53 – Local SEO vs website SEO speed
 58:16 – Budget advice for small businesses
 1:01:00 – Where to follow Claudia

Resources

• WhiteSpark Local Search Ranking Factors
 • Google Business Profile Support Forum
 • Reputation Arm LinkedIn Newsletter


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 • Local SEO
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Transcript

Rana 0:00

Can you still uh grow a business using local SD?

Claudia 0:03

I think um any business really needs to start with local SD on it. You know your Google business profile is your portfolio. If somebody googles your law firm and they go there, it's a conversion factor.

Rana 0:14

So what are the two or three top uh problems you see when people have and businesses have multiple locations?

Claudia 0:20

Just inconsistencies, inconsistent branding, too many users. So they let employees have access because they're like, oh well, I want to answer the reviews and I want the employee to answer the reviews, but then the employees if you're if you are not gonna run LSA ads, if you are not gonna do your website optimization, like if you just want to, if you want me to help you generate new reviews month over month because review recency is a big ranking factor. So there's studies out there that show uh like if you go like two months with no reviews, your rankings like will also slow down. As soon as you start moving up in reviews, then things can move back up.

Rana 0:55

How how is the AI affecting the local SPI? Welcome to the Website Coach Talk brought to you by WP Mind. I'm your host, Rana Shad. On this talk, we speak with business owners, identity leaders, and marketers to learn what's working to improve their website and grow their businesses. If you're wondering how your website is performing, please visit wpmind.com and request a free website on it. My team will care what's working and what can be improved to grow your business. Most multi-location and franchise businesses have invested in SEO or marketing, but still see branches that underperform inconsistent reviews and listings that don't convert. It's frustrating to feel visible yet not trust and to lose customers, competitors who show up more credibly. Today's guest, Claudia Tomina, founder and CEO of Reputation A, helps brand turn their local listings and reputation into real growth engines. As a Google business profile expert and local SEO strategist, she guides multi-location businesses to get their listings verified, reviews managed, and local presence aligned so that usability leads to convergence. In this episode, we'll unpack how Claudia helps brands not just show up, but stand out and trust and grow across every location. Claudia, welcome to the website growth show.

Claudia 2:08

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Rana 2:09

I'm excited to, you know, have you on the show and I'm sure uh I have a whole list of questions to ask and uh help people grow locally. Can you still grow a business using local SEO?

Claudia 2:23

So I think um any business really needs to start with local SEO. And I think uh for the average business owner, I think there's a disconnect between understanding the difference and vetting out an agency that focuses on local SEO and another agency that focuses on, say, generating leads or more of the organic SEO. And when I say organic SEO, I mean search results, the blue links that you see on search and and maybe even AI, but local, locals more local pack, local maps, how to get shown in the top three. Um, and so being able to explain that to a potential client and letting them know, hey, this is what we do, this is what we focus on, I think is eye-opening for them. And then they start to realize, okay, this this is starting to make more sense for me. And then there's always times where I tell some people, like I had a call last week, and I'm like, I don't think you're the I'm the right fit for you. Uh, you're definitely not the right fit for me for as a client. So uh, you know, people think like, oh, you do marketing and like I want to meet with you and like I, you know, I found you on LinkedIn and it's great. But at the end of the day, their goals are a little bit different. And so making sure you align with the right agency is gonna be key.

Rana 3:39

That's interesting. You mentioned that any business needs local SEO. Normally, when we call it local SEO, you think about brick and mortar local businesses. So can you touch on that as as well? That any global businesses need local SEO as well?

Claudia 3:54

It's you know, any global business or any business that's gonna like try to get, you know, can get business across the state, they need a different type of marketing. So, like, yes, local SEO is gonna still be important to them, but people have to remember the local map app is meant to be ranked within like a two-hour driving distance. So Google's looking like, hey, you're locally physically in a pos in an area where this other searcher is, and so they're gonna rank your business. But at the end of the day, if you're a mortgage company and you can do mortgages, you know, across state lines, then you don't really local pack isn't as significant probably for you. So like you have to do a bigger mix. So yeah, you might want to do some local, you're always gonna want to have some local SEO, but at the end of the day, the organic SEO is gonna play a big role too.

Rana 4:45

Excellent. How do you, when you take on a client, how do you define SEO success? How do you manage client expectations?

Claudia 4:51

Really, I focus on the category. So uh, for example, like personal injury lawyers is so competitive. And I will let them know like, hey, it doesn't matter like how many reviews you're gonna get and this, like you have to do all these things, but at the end of the day, you still might not rank and get the leads that you are expecting. So, like, you know, like marketing agencies. I mean, if you think about a marketing agency, they can really service anybody, you know, that like I can service somebody in California or, you know, in Florida. So there's certain categories in local that I feel like I can't maybe make as much progress as I would like to. And then there's other categories like restaurants, for example. I like to specialize in restaurant categories because I know I can make a significant impact for that local business. And then, you know, whether it's like the local plumber or an electrician, things that are maybe a little bit less competitive, but like again, going back to personal injury, it's super competitive and you have to do like LSA ads. So having like a clear understanding, like, okay, this is like I set expectations for my client. Like, yes, we're gonna do all these best practices and you should be doing it. And Google wants you to do it, and you're showing Google you're engaged. But at the end of the day, if you're not also doing LSA ads or, you know, optimizing your website SEO and this and that, everything else that we're doing might not be as significant as you like it to be. So I like to really set clear expectations for the client. And I do feel like understanding their category is like a big part of that. That's why people niche down too. You know, they want to like I agree.

