Transcription
So, what if I told you that most local businesses are doing SEO completely wrong? You're obsessing over writing blogs about how to unclog a sink and sourcing hundreds of backlinks while your competitors are building entity relevance for plumber Houston and they're stealing every single local lead.
In this video, you're going to learn the exact twoe local SEO system that I've used to rank over 200 local businesses in the top three of Google Maps. The same system that's built my sevenfigure agency over the past 10 years.
So to start, I'm going to tell you why your website exists is for one purpose and one purpose only. And it's not what you think. So let me show you with a real client example. And I'm going to reveal the single biggest mistake they made that cost them thousands in wasted traffic.
I had a Lasic eye surgery center in downtown Chicago reach out to me. They're getting over 80,000 monthly visits from Google search. Sounds amazing, right? Wrong. Almost none of those visitors were local. They were following conventional SEO wisdom. They were writing blogs, building backlinks, getting traffic, but not the traffic they wanted.
Here is what their local rank position looked like for their target keyword before they hired my agency. You see all those spots with positions four or higher? For local SEO, position four is the first position on the second page. You may as well be invisible. Now, there's plenty of ranking out in Lake Michigan for some reason, and a tiny bit very close to their address, but nothing in the neighborhoods where their customers actually lived.
Now, here's what that local ranking map looks like after we restructured their website using the system I'm going to share with you. Green dots everywhere. A dramatic improvement in local rankings. and more importantly, a massive increase in calls from actual potential customers in Chicago.
So, what was that one mistake they were making? I'll show you exactly what it was and how we fixed it in just 2 weeks. But first, let me talk about a plumber with 12 reviews outranking plumbers with over 3,000. If reviews don't get you ranked, what does?
And to understand this, we need to know what your website is actually for. So, here's what most people get wrong from day one. They think their website needs to rank. That's not how local SEO works. Your website exists for one reason, to help your Google business profile rank higher. That's it.
Every single URL on your local business website exists to boost your GBP rankings, not to rank themselves, not to collect blog traffic. They're there to help your GBP show up in the top three map pack positions farther and farther away from your GBP address. Because when someone searches for a local service, Google shows a map with three business listings. Those are the Google business profiles, not the websites. And 60 to 70% of clicks go to those top three. If you're not in the top three, you're invisible.
So, how do you get your GBP into those top three positions? First thing, and this is where most local businesses make a massive mistake, they choose one primary category and call it a day. But Google allows you to choose up to 10 categories. If you're only using one, you're leaving money on the table. Target at least three to five categories on your GBP, but they all need to be relevant to your primary category. I'd rather have you have fewer than adding non-relevant categories. So, if you're a plumber, you would probably add drainage service, gas installation service, and septic tank service as secondary categories.
Next, list at least 20 to 30 services on your GBP. Most local businesses have zero or just a handful. By listing 30 or even more, you're telling Google exactly what you do and for what searches they should show your business. Now, if you don't know which services to add, I'm going to show you an AI prompt that's going to help you come up with more ideas that are semantically relevant to your categories.
Once you've added these services, I want you to go and fill out absolutely every single box in your GBP. Every single box, your business description, the services, the Q&A, the post, the everything. And speaking of posts, you should regularly be posting on the GBP at least once a week. You can schedule 52 posts to go live once a week. and you'll be done for the entire year. I have the exact AI prompt that generates all 52 in one shot. It'll save you about 10 hours of work. It's in my school community. There's a link to that in the description. If you don't want to join, no problem. I'm going to show you the prompt on screen. Just freeze frame and you can use it.
Now, the last thing, you also want to make sure you have 20 or 30 photos on your GBP and add a new photo every week. Now, we geo tag all the photos that we add because we've seen better results when we geoteag photos. With all of these steps combined, the entire process of optimizing your GBP should take you less than an hour, including getting the 52 posts and a bunch of photos scheduled. And this step alone will put you ahead of 90% of your local competition. And the best part, this is pure systems work. No cold calling, no pitching, no networking events, just you, the system, and results you can show clients.
