r/localsearch

Hi Reddit! I’m Joy Hawkins. I’ve been working in the Local SEO trenches since 2006. Today, I’m the founder and owner of Sterling Sky (a leading Local SEO agency in the US & Canada), and the owner of LocalU and the Local Search Forum.

I am also a Google Business Profile Platinum Product Expert, which means I spend a massive chunk of my life volunteering inside Google's official help forums, helping business owners navigate the constant puzzles, bugs, and shifts on the platform.

If you’ve spent any time working on Google Maps over the last few years, you know that managing a Google Business Profile (GBP) has become a bit of a minefield. Between sudden, automated suspensions, the headache of the new appeal processes, massive algorithm updates like Vicinity, and a relentless flood of fake, spam listings choking out legitimate local businesses, Local SEO isn't as simple as just "optimizing your NAP consistency" anymore.

At Sterling Sky, we don’t rely on guesswork. We test every single theory, myth, and strategy to find out what actually impacts local rankings and conversions.

This AMA is your chance to pick my brain about anything and everything related to GBP issues. We can dive deep into:

• GBP Video Verification: How to survive Google's strict new video verification processes, what to show on camera to prove your business is real on the first try, and how to fix it when the system gets stuck in a loop.
• GBP Suspensions & Appeal: How to navigate Google's brutal suspension workflows without losing your mind, and the exact documentation you need to successfully get a profile back online.
• Fighting and Reporting Map Spam: Red-hot tactics for identifying fake listings, tracking lead-gen networks, and successfully cleaning up your local market using the Redressal Form so your real business can rank.
• Why Your Legitimate Google Reviews Are Going Missing: Breaking down Google's aggressive AI review filters, why perfectly honest customer reviews get ghosted or filtered out, and the exact steps to take to try and get them restored.
• Weaponized Fake Reviews and How to Remove Them: How to confidently identify a negative review attack from a competitor, or other types of fake reviews, and the precise escalation path needed to get Google to actually take down fraudulent 1-star reviews.
• The Truth GBP Optimization: What our internal testing reveals about choosing primary and secondary categories, adding attributes, and whether adding more categories actually hurts or helps your visibility.
• Local Service Ads (LSAs) vs. Organic Maps: When you should stop pouring money into PPC and double down on your 3-pack strategy, and how to structure both to complement each other.
• Local SEO Myth-Busting: Geotagging photos? Keywords in owner responses? Let’s talk about the tactics that are complete wastes of time versus the ones that move the needle.

Whether you're a multi-location brand, a local contractor, or an agency marketer looking for answers, ask me anything!

https://preview.redd.it/7tdfom5rdfah1.jpg?width=1590&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9dc197bad8743aed973715610914337fe273e08

Change my mind. In local SEO, two reviews a month for a year will outperform a burst of fifty once in a while.

Google tracks the pattern of how you collect reviews, not just the total number. A business getting reviews consistently every month signals an actively operating, trusted business.

Most businesses ask for reviews from everyone at once, collect a flood, and tick the box. The problem is Google has seen this pattern millions of times, and it does not reward it.

You can avoid this. Pick one point in your customer journey where asking for a review makes sense.

- It can be after a job is completed.
- after a delivery.
- after a positive interaction.

Make that the moment you always ask. Every customer, every time, without exception. Make your employees do that as well.

That single habit, done consistently, will do more for your local ranking than any review push ever will.

Hi Reddit! I’m Jason Hennessey. I’ve spent 20+ years reverse-engineering the Google algorithm for top-tier law firms. If you’ve looked into SEO for law firms and legal marketing over the last two decades, you’ve probably run across my work. I literally wrote the book on this industry (Law Firm SEO), and my agency, Hennessey Digital, manages search strategy for some of the biggest personal injury and trial firms in the country, driving hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees.

Jason Hennessey - Law Firm SEO Expert Reddit AMA

I don't say that to brag; I say it because the legal SEO landscape is currently facing its biggest disruption in history. The old playbook of stuffing keywords and buying cheap backlinks is dead. Between Google’s relentless core updates, the rollout of AI Overviews, and the aggressive monetization of LSAs, competing for the most expensive keywords in the world has become a high-stakes chess match. If you aren't adapting to how Google measures real-world entity authority and AI search, your traffic is going to drop off a cliff.

This AMA is all about pulling back the curtain on what it actually takes to dominate legal search today. No agency fluff, no "black box" secrets. We can talk about:

• Decoding AI Search & LLMs: How to optimize your firm’s digital footprint so you actually show up as a recommended source in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.
• Why "Entity" Matters More Than Keywords: How Google uses your brand’s digital reputation, reviews, and entity mapping to decide if you are a legitimate authority or just another website.
• The Reality of High-Stakes Personal Injury SEO: What it actually takes to win the hyper-competitive "car accident lawyer" markets without burning through your budget.
• Lessons from 15,000+ Law Firm Sites: What we discovered in our annual Branded Organic Search Study about how top-performing firms stay dominant year after year.
• Why We Don't Use Long-Term Contracts: Why I believe the traditional agency model is broken, and why legal marketing should be judged strictly on month-over-month revenue metrics.
• Scaling to an 8-Figure Agency: The business systems, culture hacks, and scaling lessons I learned going from a solo consultant to leading a 130+ person global team.

I’m here to talk shop and answer your toughest SEO for legal questions.

Whether you're a solo practitioner trying to get your first 10 cases, or a massive multi-state firm trying to defend your market share, ask me anything!

Topics include SEO, legal marketing, law firm SEO, AI search, ChatGPT optimization, Google AI Overviews, entity SEO, local SEO, law firm growth, lead generation, entrepreneurship, and agency scaling.

A few years ago it was a popular tactic. Curious if anyone has tested it recently and seen a measurable impact.

Google keeps saying 'create quality content' but AI-generated content is now outranking hand-written articles, are we past the point where effort actually matters?