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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 “must-read” and “must-watch” links, including news, trends, and can't-miss resources.
[Darren Shaw]
Welcome to the Whitespark Local Update. This is the podcast where we talk about what's happened in local search in the last week. But today we're talking about the last two weeks with me, Darren Shaw.
[Claire Carlile]
And with me, Claire Carlile.
[Darren Shaw]
Yay. So Claire, do you have anything interesting to talk about this week?
[Claire Carlile]
I've got so many things to talk about. So my first linky link is from the very lovely and very clever Cyrus Shepherd. So this lives on a subdomain on his Zippy website.
So he actually has a paid for newsletter, which looks jolly good because he puts together frameworks, which are going to be very useful resources for people. So this is not the paid for content. This is actually a newish post on his site, which is called 17 content types to survive Google's zero click future, which I love.
I love this. So I think that you might have talked previously about another piece that he wrote, which is five data backed features of websites. I love this.
It's like a tongue twister. Five data backed features of websites winning Google in 2026.
[Darren Shaw]
Yes. Ten times best.
[Claire Carlile]
So I just I can't. And when he wrote that. So he talked about winning websites, having these being like this, basically.
So they offer a product or service. They enable task completion. They own proprietary assets and they maintain tight topical focus and they have or are a strong brand.
So we know that those are the things that we are striving for to have a successful website. And when we when we say successful, we're predominantly talking about getting visibility in the Google SERP in this instance. So then he goes on to talk about these 17 content types and list them all out.
And this is the type of post that I love because it goes ahead. It gives us this list of content types, but it also gives you examples. So if it's talking about original research and saying, you know, this is what it is, it's it's high effort, but it's a very strong, you know, tactic, basically.
And then he gives the example. So he says chart mogul insights, Carta data and Orbit media blogging statistics. I love this.
This is gold. This is absolute gold.
[Darren Shaw]
This is the thing. This is the new way to do it. Like, yeah, we were just talking about this at Whitespark.
Yeah.
[Claire Carlile]
Yeah. So it's not new. Like this is this is good marketing and it has been good marketing for a long time.
But a lot of people are obviously needing to revisit this because they've never visited it. But it's a lovely breakdown of those different content types, because sometimes we just find ourselves permanently just stuck in a in a bit of a rut in terms of how we think about content and content. So everyone take a look at this.
It is gold.
[Darren Shaw]
Gold is platinum gold. Yeah. So the the interesting thing to think about with this is what is the inverse?
What is the content type that no longer works? And I think it's like a blog post about a topic that has already been written about a hundred times.
[Claire Carlile]
And it's on a website that isn't necessarily just focused on that one thing.
[Darren Shaw]
Yeah, exactly. If you're off of off topic. And then the other part is I think you're going to talk about this.
But the ultimate guide.
[Claire Carlile]
I'm not going to talk about that. I think that's all right.
[Darren Shaw]
I think.
[Claire Carlile]
No, no, no, I'm not. Don't say it. You can say it and then I'll argue with you about it.
[Darren Shaw]
So I'm going to talk about a LinkedIn post from Miriam Jessyer. The length of pages and how AI chunkers get tired. They're like, it's too much.
Don't give me a big, long page because you can actually see this. Everyone's had this experience. You're chatting with a chat and then the chat gets too long.
It's like the context window fails and it forgets things that can happen on your content. The AI is reading and it's like, I've run out of tokens to properly consume your ultimate guide. It's like too long.
And so this is very interesting to think about. So she cites a paper from an Andy Osmond or Addy Osmond, Osmani. I'm saying the name totally wrong.
It talks about how agents compress multi-page navigation into one or two HTTP requests and either your content fits in that request or it doesn't. So everything else kind of, it's like if your page is too long, the LLMs will just throw it out. Be like, no, too long.
Don't like it. And so then there's a browser extension that has been built that allows you to put your page in and it'll show you the token usage. Like how much does this page use in terms of tokens?
And one of the interesting takeaways here was the idea of alt text. I was like, I didn't really put enough thought into alt text. Like alt text, that feels like 2010 SEO.
