Local SEO

Local SEO for businesses that live or die by their Google Business Profile and the map pack. These articles cover the ranking factors that actually move the needle for local search — reviews, citations, on-page signals, and AI-era answer engines — written for Portland, OR businesses but applicable anywhere local competition is tight. If your business depends on being found nearby, this is the category to read first. We go past the generic “claim your listing” advice into what actually changes rankings in a real market: consistent citations, a steady flow of recent reviews, service and location pages that answer buyer questions, and structured data that AI answer engines can quote. Just as important is what to ignore — the low-value tactics that eat hours without moving the map pack. Each guide is written to be acted on in an afternoon, whether you run a single location or manage local visibility across several. Newer additions cover how AI Overviews are changing the local results page, which review tactics still work after the recent policy changes, and how to structure service and location pages so answer engines quote them. Every guide includes the specific checks we run on client profiles each month, so you can run the same ones yourself before you decide whether you need help. If you only do three things after reading this category, make them these: keep your Google Business Profile complete and answered every week, build one clear page per service and per location you actually serve, and ask for reviews in a way customers can act on from their phone. Everything else in these guides, from citation audits to schema to AI Overview positioning, compounds on that base and does very little without it. A reminder on timing: local rankings move in weeks, not days, and the profile changes that matter most are the ones you keep doing. The monthly checklist in the guide exists so the work becomes routine instead of a project you start over every spring. Portland examples run through this category because it is where we work, but the mechanics are the same in any city where several competent businesses compete for the same map results.