Garrett Smith Labs

From the newsletter

Search Notes

What I'm seeing in local search, Google Business Profiles, and AI answers, written for the owners and marketers on my list. Short, opinionated, and usually something you can do this week.

  1. · 9 min19 things we learned about AI visibility in the last 12 monthsLessons from a year of AI visibility audits: crawlers, site speed, content, PR, and why results take months to show.AI visibility · Websites · Local search
  2. · 7 min4 Steps to Better AI VisibilityA four-step Local SEO workflow to check, define, spread, and build your AI visibility over about five weeks.AI visibility · Reviews · Websites
  3. · 6 minWhy AI picks them and not youThe signals AI looks at when it recommends a local business, and a checklist to see where you stand.AI visibility · Reviews · Websites
  4. · 5 minWhat SEO taught you to stop doingPress, awards and community work stopped feeling worth it for SEO, and they're exactly what AI recommendations draw on.AI visibility · Local search · Reviews
  5. · 4 minHow to start measuring AI visibilityA five-step way to measure whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews recommend your business.AI visibility · Tools
  6. · 4 minYour customer's search started before GoogleCustomers now often ask AI first and use Google to verify, so you can rank well on Google and still be invisible to AI.AI visibility · Local search · Reviews
  7. · 3 minThe Agent Readiness Checklist for Local BusinessesA checklist of what to fix on your website so AI agents can read, book and choose your local business.Websites · AI visibility · Local search
  8. · 3 minHow AI agents will browse the web in 6 monthsWebMCP could let AI agents call your site's functions directly, and why the basics you fix today still matter.Websites · AI visibility
  9. · 4 minYour contact form is brokenCommon contact form and booking mistakes that make your site unusable for AI agents, and how to fix each one.Websites · AI visibility
  10. · 3 minYour GBP is ready. Your website isn't.AI agents read your website's structure, not its design. Here's what they see, why it matters, and a free tool to check your site.Websites · AI visibility · Google Business Profile
  11. · 4 minZero-click is rising. So are agent visits. Are you ready?AI agents now visit websites to complete tasks like booking. Here's what they need from your site and why local businesses should care.Websites · AI visibility · Local search
  12. · 5 minYour GBP is becoming a data feedGoogle's new GBP features make profiles easier to run and also turn them into a data feed for AI. Here's what that means and what to do.Google Business Profile · AI visibility · Reviews
  13. · 3 minReddit for Local SEOReddit threads now show up in local search, so here's how to see what's said about your business and what to do about it.Local search · AI visibility
  14. · 3 minAI search doesn't work like Google searchReal AI prompts are long, messy and full of constraints, so tracking 'best plumber in Dallas' misses how people actually search.AI visibility · Tools
  15. · 4 minWhat If Google Rewrote Your Profile?Google is using AI to write parts of your business profile, and why feeding it good, current inputs matters more than ever.Google Business Profile · AI visibility · Reviews
  16. · 2 minAsk Google Maps just changed local searchAsk Google Maps makes local search conversational, so Google reasons about your business as an entity instead of matching keywords.Local search · AI visibility · Google Business Profile
  17. · 2 minStop writing blog posts no one readsWhy location pages beat blog posts for local search, and what makes a location page work.Websites · Local search · AI visibility