Darren Shaw

🔹 Founder of Whitespark.ca: local SEO software and services.
🔹 Local SEO educator with 45,000+ newsletter subscribers, 10,000+ YouTube subscribers, and 3,000+ email course sign-ups
🔹 In charge of the annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, one of the most cited resources in local SEO
🔹 Speaker at local search conferences around the globe and contributor to SEO publications
🔹 I've been doing web development and SEO for 27 years (yes, before Google existed)

Founder

Whitespark builds online tools and provides services that help businesses and agencies with local SEO. We're known for our Local Citation Finder, Local Rank Tracker, Citation Building & Audit Services, and Local SEO Consulting. Our team often collaborates with other industry leaders and frequently presents at top SEO & Marketing conferences in North America.

If you still haven’t connected your socials to your Google Business Profile, this is your sign. Google is pulling information from your social profiles directly into search results. Valentina Vasileva shared this on LinkedIn, and it’s pretty wild.

Google is adding a special tag that looks a lot like a justification. It says something like “Today: event” or “Tonight: event”, and it is pulled straight from a business’s social media posts.

This is so powerful! It’s yet another clear signal that Google is actively looking at the content on your social profiles and using it to understand your business better.

So yes, you need to connect your social profiles to your Google Business Profile. 

And yes, you actually need to be active on them.

If you’re not doing this yet, you should probably get on it.

Founder of Whitespark. I share local SEO tips and strategy. Lead researcher behind the annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey. Get everything you need for better local SEO at whitespark.ca

What if your local SEO strategy is working, but your grid rank tracker just doesn’t show it?

The whole point of rank tracking is to measure the impact of your local SEO work. So, if your rank tracker stops tracking at position 20, what are you really measuring?

Say you make some updates, and your rankings at all points move from positions 80 to 30. That's a huge win! But you wouldn’t know that if you’re using a rank tracker that displays all positions above 20 as “20+”.

That’s why Whitespark’s Local Ranking Grids tracks rankings all the way up to 100 positions. We are the only tool that tracks to 100. This is one of the biggest things that sets our software apart from other grid ranking tools.

Our local ranking grid tool is also the most beautiful on the market. It’s genuinely a delight to use, and it costs the same or less than anything else out there.

Google “Whitespark Local Ranking Grids” and try it free (no credit card required).

Worth a read: this brilliant comment that Mike Blumenthal left on one of my posts

Local SEO Tip you NEED to know: update your business description on your citations.

Most businesses wrote their business description years ago, when they first built their citations, and then never touched it again. And sometimes (most of the time) it's really poorly written.

You should rewrite your old description and update all your citations.

Think of it like a data set that search engines and AI use to understand your business. You want it to:

1. Be written in clear, structured statements, often called semantic triples:

Subject - predicate - object.

2. Clearly explain what your business is, what it does, and what it specializes in.

For example: [Acme Pest Control] [is a Dallas pest control company] [specializing in wasp removal].

What you say about yourself only goes so far. What really matters is what the broader web says about you. And your citation descriptions are a golden opportunity to fix outdated messaging and emphasize things you probably haven’t thought about in years.

I talked about this and more with Dan Leibrandt from the Local Marketing Secrets Podcast. Check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

In 2026, your local SEO agency MUST diversify.
Joy showed this chart in a recent livestream we did together in December. It reflects a steady decline in clicks-to-call from Google Business Profiles over the last 2 years.

Businesses are now getting fewer leads from the local pack because:

- Local Services Ads look almost identical to organic local results, and they’re siphoning off leads
- AI Overviews are taking up more space at the top
- the local pack now appears lower on the page than it did before
- people increasingly use other channels for local searches (YouTube, ChatGPT, TikTok, etc.)

So, it’s high time local SEO agencies diversified their services beyond just website and GBP management.

In 2026 you need to help your clients drive leads through additional channels:

- Long form vidoes on YouTube
- Short form videos on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube
- Social media marketing
- Reddit/Quora engagement
- AI SEO
- Digital PR
- and I’m sorry, but you probably have to start offering PPC (especially Local Services Ads).

At the end of the day, businesses don’t really care about the Local Pack or Maps.

