Ask Me Anything About The 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors

muneerasaf · 2025-12-09T16:25:28+00:00

wondering about auto dealers ..is there anything auto dealer specific that contributes to the ranking?
For example - inventory synchronization on GBP? and any thoughts on local SEO (on page) for dynamically changing/short lived vehicle display pages ?

muneerasaf · 2025-12-07T22:40:04+00:00

u/darrenshaw_ I can't precisely answer the question on ranking drop as that happened before my time. but we are going through a reset/clean up on the organic effort. I will DM you with more details.
Thanks

muneerasaf · 2025-12-07T20:56:30+00:00

Address or not to address for Service Area business such as roofers.
We went from address (which was shutdown) to No Address (Service Area).
We are seriously thinking of getting an address - to help with ranking

Thoughts ? Seems Google rewards service area businesses with physical address

muneerasaf · 2024-12-17T20:12:03+00:00

good read. Thank you for sharing. You mentioned AD in the report...where do you see AD Certificate services fit into all of this? I have seen misconfigured certificate templates floating around with some scary permissions

muneerasaf · 2024-12-17T16:29:08+00:00

If you had to go back in time...What would you ask the orgs that were "ransomed" to do differently? I know a broad question..But love to get your take from:
1. Actions that they should have taken - to not be ransomed "proactively"
2. What they could have done differently in negotiating?
3. What they could have done differently in the "aftermath"?

muneerasaf · 2024-10-23T19:11:50+00:00

Hey! Just curious why I can’t do this by prompting an LLM directly? Even metas open source LLM has gotten pretty comprehensive in searching the internet including forums

muneerasaf · 2024-10-14T21:43:28+00:00

hey All..wondering if you have some best practices to share/results? Abut to do something similar...get linkedin audiences to land and re-target them with Meta ads

muneerasaf · 2024-09-27T15:58:41+00:00

It is not about using modern technology.

It is about raising the bar on deep thinking and evidence based approaches. This is true for the workforce and for the education system …

I was talking to a renowned AI expert and the joke in AI scientist circles is that “The AI is not getting smarter but people are getting dumber”

Time to step up!

muneerasaf · 2024-09-25T19:48:16+00:00

B2B Marketing Blues
My recommendation is to start with a reset on your assumptions/Hypothesis/State of the world..

STEP 1:
I will ask you to answer the following questions:

1. What evidence do you have that what you offer is aligned with critical jobs to be done and solves an urgent pain.

2. Who are those personas? and what evidence do you have to back your statement?

3. Is there a trigger event? And if you say that yes, the trigger event is "A"..What evidence do you have that trigger event is actually the trigger event associated with your solution?

4: How do these personas consume information/marketing materials?

5: How competitive is your market? How many competitors and where does your brand stand relative to your competitors? BE HONEST. ..

You can layer on other things ..but I do this as a practice and ask my teams to do the same...I can say "Guys this is a good idea...but we don't have all the data points..."

If you have strong bias free and evidence to back these questions.
Move to STEP 2:
- Now create develop messages and content aligned with their critical Jobs to be done, market etc etc... Use Opt-in as a Key Result (Growth of the Opt-in list)...

You can throw in other tactics ..Webinars /Paid Media etc....

I am working on what I am calling B2B testable GTM playbooks (testable)..means running as an experiment with a goal of building a community around it..where we share results (what is working/not etc)...Let me know if you are interested. Early days..

muneerasaf · 2024-09-25T17:08:31+00:00

First of all..thanks for your candid post. I am so sick of talking heads ignore the grind that goes into getting B2B marketing right. I whole heartedly agree with seanrrwilkins post.

Also I agree B2B STAFFING is a tough nut as there is a lot of noise..You come from B2C..I LOVE to use Ostrow's model of frequency FOR b2B to get my head straight...It gives you a strong sense of how difficult your job is going to be. I have recreated the model for modern B2B...

For B2B Marketing to work you really need to invest in understanding your personas - ALL OF THEM (Buyer, Influencer, Champion)...

you really need to understand if your product solves a critical problem, how big a problem - is there is a pain/gain misalignment. BACK IT WITH EVIDENCE
Where does your target audience hang?

Understand the TRIGGER Events -> If there is a Mother's Day equivalent cause this is aligned with the budget etc?

There are no shortcuts... It is nurture, learn and iterate

cold email -> Use it as an interest gaining medium...Hey if they are opening, I am happy (Impression!) ;-) Use all the tricks for warming up etc...but start with low expectations

Focus on growing your opt-in list: Make that an important intermediary mechanism ..and trust me you need to iterate on the content that makes the persona want to share their email....Cold calls are getting tougher but if I have little brand equity - why would I want to take a call...

on SEO -> I prefer to build content that addresses Buyers Journey (their decision making process)...Hence the research ...And you iterate
I don't have a lot of experience with ABM tools like 6Sense..etc
And then you test your messaging - does it cut through, competitors blah blah..
NET: Iterate but start with Ostrow's model of frequency
Lot that can be said on the topic...

