Transcription
Local search is booming. Local SEO is more important today than ever before. People are looking for things in their backyard and have grown to know that Google can provide them with those answers. And it's evolving fast.
"Near me" searches are sky-high right now, with a little under 800 million searches every single month, including the words "near me." And that's just in the US. Here's the kicker for why businesses should be thinking about local SEO: 92% of searchers pick a business from their first page on local results. In other words, if you're not ranking near the top, you're kind of invisible, like Casper or Ghost Kitchen. No one knows that you're there.
So, the question is, how do you get found? How do you make sure that your business shows up before the competition? In this video, I'm going to break down everything. Everything that you need to know about local SEO in the age of AI, from Google Business Profiles to local citations, reviews, and AI-driven search behaviors that are rewriting the rules of discoverability.
But I don't want you to get too excited after watching this video and not have clarity around how to actually execute this. So, here's the thing. In the description below, you're going to find a free guide from HubSpot that is intended to help you dominate search results, especially in the rise of AI mode and the rise of LLMs. Download it for free and make it your blueprint, and then come back to this video to make sure that you can have an impact. My friends, whether you're a brick-and-mortar shop, a service-based business, or a multilocation brand, local search is a game that you can't afford to lose. So, let's get into it.
So, the first local SEO strategy that you have to focus on is Google Business Profile. It's the foundation of local SEO. Why? Because Google's local algorithm heavily relies on GBP details, Google Business Profile, to determine who shows up in the coveted map pack. In fact, Google uses three primary factors for map pack rankings: relevance, distance, and prominence.
By optimizing your GBP, you influence all three of these things:
Relevance: You make sure that your GBP categories and description reflect your offering. And a pro tip, choose the most specific category as possible, orthodontists instead of just dentists, to align with those niche searches that people have.
Distance: You can't change your physical location for searches, but you can specify the areas that you serve. Service radius in your business profile is key. Ensure that your address is actually correct, too, so Google knows where you are.
And then prominence: This is about how well you're known and well-regarded the business is. And in general, complete every section of your GBP: business hours, phone, website, services, attributes, etc. A fully filled-out profile signals credibility. Also, add photos, update regularly, and show that you're active. Most importantly, collect and manage reviews on your GBP as much as possible, which takes me to the second strategy.
Embrace reviews. Folks, I worked in tourism for years, and the most successful bed and breakfasts, restaurants, hotels that I worked with always made time to ask their customers to leave them reviews on Google and TripAdvisor. Suddenly, they'd ask the people who raved about their time versus the ones who complained. Reviews are a key prominent signal online. Google's local ranking factors include review quantity, quality, and even the keywords that people use when they're leaving you reviews. If someone's looking for a family-oriented place and people are talking about how great it was for their kids, you're more likely to show up. I always say, don't be too proud to beg. Get those reviews. It can change everything for your business. In fact, 99% of consumers read reviews, and 92% now consider business responses as a part of good service. So, replying, folks, is a must. Seriously, think about it. When was the last time that you bought something without checking out one or two reviews? It's rare, right? Like I'm telling you now, an optimized, up-to-date Google Business Profile dramatically boosts your chances of showing up in local search. So, prioritize it and make it something that you care about today.
Local SEO strategy number three is consistent NAP. Now, let's talk about NAP. And I'm not talking about going to sleep. NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. This is the core identity of your business online. Don't get this all mixed up. Consistent NAP citations across the web are crucial for local SEO. Why? Because Google cross-checks multiple sources to confirm that your business information is accurate. If your details are the same everywhere, then Google's going to have confidence that it can trust that information around your location, your contact info.
In practice, this means listing your business on all the relevant local directories and ensuring that the info is identical on each. Folks, remember to focus on some of those major platforms like Google, GBP, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, Yelp. They're all a high priority. And if you're in a niche, then local directories like Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor, Angie, Zillow for real estate, Healthgrades for doctors, all of those things can be impactful, too. Industry citation sites where people are talking about the top sites for a certain niche or the top businesses for certain things like Clutch in the agency world or OpenTable for restaurants. All of these things are good for SEO, too. And they are providing AI systems that might crawl this information with insights a little bit more about what you do. Make sure every single listing that we talk about though have the same business name, address, and phone number. Don't switch it up. No street versus st. Like, none of that at all.
