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

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