Local SEO and Google Business Profile
Show up in the map pack and local search: set up your Google Business Profile, fix your listings, and get your website and Search Console in shape.
How the Google local pack works: ranking factors
Relevance, distance and prominence explained in plain English, plus the shortcuts that don't work and can get your Google Business Profile suspended.
How to set up and verify a Google Business Profile
Create or claim your profile, pick the right categories, set a service area or address, add hours and attributes, and get through video verification.
Google Business Profile optimization checklist (weekly)
A 20-minute weekly Google Business Profile optimization routine: posts, photos, services, review replies, and what changed with Q&A and chat.
NAP consistency and citations: which directories matter
What citations are, which US listings are worth claiming (Bing, Apple, Yelp, BBB, industry sites), and what the evidence does and doesn't say.
Website basics for local SEO: service and area pages
Service and area pages without doorway spam, title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, NAP in the footer, click-to-call and an embedded map.
Google Search Console for beginners: 30-minute setup
Set up and verify Search Console, read the Performance and Page indexing reports, submit a sitemap, inspect a URL, and know what to check each month.
Core Web Vitals explained: LCP, INP and CLS in plain English
What LCP, INP and CLS measure, the good and poor thresholds, how to test with PageSpeed Insights, and five fixes that help most small-business sites.
New here? See the glossary for plain-English definitions, or go back to all tracks.