Here's a pro tip, though. Citations today are more about quality and consistency than just quantity. You don't need hundreds of these. You don't I don't want you to go out and buy a bunch of these on a cheap site that sells them for $2 across hundreds of sites. No, a small local batch of authoritative indexed citations can carry way more weight.
Now, let's dive into one of the most complex but important parts of local SEO: keyword research. It's one of those things and those concepts that I actually think should be studied in school. It's not only about understanding how to search and what people are thinking about when they type in the words, but also how Google uses it to understand what it should give you back. Let's dive into keyword research as the next strategy.
Keyword research for local SEO isn't just about finding high-volume terms that have thousands of people looking for certain words every single day in Google. It's about understanding your customer's intent in your specific region, area, and location. There are really four different types of search intent: informational, commercial, transactional, and navigational. Here's a rundown on these types of words that people use while going into these different types of categories associated with search intent.
So, under informational intent, people are typically typing in words like "what," "who," "why," "how," "ideas," "examples." Those are more top-of-funnel queries. Then you have commercial intent. This is when people actually are showing you that this is something that they want to buy. They might type in "best," "top," "review," or "size comparison versus," "alternatives," things of that nature. Then we get into transactional. This is when they're typing in queries like "price," "buy," "coupons," "discount," "pricing." These are queries that you also want to include on your site. And then finally, navigational. This is when people already know exactly what it is that they want, and they might type in your brand name or your product name or your service name. These are the different types of things that fall into search intent. I'm sure you notice the difference. Informational is the keywords that people use when they want to learn something new, when they want to kind of figure something out and get information around it. Commercial is when someone is deep into the buying process. Transactional is when they're ready to add something to their cart. And navigation is when they know exactly what they want.
So, start by brainstorming what a local customer would search for at various stages of your business. So, how do you do effective keyword research? I thought you'd never ask. Well, it starts by tapping into an SEO tool. There are tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to help you find keywords that are related to your city and neighborhood names, "near me," and service keywords, too. These tools can help you understand the queries that your site is already generating directly through Google Search Console if you have that installed and related questions. So, consider the "People Also Ask" box on Google to get inspiration around what other things people are looking for. But here's another great technique that is probably sitting under your nose. Google provides hints right in the search bar. Type a service or a product into Google and wait to see what the autocomplete suggestions are. What words start to show up in there? And then scroll a bit. Go into that "People Also Ask" section or "Related Searches" section and see what other questions are people asking. There's going to be gold there.
Remember, Google can detect local intent even without having a city specified. For instance, if somebody is in a certain city and they type in "coffee shop" on a phone, then Google is going to know that they need to look at their IP and show local coffee shops. This means you should be optimizing for some generic terms, too. "Coffee shops in town," but also "coffee shop" should be on your homepage in your content because, well, Google will likely localize it to you. The key is simple. You need to ensure that you're including both local keywords as well as the ones that speak to a general public.
And I know what you're thinking. Okay, Ross, I have all the info. I have all the research. What do I do now? Well, that's when you get into strategy number five for local SEO, and that's content creation. It's all about creating content. Yes, your Google Business Profile and citations are vital, but you also need to have on-site content that demonstrates your expertise and relevance to these local queries. In fact, traditional on-page SEO factors, aka things that you actually have on your various web pages and websites, account for about 24% of local ranking factors. And link signals, which is what your content will attract, has about 29%. Google hasn't abandoned content. In fact, they're actually seeing and placing more emphasis on the quality of the content than ever before. I always say, folks, Google wants content that actually helps people, not something just written to game the algorithms and the robots. And to be honest, don't we all? Instead, write for the people locally that you want to serve. And I always say, these are people in your community who might read that page. If your content genuinely satisfies their needs, answers their questions, guides them, builds trust, it's going to perform well in search, and you won't get talked negatively about when you're at the local fair or the community barbecue.
