The Whitespark Local Update

This week, Claire Carlile is joined by special guest Krystal Taing to break down the local SEO stories you need to know, including:
📝 June 2026 AI Search News (Caroline Green, Carolyn Wilborn)
📝 New Gemini Features for Small Businesses | Grow with Google
📝 AI's brain is getting bloated with AI content (Megan Morrone)
📝 How to safely implement high-impact technical SEO changes (Dayna Lucio)
📝 Google AI Overviews Study Finds Lost Clicks Weren’t Lower Quality (Matt G. Southern)
📝 AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools

🔥 Whitespark Local Ranking Grids 🔥
This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are unpacking the local SEO stories you need to know, including:
📝 Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini
📝 The Review Gap: Finding Client Opportunities In Competitor Feedback (Celeste Gonzalez on the Search Engine Journal Blog)
📝 GBP Help pages have been revised (Hiroko Imai)
📝 Google is bringing back GBP Messaging - with an AI chatbot for your business (Darren Shaw)

This week on The Whitespark Local Update, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile break down the latest local SEO news, including:
📝 Study: How Review Profiles Impact Brand AI Visibility (Trustpilot and Seer Interactive)
📝 This is the AI prompt you need to track and aren't (Wil Reynolds)
📝 The Click Is Now Optional. Here’s What Isn’t. (Amanda Natividad)
📝 Colorado Banning Lead Gen Companies from Selling Legal Leads to Law Firms (Jason Hennessey)
📝 Apple introduces Siri AI (Apple Newsroom)
📝 Internal Data Mining and Strategic Review Acquisition (Krystal Taing, Near Media)
📝 Social Signals as a Ranking Factor (Michael B. Snow, SOCi)

Local SEO keeps changing with the speed of light, but Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw are here to help you keep up. This week, they cover:
📝 AI Search, Speak Your Customer's Language or Be Left Out of the Conversation (Michelle Ali)
📝 Connect Google Business Profile to Google Analytics (Google)
📝 How to Rank in Surrounding Cities or Towns (Miriam Ellis)
📝 Google’s Review Reply Rejection Filter (Michel van Luijtelaar)
📝 Chunking Your Content for AI? 1956 Called. They Want Their Method Back (Dorron Shapow)
📝 Connect your Google Business Profile to Gemini (Mike G. and Google)

Local search was busy last week. Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw break down what happened, why it matters, and what you should do about it. This week, they cover:
📝 Why B2B Is MORE Emotional Than B2C (Amanda Natividad and Talia Wolf)
📝 Why Do We Need Zero Click Marketing? (Rand Fishkin)
📝 AI Mode + AI Overviews directly in Search Console (Chris Long)
📝 Google Business Profile Video Verification Tutorial (Brad Wetherall)
📝 How Schema Markup Influences Search and AI (Jake Hundley)
📝 The First Edition of The Signal: The AI stuff marketers can't ignore (Wil Reynolds and Alisa Scharf)
📝 Schema, LLMs and the Low Bar for “Evidence” in GEO (Mark Williams-Cook)