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The Whitespark Local Update is the go-to podcast for Local SEOs and Marketers who want to stay ahead of the curve in local search and the local visibility space.
Join industry experts Claire Carlile and Darren Shaw for a lively, insightful roundup of their carefully curated selection of top βmust-readβ and βmust-watchβ links, including news, trends, and can't-miss resources.
Darren Shaw (00:00.066)
Welcome to another episode of the Whitespark Local Update with me, Darren Shaw.
Claire Carlile (00:04.558)
Come with me, Claire Carlile
Darren Shaw (00:07.53)
And we have some awesome new developments in local search to tell you about like we always do. Claire, what is your first topic to talk about?
Claire Carlile (00:16.012)
to business Darren, no, no bants.
Darren Shaw (00:19.412)
No man, normally they want to hear our band but they just want to hear the links.
Claire Carlile (00:22.696)
Everyone's here for the bants. Okay, pretend we've done some bants and as a useful segue into some linky links.
Darren Shaw (00:30.062)
I think we just did. You forced it to happen.
Claire Carlile (00:33.442)
Hello. Hello. My first linky link is. so let's start with Steve Weidemann on the near media YouTubey, tubey, tubey video channel. They do these rather mammoth recordings. And so this is an epic two-parter. but if you don't know about Steve, you should do cause he is a proper.
worldy in terms of he's been around a long time, he knows lots of stuff, he's written brilliantly, he's spoken brilliantly, but his main thing is sort of multi-location and franchise. And so he runs a consulting group and he works with a ton of like big businesses and franchises. So he knows a ton about that. both videos are worth watching. The one that sort of caught my eye
which again is a little bit like something else I'm going to talk about, which is the thing about when you have to speak to stakeholders who want to speak to you about LLMs and AI, and they want to drive some sort of agenda that basically they're not ready for because they don't really understand what's happening. Steve gives a really nice example of like, I don't know what type of stakeholder it was, someone high up in an organization who was asking.
about agentic commerce, and what they were doing. So if you think about like, Steve works with a ton of like food places. So like, imagine like, is it IHOP and things like that, we don't have it in the UK. So yeah, what are we doing about agentic commerce? And then Steve unpacks, you know, how to communicate with stakeholders, and to focus more broadly on what they're doing around AI. So he talks about saying, you know,
We'll get to that, but let's take a step back and look at things more strategically. What are we doing in general about AI and LLM? So he gives some like little actionable bits here where he says, well, we're working with tech teams so that bots can access the website and our content is retrievable. And so they don't have an issue finding and being able to site.
Darren Shaw (02:45.43)
doing that already, but yeah.
Claire Carlile (02:47.758)
Well, that's the point is because, they won't know the stakeholder isn't going to know what they're actually doing to make sure that the site is accessible, that there, you know, it can be cited. And then he talks about working with off-page teams to help increase the frequency of semantic triples in all of our citations everywhere.
Darren Shaw (03:08.162)
Sounds very good. He's like, stakeholders are like, great job, Steve.
Claire Carlile (03:12.334)
Yeah. thanks, Steve. I haven't thought about it in those terms. you know, pointing out that the, you know, LLMs aren't going to be driving a terrific amount of revenue. And instead of thinking about what are we doing about agentic commerce, basically, Steve is saying, well, you know, we're talking about big organizations, we're going to use things like OpenTable. Those are the ones that are going to work on the agentic commerce protocol. We're not going to be doing that as an organization. And at some point in two or three years down the line, there will be documentation.
that will help us put those agentic parts in place. So it's just like, whoa, hold your horses. This is how to speak to stakeholders and get them to see the picture a little bit more broadly. I thought it was useful. I thought it was interesting. And I welcome your insight, Steve.
Darren Shaw (03:59.598)
I mean, I gotta watch it because obviously everything the near media puts out is amazing. And Steve Wiedemann, I'm a big fan of this guy and he's got smart ideas. So that's a good one. I will give him the listen over the weekend. got it.
