What we have actually audited in Boulder
Each block below comes from a research batch we ran in Boulder — ten businesses scanned on seven dimensions, with the answers real customers would get.
Law offices
Batch 7 — 10 solo and small firms
An unclaimed or unoptimised Google Business Profile came up more often than any other gap in our Batch 7 notes. We recorded gaps as free text rather than as a coded field, so read that as the pattern we saw rather than a counted result. Several firms had genuinely strong reputations sitting on Avvo or Birdeye — one with several hundred reviews — while their Google presence, which is what the map pack and local answers actually read, was thin or missing.
Salons & spas
Batch 6 — 10 independents
The sharpest version of the same pattern. Several of the ten independents we scanned carry large, strong review bases and were still not named in the answers we ran. The work here is converting reputation that already exists into discoverability, not building reputation from scratch.
Restaurants
Batch 4 — 10 independents
Boulder dining answers concentrate hard. A small number of names — Frasca chief among them — recur across nearly every query variation we ran, while comparable independents were not named at all.
Breweries
Batch 2 — 10 taprooms
Answer engines returned the same taprooms across phrasings and left comparable ones out entirely, regardless of how good the beer was at the ones they skipped. We recorded which businesses were named, not how many an answer contained — the finding is the repetition, not a count.
The questions we test
We do not guess at what customers type. We run the literal phrasings and read what the answer engines return — who gets named, in what order, and which sources they cite.
best [practice] lawyer in Boulderbest salon in Boulder for [service]where should I eat in Boulder tonightbest brewery in Boulder with a patio
Where the research came from
Seven batches, 70 owner-led Front Range businesses, five verticals — breweries, restaurants, fitness studios, salons and spas, and law offices. We only claim what those batches measured. Read what the research found, or see a worked engagement with before-and-after you can check yourself.
