The GOAT Guide to Google Business Rankings (Part 2) with Darren Shaw

In Part 2 of our conversation about Local SEO, Darren Shaw of Whitespark returns to The Simple and Smart SEO Show to break down advanced Google Business Profile (GBP) strategies that actually move the needle. 

From the controversial truth about citation consistency to actionable tactics for leveraging Google reviews and optimizing your GBP for maximum visibility, Darren shares insider tips you won’t find in a typical SEO blog post. 

Whether you're a service provider, e-commerce seller, or local business, this episode is packed with high-impact, no-fluff advice to help you dominate local search results—ethically and effectively.

🗝️ Key Takeaways:

• Citation Consistency Debunked: It's not as critical as you think, but your core info should generally align across platforms.
• High-Impact GBP Optimization: Business name and primary category are the top levers for ranking—Darren explains why (and how to use them without risking suspension).
• The Real Deal on Reviews: Recency and consistency matter more than ever; learn how to keep that review flywheel spinning.
• Photo and Post Strategies: How regular uploads and Google Posts increase engagement signals and boost rankings.
• Virtual Locations & Google Profiles: The gray areas of using virtual offices and how to avoid Google suspensions.
• The One-Hour Local SEO Plan: Darren’s foolproof weekly plan to improve your rankings in just one focused hour.

📌 Memorable Quotes:

• "Your business name on Google is the most ridiculous yet powerful ranking factor. It’s absurd, but it works." — Darren Shaw
• "Don’t just fill out your Google Business Profile—optimize it strategically. That’s where the magic happens." — Darren Shaw

✅ Listener Action Items:

• Audit your Google Business Profile for high-impact changes: Business Name, Categories, and Service Pages.
• Start a consistent Google review acquisition plan—focus on recency!
• Schedule one Google Post per week—this is your sales pitch to new prospects.
• Engage with your local community through sponsorships and build real, high-quality backlinks.

Transcript

Darren Shaw: [00:00:00] There's some big sites that are very important to Google. Yelp is one of them. A Facebook business page is another one. 

Google's always looking for that page.

And you want your information to match on these really important sites.

So that everything kind of matches up for google.

Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, where we talk all things, brand building, SEO.

Helping you connect with your audience, elevate your visibility and grow your business. 

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond. 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or SEO enthusiast, this is your place to learn, share, and build a brand that stands out. 

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business. 

Citation Consistency and Its Importance

Darren Shaw: on the concept of citation consistency, making sure your name, address, and phone number is perfect on all the different sites. 

That's a strategy that used to be talked about a lot. It's very important for local SEO. 

These days, it's a lot less important. [00:01:00] Google is much better at matching information, so it's not as important as it used to be.

If you do any investigating in local SEO, if you ask Chat, GPT: whoa, how should I do local SEO? 

Chat, GPT will tell you that citation consistency is extremely important because the corpus of knowledge on the internet says citation consistency is very important. 

It's actually not. And people obsess about making sure that it's my address has the st instead of S-T-R-E-E-T.

Like those little details, they're super not important. Little inconsistencies like that, you don't have to worry about them.

But you generally just want your information to, to match across the internet. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. And then I felt like they were more important for us as non, physical storefront businesses because of the backlink potential and Yeah, helping your domain authority, that type of thing.

Is that still true at all, or was it ever true? 

Business Directory Listings

Darren Shaw: The links you're gonna get from business directories like Yelp, yellow Pages. I keep saying those just 'cause they are sites that people know.

Better business Bureau is a good one.

You should [00:02:00] definitely make sure you're listed there. And then your industry specific sites.

So if you work in a specific industry like plumbing, there's gonna be all these plumbing specific directories.

So getting listed on those very important.

The links themselves, pretty low value links, they're directory links, right? So they're not gonna provide a big boost. But, often, for small businesses, they're the only links your competitors have, and so you should get them so that you even the playing field.

But then if you really want to rank better, you should get some better links. 

Crystal Waddell: I love that. Yep. 

Listing Management for Small Businesses

Crystal Waddell: is that what all of this falls under, that terminology of listing management?

Is that what this is? 

Darren Shaw: Yeah, but I think it goes back to what I said about the once and done thing. So if you're a small business with one or two locations, you don't need to really manage your listings.

