Why Reviews Aren’t Everything in Local SEO
Two plumbers in Houston, Texas. One of them has over 5, 000 glowing reviews. The other one has 12. Which one do you think
ranks higher on Google?
Now, you’re probably gonna be surprised. The business with 12 reviews is in the first position. On the other hand, the business with 5,000 reviews is in on the 13th position.
Now, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to local SEO myths. I’m Blake Collins, and in this guide, I’m going to break down exactly what works for ranking in local
SEO, and what’s a waste of time.
By the end of this guide, you’re going to have a blueprint that’s going to allow you to rank any business in the top three. Now I’m not just talking about theory here.
I started my SEO agency in 2016 and I built it to seven figures in three years. Since then, I’ve helped hundreds of entrepreneurs build and grow their own SEO agencies.
Now I want you to stick around. Because I’m going to share the exact ChatGPT prompts that my agency uses every single day for local SEO. And the simple method we use. to get our clients five star reviews.
Now the heart of local SEO is your Google business profile or GBP. When there’s a local search with the map displayed, the businesses GBP is being shown, not the business’s website. And for those searches, roughly 60 to 70 percent of the searchers of the users are going to click or call one of those three featured results.
Now the one they choose. isn’t really based on their position, like an organic SEO. It’s much more a function of the quantity and quality of the reviews those businesses have.
At the beginning, I mentioned two GBPs in Houston with massively different review counts. Reviews are crucial for driving calls. They’re just not actually that important for ranking.
So here’s a screencap of the three plumbers ranked on top for a search of Plumber Houston.
Now, which of these plumbers would you call? The plumber with 2,800 of 4. 7 star reviews, or this guy with 12 of 5 star reviews?
In our experience, ide average rating is between 4. stars. A perfect 5 star rating doesn’t do as
well to establish trust with consumers.
But we don’t really care about conversion if there isn’t any traffic to begin with. If the GBP you’re looking at is ranked in the 13th position then they aren’t getting any calls. Conversion optimization can’t help if no one ever sees it.
The first page for local search is the top three positions, and that’s where you need to be. Oh, I mentioned the plumber in the 13th position with over 11,000 of 4.7 star reviews? Here’s one:
So let’s break down what’s important for GBP ranking and what that plumber with 5, 000 reviews is doing wrong.
The 5 AI SEO Tips For Local Businesses to Dominate Local Rankings
AI-Powered SEO Hack #1: Use the Right Categories for your Google Business Profile
So first, category. You need more than one relevant categories. You should be targeting three or four relevant categories at a minimum.
✅ ChatGPT Prompt:
Here’s a ChatGPT prompt to help you come up with those secondary categories for GBP.
“You are a local SEO expert. What additional categories should a local business [niche]
Use it for their Google Business Profile?”
AI-Powered SEO Hack #2: Fully Complete The GBP Profile
Number two is to complete the GBP. Every single box must be filled out.
✅ ChatGPT Prompt for Business Description:
Here’s a quick prompt we use to generate a business description.
“You are a local Search Engine Optimization expert. Please Write a Google Business Profile Description for a local [niche] company in [City, State] targeting less than 750 characters in length.”
AI-Powered SEO Hack #3: You Need to Regularly Post on the Google Business Profile
And three, you need to regularly post on the GBP. You should be targeting at least
one post every week, but you don’t need to do these posts manually. You can use a tool, like GoHighLevel, to schedule these posts manually.
Now the GBP posts should sometimes include special offers, mention seasonal local events, or showcase specific services.
Here’s the chat GPT prompt that we use to have all these posts written.
“Can you please give me a title and a short article for a [niche] company? This article will go into a Google Business post. This post should be local to the [City, State] area and entice users to call the [niche] business. This article should be shortened the 2 paragraphs.”
Use this, generate 15 to 30 posts, and schedule them to go live once per week, at least. Then, schedule them to repeat and delete the previous matching post.
This gives you instant, year round GBP posts done in under 20 minutes.