Rana 6:34

And the you mentioned LSA ads. So people who don't know LSA ad, what does that mean?

Claudia 6:39

It's local service ads. So that's where like the Google Guarantee mark comes in. So if you do a search, it's mainly for service categories. So, you know, like restoration companies, plumbers, electricians, personal injury lawyers, you're not gonna see a restaurant in a local service uh and category. Well, there's there's so many, there's only so many categories that do LSA. But if you're one of the categories in there and LSA is available, you have to do LSA ads to really do well and get leads because they almost look like the organic local pack. The way Google has them in the search results, they look very natural. You almost can't recognize that it's an ad. And they put on these like big shiny badges that say like Google guaranteed. And to the end consumer, they're like, oh, well, Google's guaranteeing this. It just makes more sense to click there.

Rana 7:28

So how how do you run those ads? Do you run through uh your Google Ads console or is it a different place you can you can find those ads and run the Yeah, it's it's separate, but it is tied to your Google business profile.

Claudia 7:41

But it is like it's not inside your Google Business Manager account. It's like a separate department and it's and it's different from organic search ads. So, you know, there's there's different types of ads you could do. You can even do ads inside Google Maps if you want to rank like in the Google Maps app, where you, you know, somebody searches like Coffee Shop or any other category and you might be listed on the top. But yeah, there's there's different types of ads and then maybe experimenting with those and but really like I think a lot of it's industry driven.

Rana 8:11

Got it. You mentioned personal personal injury lawyers, very highly competitive industry. So if you take clients on that highly competitive industry, the results are not guaranteed. How do you keep clients uh happy with local SEO while competing with very competitive industries?

Claudia 8:29

Yeah, I focus on best practice. So like I set very clear expectations from the beginning and I let them know like, if you are not gonna run LSA ads, if you are not gonna do your website optimization, like if you just want to, if you want me to help you generate new reviews month over month, because review recency is a big ranking factor and you don't want to fall behind in that, right? So you have to have a review cadence in place. And they they know that and they agree. And then I tell them, like, you know, your Google business profile is your portfolio. If somebody Googles your law firm and they go there, it's a conversion factor. So I kind of set the expectation like, okay, your budget's low. You don't, you know, like that's okay. These are best practices that we could do. We can, you know, add some Google posts so that you have a little bit of engagement and dwell time on your Google business profile. We're gonna focus on generating you new reviews so that if somebody does get referred to you, because a lot of lawyers they get referrals too. And that's a big part of their networking. And so at the end of the day, if they somebody goes to Google and then sees that they only have 20 reviews, they might not be as inclined to give them a call. Well, making sure, so I tell them like, get reviews, like focus on it. And like we have an Reputation Arm has a is a SaaS application that helps you generate reviews and we make it really easy for people. We have like an email system where you can throw in an email in the BCC field and it triggers an email campaign to go out. So the lawyers do love that as super easy and very like they don't have to log into the system and the, you know, they get their reviews and that's what I train them to focus on. And then there's like the whole support of, you know, if a review goes missing, if they need to dispute a review. So we offer those kind of services. If they move and they have to re-verify or if they get suspended, different things like that, Google posting, and then just like adding new photos to their Google business profile, just the engagement factor that Google's looking for, that the and consumer's looking for, AI is surfacing different things. So I we make sure that they don't go stale and and um and so I set that expectation as far as like, okay, here's here's what I could do for you, and this is what's best practice. You don't want to fall behind. You know, let's let's focus there. Because if you do decide to put a budget towards your ads, but you only have 20 reviews, you're not gonna convert as well as the guy that has 700 reviews in the personal injury category. So if you're if you're gonna do the minimum, at the most minimum, build up your reviews. And so that's how some clients are, and then there's some that really go big and you know, like have they understand like you got takes money to make money type thing, and they're gonna put tons of thousands of dollars into their ad campaigns. And then there's others that are a little bit more realistic and just kind of want to maintain. So yeah, it's just setting expectations for the client, really. I think uh we do a really good job of that.

Rana 11:26

Yeah, I I agree. And uh, I think uh as per my uh knowledge, the reviews are the big part of local SEO. And for that, you have to work with the client. Not any agency can do on their own. Is that right?

Claudia 11:37

Yes, absolutely. I was just gonna mention, like, we work with a lot of franchise groups, like that's kind of what we specialize in. So we like to work with like bigger corporate brands that have, you know, hundreds of Google business profiles because at the end of the day, they really shouldn't have their franchisees like controlling the Google business profile and then kind of retraining, like, especially if like it's a very immature franchise that is just starting out in the beginning. You'll find that, well, I find that they let their franchisees create their Yelp listings, and then they may let them create the Google business profile, and then they lose control of all these directories. And so as the brand is growing and they need to change the logo or their website changes and they need to update URLs, it becomes almost impossible for them to kind of go back to every franchisee and have them have it updated and have that consistent branding and that updating whether it's our URLs, logos. So helping the brand control that is like a big part of what we do and then educating them on the whole process. And then it's, you know, like understanding how the APIs work. Like Apple Maps is not gonna update your data unless your website is updated. And, you know, the average business owner like should not be in charge of that kind of stuff, especially if they're a part of a franchise, because they don't understand. They're thinking, like, I'm gonna update my hours on Google and like that's it. They don't realize, like, no, you have to update it on your website, you have to update it on Yelp. And then we have a citations platform that we syndicate out to Bing and Foursquare and MapQuest and everywhere else on the web that it needs to get syndicated out to. And then it's tied into Google. And so they may find that they're suggesting edits on Google and they're like, why does my hours keep reverting back? But you know, it's it's working with the brand to get that whole ecosystem set up within their branding. And then it just is like a nice, well-oiled machine. And then you have experts like Reputation Arm that specialize in Google business profiles that can identify issues, whether it's missing reviews, reviews attacks, verification issues, getting the account bulk verified. You can be bulk verified if you have 10 plus locations. And and that's what we like to provide for our clients.