You get them all done, and then they live on those sites and you don't have to manage them. You only need to manage them if your information changes.

So if you're a larger business with a hundred plus locations, you do need some kind of management. 'cause things are changing all the time.

This business, that location [00:03:00] changed their hours.

This location changed their phone number. That's where listings management comes in. But for a small business you don't really need to manage it.

Once you've built all those citations, you're done. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. 

Targeting High-Level Google Reviewers

Crystal Waddell: And then I was listening to you on a podcast, I told you about that like before we jumped on. I was listening to you answer some questions on a different podcast. Yeah. And you mentioned. High star Google reviewers, or the people who are like the higher level Google reviewers.

Yeah. And I was just wondering, I was like, is that a strategy? Can you target those people? Can you find them and get them to review your business? 

Darren Shaw: Sure. Yeah, it is definitely a strategy.

I think it's one of those unproven theories that if you get a review from what's called a local guide.

So there's these Google local guides and there's levels of local guides that go up to 10.

So a level 10 local guide, oh my God, you reviewed my business. It's gonna definitely help me rank. And so that's a bit of an unproven theory.

One of the things that is true is that reviews from local guides tend to stick to the top of your profile. They will stay at the [00:04:00] top. They're more likely to get pulled into the review snippets.

So they do seem to carry some extra weight. The question of how to target them that's, it's a difficult strategy. How are you gonna target them? I don't know. You do some research, find all the local guides in your city.

Invite them to a. And cheese event that those are things that I've heard people try to do and you could do it.

And there's actually a good model to follow in the Yelp community. 'cause Yelp has these things, very similar strategy called the Yelp elites. And so you really only see this happening in the restaurant space where a new restaurant is opening. They put in the effort to find the Yelp elites and invite them to the restaurant 'cause they want their reviews.

And same thing or and usually if you're a Yelp elite, you probably have your own local food blog.

Those are the people that like a new restaurant would wanna target. And then that's where the strategy works. But if you're a local plumbing company, I don't think there's a lot of strategy for targeting Google local guides.

But it is nice when you get those reviews.

And so the only strategy I could really think of is you [00:05:00] get a booking. Someone calls you, you get their name, you get their information.

And then you just look to see if you can find them. And then if they're a local guide, then you give them extra special attention.

And you really encourage the reviews and usually work a little bit harder.

I don't know that's the only real strategy I could think of, depending on your business type. 

Crystal Waddell: That's fun. Okay. 

Optimizing Google Business Profile

Crystal Waddell: So when you we're talking about like the Google business profile, like the elements of the profile. Say products, if you're an e-commerce seller.

Are those important to fill out? And like the posts? If you had to, if you had to do it like a little hierarchy of the importance of the parts of the Google business profile to fill out?

Darren Shaw: Yeah. I'll give you, I'll give you the top to bottom here. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. Yeah. Awesome. 

Importance of Business Name and Categories

Darren Shaw: So this is a ridiculous factor, and I apologize to all the listeners.

Google has done the worst thing. Your business name, what you call your business on Google, there's a field for your business name or title.

If you put keywords in that, you will rank for those keywords. And it's absolutely absurd.[00:06:00] 

It's like you wanna rank for plumbers San Diego. And your business name is currently The Mechanic Brothers.

Let's say that's your business name, you're called The Mechanic Brothers.

But you're like, Hey, how come we can't rank for plumber San Diego?

Google puts so much ranking benefit on the business name. So that is number one on your profile. Whatever you have in your name, that's number one.

And the strategy.

That's actually an area where you could get your business suspended for violating the guidelines.

So your name has to reflect your real world business name, but.

You'll see it, especially in dentistry. Almost every dentist is now called Dentist City name.

Plus some like brand. So they do that because there's so much ranking benefit for it.

And so you could potentially rebrand your business. You're like, what?

And I've done this before for a number of clients where I've told them, I was like, if you do this.

You will rank like incredibly well.

And it's always absolutely mind blowing.

It's like ranking in positions eight through [00:07:00] 15 for all of the keywords.

We update their business name. On Google. It's first you gotta update the website, the logo, the signage, all the, all your official business documentation.

Then when you finally get all that stuff done, you update Google.

And it's like absolutely explosion of rankings overnight. All the charts go up into the right. And you rank like crazy.

So anyways, business name is number one. Number two is your primary category.