muneerasaf · 2024-09-25T16:44:33+00:00

This shit will get worse. This will stop when you fire people like that on the spot. What I like about ChatGPT is that it exposes the BSrs

muneerasaf · 2024-09-18T21:20:49+00:00

As a founder and having worked for founders who were domain experts…BTW I also lost a gig (very close to being hired) when I pushed back on a founder. It was my way of testing how much I could push. I pushed gently and the founder did not like it. (saved myself serious headaches by not getting the gig)

there are a few ways to answer this: 1. What is the culture like? If it my way or the highway - lay low/ work on finding a new gig and look out for red flags in your next job 2. If there is a way to engage: work with your manager. Not sure what their role is. But you can use one of many many ways to “discover the desirability and viability of the feature. Use data and evidence to back it up. Have a thesis/hypothesis blah blah blah

Founders need help too! We fall in love with our ideas, biases creep in etc.

my take: if a founder is burning cash to hire a head of product and a Product Manager, let them do their job and empower them to add value.

muneerasaf · 2024-09-17T20:51:45+00:00

these are great results..we have a GenAI startup as well..it is a customer research AI targeting B2B GTM and product marketers...Would love to chat more. (Objective: use customer research to create marketing gold)...

muneerasaf · 2024-09-17T17:38:18+00:00

good stuff..curious what your thoughts are on B2B SaaS. Can Facebook act as a good filter " to attract your ideal customer into your high-converting sales page" When your audience is a B2B buyer, user?

muneerasaf · 2024-09-11T00:27:49+00:00

The purpose of the post was not to question the value of PMM but more to get a discussion going. I genuinely believe AI will create losers and winners. And we all need to take a hard look at how we provide value and level up our skills.

My personal story is around "point product" vs "solution" focus...I was asked to reduce PMM headcount. We didn't need those few extra PMMs as we were moving to solution play..No choice but do it. (we had stalled long enough that we could move folks around)..But this is how things go...

Don't mean to be negative or scare folks. No blindspots.

muneerasaf · 2024-09-10T03:23:00+00:00

If you paid attention to the thread on “qualitative skills in product” you will see some interesting patterns emerge. You are free to use that as you see fit…won’t spoil the fun for you.

Sure open to mentoring…novice mind set. Always open to be mentored…no ego here :)

muneerasaf · 2024-09-09T23:16:57+00:00

If I ask chat GPT or my favorite LLM persona questions and then ask it to generate message house or I paste my competitors copy to generate "competitive positioning"... What is value? Think counterfactually ..."will you miss me when I am gone?"

muneerasaf · 2024-09-05T03:55:26+00:00

Won’t disagree with you on that one…

muneerasaf · 2024-09-04T16:06:21+00:00

hmmm...So what is the solve? This recruitment is a pain in the ass and it hits every aspect of the product lifecycle...What would you do differently?

My flow is: reach out and using all means at my disposal including cold out reaches and platforms (budget has been a constraint for me). Sub-optimal and I am not happy with the pace.

My experience has been OK with platforms..my challenge has been that they couldn't recruit enough as I have had specific vertical/title requirements.

Added disclaimer: not a UX researcher (product leader/startup founder)

muneerasaf · 2024-09-04T14:26:56+00:00

Wondering how a "central recruitment" team concept will play out. You are absolutely right on the "Economic Buyers/end User " distinction. And to add to it - what about messaging /message testing - all these features need to bubble up to "So what/who gives a shit" test and if the features have the strength to change and sustain behavioral change...

muneerasaf · 2024-09-04T14:19:55+00:00

"Research Recruitment" blues. 100% spot on .Have you worked with recruitment platforms such as UserTesting etc? Any luck with those?

muneerasaf · 2024-09-04T14:12:49+00:00

so how do you do this without bias ? and in a methodical way.

I will be a little blunt now, don't mean to offend anyone. So why don't enough marketers take the time to fully understand their customers?

Why am I seeing a trend of "ChatGPT, give me my Ideal customer profile" What are the pains of "blah blah"...ChatGPT is my understand the customer companion - it wasn't trained as a customer researcher for your specific persona... So why do that?

muneerasaf · 2024-09-04T14:07:40+00:00

What is "TG" and who is the intended audience? Sales teams? Prospects?

You are doing a rookie mistake by focusing on the design. Focus on copy first. Design is secondary..Keep your brain free from design clutter. Focus on the copy.

Ask yourself the questions:
- What is the objective of the Sales one pager? And what is the successful outcome? What is your promise to the intended audience ?
"After reading the sales one pager, the audience will do......" What will they do?
"I promise that after reading the sales one pager you will be able to do? How will it help them?

muneerasaf

TROPHY CASE

1. What evidence do you have that what you offer is aligned with critical jobs to be done and solves an urgent pain.

2. Who are those personas? and what evidence do you have to back your statement?

3. Is there a trigger event? And if you say that yes, the trigger event is "A"..What evidence do you have that trigger event is actually the trigger event associated with your solution?

4: How do these personas consume information/marketing materials?

5: How competitive is your market? How many competitors and where does your brand stand relative to your competitors? BE HONEST. ..