Darren Shaw

Whitespark

Whitespark builds online tools and provides services that help businesses and agencies with local SEO. We're known for our Local Citation Finder, Local Rank Tracker, Citation Building & Audit Services, and Local SEO Consulting. Our team often collaborates with other industry leaders and frequently presents at top SEO & Marketing conferences in North America.

Founder

University of Alberta

Networking and system administration and operation, development and management of the relational databases, GIS database development, web site development and maintenance.

Research Computing Coordinator

Hi, I'm Darren! 👋

I've been doing web development and SEO for 27 years (yes, before Google existed)

A bit about me 👇
🔹 Founder of Whitespark: local SEO software and services.
🔹 Local SEO educator with 36,000+ newsletter subscribers, 8,000+ YouTube subscribers, and 2,000+ email course sign-ups
🔹 In charge of the annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, one of the most cited resources in local SEO
🔹 Speaker at local search conferences around the globe and contributor to SEO publications

Did you know that the Google API leak says that service areas are NOT used in the ranking algorithm? If you want to expand your ranking radius for real, today’s podcast episode contains some actionable tips:

- build entity strength
- get reviews that mention the locations you want to rank in
- earn unstructured citations (local blogs, sponsorships, etc.)
- write localized website content
- lean into your niche in your website and GBP content (you may not rank for “restaurant” all over your city, but you CAN rank for “cubano sandwiches”)

We discuss these ideas from Miriam Ellis’s new Search Engine Land article, plus:

- Ben Franklin Effect applied to review requests (Sam Knight)
- API Leak reveals that Service Areas are NOT a ranking factor (Claudia Tomina)
- Google Local Pack links to places tab with pagination bug (Barry Schwartz)
- GBP adds scheduling and multi-location publishing to Google Posts (Barry Schwartz)

The full episode is now up on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review and ask IZIPIZI to sponsor us 🙏 (jump to 17:01 for context)

Founder of Whitespark. I share local SEO tips and strategy. Lead researcher behind the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Get everything you need for better local SEO at whitespark.ca

Here’s what you should do now that Google has anonymous reviews…

1. Change how you ask for reviews:

If your business is in an industry where people may be sensitive to leaving a review under their real name (e.g. legal or medical services, psychiatry, counceling, finance), your review collection process just got easier!

When asking for a review, tell customers how they can use a pseudonym when writing it.

2. Monitor and back up your reviews:

Now that Google users can add, remove, and change their custom display name whenever they choose, it is more important than ever export your review history regularly in case Google decides to delete your legitimate reviews.

3. Read Allie Margeson’s new article to fully understand what this anonymity means for both businesses and customers.

Find it on whitespark . ca / blog

AttorneySync

President

Legal Talk Network

Co Host

Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Summit
Bellagio Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV 09/22/25 – 09/24/25

The Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Summit is where legal marketing’s most creative minds, sharpest strategists, and boldest voices unite to rethink how law firms grow.

Gyi Tsakalakis

What year for Lunch Hour Legal Marketing!

Thank you for listening.

Thank you to those who contribute.

We’ll be announcing 2026 Summit dates soon.

Can’t wait to see you!

Stay tuned. 🍿

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"Learn how to leverage direct mail, newsletters, lumpy mail, physical “shock & awe,” referral systems, and hybrid analog-to-digital touchpoints."

- BENJAMIN GLASS

A couple of weeks ago, Ben announced his Analog Marketing For Small Law Firms Boot Camp.

I'll drop a link to that announcement here.

But I wanted to focus on the "hybrid analog-to-digital touch points."

Like you, I spend a lot of time thinking about doing what the bots cannot.

Like yours, my business's survival depends on it.

One of the things we do at AttorneySync is helping law firms with these hybrid analog-to-digital touch points.

Ryan McKeen recently posted, Personal Injury Law Is the Canary in the Coal Mine for All of Legal.

Meh, agreed.

What to do?

Brand + Community

This is where we're investing in AttorneySync's expertise.

Do what PE cannot.
Do what national advertisers cannot.
Do what the bots cannot.

People will reward you.

At least until we enter AI utopia or apocalypse.

But you really can't hedge against either of those.

In-house legal marketer looking for a new challenge?

Legal marketing agency Account Director looking for a change?

Love strategic legal marketing?

Consider AttorneySync.

PS Want to help?

React, comment, share!

🙏

Run your law firm like you're going to sell it, even if you have no intention to ever do so.

Yesterday, Robert Simon (Justice HQ, Attorney Share) hosted an exceptionally valuable webinar that focused on ABS, MSOs, and private equity in legal.

Steven Mehr (Sweet James LLP) shared some really excellent insights about what lawyers looking to sell can do to maximize the value of their firms.

There's an anecdote in the business world that you should run your business like you're going to sell it, even if you're not.

While there might be some exceptions to this general rule (like ebbs and flows of overspending in certain categories to achieve short-term objectives), it's a solid maxim.

Whether or not you agree with ABS, MSOs, PE in legal, or selling law firms, learning from the folks who buy law firms has a lot of value.

Kudos to Bob and the other panelists for getting the word out.

I was also particularly impressed with the expertise of Heather Rosing in the area of ethics and compliance.

There's still a lot to be sorted here.

But these issues are either already at your doorstep, or very soon to be.

For my .02, firms should be compelled to disclose these relationships. Not just in fee agreements, but in marketing materials too.

Consumers should be allowed to make an informed decision about hiring firms that "outsource operations."

It seems to me a pretty blurry line between what lives in the "law firm bucket" and what can be "ethically outsourced" to a private equity-owned entity.

🍿

When Conrad and I were at Filevine's #LEXSUMMIT, we had the privilege to sit down with Joshua Hostilo and Stefanie Minter.

One of topics we discussed was attribution.

We discussed how Filevine and Lead Docket work with CallRail and Zapier to provide law firms with better insights into their marketing attribution data.

Here's quick clip from that conversation.

You can watch the whole conversation on YouTube.

How are you solving this issue at your firm?

Quick shout to Garrett Sussman (iPullRank) and Christian J. Ward (Yext) for their webinar, Local Visibility in AI Search.

There's A TON of noise in AI Search.

A lot of 🐍🛢️ too.

Follow folks like Garrett and Christian who:

- Use science (not anecdotes disguised as science).
- Have humility (there's a lot we don't know).
- Have experience (we've been doing well for a long time).

Serve humans in a context in which location matters?

Check out Yext's Research.

A ton of great insights.

Thanks guys, you gave me a lot to think about.

Have you watched the Google Disco demo?

https://lnkd.in/gnQdX7qr

🤯

I can't help but to think about this in the context of legal services consumer journey.

How are you investing to prepare for a potential future that looks like this?

Open video: Turn tabs into a custom app with GenTabs in Disco, a new Google Labs experiment on youtube.com

Turn tabs into a custom app with GenTabs in Disco, a new Google Labs experiment

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Darren Shaw

Gyi Tsakalakis

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The Battle

Darren Shaw

Gyi Tsakalakis

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Darren Shaw's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreGyi Tsakalakis's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDarren Shaw's LinkedIn Performance