Notes on how local search actually works.
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Data cannot tell you whether to spend.
Gathering data, grouping it and judging it are three different acts. Software does the first two. The third decides whether the money should be spent at all.
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You do not own your Google listing.
Your Google Business Profile can be suspended or filtered, often through no fault of yours. Why listing stability comes before any spend.
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Checking your own ranking measures nothing.
Local rank is not one number. It changes with where the searcher stands. Why checking from your own desk tells you nothing — and what to look at instead.