Greg Gifford is an experienced SEO consultant who has presented on the topic of local SEO at dozens of high-profile industry events. He’s currently serving as Chief Operating Office at SearchLab, a Texas-based SEO agency. (If you’d like to view some of Greg’s excellent presentations, you can find them on SlideShare at the following link: https://www.slideshare.net/greggifford).
I’m grateful to Greg for making time for a wide-ranging interview in which we tackle the subject of local SEO optimization and how this discipline may be evolving as AI becomes pervasive. We cover a lot of ground in our interview and address many topics of interest to anyone doing local SEO today. These topics include:
- The possible impact that Gemini, a Google-developed AI app intended to replace voice-based search, will have on local SEO.
- The role that Google Home may play in terms of serving as a platform for testing and training AI to answer questions conversationally, potentially changing how people use voice search at home.
- How creating and syndicating high-quality content across various platforms, such as Yelp and LinkedIn, can help improve local SEO and AI visibility.
- The degree to which writing better content for one’s website can help improve search engine rankings as AI becomes more integrated in the search experience.
- The importance of optimizing videos for YouTube, as doing this can lead to more visibility and leads in the long run.
- The importance of optimizing Google Business Profiles for local search, particularly in regard to selecting relevant categories for the business.
- Why businesses need to take steps to ask customers for reviews to increase the chances of getting good reviews (even if doing so means getting more bad reviews).
- The fact that that no amount of marketing can overcome a bad user experience.
- Google’s recent efforts to improve local search experiences, including new verification processes and reinstatement procedures.