u/darrenshaw_

Breaking News: Google just announced their official transition to AI-only search. They’re calling it the Intelligent Search Box, and it’s the biggest update to Search in 25 years.

Here’s what you need to know:

🆕 Search is becoming fully conversational. You can just ask long, detailed questions instead of typing keywords.

🆕 It has AI agents that can search the web 24/7 and notify you when they find what you need.

🆕 It will remember context, which means that you can just keep asking follow-up questions instead of starting over.

🆕 It predicts what you want to search for and auto-completes as you type.

🆕 It can understand text, images, videos, files, and even Chrome tabs.

🆕 Google can now call businesses, compare options, and help you book services directly (huge for local businesses).

This new form of search isn’t just a search box; it’s now your personal AI assistant that can research, compare, call, choose, and book services for you based on your history and personal preferences.

🚨 Breaking News: Google just announced their official transition to AI-only search. They’re calling it the Intelligent Search Box, and it’s the biggest update to Search in 25 years.

Here’s what you need to know:

🆕 Search is becoming fully conversational. You can just ask long, detailed questions instead of typing keywords.

🆕 It has AI agents that can search the web 24/7 and notify you when they find what you need.

🆕 It will remember context, which means that you can just keep asking follow-up questions instead of starting over.

🆕 It predicts what you want to search for and auto-completes as you type.

🆕 It can understand text, images, videos, files, and even Chrome tabs.

🆕 And this is huge for local businesses: Google can now call businesses, compare options, and help you book services directly.

This new form of search isn’t just a search box; it’s now your personal AI assistant that can research, compare, call, choose, and book services for you based on your history and personal preferences.

90% of local businesses do this wrong. They are worried that call tracking numbers will mess up their citation consistency and confuse Google, so they don’t use them. Here’s how to set up your numbers on Google, your website, and your citations the right way 👇

• Google Business Profile
  • Yes, use a call tracking number! Google only gives you call data from mobile devices when people click to call. Add a call tracking number so you can see how many calls your GBP is actually driving.
  • Put the tracking number as the primary phone number, and the real business number as an additional phone number. The real business number in the additional field solves the consistency concern.
• Website
  • Yes, you want to track the calls you get from your website.
  • Most of the call tracking tools offer “dynamic number replacement”. This replaces the real number on your site with the call tracking number AFTER page load. This setup makes sure Googlebot and other crawlers see the real business number, but humans call the tracking number. So no worries about consistency!
• Citations
  • No, in general, I don’t recommend using call tracking numbers on your citations. These should mostly use your real number. It’s ok to use a call tracking number on one or two of your citations (like paid listings) without confusing Google, but you certainly don’t want different numbers across ALL your listings.

I love call tracking and think most businesses should use it. You don’t have to stress about consistency issues or confusing Google if you follow my recommendations above.

Save this for future reference, or share it with someone you love.

Nobody knows this: You can put text ON your Google Business Profile photos to help AI understand your business better (and maybe even increase your AI visibility).

Here’s how:

1. Go to an image editing app (for example Canva).
2. Upload a photo from your business.
3. Put text ON the picture with the keywords you want to rank for.
4. Upload that photo to your Google Business Profile.

This way, you will give Google’s AI more context about your business and increase your chances of showing up in Google search.

Content freshness is a key SEO and AI visibility factor. If your content is too old, it may not rank. Here’s how to determine how often you need to update your content 👇

1. Go to freshnessdistancecalculator*com
2. Enter your keyword
3. Click “Calculate”

This free SEO tool analyzes the dates in Google’s search results to show you how fresh your website content needs to be to rank in the top 20 results.

It’s based on Freshness Distance, a concept by Ross Hudgens that measures the gap between the newest and oldest ranking pages, giving you a clear idea of how frequently updates are needed.

So, if you want your website to rank higher, keep your content updated and fresh.

Google really doesn’t like outdated content.

PS: Do you own a pair of Shroks or Fish Flops? If not, why not?

I’ll be joining the brilliant Mike Blumenthal on a webinar for Duda: Local SEO Success in the AI Era.

We’ll break down how AI is changing local search and what you need to do now so your business keeps showing up where customers are actually looking.

What you’ll learn:

🎯 Which AI search features matter for local SEO (Ask Maps, Know Before You Go, Ask About This Place, and AI Mode)

🎯 Where Google gets the data for these AI results

🎯 What’s the future of the local pack and Google Maps

🎯 How to adjust your local SEO strategy for AI

May 26th (Tuesday), 1 pm EST. Hope to see you there!

🚨 Breaking news: Google is now pulling social media posts directly into Google Business Profiles.
They’re calling it the “Social Media Updates” carousel, and it can show your latest posts from connected social channels right on your Profile.

Google is making it clear that social media is becoming a very important part of every business’s local SEO strategy. And I think this matters for AI visibility too.

Here’s what you need to do if you want your social posts to show on your Google Business Profile:

1. Connect your social profiles to your Business Profile.
2. Stay active on social.
3. Bonus tip for AI: I suggest creating social posts about your services, offers, products, locations, and expertise, rather than only posting fun or educational content.

If your socials are active, Google can give that content extra visibility. And the more clearly you describe what your business does, the easier it is for AI systems to understand your business and recommend you.

Huge thank you to Valentina Vasileva for giving me the heads up about this.

Whoa. This negative review tactic is sooo nasty. Rather than posting it in the reviews section, it’s posted as an “Update from customers”. This means it’s going to stick to the Profile, in a very prominent place, for MONTHS. Oof.