So now you’re making some real progress. You have a GBP with three to five categories and every single box is completed. Your GBP posts are going to be active and posting until the end of time.
AI-Powered SEO Hack #4: Build Local Citations
So let’s shift to a way to build a digital footprint for your business. Citations.
Now, my team does citations manually because it’s typically more accurate. It is time consuming, but it’s worth it. You should do as many citations as you can.
Don’t waste time analyzing your competitors to see how many citations they have. Just do all of them.
i) Creating social media accounts linked to the business website is another type of citation. You should also create accounts on all social media accounts.
Now, if you don’t want to do it yourself, and I understand that. We often use IceCreamTruck.shop for these citations and social profile creations.
AI-Powered SEO Hack #5: Add Schema Markup to Your Website Posts and Pages
Okay, so let’s talk about schema markup. This is code that helps Google’s algorithm understand who you are and what your business is.
For a local business, you need to use JSON LD format. This is recommended by Google.
We’re going to put that schema on exactly one URL and one URL only. Do not put the schema on every single page of the website.
Only put the JSON LD on the page that the GBP is linked to. And if you don’t know what JSON LDMarkup
means or how to write it, No problem. Chat, GPT will write the schema for you.
Now, make sure that the information that you put in this prompt exactly matches the GBP character for character.
Once the schema is generated, it should be inserted as code into the head section of the website.
✅ ChatGPT Prompt for Schema Markup:
“Write JSON-LD schema for a [niche] business in [City, State] that matches the GBP data exactly.”
After that, you should test it with the Google structured data testing tool. Just go to the tool. You can Google it.
If you see any errors or warnings, ask ChatGPT for edits, replace the code, and go again until you have zero errors and zero warnings.
How Your Website Helps Rank Your GBP
Improve Geographic & Topical Relevance with AI
Use ChatGPT to generate blog topics that target:
- Neighborhoods in your city.
- Services you offer.
- Seasonal trends.
- Local events or landmarks.
✅ ChatGPT Prompt for Blog Ideas:
“Give me keyword ideas for a local [niche] business in [City, State] that include neighborhoods, services, and local terms.”
Google uses a blended algorithm for local rankings, so that means your organic rankings influences your GBP ranking.
In other words, if your website is on the 8th page of organic results, forget about trying to rank your GBP right now. You’ll need to focus on improving your organic ranking.
To do that, we want to build two types of relevance on your website to improve the organic ranking.
1. Geographic relevance, and
2. Topical relevance.
Improve Geographic & Topical Relevance with AI
The first step of this is to generate some ideas of what topics and geographies that you want to write about.
So here’s the prompt that we use with ChatGPT to help with generating ideas for local businesses.
“You are a local Search Engine Optimization expert. Give me some keyword ideas for a local plumber in [Houston, TX]. Include keywords that target specific neighbouthoods in this city and keywords for a variety of services a local plumber would want customers for. Keep in mind seasoned trends and local language nuances. Mention local events or landmarks in the keywords.”
Case Study: How Local Content Turned Rankings from Red to Green
Now I want to tell you about a client of ours. They used to pay over $8,000 per month for SEO services.
They were receiving over 100,000 clicks per month from Google search, but barely any actual customers.
The problem: They were missing local relevance.
Here’s what the local rank position looked like for their target keyword.
There’s a lot of solid ranking out in Lake Michigan, for some reason, and very, very close to their address, but not much else.
Remember, the number 4 position is the first position on the second page of Google Search Results.
Here’s how we fixed it:
- First, we optimized their home page for local intent keywords.
- Second, creating supporting content for the primary keywords, services, and target neighborhoods.
- And third, we use the “people also ask section” for additional blog content ideas.
And here’s what that local ranking map looks like now.
It’s a clear dramatic improvement in local rankings and, more importantly, in calls.
Now, in the description of this video, I’m going to put a link to join my free school community where you can download a PDF that breaks down the exact structure of the local website we used to achieve this local and topical relevance.
