Local SEO has evolved a lot over the years, from the early days of just having to have a consistent name, address, and phone (NAP) profile coherence across the internet, through to the Possum update in 2016 (which introduced address-based filtering that made virtual offices and shared-address listings significantly riskier for local pack visibility) and then through to the modern AI-powered rules of how search is governed and how this is affecting local search and the Google Maps product . The way we would now approach local search and franchise SEO has changed substantially since 2020. AI Overviews  appear more for local queries, and the way users are interacting with, identifying, and finding local businesses and services has evolved. This doesn’t mean to say that the local pack doesn’t matter anymore, but there are more nuances to what local SEO success looks like.…