So on in your category section with Google Business Profile, the primary category you've set has a very big impact on rankings.

The good example I like to use for that is. There's a lot of different categories. You want to pick the category that's most closely aligned with what you wanna rank for.

For example, if you are a law firm, but you specialize.

There's a category for law firm. There's also a category for criminal defense attorney. Or personal injury lawyer. Or bankruptcy lawyer.

Your category should most closely align with what you wanna rank for. So law firm is a terrible primary category.

Criminal defense attorney is a perfect one. If you offer criminal law. So that's your second most [00:08:00] powerful lever you can pull on your Google business profile.

The third is your additional categories.

That's like casting a wider net. It's almost like those services where you're like, I also wanna rank for all these things.

And so you add additional categories for the other things that you want your profile to rank for.

Then I would say. Services are next.

Services have a direct impact on ranking, so you want to definitely optimize your services section. As we already talked about.

The third thing would be attributes. Attributes don't. Have a direct impact on your broad terms.

But you can add attributes like this is a women-led company. This is a veteran led company.

And so then when someone searches for those specific things, they be like women owned, business consultants, company.

If they put women on, then your attributes will actually help you rank better for those very specific things.

Another example would be wheelchair accessible restaurants, right?

So if you have that attribute, wheelchair accessible, that'll help you rank better when people search for that specific thing.

So I'd say attributes have a direct impact.

There's a [00:09:00] field on your Google Business profile, which links to your website.

So your website, as I mentioned, is a primary source of data, so you must have that filled out and must be optimized. 

Leveraging Reviews and Attributes

Darren Shaw: I should have said reviews a little earlier. 'cause reviews on your Google Business profile are extremely important.

You must have a review strategy. You must be getting reviews. And it's an amazing thing because it's time dependent. If you get reviews. Let's say in your industry. Your average competitors have 30 reviews.

You're like, great, I'm going to put in the work. I'm gonna get my 30 reviews.

And then you stop getting reviews.

You will see your rankings go up while you're getting, all those reviews are coming in.

But then if you stop getting reviews, you'll see your rankings start to drop again.

So review recency is a thing.

How frequently and recently are you getting reviews? You need a steady stream of reviews all the time.

So continuing to get Google reviews is a really valuable and important strategy.

And I wouldn't call that a field on your Google business profile.

But it's definitely a ranking factor on your Google business profile. [00:10:00] And then the rest of them, I would say if there's a field on Google. Fill it out. I do know that the description.

This always blows people's mind has no impact on ranking.

Be like what? Yeah, there's a field on your Google business profile. You can add stuff as many keywords as you want in there.

That won't help you rank for those keywords. So the strategy for your description is to write it like conversion copy.

What would convince someone to pick up the phone and call your business if they read that description?

So you're writing it more to be compelling. Don't stuff it with keywords has no value.

I'll stop. 

Crystal Waddell: There. 

Utilizing Google Posts and Photos

Crystal Waddell: what about the posts, like the pictures that you can post on?

Is it worth it to do that consistently or? 

Darren Shaw: So I should have mentioned the photo section too. 'cause I love the photo section of your Google business.

Probably you can upload photos. So in the same way that I would want my. My clients continually get reviews.

I want them to continually upload photos and videos to the Google Business Profile photo section.

And the reason is that Google has an a, if you conduct your test, this, it's really cool.

Take a photo and throw it into chat GPT and say, describe this photo.

And [00:11:00] it'll blow your mind how good chat GPT is explaining everything that's in that photo.

You can do the same thing with Google. Google doesn't give you that thing. Gemini can do it, but then you end up with you, you realize.

Your photo is so much rich data and information that helps Google understand your business better.

So uploading photos on a regular basis is really great. But I, you asked about Google posts.

So there's this section where you can do what's like a social post. It's called a Google update.

It used to be called Google Posts, but a Google update.

We don't believe they directly impact rankings.

Doing them, adding keywords to them, not necessary. So as a result, a lot of people are like, oh, okay, I don't need to bother with Google Posts.

I'm not gonna, I'm. Please don't think that way. Google posts are really valuable from a conversion perspective.

And you also have to think, social media posts like an Instagram or a Facebook post or a tweet.

Those are always going to people that have already said, I'm a huge fan of this business. I'm gonna like them on social media.

So they're already your fans.