So I’m going to, again, use Plumber Houston as an example of how we use the People Also Ask section to generate content ideas.
So we’ll start by typing Plumber into Google. And you’ll see a People Also Ask section that looks a lot like this.
Now, you’re only going to get a handful of questions at first, but if you click on any of them, you’re going to get more and more and more that pop up. It looks like this.
So write an article answering each one of these questions, with the city name added.
For example, write an article answering,
“What does a plumber do in Houston?”
I want you to then source a quality external link to every new article you write and publish. This is very important, as external links are how Google knows the content is high quality.
Remember, Google is an algorithm and it can’t read. We use IceCreamTruck.shop to source a lot of our external links.
Now Google uses math, it’s an algorithm, to decide what content is about. It wants to use user data to decide if the content is good or not, but if it’s lacking user data, for example if you’re on the second page and no one ever sees your content, it’s going to use links from quality sites.
Additionally, you’ll want to set up rank tracking for your local clients. Rank tracking lets you know which geographies and which keywords you need to produce supporting content for.
The best tool I found for this type of local rank tracking is called Local Dominator. I’ll put a link in the description if you’re interested in grabbing that tool. (Become their affiliate)
It’s the same one we use at my agency.
How to Collect 5-Star Reviews For GBP the Right Way
So at the beginning of this post, I promised I’d give you my best way to generate reviews.
Use a Direct Texting Method That Actually Works
So first, you’re going to grab the review link from the Google Business Profile.
- First, log into your Google account, and then select the business you want more reviews for.
- Hit this down arrow here, and then hit, Ask for Review. That’s gonna give you a link.
- Now, take that link, and ask your local client to text their prior customers a simple message that includes that link.
The message should be something like:
“Hey, hope you’re doing well.
If you are happy with our services at [Business Name], would you mind leaving us a quick review here? [Add Link].
Thanks for your support [Owner name].”
Now, I know this sounds super simple, but a text coming from the same phone number the customer is already interacting with has a massive success rate.
We’ve seen over a 50 percent conversion rate in getting prior customers to leave reviews versus Less than a 5 percent conversion rate if we use email or even a text campaign from a different number.
✅ Texts from a familiar number = 50%+ success rate
Emails = <5% success rate.
This method is so powerful that at my agency, we actually added language in our contract that the local business owner must send this text message out to former customers regularly.
This is quick, simple text. We’ve seen dozens of reviews within weeks using this.
Conclusion: Local SEO Is a Process, Not a Mystery
Local SEO is a powerful way for a business to grow in their local market. Ranking in the top three across a city like Houston easily translates into a seven figure local business.
Now, getting that ranking is straightforward. It’s a process. It’s not based on luck.
SEO is not a black box. We just need to give Google’s algorithm what it wants to see.
Here’s your local SEO checklist:
- ✅ Optimize your GBP completely.
- ✅ Focus on citation and name, address, phone number consistency.
- ✅ Implement schema markup correctly.
- ✅ Structure your site. So Google sees that it’s a comprehensive authority on that topic.
- ✅ Produce content with geographic & topical relevance.
- ✅ Understand the blended algorithm and where to focus your efforts if your GBP isn’t in the top three yet.
- ✅ Track your rankings with tools like Local Dominator.
- ✅ Finally, once you’re ranked, now collect reviews consistently and correctly.
Next Step: Get My Exact Facebook Ad Campaign That Landed 30 Clients in 30 Days
Next Step: Get My Exact Facebook Ad Campaign That Landed 30 Clients in 30 Days?
Now that you know how to rank a local business check out this post where I give you my exact Facebook ad campaign my agency used to land 30 clients in 30 days.
I’m going to give you everything in this post: the targeting, the ad copy, the ad images, and more! Everything that we used to land 30 clients in 30 days. You can copy it and do it yourself!
Click this link for the targeting, copy, creatives, and step-by-step breakdown so you can copy and launch it yourself!