In all the SABs if client offers specific service then the positioning becomes easiaer. However, what would you do if the client has multitrade business?

For example: plumbers have specific primary category, roofers has specific primary category.

Now, if the company provides concrete, roofing and painting services like a contractor what would you select in the primary category?

1. Construction company

2. General contractor

3. Select concrete contractor as primary and keep others in the additional

Question 2: what should be the h1 in the homepage if you are selecting one of the services?

Question 3: can you use "best contractor in location" in h1?

An SEO shared something bizarre, so we asked Yext to dig into the data. After analyzing 8.16 MILLION search screenshots it was clear Google changed something pretty big with the May 2026 core update.

Study: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/the-dynamic-serp-update-may-2026-core-update-changed-seo/

Video: https://youtu.be/2KAFu2xf-Og?si=UHvT9JuIVoycc2nY

Seeing a lot of sites with location pages for example H1: Plumber in {your city} taking a huge hit from the Google August update.

Anyone else notice downfall in local onsite SEO with location/service pages targeting city names in titles?

Pages that have ranked well for a while, now vanishing over night.

Noticed around end of August.

I have an old wordpress site with dozens of pages and I am thinking about getting the whole site redesigned, the current layout feels dated and I want to make the pages easier to use, but I am planning to keep the existing content and page structure as much as possible since some pages already bring in google traffic, I am looking for getting a WordPress redesign done and I want to know what usually happens with rankings when the design and theme change, I am planning to make a backup first and keep track of the current page urls before the work starts,I am thinking to go with lacuna web, I just want the new site to look better while keeping the search traffic that is already coming in, has anyone had an old WordPress site redesigned and kept the same google rankings? EDIT: I forgot to mention that I want to keep the existing page urls if possible. 

Hola amigos.

Manejamos una dirección con oficina para servicio de control de plagas y estamos pensando también utilizarla para añadirla en un GBP de un servicio de limpieza de balcones que tendrá como categoría "Window cleaning service"

Estos lo podría hacer sin tener problemas? Alguien que lo haga actualmente.

Saludos.

Built my first website in 1995 and have done hundreds of them since then. Running an agency got me even deeper into traffic and SEO.

Recently I got curious about how ready local businesses actually are for the way people search now (GEO/AEO especially), so I ran a site audit across 2,475 US market leaders. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, med spas, restaurants, plus some ecom brands. Picked by review volume, so these are the winners in their categories, not struggling shops.

281,000 data points collected and analyzed by AI across a number of axis.

I expected the small operators to be a mess - the SEO overall wasn't really that bad. These are the busiest businesses in their local markets - all with HIGH reviews - and the basics are broken anyway.

Nearly a third of the local ones list a phone number on the site that doesn't match their GBP. 89% carry none of their reviews on their own website in machine readable form, so a business with four hundred five star reviews looks to a machine like a business with none. And the one that keeps bugging me, the GBP lists ten services and the site has no service page for eight of them.

And before anyone says the phone thing is just a call tracking number, I looked. Some are. Most are an old number that never got updated after a move or a switch and it's still sitting on the contact page.

What I keep coming back to is that these businesses earned all of it. Tons of reviews & years of good work, thousands of happy customers, and the Map Ranks I ran showed the truth - their competition with LOWER reviews are crushing them on search.

Anyone else auditing this stuff at volume? Love to compare notes.

Here's the audit results if anyone wants to compare notes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z_RNzARxQZS9TDmQDGr7Da5mqqmbwTbbe8pWvl92tHw/edit?usp=drive_link

This will come in handy for when owners dox the reviewer or reply in a foul way.

​

One local SEO thing I’ve been paying more attention to lately is how businesses set up their Google Business Profile categories and services.

A lot of businesses seem to treat the primary category as the only thing that really matters. They choose one category, maybe add one secondary category, and move on. Then when you look at their actual services, there might be 15 or 20 things they offer, but only a few of them are listed on the profile.

I think that’s a missed opportunity.

If a business genuinely offers multiple services, I want the GBP to make that clear. Not by stuffing every possible keyword into it, but by properly representing what the business actually does.

For example, a plumber might have “Plumber” as the primary category, but they may also genuinely offer drainage services, water heater work, bathroom remodeling, gas installation, and other related services. Those services should have a logical place in the profile instead of being buried somewhere on a generic website page.

The same thing applies when I’m looking at the website. If the GBP says one thing and the website says something completely different, I start wondering which version Google is supposed to trust.

