{"id":2046,"slug":"tier-2-findability-and-trust","title":"Tier 2 — Findability + trust infrastructure (MODERATE GAP)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["digital-presence-work-tiers","technical-seo-hygiene","content-seo-timelines","local-seo-mechanics"],"reference_body":"**What it is:** Technical SEO hygiene, local SEO / Google Business Profile optimization, review generation, and sustained structured content.\n\n**When to recommend it:** Owner has a working site but is invisible in search, absent from the local pack, or under-reviewed relative to competitors.\n\n**Components:**\n\n- **Technical SEO** — indexability, mobile, HTTPS, reasonable speed. Fast (2-6 weeks) but rarely a competitive lever once basics are in place. See [[technical-seo-mueller-indexability-decisive]].\n- **Local SEO / GBP** — Whitespark 2026 — GBP 32% of local-pack ranking weight; primary category strongest controllable factor. See [[whitespark-2026-local-ranking-factors]].\n- **Reviews** — strongest causal evidence in the whole domain (Luca; Spiegel). See sister brief [[research-brief-smb-widget-market-difficulty-june-2026]].\n- **Content** — compounds but slowly (3-6 months meaningful, 6-12+ months significant). See [[content-seo-realistic-timelines]] and the brutal Ahrefs 1.74% base rate ([[ahrefs-2025-1-7-percent-new-pages-rank]]).\n- **Schema markup** — table stakes for ELIGIBILITY (rich results, AI extraction), NOT a ranking lever. See [[schema-not-ranking-factor-mueller]].\n\nThis tier contains the **strongest causal evidence in the entire domain** (reviews → revenue, GBP → local-pack presence) but also the longest timelines and the most vendor over-claiming.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"technical-seo-mueller-indexability-decisive","title":"Technical SEO — Mueller: indexability is binary and decisive; most other factors are hygiene","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"content-seo-realistic-timelines","title":"Content/SEO realistic timelines — 3-6 months meaningful, 6-12+ months significant","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"ahrefs-2025-1-7-percent-new-pages-rank","title":"Ahrefs May 2025 — only 1.74% of newly published pages reach top 10 within a year (vendor)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"whitespark-2026-local-ranking-factors","title":"Whitespark 2026 Local Search Ranking Factors — GBP 32%, Reviews 20%, On-page 15%","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"proximity-uncontrollable-local-factor","title":"Proximity dominates local-pack and is uncontrollable — ~55% of weight","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"schema-not-ranking-factor-mueller","title":"Schema/structured data — NOT a ranking factor; eligibility for rich results","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"review-meta-analysis-156-studies","title":"Review meta-analysis — 156 studies, 214 effect sizes, 69,006 observations","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"ftc-fake-review-rule-and-google-policies","title":"FTC fake-review rule + Google policies — manipulation legally risky and increasingly detectable","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"google-helpful-content-and-mueller-unique-not-enough","title":"Google \"helpful content\" + Mueller — \"It's unique\" is not enough; the bar has risen","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rich-results-rotten-tomatoes-25-percent-ctr","title":"Rich-results CTR lift — Rotten Tomatoes +25%, Rakuten 2.7x traffic (Google-published)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-difficulty-to-work-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget difficulty-to-work mapping — three tiers of work for three sizes of gap (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"rule-cumulative-ordered-tiers","title":"Rule — Tiers 1-3 are cumulative and ordered; never recommend a higher tier on a failing lower one","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:02.654Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:02.654Z"}