How We Use Google Places API Data to Build Local SEO Strategies for Small Businesses

We built an open-source Node.js script that pulls competitive market data from the Google Places API for any industry in any county. Here's how we use it to build SEO strategies for local businesses — and why raw data beats guesswork every time. The Problem Most local SEO agencies pitch services without knowing the competitive landscape. They'll tell an HVAC contractor "you need more reviews" without knowing that the market leader in their county has 15,720 reviews. Or they'll promise a med spa "page 1 rankings" without knowing there are 147 competing med spas in the county. We wanted to fix that. So we built a tool that pulls real data from Google Places API for any industry in any geography. What the Script Does For each industry + county combination, the script: Searches multiple cities within the county to get comprehensive coverage Deduplicates businesses by name + address Filters to the target county using city name matching and lat/lng bounding box Sorts by review count (the str