Rana 13:50

It looks simple, but it's lots of management and work. So you mentioned you specialize in multi-location Google profile listings management. So what are the two or three top problems you see when people have when businesses have multiple locations?

Claudia 14:06

Just inconsistencies, inconsistent branding, too many users. So they let employees have access because they're like, oh, well, I want to answer the reviews and I want the employee to answer the reviews, but then the employee leaves, they're not removing access. Um, and it that's really dangerous because at the end of the day, anyone who's tied to your Google business profile, say they start suggesting edits or they're a local guide and they're leaving reviews, or for whatever reason Google flags them, your account can get suspended. So you really shouldn't just let anyone have access to your Google business profile. It could, it could get messy. And then there's always like hijackers, you know, people will like request ownership access to the profile, or even whether it's like an employee, they think, oh, I want to access, and they're like asking for access, but they're actually taking ownership over. And so we always deny those and we're like, that's not the process. Like we will add you as a user. And we always suggest using the domain emails. So like if they leave the company and they they should not be using their personal Gmail accounts, they should be using a company email account. So setting all those expectations, consulting on the entire process for the brand or even the single location, right? I've worked with so many businesses where like the marketing company has access to their Google Business profile and the actual business owner does not have access. So imagine this is your website. This is your portfolio in a sense. Like it's it's just as important, if not more important, than your website. And these business owners just freely give up access because it goes over their head. They don't understand it, they're just trying to run their business. So working with like a trusted partner is gonna be really important.

Rana 15:46

Yes, there are some very uh fundamental stuff or very important stuff, like ownership of the properties should be with the business owner, whether they understand the details or not. Like in our industry, the website, domain name should be owned by the business because that's their biggest uh asset. So it's like a five, ten dollars price. But when you build on the domain, that's your you know, property, the your listing. You can give access to everything to the agencies, to developers, but domain should be owned by you and controlled by by you. So similarly, the way you are saying the Google business profile is very important. Property you should do yourself, yeah.

Claudia 16:24

Yeah, I mean, I work in the Google forums as a product expert, and I can't tell you how many times I find people coming in and they're like, you know, I this employee left and I, you know, they were like the primary owner and like they kicked me out, or whether even it could be like adding a second user because the primary owner passed away and then now they or they sold the business and the old business owner doesn't want to give access to the Google business profile. Uh, there's so many different scenarios. So just working through that could be a little bit of a challenge. And so working with a team that understands Google business profiles and the whole ins and out of it can really like save tons of time.

Rana 17:06

Okay. Before we move on to the further question, I think we touched upon very important multi-location uh Google profile optimization. Do you have any suggestion? People who are starting out or looking to improve their multi-location uh Google business listings, any few suggestions how they should approach to optimize it?

Claudia 17:26

Yeah. So the brand owner, the actual like franchise corporate office, should always create the Google business profile, never allow the franchisees to create the Google business profile. Always use like a domain email. And you can set up a group and have like all the locations within the group and so that the primary owner is one email address for all locations. And then always create the Yelp listings, even. So don't let any franchisees create the Yelp listing. Have one brand account that logs in and has all your locations in there. And then try to do the same thing with TripAdvisor and all the other important directories that you want to be in. There's some directories that you can't always control. Like I don't believe BBB, like the better business bureau, because if everyone has their own tax entity, then it's gonna be, they have to have their own BBB directory themselves. But like educating them on the process and keeping a close eye on all those directories, is gonna be important, especially in the age of AI, because at the end of the day, the business owner, if they have access, they're not gonna know how to optimize. They're not gonna understand what their primary category should be to add all the attributes. There's so many attributes that are gonna signal search rankings. And so if it goes stale and that franchisee is not really doing it, and then the brand is not hiring somebody or working that into their marketing where they're constantly updating and keeping up with fresh content, whether it's photos, videos, then at the end of the day, their franchisees are not gonna rank well. And then it just becomes, you know, like, well, I'm not getting the support in marketing. And then they're telling you, oh, well, you have to do so. You lose that control. It's it's a lot easier for you to help your brands, your franchisees do better if you have control and access to all the listings. So that's like my biggest piece of advice. I see it all the time. Like marketing directors come in.

Rana 19:18

And the one more important uh part of local SEO is uh keeping the Google business listing fresh. So is that work like a similar like you post on uh LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter? Can you still a similar way you you can post on Google Business Profile?

