Imperfect Marketing
Imperfect Marketing
How Is AI Changing Local SEO and Google Maps Rankings?
In this episode of Imperfect Marketing, I sit down with Joshua Thompson, a local SEO specialist with more than a decade of experience helping businesses show up where it matters most: in Google’s local search results and Google Maps.
We dive deep into why local SEO is evolving faster than ever, how AI is changing search behaviors, and what businesses should actually focus on instead of chasing shortcuts.
From Accidental Marketer to Local SEO Expert
Josh shares his unique path—from building websites for financial leads to helping friends and family rank locally to eventually building and selling his own company. His entrepreneurial background shaped the customer-first, no-gimmicks SEO approach he uses today.
Understanding Local SEO vs. Traditional SEO
Josh breaks down what makes local SEO its own ecosystem:
How Local SEO Differs
- Google Maps and the Local Pack often matter more than organic rankings
- Local SEO relies heavily on trust signals (reviews, name-address-phone consistency, location data)
- Traditional SEO leans more on authority signals (backlinks, content depth)
What Actually Matters for Local SEO
- Reviews—the biggest local ranking driver
- Accurate listings (especially high-impact ones like Google, Yelp, Bing)
- Customer engagement signals
- Building trust through consistent information
Josh emphasizes that directory listings aren’t about gaming Google—they’re about confirming your legitimacy.
Cutting Through the Noise: AI, Voice Search & “Gaming the System”
We tackle the recent buzz (and myths) about AI influencing search:
AI “Hacks” & Gimmicks
Josh calls out trends like having “AI parties” in ChatGPT to influence rankings—explaining why tactics like these don’t create real, lasting visibility.
AI Search Is Still Search
- AI tools still rely heavily on Google’s results
- If you show up in Google, you’ll show up in AI responses
- The fundamentals haven’t changed: content + trust + authority still win
Voice Search Déjà Vu
Josh compares today’s AI panic to the voice-search hype a decade ago—reminding us the sky didn’t fall, and SEO fundamentals remained the same.
The Rise of No-Click Searches & What It Means for Businesses
Local businesses are seeing:
- More direct calls from Google Business Profiles
- Fewer website visits
- Greater reliance on reviews and verified info
Josh explains why this is good news, especially for service-based businesses where customers want immediate answers—not long website visits.
Preparing for What’s Next
Josh’s advice for staying ahead is refreshingly simple:
- Stick to fundamentals: content, relevance, authority, and trust
- Optimize your Google Business Profile: reviews, photos, accuracy
- Build momentum: keep improving in one direction instead of chasing every new trend
- Avoid shortcuts: they cost more time than they save
As he puts it: “You don't get time back while you’re searching for shortcuts.”
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Hi, I'm Kendra Corman. If you're a coach, consultant, or marketer, you know marketing is far from a perfect science. And that's why this show is called Imperfect Marketing. Join me and my guests as we explore how to grow your business with marketing tips and, of course, lessons learned along the way. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I'm your host, Kendra Corman, and today I'm really excited to be joined by Joshua Thompson. And we're going to be talking about local SEO, SEO, and I think it's called GEO for the AI generated cert. I don't actually know. So I'm super excited to be talking with you about all of these topics and learning a lot. Welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01:So tell me a little bit about how did you get into SEO?
SPEAKER_02:So I'm Josh Thompson. I do local SEO primarily. Like you said, there's a lot of different names for everything. I guess I grew up in a household that was pseudo-entrepreneurial. And in my 20s, I just, you know, the internet was around and kind of starting to become a thing. Started up a website to do to get leads for financial companies and did that for a while. I just, I've always been kind of like take the opportunities, right? When you can get them. And I had a friend who had some issues with substances, and we kind of made our way into addiction treatment. So that's where I started. And you know, I went through this whole process of hiring SEO companies and then not really feeling like I they would cared about me personally. And I kind of then I would take it over and hire and take it over. And eventually I just said, I'm going to start doing this myself. And so we built that up. I sold that company. And then after doing, you know, SEO for a few friends and family members, I was like, this is what I'm doing already with my day. So, you know, I might as well jump in. And that was, you know, 10 years or more ago. So that's that's kind of my story of getting here.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. I love how, you know, it's something that you were doing, and you just like, oh, well, yeah, might as well monetize that while I can. Um, so that's great. So, all right, let's talk about local SEO because you specifically called that out. I know it's different because different things count towards it, but it's very different from traditional SEO. It's can you tell me more about the differences?
