That pattern usually means you've refined your focus, not expanded your reach. rankings climb for a narrower set of terms, but you lose the scatter-shot visibility on broader or lower-intent queries you used to catch.
i see the same thing on Amazon when you tighten keyword targeting - impressions drop but conversion rate climbs. In local SEO, that shift often comes from restructuring your service pages or internal links. if you made your location or service targeting more explicit, Google likely filters you out of "nearby" or discovery-style searches and keeps you only for high-intent ones.
google Business Profile posts don't move rankings. they're a freshness signal and a conversion asset, nothing more. citations still build trust and consistency, but they're not a lever you can pull to move the needle independently. the links that matter are local and relevant, not a numbers game.
The practical move is to pull a before/after query comparison in GSC. See which queries dropped off - that tells you whether you lost topical breadth or got pushed into a tighter intent bucket.
The trade-off isn't necessarily bad. you might get fewer impressions but better ones. if conversions aren't following though, then your targeting or page-to-query match has a gap that needs fixing