Claudia 19:35

Exactly. So they Google has three types of phone posts. There's an offer post, an event post, and then just like a regular post. And right now, if you put an offer or an event post, it's only for the restaurant and like food and um beverage categories, but they actually get featured on branded searches. So I just recently wrote a blog about how you can get your event post featured just by posting onto your your Google business profile. And they actually will pull in from your social media. So if you have an event and you're posting it on social media, chances are Google knows and is is going to surface that in your branded search results. But it's only on mobile, it's not on desktop. So there's like a few things that you kind of have to understand behind the scenes. But um, yeah, so if you're gonna, you're always gonna want to repurpose your content. So social media and then even Google. But it's important also to realize like your audience on Google might be a little bit different than your audience in social. So putting offers and events on your Google Business profile is gonna be super important. At the end of the day, like Google could be the last search point. So if they find you on TikTok or they find you on Instagram, they might go on Google Maps to actually see how far you are or to like get driving directions or to book a reservation. Having that event and that offer feature there is gonna help you like convert better.

Rana 20:54

Excellent. And uh uh you wanted to share your recent stats came out, the importance of the different local SEO factors. So would you like to touch on those factors?

Claudia 21:05

Yeah. So if anyone is interested in learning more about local SEO, there's a great guide. It's the local search ranking factors. It's posted on whitespark uh.ca. It's not.com. And uh Darren Shaw owns White Spark and he's a great person to follow. He posts a lot of great content on LinkedIn and he inherited these local search ranking factors from David Min. And he's been maintaining it and posting it. And really, what it is is he invites like, you know, the top local SEO experts in the industry that he thinks is like doing great case studies. I'm one of them. I was the first one. Uh, this is my first year contributing, so I was really excited about it. And basically we we weigh all the ranking factors. So it's like a it's a weight be it's a weight between one and five. And so we'll put a weight on like how important are reviews? How important is review recency? How important is your meta title? How important is your meta description on your website, your business name, your business category? And so it ranks everything in importance. So if you're in marketing or if you own your own business and you kind of want to manage your own Google business profile, this is a great reference to use. It's gonna like educate you so much on like what you should be focused on, what are the big wins. Um, and he he has a podcast and uh a Reddit thread where you can go on and ask more questions if you want to. But it's a it's a great piece to reference to understand local SEO. And then um organic SEO in there, a ranking factor for LSA, even if you want to understand local service ads a little better. And then this year he added in AI because obviously everything's going AI and trying to understand how to rank in AI overviews or in AI mode. So that's gonna be in there too. So it's a it's a really great reference.

Rana 22:55

Excellent. And we will put the link in in the show notes for this resource as well. This is an amazing resource. Would you like to touch upon the three top important factors of local SEO out of this uh stats?

Claudia 23:07

For sure. Yeah, great. So one of the biggest ranking factors is gonna be your business name. So having a keyword in your business name is is very important. But you gotta be careful because you can't keyword stuff your name. It goes against Google guidelines. But if somebody's searching sushi and your business name has sushi in it, you're you're a little you're gonna be more likely to outrank your competitor. Your business category, your primary business category, is the one of the biggest ranking factors as well. Um, obviously you want to be relevant to the search query. So if somebody again is searching sushi sushi restaurant near me, Google's gonna surface anyone with a primary category that has sushi in it. And there's case studies on my blog that show even secondary categories matter. So I um was managing an Italian restaurant and they have flatbread pizza. It's not, they're not really known for having pizza or anything like that. But I never had pizza restaurant as a secondary category for them. And when I didn't have that category, I could not get them to rank for anything related to pizza. But as soon as I added a secondary category for pizza restaurant, they were ranking top three or number three.

Rana 24:21

So they're they were Is there any bet best practices? How many categories you should select?

Claudia 24:25

Google allows you to select one primary and up to nine secondaries. So they have to be relevant. So depending on that, but like restaurants, typically you can always find 10 categories because you're family friendly. If you serve halal food, you you want to add halal restaurant in there because it tells Google that you serve halal. If you're a vegan restaurant, if you have vegan options, add it. If you have steak, even if you just serve a steak, I add steakhouse because I find that you can't actually rank for steak without having the steak house category. So it's just like, and then pizza. Like if you if you have pizza on your menu, add pizza restaurant in there. If you serve like great desserts, maybe have dessert uh shop in there. Or like if you're also a coffee shop and you have like you're gonna want to add that. So there's so many different categories in the restaurant industry that like not having 10 is like almost negligent. But the most businesses, like if you go on the web, like I have tools that show me the rankings, or their business categories, they're not utilizing that. Like having restaurant as your primary category is not doing you any justice. You're missing out tons. Yeah, you're missing out on tons of search queries, like you you won't get surfaced.

Rana 25:38

Okay, so amazing. So we have a first business name, second is business category, the third main factor.

Claudia 25:44

Review recency. So this is like a new one that uh Darren keeps touching up upon. He it, you know, it's not the number of reviews. So just because your competitor has been in business a lot longer and they may have 700 reviews and you're just starting out and you have a hundred, it's about maintaining a good cadence of new reviews coming in. Every time you get a new review, you're gonna maintain those rankings. But as soon as you go stale on your reviews, your rankings will tank. So there's studies out there that show like if you go like two months with no reviews, your rankings like will also slow down. As soon as you start moving up and and reviews, then things can move back up.

Rana 26:23

So mostly when you search, you see on the local packs the people who have more reviews come up at the top. Yeah, that's the that's the new thing. So what what are you saying? Even though if you have uh fewer reviews, but if you're getting consistently and more recent reviews, there are chances that you can you can beat competitors with more reviews. Is that correct?

