If you have multiple local business locations and need to carry out local SEO for each one, it’s an even more daunting prospect.

Why should I opt for local SEO services?

The level of commitment required to conduct an effective local SEO campaign isn’t realistic for many local businesses. 

Just as you might opt to outsource the dry cleaning of staff uniforms, or retain a landscaping service to keep your property looking presentable instead of tending to shrubbery firsthand, it’s common to appoint a local SEO agency or consultant to handle your local search engine marketing. 

Outsourcing not only saves you time but also offers peace of mind that an expert is handling activities that can make or break your local search presence. 

To ensure you choose the correct partner and have the necessary local search engine optimization tactics taken care of, it’s helpful to understand what a local SEO specialist does, and how they can help. While there may be some elements that you are happy to handle in-house, there are other services where delegating to a professional pair of hands is a more attractive prospect.

What does a local SEO specialist do?

A local SEO specialist helps local businesses to improve their presence in the local search results. They will carry out a range of activities including optimization of the local business website, reputation management, and Google Business profile optimization.  

What are local SEO services?

The top local SEO services that you might be considering outsourcing to an agency partner or consultant include:

• Website localization 
• Local content creation
• Local link building
• Google Business Profile setup and optimization
• Google Business Profile Posts management
• Google Business spam fighting
• Building local citations
• Managing local citations
• Reputation management 
• Monitoring local search rankings
• Local search audit
• Keyword research

1. Localizing Your Website

Localizing your website is the process of incorporating the name of your city, county, state, or region naturally throughout your site content, including the footer and contact page, as well as in key parts of your website’s metadata (such as page titles, H1 headers, and meta descriptions). 

This process tells search engines a lot about which local search results your website should appear in. This is important as it helps to establish the relevance of your website for local search results.

Multi-business locations shouldn’t localize the main site for a specific location. Instead, individual location pages (or store pages) should be created. These pages are then localized for their own surrounding area. Each location page should also use the location keyword in its URL structure.

2. Local Content Creation

To further develop your site’s localization standing and improve on-page optimization, creating useful, relevant, and locally focused content on a regular basis is a must. Good quality content can also attract inbound links, which further boosts online visibility and business prominence. 

One way to do this is to create content hubs to sit around your location pages. This means creating content related to the local area, such as listing upcoming local events, collating a director of local businesses, and sharing local news and views. 

If you run an estate agency, for example, you could create a ‘moving guide’ content hub for your local area to help any clients planning a move. Here you could share a range of helpful content such as a list of local medical centers, the best local restaurants, how to navigate public transport, the top 5 gyms, a guide to flexible office spaces, and local holiday events. 

3. Local Link Building

Obtaining local links is an important part of local SEO. A longstanding local SEO ranking factor, links also help your site to be more visible online and provide new discovery routes for local consumers. 

Link building for a local business will often involve outreach, engagement, and participation with the local community. Local links can come from a wide range of sources, including local media outlets, local chambers of commerce and business groups, directory sites, community groups, and even other local businesses.

Identifying potential sites to get a local link and reaching out to prospects is time-consuming. However, a good local SEO agency or consultant should have a range of local link building tactics up their sleeve, whether that be by creating useful content, sponsoring an event, contributing to the community, or helping out with a local charity.

Link building also ups the prominence of your business and can add credibility and authority to your brand.

4. Google Business Profile Setup and Optimization

Google Business Profile information is used to populate local search results, the Local Pack, and Maps so claiming your business listing and keeping it fully optimized is a core aspect of any local SEO strategy. Google Business Profile signals feature heavily in the top 15 most influential local SEO ranking signals, with importance also increasing year on year. 

Profile setup is also key to the wider success of your local business, with Google data confirming that:

• Local consumers are 2.7% more likely to view your business as reputable if the Google Business Profile is complete
• 50% more likely to make a purchase and 
• 70% more likely to visit your location.

Many of the features built into the Google Business Profile (including Q&As, Google Posts, and Google Reviews) provide the local search user with useful information before they even consider visiting your website. 

This information is visible directly from the local search results page so can influence a search user’s opinion of the business and inform what they know about products and services even if they don’t click through to visit the local business website.

5. Google Business Profile Posts Management

Google Business Posts are the local search version of social media updates. These short updates offer a way to share news, events, offers, and company announcements with local consumers. 

Using Posts means:

• Local search users have more information about your business
• They can easily access product announcements and special offers directly from local search
• You can engage local consumers with timely information and locally themed content
• You can promote your special offers, sales, and discounts within the local search results
• Offer a better customer experience with easy access to the most up-to-date information about your business
• Share engaging images and videos to capture the search user’s attention

You can see how Posts appear in the local SERP below. There they are in the bottom right:

And here’s the detail you get when you click on one:

Creating posts at scale can be incredibly time-consuming and tricky. This is where a local SEO service like GBP Post Scheduler can change the game.

6. Google Business Profile and Maps Spam Fighting  

Google Business Profile spam poses an active threat to your search visibility. Fake profiles could see your business pushed down the local search results by actively competing with your own listing. Fake reviews, meanwhile, could give local consumers a false negative review of your business. 

Spam is prevalent on Google Business. Google says that in the 2021 alone, it stopped over three million attempts to fraudulently claim Business Profiles, removed over three million fake Business Profiles, and removed more than 55 million reviews.

It can be tricky for the average consumer to spot a fake or spam profile and, while monitoring for spam can be tedious, it’s vital to protect your local search presence and reputation. 

By flagging up fake reviews and reporting Spam Profiles, you aren’t wasting time and resources fighting against non-existent businesses or competitors trying to spam their way to the top of the listings using black hat techniques. Fake profiles may need to be flagged multiple times before being removed by Google.

Misleading or spam profiles on Google Maps can be reported using the Redressal Form or via ‘Suggest an edit’ on the profile itself.

7. Building Local Citations

A local citation is a mention of your business data online, often your name, address, and phone number (NAP). Citations can be built from a range of sources, including business directories, online review sites, social media profiles, and event listings. 

Anywhere that your business’s NAP appears online is considered a citation and can give your local SEO a boost.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of local citation sites out there, some focusing on particular areas or industries. Therefore, it’s important for whoever is doing your citation building, whether it’s a local citation building service or just you, has a great understanding of your business, your location, and your industry in order to get you on the key ones first.

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8. Managing Local Citations

Building citations is just one aspect of this local SEO tactic. In addition to adding new citations, you should audit existing citations and then manage your citations to ensure the data is accurate and updated when necessary. When reviewing what local SEO services are on offer by an agency or consultant, look out for citation cleanup and management as an ongoing service, too.

Multi-location businesses face a further complication in that data managing many citations, across many locations can become hugely unwieldy very quickly. 

9. Reputation Management 

Online reviews are more important than ever with local consumers reading more reviews, more often. When it comes to trust, they help consumers to build shortlists, compare local businesses and ultimately decide where to spend their money.

Reputation management includes: 

• Being proactive about requesting reviews to build your review profile
• Monitoring for new reviews
• Responding to good reviews
• Responding to negative reviews
• Identifying any recurring issues flagged up in reviews that could impact the wider success of the business (such as complaints about venue cleanliness, long wait times, or unhelpful staff)
• Repurposing good reviews 
• Identifying appropriate new review platforms

For enterprise businesses with hundreds of locations, online reputation is so crucial they often have a staff member or team entirely dedicated to monitoring, managing, and prioritizing the hundreds of thousands of reviews they receive every day. The online review statistics speak for themselves and further highlight their importance. This is where a reputation management tool can really help.

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10. Monitoring Local Search Rankings

Your local search rankings are the culmination of all of the effort put into your local SEO strategy. Without a local search ranking tracker system in place, it’s impossible to know if your strategy is delivering results. A failure to monitor rankings also means that you could easily be in the dark about a sudden drop in rankings which may be caused by a new algorithm or Google penalty being applied.

It’s not enough to perform a local search every now and again. Any local business serious about enhancing its local search presence needs to be vigilant about monitoring keyword performance and competitor rankings continually. The way that rankings are checked should also replicate how local consumers are searching for your business, using specific search locations.

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11. Local Search Audit

When reviewing what the local SEO services your shortlisted agency or consultant offers are, a local search audit should be one of the things on your radar.

A local search audit is a comprehensive analysis of your website’s local search performance.

A solid local search audit should:

• Audit your local search rankings
• Provide an overview of your citations
• Review your reputation management strategy
• Audit your inbound links and explore link building opportunities
• Audit your Google Business Profile(s)
• Audit your on page performance
• Perform local keyword research 
• Give you insights into your competitors

Without your local SEO services provider giving you the lowdown on your current situation and the industry landscape, you won’t be able to tell how much value you’re getting out of them once appointed.

