From Flash Websites to Breaking Google's Rules

Greg's entry into SEO was completely accidental. He started as a Flash designer back when those annoying intro animations were everywhere on websites. He actually built an entire company around Flash websites, but quickly realized they had a problem.

"We realized pretty quickly that the content in the flash websites wasn't showing up in search results so we figured out how to get that content to show up in search results not realizing that we were really breaking the rules and doing some nefarious stuff," Greg told me.

That curiosity about making content visible in Google eventually led him to a job at a car dealership website company. He was hired as their Flash guy, then promoted to run design, then marketing. When they wanted to start selling SEO as a service, something unexpected happened.

"We started interviewing for the role and it turned out that I knew more about it than any of the people we were interviewing so the owner of the company said why don't you start that department," Greg explained.

From there, he started speaking at conferences and his career took off. But what SEO looked like 20 years ago versus today is night and day.

SEO Used to Be Ridiculously Easy

When I asked Greg what ranking on Google was like back then, his answer made me wish I'd gotten into this industry earlier.

"It was so much easier than it is now. I mean literally back then it was do you have the keyword on the page you're going to show up kind of thing and then you know early days just get a bunch of links didn't matter where the links were from didn't matter if they were relevant," he said.

Google basically just matched keywords to keywords and counted links. Greg told me about having a car dealership rank number one for "Dallas Hyundai dealer" when they were 45 minutes away from downtown Dallas. How? Just a bunch of citations. That's it.

But Google figured out pretty quickly that just having keywords and links doesn't mean you deserve to rank. The algorithm got way more complex, and the people still using those old tactics got left behind.

The Biggest Mistake Business Owners Make

Here's where Greg dropped something that completely changed how I think about local SEO. Most business owners approach it all wrong because they're following checklists without understanding why those items matter.

"The most important thing that people miss out on is there's a lot of podcasts out there there's a lot of webinars there's a lot of training courses there's a lot of blog posts and people will go learn a little bit about local SEO and then go try to implement that stuff," Greg said. "It's the checklist approach."

The problem? Local SEO isn't universal. What works for a pest control company in rural Iowa won't work for one in downtown Chicago. What works for lawyers won't work for restaurants. Just blindly following a checklist means you're not actually analyzing your specific situation against your local competitors.

"The most important step is to understand why those things matter not just blindly follow the checklist," he explained.

This hit home for me because I see it constantly in pest control. I've got clients doing $35 million a year and others doing $100K. The strategies have to be completely different. Cookie cutter approaches don't work.

Greg's advice? Either take the time to really understand local SEO so you can do that competitive analysis yourself, or find a qualified partner who will. But don't just start doing random tactics because you heard they matter.

How to Actually Optimize Service Pages

Since I work primarily with service-based businesses, I had to ask Greg about service pages. His answer was way more detailed than I expected, and it's gold for anyone running a local business.

First, he made an important distinction between single-location and multi-location businesses. For single-location businesses, the key is understanding that Google is basically pattern detection.

"You need to have the right pattern to look attractive," Greg said. "If you want to show up as a search result when somebody types in a particular search phrase then you need a dedicated page about that singular concept on your site."

Here's the mistake most home service businesses make: they create one page that lists everything they do. For pest control, that's one page that says "we do rats, mice, bees, squirrels" with bullet points. But that's not how people search.

"If people are looking for Pest Control they don't look for Pest Control they're like hey there's a beehive in my attic how do I get rid of it," Greg explained.

You need individual pages for each service. One for bee removal. One for rat control. One for termites. Each page needs to be robust and answer all the questions a potential customer would ask.

"The sites that perform well or the sites that have the most helpful content on them the sites that truly answer all the questions a potential customer is going to ask that's the way you win," he said.

Then he got technical. Same keyword phrase and same location phrase need to appear in specific elements:

• Title tag (most important, never put your business name first)

• H1 heading (only one per page)

• Image alt text

• URL string

• Meta description (doesn't affect ranking but gets more clicks)

"There's no magical keyword density number," Greg told me. "Make it conversational make it sound like something that you would say to a customer that you're talking to on the phone or face to face."

For multi-location businesses, this gets way more complex. If you're a pest control company serving 10 cities with 5 main services, you don't have 5 pages. You have 50 pages. Each service needs a unique page for each city, and you can't just duplicate content and swap out city names.

The Local Link Building Strategy Nobody Talks About

I've seen so many businesses waste money buying links from sketchy third-party providers. Greg shut that down immediately.

"I would definitely not suggest that anyone watching this buys links from an agency or a third party provider," he said. "Google's pattern detection it's really easy for Google to see that that's not really a link that you earn."