Claudia 26:43

Yes. And another good ranking factor is uh your business hours. So if you're not open, Google's less likely to surface you. So you know, if you're if you're running ranking reports on um a Sunday and you're closed on Sunday, you're you're your rankings are not going to show well. Making sure, like, and I work with restaurants that want to close the indoor part of their restaurant, but they still have delivery. And so they ask me, should I set my delivery hours? And I always tell them, just keep your main hours the same as your delivery hours, because if you're showing closed on your main hours, but then your delivery hours are set, you might not rank well because Google's gonna rank the ones that they think are open. And they're only looking at the main hours as a ranking factor and not those additional hours that they allow you to add in.

Rana 27:28

How does that this work with the service businesses? Because normally they are open nine to five, but they they would like to rank out of nine to five as well on Google.

Claudia 27:37

Well, most service businesses put that they're 24 hours. So like you'll find like every personal injury or lawyer is 24 hours because technically they can answer their phones if somebody gets in a car accident at night and they get a call. Like maybe get there's a call forwarding system. And then there's like, you know, disaster restoration companies, they really are 24 hours because they're what's they they're a disaster restoration system. So obviously they are 24 hours. And then, you know, a lot of plumbers or electricians might offer emergency services. So they can technically say that they're 24 hours if they wanted to. But I would suggest, like, if you don't want to put 24 hours, like at least put nine to eight, because if you do get a lead, you are gonna answer your phone. There's ways to forward your messages.

Rana 28:22

Okay. So if for service business like accountants or mortgage broker, their working hours are maybe nine to six or eight to six, should you suggest putting uh longer hours or twenty four hours because customer leads can leave the message on the phone as well?

Claudia 28:36

Yeah, but it's but it's also important that your messaging is consistent. So like don't have your website nine to six and then your Google business profile set to 24 hours. Like have everything set, and then if Google does decide to call your business, like you better make sure that uh there's an answering system there, like an answering service.

Rana 28:54

Got it. Got it. Again, I I tried not to go into the technicalities, but you know, we we are still going into technicalities. Another uh related thing for the rankings, the local pages. How do you define local pages and how important those are for local businesses to rank?

Claudia 29:11

So if you're a business that has like your franchise or a multi-location business, every single location should have its own landing page. And this is very important for SEO. So, you know, new brands that are starting out, maybe they have two, three and they're growing and they're, you know, they're moving into four or five locations. I always tell them you need to start creating a page for each location because the URL, so let's just say it's like shawarma.com forward slash, then the like city name, that URL could play into the ranking factor. The address on the page plays into rankings. Um, and then just having like consistent data, like whether it's the order links, links to the menu, um, hours of operation, all that kind of stuff, it does play a role. Whatever page you're linking to on your Google Business profile is a ranking factor. So if you link to the home page and it's and you have multiple locations, it might not be as clear that you are servicing the city that you're in. So something to consider for brands that have more than one location.

Rana 30:15

So the the businesses who don't have more locations, but they usually create pages to serve more locations, like a service business. They create uh local pages with the service name and the location name. Is that the right practice or is it a just playing with the algorithm?

Claudia 30:34

You can just rank to the home page in that case. Uh, and then the footer should have the correct data, like the address in there, and all that kind of stuff. Usually that's fine. I don't really like, but you can test like everything needs to be tested. So if you want to test you know, linking to like a service page that has the city name and the URL, and then seeing how your rankings do, you could do that. Um then even like the meta title and the meta description could be different on the home page than on another page. And if you're trying to rank for a certain keyword and that page has the keyword on the meta title and descriptions, and the keywords are more prominent on that page, then yeah, maybe you should link there, but you should also be testing your rankings and making sure that uh you're tracking all the amazing.

Rana 31:18

For for service businesses, can they rank locally without a telephone number or office address?

Claudia 31:25

So, like not really. If you're if you're a service area business and you're hiding your address on Google because you work from home, you could still rank you, but your website, you really need like a strong website SEO. It's always better to show your address. So it's it's worth investing into an office and putting up signage and having an office so that you can show Google that you are a local business and show your address because you can't you can't show your home address. It's against Google guidelines and you should be hiding your address your address on your Google business profile. Studies have shown that you may not rank as good when you do that. It's very, you know, industry um driven. It's you also want to know how many competitors you have in the area. They're like it's not always the case. I don't want to say like that you're never gonna rank. And overall, like I always recommend for my clients to have an office and to show their address. I don't really push service area businesses.

Rana 32:22

Got it. And another scenario is where you know lots of people work from home, but they have a you know service, they rent out the offices, which is uh in the co-working spaces. So when lots of businesses are just straight at the one address, can they still rank locally with their address and different phone number?

Claudia 32:39

Technically, it's against Google guidelines to have like a virtual office or so you people do it, they use like a Regus, you know, address and stuff like that, but you have to have signage and you have to be able to pass video verification. So, you know, and then you have to have, you know, a lease. You have to show Google that you really are renting the space and like have proof of documents, your, you know, your tax license, your business license, tax certificates, articles of incorporation that match the address all help. So it could get a little bit complicated, but at the end of the day, like it is probably best practice to show your address, especially on your website. You want your address on the website.

Rana 33:18

In in this particular question or scenario, you know, I know many people, it's not just uh it's not a virtual office, which you don't you you are not using it. I'm talking about shared office spaces. Address is one, but there are multiple people are having different parts of the offices using it's a normal office, but technically it's one address with probably seven, eight, or ten or twenty uh offices in in one address with maybe a room number or office number is different. Will that make a different address?