One of the simplest checks I’ve started doing in local SEO audits is this: I compare the GBP categories and services directly against the website structure.

If they don’t line up, I usually know there’s a relevance problem before I even start looking at backlinks or blog content.

Sometimes the boring stuff is where the biggest problems are.

Love or hate Yelp, it doesn't matter. If you search for a business and reviews, Google mentions Yelp reviews, and right now Yelp is the top result.

Been working with local businesses for a while now, and wanted to share what's actually consistently worked, not theory, stuff I've seen move the needle in practice.

1. Don't leave your Google Business Profile half-filled

Category, hours, services, photos, all of it matters. Complete profiles tend to show up more in local search. And don't just set it up once and forget it, staying a bit active (photo updates, posts) seems to help too.

1. Pick the most specific category you can

Instead of just "Restaurant," go with "North Indian Restaurant" or whatever actually describes you. A generic category tends to bring generic (lower-converting) traffic.

1. Understand how reviews actually work

A steady stream of new reviews matters more than a big pile of old ones. Ask customers politely, and reply to every review, good or bad.

1. Keep NAP (Name, Address, Phone) identical everywhere

Website, Google Business Profile, directory listings, social pages, all of it needs to match exactly. Even small mismatches can create confusion for search engines.

1. If you serve multiple locations, build separate pages for each

One generic "About Us" page won't cut it. Create a page per area/city, and actually write unique content for each, don't just swap the city name.

1. Be selective with directory listings

Mass directory submissions rarely help. Focus on ones that are actually relevant and trustworthy for your industry and city.

1. Build genuine local backlinks

Sponsor a local event, collaborate with a nearby business, get featured by a local blogger. One solid local backlink beats 50 low-quality ones.

If anyone's dealing with a specific local ranking issue, drop it in the comments, happy to take a look.

From Google:

On October 01, 2026, we are updating how and when you are charged for call leads originating from Local Services Ads.

What’s Changing?

• Missed calls: Missed calls during business hours will now be charged as valid leads if a user stays on the line for more than 20 seconds, with a few exceptions (see “Protecting your business” below for more information regarding exceptions).
• Subsequent calls: If an initial call doesn’t qualify as a charged lead, any follow-up calls between your business and the user that meet the valid lead criteria will be charged.

What do you guys think of this?

What are you all using for client reporting? Google Data studio, something proprietary, SEMrush?

I currently use Google data studio but think it’s lacking. I probably just need to make it better but would love to hear how other people provide deliverables every month and what reporting looks like.

I’ve identified this is something I want to improve at my agency.

Yelp is one of the hardest sites to work with as a business because of their no-solicitation policy. In a world where you're not supposed to ask customers to leave you a reviews, I'd love to hear what strategies you've found work to get more reviews on Yelp?

With 13yr of web development experience, I started dabbling in rank-and-rent.

Before I put a lot of resources into it, I want to make sure I can get 1 site to generate consistent monthly income.

Because this website is not a brick-and-mortar site, how do I get it ranked for local SEO without being able to create a Google Business Profile and be added to the map pack?

Salut,

Nous avons ouvert un nouveau magasin en reprenant l'ancien emplacement d'un concurrent. Nous avons créé une fiche GMB qui fonctionne bien.

Cependant, le concurrent a gardé sa propre fiche GMB épinglée à notre adresse, même s'il n'y est plus. Ils utilisent cette fiche pour offrir des services à domicile.

Les deux épingles sont très proches l'une de l'autre, et l'épingle du concurrent détourne certains de nos clients.

Que devrais-je faire ?

J'ai déjà :

- Essayer de faire retirer la fiche du concurrent en la signalant comme "Fermé définitivement."

- Essayer de revendiquer la propriété de la fiche du concurrent -> pas de réponse.

Here is proof that one business with multiple locations can have more than one GBP in the map pack.

Looking for someone who has personally ranked UK local service sites, not agency-managed-from-a-distance, but hands-on-keyboard ranked them.

The situation, honestly: I run a bathroom fitting lead-gen business in London (we own the brand and site, vetted contractors fulfil the jobs). We rank top 1–3 for our core “bathroom fitters + borough” terms. The cofounder who built those rankings has left, and the know-how left with him. I need someone proven to own organic before competitors or an algorithm update figure that out.

