Claudia:
AI’s going to start to prioritize a lot of video content. So getting their brands in the video content is going to be a priority, getting those titles and then making sure that they have, like, emergency, you know, all the calls to action and then helping, you know, with that customer journey. We're going to see, you know, YouTube shorts is going to be prioritized in the AI Overviews.
Andrew:
Hello and welcome to SE Ranking’s DoFollow Podcast. Here we hold regular talks with SEO and digital marketing experts to discuss hot SEO topics and share actionable insights with the SEO community. So subscribe to stay on top of everything going on in SEO.
Today, we're talking about the future trends of local SEO and Google Business Profiles. To help us explore this question in depth, I'm excited to be joined by Claudia Tomina, who is the Chief Executive Officer at Reputation ARM, as well as a Platinum Google Product Expert. Welcome to the DoFollow Podcast, Claudia! Thank you for coming on.
Claudia:
Appreciate it! Thanks for having me.
Andrew:
If you don't mind, I just want to jump right in and ask you to share a bit about your journey in SEO, how you got started, what led you to specialize in local SEO, and how you became a Platinum Google Product Expert. Should be an exciting story.
Claudia:
Yeah, so I started in a local SEO in 2019. I partnered up with my partner Al who owns GTU and he specializes in enterprise multi-location businesses. So Reputation ARM was kind of formed to help as an extension of his agency where we focused heavily on citation management and helping businesses generate new reviews and then a big emphasis on Google Business Profile management.
Then I, um, Google Product Expert, started that program in 2022 and, I kind of fell into it by accident. I had an issue with a client and they had, like, tons of, like, fake reviews that were coming from, like, different countries and flagging wasn't getting it removed. So I found myself posting in the forum, and as I was waiting to get that resolved, I was exploring the forums and looking at things, and I thought to myself, well, I can answer more than half these questions.
You know, so I actually started enjoying the program. I didn't know where it was going to lead me, but I ended up embracing it. I loved it. And I just, I really thrived off really advocating for the small business in there and having that connection and being able to escalate and plead that case to Google was really, it's just been overall in a great experience for me. So I really enjoy being part of that program.
Andrew:
Yeah, a lot of the stories from SEOs I heard is that they just sort of naturally drop into an issue and sort of become an expert gradually.
The next question I want to ask you is how has local SEO evolved over the past, let's say, six years that you've been working on it and what trends do you see shaping its future? So there are two parts to this question. Let's just start off with what the story was like when you started off, basically.
Claudia:
Yeah. So, you know, starting off, it was just more about, like, optimization and just making sure, like, keywords and data was there. But I think there's a huge shift towards visual content. And so now we have to show our story and not so much tell our story. So videos and photos are becoming, like, a bigger role in local SEO. And I always tell my clients, help me tell your story. Like, what is it that you want your customers to know about you without saying it in words?
You know, if you want to focus on commercial restoration, let's show images of repairs in commercial restoration. We can't just list the service anymore. We actually have to show and use photos to really tell that story.
Andrew:
Yeah, there's definitely too many competitors going on. This is already sort of the trend. So what used to be text is now more of visual content.
And what about Google Business Profiles and their features like Ask Maps About This Place, Post Question and Answers, Product Listings. What role do they play in local SEO and how should businesses leverage these features effectively? What has your experience been like?
Claudia:
Yeah, so I, like, often explore Ask Maps and I find myself, like, constantly going onto Google Maps to see how Google's prioritizing their data. So, I mean, it's really important for SEOs to really focus on that. It's not just about ranking reports anymore. It's about looking at where your customers are and what they're seeing, and exploring different AI features like the Ask Maps.
You know, Ask Maps is still evolving. I've seen it totally hallucinate. And I had one business that I was managing and it was referencing websites that were out of the country. So, you know, it was clear that there wasn't enough data about that business. So that's why Ask Maps probably started to hallucinate, but it's getting better. I've seen it improve. I think there's more of a focus on looking towards reviews and kind of pulling the data from the reviews.
So generating good reviews and—it’s going to be important—and you're going to notice there's a shift in reviews. Like, Google's asking the consumers a lot more questions. How long did you wait? You know, and they're giving them predefined answers and all that's by design. They want to be able to take that data and then use it within Ask Maps.
So getting reviews and getting that data in the reviews is going to be—reviews have always been a top priority—so it's going to stay there. And then making sure that your website answers a lot of the questions. You don't want AI to have to look at other third-party sources.
