Local Search Clarity · Hearth is the first subject
Being findable is a measurable problem, so measure it first.
Local Search Clarity is a fixed scope review of how clearly a business is represented in search and answer surfaces, followed by one implemented improvement and dated measurement. It is not a monthly SEO retainer and it does not promise a position.
Hearth is running the method on hearthadvisory.com before offering it to anyone else. The baseline, the change log, and the measurements are published on this page as they happen, including the ones where nothing moved.
Why run it here first
A method should be tested on the person selling it.
Hearth had the same problems it would find at a client. A single page site. No canonical tag. No XML sitemap. No structured data. Every unknown address returning the homepage with a 200 status instead of a real 404. Those are the ordinary, boring failures that make a business hard for search engines and answer engines to describe accurately.
Running the method on this site produces two things at once: a fixed site, and a written record of exactly what was done and what followed. The second one is the part worth showing a client.
What this page will never contain: a ranking promise, a traffic promise, a lead or revenue promise, or a claim that any answer engine recommends Hearth. Those are measured outcomes, not deliverables.
The six artifacts
The deliverable is the record, not the ranking.
Every engagement produces the same six things, in the same order, whatever the result turns out to be.
Baseline receipt
A dated capture taken before anything changes: HTTP status and headers for every checked address, the current page inventory, titles, descriptions, canonical tags, structured data, redirect behavior, and the hostnames that do and do not resolve. Saved as raw files with hashes so it can be checked later.
Crawl and entity audit
Whether the important pages can be reached by an ordinary link, whether each one states plainly what it is, and whether the business identity is consistent across the site and the public profiles the business is eligible to claim.
Opportunity map
A prioritized list, grounded in whatever evidence exists: Search Console data when the owner supplies it, queries with visibility but no suitable page, services that are hard to find or understand, and inconsistent or missing business information.
One implemented improvement
One change, not twenty. Usually one page written or rewritten, or one profile clarification, or one bounded listing correction. Doing one thing at a time is what makes the measurement afterwards mean anything.
Before and after change log
A dated, readable record of what changed and why, with the evidence path for each entry. It separates completed work, recommended work, and things that remain unknown.
Measurement at day 14, 30 and 60
The same checks re-run on a fixed schedule and compared against the baseline. Seasonality, branded search, and unrelated outreach are considered before anything is attributed to the change. A result of no movement is recorded as a result.
The Hearth run
What has happened so far.
This log is appended to as the test proceeds. Entries are dated, and entries that record no change stay in the log.
| Date | Stage | What was recorded |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-16 | Baseline receipt | Captured before any change. Every checked address returned HTTP 200 with the same homepage, including robots.txt, sitemap.xml and addresses that do not exist. No canonical tag. No structured data. One hostname redirecting correctly to the canonical host, and one hostname not resolving at all. |
| 2026-08-16 | Crawl and entity audit | The public site was effectively one page with no ordinary link path to anything else. Service, founder and contact facts existed on that page but had no stable address of their own, so nothing could be cited or indexed separately. |
| 2026-08-16 | Change set built | Self referencing canonical tags, a real robots.txt, a real XML sitemap of the indexable pages only, a real 404 page, structured data describing the practice and its offers, and a crawlable header and footer navigation. Each service and the founder identity given its own stable address. |
| Day 14 | Measurement | Scheduled. The baseline checks are re-run and compared. The result is published here whether or not anything moved. |
| Day 30 | Measurement | Scheduled. |
| Day 60 | Decision | Scheduled. What to keep, improve, consolidate, or remove. |
Answer engine checks are run as a fixed set of prompts with the model, date and location context recorded alongside the output. They are treated as exploratory observations, because answers vary by prompt, model, date, location and available source material. They are never converted into a score or presented as ranking evidence.
exploratory observation, not ranking proofThe claims boundary
What can be promised, and what cannot.
The work itself
A source backed baseline, a prioritized opportunity map, one implemented improvement, a readable change log, and a measurement plan with fixed dates.
The outcome of the work
No rankings, no search engine or answer engine recommendations, no number of leads, calls or revenue, no claim that written content will rank, and no claim that one review completes search work.
Google publishes the guidance this method follows for crawling, indexing and local information, and that guidance describes ranking as an outcome of relevance, distance and prominence rather than something a vendor can buy or guarantee. Any provider promising a position is describing something they do not control.
Who it is for
A working business that is hard to find or hard to understand.
A site that exists but does not explain itself
Unclear service pages, incomplete business profile information, inconsistent listings, repeated customer questions the site never answers, or evidence backed visibility gaps.
No site, or no way to make contact
If the break in the customer path is capture rather than findability, the useful work is a website and intake change, not a search clarity review. One primary track per engagement.
Proof lane. Once the Hearth run has completed one full baseline to measurement cycle, the intended first client proof lane is Houston area service businesses, one business and one primary service at a time. That is a stated plan for where the work goes next, not a claim about results, coverage, or a physical location.
Start here
Ask what the baseline would show for your business.
The honest first answer is a dated receipt of where things actually stand. If the receipt says the site is already sound, that is the answer and there is no reason to sell anything on top of it.