Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO

Helping small businesses get found on Google and in AI search. Websites and Google Ads since 2008. Founder of Update My SEO.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

I've built websites and run Google Ads for small businesses since 2008. The question I hear most: does ChatGPT even know my business exists? Update My SEO publishes blog posts on your own site, built so AI search can cite them. Tips here every week. https://t.co/Xm5jgYDrGT

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Your Google Business Profile shows which searches brought people to your profile. Check Performance.

Mostly your business name? Review your categories and services to make sure they reflect what you offer, not just who you are.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Your robots.txt can allow ChatGPT and Perplexity, and a firewall or bot protection setting can still block them.

On Cloudflare, open AI Crawl Control and check the Crawlers tab. If the AI search crawlers show blocked requests, they can't read your pages to cite them.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Google Ads can change your account without you clicking Apply. Keywords get added, bidding switches, ads get rewritten.

Open Campaigns, then Recommendations, then Auto-apply settings. Uncheck anything you didn't choose on purpose and hit Save.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Free AI search check for a local business: search "best [service] in [city]" and "[service] cost [city]" on Google and in ChatGPT.

Write down which businesses get named and which pages get cited. If it’s never you, those cited pages show you what to build.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Asking for Google reviews without breaking the rules:

Ask every customer, not just the happy ones. Picking only happy ones is review gating and Google bans it.
No discounts or freebies for reviews.
Don't tell them what to write.

Text your review link the day the job wraps.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Easy Search Console win: in Performance, turn on Average CTR, open the Pages tab, and sort by impressions. A page with lots of impressions but very few clicks is showing up and getting skipped. Rewrite its title tag to name the service, the city, and one real reason to call you.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Check your Google Ads search terms report once a week. It shows what people actually typed before your ad showed, not just your keywords.

For local service businesses it's often full of "jobs", "DIY", "salary" and towns you don't serve. Add those as negatives.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Before you raise a Google Ads budget, check what's counting as a conversion. Page views and 10 second calls make the numbers look great. Count calls over 60 seconds, real form submits, and booked jobs. Scaling on bad tracking just buys more of the wrong clicks.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Running Google Ads for a local service business? Check your location setting. The default, "Presence or interest," can show your ads to people who only searched about your city from somewhere else. Switch it to "Presence" so you pay for clicks from people actually in your area.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

You don't need to post on your Google Business Profile every day. I've never seen daily posting move rankings by itself. One useful post a week is plenty: a job you just finished with a real photo, a seasonal tip, or an actual offer. Write it for the customer, not for Google.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

A lot of small business sites have never been set up in Bing. That matters more now, since Bing's index feeds Copilot and other AI assistants. Bing Webmaster Tools can import your site straight from Search Console, sitemap included, so setup takes about five minutes.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Redoing your website? Before launch, export every URL from the old site and 301 redirect each one to its closest new page. I've watched small businesses lose a big chunk of their calls after a redesign because years of rankings pointed at pages that suddenly 404.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Put a UTM tag on the website link in your Google Business Profile, like ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp. Otherwise those clicks blend into regular organic traffic in GA4 and you never see how much business the profile actually sends you.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Easy Search Console check: open Performance, turn on Average position, and sort your queries. Anything sitting at 8 to 15 is almost on page one. Add a short section that answers that exact search, link to it from a related page, and give it a few weeks.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

One page that lists every service you offer is easy to build and hard to rank. Give each main service its own page with real details: what's included, rough pricing, the towns you cover, and photos from real jobs. Google and AI answers match a specific search to a specific page.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

Easiest blog topics you'll ever find: the questions customers ask you on the phone. Write them down for a week. Each one becomes a short post with a straight answer in the first paragraph. That's what people actually search, and it's what AI answers pull from.

[Justin Jacobs | Update My SEO @justinjacobsseo]

If a blog post never links to a service page, it's mostly traffic theater. When you answer a real question, finish with a clear link to the page that books the job. Same service, same city, no mystery.