I think if the majority of the information can be found in your website, making sure your content is really there. I think there's going to be a big focus on organic SEO and a shift away from paid ads because people are going to start to realize that AI is answering these questions and maybe they're not answering it correctly for them. So they're going to need to refocus. And so we're going to see a lot of that. And Ask Maps is going to probably replace a lot of, like, the generic features like the Q&A. I think Google will probably keep Q&A for some businesses where they maybe don't have a website listed or don't have a ton of reviews. But if you want to be enabled in those types of features, you're going to have to have a lot more rich data.
Andrew:
Appreciate that answer, Claudia. With the rise of AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT, how can local businesses adapt their strategies to remain relevant in an increasingly automated landscape?
Claudia:
With ChatGPT, the first thing you really want to do is kind of do a quick search and see what ChatGPT is prioritizing.
So if you find that, I find when I search ChatGPT, meta titles and meta descriptions are becoming a big focus on the results. So, like, re-prioritizing some of your meta titles, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of businesses out there that kind of have their websites set up, but really didn't focus on optimizing, you know, that kind of data. They're just more focused on paid ads or in other areas. So I think there's gonna be a big shift in organic SEO just because chatGPT doesn't prioritize paid ads.
So I see that coming in the future. And then I also think there's gonna be a big emphasis on citations again. Everyone always says citations is dead. I've never thought citations are dead. I always thought they were, you know, critical for a business to make sure that they're listed everywhere because search engines care if you're listed on Yelp and TripAdvisor.
But right now, I think focusing on making sure that you're present and claimed and optimized on these other platforms, because the big focus has always been Google Maps. Let me optimize Google Maps. That's where the funds are going. But now you're going to need to make sure, franchises where their franchisees have Yelp listings and it's not in their branded account, right?
So it's like now they don't have control. A TripAdvisor listing is unclaimed. I think there's going to be a big focus on a lot of these brands saying, hey, let's, let's prioritize getting these third party sources in one branded account so we can re-optimize and then can kind of control the data that's getting put out there.
And then there's, AI is just throwing out like old third-party citations. So there's going to be a big cleanup, right? If you're a restaurant and you have a menu that was on a single platform and it was outdated, you're going to want to make sure a lot of that stuff is cleaned up and reprioritized.
Andrew:
I realize that you already touched on reviews being a huge ranking factor for local SEO. With regard to on-page signals, NAP data consistency, user-generated content, which one is the most critical? Maybe you can single out another one besides reviews and, maybe, you can anticipate something else coming to the forefront, like, being a dominant signal for Google.
Claudia:
Yeah, I mean, there's like, I hate to say something is most critical because an SEO, like, that's a combination of best practices. But if I had to say in 2025, what brands should be focusing on? I think it's a lot of visual content. Really getting those videos out there and then finding where your audience is, whether it's TikTok, but then also making sure, like, YouTube shorts, I think YouTube shorts is going to be a big thing. There's going to be a big shift towards that.
People need to start diversifying and then really focusing on local video content. So it's not just the brand as a whole, making branded video content. I think a lot of this, there's going to be a big shift towards making local video content. And then, you know, of course, like, reviews are important, but maybe more review diversity now, making sure that like Yelp and TripAdvisor and maybe some of these other random platforms have more recent reviews.
So it's not really so much the quantity, but maybe just making sure that you have something more recent and not from like 2022.
Andrew:
What about companies that work with a lot of different locations? They have multiple locations in various, maybe, countries, maybe, in a single country? What are the biggest challenges they can expect to see? I realize that a lot of the answers you already sort of touched on, I mean, I realize that it’s important to do video content, to do reviews on a lot of different platforms, but what specifically is the challenge for managing a lot of locations?
Maybe, there is, like, NAP consistency, maybe Google doesn't understand where the headquarters are located. Could you maybe address that issue? Because you said that you worked with businesses that manage multiple locations. I'd love to know that.
Claudia:
As far as brands and then their focus, I think location pages and then communities that they serve need to be more of an emphasis. So maybe building out those pages and then that way they can, okay, where are you located? That's what AI is going to ask me. If I'm, like, give me the best pizza near me. It wants to know where I'm at. So the next follow-up is, here's my zip code or here's my city. And then they're looking at all the pages relevant.
So if you don't actually have a service page laid out on your website that says, [we service you in this city], you're going to miss out on showing up in those AI search results. So I think brands are going to start to realize, like, maybe expanding on the communities that they serve so that they can show up. It's not just going to be, like, the local pack anymore because the AI Overviews are going to show a lot of that.