All right, let's talk about my sixth strategy: on-site optimization for local SEO. Let's ensure that the content on your site is optimized for Google and users clearly so you have local relevance. These classic on-page SEO tactics are critical for local SEO, and they're very important, but they are pretty straightforward.
The first one is title tags and meta descriptions. Include those primary keywords and your location in the title tag for your homepage. For example, "Affordable Plumbing Services in Denver" and then have your brand name. This immediately tells Google you're relevant to searches in Denver. I see so many brands put their brand name at the beginning of the title tag. Huge mistake. Just do this on your homepage and let all the other pages focus on the keywords. Similarly, write a meta description that appeals to local searchers. Mention your city and a selling point. "Serving Denver 24/7, all your plumbing needs." "Serving Halifax and all of your plumbing needs," whatever it might be. These basics will help also with click-through rates by showing the searcher this is indeed a local result that I wanted.
Headers and content are so important. Whether it's an H1 or an H2, you want to include in your H1 keywords that are relevant as well. "Denver plumbing, draining services," for instance. But be natural with all of this. Don't stuff city names everywhere. Just use them where it makes sense. And of course, throughout your content, if you can make it hyper-local by referencing local landmarks and neighborhood names that are relevant, such as "We've served homes from Capitol Hill to Cherry Creek." This can increase relevance for neighborhood-level searches. Also, don't forget that each page needs to have unique content. If you have multiple location pages, don't copy and paste the same thing every time. Modify it, tweak it, and you can also use AI to help make sure that these things are different. Write or rewrite a few different paragraphs and leverage AI to make sure that your uniqueness is happening from one asset to the next because you don't want to be flagged as spam. Keep it local and keep it real.
All right, another tip: internal linking. You want to make sure that the local anchor text within all of these are linking back from one page to the next. If you mention your service in another blog post, link to it through that other blog post. "Check out our roof repair services in Dallas" is something that you should link to from another page, and the page's title should be about roof repair. These internal links distribute authority across all of your pages, but don't overdo it. Keep it logical and keep it user-friendly. In short, optimize every page clearly to communicate what you do, where you do it, and make sure that things feel hyper-local. These on-page signals combined with your GBP and citations create a cohesive picture for Google that says this business serves this group in these locations. And that's exactly what gets you ranking for these local queries.
So, the seventh strategy for local SEO is technical SEO. And I know a lot of people glaze over it, but it's super important. The technical parts of SEO are key for local businesses. There are two technical priorities that stand out: mobile-friendliness and site speed. Why? Because so much local search happens on mobile devices. People are always on the go and they're using Google to find things that they need. When Google transitioned to really focusing on mobile, you needed to shift your website to make sure that you have a mobile-optimized site as well.
So, the first thing that you need to do is make sure that your site is mobile-responsive. It should automatically adapt to the different screen sizes that people could have. Check to make sure that your buttons are easily tappable, text is readable without zooming in all the time, that the layout isn't broken on phones. Google's mobile-friendly test tool can help flag issues. And especially for you restaurants, the PDFs, it doesn't work.
Fast load times. Local searchers want info fast. If your site is slow, people will leave, and Google's algorithm might demote you because of poor page experience scores. So, make those images smaller. Embrace browser caching and use performance-optimized hosting. Even simple things like optimizing your images, aka not uploading a 25-megabyte photo to your homepage and then actually hoping that it will be okay. No, no, no. Reduce all of that. You want to make sure that your site is fast. And I actually think that most of you should probably consider using HubSpot CMS. It will make your life a whole lot easier. But that's not what I'm here to talk about.
The last technical piece of the technical SEO puzzle is this: a secure and stable site. Ensure that your site is on HTTPS. This is non-negotiable. Seriously, folks, non-negotiable. Users and Google expect it. I know the technical side of SEO might not be glamorous, but it's the foundation that supports everything else. A fast, mobile-optimized site, error-free with no 404 links, lets awesome content and local optimizations thrive. As Google's algorithm gets more and more sophisticated and as AI is being used to crawl your website, investigate your content, and learn from you, you need to invest in the technical elements as well.