An audit also acts as a health check and form of due diligence, identifying areas of concern and highlighting opportunities to do better so that you can feel confident that you’re dedicating resources to the right areas and maximizing every opportunity to grow your local search visibility above your competitors.

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12. Keyword Research

Conducting thorough local keyword research and keeping on top of emerging keywords as search behaviors change informs many areas of your local SEO strategy, from the wording on your Google Profile to the text used on your website.

Keyword research can be a complex process, with myriad keyword combinations to consider and metrics such as competition level and intent to keep in mind. Researching keywords should also be done in a manner that replicates how long consumers search, so an understanding of changing behaviors and emerging trends is also useful.

Because keywords are intrinsic to every aspect of your local SEO strategy, keyword research will need to be approached as an ongoing task, otherwise, you run the risk of your SEO tactics being based on outdated data that won’t generate the search traffic and conversions you expect.

Whether that’s an emergency plumber to fix a leak, a restaurant for dinner, or a groomer for the dog, our smartphones are a conduit to the things we want and need on a daily basis. For local businesses that are easily found, those Google searches turn into store visits and physical sales. 

Conducting a local SEO audit offers you peace of mind that you’re doing all you can to be visible to as much of that local traffic as possible. It’s also a chance to identify and rectify any underlying issues that might be making it easier for your competitors to outrank you in local search. 

Conducting a local SEO audit for the first time can be daunting; there’s a lot at stake and lots of different factors to consider. Taking a methodical, step-by-step approach turns what could be an enormous weight into a more manageable task.

It’s important to note that you will need to repeat this process at regular intervals due to the frequency of local SEO algorithm changes.

Why should you carry out a local SEO audit?

An audit is a thorough examination of all the components that make up a local search strategy and local pack ranking. It is the only way to ensure you have a clear picture of how your site is performing, where problems have emerged, and where opportunities exist.

If your site has suddenly lost rankings or traffic has disappeared, working through a local SEO audit checklist can help you understand why. 

It can help to think of an audit as a systematic health check—a great way to perform local SEO analysis. It allows you to pinpoint areas of concern without hastily jumping in and potentially spending a lot of money unnecessarily on a knee-jerk reaction.

What is included in an SEO audit? 

There are three key areas of the local SEO algorithm:

• Proximity: How close (or distant) the search user is from your business. 
• Prominence: how prominent is your brand online? (do you have lots of inbound links, article mentions, reviews, and citations for example?)
• Relevance: How relevant is your business to the term being searched for?

Local SEO Audit Checklist 

Because so many different factors need to be reviewed, it’s best to split your checklist into different categories and then analyze each one in turn.

1. Google Penalties
2. Local keyword research
3. Rankings
4. Links and website authority
5. Citations
6. Brand mentions / implied links
7. Google Business Profile
8. Reviews and ratings
9. Social media

How to Carry Out Your Local SEO Audit

Create a spreadsheet or document with a section for each of the items listed 1-9 above. Input the findings from your local SEO analysis as you complete each one to build out your audit.

1. Check for Google Penalties

A Google penalty can seriously undermine your SEO performance. 

It’s thought that just 5% of sites submit a reconsideration request after fixing the problem that triggered a penalty. This means many local business websites are missing out on the chance to recover lost rankings. 

Checking for Google penalties in step one of your audit means you won’t make that mistake.

A drop in rankings doesn’t always mean you have been given a penalty. This can make it difficult to determine if you’re falling behind, haven’t adapted your strategy after an algorithm update, or really are being penalized. 

Common reasons for penalties include:

• Thin content 
• Sneaky mobile redirects
• User-generated spam
• An unnatural link structure to or from your site

If you are subject to a penalty, you will be sent a notification in Google Search Console (details for how to register can be found here). 

That notice will detail why the penalty was issued, so you can take steps to fix the problem. 

A Manual Actions Report is also available from your Search Console dashboard. This lists any penalties being applied to your site. 

When you’re confident the problem has been addressed, you’ll need to submit a reconsideration request.

2. Conduct Local Keyword Research

Because the search terms used to find local businesses evolve constantly, you’ll need to perform keyword research on a regular basis.  

As new keywords are identified, they can be added to your local SEO strategy. This ensures you’re targeting relevant terms and are visible for appropriate local searches. 

Google Keyword Planner will suggest keywords relevant to your business and give some insight into search volume. You’ll need to open a Google Ads account first but this is easy to do. 

For additional keyword inspiration, it’s also worth checking out Google Trends. Input a search word or topic to reveal search volumes along with a list of related queries. 

3. Check Your Local SEO Rankings

As part of your audit, you’ll need to find out where your site ranks for your target keywords. 

Local pack ranking functions differently from the main organic search results so you will need to conduct searches from specific locations. Use a rank tracker like BrightLocal’s Local Rank Tracker tool to automate this process. 

4. Audit Your Links and Website Authority

Link quantity and quality is a recognized local SEO ranking factor and should therefore be a key part of your local SEO analysis.

Your link profile also relates to two of the three core pillars of local SEO; relevance and prominence.  

In this part of your audit, you’ll develop a big-picture view of your link profile. This means:

• Researching the number of inbound links you have (prominence)
• Deciding whether those links are from good-quality and authoritative domains relevant to your business location or its industry (relevance)
• Identifying any very low-quality links which could be classed as spam
• Assessing anchor text for use of relevant keywords and natural variety
• Identifying opportunities for organic link building to grow relevance and prominence

You can use a tool such as Ahrefs to collate a list of inbound links. From your link report, you can then check the quality of your backlink profile using the criteria above.

Once you know where you stand, repeat this same process for a competitor’s website. This gives you a benchmark to measure performance against. You can also use the competitor’s link audit to identify new inbound link opportunities for your own site.

5. Audit Citations

Local citations can help Google to confirm what it knows about your business, can increase prominence, and help with relevance. 

Duplicate or inaccurate listings are damaging to your local search visibility and inconvenience local consumers. They directly damage consumer trust and confidence in your brand. 

According to our Local Citations Trust Report:

• 93% of consumers are frustrated by inaccurate information online
• 80% lose trust in a local business if there are inconsistencies or inaccuracies in contact details or business information.
• 71% of local consumers say that incorrect information has resulted in a negative experience for them.

We recommend that you check the top citation sites for your business and verify that all data is accurate and correct. If there are any discrepancies, they will need to be corrected to optimize your search presence.

If you or your client’s local business has many citations, BrightLocal’s Citation Tracker can help you hunt them all down. 

6. Audit Brand Mentions and Implied Links

Have you ever considered the power of implied links or non-linking citations? 

Implied links are references to your business that don’t come with a hyperlink back to your site but do offer some sort of contact information such as your address or contact number.

Implied links can help you build prominence, so you need to factor them into your local SEO audit.

A Google search for your business name will help you to find all implied links. 

Look out for local news pieces, blog posts, reviews, event listings or ebooks, white papers, and industry news. 

7. Audit Your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) provides Google and local consumers with lots of useful information about your business. 

You’ll need to keep up with any changes made to Google Business Profile as it is a very important part of your local search presence. 

As part of your local SEO audit, work through each element of your business listing methodically to ensure best practice is being followed: 

• Choose the best category and sub-category for your listing
• Check the frequency of Posts updates
• Review your Google Business Profile Insights 
• Check contact info, address and opening hours are correct
• Verify the public email address is still monitored
• Ensure the Question and Answers feature is being used
• Check if videos are being uploaded
• Review your images
• Respond to any unanswered reviews

Once you have audited your own Google Business Profile, check out a competitor listing. Review how their profile appears in local search to identify if there is anything you could do better.

8. Audit Reviews and Ratings

Online reviews help you to attract consumers, establish trust and drive traffic to your site. Review signals are also a compounding factor in local pack visibility.

For this part of your local SEO audit, you’ll need a list of the top review sites for your business. Check each review site in turn and note your average star rating. Our Google Reviews Study breaks down average star ratings by industry, for benchmarking purposes.

Look for any reviews that don’t have a response. Note the proportion of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ reviews. 

When auditing reviews and ratings, ask yourself whether there are any reoccurring negatives that need to be addressed such as slow shipping, slow check-in, or untidy stores. Note them down as you proceed with your review of these reviews.

Fake reviews are a concern as they can erode consumer trust in the genuine reviews earned. Not sure how to spot a fake review? Here’s how to identify and report them.

As your final task for this part of the audit, list any review sites you come across where you’d expect to have reviews, but don’t. These are review opportunities and something you can factor into your local SEO strategy. 

9. Audit Your Social Media

The final thing to review in your local SEO audit is social media. While your local business doesn’t need to be present on every social network, it should have a profile on the ones that are a good fit with its target consumers. A law office, for example, won’t need to prioritize Instagram but should have an active LinkedIn profile.