And so it's not another page, another opportunity to add a meta title, another opportunity at a meta description. And so that's going to be, I'm noticing that has become more of a focus for me and what I'm seeing.
Andrew:
What is the degree of using AI to help businesses manage their local data? Maybe there's a way to unify all NAP data and just get ChatGPT, for example, to tell you like, okay, there's something going wrong with that location. I just wanted to find out with regard not to ranking in AI, but using AI to speed up this process to maybe feed into Google's algorithm in a more favorable light.
Claudia:
You got to be careful with AI. Like, it's going to evolve, it's going to change. So, you know, just kind of getting the bigger picture, the surface, like what's AI showing now, kind of make sure that you're like, well-optimized your pages, you know, are giving the right content. You could use AI to create new content, but we got to make sure that it's localized content. We got to make sure that we're serving the purpose and fulfilling the journey of the customer.
So it's not just, you know, like, hey, we're going to create this page for AI. We got to make sure that we have, you know, the customer journey in mind and fulfilling that and using all the best practices.
So it's not just about gaming the system and making sure we have these pages. It's got to be quality relevant. And then again, like fulfilling the customer journey. But I think, you know, for companies that are managing multiple locations, I think some of the biggest challenges on the horizon for them is really going to be, you know, creating that local video content.
I think AI is going to start to prioritize a lot of video content. So getting their brands and the video content is going to be a priority, getting those titles and then making sure that they have, you know, like, emergency, you know, all the call to actions and then helping, you know, with that customer journey.
We're going to see, you know, YouTube shorts is going to be prioritized in the AI Overviews. And so we need to like help these brands really put a focus on local content and then training these local restaurants, these local franchisees to really like produce the good content without overdoing it on the budget.
Because there's always a budget in mind and that's why like, you know, paid ads is, you know, always a priority. We're going to probably see a big focus, you know, for brands saying, okay, we maybe, maybe we have to focus on training our franchisees to do better with the local content because it's not so much in the budget.
And so getting that local content from the team is going to be a big priority, I think. And then training them to stay on brand and then using that, creating those video title tags, tagging the locations and YouTube that way they can, and then making sure that those YouTube accounts and social accounts are put inside their Google Business Profiles and expanding the brand as a whole, like across the web.
Andrew:
You, as a professional, how often would you go to review an account? How often would you, even if you know that everything is great with your GBP profile, how often would you go to maybe throw in something new, explore new features? Is jumping on new features a great way of getting more visibility? Or would you recommend people, businesses to sort of take their time, see what's working best and then take advantage of maybe like you said, YouTube shorts. Take advantage of that.
And my question is about the long-term game and how often would you suggest businesses heavily look into auditing their local business presence?
Claudia:
Yeah, you always want to audit your local business presence. So, what I like to do is, like, I work with a lot of brands and franchisees. I tell them to book an appointment with me quarterly and let's review everything. I know people get busy. They're going to provide enough content to last me so long. But what I tell them is let's meet every quarter and let's analyze your data and let's look at the new features that Google's presented. Most recently they added the feature for, like, text messaging and WhatsApp.
And so I tell them like, I don't know if it's going to turn spammy. I mean, the last feature with the text messaging in the chat often was pretty spammy. I said, I don't know how many texts you're really going to get, but it's another way to get engagements on your Google Business Profile. So let's try it. Do you want to add your text message? You want to add a WhatsApp and then, you know, just explaining like it's only going to be on when Google rolles out new features.
It's funny because it's only on mobile and it's only on Google search and it's not on Google maps and it's not on desktop. So I think for the average business owner, it's really confusing. It's like, okay, I thought you had a text messaging, but when I search myself, I don't see it.
You know, new features are good, but they're limited and based on, know, whether it's mobile or desktop, but I do think it's important to stay on top of anything new that Google's putting out there. It's just another way to engage. Adding all those videos and everything. It's a way for the consumer to stop, scroll, click.
And the idea is let's get more clicks on your Google Business Profile. Even if it doesn't turn into an actual conversion, we still want to make sure that we're focusing on getting any of those clicks and engagements. So, anytime Google throws something new in there, I think it's worth a shot.
Andrew:
But, like, which metrics do you look at often or do you predict that it will be a factor that tells how successful a business is?
So with regard to talking to clients about local SEO, about GBP, what metrics do you focus on besides, well, I'm not gonna say besides, I'll let you do the entire list. So what metrics do you focus on when communicating with clients about the importance of doing local SEO?
