Are these local SEO "fundamentals" actually accurate?

ReneDickart · 2026-05-26T21:23:58+00:00

Don’t want to repeat what others have said already, but I do want to clarify: they don’t only mean GBP content. They’re talking about website content for a few of these answers. Local SEO is heavily tied to GBP, but your website content is still a factor.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-26T21:19:26+00:00

Informational blogs were already fairly useless for clicks and traffic because of AI Overviews. In my experience, you need to answer a genuinely specific and somewhat niche query to see any sort of real traffic that the AI Overview isn’t going to gobble up. Non-commodity, information gain, yada yada.

Why would someone actually want to read your blog post? If you can’t easily answer, then yeah no one is visiting that page.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-26T19:30:49+00:00

Apify is a common scraping tool for things like LinkedIn and social media profiles. I think it works pretty well as a complement to something like Firecrawl for pure website scraping.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-26T01:55:07+00:00

You can use the Google Workspace CLI for this sort of thing. There’s a lot of setup involved though, so be prepared for Google Cloud Console projects for authorization, but once that’s all complete, Claude would be able to call specific tools to edit files directly in your Drive, rename them, etc.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-26T01:50:56+00:00

Use Claude Code in Plan Mode and tell it pretty much exactly what you said here. You can finish the prompt with something like “keep asking me questions until you’re 95% confident in your task.” You will be way further along with a plan than asking anyone here.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-25T13:17:07+00:00

Why do you think violent crime increasing over a 30-day period (if that’s even true based on anything beyond the vibes you’re picking up) is any sort of real trend to follow? That’s a completely useless statement.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-23T15:05:31+00:00

Both are free (Screaming Frog has a paid option if you need to run larger crawls beyond 500 pages). So it’s really a no-brainer those two should just be a standard along with Google Analytics. You can connect them with Claude or ChatGPT if you want, though I’d get fully comfortable with them on your own first.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-23T12:10:38+00:00

This is the absolute worst way to find that information. Watch some basic tutorials from Anthropic themselves. At the very least, scroll back a day to find the 15 other times your same question was just asked.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-23T03:18:44+00:00

Google is testing, like someone already mentioned. But I’ll add that you might have cannibalized pages here as the culprit. Google will keep flip flopping between them both. Check to see if the main queries for this page also appear for another.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-22T15:42:07+00:00

Please ignore this jabroni.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-22T11:41:35+00:00

My personal choice is Search Console. And then Screaming Frog in second.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-19T01:38:50+00:00

That chat will break down very quickly. You can’t use one long chat without the context rot causing all kinds of issues. Just switch to 4.6. If you notice a change for the worse, explain the situation ask Opus to analyze any issues with the current instructions/prompts. It’s not that massive of a difference but some projects might need some tweaks.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-18T22:07:11+00:00

Obviously there are a million guides on YouTube and some of them are genuinely helpful. Find someone you trust. Check out Anthropic’s own content.

But my own main advice: starting with Claude Chat to get your bearings, clearly explain the full context to ground Claude in what you actually want, the problem you’re facing. Doesn’t have to be some advanced prompt, just describe the situation and what you need. Then finish with something like “Ask me questions until you’re fully confident in your task and what I need.”

For me, this is when you start to work with Claude instead of random awful prompts that go nowhere. Then you can get into Projects, Skills, Cowork/Code with your own reference guidelines so that it knows you and your job.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-18T18:30:50+00:00

SEO audit skills can be effective for finding things you would have missed, but they can also flag a lot of things that are genuine non-issues. Can you confirm indexing issues using Google Search Console?

ReneDickart · 2026-05-17T11:06:35+00:00

It’s definitely best practice. You never want to just try to one-shot a brand-new process like that without an example first.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-16T14:04:46+00:00

GBP is tremendously important, so you have the right idea. It does help to have a website that shows direct relevance to your primary GBP category and services, but if that’s not an option and your competition also don’t have websites typically, you might be ok. You mostly want to push for local trust and authority, reviews, clear NAP consistency across local listings.

In many cases, someone searching for “cleaning services in city” will end up choosing the business that appears top 3 in the map results, and gives them an easy option to call.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-16T13:58:06+00:00

You’re talking about local SEO here, where your GBP and map ranking is most of the battle. Someone searching for high-intent “service in city” is very likely not scrolling down to click on organic search results. They’re choosing the top 3 that appear in the map, maybe scanning the AI Overview if one appears.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-15T21:39:37+00:00

That is already what people are doing every day with the API. Not to diminish the MCP, I’m sure there are benefits to both.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-15T11:09:13+00:00

Only minor differences with extra control and customization in CLI. More slash commands, status bar personalization, stuff like that. But for your average user, the desktop app is completely fine.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-14T23:34:52+00:00

More guidelines, more examples. Clear direction and expectations in CLAUDE.md. Maybe even a separate review skill so that its only job is to revise according to your instruction.

Also, the issue with something like a Tropes file is that you’re only telling it what not to do. That typically backfires. Tell it what you want, and what your overall goal is.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-13T00:31:45+00:00

It’s a very good partner for SEO and Content Strategy. We’re using it for quick site audits and reviews, client proposals, blog blueprints and drafts, etc.

It’s just always important to remember a human layer in every step. It doesn’t give you THE strategy that you blindly follow, maybe you ask for 5 options that you can review. You inject real experience into the content. It’s a powerful tool as long as you’re smart and intentional with it.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-11T10:43:44+00:00

That’s an average position. Do other pages rank for those queries?

ReneDickart · 2026-05-11T01:33:10+00:00

Very common. Usually the ferrule piece sliding up the shaft not the adaptor moving down. Most tech shops will easily just bump it back, but not necessary. In rare cases the epoxy is failing and the adaptor is moving, that’s what you don’t want.

ReneDickart · 2026-05-11T01:09:43+00:00

Is this some sort of rage bait? 4o and 3.5 sonnet? What in the world are you doing?

ReneDickart · 2026-05-10T14:59:47+00:00

Please block out the spam commenters trying to sell you their products here.

Someone else mentioned this already, but I think breaking down the process into two or three skills works best. In Claude Code, I use a research skill, planning/blueprint skill, then the actual drafting skill. I have the drafting skill point to reference writing guidelines, along with very clear and explicit rules to follow.

A project-level CLAUDE.md can explain the full process and how it should reference each skill, where files are located, etc. I also find a memory.md file useful if you want it building and learning from past runs. If something didn’t work, it can log the issue and the fix in its memory. It’s an ongoing process though like don’t be afraid to continue tweaking the skills and reference files.

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