But if you think about it, the LLMs need that context. They're not going to analyze every image because they don't have enough. They're not going to waste tokens processing your image and understanding what it is.
And so that's where alt text actually becomes pretty important. So anyways, check out this post on the LinkedIn and maybe try out this extension. And back to what we were talking about with the ultimate guide.
I feel like that type of content is missing from Cyrus's 17 list of content types that are really good and are still performing. And the reason for that is twofold. One, the LLMs get tired.
They don't want to read your ultimate guide. And two, humans. Humans are like, I don't have enough attention span to read that ultimate guide.
There is value in having that content. But I think we need to work on splitting it up and in the ultimate guide, including some of Cyrus's content types with the, you know, UGC stuff or original research. Like if you're going to do an ultimate guide, you got to spice it up with real stuff.
I can't just be regurgitating the content that's already out there on the Internet. Those are my thoughts. Now, you said you got an argument for me about the ultimate guide.
Let's hear it.
[Claire Carlile]
I think it's more nuanced than it is right or it is wrong. It all depends on the context, how it's performing, how that guide is structured. I'm really worried that by people saying everything needs to be short, we will just go back to the days where people are.
It was like in the olden days where people used to write a page to optimize for one keyword in 1783.
[Darren Shaw]
Yeah, that's the way back in the day.
[Claire Carlile]
So I think that it is all much more nuanced than saying you have to. Everything just needs to be short because of the chunky chunks. Yeah.
Yes. So it's not an argument per se, but I'm not going to go for a you must do this now because everything depends on your business, your content type, what's already performing, whether or not you have all of those parts that Cyrus said. You know, these are the sort of, you know, high performing.
Then there still is a place, obviously, for long form content that could be a super guide. So, yes.
[Darren Shaw]
Well, would you not agree you could still create the super guide, but the way to structure it on your website would be the way that we've done it with our Google Business Profile Super Guide, which is it's it's a guide, but it's broken into multiple pages. And so it's not just one massive long page. Would you agree with that?
[Claire Carlile]
I would say that is a great piece of content, given that WhiteSpark is all about local SEO, offers a product or service that is all based around local SEO, has a strong brand and performs very well from an entity perspective. And then it has a local guide, all of the parts that, yes, are based around an individual theme. So, yes, that that's winning for me, but it's still a super guide and it's still long form content.
Another thing is, why is everyone so obsessed about chat GBT? How much of your traffic is still coming from those places? That that's that, you know.
So why is everyone so obsessed about visibility in LLMs?
[Darren Shaw]
I would answer that question with because it's where Google is heading. And so when the SERP switches to AI mode only, if that ever happened, it's like trying to get ahead of it. Right.
So that would be my argument there. I'd be like, well, sure, traffic's not currently coming from it, but I kind of see where Google's heading with this. And I'm like, I just want to make sure that my content will survive in the next era of search.
[Claire Carlile]
Yeah. But without throwing your baby, your baby out with the bathwater by being so focused on that, that you forget about the fact that you're still trying to drive people to your website and not targeting just these informational keywords, because that's, you know, you need to drive people to the website so they can go ahead and make the purchase and do the things.
[Darren Shaw]
All agree.
[Claire Carlile]
OK, very good.
[Darren Shaw]
What's your next link?
[Claire Carlile]
My next link. So a couple of things I've seen on the. Oh, no, actually, I before I do the LinkedIn one, I will just say a little something from the Google business.
Is it the small business bulletin, the email that we always talk about that comes through that Lisa Lansman writes from Google? So a little thing in there is your Google business profile gallery just got smarter. Woo.
But not very smart.
[Darren Shaw]
No, it's barely smarter. But yeah, go on.
[Claire Carlile]
I know what's happening. It had an IQ of about two beforehand. And maybe it's gone to like, you know, it's barely, barely literate.
So we've updated Google business profile to sort photos and videos by upload date. Great. So this is only for photos or videos uploaded by the business.
And it just means that the ones that you uploaded more recently will appear at the top. OK, so that's really good. But do you remember the olden days when we used to interact if we were interacting natively with Google business profile in business dot Google dot com?
