Chapter 25 — Exercises

Work these in order; they run from recall to open-ended application. Items marked † have full worked solutions in the answers appendix — try them before you peek. Several ask you to act on your own business (or a local business you know) with free tools; those are where the learning sticks. No answers here.

Reminder from the chapter: never promise or assume a ranking, and never fabricate a number. When an item asks for figures, label them as your own estimates.

Recall

25.1 † Name Google's three primary local-ranking factors, in the order the chapter used, and mark which one you fundamentally cannot optimize.

25.2 Define NAP. In one sentence, explain why consistency across sources matters more than the raw number of sources.

25.3 † In one or two sentences each, distinguish the local pack from the localized organic results, and name which system (Business Profile vs. classic SEO) primarily drives each.

25.4 What does GBP stand for, and what was the product previously called?

25.5 Define a service-area business (SAB) and give one example of a business type that qualifies.

Applied reasoning

25.6 † A local business owner says, "We rank #1 in the map pack." Explain why that claim is incomplete, and what two follow-up questions you'd ask. (Connect to Chapters 1 and 30.)

25.7 Explain, in terms of the three local factors, why a company with five real branches has a structural advantage over a single-office competitor — even one with better reviews.

25.8 † For a searcher standing near Competitor A's shop, Competitor A (4.5 stars, 40 reviews) outranks you (4.8 stars, 180 reviews) in the pack. Give the single most likely explanation, and say what it implies about where your reviews do help.

25.9 Why does the fact that reviews attach to a specific profile (and don't transfer between locations) change how a multi-location business runs its review process?

25.10 Describe a scenario in which a genuinely excellent location page wins one local contest while losing another. Name both contests.

25.11 † Of all the fields on a Google Business Profile, why is the primary category the highest-impact one? What does choosing it wrong cost you?

25.12 Reviews are described in the chapter as three things at once. Name all three, and explain why the conversion role matters even for searches where you can't break into the pack.

Diagnose: "why isn't this business showing up?"

25.13 † A plumber has claimed the profile, completed every field, and earned 120 genuine reviews, yet is still absent from the pack for searchers across town. Diagnose the cause, and state honestly what is and isn't achievable for those searchers.

25.14 A restaurant's hours show as "open" on Google when it's actually closed, and it's collecting angry one-star reviews as a result. Trace the two or three places that wrong data could be coming from, and the order in which you'd fix them.

25.15 † A five-location company's headquarters branch ranks well locally, but its other four branches are invisible in their own towns. List three distinct likely causes, each tied to a section of this chapter.

25.16 A location page targeting "AC repair [city]" won't rank organically. On inspection it is 80 words and near-identical to four other city pages. Name the problem using the chapter's vocabulary, and the fix.

Audit your own site (free tools)

25.17 † Run the "phone number in quotes" test (§25.4) on a real business's number in Google. Record every place its NAP appears and flag any inconsistency (old name, wrong suite, dead phone). This is a citation audit — write down the three worst conflicts you'd fix first.

25.18 Search a real business's name + city. Is the profile claimed? Is the primary category the most specific accurate one available, or something vague? Note one improvement.

25.19 Pick a "[service] [your town]" query. For the three businesses in the pack, record each one's primary-looking category, review count, star rating, and whether it has real (non-stock) photos. What pattern do you notice?

Keyword research

25.20 † List ten queries a customer might realistically use to find your (or a chosen) local business. Label each as one Google likely reads as local intent or not, and note which don't need the words "near me" to still be localized.

25.21 For one service, write out the "[service] [place]" variations across the real service area. Mark each as deserves a genuine page or would be a doorway page, and justify the line you drew.

Optimize / rewrite

25.22 † Rewrite this doorway page into a brief outline for a genuine local resource:

"Northgate Furnace Repair. Rivertown Home Services provides trusted furnace repair in Northgate. Our experts are the best in Northgate. Call today for Northgate furnace repair!" List the concrete local elements you'd add and why each earns the page its place.

25.23 Draft the text of an ethical review-request message a technician could text a customer after a completed job. It must be compliant (no gating, no incentive) and frictionless.

25.24 Rewrite the profile name "Rivertown #1 Emergency HVAC Plumbing Electrical Repair Cedar Hills" into a compliant one, and name the specific guideline it was violating and the penalty it risked.

Read the report

25.25 † A branch's Business Profile insights show: 4,200 profile views, 78% from "discovery" searches (non-branded), 90 calls, 140 direction requests, 60 website clicks last month. What are two things you'd act on, and one thing this data does not tell you? (Treat the numbers as a constructed example.)

25.26 You appear at position 5 in the "local finder" list (not the 3-business pack) for your main query. What does that tell you, and what does it not tell you, about your position for different searchers?

Spot the myth

25.27 † "Buy a package of 500 directory citations and you'll climb the pack." Identify what's wrong and state the honest version.

25.28 "You have to publish a Google Post every day or your pack ranking drops." Identify what's wrong and state the honest version.

Ethics & risk judgment

25.29 † A marketing vendor proposes a "review management" tool that texts a review link only to customers who first rate their experience 4–5 stars internally, quietly skipping the unhappy ones. Evaluate this on both Google-policy and (U.S.) legal grounds, and give the compliant alternative.

Rivertown Strategy File extension

25.30 † Extend the Strategy File: write a one-page review-engine standard operating procedure for a single Rivertown branch — who asks, at what moment, with which tool, how responses are handled, and on what cadence it's reviewed. Then state, in one sentence, the single most important thing this procedure cannot promise.