* They care about LEADS *

If your services aren’t generating leads, your clients will leave you for a different agency.

Are citations making a comeback? I’d say they never left.

Citations have always been important in traditional SEO. But now, with the rise of LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini, we are seeing citations increase in importance. In fact, three of the top five AI search visibility factors are citation-based.

While traditional search is heavily focused on links, with LLMs, it’s more about mentions - in other words, citations.

If you were doing SEO the right way in the past, you probably don't need to change your citation strategy much. But if you gave up on citations a long time ago and want to rank in AI search, now is the time to get your business listed on key citation sites like:

- Better Business Bureau
- Facebook, LinkedIn
- MapQuest
- Yelp
- Prominent industry-specific sites
- “Best of” lists

I recently talked about this, and a lot more, on the Local Marketing Secrets Podcast with Dan Leibrandt. Check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

Matthew Hunt

I help busy B2B CEOs create all their snackable LinkedIn content from a 1-hour monthly interview. -> Demandii.com

I help busy CEOs create their snackable content from a monthly 1-hr interview each month because their biggest obstacle is time.

Once a CEO gets consistent with publishing daily helpful short-form content, the bi-product is:

- Stay top-of-mind with their warm network.
- Soft touches with their team, prospects, and clients. 
- Forces them to become a more effective communicator.
- Leads to speaking and new media opportunities like being featured on Podcasts and Virtual Summits.

Any time a founder can multiply themselves without taking up all their time is a HUGE WIN!

Personal branding on LinkedIn is an evergreen and compounding strategy that ALL founders and CEOs need to invest in.

I have battle-tested this process with over 250 CEOs.

It works.

We have the data to prove it.

We have driven millions free impressions for our clients and taught them how to build demand for their services without being slimy or salesy.

See over 100 client testimonials and case studies here: https://www.demandii.com/case-studies

You can see my whole LinkedIn GTM strategy in this 15-minute video at Demandii.com

---

If you are interested in working with me, DM me on LinkedIn 

OR 

book time with me via Demandii.com

Demandii.com helps busy CEOs create all their content for LinkedIn in 1-2 hours per month so they can stay top of mind with their warm networks and become micro-celebrities in their niche. 

🚀 HOW WE DO IT:

We start with three 1-hr workshops to better understand your business and what makes your ICP tick. It's the foundation for creating compelling content.

Then, we meet with the busy CEOs monthly and interview them on a tool like Zoom.   We ONLY need them for 1 hour. 

This interview creates 20 snackable pieces of content:  video posts, text posts, image posts, etc. 

Then, we send that content to the CEO for approval and feedback. This process takes them about 30 minutes to put any final touches on it, so the voice is on point.  

Then, we schedule and post (do all the tedious stuff CEOs should never do) to ensure they are consistent on LinkedIn. 

🤝 WHOM DO WE WORK WITH:

We work with anyone who sees LinkedIn as a core channel. We work directly with the CEO or founder. 

🌐 LEARN MORE:

Demandii.com

Minus 23 doesn't keep these founders from walking and talking! 
Love the Friday founder walks.

I help busy CEOs create all their LinkedIn content in 1 hr/month -​> Demandii.com

First Friday founder walk of 2026!

We had Abhinav Jindal, Chloe Gravelle, 🇨🇦 Andrew Jenkins, Kristine White, Craig Colby 🇨🇦, and few others like H. A. Tepha drove in from Milton! 

——

What are the Friday Founder Walks? 

It’s not a mastermind, not a networking event — just founders (or CEOs) walking and talking. 

No agenda. No slides. Just space to think, swap stories, and connect with others who get it.

This is not meant to be an exercise—just a nice chill way to start your Fridays by connecting with some like-minded people. 

When: Every Friday at 7:30 - 8:30 am (rain or shine) 

- It's on the east side of Toronto (meeting location is Withrow Park)
- The walk is approximately 4 km long and takes about 40 minutes to complete.
- Its meeting location is Withrow Park.
- We take a pitstop at the Riverdale Perk coffee shop (beside Withrow Park), so you can grab your caffeine fix and then end the walk back where we started. 

Lots of free parking around the park at that time in the morning.