As part of your audit, verify that your ‘About’ information, logos, and cover images are consistent across each network. Is each profile being regularly updated? Are questions being responded to?

It’s worth reviewing the social presence of a few local competitors, too. Are they using a feature that your business isn’t? Do they use tactics you don’t, such as giveaways, ‘Lives’ or ‘Stories’? Anything you can pinpoint should be recorded so that you can factor it into your marketing moving forwards.

But, how can you make local SEO reporting more meaningful for the local businesses you work with so they easily understand the value that you’re bringing?

Here are five things to consider to make your job a little less challenging, followed by an overview of what you should be looking for in a local search rank monitoring tool:

1. Mom and Pop stores don’t think like software companies

Working with clients in the tech sector has its challenges. Startups in particular often bring in agencies once they’ve secured funding, at the kinds of critical moments when senior leaders have little time to devote to supporting external projects, and nevertheless, expect results.

But if there’s any vertical that can be called home by SEO agencies, it’s tech. Despite the difficulties, skilled SEOs typically understand the needs of these kinds of clients. The culture of SEO, after all, has evolved side-by-side with the explosive growth of the software industry.

One consequence of this is that SEOs are often great at describing their activities and results in engineering terms. Data is the shared language, so metrics take center stage.

This style of communication translates reasonably well to e-commerce, and indeed to any kind of business that lives, first and foremost, on the internet.

Even global brands that first found success offline, like Nike, have spent the last decade-or-so going through rigorous digital transformation programs. Even if they’re not quite fluent, many businesses can speak the language of software to a certain degree.

For most SEO agencies, good client management depends on a well-honed intuition of when it’s possible to have technical conversations with clients, when to explain difficult concepts and when to avoid them. Many clients may be perfectly at home with complicated SEO analysis, or even reading SEO audit reports themselves, while others may require a more simplified method of reporting focused on key real-life outcomes. 

But remember, not every business has gone through these changes. For thousands of retail and hospitality companies, ‘online’ is simply an uncomfortable necessity. Family-run businesses, especially those of which the key decision-makers are from older generations, might even view the internet as something rather dangerous and unfamiliar.

2.‘Traditional’ business owners know they need to change

Despite this, most brick-and-mortar businesses know that they need to think about how customers are finding them. At the very least, they’ll be passively aware that they could be losing business to a competitor with a more complete Google Business Profile, or more reviews on Maps.

SEO can be a fantastic way for a store, cafe, hotel, or local service provider to improve its bottom line, and its business health in general. Agencies that understand the quirks of local SEO can offer immense value to these clients, even while executing repeatable, predictable activities. It’s an enormous opportunity to scale.

But the execution is only half the battle. Getting results for a local SEO client demands a decent understanding of their business, and for the client, in turn, to understand the value of what’s being delivered, especially in the earlier, less predictable stages.

Increasing a site’s Moz Domain Authority by ten points, or shaving five percent off its homepage bounce rate, may be meaningful to tech-savvy clients. That kind of thing is less likely to be obviously exciting news to a local restaurant owner.

In order to demonstrate value and earn trust from brick-and-mortar clients, it’s necessary to understand their businesses on their own terms. All good client onboarding processes feature a lot of careful listening and asking questions, but when it comes to local SEO it has a whole extra level of importance.

3. ‘Educate us’ or ‘Just take care of it’

SEO agencies should seek to understand both the desired business outcomes and the knowledge goals of their brick-and-mortar clients.

Fundamental concepts like the customer journey still apply in this world but have an additional dimension. For instance, retail stores are conscious of footfall. This isn’t quite parallel with website traffic; a small increase in footfall can have an enormous impact. In-store experiences tend to be more memorable than website visits.

The challenge for SEOs is to map rankings and online interactions to offline goals. When it comes to in-person transactions, you can’t precisely track conversion rate.

With purely online marketing, identifying bottlenecks in the sales funnel is straightforward. Sometimes Google Analytics gives the answers in black and white—low click-through rate to product pages; poor site speed; most traffic coming from countries the business doesn’t ship to. For local businesses, it’s a little different.

Asking clients the right questions can yield insights like—“we’re busy at breakfast but the lunchtime crowd goes across the street” or “locals come from across town for our Chai Latte.” Sometimes this information can directly guide local search tactics, other times it’s simply a useful north star to ground SEO reporting on results.

One way or the other, when local SEO clients hear that they’ve nabbed a first page ranking for a high-volume keyword, or acquired prominence on Google Maps, they need to understand why that’s meaningful.

Some brick-and-mortar business owners have the intention of becoming more digital-savvy. In that case, being an educator is one of the most sticky value-adds an agency can provide. Other clients might prefer to build a relationship with a trustworthy expert who can simply take care of these matters so the owner can focus on what they do best.

The key is to establish the client’s preference early on in the engagement.

4. SEO reporting should focus on tangible business results

Of course, the best way to retain brick-and-mortar clients is to demonstrate that SEO activities are making a tangible impact on their businesses.

But there will almost certainly be periods of time when authority-building, experimenting, or investigating has to take center stage. Local SEO clients might not immediately see why these activities are important if they don’t directly move the needle for them.

Building trust early on is vital to create long-term success with these businesses.

Whether providing education or concise reports, each piece of information should connect back to the client’s day-to-day realities. For example, local citation building and efforts to improve the performance of a client’s Google Business Profile should be understood in light of extra-digital customer actions like asking for directions or calling.

The ideal local SEO report presents the headline metrics in the context of real-world objectives. For many businesses, the relationship between website traffic and revenue is immediate and visible. In the brick-and-mortar world, it’s not always so clear.

Situations may arise where it’s necessary to explain something a little more abstract to a local SEO client. Perhaps enormous digital progress has been made, like a plethora of new page two rankings or a dramatic improvement in site performance. By indicating their place in the overall plan, these results can be made meaningful to clients.

5. Adapt client services for brick-and-mortar businesses

For agencies in the process of niching down to local SEO, there are some assumptions that are easy to make but ought to be avoided.

For example, it’s typical for many business owners and managers to routinely use email at the heart of their workflows. At the more tech-savvy end of the spectrum, they may use tools like Slack or Asana to stay organized and connected. But restaurant owners and managers spend significantly less time plugged-in.

It’s a good idea to put some consideration towards adapting client service processes to better fit with the workflows of these clients. In the first instance, agencies should have a frank conversation with each new client at kick-off.

If the client is somewhat tech-savvy or committed to the strategic importance of SEO, there’s no better way to offer them clarity and convenience than having a client portal that brings all information into one place.

In other cases, perhaps phone calls have to make up the overwhelming majority of project communication. Agencies must consider how this will impact internal workflows. For instance, if extensive client knowledge is required for content creation, their input needs to be saved and made accessible to the delivery team.

There is an enormous opportunity for agencies that can find ways of working that flow dynamically with brick-and-mortar clients. These businesses absolutely need the expertise of SEOs. Any agency that overcomes these operational obstacles will surely secure lucrative relationships with local businesses.

What to Look for in a Local Search Rank Monitoring Tool

Having the correct tools to hand can be the difference between the success and failure of your search engine optimization efforts. For the most part, tools equal efficiency and provide you with the valuable data you need to make informed decisions. A prerequisite for keeping your SEO on track is a local search rank monitoring tool. The right tool can be a vital part of your local search arsenal and does much more than simply telling you that keyword A is in position X. 

Finding a local search ranking monitoring tool can be a process of trial and error. A quick Google search will return thousands of pages of results, and with literally hundreds of tools on offer, knowing where to start can be a challenge in itself. It’s important to make sure that you choose the best tool for your needs, so we’ve compiled a no-nonsense rundown of exactly what you should look for.

Why monitor local search rankings?

Having visibility in the local pack is absolutely fundamental to your a local business’s success in search. By association, this means that knowing where you rank within the local pack is a vital business insight that you simply can’t afford to overlook, guess, or have anything less than a comprehensive idea of.

Many local businesses can’t compete with national and international brands for the top three organic rankings, making local search the most valuable (and realistic) pathway to consumer visibility. This visibility is highly prized, with research confirming multiple benefits of local SEO visibility.

Did you know…

• More than four in ten searches conducted on Google are for local information?
• 97% of consumers find out the majority of information about a local business online?
• More than 8 in 10 mobile users carry out ‘near me’ searches, with 9 in 10 very likely to click on one of the first three results?
• Half of consumers who conduct a search on their smartphone go on to visit a local store within 24 hours? 

Of course, to ensure you’re in the running for these benefits, you need to know that what you’re doing is effective. The only way to tell that for sure is to have a handle on where your or your client’s business is ranking in local search. This not only tells you whether you’re making progress or need to change your direction due to a lack of tangible results, but it also gives you reliable data upon which other decisions can be made – such as whether to direct resources to a paid search campaign to compensate for a lack of local search visibility. 

