Local SEO & Google Business Profile Program

GBP fixes (category, services, description, photos) can move rankings inside 2-3 weeks. Review velocity effects show in 30-60 days. Broader map-pack ranking changes for competitive queries take 3-6 months. We baseline everything at kickoff so you can see the movement week by week.

Regular SEO ranks pages in the ten blue links. Local SEO ranks businesses in the map pack — the three-business box that appears above blue links for local queries ("plumber near me", "coffee shop henderson"). Different ranking factors: proximity, category, review count, review velocity, GBP completeness, category-consistent citations. Overlapping fixes: schema, speed, mobile UX. We do both, but this service is the local piece.

We build the system that generates reviews, not the reviews themselves. Post-service SMS or email flow with a smart router that sends 4-5 star customers to Google and lower-rated ones to an internal channel first. Response templates for the owner to use. We monitor review velocity and flag anomalies (competitor review spam, sudden negative clusters). You still own the customer relationship.

Multi-location adds complexity: one GBP per location, category consistency, location page architecture on the site, aggregated review reporting. Pricing scales — the base $500/mo covers up to two locations, additional locations add $200/mo each. We handle chains up to about 30 locations before it becomes a different conversation.

Four metrics: (1) map-pack visibility across a geo-grid (SoLV — Share of Local Voice), (2) GBP direction requests, calls, and website clicks from GBP Insights, (3) branded and non-branded map-pack search volume in GSC, (4) actual leads and revenue attributed via UTM. We report monthly with all four.

When your GBP primary category flips (or gets misclassified), Google can silently suppress you from the map pack for your key queries even though everything looks fine in Insights. It is one of the most common invisible killers in Local SEO. We monitor for it — when SoLV goes flat for identical query pairs across a grid, that is the signal. We saw it happen on a client account this year and caught it inside a week.

Yes — and they are the second biggest lever after GBP. Every service you offer should have its own page with local intent language, LocalBusiness + Service schema, embedded map, testimonials, and internal links from the homepage. Every location gets the same treatment. We ship these as part of implementation and they are cheaper to keep updated than most people think.

The top 20-30 citations still matter — Google uses NAP consistency as a trust signal, and Bing / Apple / Yelp still send real traffic. What is dead is the "500 citation submission" spam service. We audit and fix the top ~30 (Google, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, industry-specific sites) monthly and skip the long tail.

Yes — service-area businesses are half our Local SEO book. GBP hides the street address, service areas are configured properly, category and service listings are calibrated for SAB, and location pages target the metros you actually serve. Same monthly program, adjusted for the SAB pattern.