If you’re a founder (or CEO) in Toronto and would like to attend, DM me.

---

P.S. - If you were there, please comment and share your experience, including who you spoke to and what was helpful or fun for you.

You can't control the wind, but you can definitely build a bigger sail. Most people think a personal brand is just "posting."

You can be the most brilliant strategist in the world, but if nobody knows what’s inside your head, you are statistically likely to stay exactly where you are. You’re waiting for a "break" that has no way of finding you.

I decided to treat my LinkedIn feed like a public research lab. I post my best SOPs. I shared the "failures" that cost me $50k. I gave away the very thing I used to charge for.  I share helpful tips every day, both as posts and as comments.  

The results weren't "lost revenue." It was a flood of "luck." 

- I didn't have to pitch for speaking gigs anymore
- I didn't have to hunt for partners
- Amazing talent started hunting me down 

This is how you become a luck magnet.

When you increase your surface area by being helpful, "luck" becomes an inevitability, not an accident.

Who agrees...?

No alternative text description for this image

Most people screw up DM selling, here's why:

Demandii is 5 years old now!  I hear from others, "I want to run a 7-figure agency, too! How'd you do it?"

But when I ask, "What are you doing right now to generate sales to get there?" the answer is usually silence. Or worse, it’s "I’m tweaking my logo" or "I’m updating my website."

Building a successful agency takes 5 years of grinding. But most agency owners fail because they focus on the destination rather than the day-to-day revenue-generating tasks required to make the business. They get paralyzed by the gap between where they are ($10k/month) and where they want to be ($400k/month).

Luckily, closing that gap is simple if you know how to use the Reverse-Pyramid Framework.

The secret is to stop looking at the mountain and start looking at your feet.

Step 1: Lock in the 5-Year Goal. Visualizing $5M isn't enough. You need to do the math. That looks like roughly $416k/month in revenue. That’s 104 clients at $4k/month, with a team of 25. 

Tip: Be specific about the math.

Step 2: Calculate the "1-Year", "Monthly" and "Weekly" bridge activities. 

You don't leap to $5M. You climb—one step at a time.

To stay on track, you may need to hit $1M ($83k/month) by the end of Year 1. That means this Month, you need to add 2 new retainers. 

Yes, you will have to do other things, operations, customer success, etc, but you rinse and repeat each thing for all departments.

And, whatever your sales are, you'll likely need to do much more than you want due to natural churn (about 30% annually in agencies), but to keep this example simple, we'll ignore that for now.

Step 3: Execute the "Right Now" Marketing & Sales Actions. 

Based on your monthly goal of 2 new clients, what must you do today? 

You need 10 sales calls. To get 10 calls, you need to send 100 cold DMs/week on LinkedIn and post a helpful daily tip or resource. 

So, your "Right Now" task is simple: Write a helpful post. Then send the first DM; rinse and repeat 20 times/day.

Who agrees that we sometimes overcomplicate the process and allow busywork to get in the way of real revenue-generating work?

Most CEOs don't know what content to create (until now).

Here's a great punch list leveraging Demandii's ACES Method:

1) AUTHORITY
(Micro TED Talks & Expert Positioning)
- The Counter-Intuitive Truth: Challenging an industry "norm."
- The 5-Year Prediction: Where your industry is heading.
- Your Proprietary Framework: Explaining your unique "how."
- The Cost of Inaction: The real price of not solving the problem.
- Lesson from the Trenches: A high-level insight from a recent win.
- Industry Deep Dive: Breaking down a complex technical topic.
- The "CEO Perspective": How you view the market differently.
- Framework Breakdown: A step-by-step "Micro-Masterclass."
- Leadership Philosophy: Your core principles for building a team.
- Debunking a Viral Myth: Using data to disprove a common belief.

2) CONNECT
(Heart, Gut, and Funny Bone)
- The "Rock Bottom" Moment: Sharing a failure and what it taught you.
- The "Why" Behind the Brand: The personal mission driving you.
- Reality Check: A "messy" look at the CEO's life (not the highlight reel).
- Relatable Industry Memes: Humour that only your peers/clients get.
- A Personal Milestone: Celebrating a win outside of the office.
- The "Work-Life" Struggle: Honest thoughts on balance and boundaries.
- Mental Health Minute: Normalizing the stress of leadership.
- Tribute Post: Honouring a mentor or teammate who inspired you.
- Coffee Chat: A casual, "unfiltered" thought on your mind today.
- What I’d Tell My Younger Self: Advice for your 22-year-old self.