Instead, his approach is old school marketing: actually be involved in your community. Sponsor little league teams, donate to charities, support local 5Ks. But here's the key - don't just do sponsorships and nothing else.

"If you have any one tactic that that's all you're doing for link building then that's not a natural pattern and it clearly looks like you're getting links just to manipulate your visibility," Greg explained.

He shared some tactics I'd never heard before. For service businesses that go to customer locations, offer a discount if they'll link to you from their website. Join local meetup groups and offer to buy their snacks and drinks for $50-60 a month in exchange for a link.

My favorite was the neighborhood watch strategy. "Most of these neighborhood watches have somebody in the neighborhood that's like hey guys I could do WordPress let's have a WordPress site," Greg said. "If you can give them some sort of a discount or promo that's only applicable to the people in that neighborhood you're going to get a link from a website that has zero Authority but it is relevant down to a neighborhood level so it's going to be really powerful in the algorithm."

The main takeaway? Stop paying attention to domain authority scores. Those are made up metrics by tool companies. "You want to get local links from local businesses and local websites that's what's going to matter," Greg said.

Building a Speaking Career That Takes You Around the World

What really impressed me about Greg wasn't just his SEO knowledge. It's how he's built an incredible lifestyle around speaking at conferences. He's been to Russia, all over Europe, Australia, and Bali. Not because he pitches conferences anymore, but because they invite him.

"I don't pitch conferences anymore," he told me. "The conferences asked me to come speak."

He got his start because he wasn't afraid of public speaking. He was class president, valedictorian, and did theater. When he saw people at automotive conferences sharing good info but struggling with presentation, he knew he could do it.

His approach was different from day one. "There's this scale where on one end of the scale it's the really really smart people that give you really actionable awesome info but they're not that great at public speaking and on the other end of the spectrum you have people that could get up on stage and read a phone book and everybody would say it's the best presentation ever because they're very Dynamic and very engaging but they don't really share great info," Greg explained. "I wanted to fall right in the center."

His advice for anyone wanting to speak at conferences? Be a student of the game.

"Watch other speakers and pay attention to how they present pay attention to the layout and Graphics in their slide pay attention to the story that they tell because you need to have a beginning and middle and an end," he said.

But here's what's most important: be authentic. Don't try to copy someone else's style just because they're successful. Greg always uses movie themes and bad puns because he's genuinely passionate about movies. That authenticity comes through on stage.

"The people that are successful are the people that are students of the game that learn how to be a better speaker constantly and don't just get up there and try to spout off information," he said.

The benefits have been life-changing. He's gotten jobs specifically because of his speaking visibility. He's traveled to five countries already this year. And he's helped thousands of people grow their businesses.

"It's cool to run into people a couple years later and they're like I bought a new house because my agency grew so much from all the stuff that I learned at your training class," Greg told me.

Why Internal Linking Matters More Than You Think

Greg sees people abuse internal linking all the time. They link to every page from every page, creating a massive mess that confuses both Google and users.

"The way that you link within your site gives Google a lot of insight into what you think your most important pages are and what you want the customer journey to be on your site," he explained.

The structure should look like a pyramid. Homepage links to primary category pages, which link to more detailed pages, which link to specific content. Once someone goes down a path, they don't need links to other unrelated paths.

"Think about the user Journey when you're doing your internal linking," Greg said. "Once somebody starts going down a path all of the links should be related to continuing down that path and sending them through the funnel so that they're going to convert."

This was a good reminder that we're optimizing for user experience, not just Google. Because ultimately, that's what Google is optimizing for anyway.

The Truth About E-E-A-T and Other Buzzwords

When I asked Greg about E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), he didn't hold back.

"Whenever there are seos out there that whenever one of the Google mouth pieces says something they jump on it and immediately say this is what you need to do," he said. "You can't optimize for eat it is not a ranking signal it's not something you can optimize for."

It's just Google's way of simplifying what a quality site should have. If you've been doing legitimate SEO and focusing on customers all along, E-E-A-T doesn't change anything for you.

"Let's talk about these are the things that are actually going to help you perform better and I don't think that eat falls into that category," Greg explained.

What does matter? Content that answers customer questions. That's it. That's the way to win in today's SEO landscape.

Why You Need a Blog (Even If You Hate Writing)

I had to ask Greg about blogs because some people think they're a waste of time. His answer showed me I'm thinking about content strategy the right way.

Most businesses only write bottom-of-funnel content designed to get immediate leads. But that's missing huge opportunities.

"Very rarely do people do a Google Search and buy from the first website they see," Greg said. "The more expensive your product or service SKUs the more research people are going to do before they convert into a lead."

