Checklist
Local SEO checklist
52 checks for a business that serves an area. The profile first, because it does more work than the website, and measurement last, because an improvement nobody recorded the start of cannot be proved.
Nothing to sign up for, nothing to download.
Local search is decided somewhere most SEO advice never looks: in a three-result map, above the links, before anybody reaches a website. That is why this list starts with the Google Business Profile and spends a third of its length there. A business with a finished profile and a mediocre site beats a business with a beautiful site and a half-filled profile, most days, in most trades.
Work down it in order. Anything you cannot answer is a finding.
1 The Google Business Profile, which is most of it
For a local business the profile does more work than the website. It is also the part almost nobody finishes, because the fields that matter are not the ones the setup wizard asks for.
- Claim the profile and verify it. An unverified listing can be edited by anybody.
- Set the primary category to the single thing you most want to be found for, not the broadest one on the list. It decides which map results you appear in at all.
- Add every other relevant category as a secondary. They widen the pool you are drawn from without diluting the primary.
- Fill in the services list completely, in the words customers use. It is matched against what people type and it is almost always left blank.
- Write the business description as a description of the business, not a keyword list. It does not affect ranking and it does affect whether somebody calls.
- Set opening hours, including the days you are closed, and set holiday hours before the holiday.
- Decide the address question deliberately: visible if customers come to you, hidden with a service area if you go to them. Getting this wrong suppresses you or risks suspension.
- Set the service area to the places you genuinely travel to. A radius covering three counties you have never worked in is worse than a tight one you can justify.
- Point the website link at the relevant page rather than the home page. For a multi-location business this is per branch.
- Add the appointment or booking link if you have one, pointing at the booking system rather than the contact page.
- Upload real photographs of the premises, the team and the work. Stock photography signals nothing and reads as a business with nothing to show.
- Add products or services with descriptions where the category supports it. Most profiles leave this empty.
- Turn on messaging only if somebody will actually answer it. An unanswered message is worse than no messaging.
- Check the profile for user-suggested edits that have been accepted without your knowing. Hours and categories get changed by strangers more often than anyone expects.
2 Reviews
Volume, recency and what they say, in that order of how often they are neglected and the reverse order of how much they matter to the person reading.
- Have a repeatable way of asking, at the moment the customer is happiest, which is almost always at handover rather than a week later by email.
- Aim for a steady trickle rather than a burst. Twenty in one week and none for six months reads badly to Google and worse to a human reading the dates.
- Reply to every review, including the good ones. An unanswered wall of five stars looks automated.
- Reply to negative reviews calmly, publicly, with a route to resolve it privately. The reply is read by everyone who comes after, not by the person who wrote it.
- Never disclose anything confidential in a reply. In several trades this is a regulatory problem before it is a marketing one.
- Check whether reviews mention the service and the place. Those are worth more than generic praise, and asking a slightly more specific question produces them.
- Do not incentivise reviews. It is against Google’s policy and the pattern is detectable.
- Watch for reviews disappearing. Google filters aggressively and a sudden drop usually means something in the asking process looks automated.
3 Name, address and phone, everywhere they appear
The least interesting section and the one that quietly caps everything else. Every inconsistency is a small vote against the business being real.
- Write down the canonical version of the business name, address and phone number. One version, in one place, that everything else is checked against.
- Check the profile matches it exactly, including abbreviations. "Street" against "St" is a difference.
- Check the website footer and contact page match it.
- Check the structured data on the site carries the same values.
- Search the business name and phone number and list every directory that holds a listing. Most businesses have listings they have never seen.
- Correct the listings that are wrong, starting with the ones that rank for the business name.
- Claim the important ones so they cannot drift again: Apple Maps, Bing Places, and the main directories for the trade.
- Deal with duplicate listings properly. Merge or close them rather than leaving two profiles competing.
- Check old addresses and old phone numbers are gone everywhere, including from the listings you never claimed.
4 Citations, which is the same job done deliberately
A citation is any mention of the business name, address and phone number anywhere on the web, linked or not. The useful ones are fewer than the industry implies and the harmful ones are cheaper than they look.
- Get listed on the handful of aggregators and directories that actually feed local search in your country. There are not fifty of them.
- Get listed on the directories specific to the trade, which carry more weight than general ones and are usually free.
- Use the canonical name, address and phone on every one, without exception.
- Do not buy bulk citation packages. They produce hundreds of listings on dead directories, none of which help and all of which drift out of date.
- Check chamber of commerce, trade association and supplier directories you already qualify for. They are free, relevant and almost always missed.
- Add the business to the local press or community sites where it genuinely belongs, which counts as a citation and reads as real.
- Audit the citations once a year. They rot.
5 The website
The site cannot do the profile’s job, but it can lose what the profile earns. These are the on-site signals that feed local rankings.
- Put the address and phone number in the footer of every page, as text rather than inside an image.
- Make the phone number a tel: link. Most local traffic is mobile and most local sites still make people copy the number.
- Add LocalBusiness structured data with the same address, hours and phone as everywhere else.
- Give each location its own page if there is more than one, with something on it only that location could say.
- Write a page for each service you want to be found for, rather than one services page listing them all.
- Write about the area in a way that is true: the neighbourhoods you cover, jobs you have done there, what is specific about working in them.
- Embed a map on the contact page, and make sure the pin is on the right building.
- Check the site loads quickly on a phone on a mobile connection, which is how local searches actually arrive.
6 Measurement
Local SEO is unusually measurable, and almost nobody sets it up before starting, which means there is nothing to compare against later.
- Record today’s profile calls, direction requests and website clicks before changing anything.
- Verify Search Console and record impressions for the terms that matter now, not after the work.
- Track calls and form submissions as conversions, separated from general traffic.
- Check rankings from the location the customers are in rather than from wherever you happen to be sitting. Local results differ street by street.
- Ask new customers how they found you, and write the answer down. It is the only number that reconciles everything above.
- Review the profile insights monthly. The shape of the trend matters more than any single month.
The version for your trade
This list is the part that is the same for everybody. The part that is not is written out one trade at a time, because a plumber is fighting a search made at two in the morning and a dentist is fighting for an appointment booked three weeks ahead.
If you would rather we did it
Same list, done for you and reported monthly from your own Google accounts rather than from a dashboard you have to take on trust.
Questions about local SEO
Can I do local SEO myself?
Most of the first two sections, yes, and they are where the early gains are. Claiming the profile, finishing it properly, and getting reviews arriving steadily is work that needs consistency rather than expertise. The citation audit and the site work are where most businesses run out of time rather than ability.
What is a local SEO citation?
Any mention of your business name, address and phone number on another website, whether or not it links to you. Consistent citations on directories that matter help confirm the business is real and where it says it is. Bulk citation packages on dead directories do nothing.
How long does local SEO take to work?
Profile changes can show in the map pack within days to a few weeks, which is unusually fast for search. Reviews compound over months. Website and citation work takes two to four months to settle. Anyone promising the map pack in a week is describing something else.
How many citations do I need?
Far fewer than the industry implies. The aggregators for your country, the main general directories, and the ones specific to your trade. Accuracy across twenty matters more than existence across two hundred.
Does the business description affect rankings?
No, and it is worth writing well anyway. It does not feed the ranking and it does feed the decision of somebody reading the profile before they call.
Book a call with us
A 30-minute call in your working hours. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what we would do first and what it involves. Prefer email? Send your website through the form and the Passieon Team will reply within two working days.