3) ENGAGE
(Conversation Starters & Pulling Back the Curtain)
- "Help Us Choose": Feedback on a new logo, colour, or feature.
- The CEO AMA: "Ask Me Anything" session in the comments.
- The "What Am I Missing?" Post: Asking for audience advice on a project.
- Sneak Peek Video: A raw look at a product still in development.
- Decision Polls: "A vs. B" options to include them in the journey.
- Whiteboard Session: "Here’s how I’m thinking about this—thoughts?"
- Office Tour / Team Culture: A look at the inner workings of the team.
- The "Caption This" Photo: Using humour to get people talking.
- Question of the Day: A simple, high-engagement industry question.
- "Unpopular Opinion" Poll: Asking the audience to weigh in on a debate.

4) SHOW
(Demonstration, Results, and Proof)
- The Transformation Reel: Before & After results for a client.
- Video Testimonial Highlight: A client sharing their success story.
- "The Win" Screenshot: Tangible proof of growth or revenue.
- Case Study Deep Dive: How we achieved [X] result in [Y] time.
- The Outcome Walkthrough: Showing exactly how a client uses your tool.
- Client Spotlight: Celebrating a partner's recent achievement.
- "Receipts" Post: Sharing data, analytics, or award certifications.
- Project Time-Lapse: From the first meeting to the final delivery.
- Success Montage: A compilation of various client wins and smiles.
-  The "Evidence" Post: Highlighting 80+ case studies and success stories.

Helpful? (click save)

There are many myths surrounding how to share content on this platform; these 3 link-sharing ones drive me nuts.

MYTH 1: You must put your link in the first comment to avoid an algorithm penalty. 

TRUTH: LinkedIn is now hiding those comments. If your link is hidden, your click-through rate drops to zero.

I’ve tracked dozens of posts over the last 30 days. Posts with the URL in the main body are getting more engagement because people actually see the call to action.

MYTH 2: External links in the post body "tank" your reach. 

TRUTH: Low-quality content tanks your reach. If your hook is strong, LinkedIn will show the post regardless of where the link lives.

The "penalty" for an external link is negligible compared to the penalty of a "link in comments" post that nobody can find.

MYTH 3: You should edit your post to add the link after it goes live. 

TRUTH: This often triggers a re-indexing that can actually slow down your initial momentum.

The "edit trick" is an old-school hack that the algorithm caught up to months ago.

Stop putting your links in the comments to avoid decreasing reach. Just include the URL in the primary post copy. It’s fine. Seriously.

3 Myths About Adding Links to Your LinkedIn Posts

Everyone is getting the SDR role wrong.

It is because the title "Sales Development Representative" creates the wrong intention.

When your team thinks their job is "Sales Development," they focus on the transaction. They "spray and pray." They bother people in the DMs.

I am proposing a rename: Starting Deeper Relationships.

Why? Because names lead to intention.

Starting Deeper Relationships (the new SDR) starts with care:

1. Giving - Share a resource or a point of view that helps the lead without asking for anything back.

2. Probing questions - Ask something that shows you actually read their profile. Not "Can I have 15 minutes?" but "How are you handling [specific problem]?"

3. Meaningful commenting - Don't just say "Great post." Add to the conversation.

4. Real social selling - Build a presence so that when you do reach out, you are a familiar face, not a stranger with a pitch.

If we did this, LinkedIn would be a better experience for everybody.

Who agrees?

CEO's: Thought experiment for you. (EGC) Employee-Generated-Content isn't just a marketing strategy. It is a training strategy.

Most people don't remember what they read or watch in training.
It's not their fault, it's normal.

Most companies try to ramp up new hires using the top two layers:

Reading: "Here is our Notion wiki." (10% retention)

Audio-Visual: "Watch these 15 Loom videos." (20% retention)

Then leaders get frustrated when the team fumbles the pitch or our CS team can't explain the roadmap 30 days later.

