Caleb Ulku argues that most local business websites fail at SEO because they focus on aesthetics and informational blog content rather than transactional, location-specific pages. He introduces a framework called the 'Core 30' — a hierarchical site structure mirroring a Google Business Profile, with a homepage targeting primary category + city, secondary category pages, core service pages, and individual service pages all internally linked in a silo structure. He demonstrates building a 54-page plumber website for Gary, Indiana in roughly 23 minutes using Claude (for content planning and copywriting) and Lovable (an AI website builder) following a sequence of 7 structured prompts. The key insight is that Google rewards topical authority and local relevance, not blog traffic volume.
A specific website architecture blueprint for local businesses consisting of ~30+ pages organized into a hierarchy: homepage, secondary category pages, core service pages, and individual service pages — all internally linked to mirror the Google Business Profile structure.
View concept page →A site architecture method where pages are linked in a strict hierarchy mirroring the Google Business Profile structure — homepage to category pages to service pages — to signal comprehensive authority on a topic to Google's algorithm.
View concept page →The most important URL for a local business website — the page linked in the 'website' field of the Google Business Profile, typically the homepage for single-location businesses, which targets the primary category + city name as its keyword.
View concept page →An AI-powered website building tool used to generate full multi-page websites from structured prompts, capable of building out page skeletons, internal linking, and content at scale — though it has a known server-side rendering issue that must be fixed for SEO.
View concept page →Google categorizes searchers into two buckets: 'how do I do this' (informational) and 'who can do this for me' (transactional). Local SEO should focus exclusively on transactional searches to drive paying customers.
View concept page →Dedicated website pages corresponding to each Google Business Profile category (up to 10), which sit beneath the homepage and above individual service pages in the site hierarchy, becoming H2 tags on the homepage.
View concept page →Dedicated pages for the highest-profit, most-desired services a business offers, which receive extra topical depth through their own child service sub-pages to build strong topical relevance.
View concept page →A Google ranking signal where the search engine rewards pages that quickly give visitors what they came for, measured by user satisfaction upon landing on the page.
View concept page →The goal of local SEO — appearing in the top 3 Google local search results shown on a map, which drives actual phone calls and business rather than generic blog traffic.
View concept page →An AI language model used in this workflow for high-quality content writing, particularly for the GBP landing page, due to its superior writing ability compared to Lovable.
View concept page →The final step in the website build process where Lovable is prompted to create a sitemap, robots.txt file, verify internal linking, and implement local business schema and service schema markup.
View concept page →The primary guest and SEO expert featured in the video, founder of an AI SEO agency that developed the Core 30 local SEO methodology and scaled to 97 plumber clients using AI-driven content and local link-building strategies.
View concept page →A two-stage AI content writing workflow where Claude first generates a content outline, then fills it in with full word-for-word copy using client-specific prompts, producing higher quality SEO content than single-prompt generation.
View concept page →The mistaken belief held by many web designers and agencies that aesthetics and design awards drive business results, when in reality search ranking and conversions are what generate revenue.
View concept page →Most local business websites fail because they focus on informational content (how-to blogs) rather than transactional searches. For example, a LASIK eye surgery center in Chicago was getting 80,000 hits a month but very few calls because they were ranking for 'Does LASIK Hurt' from people in Florida and New York — people who would never fly to Chicago for surgery. Google puts searchers into two buckets: (1) 'How do I do this?' (informational) and (2) 'Who can do this for me?' (transactional). Local businesses need to focus on transactional, local searches, not informational blog traffic.
The Core 30 is a specific website blueprint for local businesses that follows this hierarchy: (1) Homepage — targets your primary category plus city, and serves as your Google Business Profile (GBP) landing page. (2) Secondary Category Pages — Google allows up to 10 GBP categories; the recommendation is to use 4-5, and each becomes an H2 tag on the homepage with its own dedicated page. (3) Service Pages — every service on your GBP gets its own page (e.g., drain cleaning, water heater repair, leak detection). The homepage links to category pages, which link to their child service pages, mirroring the exact structure of your Google Business Profile. This internal linking silo builds topical relevance and signals to Google that you're the authority on everything related to your niche in that specific city.
Informational searches are queries like 'how to unclog a drain' — the user wants to learn how to do something themselves. Transactional searches are queries like 'plumber in Gary Indiana' — the user wants to hire someone. For local businesses, ranking for informational searches wastes budget because those visitors rarely convert into paying customers, and they may not even be in your service area. Local SEO should focus almost exclusively on transactional, location-based searches to attract people who are ready to hire a local service provider.
The tool used is called Lovable, an AI website builder. The known issue with Lovable is a server-side rendering problem, which some SEO purists claim prevents Lovable-built websites from ranking. However, the speaker says this issue is very easy to fix, and once fixed, Lovable-built websites can rank in search results.
Prompt Zero is the planning prompt used with Claude (an AI). It takes inputs like the business type, city, secondary category pages, and core services, then organizes all the services into their relevant categories and produces an overall site architecture map showing the internal linking hierarchy. This map is then fed to Lovable repeatedly to ensure the website is built with the exact structure intended. It creates a blueprint before any actual building begins.
