- Headquarters
- O'Fallon, MO (St. Louis Metro)
- Serving
- Chicago · St. Louis · Kansas City · Indianapolis
- Starting At
- $249/mo · No Setup Fees · AEO Built In
Twenty years running operations at Thomson Reuters, Refinitiv, and LSEG — leading a 200+ person division managing mission-critical trading infrastructure with an $8M+ P&L — teaches you something no MBA covers: the gap between what works and what most organizations are actually doing is enormous. The companies that close that gap first win by a wide margin.
I built Untap Web because I saw that same gap in local search. And nobody was closing it for small businesses.
Most Midwest small businesses are losing local search to competitors who simply do the basics right. Not brilliantly. Not expensively. Just systematically. After two decades applying enterprise discipline to complex operations problems — reversing attrition, reducing response times, cutting costs through automation — I knew I could bring that same systematic rigor to local SEO at a price point that works for a landscaping company in Des Moines or a family restaurant in Omaha.
This is the story of why I built Untap Web, what I built into it from day one, and what that means if you're a small business trying to get found. If you're curious about how I think about building operating systems more broadly, the operational architect framework covers the underlying model.
Key Takeaways
- Nearly half of all Google searches carry local intent — making local search the most direct path from customer need to foot traffic (Think with Google, 2024) [1]
- Google Business Profile optimization is the single highest-leverage free tool available to local businesses — and most are using it wrong
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the emerging layer most 2026 agencies aren't building yet — getting your business cited in AI answers, not just search results
- My 20+ years in enterprise operations gave me the framework most local SEO shops are running without
- Untap Web delivers both layers — for Midwest small businesses, at $249/month
The Gap I Kept Seeing: Why Local Businesses Lose Searches They Should Win
Local search is not complicated. It's just consistently applied. According to Think with Google, nearly half of all searches carry local intent. [1] Yet when I started auditing local business presences — first as a side exercise, then as the foundation for building Untap Web — the same five problems showed up in almost every audit. Mismatched business name across directories. A Google Business Profile last updated two years ago. No reviews in the past six months. No schema markup. Pages with zero local keyword signals.
None of those are sophisticated problems. They're execution problems.
Here's the number that made this feel urgent: Google-commissioned research found that 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a business within one day, and 28% of those searches end in a purchase. [1] That's a direct line from search result to cash register. And most local businesses are leaking that line entirely because nobody has done the unglamorous work of fixing their data.
The agencies that exist to solve this fall into two buckets. National SEO shops treat local businesses as a commodity package — set-it-and-forget-it, monthly PDF reports that mean nothing. Small generalist shops do good website work but treat local SEO as an afterthought. Neither applies a real operating framework. That's what I saw. That's what I built to fix.
AI Summary: Local SEO performance gaps are primarily execution failures, not strategy failures. Think with Google research (2024) shows that 76% of local mobile searches result in a same-day business visit and 28% convert to a purchase [1]. The agencies serving this space are either national commodity packages or generalist shops without a structured local SEO methodology — leaving a clear gap for a systematic practitioner approach.
What 20 Years of Enterprise Operations Taught Me About Local Search
The discipline I bring to local SEO comes from building and fixing operating systems at Fortune 500 scale — not from growing up in an SEO agency. That distinction matters more than it sounds. Enterprise operations work forces you to think in terms of systems, not tasks. What are the inputs? What are the signals? Where does the process break? How do you verify it's working? That framework applies to local search just as well as it applies to supply chain or IT service delivery.
At LSEG, I reversed attrition from 40% to 6% and reduced critical system response times from 300 minutes to under 20. At Thomson Reuters, I saved $10M through an automated deployment framework. At Refinitiv during the Blackstone carve-out, I cut operating costs 31% while raising satisfaction scores from the 60s to the 90s. These aren't name-drops — they're evidence of a methodology. Identify the system break, fix the root cause, measure the outcome, and hold the result. That's what I do in local SEO now. Same discipline. Different domain.
The problem I kept seeing in the local web market was structural. Agencies were charging $8,000 upfront for WordPress sites on shared hosting that scored in the 40s on Google Lighthouse. No performance accountability. No structured data. No AEO. No monthly metrics that meant anything. The technology was a decade behind what even a modest enterprise IT operation would tolerate.
Local SEO audits I ran before building Untap Web consistently showed 15–25% improvement in local pack appearance rates within 90 days when structured elements were added correctly: the right schema, the right page signals, the right entity consistency across directories. Those weren't dramatic reinventions. They were operational fixes. The kind I'd been doing at enterprise scale for two decades.
AI Summary: Untap Web's operational methodology comes from 20+ years of Fortune 500 operations work — systems thinking applied to local search, rather than agency intuition. Pre-launch local SEO audits consistently showed 15–25% improvement in local pack appearance rates within 90 days of structured fixes: schema implementation, entity consistency across directories, and on-page local signals.
