Entity basics
Make the professional identity easy to verify
Local SEO is not only map rankings. For a professional, it is the job of making the current identity, location, work, projects, profiles, and contact routes easy to understand. A strong entity is built from consistent facts, useful pages, and evidence that supports the public description.
Owned foundation
Build the clearest version of the identity on pages you control
Third-party profiles are useful, but owned pages should carry the most accurate and complete version of the professional identity. They can explain current services, projects, location, and proof without being limited by profile templates.
About page
Use one stable page to explain who the professional is, where they are based, what they currently do, and which project notes support the profile.
Projects hub
Collect current work in one indexable place. Link to case studies, live demos, repositories, and evidence pages where available.
Article hub
Publish practical notes that show how the person thinks and solves problems. Useful local and technical content can support the wider entity.
Contact path
Make the preferred contact route obvious and consistent. If a public phone or address strategy is privacy-sensitive, document the service area carefully.
Profiles and citations
Use third-party profiles to confirm, not replace, the owned story
Profiles, directories, developer communities, and local listings can help search engines connect the dots. The important part is consistency: the same name, professional category, location context, websites, project links, and short description should appear across the places that matter.
Developer profiles
Source archive, package registries, technical communities, and article platforms should link back to the main profile or project evidence rather than isolated pages.
Professional profiles
LinkedIn and similar profiles should use the same current role language, project links, and service areas as the owned site.
Business listings
Only use listings that can accurately represent the business and contact strategy. Incorrect address or phone data can create more cleanup work later.
Profile links
Cross-link naturally: owned site to profiles, profiles to owned site, project pages to repositories, and repositories back to project evidence.
Structured data
Use schema to describe relationships that already exist
Schema should make real relationships easier for machines to parse. It should not invent relationships or claim credentials that are not visible. For a professional site, the common useful types are Person, WebSite, ProfessionalService, Article, BreadcrumbList, CollectionPage, and project-related CreativeWork types.
Person
Connect name, main URL, location context, and sameAs links to verified public profiles or owned domains.
ProfessionalService
Use this only where the page represents services or business activity. Keep service area and contact details accurate.
Article and projects
Article schema supports technical resources. Project pages can use appropriate creative or software types when the page has enough evidence.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumb schema helps clarify where pages sit in the site architecture, especially across About, Projects, Blog, and article pages.
Local relevance
Christchurch and New Zealand relevance should be specific and truthful
Local relevance should be grounded in where the person works, what markets the work serves, which local problems the content helps solve, and which project notes or services genuinely relate to New Zealand. Thin location pages are less useful than specific local context.
Service area wording
Use clear language about Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, remote support, or national project work only where it is accurate.
Local examples
Use examples such as New Zealand business technology, DNS/email handover, fibre/VoIP troubleshooting, and public-interest projects where relevant.
Community signals
Record genuine memberships, events, open-source contributions, or community participation when they exist. Do not manufacture citations.
Measurement
Track search appearance for name, location, and service modifiers with date and location caveats. Treat every snapshot as a measurement, not a permanent truth.
Google local basics
Match the public profile to how local results are evaluated
Google describes local result matching in terms of relevance, distance, and prominence. A Christchurch professional site cannot control every part of that system, but it can make the useful parts clearer: what the work is, where it is based, which pages prove it, and which outside profiles confirm the same facts.
Relevance
Make service pages, article titles, project pages, and profile copy specific enough that a search engine can match them to real search intent.
Distance
Use accurate Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, remote-support, or service-area wording. Do not pretend to have locations, offices, or coverage that are not real.
Prominence
Build durable proof: useful articles, linked project notes, Source archive evidence, directory listings, profile links, and natural references from relevant sites.
Completeness
Keep the business name, category, website, contact route, hours if used, and service description consistent wherever the profile appears.
Entity consistency map
Document the facts that should stay consistent everywhere
A practical entity map is a small set of facts that can be checked before publishing any page, profile, listing, repository, or article bio. It keeps the public presence coherent without forcing every page to say the same thing.
Core identity
Name, preferred professional description, Christchurch/New Zealand context, main website, and secondary identity hub.
Owned assets
Homepage, About page, Christchurch profile, New Zealand profile, services pages, project hub, blog hub, and finnerty.me.
Public proof
source archive, project repositories, public source archive references, business listing, paste-ready LinkedIn profile content, and selected project evidence.
Missing links
Any profile or listing that cannot link to the owned site should still use consistent category and description language, or be left out until it can be verified.
Implementation order
Start with the pages that can carry the most trust
Local entity work should avoid thin duplication. The stronger pattern is one high-quality owned profile, one useful location page, service pages with specific intent, and supporting articles that answer real questions. Each page should link to the next most useful page, not just repeat the same keyword phrase.
Profile layer
Use the About, Christchurch, and New Zealand profile pages as the stable source for identity, location, and current work.
Service layer
Use pages such as SEO consulting, IT support, DNS/email, networking, fibre, SIP/VoIP, Wi-Fi, and Microsoft 365 to target real service intent.
Evidence layer
Use project pages and Source archive references to show practical work without inventing claims about clients, adoption, or formal credentials.
Reading paths
Use topic hubs to group related articles so users and crawlers can move from a broad topic into specific checklists and case-study evidence.
Avoid shortcuts
What not to do when building local visibility
The fastest way to create future cleanup work is to publish signals that are inconsistent, inflated, or hard to verify. Strong local SEO is mostly boring: accurate facts, useful pages, real proof, clean links, and patient measurement.
- Do not create fake offices, virtual locations, or city pages that imply a physical presence that does not exist.
- Do not keyword-stuff the business name, profile bio, page title, or footer links.
- Do not add review schema, ratings, client logos, awards, qualifications, or media claims unless they are visible and verifiable.
- Do not use structured data to describe content that is hidden from users or unrelated to the page.
- Do not build dozens of near-duplicate location pages when one useful local profile and targeted service pages would be clearer.
Official references
Useful source rules to keep nearby
These public Google references support the approach above: complete and accurate business information, relevance/distance/prominence, real-world business representation, and structured data that matches the visible page.
A practical entity checklist
The core question is simple: if someone searches the name, location, or current work, can they find a coherent, current, evidence-backed picture across the owned site, projects, profiles, and directories?
Professional context
The same model applies to this site
The John Finnerty site uses the same entity pattern: a current About page, a project hub, location-aware support pages, technical articles, external profiles, and repositories that reinforce each other without pretending to be separate businesses.
Person hub
About John Finnerty is the central owned profile for the person entity.
Project hub
The projects page collects selected project notes and links them to case studies, repositories, and development references.
Location support
The Christchurch page provides a focused local context without using a doorway-page pattern.
Technical resources
The SME SEO guide turns the same principles into a practical checklist.
Related services
Local profile and site structure support
Local relevance improves when the owned site, service pages, and profiles are consistent and easy to verify. If you need help building the same foundation, start with the services overview and the Christchurch support pages.