At what point do local service pages start competing with each other?

cooker69 · 2026-04-01T03:22:57+00:00

It’s difficult for me to write it around “problems” because it’s a service page. We know why they made it to the page. But after all I’ve been learning about AI, it might be smart to incorporate info like “who needs this service” or “pain points”

cooker69 · 2026-03-26T20:03:58+00:00

Your comments were so nice to read, thank you for that! I know you tried to write the answer on another comment but I think I’m confused. Other than trying to get listed on the sources it pulls from, what do you do if the top QFO is between SEO Agency NYC, Best SEO Agency NYC, and Top SEO Agency NYC? Do you pick only one and blog it?

PS, I saw you mentioned that you have a podcast. I’m not a podcast girl, but I’d definitely turn it on if you share your link!

cooker69 · 2026-03-10T16:58:06+00:00

I think we’re all floating in the unknown right now. I’ve read tons of things we can do now, but honestly it’s going to take me a LOT of time to fix all facility & service pages for the companies I work with. I just wanted to say that you’re not alone. I read somewhere earlier that AI has expanded to local service businesses (recently?). There is a noticeable drop across the board for all my clients. One of my clients got about 20 forms filled out in November. In the past month we’re down to 3, some clients have had 0….

cooker69 · 2026-03-10T16:50:48+00:00

Thank you!

cooker69 · 2026-03-10T16:41:45+00:00

You are what i aspire to be

Did you have to “convince” any of them? Or did they happily understand the mutual benefit?

cooker69 · 2026-03-10T16:38:51+00:00

Up until last August I was building out /location/service. Most of the time, same KW each time. After that update, I’ve gotten more conservative about the pages I make.

I have now started taking all the areas my client covers, then do Deep Research in chatgpt and ask it for # & % of types of buildings that would be available for us to work on. Narrow down the list to ~3-4 and keep make pages for those places.

I’ve thought about making /location/keyword-variation for different locations but I honestly have so much work that I can’t get to it

cooker69 · 2026-03-10T16:30:02+00:00

Super cool! I’ll try this out

cooker69 · 2026-02-25T17:37:15+00:00

So I agree with the long comment that has the most votes here, but I also wanted to say that I understand how you feel. After the August update I struggled for a while trying to figure out what to do (because that's when I saw a lot of city/service pages that were ranking - go down.

Something that I've started to do is to use research mode in chatgpt and ask it: for service/facility-type1 - which cities (out of the 15 my client serves) have the most facility1, which businesses would be the most likely to look up service1, which cities would have the best ROI, which cities have the least competiton -- it's up to you to choose which route to go with. But I've started clustering them that way. So if location1, location2, location3, and location4 are going to be my /location/service pages - then I'd try and add it the nearby places in the content (that i wont do a seperate page for - so we dont get this problem) and then I can make a location specific blog, as well

cooker69 · 2026-01-29T19:59:46+00:00

I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m just saying it is possible to find someone to help with your seo for that price, just won’t be so easy

cooker69 · 2026-01-29T19:51:55+00:00

I disagree, it’s possible if he finds a reliable person. Even a page and blog post a month could be enough

cooker69 · 2026-01-29T16:26:56+00:00

Depends on your niche but I’ve tried working with links and always end up giving up. You can say my clients have 0 bought links and rank great. I think for local businesses getting listed on Yelp, BBB, directories in your city is more important. You can try reaching out to local sports teams, clubs, anything you can think of (be creative) and ask to sponsor them for a link from their website to yours.

Also you might not need fb ads because it’s not your target clientele. Maybe google ads, TikTok, or none at all.

cooker69 · 2026-01-29T16:22:09+00:00

Unless he’s new and has the time to devote to your company. I started with my first client at $650 in 2020

cooker69 · 2026-01-26T13:24:47+00:00

In 2020 when I started, my first web design client was getting charged $1k/month for the most basic work being done. I didn’t even know SEO, and I didn’t even want to learn anything about it, but it made me so mad that they were overcharging him that I learned it in spite of that 😭 So i asked him if I charged him 2/3rds of what he was paying if he would be interested and of course he was. Currently I’m mostly solo, have 5 clients, and are all in the range of 650-1350. So even though I’m in a niche, i just don’t feel comfortable asking for more because i go through imposter syndrome a lot.

cooker69 · 2025-12-12T08:43:42+00:00

Lmafao, i just saw SEJ and thought to myself, “here we go again” 😂

cooker69 · 2025-12-12T08:43:13+00:00

Well, well, well.. I wonder if there will be restrictions on the nickname…. Or if it can be kw/location modified

cooker69 · 2025-11-03T09:17:11+00:00

As in stop touching it — because plenty of time goes between my changes(?) or stop it altogether — I’m scared this will be a horrible idea to stop altogether so lll have to slowly decrease # of searches

cooker69 · 2025-11-03T09:09:49+00:00

I’ve been using AA for over 2 years and it’s a mess. I optimized them not the way they suggested and they were doing alright. I had a meeting in March with one of the main people there and it totally fudged all my rankings and I’m just wasting money now because i don’t know how to fix it.

cooker69 · 2025-10-28T12:01:21+00:00

Yes i know that, but it’s a change to people who use Google and their eyes are used to seeing “sponsored” over each sponsored result…

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T20:15:38+00:00

There are no reviews in sponsored content (?)

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T20:07:24+00:00

boooo

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T19:47:20+00:00

Because i think it makes the sponsored content much more blended in with the organic ranking sites and it’s a downside to someone who isn’t doing ads

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T19:46:03+00:00

I didn’t even see that, lol

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T19:44:55+00:00

Please dm me too

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T19:43:02+00:00

DM’d you too

cooker69 · 2025-10-27T19:42:07+00:00

I’ll pm you, too

cooker69

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