SPEAKER_02:I think the biggest difference is that local SEO has a a focus on maybe Google Maps first, since in most searches, and and and you can figure out, you know, what does Google show you when you do a search? I mean, that's the best way to figure out what you should focus on. But often you see that local map pack, right, where it shows the three local businesses from Google Maps. So Google Maps is a bigger driver of success in local SEO. So that is the primary focus. And that's a different algorithm entirely than search. So that's, I think, what differentiates local SEO from traditional SEO.
SPEAKER_01:So my understanding, and please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that certain other things count towards at local SEO that don't necessarily count towards traditional SEO. So some of the no follow links, my understanding is that they count. Like, are you optimizing for insurance agency or the name of the insurance agency?
SPEAKER_02:It's not that no follow links count. And, you know, everything that we talk about, just like anything in SEO, is constantly changing, right? And yes, tomorrow it's all wrong.
SPEAKER_01:It's okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And and everything's more correlation and it can change from even industry to industry. It's always best to really look at everything through the lens of what are your competitors doing, right? So I think that's always a good answer. But going back to what you said, like no fall links and all this stuff, I think there's two sides, right? There's authority, which is a real heavy driver in traditional SEO. And then there's trust. And trust is a big factor in local SEO. Things like your reviews, your name, your address, your phone number, your location, and making sure those match up around. That's where, like, what you're saying is a no-follow. In most cases, that means like a directory link. And the reason why that has a benefit is because it's offering trust to Google that those things match up: your name, address, phone number. So there's a benefit from some of these aspects of SEO that, yeah, might not be as impactful in traditional SEO that can help you, you know, drive success for Google Maps.
SPEAKER_01:So one of my clients, we were updating all of their listings and um with a with an agency. And one of the things that they said was they're like, well, why do I need to be on yellowpages.com? But that's the reason, right? So that all these directory listings, if they're all saying the same thing, then we're building trust with Google.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I mean, that's the that's the theory. I mean, look, I think a lot of that has changed a lot. Do those help? Yes. How much? Well, once again, it depends on the competitive landscape. But I do think that this idea in the past where everything has to match up, I think it used to have a heavier weight. If a customer now doesn't have, you know, if you can't go find the website anymore, there's they're shut down and they have your information there that's wrong and you can't get a hold of them, right? I wouldn't sweat that stuff anymore. You know, I I think Google understands what's most important. You know, we look at things like Bing, Yelp. How do we know those are important? Well, a lot of those show up. Like Yelp is huge in search results. You see Yelp everywhere. And I think we have to look at everything that that we do through that lens. Google's gonna prioritize. Not everything is equally weighted. So, yeah, going out and getting those citations, it can be helpful. I think it used to be a lot more helpful, but I think you're gonna get more benefit putting more quality time into these secondary areas. Like Yelp can be good if you have your information, but it can be even better if you have real reviews on there. Why does that work better? Because people actually come from Yelp. I always like to look at things through a customer first lens. If the customer already likes something and they're taking actions and you can get a benefit there, then Google's probably gonna boost you from that because customers already look at that through this productivity lens or a benefit, right? So I just always like to break things down from that view.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I like that because I don't, I don't like games. I know I'm gonna be asking you about AI and how that's impacting local SEO. Um, but before we started recording, one of the questions that I asked was, I was like, hey, I'm like, there's all these people playing these games, you know. They're saying there was a blog that I read, I think it was a blogger, it was an email, and she's like, have an AI party to get listed in good and search results. And you're supposed to, I think, turn on, like track your activity and learn from you. So you turn on that um feature if you've got a paid plan and have it turned off. And like six or eight people all get on Chat GPT and start um asking questions and answering questions about your business so that that way you'll show up because and it's like all at the same time or whatever. And I'm like, that feels like trying to game the system. And usually most of the systems are pretty smart about that eventually. And I would think AI would be smarter like earlier on too. So what what's going on with AI AI and local SEO?