But here's where that LASIC center was absolutely blowing it and where most local businesses completely missed the mark. Their GBP was optimized, sure, but their website was working against them. They had all this content, but it was the wrong content for local SEO. So many local businesses hire SEO experts who post a blog every single week for years. And sure, if you're consistent and you source quality links, this can work for organic traffic, but it rarely generates actual local traffic to your Google business profile.
Remember when I said every single URL exists to rank your Google business profile? Here's why the blog method doesn't work. Blogs target keywords that don't have a map pack. It's as simple as that.
There's also something really deep going on here that a lot of SEO agencies don't fully understand. Okay, let's rewind a bit. In 2017, Google invented the transformer technology, the same tech that now powers chat GPT. The T in chat GPT stands for transformer. This fundamentally changed how search works. Before transformers, Google was basically matching keywords. You write plumber Houston if you had the right backlinks and you might start ranking for it. But transformers gave Google the ability to understand entities and the relationship between different entities.
An entity isn't a keyword. It's a thing that Google's algorithm recognizes and understands. Joe's plumbing is an entity. Houston is an entity. Plumber is an entity. And Google now understands how these entities relate to one another. An easy way to think about it, if the word river and bank both appear in the same sentence, Google knows that that bank isn't talking about money. This is the same breakthrough that made chat GPT possible. The ability to understand context and relationships, not just match words.
So, what does this mean for you? The goal with your website content is to build entity relevance. You need to convince Google that your business entity is relevant to the plumber entity and to the Houston entity and that these relationships are very very strong. An article about top five ways to unclog a sink does not build entity relevance for plumber Houston. It might get you some traffic for people searching DIY plumbing projects, but it will not help your Google business profile rank higher in your local market. Google sees that content and thinks plumbing advice blog, not plumber in Houston.
This was the LASIC cent's mistake. They had all this educational content about eye health, lasic procedures, recovery tips. It was all great content. Google saw them as a reasonable competitor to WebMD, but none of it was building entity relevance for Lasic Surgeon Chicago. They were an educational resource in Google's eyes, not a local service provider. We need to build a website structure that creates both topical and geographical relevance to rank your GBP.
Now, topical relevance convinces Google that you actually do that service. Geographical relevance convinces Google that you do that service in that location. And we're not building geographical relevance just for Houston. We're building it for the specific part of the northern neighborhood of River Oaks, for West Montros, for the Heights, specific neighborhoods, specific landmarks near where your customers actually live.
Okay, so start with your homepage. It should target the exact keyword phrase, primary GBP category, and city name. This is how we build entity relevance. For example, plumber Houston. Now, this exact phrase should be in your title tag. It should be in your H1 tag and it should be addressed immediately in the first sentence or two of your content.
Now, I analyzed over a 100 local business websites a couple months ago and guess what? The most common homepage title tag was the word home. That's it, just home. Over 60% of local business websites had either home or their business name as the title tag. Home is, of course, the default title tag on many website builders. They simply never bothered to update it. Your competitors are making it very easy for you to outrank them. A roofer in Kansas City was struggling to rank. So I checked their website. Their title tag was welcome. Not whole, but pretty close. We changed it to include roof replacement Kansas City. And within 2 weeks, they jumped from position 4.75 to position 2.03 in the map pack. That simple change along with the other simple optimizations here in this video doubled their calls.
Now, here's how you structure the rest of the site to build that entity relevance. On your homepage, use each of the secondary GBP categories as H2 tags. Under each H2 tag, write 50 to 100 words about that secondary category. Then, create a new detailed page for each secondary category. Your target keyword for each one is the secondary category city name. For example, drainage service Houston. Then link to those pages from those little blurbs of text below the relevant H2s. Here's what this does. You're not just telling Google you're a plumber. You're showing them that you're an authority on drainage service, gas installation, all in Houston. You're building comprehensive topical coverage. Add a link from each homepage paragraph to its corresponding detail page. This creates additional relevance, telling Google exactly what each page is about through the context around that link. Google cares about a lot more than just anchor text these days.
Now, on each one of those secondary category pages, grab the most relevant services from your GBP. Use each service as an H2 and write 50 to 100 words about that service. Then create individual pages for every single service. Water heater installation Houston, Drain Cleaning Houston, Emergency Plumber Houston. Now, here's where most agencies stop and lose. Every single one of those services needs its own page. This is how you become an entity fortress instead of just another plumbing website.
