@darrenshawseo

This stupid red line is ruining your rankings. Here's the deal. If your business is inside that red line, then you're good.

But if your business is even slightly outside of it, Google will pretend your business doesn't exist and you will not rank in that city.

And the same thing happens in surrounding cities. Here are three things you can do to fix this problem. No.

1, specialize in something uncommon.

Provide a service that most of your competition is not providing. If you're a plumber, be the plumber that specializes in retrieving wedding rings from toilets. The more specific your service is, the more likely you are to rank in a much wider area.

2, focus on the factors that you can control.

And that means getting more reviews, optimizing your Google Business Profile, and building better content on your website. 3, work on your AI. Local SEO.

While Google Maps is heavily limited by that red outline, AI search tools will pull from trusted sources all over the web.

Get your business listed on local blogs, industry sites, YouTube, podcast, best of lists and citation sites. If you want to rank in surrounding cities, you need more than an address. You need relevance, trust, and mentions.

We just published a full guide on how to do this.

So save this post and let me know if you want the link.