Everyone that's seeing your stuff on your Google business profile, they [00:12:00] are. Potential customers, prospects, new audience, it's amazing. So they've got this great opportunity to sell to those people. And so every Google Post should be compelling.

It should be explaining why you're awesome. So you can actually take some of your best reviews and repurpose them as Google posts.

You can take testimonials, repurpose them as Google posts. You can take case studies or showing great work that you've done. But I also really like to talk about special, Hey, we're running a sale this week.

We're doing an awesome thing where, you know, just making it salesy. That's where you wouldn't wanna be salesy on Instagram.

But you do wanna be salesy in your Google Post.

So there's great value because anyone that sees them, they can directly convert.

And you can link them to a page on your website where they can buy the thing immediately. So I do love Google posts.

I highly recommend them.

There's another ranking signal on your whole Google business profile, which is engagement signals.

How long are people spending on your profile?

What are they clicking on? Are they reading your reviews? Are they looking through your photos? And this is why when you [00:13:00] enhance your profile with lots of reviews, lots of photos, Google posts, you fill out your services action.

You give people a lot to engage with, and those engagement signals.

Tell Google people must really like this one. They're spending a lot of time on it.

And so, that's another reason to do Google posts, upload the photos, upload the videos.

That just keeps people engaged with your profile.

Which are definitely signals that Google uses in the ranking algorithm.

Crystal Waddell: So can the average business owner see these engagement metrics for? 

Darren Shaw: No. No. Okay. So we only know this because of the, there was a leak, an API leak. Everyone always suspected this. And then there was lots of tests.

Actually, I did a test in 2014, which was amazing. I built a robot.

Like a script. That would search for a specific keyword.

Scroll down in the results until it found one specific business.

And then would click on it and then the robot would stop doing it.

And then another robot would spin up and do the same thing. And the same thing. So we have it, we had it running about 30 of these per hour.

And then every time it would do it, it would take [00:14:00] a screenshot of the page.

And you could actually see. The one that the bots were clicking on slowly put all of the screenshots into an animated gif.

And you could see the business go all the way to the number one, and then it stuck there.

But then as soon as the robots turned off, it turned off. But that was a real clear signal, even back in 2014.

That Google is using how people are engaging with search, what they're clicking on, what they're spending time on as one of the signals.

And, but now we think it's much more advanced than it was back then.

Crystal Waddell: Gotcha. Okay. You have given us like so much awesome information. I know our time is almost up here.

Darren Shaw: It's almost over already. What? 

Crystal Waddell: Just asking. Yeah. You're awesome. This has been so great. 

Virtual Locations and Google Business Profiles

Crystal Waddell: There's something I wanted to ask you because this actually pertains to one of my clients that I help.

And she has virtual locations.

Sure. And I've read a couple things like, okay, if you have a virtual location. You don't actually have a physical location. Are you supposed to have a Google Business profile for that? But it's if you serve [00:15:00] multiple locations, let's say it's like Hamilton, Ontario, Vancouver, Edmonton.

What's your take on that?

And, creating these virtual locations and multiple google business profiles for them? 

Darren Shaw: It's against the guidelines to do it.

So a virtual office always has a big bullseye on it from a suspension factor.

Google knows where the Regis offices are.

And so if your address is the same as a Regis address, it's oh clearly this is a virtual business. And so you can get them verified sometimes.

Google doesn't like them and they're risky.

They'll often get suspended and then you gotta deal with trying to get reinstated.

But generally if you are a virtual business, you're supposed to have one location.

And then you set what are on your Google business profile, what are called service areas.

We also service Hamilton. And Niagara Falls. And all the different like areas around, right?

The reality is that the service area section of your Google business profile has no impact on ranking.

So it's, thanks Google. I could say I service this area.

But you don't rank me in Hamilton. It's very annoying.

So then the strategy would be to open a new location in [00:16:00] Hamilton.

And so you can do that. I would recommend not getting a virtual office.

I would recommend getting a, like a real office. Just try to find the cheapest, closet space that you can.

And create a small little office for two, 300 bucks a month if you can get it.

And then you can actually have a real location.

You'll be much more likely to get that location verified with Google.

And it can rank. And so now you could be ranking the local results in that city. So yes it's a strategy. You can do it. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay, so quick clarification. 

