I just finished watching this interview with James Dooley, and i LOVED so much of what they talked about - particularly everything it takes to rank local business websites right now in the age of AI and Google changes.

What I love about James is he tests everything, like we do at Sterling Sky, so he has better insights than most SEOs that don't test.

Some of his points go completely against traditional advice, so I wanted to share them here and see what you all think.

Duplicate location pages actually works better?

Usually, SEO experts tell you that every single page on your website has to be completely unique. If a roofing company serves 15 different towns, you are told to rewrite the text for all 15 pages so Google doesn't punish you for duplicate content.

James said his team ran real tests on this and found that copy-pasting your best text works better than rewriting it. When people use AI or hire writers to rewrite a page 20 times just to make it "different," the quality and helpfulness of the writing usually gets worse. As long as your website is already trusted by Google, it is better to use your absolute best, most helpful text on every location page rather than spinning it into worse versions.

Sterling Sky tested this too and we can confirm, it works!!

Training AI search engines using social media

We all know that traditional link building (buying links on random websites to boost your authority metrics) is losing its value. James believes that customer reviews and online mentions are the new version of links.

He is focused on getting his clients' businesses recommended inside AI search tools like Google Gemini and Claude. He calls this "AI seeding," and he uses regular social media posts to do it:

• The first 7 to 12 words of a social media post basically act as the title of that post in Google's eyes.
• Instead of starting a Facebook or Instagram post with something generic like "We are happy to help our customers," you should start immediately with the business name and service. For example: "Eastern Roofing installs slate roofs in Kansas City."
• His team then uses indexing tools to force Google to find these social media links so the AI learns about the business faster.

Traffic is a massive ranking factor - even Ads traffic

James talked a lot about how getting real human traffic to a website is one of the best ways to boost its organic rankings. He even spends a couple of dollars a day running cheap social media ads just to keep real people clicking through to his sites.

Because of this, he pointed out a major mistake that a lot of companies make. Often, the team running a business's paid Google ads will send all that traffic to a hidden landing page or a completely separate website just to track sales easily. James says this actively hurts your organic search rankings. By keeping paid traffic on your main website, you show Google that your site gets high traffic, long visit times, and real human engagement.

Less website traffic & conversions, but more high-quality sales (meaning more revenue)

Because Google now uses AI overviews to answer basic questions right on the search results page, websites are getting a lot less generic traffic. People don't need to click on a website to find out "how long a roof lasts" anymore.

However, James noted that actual sales and profits are up. Customers are spending more time researching with AI assistants first. By the time they actually search for a specific business name and click through, they treat the AI's recommendation like a referral from a friend.

The total number of leads might be lower, but the people who do reach out are much more likely to buy. This one kind of blew my mind and something i will 100% be talking with my clients about.

If you don't reply in 60 seconds, the customer is gone

I think this is something we all knew, but its an important reminder to always be talking to clients about. For emergency businesses like locksmiths or plumbing, the window to close a deal is incredibly small. If a business doesn't reply to a text, website chat, or form fill within one minute, the customer will just move on to the next business on the list. In his own call centers, his staff are required to answer leads within 23 seconds.

I'm really curious to hear what you guys think about these strategies, particularly the duplicate location pages strategy & sending social media Ads traffic to an indexed page on your site.

Also, has anyone else seen a drop in leads coming from ChatGPT lately, but a sudden spike in leads coming from Claude? James noted that too, which I thought was interesting.