Folks, so far, we've covered a lot. Let's talk about a few things that traditionally doesn't really feel like SEO best practices, but over the last few years, they've become ridiculously important: your local reputation. It directly relates back to your local SEO success. Which is why the eighth strategy is social media and communities for local search.
Folks, reviews matter. Request them, ask for them, embrace them, but also diversify those reviews across different platforms. And when reviews come in, respond. Thank people for the positive feedback. This shows that you actually care. And for negative reviews, here's the thing. Go on a jog around the neighborhood. Do some yoga. Namaste. And then respond calmly and helpfully. Not only can you potentially win back that customer, but readers seeing your response are going to trust you more.
But we all know reputation goes beyond reviews. Reputation is what people say about you behind your back when you're not around. This is why I also encourage you to actually engage in your local community. But Ross, this sounds like real business stuff. It is. Both online and offline. It might not feel obvious, but these things will play a role in search.
Some of the quick wins that I think you could embrace with this: Facebook, Nextdoor, and Reddit. Go on these channels, go find local community groups, online forums, and communities, subreddits, Nextdoor community pages, Facebook community pages, marketplaces, all of these things, which are starting to show up more and more in local search, and start to share useful content about you, your business, answer questions, and once in a while be shameless.
But it doesn't all happen online. Offline, I want you to think about local events and sponsorships, too. Participate in or sponsor local events. Then talk about it on your website. "We're a proud sponsor of the city food drive" or "Join us at the downtown festival this Saturday." These little things will often earn you a mention or a link on that event's website. Hello, backlink. I love you. And they show your commitment to the community, which increases your chances of getting those positive reviews from the people who happen to see you at this event.
And lastly, folks, create community content. It doesn't always have to be just about you. For example, if I'm a realtor, I might blog about neighborhood spotlights, pros and cons of living in this neighborhood and this neighborhood and that neighborhood. This is useful content that provides the ability to tap into local pride and searches. Maybe even create content about the nightlife in your in your niche, right? This kind of content can attract local backlink shares again, and it reinforces your local presence. At the end of the day, being an active, well-reviewed, community-oriented business is going to help Google see you as a true local brand and kind of make you a local celebrity in no time.
Now, once all these things are happening, it's very likely that you're going to get local links, more traffic, more inquiries, and more opportunities. But how do you know that it's happening? That's the ninth strategy: measure your impact. You can't track what you don't measure. As you implement these local SEO strategies, set up a system to track your performance. Some key things to monitor are your GBP, Google Analytics, rank tracking, and of course, ROI. Let's dive into each.
So, GBP, if you forgot, is Google Business Profile. And it provides you insights, aka data, surrounding the people who found you via Google. And it'll even tell you the action they took. Did they call you? Did they request directions? Did they click on your website? And they'll even give you insight into the types of queries they use to find your listing. Chef's kiss.
Google Search Console and Analytics. Also gold. It will give you a glimpse into your search impressions, your clicks, your queries, what pages people are visiting, and also are there a certain few queries that people are typing in more and more and finding your site, and what pages are they landing on, and how are they converting when they get there? G4, Google Analytics 4, the latest version, will show you overall traffic to your site, engagement, conversions, like form submissions, clicks on your phone number, emails, all of those things. As long as you set up events on your analytics, pay attention to traffic from Google Maps as well, and local searches. G4 will show you Google/organic and direct for a lot of the local traffic that you tend to see.
The next one is rank tracking. It's pretty helpful to know if you're ranking in Google for certain queries on a local level. Some tools will help you actually set a location like zip code or city and track where you're ranking in the SER for service in that city or even without the city. This is useful, right? And it helps you go from 8 to three or two or one for queries like "dentist near me."
And then the final metric is conversions. You want to track the measures that matter to your business: phone call leads, form submissions, maybe even foot traffic, people going to the map and them walking to your store. If you have a CRM like HubSpot, you can even attribute leads to organic or GBP, and this helps prove that your local SEO efforts are working. Do these things, and you're going to be well on your way.