Core services are the high-priority services that a client most wants to rank for — typically high-profit, low-time services. For example, for a plumber, core services are water heater replacement and main drain line replacement. Each core service gets its own dedicated page with child service pages underneath it to build topical relevance. The recommendation is to keep the total number of secondary categories plus core services under 10. If you have 5 secondary categories, you should have 3-4 core services; if you have 2 secondary categories, you can have 2 core services.
The GBP landing page is the most important page because it is the primary page Google associates with your business listing and is the most likely page a real user will land on. It should target your primary category plus city, and its content quality directly impacts rankings and conversions. Because of its importance, the recommended approach is to write its content separately using a high-quality multi-step process with Claude, rather than letting Lovable auto-generate it. As you get farther from the GBP landing page in the site structure, content quality becomes less critical because real users are less likely to ever see those pages.
The opening paragraph should focus on the user's needs, not the business's credentials. A very common mistake is opening with 'We're family-owned, been in business 20 years, and have these certifications' — nobody cares about that immediately. Instead, the opening paragraph should speak directly to the visitor, address their problem, explain what you'll do for them, and include a clear call to action (like a phone number). This approach satisfies Google's 'goal completion' principle — when someone lands on your site, Google wants to see that they quickly found what they were looking for and were satisfied.
Goal completion is a concept where Google rewards websites that quickly satisfy the user's intent. When someone lands on your website, Google wants to see that they found what they were looking for fast and were happy with the result. For a local business, this means the homepage should immediately address the visitor's need, tell them what you can do for them, and provide a clear way to contact you — rather than burying that information below lengthy paragraphs about the company's history or certifications.
The process uses the following prompt sequence: (1) Prompt 0 (Planning) — Run in Claude with business details to generate the full site architecture map. (2) Prompt 1 (Skeleton) — Given to Lovable along with the site architecture; builds all pages with no content, just structure and internal linking. (3) Prompt 2 (Landing Page Content) — Run simultaneously in Claude to generate high-quality GBP homepage content. (4) Prompt 3 (Landing Page Build Out) — Give Lovable the Claude-generated content to populate the homepage. (5) Prompt 4 — Build out secondary category pages. (6) Prompt 5 — Build out core service pages. (7) Prompt 6 — Build out all individual service pages. (8) Prompt 7 — Build about us and contact pages. (9) Final Prompt (Technical SEO) — Have Lovable create the sitemap, robots.txt, verify internal linking, and implement local business schema and service schema.
In the final technical SEO prompt, Lovable is instructed to: create an XML sitemap, verify that all internal linking is working correctly, create a robots.txt file, implement local business schema markup, implement service schema markup, and double-check that all pages and links are functioning as intended. These technical elements are critical for helping Google properly crawl, index, and understand the website's structure and relevance.
According to the speaker, the full site skeleton (all pages created with internal linking) and homepage content were completed in approximately 23 minutes of recording time. The speaker notes that building a 59-page website manually would take a developer roughly 20 hours (at 3 pages per hour at 20 minutes per page), which at $40-$50/hour adds up to a significant cost. The AI-assisted process with Lovable and Claude dramatically reduces both the time and cost.
Claude produces significantly higher quality content than Lovable. Lovable's auto-generated content is described as 'fine, but not great.' For important pages like the GBP landing page, a multi-step process with Claude is recommended: first generate an outline, then fill it in with word-for-word content using client-specific prompts. For less critical pages deeper in the site structure (which real users are unlikely to visit), Lovable's auto-generated content may be acceptable to save time. The priority of content quality should decrease as you move farther from the homepage in the site hierarchy.
Secondary category pages should each have their own dedicated page (not just H2 sections on the homepage). Each category page should contain inline links to all of the specific service pages that fall under that category. For example, a 'Drainage Service' category page would link to individual pages for drain cleaning, drain inspection, hydro jetting, etc. These pages also need a link back to the homepage. This silo structure creates strong topical relevance signals for Google and mirrors the category structure of your Google Business Profile.
Google allows businesses to choose up to 10 secondary GBP (Google Business Profile) categories, but most businesses only choose one or two, which is a mistake. The recommendation is to use four or five secondary categories. Each category becomes an H2 tag on the homepage and gets its own dedicated page in the website's silo structure. Using more categories helps establish broader topical authority and gives you more ranking opportunities.
According to the speaker, a local business website built with this specific Core 30 structure ranked in the top three spots on Google within a few weeks. The speaker also mentions that clients who receive these results are willing to pay $2,000 to $10,000 per month on retainer for ongoing SEO services. The key differentiator is focusing on transactional local searches rather than informational blog traffic, which drives actual phone calls and leads rather than just website visits.
General service pages — those that are not core services and don't fall under a specific secondary category — link directly back to the homepage rather than to a category page. This keeps the site architecture clean and ensures that the homepage accumulates link equity from all service pages, reinforcing its authority as the primary landing page for the business.