Claire Carlile (04:14.126)
Okay, I'll test you.
Darren Shaw (04:17.61)
You test me on Tuesday. Hey, Darren, give me a quiz. My first link is from someone we don't really talk about much on this podcast, but she's really smart and she always produces interesting content. So Claudia Tamina has published an article on search engine land called If your local rankings are off, your map pin may be the reason. And so I love this article because there's not a
Like map pins are a mystery, so this helps unpack some of the mystery of how the map pin works and what you need to know about how Google sets your location is very critical because your map pin is actually where your rankings are based. It's not your address. That's a lot of people think, oh, well, my rankings are based on my address. It's not necessarily your address because, you know, if you think back a year or two ago, people were doing the map pin scam where they were.
drag your map pin to the middle of the ocean and be like, I don't rank at my address anymore, I rank in the ocean. So the pin is very critical and I learned a couple things in this article that I hadn't thought of before. The first one is the suite numbers in the address one field. It's very interesting and she points this out. Those have to go in like floor, building, any like little modifiers, they have to go to address two. And the reason for that is that Google,
geolocates based on what you put into the address one field. So we've got a whole bunch of extra weird stuff in there. Google's system sometimes can't figure out what that is and then it messes up where Google places your geocordinates, your map pin. And so that's interesting. I didn't actually think about that before. I always knew it's best practice to put sweet number in address two field, but this is the reason. It's like, don't mess with it because you could actually screw up your ranking significantly.
So that was interesting. The other thing I thought was very interesting is that if Google does get confused and doesn't know how to geolocate whatever gobbledygook you put into the address one field, then apparently research required. She says it'll default to the city centroid. He'd be like, we don't know where to put you. It's just slapping it in the middle of the centroid of your city. And I'm like, what? That's interesting too. So now I want to like.
Darren Shaw (06:36.142)
I tried zooming into the centroid and be like, I'm going to see like hundred businesses just all floating around in the middle there. But I didn't see them and I'm like, I did see a couple though. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But then I was like, oh, did they do it deliberately? Cause they were trying to like rank in the city. So those are things about the address pin. And so if you want to understand, and she also talks about how it impacts service area businesses. So it's, it's honestly on my street. Like if you care about local search, go to SEO search engine land and read this one.
Claire Carlile (07:05.934)
Well, thank you, Claudia.
Darren Shaw (07:07.704)
Thanks again, Claudia, providing great content for our podcast as always.
Claire Carlile (07:12.142)
Ding ding! The Claudia Bell has
Darren Shaw (07:15.628)
mean, are like some kind of like fireworks that goes off whenever?
Claire Carlile (07:22.572)
My second linky link is by someone that I have spoken about before. So I listened to this in an audio format as a podcast. was Brittany, our friend Brittany Muller on the Ross Simmons podcast. Do you know what? I need to know more about Ross. feel like Ross knows lots of things that I need to learn. But Brittany is...
Darren Shaw (07:37.026)
Wow, those two? What a powerhouse.
Claire Carlile (07:49.706)
Everything. Everything to me. She is...
Darren Shaw (07:53.458)
Start singing, sing a song.
Claire Carlile (07:55.534)
You are my everything. You to me are everything. You are, Brittany. I loved it. I made my child listen to it in the car. was like, did you think that was really interesting? And they were like, no, but whatever. They need to be exposed to these things. like, again, this is a really good, nice little thing. The importance of having honest conversations with your clients about LLMs and how they answer prompts.
And I think Brittany was having a not very guarded swipe at sort of LLM tracking tools. so she was talking about, you know, LLMs, how they answer prompts and how reverse engineering LLMs isn't really a thing. So she's talking about getting your client, you know, showing them doing the same prompt multiple times in the same interface.
and showing how differently it surfaces the answers. And then you're explaining the probabilistic nature of these models and how, you know, there's no rank, it's not a ranking system. That's not how it works. And then she also had a nice little analogy, she says that came from one of those students. Traditional SEO is like having your product on the store shelf. an LLM or an AI is like being recommended by an employee.