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, I mean that's that's really interesting. And there is a there is this element of AI is being indexed, right? I think there were some things about grok getting indexed. So if you had certain if you ask certain questions or put certain content into grok, it would put those into the search system. Uh kind of a similar thing. I think chat can pull, you know, I guess the idea is that it can pull from the database of itself, and you can influence uh what it says. To me, uh there's uh two ways to break this down. Number one is what does chat or any AI say about you and how do you influence that? And two, how do you show up on a list when it comes to people searching more generally? Number one is going to be content driven. I mean, I think at the end of the day, reviews, what you have on your site, all of these things, I mean, that's what's gonna drive what is said about you. And there's gonna be a lot of information or a lot of change to this and influencing, right? That's that's I think the marketing aspect of like how do you get it to say good things or whatever. So there's that side. I don't really consider myself the strongest at that side. You know, I don't SEO is marketing, but more in the finding side, right? So that's where I come in and and I focus a lot more is like if somebody says, hey, what are the top 10 plumbers in my area? I want to make sure my customer is on that list, if not at the top of that list. Right now, that's just search. All these AI tools are just using search and for the most part Google search. So if you can show up in Google search, then you're gonna show up on these AI searches, right? And it's really not overly complicated. It's just showing up in search. And I think, like you said, it's gonna keep changing, but I just don't see how AI ever gets away from the building blocks that Google's already created because Google's already gone through this process of how do we make sure who's showing up is real, they're not gaming the system. And that's where like backlinks and content and all this have come into play. I don't know that AI can really get rid of that and start again without ending up just finding that same pathway to what's good and what's not. Uh, that's at least kind of my thoughts on it.
SPEAKER_01:I appreciate that because yeah, you want to come up with that listing, right? You want to come up in search. And I think I've read two different reports that came out recently. One said that AI is really not taking over search. Like the impact to search is not that much. The actually, the people that use AI more are actually using search more. So the more they use AI, the more they're using search. They didn't draw conclusions in like a way that I would have liked. Is it because they're more tech savvy? But it sounds like they're actually trying to check their data because they actually trust Google search more, which I thought was very interesting, trying to make sure that there's no hallucinations and stuff. The other piece is that Google's been talking, I guess, about keeping on that little AI-generated search summary at the top. And a bunch of people are like, no, I want to be able to turn that off. Like, I don't want that to be automatic. I want to be able to pick if that's on or off, which I thought was very interesting because I think the way people are accepting and dealing with AI and their search results is is very different. And I don't think it's ex it's impacting search as much as people thought as quickly, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:And I think there's almost an element of do you annoy or give bad information to the point where everyone's gonna want it off and it's gonna be harder to get it back. I mean, I do think it comes back at some point. Right now, it's really helpful for the same stuff Google was just stealing from websites. I shouldn't say stealing them and get sued or something. But like, you know, when it was like, what time is it in France? And it can go to a clock website that has the information and take that, put it up. And I think there are more binary questions or informative questions that people want to get answers quickly for. And that's been going away for a long time. I like the funnel, and that's why I like local SEO. Most of local SEO is bottom of the funnel. If you're looking up how do I replace my own pipes, I don't know if I really care if my customer gets that traffic. But when you say I need an emergency plumber right now in Dallas, that's when I want to show up, right? So the thing is as soon as somebody needs a service from a person, especially local, where they they need to see that person in person, that's where I tend to be kind of accidentally got to local SEO, but that's where I like to focus. And like I said, I'm kind of lucky that I got into local earlier because I feel like right now that's the least impacted by this entire AI.
SPEAKER_01:I have to agree too, because of the no-click searches, right? So when I go, I'm not going to ChatGPT to find a phone number or a website of a company, right? I'm going to, if I'm in my phone, I'm just searching Google and it's popping up and I've got call right there, one click, you know. I don't even need to go to their website or I check their hours, right? I don't even need to go anywhere. How do your clients feel about the whole no-click trend? I mean, it's got to be helping them, but some of them aren't liking it so much because of tracking.
SPEAKER_02:No click being just through AI.
