Crashing out + useful local SEO info

your weekly local search recap is here

December 08, 2025

Hey people!

Some cool local SEO content for you 👇️

1. Weekly ad crashout

My new hobby is crashing out about marketing stuff on Instagram reels. So liberating!

Enjoy:

Instagram Reel

And follow me on Instagram if you haven’t already. I’ve been posting a lot more video content on there lately.

2. Anonymous reviews are fine

Here’s what you should do now that Google has anonymous reviews:

1. Change how you ask for reviews:

If your business is in an industry where people may feel uncomfortable leaving a review under their real name (e.g. legal or medical services, psychiatry, finance), your review collection process just got easier!

When asking for a review, tell customers how they can use a pseudonym when writing it.

2. Monitor and back up your reviews:

Now that Google users can add, remove, and change their custom display name whenever they choose, it is more important than ever export your review history regularly in case Google decides to delete your legitimate reviews.

3. Read Allie Margeson’s new article to fully understand what this anonymity means for both businesses and customers 👇️

3. 7 factors that might change the way you do local SEO in 2026

Being aware of your competitors’ wild tactics to influence behavioral signals is key to your own local search success. How do you feel about losing $100,000 contracts to competitors’ popups, which you may have dismissed as being too annoying to implement on your own sites? 🫠

Miriam discusses this in her new article, plus how:

  • Hiding SAB GBP addresses may not impact rank like you think it does

  • Treating hours of operation as an afterthought? Think again

  • Saying citations are dead is… dead

  • Reviews are an entrée, not a side dish

  • The stickiness of keywords in GBP business titles continues

  • Google is listening to your calls, which might influence your ranking 👀

Read her full article and get ready for another year of successful local search marketing here 👇️

4. Catch up on the pod

The Google API leak shows that service areas are not used in the ranking algorithm. If you want to expand your ranking radius for real, last week’s podcast episode contains some actionable tips from Miriam Ellis, plus:

  • Ben Franklin Effect applied to review requests (Sam Knight)

  • API Leak reveals that Service Areas are NOT a ranking factor (Claudia Tomina)

  • Google Local Pack links to places tab with pagination bug (Barry Schwartz)

  • GBP adds scheduling and multi-location publishing to Google Posts (Barry Schwartz)

Watch the episode here 👇️

🎧 Or if you prefer listening, you can find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Darren

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