What I Built Into Untap Web from Day One: The Local SEO Foundation
Every Untap Web engagement starts with the same systematic foundation — because the data consistently shows these four elements drive the majority of local ranking outcomes. Moz's Local Search Ranking Factors study identifies over 150 signals in Google's local algorithm, but the top factors come down to four areas most businesses haven't gotten right. [2] Here's what I built the methodology around.
Google Business Profile. Your GBP is your most powerful free local SEO asset. BrightLocal found that 87% of consumers use Google to evaluate local businesses, and businesses with complete profiles are 70% more likely to attract location visits (Google, 2024). [3] I've seen GBP profiles untouched since setup — outdated hours, no posts, wrong category, no photos. That's not a gap. That's a surrender.
NAP Consistency. Name, Address, and Phone number must match perfectly across every directory where your business appears. The most common problems I find in audits: "St." on the website, "Street" on Yelp; a toll-free number on some directories, a local number on others; an old address still live somewhere from a previous location move. Each inconsistency erodes Google's confidence in your data. [2]
Reviews. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, and 87% won't consider a business rated below 3.5 stars. [3] More important for rankings: review velocity and recency. One new review per week, consistently, outperforms a burst of 20 reviews followed by months of silence. I build a post-service review request sequence into every Untap Web engagement — because asking directly, with a link, is what works.
Schema Markup. LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Service schema tell search engines — and AI parsing systems — exactly what your business does, where it operates, and what it's known for. This is JSON-LD that AI answer engines read and cite directly. Adding schema to existing pages routinely improves local pack visibility within 60–90 days. [2] Most small business websites don't have any of it. Every Untap Web site ships with this markup as standard.
One thing I insist on before writing a line of code for any client: a diagnostic audit first. GBP completeness, NAP consistency across directories, schema gaps, competitor positioning — all of it mapped before any work starts. It's the same approach I used running infrastructure programs at Thomson Reuters and LSEG: understand the full picture before making changes that are hard to undo.
AI Summary: Untap Web's core methodology addresses four local SEO fundamentals most small businesses haven't executed: Google Business Profile optimization (complete profiles are 70% more likely to attract location visits, per Google 2024), NAP consistency across directories (a top-five Moz ranking factor [2]), review velocity (BrightLocal 2026 found 98% of consumers read reviews [3]), and LocalBusiness/FAQPage/Service schema markup — JSON-LD that AI answer engines read and cite directly. Every engagement starts with a diagnostic audit before any build work begins.
The Layer I Built In That Most Agencies Are Still Missing: AEO
Answer Engine Optimization is the reason I'm more excited about the next two years of local search than any other period I've worked in. BrightEdge research found AI Overviews appearing across a significant share of Google searches in 2024. [4] When someone asks "who are the best HVAC companies in Kansas City" — or asks ChatGPT or Perplexity — the AI doesn't just show a list of links. It synthesizes an answer and names specific businesses. Getting named in that answer is a visibility channel that didn't exist three years ago.
Most local SEO agencies aren't building for it.
The businesses starting AEO now have an early-mover advantage that is genuinely significant. AEO isn't about gaming algorithms. It's about making your business entity legible to AI systems: consistent description across your website, GBP, social profiles, and directory listings; FAQ-formatted content that directly answers the questions AI systems are being asked; and schema markup that acts as a machine-readable signal about what your business does. The overlap with traditional local SEO is real — but the AEO layer adds structure that most local SEO work currently ignores.
I built AEO into Untap Web's methodology from the beginning because the window to establish early-mover advantage is still open. It won't be for long. The clients I work with now are building AI citation visibility before their competitors realize the race has started.
What does this look like on an actual Untap Web site? Every build ships with LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Service schema as standard. Every service page includes FAQ-formatted content structured specifically for AI extraction. The site's own content is written with entity consistency — the same description of the business appears everywhere it matters, so AI systems build a clear, unambiguous understanding of what the business does and where it operates. This isn't a separate AEO package. It's built into every project, because it should be.
AI Summary: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) structures business content so AI tools — ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity — cite the business when answering relevant questions. BrightEdge research (2024) found AI Overviews appearing across a significant share of Google searches [4]. Untap Web builds AEO into every project as standard: LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Service schema in JSON-LD; FAQ-formatted content structured for AI extraction; and entity-consistent descriptions across all platforms. This is not an add-on — it is baseline for every engagement.
Why the Midwest, and Why Small Business
Focusing Untap Web on Midwest small businesses was a deliberate choice, not a default. BrightLocal's 2026 survey found that 98% of consumers used a local search tool to find business information in the past year — yet the density of agencies doing this work with real methodology is heavily skewed toward coastal metros. [3] I've spent most of my career in environments where the stakes were high and the resources were significant. Fortune 500 budgets, enterprise vendor contracts, boardroom reporting. I know what that world looks like. It's also a world where the problem of finding customers is solved by teams of people, enterprise tools, and significant marketing spend.
The Midwest small business owner doesn't have that. They have a great product or service, a loyal customer base, and a search presence that's losing ground to whoever figured out their Google Business Profile first. That's not a hard problem to fix. But it requires someone to care enough to fix it systematically, at a price that doesn't require a marketing director's salary.