It depends. know, it depends what's there at the time. It depends what they've looked at is depends on what their auntie Marjorie said it, you know, whatever. So I really, really, really like that. And then she went on or they went on to talk about the discussion of the future of SEO and what it's going to look like basically is SEO dead. And then the idea that, you know,
AI is always going to need answers, which is going to have to scrape from somewhere. And while it's still serving rag, while it's still using rag, obviously it's going to remain important. But we've been saying this for ages, we just need to have a much more open mind as marketers, getting better at meeting audiences where they are off site and adding more value outside of this sort of zero click landscape. And then she's talking about
Claire Carlile (10:15.19)
Evaluating things like using analytics, because obviously there's a big measurement gap, isn't there? what's driving traffic today? What's currently working? And then doubling down on that and experimenting with the platform for three months, for four months, for five months, and seeing if you can get better traffic, better returns, better conversions. But it's just going back to being marketers and thinking about things more in terms of, which we should be doing anyway, is visibility. We're trying to get visibility in different places.
We're not trying to rank in LLMs and I will stop talking about that now.
Darren Shaw (10:49.154)
I like that analogy a lot. What's on the shelf is search and what your anti-Marjorie recommends is the LLM. But only if anti-Marjorie is confused and scattered and gives you a different answer every time. Like, I recommend this. Ask again in 20 minutes. now I recommend this. Which one is it, Marjorie? Yeah. Okay. My next one is from The Brilliant.
the famous Cyrus Shepherd. Cyrus Shepherd wrote an article on his own blog, Zippy, how Google click signals drive SEO rankings and AI answers. If you don't know this because of the, we always predict, we always thought this, but then it was confirmed with the API leak, the DOJ trial and patents that SEO or SEOs now understand that rankings are heavily impacted by.
clicks, how people are clicking. So this article goes into the details of how that works. There is a bad click. Someone jumps back within a few seconds. There's a good click. Someone sticks around on the page for 30 plus seconds. And then there's the last long click. They never come back. That's like, that tells Google that your answer, that your query was satisfied because they clicked on your page and then they never came back with search results.
These are very important things. And so he has amazing graphics. He explains how all of this works. It's a must read to like really understand how this process works. And then I it was very interesting because he talks about how, yes, this actually impacts your visibility in AI too. So you're thinking, oh, well, isn't this a Google search thing? Well, it is because AI overviews and AI mode summarize the top ranking pages. So if you're ranking well via clicks, when clicks help you rank well, then that'll actually help you surface in AI mode and AI summaries.
And Chad GPT and other LLMs actually rely on Google search results too. So it is important. And then he gives you the whole playbook. Like, this is exactly what you need to do to improve your getting a click and keeping the stick, making them stay on your page. really good article, must read. Get the click and the stick. That's what you gotta do. That's the new motto for SEO in 2026.
Claire Carlile (13:06.732)
for everyone everywhere in all parts of their life. Okay.
Darren Shaw (13:11.608)
That's right.
Claire Carlile (13:12.718)
Maybe. Um, my final link is a white paper from GetStat, which in the white paper is called the SERP in 2026, a data driven feature analysis. But in real life, we are only at the first quarter. So really it's drawing on three years of data analysis. So they look at 200,000 SERPs for probably loads. And I've looked at this data set before is like lots of different queries from branded to.
intent driven something or other, don't know, lots of different queries. And they look at it and they look at the top five. So it is interesting to see that obviously, well, as you would expect in this top five, that number four are the local packs. So like the bread and butter of our business and what we do for our own businesses and our clients. But but obviously, this is the bit that we're really not. No one's sure about what is happening with the SERP what is happening with
You know, AI mode does that become like the default mode. Basically Google becomes like more of a chat GPT type interface where, you know, you only see the citations if you expand somewhere on the screen, what is going to happen to the local pack. So that's one thing that we are sort of constantly thinking about as local marketers. So they talk about obviously the fact that this feature is long standing.
