Melissa Popp of Rickety Roo gave the most actionable instruction anyone has given on this show, and she gave it about ninety seconds into the local segment.
Stop Listening And Go Create One Right Now
“And if you don’t have one, stop listening to this podcast and go create one right now.”
Melissa Popp, Rickety Roo
“Go to your Google business profile and make sure it’s filled out completely.”
Melissa Popp
She was serious about the priority ordering, too:
“But yeah, ignore everything else and go and look at your Google Business Profile.”
Melissa Popp
For anyone running their own listing, the detail she flagged as most commonly wrong is the simplest one:
“for anybody who’s managing their own Google Business Profile listing, I would encourage you to go and make sure your address is correct.”
Melissa Popp
The Location Pages I See Out There Suck
“the majority of location pages I see out there. They suck”
Melissa Popp
Her explanation of why is more useful than the verdict. The problem is not word count — it is that the page was never designed to do the job it sits at the bottom of the funnel to do:
“We ignore the idea of getting someone on a page and selling them and converting them and so you have these location pages out there that just are garbage.”
Melissa Popp
“your location pages are supposed to be your bottom of the funnel content”
Melissa Popp
Someone landing on a location page is already close to acting. If the page does not let them act, it has failed regardless of where it ranks.
What Rickety Roo Fixes First On A Local Account
Popp describes the agency’s content split as weighted heavily toward organic rankings work — location pages and service pages, and finding ways to make the content on them genuinely better rather than merely present. The rest goes to content that does other jobs.
The sequencing that falls out of the conversation is: profile first, because it is free and fast and anchors everything local; then the pages, rebuilt to convert rather than to exist; then the wider content programme.
Local SEO Advice That Has Not Aged
The through-line is that the fundamentals of local have been stable for years while everything around them churned. Complete and accurate listing data. Pages that a human would act on. Proof that you actually operate where you say you do.
Also worth noting from the wider episode: Popp’s advice on working with language models — do not accept the first draft of any plan one gives you. It is the same instinct applied to a different tool.
More from the local side of the show in local SEO strategies that actually work, the technical companion in technical SEO real talk, and everything else in the episode guide.