While many of us are tempted to do a quick Google check each morning with our coffee to see where we rank for keywords, getting an accurate and holistic picture of local visibility isn’t quite so easy. 

To guarantee accuracy, a proper ranking check must take into account the searcher’s location and give a true picture of how you’re performing in local search for those users both close to and further away from your business location. Proximity is a local SEO ranking factor. It’s a local SEO cornerstone and can’t be accurately reflected in results when you perform a search from your desk or own device each day. If local SEO is still a fairly new area to you, the BrightLocal Learning Hub covers the different types of local search. You can start with the basics like “What is Local SEO?” or learn about a specific aspect like local keyword research. Meanwhile, this piece on explaining Local SEO to beginners has a comprehensive outline of proximity and the role it plays in the local pack.

The results you see are also influenced by the type of device you’re using and your normal search habits (i.e. if you search for the same thing each day when signed into your Google account, the search results you see will be personalized to reflect this habit). 

To get the most from your local SEO investment, and to ensure you’re making data-driven decisions based on accurate data, you’ll need to invest in a local search rank monitoring tool to accurately and consistently monitor local search rankings. A proper tool will also give you the ability to check historical rankings, in order to assess gains and losses over time and per keyword. 

Look Out for These in Your Local SEO Monitoring and Reporting Tool

If you go to Google and simply type in ‘local search rank monitoring tool’ as your search term, 350 million results are returned (at the time of writing). Suffice to say, there’s a lot of information out there, thousands of tools to choose from, and plenty of opinions and claims to wade through. 

No two businesses are alike and no two needs are alike so when you look for a tool, it’s highly advisable to do your initial research with a view to creating a shortlist. From there, it’s advisable to schedule demos for all of the tools that look like they may fit the bill and assess which one suits you best. 

Focus on local SEO

Many local search rank monitoring tools aren’t designed to cater specifically to local search. In fact, only a few are entirely geared towards local rankings, and of those, some have more functionality than you’ll ever need – meaning you’ll end up paying more than necessary. Seeking out a rank tracker that has been purpose-built for local business users means that you’re far more likely to get the functionality that is useful to you, rather than paying a premium for enterprise-level tools that you’ll likely never use. 

A good indication that a local search rank monitoring tool is actually designed for local search will be the presence of other local SEO features, such as Google Business Profile audits and citation tracking. 

Keep track of your competitors

Even if you haven’t been responsible for a local SEO campaign before, you’ll still appreciate the value of competitor research as a local business owner or marketer – you may keep tabs on competitor prices, for example, their special offers, or even the number of social media followers they have, so you can benchmark your own activity. 

As the local pack has shrunk to just three spots, competition has become fiercer than ever so there’s little sense in just looking at your own rankings in isolation. You also need to know where rival businesses are located in relation to your own positions when competing in the same local area. 

Monitoring competitor activity is an essential part of SEO success, so be sure to look for tools that include this at no extra cost.

Incorporate Google Mobile and Google Maps rankings separately

As two separate properties, Google Mobile search results and Google Maps results should be tracked separately. They are each powered by different algorithms and have different features and a different search result page layout which could impact how search users interact with your listing. 

Google Mobile is more tightly connected to Google Maps than desktop results, so it’s important to understand the connection when it comes to rankings and to be able to see those rankings as separate entities. 

Account for keywords

If you’re used to running a paid search campaign, running shopping ads for an e-commerce site, or handling general SEO, you’ll most probably be familiar with working with large keyword sets. From a local SEO standpoint, it’s likely not necessary to have thousands of keywords per location. 

As a good rule of thumb, make 100+ keywords or so your starting criteria when searching for a new local search rank monitoring tool. Tools that allow thousands and thousands of keywords mean you’re paying for more than you actually need. Ideally, you’d pay for what’s essential and then purchase addons, if you really need to, at a later date.

Be aware of proximity factors

While much of your or your client’s customer base may come (broadly speaking) from the same general local area, it’s not enough to only be able to search from your desktop or device location when checking local rankings. 

The prime reason for this? A variable of even a street or two can make a big difference to your local pack position, especially when your customers are coming from far and wide in your local area and beyond—a potential customer could well be doing research for an upcoming trip while at their home in a different state, for example; you may have a certain item or brand in stock that a consumer from the next town or neighboring city wants; or, the search user could be just up the road. 

As Aleh Barysevic notes, it could be that your local pack position remains stable across your service area. Alternatively, it could be that you only appear when the search takes place within one or two streets of your location. Performance could well differ from one part of your town or city to the other and it can be useful for you to know how distance from your physical location affects your local pack rankings. For that, you need to have a local search rank monitoring tool with the option to change search location, or better yet, a tool that shows your rankings across a geo grid.

Factor in usability

Time is one of your most valuable commodities – which means a tool that is easy to use should be one of your search criteria.

Generally speaking, the larger and more powerful the tool, the more complex the dashboard and functionality. To get the most from your chosen tool, you need to be able to see ranking results from a number of different platforms (Google Mobile, local pack, Google Maps, etc.) side by side, but that shouldn’t mean hours of trawling through reports or wrangling with complex tools and functions. When taking demos for your shortlisted tools, don’t underestimate the value of ease of use.

While we might be a little biased, BrightLocal’s Local Rank Tracker and Local Search Grid have been developed specifically for local search, and we’re confident that, together, they do everything you need to monitor local search performance and report effectively to bosses and clients alike.

If you’re new to local SEO, you might be wondering where to start. This checklist will give you each and every step to follow, to find success in local search.

Understanding How Local SEO Works

Google has about 83% market share in the search market. If you’re running a local SEO campaign for a client, it makes sense to focus primarily on Google Search. Google’s Local Search algorithm has three key ranking factors. Proximity, Relevance, and Prominence. 

Here is a quick summary of these three key local search ranking factors:

• Proximity refers to the physical distance from the searcher.
• Relevance refers to how relevant the business is to the search.
• Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. You can also think of prominence as a business’ authority.

Learn more about these three local ranking factors on the Google Help Center.

With the theory out of the way, we can now focus on the actionable items you need to do to rank in local SERPs. The following is an exhaustive local SEO checklist that will help you systemize your local SEO process, improve your productivity level, and increase your odds of success with any local SEO campaign.

Initial SEO Strategy and Setup

Develop a Local SEO Strategy

When starting out you’ll need to take a minute and organize your client’s business information and web properties. You’ll want to ask them for all of the locations they operate and make sure you have the correct business information. You wouldn’t want to do SEO for three months only to find out the phone number on their Google Business Profile is incorrect, or that they had a few more locations they didn’t tell you about.

Most businesses will fall into one of these four categories:

• Single location with a physical address
  • If you have only one location your strategy will be simple. You will only need one Google Business Profile with a verified address.

• Multiple locations with physical addresses
  • If you have multiple locations, you will need multiple Google Business Profiles. Each location will need its own unique address and phone number, and landing pages.

• Single location with a service area (no physical address)
  • If you have only one location but don’t want to show your physical address, you can hide it and show the areas you serve. Usually, it’s best to have an address in terms of SEO rankings.

• Multiple locations with service areas (no physical addresses)
  • If you choose this strategy, make sure there is no overlap with the service areas. Google will typically filter businesses with too many service area locations and only show the one it believes to be the most prominent location. 

1. Analyze Keyword Positions

Once you have your list of keywords, enter them into BrightLocal’s Local Rank Tracker. This tool will be able to tell you where your clients’ website ranks on Google, Google Maps, Bing, and Bing Local. You can also white-label these reports, which will look like this example. 

2. Run a Full Local SEO Analysis

After you set up the rank tracker, be sure to run the complete local SEO analysis using BrightLocal. It takes a few minutes and can be scheduled to run weekly so you can keep a close eye on the key metrics for your local SEO campaigns.

3. Scan Your Business Rankings Using a Local Search Grid

You’ll also want to periodically check rankings using Local Search Grid. This is important because Google serves search results based on proximity, so the location of the searcher will affect the SERP. The Local Search Grid gives you a birds-eye view of your client’s rankings. It also makes you look like an SEO ninja when you show your client this report!

Now that you’ve developed an awesome local SEO strategy and taken a snapshot of rankings for your client’s local SEO campaign, you can move on to doing the SEO work that will push rankings higher.

Online Directories and Local Citations

4. Scan and Find Your Current Citations

It’s no secret that citations are critical for SEO rankings. Google uses online citations to make sure the business is reputable. Imagine you needed to contact a business and you did a search only to find 15 different phone numbers listed on the web. This wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. This is why Google uses citations as a local ranking factor.

Run a citation audit using BrightLocal’s Citation Tracker to take a snapshot of your current citations. 