They're actually seeing in 2026, what was the data? Local packs were 4 % overall share of position one in January 2024, 4.6 in January 2025 and 5.7 in January 2026. So increasing prominence year on year for the set, for the SERP set that they're looking at.
Yeah, sure. And also, it's sort of surprising to me because that again, I'm obviously used to looking at a UK SERP. So they're not as visible because we have other features to do with, you know, European law. So what's going to happen with this? We don't know. But apart from the fact that it's one of the like Google business profiles and the local pack isn't going to suddenly disappear. No, it is obviously going to be something that is
Claire Carlile (15:28.364)
super important to businesses to update, respond to, keep updated. I just really like, I like those stats. Obviously it's their sample set. But you know, what's going to happen next? You know, is it going to be a 10 pack, a one pack, a three pack, a two pack? Who knows what is going to happen with our local results and how those Google business profiles are shown on the page.
Darren Shaw (15:54.392)
But they're still going to be around. I think that's a huge thing. People are stressing. They're like, no, AI is going to ruin our jobs and our livelihood. I think that your comment is totally true. Google business profiles aren't going anywhere. There's still lots of to be done to optimize those. And how they get presented, well, that's probably going to change. Still critical.
Claire Carlile (16:17.706)
Yeah. That's it. That's my last linky link. What is yours?
Darren Shaw (16:22.858)
My last one is from our good friend, Miriam Ellis. Miriam Ellis has published her Q1 roundup. So she's doing these 20 local developments you need to know about from Q1 2026. So every quarter, she kind of goes through everything that's been covered in the past three months and produces the super great summary of things you need to know. And Miriam always picks up things that I totally missed. And so I love to read it because of that.
Give you a couple. Greg Gifford posted on LinkedIn about what's allowed for auto dealers with regards to departments and what's not. So he says, and I didn't know this, the only departments you can have are your service department, your parts department, and body shops. Just the three. then of course, the main listing is sales, right? You cannot have oil changes. You cannot have tire service. It's a little bit of a rant because he's complaining about other...
the agencies that are suggesting that businesses try to make departments for oil changes. And some of them are getting away with it. you know, Greg says it's a ticking time bomb that you'll eventually get penalized for doing such things. I didn't know that. The other thing is I missed this but Miriam's article alerted me to it. Surprise, surprise. It's from Claudia. So she talks about how AI ring the Claudia bell. She talks about
how AI summaries are being driven by old reviews. So you know how like on the Google business profile, Google is now generating like, here's some information about this business that we generate with the AI. And it's so annoying. It's like, it'll say something negative from a review from seven years ago. And you're like, Google, why are you pulling that one in? And so she's got a post about that. And you may have missed some things in local search. And if you did,
This is the article to go and read because she surfaces the most important and interesting things that you may have missed. So you gotta read that one too. Great, thanks Miriam.
Claire Carlile (18:27.34)
Thank you, Mary. It's all like the TLDR roundup of everything in the whole world. I couldn't be bothered to look at LinkedIn and all Claudia's posts like you do every time one pops into your feed. Quick, Claudia's posted. What does she say?
Darren Shaw (18:45.71)
I actually have like an alarm like a siren that goes off in my house. It's done. We should have Claudia on the. Oh, God.
Claire Carlile (18:49.75)
In your
Claire Carlile (18:56.974)
I think Claudia needs to do an outro which basically says the end and then.
Darren Shaw (19:03.95)
We just spliced that in every time. Okay, thanks everybody for listening. Go leave us a review on Apple Podcast because that helps us very much and sign up for all the software at White Spark. That helps us even more. And if you want SEO services, we have a great SEO services team. You should sign up for that and we'll do your SEO work for you as well. So yeah.
Claire Carlile (19:24.782)
Thanks for joining. Okay, love you, bye.
Darren Shaw (19:26.51)
Goodbye.