Claudia 33:48

It's gonna be challenging to pass video verification. I've seen it pass, but you know, uh technically it's shared spaces are against Google guidelines, but there's like different shared spaces, right? Like you might know somebody that owns a business and you can rent a space and would is that considered a shared space? Like, yes, it is, and like it's fine. But I don't recommend like 20 personal injury lawyers all in the same area using the same address because you guys are gonna get filtered out, you know. So at the end of the day, make sure you know, competing in that shared office space with other people in the same industry because you will get filtered out. And you but you might run into complications like when they're all using the same address. So be careful like when you pick a location.

Rana 34:33

I think that that's the better way to you know explain this part of the things that the more simple you keep things, the better the result will be. Am I right?

Claudia 34:42

Yeah. So you at that point you're better off doing a service area business, hiding your address and working from home than doing a shared space with people in the same category as you.

Rana 34:50

The last one on this one is the nap. How important is the name, address, and phone number, keeping the these things the same everywhere?

Claudia 34:58

So back in, you know, back five, 10 years ago, people would say like nap consistency, you have to have it. Everything should be the same. I do have clients that have a different name on Google than they do on Yelp or Apple Maps because Apple and Yelp are actually extremely strict. Like you can't really add the city name inside your business name. Like it doesn't always get approved. So you will have that inconsistency, but you want to add the city name in Google because what helps with rankings is a big, like I mentioned earlier, it's a big part of your ranking factor. But you might not be able to get away with that on Yelp. You know, Yelp just won't approve it. Like you can't just throw sushi in your name unless it's like in your logo and on your website and it's like properly set up. So the name consistency, like I would say it's okay if it's inconsistent. Obviously, you want to make sure your address is the same, your website, and your hours are all consistent because it's just a good user experience. And then the search engines can connect the dots. You know, they're using things like your address and your URLs to make sure that you're the same entity as the one they found on Google, Yelp, Apple, MapQuest, and everywhere else. So if you do have like totally incorrect names and then all of a sudden your your address might be a little off, or your different phone numbers because you're using call tracking, it might make it harder for the search engine to recognize you. But be as consistent as you can be. You want your consumers and the search engines to be able to easily identify your business. Um, it doesn't have to be perfect, not like avenue has to be avenue on every listing, right? Some people might say, like, is AVE okay, but then over here it's you know spelled out. I don't, I don't think that's relevant.

Rana 36:40

Got it. So consistency is important than 100% perfection, which is not possible because of some limitations, uh, as you mentioned. A AI mentioned a lot, and AI has disrupted, you know, organic SEO a lot. How how is uh AI affecting uh local SEO?

Claudia 36:57

So for me, like Reputation Arm has always focused on citations and we always focused on review management. So helping local businesses generate new reviews, managing the reviews, and then managing their directories at scale. So with AI, it's only like made things a lot better for us because these two things are extremely important when it comes to AI. So at the end of the day, you know, AI is I actually just posted on LinkedIn. Airdrops did a study and they said that nine out of 10 references in all the different AI search engines are are referencing listicles or reviews or third-party mentions. So what does that mean? It's how are you showing up on Yelp? Like, are you showing up on the top 10 list? That's what the listicles are. So, like top 10, you know, sushi restaurants in the area, top 10 personal injury lawyers, the top 10 plumbers in, you know, the city name. So if you're not on Yelp, a lot of people will say, like, I don't care about Yelp. I don't like Yelp. It tends to get more negative reviews, but you have to care about Yelp because the search engines care about Yelp and you have to control the narrative. And if you don't, then you're gonna lose control, uh, and then you might actually miss out on being surfaced in AI because they're looking at your third-party mentions more than they're looking at your Google business profile. So, like we have to rethink um everything. Like review diversification is more important than ever because people aren't just surfacing reviews in Google anymore. They're surfacing the reviews on DoorDash, Open Table, Yelp. I mean, just follow the journey. Like start going into these different AI search engines and looking up, you know, how somebody would possibly search your business. And whatever directories are getting surfaced, you want to make sure that you're there. If your competitor is there, you need to be there. So citation management is actually like more important than than ever. And then making sure you're maintaining like review diversification, like I mentioned before, because freshness is a thing, having recent reviews, and that's really how you're gonna get listed on those top, you know, plumbers in in this city name. Like recent reviews will kind of get you listed. And the and another interesting thing about the study, it showed that you had to be in the top three. Like getting mentioned as number nine, you were a lot you were less likely to get surfaced in AI. Rather, like you'd have to be in the top three to get surfaced in AI.

Rana 39:22

I heard is the uh fundamentals of local SEO is not just important for local SEO, it's getting even important for the you know organic SEO as well.

Claudia 39:33

Yeah. And and everybody keeps reiterating that, right? Like, you know, AI or geo generative engine optimization, the new term that the industry is using, is basically best practices of SO SEO. So going back to the basics, but like making sure you're building your brand everywhere. Like you have to be in social media. Like marketing is just like it's it's really been elevated. Like the days of just focusing within one ecosystem like Google, I think are over.

Rana 40:05

I agree. And it seems like you are, you know, excited about the AI world.

Claudia 40:09

Yeah, yeah, because it's there's there's just like it's a whole nother thing to study. And like I get really intrigued by all these ranking factors, you know. So I I just love it. I love testing and being able to like figure out how to go from ranking this business, you know, like number six to like in the top three. And you do all these different tests, and it's you know, it's super interesting. And you see how like these search engines are actually pretty literal, like having your primary category can flip, you know, your sear ranking grid from like red to all green just by one movement.

