ProxMedia is a local SEO firm in Denver, Colorado. We get service businesses into the Google map pack, and into the AI answers people now ask instead of searching. Everything below is what that actually involves, including the parts most agencies leave out.
Google ranks local results on three things: relevance (does this business match what was searched), distance (how close it is to the person searching), and prominence (how well known it is online). That is the whole model, and it is worth knowing before you pay anyone.
Distance you cannot change. Relevance is mostly your website and your Google Business Profile, and it is the fastest thing to fix. Prominence is reviews, citations and links, and it is the slowest. Any agency selling you a lever that beats distance is selling something that does not exist, and any agency that will not tell you which of the three they are moving is worth a second look.
Google’s AI and ChatGPT do not answer from the same places. Measured across 14,472 local AI citations by Steady Demand in 2026, Google’s AI surfaces pulled roughly six in ten of their citations from the business’s own website. ChatGPT leaned instead on forums and directories, with the business’s own site making up a much smaller share, and Reddit was the single most cited source in every industry tested.
So your website wins one engine almost outright, and the other one needs off-site work you cannot do from your own domain. Per Yext’s study of 6.8 million AI citations, a business’s own website and listings together make up 86% of what AI cites, which is why we do not treat the two as separate projects.
There is no clever version of this. The profile gets claimed, verified and filled out properly. The structured data goes on every page as one linked graph using the right business type, not a generic one. Your name, address and phone match everywhere they appear, because inconsistency is the most common quiet problem we find. Citations get claimed in the order the evidence supports rather than alphabetically. Reviews get requested steadily instead of in bursts.
Then it gets reported monthly from Search Console, per page and per query, using the position for that specific URL rather than the site-wide chart average. Those two numbers are not the same thing, and quoting the friendlier one is how a client gets told a page moved when nothing of the kind happened.
This list costs us deals and we keep it anyway. A lot of what gets sold as local SEO is either against Google’s rules, against the FTC’s, or simply does not work, and the client is the one holding the risk when it unravels.
We would rather show you the ceiling honestly than sell you a number we cannot control. If another agency has promised you a specific ranking by a specific date, ask them to put that guarantee in the contract.
Based in Denver. Primary service area is Denver, Aurora, Littleton, Castle Rock, Lone Tree and Cherry Creek, and we work with clients across the northern Front Range in Greeley, Loveland, Johnstown and Fort Collins. Local SEO is not a mail-order product, so if you are outside that footprint we will say so on the call rather than take the work.
How long does local SEO take?
Google Business Profile work usually shows movement in two to four weeks. Citations take four to eight weeks to propagate. On-page changes on competitive terms run four to twelve weeks. Reviews compound over months rather than weeks. Anyone quoting you a date for a specific ranking is guessing.
Can you guarantee I'll rank number one?
No, and neither can anyone else. Google's own guidance on traffic drops says there is no guarantee that changes you make to your website will result in a noticeable impact in results. If something more deserving exists, it keeps ranking. We sell the work and the reporting, never a position.
Do you buy backlinks?
No. Paid links that pass ranking credit are a Google link scheme violation, and the packages sold as authority placements are exactly that. We earn links the slow way instead, by claiming the listings that already want your information and by being worth citing.
Will this get me into ChatGPT and AI answers?
It improves the odds, and nobody can honestly promise more than that. AI answers are not stable: ask the same engine the same question a day apart and the sources shift substantially, while Google's map pack returns the same top listing roughly nine times out of ten. So we report Search Console AI impressions and AI crawler hits, which are counts, rather than a screenshot of one lucky answer.
What if I don't have a Google Business Profile yet?
We walk you through claiming and verifying it. Verification needs the owner, so we cannot do that part for you, but we set up everything around it and tell you exactly what to click.
Is local SEO included with a website build, or is it separate?
The foundation ships with every site: structured data, consistent name, address and phone, profile setup, and Search Console. Ongoing local SEO, meaning active profile management, citation work, and monthly reporting, is the monthly service.
We’ll look at your profile, your listings and your site, and tell you which of the three ranking factors is holding you back. No obligation, and we’ll say so if the answer is that you don’t need us.
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