When you're done, you're going to have around 30 pages on your local website. One for every category and one for every service. I call this the core 30. We did exactly this for a Plano plumber. 30 pages in a couple of weeks. They had 425 new calls across their service area as their ranking went from 17 to 2 and 1/2.
Now, think about this from Google's perspective. Your competitors are writing top five plumbing tips. You're building comprehensive coverage of every service you offer in every format Google expects, all tied to your exact location. Which of those do you think Google is going to trust more? Every single page is going to use the target city name, and together they're giving Google a massive amount of relevance, comprehensiveness, and authority. This is how you build trust with Google's algorithm, which after all is just math.
Now, you're probably thinking, "30 pages of content sounds like months of work." Well, you're probably already using AI to generate content. If you're not, I mean, it's late 2025. You really should be. But here's how to generate content with AI the right way for local SEO. Let me give you my exact single prompt for local SEO content. Again, you can literally pause it and copy it and use it today, or you can jump to my school community. There's a link in the description and grab the prompt there.
But here's what separates content that ranks from content that doesn't. You need to edit what AI gives you. Add personal touches. Make sure everything reads naturally. Include actual client stories, local neighborhood mentions, specific local events. This is what makes your content different from everyone else who's just using AI. Even if you're using a better prompt, the AI is going to give you the structure and 90% of the writing. You're going to go in there and give it some local flavor, real world experience that makes someone reading it think this person knows what they're talking about.
When you do this right, you're going to create content that builds entity relevance for your primary category and for your city. Every single page is reinforcing to Google's algorithm that you are a plumber in Houston or an HVAC contractor in Dallas or whatever your business and location happens to be.
Now, we had an HBAC client in Washington DC. They've been trying to rank for years with blogging. They had three or 400 indexed URLs when we came in. After implementing this exact structure, they went from position 7 to position two in just a month. And yes, we cranked out a lot of content and edited existing content to make that site structure happen in just the first month.
Even with 30 pages of perfectly optimized, locally relevant content, Google still needs one more thing before they'll rank you high. Here's what Google's thinking when they see all of your new content. Well, I mean, okay, not really thinking, though, right? I mean, I don't want to make Google seem like it's a person. It really is just math. We really need a better word than thinking. But, okay, I digress. Here's what Google's thinking. This website just added 30 pages of content. Is this real? Is this valuable? Or is this just AI generated slop?
Google needs external validation. They need other websites to vouch for your content. In fact, Google became the trillion dollar company that it is today because the founders had one simple idea. Quality websites don't link to spam or slop. So, if quality sites are linking to you, you'll rank better. That is the entire foundation of Google's algorithm. You can actually still read the original Stanford PhD written in 1999.
What this means is you need to source external links to each URL you created. These links act as votes of confidence that tell Google your content is valuable. When Google's algorithm sees quality websites linking to your pages, it immediately increases the perceived value of your content. And this is especially important when you're using AI to generate content faster.
For local businesses, you don't need hundreds of links. Strategic highquality local links will do more for you than countless low-quality links. The absolute number one best and easiest to get link for local businesses, your local chamber of commerce. Now, the Chamber of Commerce link is usually going to cost you based on how many employees you have, between $2 $300 per year in most cities. But that single link is going to provide more local authority than almost anything else you can do. Google recognizes chambers of commerce as local authority sites. If you can join multiple chambers in your region within 70 miles or so, even better. I once ranked a personal injury attorney in New Orleans by joining a dozen or so chambers of commerce. Each one adds another layer of local validation to your site.
Beyond chambers of commerce, look for local sponsorship opportunities, youth sports teams, community events, local charities. These links not only help your SEO, but they also build genuine community connections. Let me show you a prompt that we use with ChatGpt or Claude to find these local organizations. Again, you can grab it in the link in the description. For a new local website, even just 5 to 10 quality local links across your site can make a dramatic difference in rankings.
Now, you're probably wondering, how fast can this actually work? Because a lot of SEO agencies will tell you it takes 6 months to see results. Let me show you the exact twoe timeline we use.