And it used to allow us to see customer uploaded photos and videos in all different ways by, you know, by grouping them. I don't know. There was so many things that we used to be able to do that we can no longer do.
So, you know, allowing me to see which photos I uploaded most recently in Google business profile in the sort of interfaces. You know, let's just celebrate the small wins. Thank you.
[Darren Shaw]
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.
It's like, why do you give us that, but then not give us an interface for sorting them? Right. Like you're almost there.
It's like, thank you. I guess that's helpful. It's better than what we had before.
So we'll take it. But I did have a thought about this. You could then leverage this to push out a bad customer uploaded photo, I think.
[Claire Carlile]
But no, this is just your customer uploaded photos. So you should have a regular cadence of of sorry, of business uploaded photos anyway.
[Darren Shaw]
Here's my idea.
[Claire Carlile]
OK.
[Darren Shaw]
Someone uploads a picture of a cockroach to your restaurant listing and you're like, oh, man, I don't want that on my profile. And then Google decides that it's going to make it your like number one picture. Right.
So it's like something awful happens. You're like, I want to get that picture out of here. So what you do is all the business uploaded photos that you currently have on your profile, you delete them all.
Oh, you save them, whatever. Now you just upload a hundred new. They all have a brand new date.
And you've pushed that cockroach photo back by 100 photos. This is my theory. I haven't tested it, but that was my idea.
[Claire Carlile]
OK.
[Darren Shaw]
Do you think it would work?
[Claire Carlile]
Well, I don't know, because when photos show up algorithmically, they're showing up in all different orders based on.
[Darren Shaw]
So that was the point of the update is they're now going to put them in order.
[Claire Carlile]
But this is just so you can see your photos that you've uploaded in the interface. This is nothing to do with the way that it displays in the front end.
[Darren Shaw]
Are you kidding me? What is this? This is useless.
What is this?
[Claire Carlile]
Yes.
[Darren Shaw]
I was excited about this potential to get rid of the cockroach photo, but I guess it's not going to work. My next link is about the Ask Maps feature. Speaking of the future of search, I was invited to be a guest with a wonderful panel on the Near Media podcast with Mike Blumenthal, Greg Sterling, Claudia Tomina.
[Claire Carlile]
Oh, Claudia!
[Darren Shaw]
Yeah, I had to get her name in. Claudia Tomina and Adam Dorfman. And we talked about Ask Maps, and it was a tough one for me because I don't have Ask Maps.
I'm Canadian, and Google's like, no, Ask Maps for you, lowly Canadian. And so I haven't been able to test it very much myself. So I was mostly there to listen and learn and hear from the people that do get a chance to try.
And there was lots of great learning. So I'm going to say this is an episode you definitely want to go listen to. Some of the things that I thought were interesting was Claudia talked about a case where she was working with Ask Maps and she asked it like, does this jeweler carry the specific watch brand?
And Ask Maps is like, yes, they do. So but then Claudia called them and they do not. But she found some she's like, OK, well, why'd Ask Maps tell me that?
Because like 10 years ago, they did carry it. And so some thing on the Internet still said that. And so that gives you this idea like, man, your old data is interesting.
Right. When we switch to a conversational search. Right.
So Google or Google's A.I. is like we found information on the Internet and you may be 10 years old, but it says that you carry that watch brand. So the idea of like cleaning up your data kind of becomes a lot more important in the new world of conversational search. And that is coming to Google Maps and local results through Ask Maps.
I thought that was interesting. And so, yeah, it was a great episode. We talked about all kinds of things.
One of the things I mentioned in the episode was about the concept of fame, like how famous is your brand? And I think we've talked about that on the podcast before, Clara, where like is your brand known in your local community? I think that's what we have to extend our SEO services to and be really working with clients to help them get notoriety within their their locality.
I think that is a huge thing that becomes much more important in the world of A.I. driven search. And so, yeah, that was just a thought. Like if you want to do really well in Ask Maps, you want to do really well in A.I. mode. That's that's part of the process now. And so like, how do you how do you do that? I don't know.
I'm still figuring it out. So anyways, it was a great episode. Go and listen to it near media.
Always good stuff.