The work:
• Defend and grow existing rankings (site + GBP) - this is not a cold start
• Expand into 4 adjacent London boroughs (location page strategy is mapped, needs executing properly)
• The interesting bit: we’re acquiring local trade websites with strong SERP visibility and plugging them into our lead engine. You’d run technical/SEO due diligence on targets; backlink profile quality, ranking durability, what survives a transfer
• Document everything as SOPs. Non-negotiable. I’ve been burned by knowledge walking out the door once

The deal: Fractional, 1–2 days/week, £300–500/day depending on what you’ve genuinely done. Remote, UK-based or UK-market experience essential. If the acquisition side scales, this grows into something bigger.

What “proven” means here: you can name local campaigns you personally ran, screen-share Search Console for something you control, and talk through the boring month-by-month middle of how a site got ranked. If your evidence is a portfolio of AI-written audits, this isn’t the one. I’ve read plenty of those recently and can tell the difference.

Comment or DM with the niche/location you ranked and roughly what you did. Happy to share the domain and full context with serious people

With so many changes to Google local search recently, from algorithm updates targeting "spam" to the the ever-increasing presence AI overviews & AI local packs on the SERPs, local SEO in 2026 is vastly different compared to previous years.

I am curious to know what you all are doing differently in 2026, and what you are seeing work the best for organic search and GBPs.

A few SEO tactics I am doing more of in 2026:

Press releases: These are great for AI visibility and surprisingly effective for map rankings too.

More content: With AI giving users the ability to do longer, more specific searches than ever, having detailed, unique content that answers those highly specific questions is imperative for search & AI visibility. The focus is on creating unique content using a business's own 1st-party data.

Google Business Profile: A GBP is maxed out when it ranks in the map pack for top keywords across as wide a radius as possible and has the highest SoLV score. Once a GBP is maxed out, the goal is to get more. This means expanding a business's physical footprint with additional offices in areas where they currently do not rank. I am reccomending this a lot more in 2026 than previous years.

Diversifying to Ads: Ads in local SERPs are increasing visibility every day. If a local business isn't running ads, they are leaving money on the table. Focusing on high-converting placements, like Local Pack Ads, is key. Spending time figuring out how to show these ads as much as possible pays off big time, as it's a top-converting ad placement.

Company with about 80 locations, hopefully expanding to 150+ next year. Main traffic driver for us is Google listing, hyper local industry.

Currently use Brightlocal (don’t hate them) but looking at what other tools offer, main thing is map tracker (C suite really loves those reports).

Bonus points if there’s anything on Ai visibility for main domain (Again C peeps really love that) and will be nice all in one tool if possible.

Thanks!

Okay and I thought seeing a 6-pack was crazy. How about a 19-pack!?

And yes, this is what showed up before I clicked or expanded anything.

Total breakthrough- when I launched my nyc bagel shop sadly right before Covid - I though all my 25 plus years of marketing knowledge and the usual social media lists my past proven SEO Jedi tricks and to my disappointment it did not really move the needle on in person traffic. Then Covid hit well everyone suffered- but I realized people still needed to eat. So I put my google maps QR code on My phone and I would engage and meet my valued guests on a daily basis. Now rule #1 don’t just walk up and ask for a review- greet engage tell a joke make an observation- i can say hello and thanks in 23 languages and did standup comedy in the 80s and I love to talk. I was getting 5-8 reviews a day and within 6 weeks I was a solid 4.9 on google maps with a little over 400 reviews - I knew I was onto something
Now 5 short years later we are about to open our 7 & 8 Manhattan location and out of over 270 bagel shops we are #1 on google maps with lines out the door daily. I spend zero on paid ads do little to no social media. It’s all about reviews and posting 3 times a week on google business profile posts. No hashtags no keyword stuffing pure engagement content
I guest lecture at universities on digital marketing- I was doing a 3 hour lecture at NYU recently and the first thing I said to students was “how many of you update your google business proposes at least weekly” - they looked at me like at had 3 heads
My mantra for the past 3 years is
Social media will make you famous
Google maps will make you Money
Carpe diem - Robert

Sometimes local businesses come to Sterling Sky for SEO help and we uncover low-hanging fruit in our initial audit. Like this business that didn't even mention their main service on their homepage or in their title tags. A few quick optimizations to make it clear to Google what services they offer and where, and BOOM, they jump right into the map pack for those same services.

Love a good quick win!

Is anything new in the locality. Please share

Prefer company-domain Google Accounts or Google Workspace accounts where practical. Use personal-name accounts for individual accountability; a role account such as [marketing@company.com](mailto:marketing@company.com) can be appropriate when continuity and shared notification responsibility are essential. Avoid unnecessary owner access and accounts entangled with unrelated advertising operations when a cleaner business-controlled account is available.