If you get eyeballs on your website early in the decision process, you're more likely to be considered when they're ready to buy. That's where blog content comes in.

"You need to be creating content around mid to Upper funnel queries as well," he explained. Someone hears scratching in their wall but doesn't know if it's a squirrel, rat, bee, or bird. That informational content won't get you business today, but it will get you business later.

"It'll get you business later in other sessions further down the line," Greg said.

This matches exactly how I think about content for my pest control clients. The funnel isn't clean. Someone might read a blog post, do nothing for months, then remember your company when they're ready to hire someone.

The Tools Greg Actually Uses

Greg's toolkit is different from what most SEO people recommend. His number one tool? Places Scout.

"By far the best local SEO tool out there is called places Scout it does a lot of things that other tools don't do," he said.

I'd never even heard of it, which surprised me since I've tried most tools out there. Apparently it flies under the radar but everyone who finds it agrees it's the best.

He also recommends BrightLocal for competitive analysis and citation management, Whitespark for their business profile monitoring system and rank tracker, and for WordPress, Yoast is non-negotiable.

One thing he emphasized: use as few plugins as possible. "The more plugins you add the more security vulnerabilities there are the more things that can break on your site," Greg said.

Where Local SEO Is Heading

A lot of people are freaking out about AI and Google's AI-powered search results. Greg isn't worried about local SEO's future.

"When you're searching for the best x with regular traditional SEO sure there's one site that's number one in local the guy that's number one isn't necessarily the guy that's getting the phone calls because people are looking at the map pack," he explained.

Where you rank in the map pack depends on where people are when they search. It shifts between different areas of the same city. That makes local SEO somewhat isolated from AI dangers.

Google is also fighting spam hard right now - fake listings, fake reviews, lead gen companies creating bogus profiles. They're investing in making local search better even though, as Greg said, "it's pretty clear Google doesn't give a squat about small businesses."

He's excited about augmented reality features like Google Lens where you can point your phone at restaurants on a street and instantly see reviews and ratings.

"I think there's some new additions that are coming that are really cool but some of the things I can't really talk about because of my NDA with Google," he said.

Don't Sleep on Other Marketing Platforms

Beyond just Google Business Profiles and websites, Greg emphasized the importance of other platforms. Local Service Ads work really well if you're in an eligible vertical, though they can get pricey.

"Google ads in general are great especially if you're a local business because you can overcome that proximity bias where you're only going to show in the map pack if you're fairly close to the person that's doing the search," Greg explained.

Bing ads are more important than people realize since it's the default search engine on all PCs. YouTube is huge, especially for younger generations. Greg's kids don't go to Google to search for things - they go to YouTube.

The key is figuring out where your audience is and being there. Maybe that's TikTok, Instagram, or LinkedIn. "It's about maximizing your exposure wherever your potential clients are," he said.

As for offline marketing like billboards and TV? Greg thinks most businesses could cut it completely and move that budget to digital for better results. There are some exceptions - personal injury lawyers in Vegas clearly get ROI from airport billboards - but for most businesses, the attribution just isn't there.

The Simple Review Strategy That Actually Works

When I asked about review strategy, Greg's answer was refreshingly simple.

"The most important thing is to physically ask the person whether you're using a a link in an email or business cards or postcards or uh a QR code on a a receipt from your POS it doesn't really matter the important thing is to physically ask out loud for the review," he said.

People who are angry will leave bad reviews without being asked. People who are happy probably won't leave reviews unless you ask them. But when you ask after delivering great service, they feel obligated and are much more likely to actually do it.

The method doesn't matter nearly as much as just asking every single time.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest lesson from talking to Greg is that local SEO isn't about following some universal checklist. It's about understanding why tactics work, analyzing your specific competitive landscape, and creating content that genuinely helps people.

Greg has spent 20 years mastering this stuff, speaking at hundreds of conferences, and helping thousands of businesses rank higher. But his core message is simple: focus on being helpful to your customers, understand the why behind every tactic, and don't just blindly follow what some blog post or webinar tells you to do.

Whether you're doing $100K a year or $10 million, the fundamentals are the same. Create dedicated service pages that answer real customer questions. Build local links through genuine community involvement. Publish blog content that helps people at every stage of their decision process. And always, always optimize for user experience first.

If you want to dive deeper into Greg's knowledge, definitely check out this full episode. He shares way more technical details and stories than I could fit here.

Want to learn more from Greg? Check out his weekly Local Search Tuesdays video series, his free training courses at BrightLocal Academy and SEMrush Academy, or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn at Greg Gifford. You can also visit his agency at searchlabdigital.com.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of Greg's insights on local SEO, speaking at conferences, and building a career helping local businesses succeed.