So week one, first three days, access the GBP, audit it, and optimize it. Sometimes it takes time to get access to everything, but once you get access to the site and the GBP, we're going to start with the audit and optimization. Add the categories, add the services, fill out every box, schedule 52 weekly posts, schedule a bunch of photos. This should take less than an hour with AI's help. After that, days four to seven, finishing out that first week, audit and optimize the GBP landing page. Usually, this is the homepage. Make sure the primary category and city name are in the title tag in H1. Get a GBP embed on the page. Make sure the local business schema is set up correctly. And make sure the secondary categories and core services are at least mentioned on the homepage, ideally as H2 tags. This is your foundation.
Okay, moving on into week two, days 8 through 10. This is content creation. Here's where we're going to use AI to generate content for all the pages following the structure we discussed. Review each page, add personal touches, and make sure everything reads naturally. Focus on optimizing title tags, H1's, H2s, and the internal linking structure. Don't worry too too much about the content overall. Remember, very few people are going to be reading this. It is to build relevance with Google's algorithm. But make sure you add images. Client images are best, but AI ones also work. If you don't have any images, Google's going to ignore the content.
Okay. Days 11 through 12, external validation. Join your local chambers of commerce. Set up citations. Begin acquiring additional local links. Submit your site map to Google Search Console so Google knows about all of your new pages.
Days 13 and 14, finishing up week two, technical optimization. Here's where we're going to add schema markup to the website in addition to the local business schema we've already looked at on your homepage. Google has a free testing tool for this. You're going to optimize images, check mobile responsiveness, and make sure the site loads quickly. If you want this complete day-by-day checklist with every single step broken down, that's in the school community. And that way, you're not trying to remember things from this video.
By day 14, 2 weeks in, Google should have crawled your new site structure, indexed your new content, and recognized the external validation factors. That's when you'll usually start to see movement in rankings. This is how I built my agency to seven figures without being a sales guy. I built systems that delivered results and the results sell themselves.
But let me set realistic expectations here about different market sizes. In markets with under 200 300,000 people, you're going to often see movement into the top three within just a couple of weeks following this system. And within 30 days, that top three ranking is going to extend farther and farther from your GBP address, covering more neighborhoods where your customers actually live. For larger markets, 400 500,000 and above, it of course is going to take longer to reach the top three. They're more competitive, and you'll probably need more content and more external validation. But you'll still see significant movement within those first two weeks.
The key is that this system works because most of your competitors aren't doing it right. They're focused on the wrong metrics or using outdated strategies. They're writing blog posts about five ways to unclog a drain. Instead of building entity relevance for their primary category and location, when you implement this complete system, you're playing a different game than they are. The game that Google wants you to be playing.
We don't need to use black hat tricks or ranking hacks. I've personally used this system to rank local businesses in over 50 different markets. From small towns to major cities with a success rate above 90%, even in competitive markets like downtown Chicago, we've gotten businesses into the top three by following this exact blueprint.
And remember that LASIC center I mentioned at the beginning, the one in downtown Chicago, they were getting 80,000 visits from Google, but barely any local customers. After implementing the system, their local rank map went from almost no green except for Lake Michigan to green dots everywhere. Dramatic improvement in local rankings and of course, more importantly, a massive increase in calls from actual potential customers in Chicago. That's the power of building topical and geographical relevance the right way. It's the power of understanding your website exists to rank your Google business profile, not to collect random blog traffic. You don't need to be the most charismatic agency owner. You need to be the one who actually gets clients results while everyone else is writing blog posts.
So, there's the exact local SEO system that's ranked 200 or more businesses in the top three of Google Maps in just a few weeks. Your website exists to boost your Google business profile, not to collect blog traffic. But while you're implementing this, your competitors are capturing traffic from Google's AI overview. They're showing up in AI generated answers while you're fighting for traditional map pack spots. Now, map pack searches have 10 or 100 times the volume of chat GPT search, but we still want to be aware of where you are in chat GPT and in Google's AI overview.
So, that's why I created a complete strategy for dominating Google's AI overviews, even if you're on page two. I'll show you how to get featured in the AI overview and capture traffic your competitors frankly don't even know exists. So, click the video on your screen. This is what separates businesses from getting some local traffic from those dominating every single local search.