[Claire Carlile]
Excellent. It's also worth remembering that Ask Maps has got a K on the end of it, because I know that some people think that we're saying different things. I saw one of the YouTube comments.
[Darren Shaw]
Ask Maps.
[Claire Carlile]
Ask Maps.
[Darren Shaw]
You've got to really annunciate that K.
[Claire Carlile]
Because the other thing is something else. So my second LinkedIn link is from a chap called Michael B. Snow, who is talking about.
Now, you might remember Claudia was talking about this feature and for restaurants. So getting their their offers and their sort of daily specials and making sure that you make more of a feature of those things, whether that is Nate directly in Google business profile with offers, posts, whatever, but also it's bringing in social posts. But the thing was that Google extended this for into the leisure industry, because it's quite interesting when they start rolling out different countries, different verticals.
So supposedly this is available and happening in the leisure industry. So I'm playing around with that for a couple of clients at the moment. Still not seeing it, but I've only just implemented it.
So have a look to see if that is available for you. If you if you work in the leisure industry or you have a client in the leisure industry, making sure because you use that because it takes up a lot of real estate. It's very clickable and it's also very relevant.
And you can imagine that that type of information would feed very, very happily into AI search. So have a look at this post and try and trigger this for your leisure industry customers and clients.
[Darren Shaw]
So when I look at these screenshots, I am thrilled to see such a thing. This is like a it's like a massive justification right on your listing. And then you can click it and expand and see the whole Google Post right at the top of your listing.
This is amazing. So I cannot wait for them to roll this out to all industries. They all, as you mentioned, always often start in food and leisure stuff.
But wow, I am so thrilled to see Google Post getting prominent placement in the results. Wow.
[Claire Carlile]
Hopefully, hopefully they'll roll this out for dentists in Denver for you.
[Darren Shaw]
Because I like plumber. I think the plumbers in Denver really need this.
[Claire Carlile]
But dentists in Denver, I thought we need to go for more alliteration in our primary service. Yeah, yeah. Primary service plus geographic location.
I think we need that. That's my third link. What is yours?
[Darren Shaw]
Yeah, I'm excited to see that. That's a great one. My third link is from the wonderful Miriam Ellis.
We love you, Miriam. She wrote a fantastic guide on the WhiteSpark website to AI mode for local businesses. And so this is something, you know, speaking of the future of search, how do you do it?
She does a great job of breaking that down for you. So she talks about how local search is changing. She discusses some of the problems, you know, hallucinations and old data and the randomization of it.
And then she also gives an excellent how-to on what you need to do. You're a local business. You need to do stuff.
And I will say something about her how-to that is why you need to go read this post. She is a very smart veteran local SEO. And she talks about things that I really don't see other people talking about.
And so she just got really good ideas. I'll give you one of them. She talks about one of the things you should be doing is photograph all aspects of your business and then publish your photos on those new photos on your website, your local business listings, review platforms, social media profiles.
So this is actually really critical because that's an important data source that a lot of people have forgotten about. But I don't think if you talk to any of the AI bros, they're not telling you to do this job. And so this is where Miriam is like, you know, she's she's connecting the dots from her years, many years of local search experience to with the AI stuff and thinking in a way that is very smart for local businesses.
So this post has a big checklist of things that you can do to optimize for AI mode. And that, I think, applies to all of the AI surfaces. And so go have a list, go have a read.
Or you can use Speechify and have Gwyneth Paltrow read it to you. I like to do it.
[Claire Carlile]
But yes. Don't forget to click Darren's affiliate link so he gets that. No, not really.
I love this. And I love Miriam. And I love the way that Miriam always is brilliant at contextualizing things and giving really actionable stuff.
So I am going to read this and try the things out for my clients.
[Darren Shaw]
Nice. Yeah. Well, I think we did it.
We did a whole podcast.
[Claire Carlile]
A whole one.
[Darren Shaw]
Well, thanks for listening and watching and leaving us a review on Apple and a comment on YouTube. We love you, too. This is just a podcast full of love today.
But thanks for everything. And I guess we'll see you next time.
[Claire Carlile]
Goodbye.
[Darren Shaw]
Bye, everybody.
[Claire Carlile]
Bye.