Companies are setting their team up to fail. 
They are feeding them information in the format they are biologically wired to forget.

Here's how we've fixed this at Demandii:

We don't just ask the team to "learn" the product.
We practice in private teardowns.
We practice our verbal brand.
We make time to capture the content.
We give them time teach it publicly and make it safe to do so.

Instead of reading the SOP?
Rewrite it in your own words.

Instead of watching the demo?
Record yourself doing it and post it.

Instead of listening to the sales call?
Write a LinkedIn post about the objection you heard.

Why this works:

To write a coherent post about a complex B2B topic, you cannot fake understanding. You have to synthesize it. You have to structure it. You have to anticipate questions.

Making short videos makes you a more effective communicator.
Writing makes you a more strategic thinker.

We are forcing them into the "Teaching Others" tier (90% retention).

If they can't write about it, they don't know it.

Stop optimizing for "content distribution." 
Start optimizing for "competence distribution."
The by-product is more experts on your team, more people impacted, and more new business.

The real ROI is a team that actually understands what they sell.

What companies do you know that invest in Employee Generated Content?

I barely see any.
Most companies will never do this.
Why?
They haven't trained their senior leaders on how to do it (yet).
Those who can handle this advanced content strategy get to kill two birds with one stone. 

What are your thoughts...? (comment below)

I'm helping three dozen B2B business's run their LinkedIn ads. I've discovered the founder's best-performing content becomes their best ads. 

Just add CTAs to winners.

The best part:

No creative risk, better performance, lower costs.

Why LinkedIn ads is the fastest way for you discover if you content marketing fit.

I analyzed a CEO's LinkedIn last week.

Posts daily. 50,000 impressions per month.

Zero leads from LinkedIn.

He couldn't figure out what was wrong. Engagement looked solid. Followers were growing. Comments were positive.

But nobody was booking calls.

The reason? He was measuring the wrong thing.

Impressions.

He wanted more impressions!

So he posted platitudes and reposted viral leadership videos swiped from popular IG reel accounts.

Folks, impressions are a vanity metric.

It tells you how many people scrolled past your content. But it doesn't tell you who actually knows you, trusts you, or would buy from you.

There was zero PoV. 
There was zero thought-leadership.
There were zero useful swipe files that his ideal buyers could use.
There were zero bridges to long-form content.

He thought going viral mattered most to get more eyeballs.  Totally wrong. When you do CEO-led content marketing, you are doing education content, not entertainment content. 

The metric that actually matters?

Content Minutes.

Content Minutes = the total time a single person has spent consuming YOUR content.

Not impressions across all viewers. The cumulative time ONE person has invested in you.

Here's why this changes everything:

At 5 Content Minutes, they're a stranger. They've read 3 posts. They barely remember your name.

At 30 Content Minutes, they're curious. They've consumed a dozen posts. They're starting to get your perspective.

At 120 Content Minutes, they trust you. They've spent 2 hours with you. They feel like they know you.

At 300+ Content Minutes, they'll book a call. You're not a stranger on the internet anymore.

This is why you need both daily posts AND monthly events.

Daily posts create visibility. They rack up 2-3 Content Minutes per viewer. Awareness only.

Speed it up by running LinkedIn events (aka webinars).

LinkedIn events create buyers. A 60-minute webinar delivers 60 Content Minutes in one shot. Deep trust. Easy sales.

The strategic shift:
Stop optimizing for "reaching new people."
Start optimizing for "getting the same people to come back."

50 followers who attend your LinkedIn events will outsell 100,000 followers who only read your posts.

You're not trying to go viral. You're trying to take the RIGHT people from 5 Content Minutes to 300 Content Minutes as fast as possible.

That takes daily visibility + monthly depth.

Are your posts designed to drive people to binge-watch your other content (both shorts and longs)? 

If not, you have set the wrong objective up.

taplio

The Battle

Darren Shaw

Matthew Hunt

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDarren Shaw's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMatthew Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Darren Shaw

Matthew Hunt

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Darren Shaw's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMatthew Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDarren Shaw's LinkedIn Performance