Claudia:
Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting question. I mean, everyone looks at, like, the basic metrics, right? Like website clicks, you know, keyword rankings. But I think, like, as an SEO expert now, I think part of the hardest part now is retraining our customers to rethink about metrics.
It's like, yes, I understand your website clicks are down. It's because Google's ecosystem is designed to have them stay within there. So, you're not going to have as many clicks, perhaps. But let's focus on the different KPIs. And right now I think, you know, it's influence over traffic. It's brand followers, it's influencer mentions and Google Maps. They're putting like top 10 restaurants, hidden gems, and a lot of those restaurants that are placed in there is because an influencer tagged them in a video content.
So it's just getting those influencer mentions, the brand followers, brand awareness. Maybe even another metric could be review diversity on different platforms. That could be a new focus. And then possibly email subscribers. Are those going up? So even though website traffic is down, you got to look at the whole picture, like as far as influence, is your influence going up?
Andrew:
What about with regard to the team that makes up the website, for example, does Google look at each individual person who populates the website with content as an or not necessarily as an expert, but it looks at it as a source of expertise and it analyzes to see, okay, is this person an expert? Is that person not an expert?
So my question is, what can businesses do to maybe increase their expertise in the eyes of search engines? So maybe they need to put up their certificates somewhere on the website just to make sure that Google understands, okay, this website knows what it's talking about. I'm going to give it a bigger push on Maps. Is that a thing in local SEO?
Claudia:
Yeah, like, you want to show yourself to be an expert, right? And how do you do that? I think it's followers, likes, teaming up with influencers, I think is a big thing. I think Google is really recognizing that. And so if you're getting a lot of brand mentions by other people and not just on your own social accounts, then that's definitely going to help your brand presence.
It's not the backlink anymore. It's the influencer mention. It's all the mentions that you're going to get, whether it's through social media, your reposts. So yeah, like how can you show Google that you're relevant and that you know what you're talking about? I would say it's probably going to be what kind of influence you have on your social media accounts.
Andrew:
I have another question. If you could give one piece of advice to local marketers and business owners looking to stay ahead in local SEO with so much constantly going on and new features popping up almost every day, what would it be? What would the advice be?
Claudia:
So my one piece of advice in 2025 has really been YouTube shorts. You really have to focus on, like, I think a lot of businesses focus on like TikTok, Instagram or Facebook. But if you can redirect your focus into YouTube shorts and then the brand needs to really decide how they want to, like, lay this out, right?
They have one brand YouTube channel and then maybe make a bunch of playlists for all the multiple locations that they have. And then you're going to have these local content videos from your franchisees or your employees out on the local level. And then make sure that the titles are relevant.
So it's going to be, whether you tag it with [Houston Flood Help], your title on the video might be, [Emergency Water Cleanup in Houston]. I think in general, a restoration company isn't thinking of video, but video is the way it needs to go and then being creative with it and making sure your titles are in there, you're being tagged. And then eventually, you know, as AI evolves and it's going to prioritize a lot of videos, they're going to stay ahead of the curve. So just think in terms of how you can really prioritize your brand with video.
Andrew:
Did I miss anything else? Maybe you want to share something? Maybe you read a piece of news this morning that really stood out and you want to add something else to this conversation? This is the opportunity to do that. Maybe I missed something.
Claudia:
Yeah, I mean the final message really is, you know, go out there, go online, look at how your brand is presenting itself, go on AI and see, look—it's funny because AI is prioritizing a lot of the meta titles and meta descriptions—so look at that, rethink how your titles are and maybe consider adding a bunch of more keywords in there so that you're going to show up in the AI results. Embrace authentic content, visual storytelling is really where it's at.
You really want to connect with your local audience. So you got to make sure that you're showing your story. You're not really telling it anymore. So local visibility, you know, it's not about the ranking reports and the website clicks anymore. It's about finding your audience and making sure that you're having the influence where they’re at.
Andrew:
You heard it here first, folks. Thank you for saying that we should show, not tell more, and all of the other things that you shared in the podcast. And if you don't mind, I'm going to do the outro. Today, Claudia Tomina shared with us her insights on the future trends of local SEO and Google Business Profiles. I hope our listeners are inspired and are already coming up with ideas on how to capitalize on their local SEO and GBP efforts.
Thank you, Claudia, for making time to be here with us, sharing your knowledge with our community and to our listeners. I want to thank you for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe to the DoFollow Podcast and we'll see you in the next episode.
