Local ranking factor you NEED to know

and more local SEO knowledge inside

September 15, 2025

Hello,

Here’s what I talked about last week 👇️

1. Local ranking factor you NEED to know

Website’s Degree of Focus on a Specific Niche.

In other words: If you try to be relevant for everything, you’ll end up being relevant for nothing.

The key to ranking locally is topical relevancy. Search engines (and AI) want to know what your business is about. If your content is scattered across too many unrelated topics, your main message gets diluted.

Google rewards specialists.

Here’s how to apply a smarter strategy:

  • Pick the primary service or product you actually want to rank for, and make it the focus of your site’s content.

  • Don’t just say you’re a specialist, show it through your content, your service pages, your location pages, and even how you talk about your team’s expertise.

  • Keep your content tight. Focus on your main service, and avoid diluting it with a bunch of side topics that don’t really matter.

Think of it this way:

If 80% of your clients come to you for one service, make sure that service dominates your website. The rest can be mentioned and siloed off into a less prominent section, but they shouldn’t distract from your main focus. That’s how you build authority in your niche and give search engines clarity about what your business is truly about.

P.S. The 2025 Local Search Ranking Factors will be published sooooon 👀 

If you have any questions, ask me in the LinkedIn comments!

2. E2 of the Whitespark Local Update Podcast

The #1 problem service area businesses encounter on Google is video verification.

Google’s local results are map-based. They don’t care as much about businesses that don’t show their location, and they haven’t sufficiently adjusted the verification process to suit SABs.

In Episode 2 of the Whitespark Local Update Podcast, Claire and I discuss Elizabeth R.’s new guide on how to successfully verify/reinstate a service area GBP, plus:

  • New research on how to diversify reviews to rank in ChatGPT

  • Important updates to the Google Business Profile guidelines

  • The move from search optimization to “answer optimization”

  • and more

You can watch the episode here 👇️ 

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

3. Updates from customers can be powerful

This customer was so mad that they left a negative review AND posted a screenshot of the review as an Update on the Profile.

Updates from customers stick permanently on the Profile until another customer publishes one.

This gives me an idea: Ask some of your best customers to also post their glowing review into this section (Or you could even be sneaky and do it yourself from a different Google account) 🧠

See this post on Facebook.

4. AI is bringing Bing back big time

Microsoft is effectively the largest shareholder in OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and ChatGPT has become a major player in the AI game. Early research from Search Engine Land indicates that, while ChatGPT doesn’t simply repackage Bing Places, these listings “influence the web results ChatGPT looks at.”

Given these developments, it is a good idea maintain and optimize your Bing Places listing, which is why Miriam Ellis has prepared a detailed, illustrated guide to help you create and optimize your Bing Places listing.

Doing so will definitely improve your rankings in Bing’s local results, and probably improve visibility in AI results.

Get the full guide and our handy Bing Optimization Checklist here 👇️

Darren

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