Rana 40:45

Okay. Uh that's my favorite part of you know, red dots, looking at the red dots. So, what are the important factors to get that uh you know red dot grid to move to yellow and green? What are the top three or four important factors which move the needle on the local locations?

Claudia 41:01

I would say uh your primary category is gonna be extremely significant. And then uh even secondary, but secondary categories might not get you in the top three, right? Because Google might not think you're as relevant, right? So they're looking, they want to be able to answer the search query as as much as they can. And I would say meta title is another big one. So having the keyword inside your meta title title and then, but that meta title has to be linked to your Google business profile. So what we touched upon earlier, like if it's your homepage, then the meta title on your homepage. If it's the landing page of the you know, locations business, then making sure that meta title matches what you're trying to get ranked for. Having that cohesive messaging from your category to your meta title, and then like, you know, other signals on the landing page, like the H1 header, things like that. And then having a keyword inside your business name, right? So if you have those top three, you're more likely to get ranked in in over your competitor, review recency. But if you're in a super competitive area, then you have to go a little bit deeper on the linking factors and like you know, test different things and then win the games, maybe some other way.

Rana 42:08

Okay. Got it, got it. And finally, I think as you love testing, we love, we are doing all this hard work to finding a case study because we believe there's no one way to grow a business. So there are four framework frameworks like local SEO, pay diet, social media. But we know that when you try, you test, every business finds their own way of uh growing the business. So I would love to uh you know learn more about your case study where you work with a restaurant and what were difficulties they were finding when they come to you and what result they achieved after working with you.

Claudia 42:42

So I did this one um case study on um halal, and I like I worked with a um a steakhouse and they serve halal meats. So I wanted to make sure that they were getting surfaced for that keyword. And so I made sure that I put halal restaurant as a secondary category, but they still weren't ranking. Like they were I couldn't even get any green on the ranking grids, and I was kind of confused because typically like secondary category, having like halal mentioned on the website. I had some like PR articles that mentioned that they served halal food. It was in the business description. I really felt like they were optimized properly for halal, but I could not figure out why I could not like their competitors were ranking so much better than they were. And then it did this one change. Like I moved the primary category from steakhouse because they are a steakhouse. That's their primary category. So I never really thought to change that, but I did move that and then moved um halal restaurant as the primary just to see what was gonna happen. And then I also changed, made sure that the meta title had, you know, halal restaurant in the meta title. And then instantly it flipped from like red to green. So I I was able to like realize Google was taking like this steakhouse very literal. Steakhouse, the category, doesn't actually have a hyphenated restaurant after it. So like most of the restaurant categories mentioned like restaurant in the category. So it's like sushi restaurant, family friendly restaurant, halal restaurant, but steakhouse was just steakhouse. It didn't have so ranking for restaurants was like almost impossible because it was Google was taking it so literal. So it made me realize like just that like categories are super significant. But then there's all the there was the other signal of the meta title. And so like just having those tests done. And but I want to make sure that like the audience understands ranking for halal restaurant, like had didn't have like a significant amount of search volume. Well, halal steakhouse didn't have enough search volume, but halal restaurant actually had more. So you also want to make sure that you're looking at search volume. So like when you're trying to win this ranking, you know, game, hey, I got a rank for this. I really we need to focus on like, is there enough search volume to change, you know, and to focus and like to shift this way? Oh, like I work with a lot of restaurants and they're like Japanese cuisine. And they're like, no, like we're a Japanese restaurant. I'm like, yeah, but like there's not a really a lot of search volume in that category. Like if I make your primary category sushi, you're gonna show up in about 200,000 more like search, like search volume. Like, do you want to try that? And they're like, yeah. And so then I kind of move their Japanese cuisine over to secondary and then sushi is the primary, so that they can get surfaced more and they're gonna just get noticed more in the local pack and then Google Maps. Because at the end of the day, everybody knows like a Japanese restaurant will also serve sushi rolls. So, but you might have a mixed cuisine. So you have to think about like what you want your primary and like where's the search volume gonna be at? So it's it's important. And and like it's not just restaurant categories, it's all the categories. Like if you are a lawyer, don't make your primary category lawyer. If you're a doctor, your primary category should not be doctor, it's what you specialize in. So, like an orthodontist, you know, like when they do like oral surgeries and things like that, they're gonna get ranked for those types of services and not so much dentist keywords. So you have to like align your practices with your categories to and then do your search ranking factors, like use the ranking factor grids and graphs to really understand like how Google is understanding your business and your entity. And then you can make other adjustments with the website pages and service pages from there.

Rana 46:32

Basically, what I understood is one category change made a huge difference in the local rankings and must have be a big impact on the business as well. So, how was did you have any uh calculations how this affected the business, the leads and uh phone calls to the restaurants?

Claudia 46:49

We ended up, you know, I I ended up switching them back to steakhouse because you know, like it it was it was more of a testing thing. Like I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get any movement in in Halal restaurant. And then that but I realized, but it didn't align with like the overall um and they're like super busy anyways. Their their Google business profile interactions are over a hundred thousand. They're one of the busiest profiles I manage. So it wasn't significant, you know, it was just more of like a testing thing that I wanted to challenge myself on. And I like I like using this Google business profile because there's so much action and there's clicks are there and the dual engagement. So it's actually very easy to flip and understand how Google's ranking because there's so much interaction. And then, you know, all those other ranking factors just kind of shine through a little bit easier. But if you're testing on a business profile that doesn't have a lot of clicks, you might not see that same result. You might not get that significant jump that you're looking for.