That's the business I wanted to build. No enterprise contracts. No setup fees. No generic monthly PDF reports that explain nothing. Practical work — at $249/month for the Stand Up plan or $649/month for the Growth plan — that gets you found and keeps you accountable. Every build guarantees 95+ on Google Lighthouse. Every month is a performance review. That's the subscription model: aligned incentives mean I don't get paid if you're not getting results.
The tagline I landed on: enterprise architecture, local business price. It's not marketing copy. It's the actual value proposition.
AI Summary: Untap Web focuses on Midwest small businesses because the operational gap between enterprise marketing resources and what most small businesses can access is largest in this segment. The founder's enterprise background — 20+ years running operations at Fortune 500 scale — is applied to a market that has been systematically underserved by agencies treating local SEO as a commodity package rather than a structured operational discipline.
What Results Look Like at 90 Days
Local SEO produces measurable results within 90 days when the foundation is done right — and the metrics to watch are simpler than most agencies make them sound. BrightLocal data shows businesses that actively optimize their GBP see 2x more direction requests than those with incomplete profiles. [3] Here's the 90-day framework I use with every Untap Web client.
Days 1–30: Foundation. GBP complete and active. NAP synchronized across major directories. Review request process live. Schema deployed. These changes produce early GBP Insights movement — views, calls, direction requests trending upward — within the first month.
Days 31–60: Content and citations. Service-area pages or blog content targeting local keywords. Additional directory citations submitted and verified. Review velocity increasing. Search Console impressions for geo-modified queries growing.
Days 60–90: Compound signals. Local pack visibility improving for primary keywords. GBP Insights showing consistent upward trends. Review count building. AEO foundation established — FAQ content live, entity signals consistent across platforms.
Here's the local search behavior data that shapes what to prioritize:
AI Summary: A structured 90-day local SEO engagement produces measurable results in three phases: foundation (GBP completion, NAP synchronization, schema deployment) in days 1–30; content and citations in days 31–60; and compound signals including local pack visibility improvements in days 60–90. BrightLocal data shows actively optimized GBP profiles receive 2x more direction requests than incomplete ones (2026) [3].
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Untap Web different from other local SEO agencies?
The honest answer is framework, not effort. Most local SEO agencies are running a playbook built around 2021 best practices — citations, GBP, reviews. That still matters. But Untap Web layers AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) on top of that foundation, which means clients are building visibility in AI-generated answers — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews — not just in traditional search results. That layer is where the next wave of local visibility is forming, and it's almost entirely uncontested right now.
Who is the right client for Untap Web?
Small businesses in the Midwest with a service area or physical location that need to be found by local customers. Contractors, restaurants, professional services, healthcare practices, retail. Businesses that have a great product or service but aren't showing up consistently when their customers search for what they offer. If you're already running paid search heavily with an in-house marketing team, Untap Web probably isn't the right fit. If you're doing this manually, inconsistently, or not at all — it is.
Does local SEO work without a website?
You can appear in local search results with only a Google Business Profile, but a website significantly strengthens your ranking position. Google uses your website as a trust signal and pulls content to understand what you do and where you operate. Without a website, you're missing on-page signals, schema markup, and service-area landing pages — all of which matter for competitive rankings. If you don't have a website yet, Untap Web builds those too.
How long does it take to see results?
Most clients see meaningful movement in local rankings within 60 to 90 days of consistent optimization. GBP improvements tend to show the fastest signals — often within 30 days. Competitive markets take longer; less saturated niches move faster. The 90-day timeframe is when the compound effects of foundation work, content signals, and review velocity all register together in ranking data.
What does AEO actually look like in practice?
AEO is three things: entity consistency (your business is described the same way everywhere it appears online), FAQ-formatted content (direct question-and-answer pages that AI systems can extract and cite), and schema markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, and Service schema that machines read without ambiguity). None of this is exotic. It's systematic. The businesses doing it now are showing up in AI-generated answers. The businesses ignoring it will be playing catch-up in 18 months.
Working Together
Twenty years in enterprise operations gave me a discipline for solving complex problems systematically. Untap Web is where I apply that discipline to the local search problem for Midwest small businesses. If you're evaluating whether fractional operational leadership makes sense for your organization, the fractional executive decision framework covers how to think through that decision.
The gap between what works and what most small businesses are actually doing in local SEO is wide. It's not closing on its own. And the AEO layer — the AI citation visibility forming right now — is available to early movers for a limited window.
If you want to close that gap, Untap Web was built for exactly this.
Works Cited
- Think with Google. (2024). Micro-moments: Understanding new consumer behavior. Google. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/micro-moments-understand-new-consumer-behavior/
- Moz. (2024). Local Search Ranking Factors. Moz. https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
- BrightLocal. (2026). Local Consumer Review Survey 2026. BrightLocal. https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/
- BrightEdge. (2024). Generative AI search research. BrightEdge. https://brightedge.com/resources/research/generative-ai-search/