Google Search, Google Maps, and AI Answers

Helping service companies get discovered first in their local region on Google Search and Google Maps, and at the top of AI Answers in AI Mode, among the top LLMs.

I’m Gregg Thorpe, started in 1998, selling advertising in magazines to electronic component manufacturers while helping many of the same advertisers with their first search-optimized websites.

I founded First Place Positioning in January 2001. Search has been rebuilt several times since then. Directories gave way to links, links gave way to content, content gave way to the local pack, and now AI answers can summarize a business before anyone clicks through.

Every shift changed the work. None of them changed the point. The goal is still to make it obvious to people and machines what you do, where you do it, and why you are the right call.

Most of the work is unglamorous: a service page that answers the question someone actually typed, a Google Business Profile that agrees with the website, and reviews, hours, service areas, and structured data that all say the same thing. Done consistently, those details move a business into the results people trust and act on.