Maps, Google Business Profile, reviews, service areas and the rest of the work that decides whether somebody three streets away can find you at the moment they need you.
A photographer's website is often a beautiful gallery with almost no words, and search engines and AI assistants read words. Here is how clients search for a photographer, which pages to write for weddings, families and businesses, and how to set up a Google profile without a studio.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-16
Google Business Profile special hours cover up to 6 days in a row, and a closure of 7 days or more calls for Temporarily closed instead. Here is how to set both before Thanksgiving on 26 November and the December holidays, and what to update on your website the same day.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-15
A home inspector has two audiences, the buyer who pays and the real estate agent who often suggests a name, and each one looks for different proof. Here is how both search, why a sample report matters, what BC licensing requires you to show, and how online booking wins the buyer with a deadline.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-10
Google's guidelines tell a plumber or cleaner who runs the business from a home address to clear that address and set a service area instead, up to 20 areas. Here is who counts as a service-area business, how to set it up, and what Google actually documents about ranking.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-09
Bing Places for Business is Microsoft's free listing for local businesses, and it now lives at bing.com/forbusiness. If your Google Business Profile is verified, the import screen promises instant verification, and Microsoft's own Copilot documentation explains how Copilot uses Bing's search service.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-07
A homeowner hires a painter after looking at photos of finished rooms and walls, so the painter whose work is easy to see and easy to request a quote from wins the job. Here is how customers search, which photos and pages matter, and how to plan for the interior and exterior seasons.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-06
Google Business Profile lets you publish updates, offers and events that appear on Search and Maps, and posts older than six months are archived. Here is what Google's own help says about each type, the content rules, and a posting rhythm a busy owner can keep.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-04
Apple Business Connect became part of a free service called Apple Business on 14 April 2026, and it is still where you claim your place card on Apple Maps. Here is how to sign up, verify, add a location and use showcases, using only Apple's own help pages.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-03
A one-star review from someone who was never your customer can be reported to Google, tracked in the Reviews Management Tool and appealed once. Here is what Google's policy prohibits, how to file the report, and how to reply in public while you wait.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-10-01
Arizona law requires cities of more than 75,000 people to allow at least one attached and one detached casita on a single-family lot, and each city wrote its own rules on size, height and setbacks. Here are the rules in Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Scottsdale, Chandler and Tempe, with the ordinance behind each, and the questions a casita builder's website should answer for every city it serves.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-29
Since January 1, 2026, Arizona cities of 75,000 people or more must allow duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and townhomes on single-family lots within one mile of their downtown. Here is what the statute requires, what Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Scottsdale, Chandler and Tempe each adopted, and the pages a small builder should publish so that lot owners find a builder who knows their city's rules.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-29
Florida law lets each county and city decide whether to allow accessory dwelling units, and the 2026 bill that would have required an ordinance everywhere by December 1, 2026 failed on March 13, 2026. The homeowner's question is therefore local. Here are the state rules, the Census permit counts, and what a builder's page for each place should say.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-29
After a hurricane, a Florida homeowner asks whether the city can stop a rebuild, how long the permit takes, how high the floor must be and what the 50 percent rule means for a repair. Each answer is written in a statute or a code section. Here are the rules, with their numbers, and the pages a builder of flood-resistant homes should publish.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-29
On September 29, 2026 we opened the websites of 80 small home builders, 40 in Arizona and 40 in Florida, wrote one note per site, and then opened every site a second time to check each note. 54 had a fault that both readings confirmed: 14 show an old year in the footer, 14 link no blog, 12 have a homepage title or main heading that names no service or no city. Here is each fault, what Google's own documentation says about it, and the fix.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-29
Google says local results depend mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that nobody can pay for a better local ranking. Here is what each factor means for a single shop next to a national chain, and the work within an owner's reach.
Category: Local SEO • Published: 2026-09-27