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Darren Shaw

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About Darren Shaw

Darren Shaw is the founder of Whitespark.ca, a leading local SEO software and services company, and a 27-year veteran of web development and SEO. As a leading educator in the industry, he runs the highly cited annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey, and shares his expertise with tens of thousands of newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, and conference audiences worldwide.

Darren Shaw's latest articles

SEO

What 1.8 million Google Business Profiles tell us about local SEO success

Specific primary and additional categories, plus complete profiles, correlate with stronger local rankings. See what the data reveals.

Darren Shaw | Aug 25, 2026 at 10:00 am ET

SEO

The new playbook for localized AI search optimization

Learn how to influence the reviews, citations, and third-party mentions AI search engines use in local business recommendations.

Darren Shaw | May 26, 2026 at 8:00 am ET

SEO

The perfect local business contact page built for Google and conversions

Google crawls and parses your contact page. Structure it with the right signals and trust factors to drive rankings and real leads.

Darren Shaw | Feb 24, 2026 at 9:00 am ET

SEO

7 local SEO wins you get from keyword-rich Google reviews

Discover how keyword-rich Google reviews can boost your local visibility, engagement, and conversions – plus templates to help you.

Darren Shaw | Nov 11, 2025 at 8:00 am ET