SPEAKER_01:Like looking at no, like in like the maps and the summaries, the little highlight things with the hours and all that stuff and not going to the website, just being listed and looking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, look, the LSA ads, I I don't know how familiar with you are with those, but there's, you know, Google already has its Google guarantee or local service ads, local ads, right? And those are already pushed to either a call or a message. They don't even go to your website. You can't even find the website through that. And I think it works really like, you know, at the end of the day, even if you go to the plumbing website, no one's reading that, you know.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, I think.
SPEAKER_02:I think there's, you know, there's two types of businesses. I do think there are these longer decision, you know, like the long and the short decision time frame businesses, right? Like if you're a custom home builder, yeah, people are gonna want to go look, and that's different, right? But a plumber, they just want to get an idea that you're trustworthy, you're gonna do a good thing.
SPEAKER_01:One of my friends is dealing with right now.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I I don't think as long as they can get the lead, get it quickly, and then you know, it's in the businesses, you know, court to answer the phone, right? I mean, that's such a huge piece of the phone.
SPEAKER_01:Which is a bigger challenge than you would think, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right. But that's where you know, I I just don't see a lot of difference in the website locally. I I guess I'll say for most of my customers, especially in that situation, they're already seeing 65 to 75% of people just calling directly from the Google business profile. They don't even make it to the website. The website is becoming a support for the Google business profile, and it's super helpful, but it's not the primary. The Google business profile is in the most, in most cases, is the primary driver here for these businesses.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's trustworthy. It's got the reviews, it's got updated information. Google is verifying that information. So I think, you know, there's a lot of pluses for the average consumer and taking your perspective of customer first, right? That information is the most important and the quickest access. And so why not? Right? Leverage it and make it easy on them. So that's great. So should local businesses be doing anything to prepare as things are changing constantly?
SPEAKER_02:It's traditional SEO. The biggest difference between AI SEO and just regular SEO is something we've already gone through, but it didn't take. And that was Siri and Voice Search, you know, about a decade ago.
SPEAKER_01:I have to laugh, but because we we yell profanities at Alexa on a regular basis. Oh, hopefully she's not gonna weigh in all of a sudden. Be like, oh my gosh, that is not what we said.
SPEAKER_00:We said like that is true.
SPEAKER_01:Something has something to do with that. Sorry. I just like, yeah, like voice search. We avoid what I said. My husband was asking a question last night over dinner, and I said, Well, why don't you just ask Alexa? And he goes, I'm not starting that stuff tonight.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, if anything, Alexa just accidentally talks to my kids once in a while and they freak out.
SPEAKER_00:So I no, my niece sounds like she's got marbles in her mouth, and she totally understands her. No problem. I'm like, I enunciate, and she's like, I got nothing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01:It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Well, uh, okay, sorry. Yeah, totally. Where I'm coming from is in the way the approach, right? So everyone about a decade ago was talking about how, you know, the the the way you search would change. Instead of saying, you know, plumber Dallas, you would say, you know, who's the best plumber in Dallas or who are the top, right? Exactly, kind of like I said before, the way you search in AI is different. So if you have authority, like we've talked about before, and you can rank in search, then it's easy to change what you're ranking for. So if right now I've been targeting plumber in Dallas, and tomorrow I want to target AI, which you can probably see this over a lot of businesses right now, they're changing from plumber in Dallas to best plumber in Dallas, top plumber in Dallas, and they're targeting those different searches because that's what a that's what you do in AI. So if I type in, hey, who are the best three plumbers? AI is gonna go do 10 searches all around that best plumbers, top plumbers, and it's gonna kind of invent its own. It's gonna compile those results. So what you need to be doing though is just doing the exact same things that have always worked, building backlinks, you know, getting authority, building content, targeting customers, getting reviews. And I think, you know, Google Maps has been part of all this. I think it's gonna be a bigger part over time because it's a huge resource, but it's not really different, right? The people who rank really well in your local area who have been doing those things for a long time, they're gonna show up in AI. AI wants to show them. AI, just like Google, just like anybody else, they just want to solve customers' problems in the best way possible. That's what Google's been trying to do for, you know, for decades. So it's not a different game, really.
