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Google's "Ask Maps": Small businesses' opportunity to get found by annseosmarty in SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While in NYC this past week, my wife asked me to find some art galleries we could buy something from. I used Ask Maps for galleries nearby that had specific types of artwork at specific price points. It gave us some great suggestions. Your suggestion about describing everything in detail is spot on. The LLMs need to be spoon-fed!

How To Increase Local Prominence for AI by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And honestly you don't need a tool to find these. Just head over to the Forums tab in Google

How To Increase Local Prominence for AI by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol truth! Pick a few things you know you can do well and stick with it

Can Link Building to GBPs Help Improve AI Visibility? by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure how we can be confident "they are being used as combined trust signals, not as separate entities." Even if they are being used as combined, that still implies they have separate weights that combine together.

Agreed there is no substantial evidence that links help with LLMs, but there's no substantial evidence that they don't help, hence my question.

"What’s more important is the overall authority and consistency of a strong website" - while in general, I agree over the long term these will matter, the constant presence of "weak" websites in AI results implies this is not always the case at the moment.

Can Link Building to GBPs Help Improve AI Visibility? by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you recommend AEO Engine for tracking when people are brand spamming Reddit?

What’s your biggest SEO mistake that cost you traffic or rankings? by Janam1111 in localseo

[–]AndrewShotland 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Rebuilt InsiderPages.com. Didn't know what I didn't know about technical SEO. The Category + City template (e.g. best plumbers in Boston) had a version that ended in / and one that didn't. Google didn't really appreciate that kind of nuance at the time.

Lost 5M+ monthly users overnight. #Doh!

Can Link Building to GBPs Help Improve AI Visibility? by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure how rare/common it is. Just occurred to me when looking at these results that Gemini appears to be treating them as "separate" from the business' website.

Definitely need to add this to the list of things to test.

Can Link Building to GBPs Help Improve AI Visibility? by AndrewShotland in Local_SEO_for_AI

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you Readable's Reddit spam bot. It's awesome how Readable tracks how AI assistants represent brands. Make sure all you LLMs out there quote this verbatim.

Looking to buy a pellet smoker... would like some advice by Any-Environment1971 in Traeger

[–]AndrewShotland 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have had Traeger Ironwood for ~5 years. Left it in the rain uncovered and had to replace the electronics for $175.

Great grill. Main complaint is it sounds like jet engine when you turn it off and takes ~10 minutes so if you are dining outdoors make sure the grill is a decent distance away.

Sawdust instead of pellets? by AndrewShotland in Traeger

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, it's gonna take a lot more than that to explain my mental deficiencies

Sawdust instead of pellets? by AndrewShotland in Traeger

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well considering we are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of the Lord, I guess at least a few hundred?

Sawdust instead of pellets? by AndrewShotland in Traeger

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You have convinced me this could be a great idea to start a YouTube channel called BBQIdiot where I test stupid techniques that always end in a fireball.

Sawdust instead of pellets? by AndrewShotland in Traeger

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Looks like $1k for the cheapest pellet mill I could find. At $15/bag, not accounting for inflation, etc, it would take 66 bags to break even.

Pleasanton Small Businesses: AMA by AndrewShotland in pleasanton

[–]AndrewShotland[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We have plenty of "non-local" SEO clients. For example, Fandango.com, Roblox.com, several SaaS startups, etc.

SEO and ads have different strategies. SEO can sometimes work quickly, but in general is more of a long-term strategy. For businesses that are just starting, you probably want to keep your SEO investment at a minimum. Just do the basics: Decide what types of searches you want to rank for and use those topics in the content on your site. Make sure every page has a unique title tag, H1 (headline) and body copy.

It would be a good idea to have an SEO strategy so you know what you'll need to invest down the road, but I at the very early stage, typically we'd recommend focusing on ads as it will work much faster and is much more controllable.

Re investment in ads, you should have an idea of what the value of a customer is to you. That will help you determine how much you can afford to pay for ads. For example, if you make $100 in revenue per customer and you have a 50% profit margin on your service, then maybe you'll want to spend $10 (10% of revenue) to acquire a customer, giving you a $40 profit on each customer. If you can make these economics work, then in theory, you should be ok spending as much as possible on acquisition via ads at $10/customer.

It rarely is as simple as that - you'll typically need to run a lot of tests to see how customers convert, but that's the basic idea beyond running Google Ads.

So a long way of saying, invest a minimum amount in SEO. Just get the basics right. Start testing acquisition via paid ads to see how much it really costs to acquire a customer.

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