I'm answering local SEO questions on Reddit today

ask away

November 03, 2025

Hi,

Some local SEO updates for you 👇️

1. Got any local search questions for me?

I’ll be live on Reddit answering your local SEO questions starting at 12pm EST today.

Come hang out in the Sterling Sky subreddit /r/localsearch and ask me anything, like:

  • Best practices for Google Business Profiles (setups, troubleshooting, suspensions)

  • Reviews and reputation management — how to earn them, what to avoid, and what really works

  • Local ranking factors and what actually moves the needle

  • Citation management and building a solid local SEO foundation

  • Tracking, reporting, and proving ROI to clients

  • Future trends in local SEO and where I see the industry going

  • And of course, anything you want to know about Whitespark's software and services

I’ll be there until 5pm EST, so jump in while we’re live 👇️

2. Why is that competitor outranking you when you have better SEO and links?

There could be a sneaky reason that you’re not considering: they’re updating content more often than you.

Google and LLMs love fresh content, but it's a ranking factor that none of the SEO tools report on, so you currently have no visibility on this factor.

That’s why you might want to set up competitor web page change tracking (like ChangeTower.com). You'll get notified every time your competitor updates their page.

Set something like this up for all your top competitors, and you'll start to get a picture of how often you should be updating to compete. You might even pick up on some other sneaky tactics they’re using.

P.S. This is not an ad. I will never do that. I searched out this tool and started using it, and thought the strategy was worth sharing.

Marston Gould had some good thoughts on freshness vs. engagement signals in the LinkedIn comments — check them out!

3. How to create the perfect small local business website

A good local business website does the following:

  • Catches searchers’ attention

  • Gets clicks

  • Earns people’s trust

  • Encourages sales and transactions (ideally repeatedly)

  • Helps you earn reviews and referrals

Miriam Ellis’s new guide takes you through every step of building a well-optimized website: from doing the necessary research before creating the site to building and optimizing it for maximum marketing value.

It also includes a handy checklist to help you perfect the fine details of your site.

Download the full checklist and read the guide here 👇️

4. Catch up on the pod

Last week we had our first-ever in-person Local Update, recorded live at BrightonSEO 🎉

We caught up with four amazing speakers and asked for their #1 takeaways from their talks 👇

  • Local SEO in the Age of AI Search: Don’t Get Left Behind (Michel van Luijtelaar)

  • How to Turn Your Locations' Presence into Performance (Sara Vordermeier)

  • Mindset for SEO: Future Career Progression (Greg Gifford)

  • Trust > Traffic: How Community Fuels Organic Growth (Erin Simmons)

Watch the full episode here 👇️

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

Darren

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