But I'll be honest, change in SEO is common. In the last few months, we've seen huge shifts, huge updates in the algorithm, the introduction of AI mode directly in search results. To stay ahead of that type of stuff, you need to stay ahead of the information. So, smash that subscribe button to get up-to-date information on SEO and changes all the time. Follow SEO blogs and marketers like me on LinkedIn and X and all the different platforms. Embrace AI instead of ignoring it.
Which takes me to the final point of this tutorial. And I hope you've gotten a lot of value. But I want to wrap this up with one of the hottest topics in local SEO today. We need to address the elephant in the room. Can AI help you do a lot of the things that we've discussed? And the 10th local SEO strategy is to use AI to do more with less.
The most common approach is AI for content ideas. And I love to use tools like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and even Grok to brainstorm content topics that are worth pursuing and creating. For example, you can give a prompt like, "Give me five blog post ideas that a [your city here], [your industry] business could write about or outline an article about choosing a service in my city." And in a matter of seconds, you're going to have a ton of great ideas from the LLM. And if you want to take it a step further, you can use HubSpot's free AI blog writer to bring content to life in seconds. I know some writers are going to hate this, but I love using AI to get me to that V1, that first draft. I'm not saying press publish on everything that AI gives you, but definitely help yourself by letting it help you get there faster. My recommended approach for local SEO is to have an AI draft sections, let's say an intro, and then you heavily edit it. Add your personal flair, add your your language, your style, your format. Treat AI as a rough draft written by an intern that can save you some typing, but it still needs your expertise, your personality to make it publish-ready.
Then you want to use AI for SEO analysis. This is where the superpower comes. There are AI-powered SEO tools that can automate analysis for you. For example, HubSpot's AI Search Grader can evaluate your brand's visibility in the AI search results, like how often your business appears in Google, but in the LLMs. Tools like these help you understand where you stand as more people use AI-driven search. Additionally, AI can help you with technical SEO audits, like spotting issues with your site or analyzing a ton of different keywords to identify patterns like clustering keywords into topics and helping you figure out exactly what pieces you should create. Folks, leverage this stuff so you don't have to do it manually. That's just three simple things that you can use AI for.
And you can also use it to kind of create great content and distribute it forever. There are AI tools out there that will help you write social posts in a matter of seconds to amplify all the blog posts, all the videos, even the podcasts that you might be working on to attract your local audience. In essence, treat AI as your assistant, not a replacement. And remember, you're the person who's an expert. AI is that speedy little helper that follows your plan and that you can guide.
Folks, I'm convinced if you combine the local SEO fundamentals that we've talked about today with AI's efficiencies, you're going to be unstoppable. Standing out in local search in 2025 comes down to a very simple principle: be the best answer for your local customers. From optimizing your Google Business Profile and building consistent citations to creating content that genuinely helps, engages, entertains, and empowers, every strategy that we've discussed leads to you being found. Whether it's AI or algorithm updates, one beautiful thing about search is it changes often, so you have to evolve, too. Keep your focus on customers' needs and stay educated on SEO trends and changes that are happening every day.
In fact, to dive a little bit deeper than this, why don't you take the time to check out the guide that HubSpot has put together? It's free, AI-Driven SEO Masterclass, and you don't want to miss it. It's a comprehensive resource to help you dominate search results in the AI era. In this free masterclass, you're going to learn AI-powered SEO tools and techniques for smarter content optimization and analysis. You're going to learn some of the best practices for balancing AI-generated content with human-crafted content so you can scale this without sacrificing quality, authenticity, or your brand voice. Future-proofing techniques to stay ahead of evolving algorithms to ensure that your strategy adapts to Google and all the other platform changes that are happening every single day. This guide from HubSpot is jam-packed with expert insights to help you excel in an AI-first search landscape.
Folks, don't just adapt to the future of SEO, lead it. This masterclass is completely free to access. Check the link in the description, and it'll arm you with everything that you need to win. Boost your rankings, get traffic hopefully for years to come. Thank you so much for diving in with me to learn a little bit more about local SEO. Now, it's time to put this advice into action. Cheers to your success. I'm Ross Simmons. I hope you got a ton of value out of this and go win in this new AI era. I'm rooting for you.
[Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music]