If you have Googled anything in the last year, you may have noticed that the results page looks different. Before any website links appear, there is often a big block of text right at the top of the page, written as a direct answer to your question, with no clicking required. For anyone running a local business, that's a fair thing to wonder (and possibly worry) about. If Google is answering questions before anyone clicks on anything, what does that mean for how customers find you?
Most PPC accounts are leaking money and not because the strategy is completely broken, but because the guardrails are missing.
Platforms like Google and Meta are getting smarter which means automation is improving, but there is still one major problem: If you feed these systems bad signals or give them too much control, they will spend your budget fast and often on the wrong things.
This conversation with Dane Saville and SearchLab PPC Team Lead Susan Yen gets into what is actually happening inside your accounts and what you need to do about it.
Most businesses set up their Google Ads the same way they'd use a crockpot. Toss in a budget, launch a few campaigns, and check back later expecting leads to be ready.
Except unlike a crockpot, the result isn't some delicious meal, it's usually a mess of results and doesn't taste nearly as good.
Ad accounts drift and budgets quietly bleed out. Broad match keywords start pulling in searches that have nothing to do with your business. Conversion tracking stops firing and nobody notices. Google's automated recommendations get clicked through without a second thought. On paper, everything looks fine, but meanwhile your sales team is scratching their heads wondering why they were served a sloppy mess of leads.
SearchLab's PPC Team Lead Susan Yen dug into all of this during a recent webinar, covering keyword match types, conversion tracking, and how Google's push toward automation is reshaping paid search. If you're spending real money on PPC, it's worth a watch.
A handful of fabricated reviews can destroy a small business overnight, which is precisely why review extortion scams are among the fastest-growing threats facing local businesses today.
One morning your business enjoys a healthy 4.8-star rating; by the next, you're staring at a flood of 1-star reviews and a WhatsApp message demanding payment to make it stop.
What was once an occasional horror story has quietly become one of the most common spam attacks targeting local businesses, particularly smaller ones, where a damaged review score can directly gut both leads and revenue.
Search has shifted dramatically in just the last few years. Today's car buyer does a lot more homework before they ever reach out including but not limited to: comparing options, reading reviews, and bouncing between Google Maps, organic results, AI overviews, and yes, even ChatGPT.
Many dealerships are still running the same SEO playbook from 2018: Cookie-cutter inventory pages, thin service content that nobody's reading, OEM copy pasted across half the site, and "Near me" optimization that starts and ends with a title tag.
That approach is outdated, and it's leaving real traffic, real leads, and real showroom visits behind.
In this episode of More Than You Can Chew, we get into automotive SEO from the ground up: what actually matters right now, where most dealers are still getting it wrong, and what the future of search looks like for the industry.
AI has quickly become the default answer for content production. Teams are under pressure to move faster, publish more, and do it all with fewer resources. However, relying solely on AI can lead to all sorts of issues.
AI is not a replacement for strategy; treating it as one creates more problems than it solves. When used correctly, it can sharpen your process and improve decision-making. When used incorrectly, it can quietly erode performance, dilute your brand, and flood your site with content that does nothing.
Dane Saville sits down with Marketing Extraordinaire Ashley Segura to discuss just that in the newest episode of More Than You Can Chew:
Google’s New GBP Playbooks: What Multi-Location Brands Need to Do Right Now
If your local visibility has felt harder to control lately, this is one of those updates you do not want to miss.
Google quietly dropped a set of Google Business Profile playbooks that give you a clear, structured way to improve how your locations show up.
These guides were not heavily promoted, which means a lot of businesses have not touched them yet. That creates an opportunity. If you move early and apply this correctly across your locations, you can create a real advantage in both traditional search and AI-driven results.
In the newest episode of Local Search Tuesdays, Greg Gifford breaks down exactly how you can use these playbooks, and where to find them.
As technology evolves, so will search, just as it always has, from phonebooks to asking Jeeves. Right now, we are at the dawn of the next evolution in search; instead of asking Jeeves, we are asking ChatGPT.
As this change happens, so will customer behavior. So, how do we keep showing up for those who are trying to find us?
Rankings still matter, but they've been demoted from destination to data point, and if your entire visibility strategy stops there, it's increasingly incomplete. What's changed is how the fundamentals need to work together and which new signals actually move the needle.
In this webinar, SEO expert Dane Saville breaks down how you can start laying the foundation so your business will show up in the next evolution of search.
Search is moving fast right now. AI Overviews are showing up everywhere, results keep shifting, and there's always some new tool someone insists you need. If you're running a multi-location brand with real marketing budget behind it, that noise can feel relentless.
Here's the thing, though: success hasn't actually gotten more complicated. The margin for error has just gotten smaller. The brands pulling ahead aren't the ones chasing every new thing. They're the ones staying focused on what works while quietly cleaning up the gaps AI is starting to expose.
In the season premiere of More Than You Can Chew, Dane Saville breaks down the "Confidence Gap" and what signals AI search is truly looking for when providing customers with an answer.
If your business relies on reviews to drive visibility and conversions, this update matters more than you think.
Google quietly updated its restricted and prohibited content guidelines, and many businesses are already feeling the impact. Reviews are at risk of being removed, and processes that used to “work” are now violations.
Want to read more?
Page [tcb_pagination_current_page] of [tcb_pagination_total_pages]