Coworking Spaces and Verification Challenges

Crystal Waddell: They're virtual offices. But what about in the us. I don't know that if you guys have them in Canada, but they were these workspaces.

I really enjoyed WeWork. Yeah, so 

Darren Shaw: WeWork and coworking spaces. They have the same challenges that a virtual office like Regis would have. And so coworking spaces are, again, not really within the guidelines.

Unless you have a dedicated office with your own signage. If you're really going by the guidelines, you need a dedicated office.

You need a lease agreement.

You say yes, I'm located in a WeWork space, but it's a real office.

Look, [00:17:00] here's my. Sign on the door. This is my, I can open it with a key. You have to actually prove that.

Google's doing video verification now to get that kind of information. So you could use a WeWork. It's just it's just you may have to deal with it getting suspended over and over again.

And so that's why I like to get the chief closet space office.

Because then you've sidestep that thing. I'm giving you a little bit of spammy tactics here where you're opening up, not really legitimate locations.

But if you wanna do it avoid coworking spaces and virtual offices. 

Crystal Waddell: Yeah, I'm not afraid of the gray area.

I like to stay away from, the black hat.

But the gray is sometimes things need to be done because of certain situations. No judgment!

But I'm glad you could answer that for us. 

Effective Local SEO Strategies

Crystal Waddell: I guess just to end our our time today, like if a business owner had just one hour a week to spend to improving their local SEO.

How should they spend that hour? 

Darren Shaw: Review acquisition.

I would do that and then I would start focusing on reviews on other sites. I think that is really always valuable.

I would [00:18:00] make one Google Post per week, so try to get a Google Post out per week.

I would always be looking at my service pages and being like, okay, maybe this week I'm gonna build a new page.

Or I'm gonna improve and enhance one of my service pages.

So if you're only putting in one hour a week, I would focus on those. I think those are your highest leverage activities.

So service pages, service content. And then I think the other one would be link building, but it can't be the citation link building.

Has to be real links. We didn't even talk about that. But one of my favorite link methods is called the, like your contact list.

Go through your phone contact list and on every person be like, do they have a website? Oh yeah, that person does have a website.

Can I get them to link to me? Yes.

Because it's my uncle and I'll be like, Hey uncle, can you please put a link from your website to my website?

And then he would do it. And so that's why I like the contact list.

The other one are sponsorships. So you can sponsor local causes.

Local sports teams. There's all these little local businesses that would happily take your $200 in exchange for a link on their website.

So you would donate [00:19:00] to them and they would get some links there.

So those are some better links that you can get rather than just directories. 

Crystal Waddell: I love that. And then you're giving back to the community too. Yeah. And building your brand in the community.

Which is something we've been talking about too!

Darren, you are amazing.

This was so fun. Like I said, I have so many questions, which you've answered. Many of them, and I really appreciate the time that you've taken with us today and share all this amazing knowledge with my audience. 

Whitespark Services and Conclusion

Crystal Waddell: Now, if there's someone who's a good fit to work with Whitespark- 

Darren Shaw: Yep. 

Crystal Waddell: How can they self-identify themselves and where do they go to do that?

Darren Shaw: So we do provide software and services for basically any business that cares about the logo results. And so we work with lots of big enterprises.

We work with individual, small, tiny businesses.

We have a full agency side in our SEO services.

Where we will be your agency and do all of the work for you and do all the consulting with you.

So we have a full agency side that's reasonably priced.

We have a service that's specifically for building out your citations and building out those listings for you.

No one wants to do that work, [00:20:00] so you can hire our team to do it for you. But yeah, you can just go to Whitespark.ca and you could see our software.

All of our software is really designed to help people that want to do it themselves.

And then our services are like, we'll do it for you. So we have the full Spectrum Whitespark.ca. 

Crystal Waddell: And your clients can come from Canada or the US, is that correct? 

Darren Shaw: 90% of our client base is in the US, yeah. 

Crystal Waddell: Oh, okay.

Awesome. 

Darren Shaw: Yeah, so we have a much bigger presence in the US.

I don't know, I guess it happened 'cause I did all the speaking and stuff in the US.

And that just seems to be where my presence is, but yeah. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. Awesome. Darren, thank you so much for being on the simple and smart SEO show podcast. I hope you enjoyed it.

And for you on the other side of the headphones, I will see you next week.