Author: Paul Warren

Service Area Business vs Storefront: A Decision Tree for Local Businesses

 Choose the wrong Google Business Profile setup, and you can create ranking, verification, and suspension problems that take months to....

How to Rank for “Near Me” Searches in a City where Your Office is Not Located

 “Near me” searches are shaped by proximity. Google is trying to match the searcher with nearby, relevant, trusted businesses. If....

Why Your GBP Insights Numbers Don’t Add Up — and What to Trust Instead

 If your Google Business Profile numbers look wrong this month, you are not imagining it. There is a real reporting....

What Your Business Hours Have to Do with Your Map‑Pack Ranking

 Business hours can affect how often a local business appears in the map pack. That matters most for owners who....

Is Bing Worth Optimizing For Again?

 Bing is back in local SEO conversations because of Copilot. In Q3 2025, Whitespark called out the “unexpected return of....

Do Press Releases Actually Help You Show Up in the “Best Of” AI Recommendations?

 Yes, but only in specific situations.   Press releases can help with press release SEO in 2026 and LLM visibility....

Google AI Mode for Local Search: A Practical Guide for Practice Owners

 AI Mode is not the same as AI Overviews. It is a separate Google Search experience with a more conversational....

AI Overviews Are Eating Your Organic Traffic. Here’s How to Get Cited Inside Them

 AI Overviews can reduce clicks, but they do not explain every traffic dip. Before we change our SEO strategy, we....

Review Extortion Is Now a National Issue. Here’s How a Local Practice Should Respond

 Review extortion used to feel like a rare local SEO problem. By late 2025, it had become a national business....

Anonymous Google Reviews: Should You Trust Them, and What Do You Do About Them?

 Late 2025 saw more anonymous-looking Google reviewer profiles appear in local search. For business owners, that raises a fair question:....