5. Make Sure Your NAP Details Are Consistent

The importance of consistent NAP data was mentioned above, but the value can’t be overstated for local SEO. Make sure each location has consistent NAP information. You’ll really want to check and double-check this part. 

Make sure you keep your business information consistent across the web. Primarily focus on the Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) for each location. You’ll also want to be sure your business hours and website URL are consistent for each location. 

6. Make Sure You’re Listed on the Top Directories

There are directories that are not niche-specific and nearly every business should have listings on them. Think of the top directories like Yelp, Manta, and Foursquare. Make sure you set these up unless the business is already listed on them. 

7. Find and Remove Duplicate Citations

Google likes organized data. Duplicate citations cause issues with local SEO, especially if they have inconsistent business information. You’ll want to go through and remove any duplicate citations as needed. When you’re setting up new citations, make sure that you’re not creating duplicates. 

8. Find Citation Opportunities Based on Competitors

Once you’ve set up your foundational citations, and cleaned up the NAP info, take a second to identify your top competitors that show up for your target keywords. You can replicate their success by building citations from the same directories.

9. Get Listed on Industry-Specific Directories

Industry-specific citations are the cherry on top. They’ll be necessary for competitive markets. 

10. Get Listed on City/County/State-Specific Directories

Just like industry-specific directories, there are also city, county, and state-specific directories. You don’t always need these but if you’ve tried everything else and your local rankings are stuck then this might be the missing piece. 

Google Properties and Tools

11. Set Up and Verify Your Google Business Profile

Setting up your Google Business Profile should be one of the first things you do, along with your citations. Verifying your Google Business Profile has become increasingly difficult over the past few years. You’ll need to mail a postcard to a physical address to verify your business even if you choose to not display your address. 

12. Add As Much Info As Possible to Your Google Business Profile

This is pretty straightforward. Dedicate some time to filling out every field available on the Google Business Profile. Don’t forget to upload relevant photos which showcase your business. Remember that every field is valuable real estate, and can help improve the customer experience of those visiting your profile and evaluating your business. 

13. Choose the Right Categories 

Choosing the right categories for your Google Business Profile is critical. You don’t want to choose too many categories. Try to choose only two or three categories. You can easily find your competitors’ categories with BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid.

14. Make Use of Google’s Q&A

Google’s Q&A allows users to ask and answer questions about a business, place, or landmark. Keep an eye out for questions on your Google Business Profile, and consider asking and answering your own to create an off-site set of FAQs. 

15. Add a Detailed Business Description

The business description of your Google Business Profile should be unique, descriptive, and accurate. Take the time to craft a well-written business description.

16. Products and Services

On your Google Business Profile, you have a section where you can add more information about your products and services, if applicable. You’ll also want to make sure this content is unique and descriptive.

17. Post Regularly on Google Business Profile

Posting regularly helps show users you are active and is also a free medium to promote your business. Learn more about Google Business Profile posts and how to use them to engage and convert.

18. Set Up Google Analytics

Setting up Google Analytics is essential for any digital marketing campaign, including local search. Make sure your client has Google Analytics set up. You’ll also need to set up Google Analytics 4, as this will replace Universal Analytics in July 2023. 

19. Set Up Google Search Console

Google Search Console will help you analyze SEO traffic, and you’ll also be able to see if there are any errors that need to be fixed on your client’s website. 

20. Make a Schedule To Monitor Your Google Business Profile

With user interactions and Google updates, your Google Business Profile can change frequently. Make sure you create a schedule to monitor your Google Business Profile on a regular basis.

21. Google Data Highlighter

You can use Google Data Highlighter to highlight your client’s business information, such as the Name, Address, Phone Number, and URL. You can learn more about Google Data Highlighter for Local Businesses on the Google Help Center.

Review Generation

22. Get Reviews for Your Google Business Profile

Getting reviews for your business helps you rank higher and it also improves the click-through rate on your Google Business Profile. You can use BrightLocal’s Get Reviews tool to help generate reviews and build trust with new customers. 

23. Showcase Reviews on Your Website

Showcasing reviews on your website is a simple, yet effective way to boost credibility. Embedding a widget that automatically updates will look more legitimate since it is an unfiltered, automated feed rather than a handpicked review feed.

24. Respond to Reviews

The latest Local Consumer Review Survey showed that consumers value review responses. Don’t neglect consumer feedback. Responding to reviews is a must.

25. Ask Customers to Be Very Descriptive When Getting Reviews

When getting reviews, ask customers to be as descriptive as possible. Adding service and location keywords can help rankings and conversion rates. If you do a search for the business, you may notice that keywords in reviews are highlighted on the SERP. 

Website Optimization

26. Add a Location Page for Every City You Serve

Search engines use your website to understand what your business does. Location pages help search engines understand the areas you serve. 

27. Add Services Page for Every Service You Offer

Just like location pages, you’ll want to have a page dedicated for each service you offer. Make sure to use these pages to answer potential customer questions or problems, and explain how your services help them. 

28. Optimize Title Tags

Keyword-rich title tags will help your pages rank higher for targeted keywords. Your title tags are one of the most important on-site SEO factors. Take the time to craft the perfect title tag, optimized for both keywords and clicks.

29. Optimize Your URLs

Keep your URLs short and keyword-rich. Don’t repeat keywords in them.

30. Optimize Images

Image alt tags help search engines understand the images on your website. They also help those using screen-reading tools to understand what each image shows.

31. Structure Your Site’s Main Navigation Menu

A well-thought-out website structure will make your website more SEO friendly. Your main navigation should be aligned with your website structure.

32. Link all Location Pages from Your Menu

If possible, link all of your location pages from the menu. You can also link to the location pages from the footer of your website. 

33. Link All Services Pages from Your Menu

Just like the location pages, link to all of your service pages from the main navigation or in the footer. 

34. Display Your Location Data on Your Website

If you have a few locations (two to three), add their addresses to the footer so it is site-wide. 

35. Check Your XML Sitemap

Make sure you have an XML sitemap. Also, don’t forget to submit this sitemap to Google Search Console and the Bing Webmaster tools. 

36. Fix Broken Links

Broken links on your site should be cleaned up. You’ll want to check for broken links once a month or once per quarter, depending on the size of your website. 

37. Use Structured Data (Schema)

Using Local Business schema markup helps search engines understand important information about your business. You’ll need to add this information to the header of your website. 

38. Test Your Website on Mobile

Google’s mobile-first index forces webmasters to prioritize the mobile version of their website. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly tool to find out how easy it is for someone to use your website on a mobile device. 

39. Make Sure the Phone Number is Visible and Clickable

Having a visible and clickable phone number on your website will improve the legitimacy of your website and boost conversions as well. 

40. Set Up Call Tracking

Call tracking will help you understand the ROI of your local SEO campaign. Clients usually care about leads and calls more than anything else. 

41. Try to Keep All Website Pages on the Same URL, and Avoid Subdomains

You can make subdomains work if you need to, but it easily gets messy. Keeping all of your landing pages on the root domain is best for local SEO. 

Content

42. Create a Content Calendar

Most of us know we need to publish quality content on a regular basis. Keeping a content calendar will help you stay on track with your local SEO goals. 

43. Publish Content About Your Service and Your Service Area

Aside from your service and location pages, you’ll want to publish blog posts about industry trends or local news. Having fresh content can also be a great way to build links since most people link to blogs rather than service pages. 

Link Building

44. Connect With Local Bloggers

One way you can build backlinks is by reaching out to local bloggers and offering them a product or a service for them to blog about. Alternatively, you could guest post on their blog and link back to your site for attribution. 

45. Testimonial Links

Another way you can build links is by providing testimonials to products or services you use. It’s a win-win.

46. Get Backlinks from Websites with Traffic

Not all backlinks are equally effective. One way to determine if you want a backlink from a website is by checking its traffic. If they get about 1,000 visitors per month from search engines there’s a higher chance that the website is trustworthy.

47. Look into Event sponsorships, local meet ups, and clubs

Getting your business out in the local community and local link building go hand in hand. Offer to sponsor local events, meet ups, or clubs. That could be by paying for a specific sponsorship, or offering out your office space to a local club. By sponsoring these groups, it’s easy to get a link back from their website and get your name out with the local community. 

Stay Up to Date With Local SEO 

Step 48: Sign up for the BrightLocal newsletter!

Whilst there’ll regularly be new features, tactics, and algorithm updates in local SEO, the basics covered in this checklist will always be the foundation of your local SEO activity. Stay up to date with all things local, by signing up for our newsletter.

What is a local SEO strategy? 

Think of your local SEO strategy as a blueprint for success. It maps out everything you need to do to build a stronger local search presence, using a range of local SEO best practices. 

Creating a local SEO strategy can take some time, but as you will refer to it continuously to help you outrank other local businesses, the time and resources you invest in getting this right at the start will pay dividends later on. 