Rana 47:45

It's certain. Do you have any other example where you did optimize the Google business listing and the business goes from hair to hair?

Claudia 47:53

Yeah. Um, if you look on my website, you'll find like a lot of interesting blogs that I write about. I did one where the business had 40, like 40 some reviews on Caesar salad, and I couldn't get them to rank for Caesar salad. Again, not a significant ranking factor. I was just really trying to understand why they weren't ranking for this keyword and their competitors were beating them, even though they were known for having like tableside Caesar salad. It was one of their like, you know, features in this Italian restaurant. And so it had really intrigued me as to why Google wasn't like surfacing it because it was in so many reviews. And then I realized that the menu name didn't align with Caesar Salad. Like it was Caesar Kitchen. So it was like fancy, like so that's when I realized like menu items is a ranking factor. So when you publish your menu on your Google Business profile, that is a ranking factor. And you want to make sure that you align the name of that menu item with the searching keyword. So don't get fancy, don't have insulada, have salad, because nobody's searching that, you know. So it's what is your what is the consumer gonna search and make sure the menu item aligns with that? And then the other signals come, like, you know, with the reviews and stuff. But like, you know, just getting the keywords and the reviews isn't gonna be enough to get you ranked. You have to have other signals that Google's looking at and then says, Oh, okay, yes, it's on the menu. The reviews mention it, and then immediately they say went from ranking nothing for Caesar Salad to ranking number one overnight for Caesar Salad by making that one change.

Rana 49:25

So this is a big difference when you work on organic SEO. It takes a lot of time. But with local SEO, you're saying with few important changes, you can get results much better, much quicker than organic.

Claudia 49:37

Yeah. And then just working with somebody that actually specializes in local. Like if if somebody asks me to do their organic SEO, I'm not doing it. I'm a local SEO expert. You know, like I I don't like, I don't want to I'd rather you work with a team that like does this in and out. Like I live and breathe local SEO. And so like aligning yourself with the right people is gonna be important too. Like imagine like somebody that's not studying local ranking factors like me, you know, and that wouldn't how would they know to change the menu item or making sure that it's listed in the services or focusing on the primary category and and the meta titles? So if this is not something they're doing day in and day out, they might not make the right moves for you.

Rana 50:18

I agree. I agree. And that's the you know, going uh picking up the specialists is the best way to get return on your investment. And when you work with businesses, what are the typical uh anticipated result time frame?

Claudia 50:31

You know, it's really industry driven. And so I set the expectation like right from the start. Like if I'm working with a personal injury lawyer and I just will let them know like you're gonna be doing this for months, it's but again, it's a conversion thing. That's how I sell it. Like it's it's all about the conversion for you. Yeah, your rankings are gonna get better and it's best practice. But like if I'm working with a restaurant, for example, and like they have the wrong primary category, I know instantly that overnight I'm gonna make, you know, a big win for them. And I'll tell them, like, you're gonna be really happy within the first two months. Like, and just our optimizations for like a the restaurant category, I can get them, you know, like 20 to 30 percent uh more engagement within the first two to three months easily, just by make optimizing them properly.

Rana 51:17

Fantastic advice. And finally, uh businesses who are looking to invest in uh local SEO, it's economics uh phenom uh fundamental rule. There's always limited resources and unexpected expectations. So with the small businesses with the limited budget, what's your best suggestion to those people how they should spend their marketing budget on local SEO?

Claudia 51:39

They should always focus on reviews. Reviews is, you know, it's it's I mean, it's a conversion factor too, right? So over time it just looks better. You want people are looking at your reviews, AI is looking at your reviews, the sentiment overall. You can't get listed in best of anything if your reviews are not 4.5 and higher. So things, things like that you need to think about review recency is a ranking factor. So I always tell people like, before you even spend money on ads, like think about it. Like just because you show up on an ad and then somebody like sees your profile, but you don't have enough reviews, you still might not convert. So like focus on the fundamental, making sure that you like invest in like hiring somebody to do video and photos so that you can publish them on your Google, so you have like a nice overall presence and then the reviews, and then you know, your website fund basic like SEO, like you can. I work with a lot of people that don't spend anything on website SEO, right? Like they have that website there, they have the right meta title, H1 header, and meta description, and they don't really maintain mu much after that. But every category is a little bit different. If you're a service business, you need to focus on your website. If you're um a you know local business like restaurant and stuff, the Google ecosystem can work in your favor a lot, like through the menu, ordering links and things like that. So it's really industry driven. But if you have a limited budget, start with reviews, invest in a in a system that'll help you generate reviews organically.

Rana 53:14

I really appreciate thank you very much for answering, you know, difficult question. I think I have probably you know unlimited list of questions to ask. So you are very generous. I I hope this will be very helpful to all to our listeners or viewers who will be, you know, uh listening to this podcast or watching it. Fantastic. And uh, where can people find you and connect with you?

Claudia 53:35

They could subscribe to our newsletter on our website and they can find me always posting good content and certain findings on LinkedIn. I also have a newsletter on LinkedIn. So yeah, find me on LinkedIn and you'll get some really good tips here and there. And it's a good follow.

Rana 53:49

Fantastic. Claudia, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you and learning from you.

Claudia 53:54

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Rana 53:56

That's it for this episode of the website growth show. If you find it helpful, please consider subscribing. And if you're wondering how your website is doing, please visit wpminds.com and request a free website audit. My team will review your website and share the insights, what's working and what can be improved to help with your business growth. Until next time, keep going.