SPEAKER_01:I had a uh Amazon SEO expert on a long uh like I think it's gonna be years now. And she said, you know, the biggest thing you have to remember is that this is Amazon's customer. So when she's ranking for her clients and her products that she's getting listed and stuff like that, she's listing for on behalf of Amazon. So she has to do a good job because that will reflect on Amazon, not directly her. And then Amazon will take it out, you know, later on them for not delivering because it's their customer. And it's sort of the same thing with Google, right? People are going to Google search. It's the goo, it's Google's customer. You want them to be your customer, but you're borrowing their platform to do that. And so the more you can think about the customer, the better it's going to be, which I love because I haven't heard really a lot of people talk about that in that way about local search. Right? Local search has been a lot about listings and directories and just sheer numbers of stuff. And I think your approach to it is just so much better and and cleaner and just a more, I want to use the word healthy, but that's not the right word, but a healthier way of looking at it for your business, right? It's it's not about games, it's not about, you know, just getting listed to make things happen.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I just think at the end of the day, you you've got to look at the what what is the end result for if you want to know what the future looks like, then you just think about things that way. Because that's all is ever going to be is what is gonna make the customers' lives easier. That's why getting reviews works so well on your you know, Google business profile. Why? Because customers like reviews, you know, it's not because, oh, a thousand, Google loves the number a thousand. No, if you have 10 reviews, your competitor has a thousand. It's not that Google likes that. They're not showing them first because Google's like, hey, we really like this guy with the no customers like that, right? Everything is customer centered, it's always first. I don't, I don't think Google really has an opinion at all or cares.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's just trying to customers what it wants. They want to give you what you want. And I think I think that that's so, so important. Well, this has been amazing. Um, I love your perspective. I love the customer first because I think everything we do should be customer first. So thank you so much for sharing all of your time and wisdom with us. I do appreciate it. Before I let you go though, I do have to ask you the question that I ask all of my guests. And that is that this show is called Imperfect Marketing because marketing is anything but a perfect science. What has been your biggest marketing lesson learned?
SPEAKER_02:Don't undervalue time. I think we talked a lot, you know, we mentioned a lot about shortcuts here and all this stuff. And usually those are trying to overcome time and like concerted effort, right? But you don't get time back to do good things while you're searching for shortcuts, right? So, you know, I think the biggest thing for local businesses is reviews, getting reviews. And if you can't, you know, if you wait a year to start getting reviews, those are reviews you can't get later. There's no shortcut around this idea, right? So whether it's, you know, whatever it is that you're doing, add value, add value over time and just try to take slow steps forward and keep moving in the same direction. I think I guess maybe another way to put this, sorry for the long answer, but you know, I think we live in a generation that changes all the time with what we're trying to focus on. I guess maybe a better word is momentum. Get momentum in one direction and keep it because you move a lot faster when you're not changing your directions constantly.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I like not searching, you know, you're losing time if you're just searching for shortcuts, right? You're investing all that time when you could have actually invested in a strong, solid foundation. You know, back in the day we were talking before we started recording about people putting white text on white backgrounds. Well, I had forgotten about it until somebody had asked me that in one of my client meetings. They're like, well, can't we just put it as white text on the white backgrounds that Google sees it? I'm like, no, no, we can't do that. I was like, that is not a good idea. And that is one way to get yourself off ranking on Google. Um, and so it was, yeah. So it was interesting. Um, but I I can't believe that people are still doing some of that stuff, right? But yeah, people are looking for shortcuts, looking for ways to work around different things and sacrificing that again, you know, time you can't get back. I, you know, get that momentum going, get those reviews. Don't lose time, right? I don't know. I recently said this on something else, and it might have been a, I don't think it was a podcast episode, but they said the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time was today or is today, right? So think about that while you're building your presence online and local SEO. Sounds like the the way to go. So thank you so much, Josh, for your time and your wisdom. I appreciate it. I had a lot of fun with our conversation. For those of you listening or watching, be sure to check the show notes to get in contact with Josh if you're looking for some local SEO and some other ways to get a hold of him. And if you learned something today, and I know I did, I would love it if you would rate and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Until next time, have a great rest of your day.