A good strategy should cover: 

• Your present situation: What keywords are you ranking for? What local SEO activity (if any) are you already working on? 
• Competitor research: who’s performing better than you in search and what are they doing that you aren’t?  
• Opportunities for improvement: Where do gaps in your current SEO activity exist and how can your site be better optimized? 
• Plan of action: A list of tactics that you’ll need to deploy to boost your local search presence.

94% of high-performing multi-location businesses have a dedicated local marketing strategy

Read BrightLocal's Brand Beacon Report 2024

How do I create a local search strategy?

Any type of local business hoping to attract more local consumers needs a strategy in place to guide their actions and ensure time and resources are being allocated in the most effective manner.

However, building out a strategy for the first time can feel overwhelming, not least because there are so many local SEO ranking factors to consider. A methodical approach is best, allowing you to tackle each element in your plan thoroughly while also ensuring that you don’t miss any local SEO best practices that could transform your results and see your site ranking higher across the Local Pack, Local Finder, Maps and local search results. 

Step 1: Your Present Situation 

Before you can decide which SEO tactics will serve you best, you need to understand where your site is ranking and how it’s performing right now. An audit is the best way to build an objective and data-led view and will flag up any urgent tasks that should be prioritized before other local SEO work takes place. 

The easiest way to complete the audit process and gather as much useful, accurate, and up-to-date information as possible is to use a tool such as Local Search Audit. 

If you’re going to conduct a manual audit, you’ll need to: 

• Create a keyword ranking report, showing which keywords you’re ranking for along with their local search position.
• Review your on-page optimization. Pay particular attention to any issues which could impede your local SEO progress such as missing and inaccurate page titles, slow loading pages, broken links, duplicate and low-quality content, and a poor user experience from mobile search.
• Review your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) to understand where gaps in optimization exist. 
• Create a link report showing inbound links to your page, along with anchor text.
• Study your online reviews, paying attention to how many positive and negative reviews you currently have, which platforms the reviews appear on and whether or not you’re responding in a timely manner.
• Create a list of local citations, noting any with incorrect or outdated information.

Step 2: Competitor Research 

Your competitors are likely to be a very useful source of local SEO intel. The local businesses appearing higher than you in search are likely there because they’re doing a better job of implementing local SEO best practices on a regular basis. Taking the time to understand what they are doing well and which tactics they’re deploying will give you a useful starting point for your own strategy. 

For a thorough analysis, you can repeat step one above but, this time, focus on specific competitors, follow our suggestions here or, use a tool like Local Search Audit to do the heavy lifting for you.

Step 3: Opportunities For Improvement 

Steps one and two should give you a very clear idea of where your site stands, how it’s performing now, what you’re doing well, where you’re falling down and how competitors are outranking you. 

Now, you can use this data to pinpoint specific areas where opportunities for improvement exist and use this to begin populating your local SEO strategy. If your on-page audit revealed that your site is populated with poor or outdated content, for example, creating more useful and valuable content for a local reader should form part of your plan. 

Likewise, if your competitor analysis confirmed that your rivals are doing a much better job at replying to Google reviews, you’ll want to ensure that your strategy includes more time for review management.  

Armed with all of this information, it’s now time to formulate your local SEO strategy. 

Sample Local SEO Strategy For a Small Business

To help you get your local SEO plan down on paper, we’ve chosen a small business at random and outlined a suitable local SEO strategy. Use this as your framework for creating your own strategy. 

This business is a unisex barbershop in San Francisco. As you’ll see, any identifying information has been blurred out. 

Google Business Profile

Although this business has claimed its listing, there are a number of ways that it could improve its use of this local marketing tool, including:

• Adding more photos
• Publishing Posts
• Asking and answering questions
• Adding more business information

Photos

No new photos have been added to the profile since 2017. This could give the impression that the business has closed or indicate that the business is not active online.

The photos that can be seen are predominantly of hair products, whereas potential customers are more likely to want to see examples of different haircuts and styles.

By regularly adding new and helpful photos, the business could highlight the skills of the people who work there and show customers what to expect. Before and after images of a restyle for example could be useful for a potential customer.

Posts

The business isn’t using GBP Posts to share news and updates. This is a missed opportunity to connect with customers and push promotional offers. Posts are also a great way to share new information on products and services, and to make other announcements such as competitions, late availability appointments, and new team members.

Although using Google Posts likely doesn’t improve local search rankings, it can help businesses to attract attention and, therefore, earn new customers.

Q&A

A potential customer has asked a question through the Q&A section but the business hasn’t responded. Similar to the previous point on photos, this could lead a potential customer to assume the business is closed, or that it doesn’t prioritize customer service.

Responding to customer questions is a quick and easy way to build relationships and share information. The business can also ask questions itself and answer them. Using this tool to have a list of FAQs can be useful for the local consumer by giving them more information to aid in decision making.

Business Information

The business address listed on Google doesn’t match the address listed on the company website. This could be confusing to customers and also sends mixed signals to Google, which could be harmful to search rankings. Ensuring NAP is consistent across the web begins with the content that the business can control, such as its own website, Google Business Profile, and social media profiles. 

Local Link Building

In order to build local links, this business should be reaching out to other local businesses in San Francisco, especially those within the hairdressing and beauty industries.

Launching a blog on the website would be a powerful way to start building the authority of the site and earn links. The business could also get valuable local links by creating local citations.

Citation Building

This barbershop has created citations on a number of sites, including:

• Yelp
• Foursquare
• Better Business Bureau and
• MapQuest

Although the business has built some citations, they aren’t all being consistently managed or maintained. For example, the business has been reported as closed on Yelp, and the business hasn’t rectified this:

Additionally, the prices listed on various business directory sites don’t match the prices from the business website.

Discrepancies in business information across the web don’t create a good impression for potential customers and are also harmful to local SEO.

Spam Fighting

Several Google Business Profiles in the same category are using spammy practices to boost their rankings, and a number of them are outranking the business in question.

For example, a number of businesses are using the words ‘barbershop’, and ‘barbers’ in their GBP name, even though these words aren’t in their actual registered business name.

The business in question could spend some time reporting these spam listings to get a boost in rankings.

Website Optimization

Although a great deal of local SEO is specific to Google Business Profile, there’s still much to be gained by having a strong website. The localized organic results are made up of websites, and this is still an important source of traffic for local businesses.

There are several ways that this business can optimize its website. The areas to address include:

• the reviews page
• social links
• keyword research and
• image optimization

Reviews Page

The site has a dedicated page for reviews, but only four reviews are featured:

Given that the business has hundreds of positive reviews across multiple platforms, this is a missed opportunity to showcase this feedback. The reviews listed are also several years old, which will likely not encourage a potential customer to use the business.

In fact, only highlighting a very small number of old reviews could actually be harmful to the business’s reputation. This is because a user might assume they don’t have more positive, recent reviews to share. Embedding review widgets on the website to lead visitors to review platforms would be an easy way to ensure that a full range of relevant reviews is easily accessible to potential visitors, without the business needing to make timely manual updates.

Social Links

The website links to a Facebook account that hasn’t been used since 2016 and only has eight followers.

The website also links to the company’s YouTube channel, which has only one video from four years ago.

This lack of activity might give somebody the impression that the shop is closed and cause them to look elsewhere.

This business isn’t using any other social platforms, which means they’re missing out on reaching new audiences. Instagram is a particularly great place for barbershops to promote themselves for free.

If the business were to create an Instagram account, then it could be connected to the website to automatically feature new photos and videos there. This would demonstrate the expertise of the staff, and also show potential customers that the business is active—both online and offline.

Keyword Research

The website for this business ranks for approximately 200 different keywords. However, the only search term on the first page is the exact match term for the business name. The remaining keywords rank on page two and beyond. The amount of monthly traffic to the website is estimated to be very low.

It’s likely that the business hasn’t done much (if any) keyword research to inform the content used on the website.

There are typically around 1,000 searches per month for ‘barber san francisco’, and 720 searches for ‘best barbershop san francisco’. It’s evident that ranking on the first page for these search terms, and similar terms, would be advantageous.

Creating a keyword-informed content strategy and using it to launch a blog could soon help to get this website ranking well in the localized search results.

Image Optimization

Several different images are used across the business website, but none of them are properly labeled or optimized. As you can see from the image below, the photos have generic file names, which have no SEO value. 

By using data from keyword research for the file names, the business could target relevant search terms through its images. This is a simple fix and could give the website a boost in the rankings.

Reviews

The business doesn’t appear to have responded to any customer reviews across multiple platforms in the last few years, such as GBP, Yelp, or Facebook.

