The Whitespark Local Update

In this episode, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile share the most exciting local SEO news and insights from the past two weeks:
📝 Links back in GBP products populated via product editor (Claire Carlile)
📝 Whitespark Analyzed GBP Review Questions for 765 Businesses (Miriam Ellis)
📝 Yelp Licenses Its Review, Photo, and Request-a-Quote Data to ChatGPT ((Krystal Taing)
📝 You Need to Nail Your “Brand Facts” (Cyrus Shepard)
📝 New GBP Feature: Report Owner Response (Vinay Toshniwal, Jacek N. Kozio)
📝 15 Tips for Winning in LLMs (Suganthan Mohanadasan)
Follow us on LinkedIn ❤️
Darren Shaw: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenshawwhitespark/
Claire Carlile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairecarlile/

This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile break down the biggest local SEO stories, including:
📝 These SEO Strategies Drive 90% of Your AI Visibility (Cyrus Shepard)
📝 Low-Effort Leap in Local SEO: Target a 2nd Language on Your Site with a Plugin (Phil Rozek)
📝 How to Generate High Quality Leads Through Your Website (Exposure Ninja)
📝 Google’s LLM patent suggests a new goal for SEO: Teaching AI who you are (Rich Sanger)
📝 Why you need to "TikTokify" your Google Ads (Talia Wolf and Jyll Saskin Gales)
📝 I made my nail lady open her Google Ads account before I left the chair (Ameet Khabra)

This week, Darren Shaw and Claire Carlile are unpacking the local SEO stories you need to know, including:
📝 Claiming a Service Area Business (SAB) has changed (Vinay Toshniwal)
Request ownership of a Business Profile
📝 Why Google Business Profile address changes can disrupt local rankings (Claudia Tomina on Search Engine Land)
📝 Who Owns Your Google Business Profile? The Complete Guide to Ownership, Security, Transfers & Recovery (Ben Fisher)
📝 AI Overview 6-pack (Joy Hawkins)
📝 AI Is Killing Content: The Only Way to Win (Ross Simmonds, SterlingSky)
📝 Reddit Keyword Research with Claude: 3 Levels From Beginner to Pro (Usman Akram)

🔥 Whitespark Local Ranking Grids
This week, Darren Shaw is joined by special guest Amy Toman to break down the local SEO stories you need to know, including:
📝 Hack to Move the Map Pin for an SAB (Mika Lepisto)
📝 Warning About GBP Review Management (Amy Toman)
📝 AI Search Visibility & Ranking Factors - For 1,100 Market Segments
📝 Massive Correlation Study of LLM Ranking Factors (Ben Wills)
📝 Google Review Not Posted (Amy Toman)
📝 What Local Brand Actually Means to Google and AI (Near Media Podcast with Cyrus Shepard)
📝 Two Types of GBP Blocks (Amy Toman): article not yet published.
🔥 Whitespark Local Platform

This week, Claire Carlile and special guest Julian Hooks cover the latest local SEO news, including:
📝 The State of Local SEO in 2026 (Joy Hawkins, Sterling Sky)
📝 Why Your Google Reviews Disappear (Ex-Googlers Explain) (SterlingSky, Brad Wetherall)
📝 Where AI agents get stuck on your site (Kevin Indig)
📝 New Google Reviews Bug: You Have No Reviews Yet (Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable)
📝 Build your own AI search visibility tracker for under $100/month (Julian Hooks)
📝 AI Prioritization Framework for SEOs (Elizabeth Linder)