Local SEO Basics
Local SEO guides that apply to every local business, whatever the trade: Google Maps, reviews, websites, service pages and AI search.
Articles in Local SEO Basics
How to check your Google Maps ranking across your service area
A manual check with every personalization switched off, a nine-point grid you can run in a spreadsheet, what the paid tools add, and the log that makes it count.
How much should a small business website cost in 2026?
Published prices read in October 2026: builders from $4 to $40 a month, agencies at $100 to $149 an hour, and the domain, hosting and email costs that keep coming.
How to pick your Google Business Profile primary category
Pick your Google Business Profile primary category with Google's own "is a, not has a" test, see what the local top three chose, and change it without surprises.
Are automated blog posts against Google's rules?
What Google's scaled content abuse policy actually says, what the penalty is, and how to tell whether the automated posts on your local business site cross the line.
How long does local SEO take? What moves first
Google's own numbers on how long local SEO takes: profile edits in minutes, pages in weeks, the map pack in months. Six signs it is working before the calls come.
Service area pages: what Google allows and what it calls spam
City pages are allowed. Copies with the town name swapped are doorway pages. Google's policy in its own words, a test for each page, and what belongs on one.
How to ask for Google reviews without breaking the rules
Scripts for asking in person, by email and by text, checked against Google's review policy, the FTC's 2024 reviews rule and the consent law on text messages.
Why you rank first at your shop and twelfth across town
Your Google Maps position is a map, not a number. What Google says about distance, how to read a ranking grid, and which of the fixes are documented.
Does blogging help you rank on Google Maps?
Blogging doesn't move your Google Maps pin. Here is what Google's own pages say a blog can change, what it can't, and which posts are worth writing.
How to show up when someone asks ChatGPT for a local business
What OpenAI and Google actually document about AI answers, what the rest of the internet is guessing, and the ten things a local owner can control.
Do you need a website if you have a Google Business Profile?
A Google Business Profile is free and it wins the near-me search. What it cannot do, when it is genuinely enough on its own, and the smallest site worth building.
How many service pages should your website have?
There is no magic number. Sort everything you sell into emergencies, planned jobs and required work, then build one page per job you would quote separately.
Why your business isn't showing up on Google Maps
A diagnostic for owners. The reasons a business does not appear on Google Maps, in the order worth checking, and how to confirm each one.