Given that the business has several negative reviews, this is a huge, missed opportunity to salvage its reputation and rebuild these relationships. It’s also a lost chance to say thank you to those who left positive reviews to encourage repeat custom.

In Summary

Although this business seemingly has a lot of happy customers, there’s a lot more that it could be doing to enhance its online presence. Addressing the issues mentioned here with the help of a documented local SEO strategy would help the business build a better reputation and potentially drive business growth.

Either way, BrightLocal’s Local SEO Glossary explains all the relevant terms to bring you up to speed.

A

Anchor text

The visible, clickable text that links out to another web page. Anchor text can be supported by the alt attribute behind the link.

This text signals to users and search engines what the content of the hyperlinked page is about. It’s SEO best practice that anchor text is descriptive and relevant to the hyperlinked page’s content.

Apple Business Connect

Officially launched in January 2022, Apple Business Connect is the system businesses use to manage their appearance on Apple Maps. You sign up, verify your business, and you can then add photos, post updates (called “showcases”), and allow customers to message you.

Another way of putting it if you’re familiar with Google is that Apple Business Connect is to Apple Maps what Google Business Profile is to Google Maps

Apple Maps

The default map system for Apple products, and the second most popular maps application among mobile users, after Google Maps.

Local SEO should target Apple Maps alongside Google Maps through Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business), and Bing Maps through Microsoft.

Average star rating

The rating that shows up next to a business listing on any directory that features business reviews, such as Yelp and Google.

The review score is calculated from user ratings and a variety of other factors, and after someone leaves a new review, it may take up to two weeks to get an updated review score.

B

Bing Places for Business

A free tool for businesses to appear in Bing search engine results, as well as in Cortana results.

It’s suitable for businesses with storefronts, chains with multiple locations, or service providers without a physical store.

Bulk management

Adding, changing, or deleting data for more than one business/citation/location at the same time.

This is usually done through a tool (such as BrightLocal) and is especially useful for agencies, as well as enterprise or multi-location businesses.

C

Centroid

A concept in the local search industry used to define a central point of geography or activity.

Wherever a user is physically located at the time they search for something local, Google’s results will be customized to display the businesses nearest to the user’s device. This may be referred to as “proximity to the point of search” or the “user-as-centroid phenomenon”.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a language model—a form of artificial intelligence that uses a data source to answer questions and respond to prompts.

It’s particularly interesting in local SEO as it can be used to scale up the creation of content in bulk and complete simple tasks in a cost-effective way. However, experts recommend you always check and edit the content it creates rather than using it blindly.

Citation

In local SEO, a local citation is a complete or partial web-based reference to a business’s name, address, phone number, plus other core data.

Structured citations can occur in the form of formal local business listings on local business data platforms. Unstructured citations occur as simple mentions of a business on a blog, news site, website, or other online publication.

Citation campaign

The practice of auditing, cleaning up, and building citations for a local business on a variety of local business data platforms.

D

Data aggregator

A data aggregator is a company that collects data on local businesses such as their name, address, phone number, opening hours, etc. in order to present it elsewhere online.

Data is verified then sold (leased) to other companies in need of local business data. Companies that typically buy this data are online directories (e.g. YP.com), local-mobile applications, and mapping and GPS companies (e.g. TomTom).

Directory

Any website which lists business names and contact information in an organized fashion, typically in alphabetical order or by business type.

Directory information is frequently assimilated by local search engines.

Duplicate listing

Any time you have more than one listing on a given platform (like Google Business Profile) representing a single entity (a business), that’s considered a duplicate.

It’s important to regularly check for and consolidate any duplicate listings for the same business.

F

First-party reviews

User reviews that are collected and displayed on your own website with no input from the business owner.

G

Geo modifier

Also known as a geographic modifier, location modifier or location qualifier, this is the part of a search term which references a location.

Examples of keywords with geographic modifiers would be “plumber London” or “plumber near me”, rather than just “plumber”.

Geotagging

The process of adding geographical identification data to various media such as a website, image, video, SMS messages, QR code or RSS feed.

Geotagging helps search engines make the connection between your content and the location of what it depicts.

Google Business Messages

A Google add-on that allows mobile users to message a digital agent from within search results and Google Maps.

Google Business Messages offers an interactive method of get answers to frequently asked questions, tracking orders and refunds, and accessing live customer support.

Google Guaranteed

A Local Services Ad label indicating that a business has passed the screening and qualification process and that Google will back the work of the business. This only applies to ‘home services’ businesses, including plumbers, locksmiths, electricians, etc.

If a customer that booked service via a Local Services Ad is not satisfied with the quality of the work, Google might reimburse the customer up to the amount they paid for the service (with a lifetime cap per customer of $2,000 in the United States).

Google Screened

A Local Services Ad label indicating that a business has passed the necessary screening and qualification process but is not backed by any kind of guarantee from Google.

Only businesses that provide professional services including law, financial planning, and real estate are eligible for the Google Screened badge.

Google Maps

A web mapping platform that offers street maps, satellite imagery, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, and real-time traffic conditions.

It also offers route planning for traveling by foot, car, bicycle, air and public transportation. Crucially for local SEO, it enables users to search for places and businesses, and see their descriptions reviews and more details from Google Business Profile.

Google Business Profile 

Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) is a free tool that allows businesses to set up a profile to promote business information on Google, such as address, phone number, email, social media links, and more.

Your profile will appear in Search and Maps, and you can use it to post photos and updates to your business profile, and see how customers are interacting with your business on Google.

Google Business Profile API

An API is an Application Programming Interface—in this case a dedicated link between an agency of business system and the Google Business Profile platform.

It allows for multiple locations to be more easily managed, along with alerts for user updates, a streamlined verification process, and additional engagement features.

Google Business Profile attributes

Having these displayed on your profile will help give potential customers a better idea of what you offer. They range from accessibility and languages spoken, through to the type of crowd and what the business is popular for.

• Business-generated attributes are selected from within a Google Business Profile, with some attributes only offered for specific primary categories.
• User-generated attributes are taken from user reviews or via Google’s prompting, and cannot be influenced or altered by the business.

Google Business Profile categories

Set these so that your business will show up in relevant local search results:

• You can select one primary category—choose the one that’s the most relevant (and specific) to your business as this will determine which profile features become available.
• You can also add up to nine secondary/additional categories from a list of nearly 4,000—a look at your closest competitors’ chosen categories is a good starting place to narrow this list down.

Only add the categories that match your business, as adding unrelated ones can cause ‘category confusion‘ and lead to a drop in rankings.

Google Business Profile guidelines and suspensions

Google has a set of guidelines that all businesses must follow for their Google Business Profile.

Failure to comply with these may result in either a soft (temporary) or hard (permanent) suspension from the platform, and may require the submission of a reinstatement request.

Google Business Profile insights

A Google Business Profile tool that provides data on business profile views, searches and actions from both organic search results and Google Ads.

It includes metrics on search queries, direction requests, phone calls, and what a business is best known for.

Google Business Profile location group

This is the equivalent of having a ‘business account’, where GBP information can be shared and managed by a group of users.

It allows for changes and updates to be made to multiple locations in one go.

Google Business Profile Manager

An individual business’s profile information can be updated either through the ‘Manager’ area of the Google Business Profile website (or app), or directly from Google Search or Maps results.

This latter approach is sometimes called the Direct Edit Experience, or New Merchant Xperience (NMX).

Google Business Profile messaging

A Google Business Profile tool that allows customers to get in touch with a business in real-time, from the Business Profile.

Google Business Profile Q&A

Q&A is a Google Business Profile tool that enables searchers to ask and answer questions about a business, and also gives the owner or representative the opportunity to respond.

Anyone with a Google account can leave questions for the business through this section, and all Q&As are visible on the listing.

Google Business Profile products

A Google Business Profile tool that allows businesses that don’t have the ability to integrate product feeds via Google Merchant Center to add product inventory manually.

Access to GBP Products is dependent on a business listing’s primary category.

Google Business Profile services

A Google Business Profile option for a business to add the services it offers, along with descriptions and prices.

When local customers search on Google for a service that a business offers, that service may be highlighted in their Google Business Profile as a justification.

Google Business Profile spam

The act of unfairly employing spammy tactics in local search results to get ahead of competitors.

Examples include keyword stuffing, having multiple Google Business Profiles, lead generation websites, and falsified reviews to manipulate local search results.

Google Business Profile verification

Businesses who have registered with Google Business Profile won’t be able to make changes to a listing until they have been verified. This is usually via a physical postcard sent out to the business’s registered address.

This is to make sure that only authorized representatives of genuine businesses can create and manage listings.

Google Business Profile website builder

A free feature that creates a simple, one-page website for a business based on information from its GBP.

This option is available during GBP setup, or can be accessed later on from within your account. You can also choose between a free GBP web address, or pay for a custom domain.

