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Local search results are determined by
three main factors: RELEVANCE: How well your business matches what someone is searching for.

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This comes from your categories, services,
and content.

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DISTANCE: How far your business is from
the searcher or the location in the query.

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PROMINENCE: How well-known and trusted
your business is—based on reviews, citations, links, and overall online presence.

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AI systems use similar signals.

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When someone asks an AI assistant about
local businesses, it evaluates these same factors to decide which businesses to mention.

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NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone
number.

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This is foundational.

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Your NAP must be EXACTLY the same
everywhere online.

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Even small differences can confuse AI
systems.

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COMMON PROBLEMS: • 'Joe's Pizza' vs 'Joes
Pizza' vs 'Joe's Pizza Inc.' • '123 Main St' vs '123 Main Street' • Phone with or without area code formatting ACTION STEP: Choose ONE official format for your NAP and use it everywhere—your website, Google Business Profile, directories, social media.

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Why this matters for AI: When AI systems
see identical NAP across multiple sources, they have high confidence they've correctly identified your business.

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Inconsistencies create doubt.

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Citations are mentions of your business
NAP on other websites—directories, data aggregators, industry sites.

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PRIORITY ORDER: 1.

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Data aggregators: Factual, Neustar,
Foursquare—these feed many directories 2.

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Major directories: Yelp, Yellow Pages, BBB
3.

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Local sources: Chamber of Commerce, local
business associations 4.

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Social profiles: Facebook, LinkedIn
Quality over quantity.

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Focus on accurate listings on
authoritative sites rather than creating many low-quality citations.

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You now understand the foundations of
local search.

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In the next module, we'll focus on the
most important listing you have: your Google Business Profile.