Most business owners aren’t paying attention to their Profile so they would have no idea it’s there. And even worse, while Google sends notifications when you get a new review, they will NOT send one when you get an “Update from customers”. And you can’t even reply to it.

So, how can you remove this type of negative review? You have two options:

1. You can report it to Google, but don’t get your hopes up. These don’t always get removed. If you do report it, “Off topic” is probably the best option to choose.
2. Ask a happy customer to post a new “Update from customers”. That new post will replace the negative one that’s showing on your Profile.

It’s unlikely you’ll be able to remove it, but at least you can push it out of view by replacing it with a better one.

Most importantly, check your Profile regularly for Updates from Customers!

🚨 Breaking News: Google is now pulling Reddit threads directly into Google Business Profiles. A new “About this place” section is now showing on some Google Business Profiles on desktop, primarily for food and drink businesses. Valentina Vasileva first spotted this section, and when I went to check it out myself, I noticed these Reddit threads.

Google just handed you your local business Reddit strategy. If this were my business, I would make sure my voice is on every one of these threads:

• If someone has a question, answer it.
• If someone recommends your business, thank them.
• Bonus: start engaging on all of the subreddits that Google is referencing on your GBP (and your competitors’ GBPs)

We know Google has been flooding the search results with Reddit, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a direct connection to Google Business Profiles.

Go get your business mentioned on Reddit ASAP!

This home health care client came to Whitespark with dropping traffic, almost no engagement, and a stagnant Google Business Profile.

Here’s what happened after a year of local SEO work:

Google Business Profile:

- +58% total views
- +32% website clicks
- +21% phone calls

Website (Organic):

- +20% sessions
- +27% engaged sessions
- +6% engagement rate
- +22% total event count
- +205% key conversion events

Conversions from Organic:

- +226% phone call events
- +66% total users from calls
- +143% form submissions
- +147% total users from forms

Here’s HOW we did it:

- Rebranded their business name to include high-value keywords (“Senior Home Care”). Note that this was an official rebrand.
- Fully optimized the Google Business Profile with keyword-rich services, products, and descriptions.
- Uploaded new photos and videos to their Google Business Profile on a regular basis.
- Published weekly Google Posts with fresh, relevant content.
- Built out dedicated location pages for key service areas, signalling local authority.
- Optimized every page for high-intent keywords.
- Added conversion-focused contact forms across the entire site. This made it effortless for potential clients to reach out the moment they found the information they needed.
- Continuously updated the strategy based on performance and algorithm changes.

This is what happens when you do the right work consistently. We get results like this for all our clients. DM me if you’d like to learn how we can get you these kinds of results too.

Here’s a cool trick that connects YouTube to Google Maps. You can get YouTube to add a Google Maps button on mobile that links directly to a business’s Google Business Profile. Here’s how:

When you open a video description, you might see a “Featured Places” section. When you click on it, you’ll land on a page that features a Google Maps button to the GBP at the top, plus other videos mentioning that place.

YouTube is automatically connecting your videos to your physical location (read how to set it up below).

🔹 What this means for businesses with YouTube channels:

I don’t think this is a direct ranking factor. It’s more about visibility, trust, and conversions:

- Visibility: You can show up in search results twice: once in the local pack, and once in the video carousel.
- Stronger entity signals: It helps Google understand you’re a legit local business.
- Higher conversions: Someone watches your video, clicks the Maps link, checks reviews, and takes action. No extra searching needed.

🔹 How to trigger it (according to the official help doc):

- Mention your business name + city in the first lines of your video description, video transcript, and video frames
- Enable “Allow Automatic Featured Places” in YouTube Studio for your videos

Here are some additional things you can try if it isn’t working:

- Add a video location in YouTube Studio
- Make sure your YouTube channel and Business Profile are under the same Google account
- Make sure your YouTube account is connected to your Google Business Profile
- Mention your business name + add a link to your website in the first lines of your video description

Getting recommended by ChatGPT is 30× harder than ranking in Google’s traditional local search results.

Instead of showing multiple results like Google, AI platforms only show a handful of recommendations. Most businesses never get shown at all.

Research from SOCi also found that local data across most AI systems is often inaccurate or inconsistent. Platforms like ChatGPT don’t have a single source of accurate information.

Instead, they pull from multiple sources, which often include outdated or misleading information.

That’s why it’s not surprising that Google’s Gemini was much more accurate for local recommendations than Perplexity and ChatGPT. It has direct access to Google Business Profile and Google Maps data.

So, if you want to get recommended by AI, here’s what actually matters:

- Strong reviews across multiple review sites (rating, volume, freshness, responses)
- Mentions on blogs and “Best of” lists
- Consistent listings (Google Maps, Yelp, Facebook, niche directories)
- Detailed website content (services, specialties, local relevance)

In order to improve your AI visibility, you still need to build a strong SEO foundation, but you also need to improve your reputation across the web.

Before you add another video to your Google Business Profile, read this first.

Most businesses are posting videos on their Google Business Profile, but they’re missing a critical detail.

Here’s a simple process that instantly makes your videos more effective on Google:

1. Upload your video to Instagram or TikTok
2. Add captions
3. Download the video
4. Now upload it to your Google Business Profile

That’s it. You’ll now have a captioned video on your Profile that:

• provides context because videos on Google Maps don’t play audio by default
• stands out because moving text is more eye-catching
• and helps Google’s AI understand your video