The website will be mobile-responsive, and information and designs can be edited. However, it will be limited for SEO features and for things like social media share buttons.

Google Local Guides

People who “write reviews, share photos, answer questions, add or edit places, and check facts on Google Maps”.

In return, these influencers earn points and rewards — such as badges, partner perks, and early access to new Google features.

Google Places

The old name for the Google Business Profile suite of tools, which changed in 2014 when Google consolidated its Places services with Google+ Local.

Google Posts

A Google Business Profile tool which allows businesses to provide updates and promote offers from their Business Profiles, which show up in the local panel on Google search and on Google Maps.

I

Internal links

Any link from a page on your own website to another page on your own website.

You can use this ‘link architecture’ to guide people across your website. This includes funneling users towards particular calls to actions to meet business objectives.

This architecture also helps search engines understand the context of content on your site, as well as its overall structure.

J

Justifications

An extra snippet of text that Google displays in the local pack, local finder, and in Google Maps to signal to searchers that a feature of the business specifically matches their perceived intent.

L

Local backlinks

A link from another local website to your own website, which will boost your domain’s authority in the eyes of search engines.

Local SEOs can earn local backlinks from a variety of sources, this includes submitting to local business directories, newspapers, and blogs.

Local business schema

Schema (or structured data) is a standardized format for providing information about a web page to help search engines display relevant results.

Local business schema includes business hours, department sections, reviews, reservation or ordering systems, payment areas, and other actions.

Local finder

An extended listing of local businesses which appears when clicking on the ‘More Places’ link at the bottom of Google’s Local Pack.

Local landing page

A landing page is the page a user first visits when arriving on your website. In local SEO, a local landing page is one which offers details about a specific store location or branch, and which may be optimized for that specific location.

Local landing pages are particularly important for multi-location business websites, who may have a separate local landing page for every business location.

Local keywords

Any keywords that contain location-specific terms with the intent of generating results related to a geographic area.

A continuous cycle of local keyword ddeation and validation is needed for effective local SEO.

Local pack (also known as 3-pack, Local 3-pack / Google 3-pack / Google map pack)

Also known as the 3-pack, Local 3-pack, Google 3-pack or Google map pack, the local pack is a Google feature that displays a map and details of an area’s top three local businesses. For instance, if a user searched “restaurants near me”, it would display three restaurants near to the user’s current location.

Earning a rank in the local pack can drive a lot of local traffic and brand visibility to a business.

Local search intent

Any query in which a search engine assumes the user is looking for a local result.

Local search ranking factors

The components that contribute to the rankings of a local business.

These can change over time but tend to focus on Google Business Profile, on-site SEO, reviews and links.

Local SEO

Local search engine optimization is similar to SEO in that it is also a process affecting the visibility of a website in a search engine’s unpaid results.

Local SEO differs in that it focuses on optimizing for display by search engines when users enter local searches for its products or service, for example by including the name of a town/city, or by adding the phrase “near me”.

Local SEO audit

An assessment of existing and potential search engine optimization activities, with the goal of improving search visibility for a geo-specific target audience.

This will typically (but not exhaustively) include an analysis of internal and external backlinks, on-page SEO, Google Business Profile signals, citation and review profiles, and social engagement.

Multi-location businesses, or enterprise businesses with larger websites, will face different challenges when it comes to auditing their local SEO.

Local Services Ads

Pay-per-lead ads that appear at the top of local search results, above organic results and traditional Google Ads.

To run Local Service Ads, businesses must first pass a screening process that involves background checks, license checks, and insurance checks.

Localized organic search results

Search results returned for a specific location, dependent on local search intent, the physical location of the user, etc.

Ludocid / Ludo CID

The Ludocid, sometimes referred to as the ‘CID’, is a unique ID that Google assigns to a specific business location in order to identify it within its systems.

It can be used within Google search URLs to return the Knowledge Panel for that specific business. It can also be used within Google Maps to view a specific business.

N

Name spam

Name spam refers specifically to any manipulation of the business name in Google Business Profile, such as keyword stuffing.

NAP

Local search engines use Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) information to judge the accuracy of the data in their own indexes. They do this by crawling the web to assess authenticity, or receive it from other data providers.

Consistent NAP information helps to improve search engine rankings and is beneficial to local customer acquisition.

New Merchant Experience (NMX)

This is the name Google gave to the new (at the time, in 2022) way of editing your Google Business Profile within the SERP rather than via a dedicated dashboard. The change included a number of popular features around data insights and photos being removed.

P

Place IDs

Place IDs uniquely identify a place in the Google Places database and on Google Maps.

They are available for most locations and businesses, and it is possible for the same place or location to have multiple different place IDs. Place IDs may change over time.

Place Topics

A feature in Google Maps that looks at data from customer reviews, and highlights relevant information to a searcher.

Note that topics will only be created once there is a sufficient amount of customer reviews for the business.

Pointy from Google

A Google Business Profile add-on that helps brick-and-mortar retailers list products online
and appear in search engine results.

Prominence

One of the three pillars of local search, along with relevance and proximity. These pillars drive Google’s local algorithm and help determine the local pack and rankings.

For prominence, the algorithm is asking, “Which businesses are the most popular and the most well regarded in their local market area?”

Proximity

One of the three pillars of local search, along with relevance and prominence. These pillars drive Google’s local algorithm and help determine the local pack and rankings.

For proximity, the algorithm is asking, “Is the business close enough to the searcher to be considered to be a good answer for this query?”

R

Relevance

One of the three pillars of local search, along with prominence and proximity. These pillars drive Google’s local algorithm and help determine the local pack and rankings.

For relevance, what the algorithm is asking is, “Does this business do or sell or have the attributes that the searcher is looking for?”

Reserve with Google

A Google Maps service that allows for reservations and bookings of restaurants, tickets and appointments.

Review attributes

A Google reviews feature, where consumers are prompted to leave a ‘critical’ or a ‘positive’ quality rating, and offered pre-set buttons (such as “Good value” / “Not responsive”) to click.

Review attributes will show for almost all service based businesses, but the specific prompts will vary depending on the business’s primary category.

Reviews

A customer’s text summary of their experience at a particular business.

Reviews can be left on search engines, apps or websites, and are often simultaneously assigned star ratings. Google-based reviews are believed to impact Google’s local rankings.

Review gating

The act of soliciting feedback from a customer, and then deciding whether to ask them for a Google review based on their response.

This is strictly against Google’s review guidelines and can come with heavy penalties.

Review management

The practice of generating, and responding to, customer reviews, either manually or with the help of software.

Review spam / fake review

A fake customer text summary about a particular business.

This can include fictitious positive or negative statements made about a business for the purpose of helping or harming its reputation or rankings.

Reputation management

The strategy of determining and working towards how a business wishes to be perceived by its audiences.

This includes—but is not limited to—online reviews, PR, and overall brand messaging.

S

Service area

Typically used to describe specific neighborhoods, towns, or cities served by the service-area business model, which includes businesses like plumbers, cleaners, or gardeners.

Service-area business

A term frequently used to describe go-to-client businesses that travel to customers’ locations to render services, such as plumbers, electricians, and carpet cleaners.

• A ‘pure’ SAB visits or delivers to customers directly, but doesn’t serve customers at its own business address—for example plumbers, electricians, and carpet cleaners.
• A ‘hybrid’ SAB either directly visits or delivers to customers, or serves customers at their business address.

If a business doesn’t have permanent on-site signage, it’s not eligible as a shopfront and should be listed as a service-area business.

Small-to-Medium-sized Business (SMB)

Small businesses are usually defined as having less than $50 million in annual revenue and/or fewer than 100 employees.

Medium businesses typically make more than $50 million, but less than $1 billion, in annual revenue, and/or have between 100 and 999 employees.

Spam fighting

Reporting businesses who are gaining an advantage by breaking Google’s policy guidelines. Common examples of this kind of spam are keyword stuffing in the GBP business name and creating multiple listings for a single business.

When creating your Google Business Profile, it’s important to use your legal, registered business name so that you can’t be accused of spamming.

Structured citation

Business listing information built into the structure of a pre-existing digital platform or database, usually a business directory.

T

Third-party reviews

User reviews that are collected by third-party websites, such as Google, Facebook and Tripadvisor, which are independent of the business.

U

Unclaimed listings

Where a listing for your business already exists on a business directory, but you do not have control over it.

Unstructured citation

A non-directory listing of a business’ complete or partial contact information, for example in an online news article, blog, best-of list, etc.

V

Verified reviews

These can only made after a customer has made an online purchase from a business.

Verified reviews offer a more reliable way for real customers to leave feedback on Google, and the option must be turned on from within the Merchant Centre area.

Y

Yelp

A publisher of crowd-sourced reviews about businesses, currently with 100 million reviews worldwide.