The local SEO checklist

The short answer

A local SEO checklist works best in order. Verify your Google Business Profile and complete every field first, because map results read it. Then get reviews coming in steadily, make your website match your listing, give each main service its own page, and measure calls and clicks every month.

How to use this checklist

Google says local results come down mainly to relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well you match the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching. Prominence is how well known you are, which Google says draws on things like how many websites link to you and how many reviews you have.

You can't move your shop closer to every customer, so this list works on the other two. It runs in the order we'd do the work for a business starting from nothing. The early items take minutes and touch every search you could appear for. The later ones take longer and add less.

Short on time? Do the first three sections and stop there. Nobody can do them better than you, and they cost nothing.

Google is plain about the limits too. It says you can't request or pay for a better local ranking, so treat this list as the work that gives you a fair chance, with no position promised.

Claim and verify your listing

Search for your business on Google Maps. If a listing is there, claim it. If not, add one. If someone else already holds it, Google lets you request ownership.

• Verify it. Verification is what lets you edit your details. Google picks the method for you, which may be a call or text, an email, a video or a postcard. Most reviews take up to five business days.
• Leave it alone while you wait. If a postcard is coming, don't change your name, address or category until it arrives.
• Keep the keys. Use an account the business controls, and add a second owner. A profile that lives in a former employee's account or a web company's is a problem you discover too late.
• One profile per location. Google's guidelines allow one for each place, and rule out P.O. boxes and virtual offices.

Fill in the fields that match searches

Relevance starts here. Google says complete, detailed information helps it match you to the right searches. Work through the fields in this order, because the first few do the most to say what you are.

1. Primary category. Choose the most specific one that finishes the sentence "this business is a". You can add up to nine more, and Google asks you to use as few as you can.
2. Name. Use the name on your sign and your van. Adding "best" or a town to it breaks the guidelines.
3. Address or service area. Show your address if customers come to you. If you go to them, hide it and set up to 20 service areas by city or ZIP code, within about two hours' drive of your base.
4. Hours. Add regular hours, and special hours for holidays.
5. Phone. Use a local number you control.
6. Website. Use your own site. The guidelines tell you not to point the field at a page on a social network.
7. Services. Add each one with a plain description, and a price if you're happy to publish it. Google says services may be highlighted when someone searches for one you offer.
8. Description. You get 750 characters to say what you do and what sets you apart. Leave out links, prices and offers.
9. Photos. Add real ones of the outside, the work and the team. Google lists photos and videos among its local ranking tips.

Our guide to Google Business Profile optimization covers every field and its rules.

Get reviews coming in steadily

Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. They also do the selling once someone finds you, so this is the first job on the list that keeps paying after the day you do it.

• Get your review link from your profile, or make one with our free Google review link generator.
• Ask every customer at the same point in the job. A text works well, because the link is one tap away.
• Reply to every review, good and bad, in a few plain sentences.
• Never offer anything for a review, and never ask only the customers you expect to be pleased. Google's content policy forbids both.

How to get more Google reviews has messages you can copy.

Make your website agree with your listing

Customers check both, and Google reads both. Any difference between them makes you look careless at best and closed at worst.

• Put the same name, phone and address or towns on every page, as text and in the same words as your profile.
• Make the phone number a tap to call on a phone.
• Give the home page a title that names your trade and town, like "Emergency plumber in Dayton, OH | Northside Plumbing". Google asks for distinct, descriptive titles and warns against repeating keywords. Our search result preview shows where a title would be cut.
• Point your profile's website field at the right page. For a business with one location, that's usually the home page.

No site yet? Start with what a small business website needs.

Give each main service its own page

Someone searching "water heater replacement in Dayton" wants a page about water heaters. One page that lists twelve services can't answer them as well. Give each service that earns real money a page of its own, with:

• what it is and what's included
• what it costs, or how you price it
• the towns you do it in
• photos of real jobs
• a way to call or ask for a quote

Link to these pages from your home page and from each other, in plain words. Google says link text tells people and search engines what the page they'll reach is about, so "water heater replacement" beats "click here".

Be careful with town pages. A page for each town with only the name swapped is what Google's spam policies call doorway abuse. Write one only if you have something true to say about that town, like jobs you've done there or how soon you can arrive. Here's a quick test. If the page would still read true with another town's name in it, don't publish it.

Add structured data

Structured data states your name, address, phone and hours in code that search engines read directly. Google doesn't promise to show or use it in any particular way, so it sits this far down the list. It's still quick, and it removes doubt about the basics.

Use the most specific type that fits, mark up only what the page shows, and check it with the Rich Results Test. Our guide to local business schema has a full example, and the schema generator writes the code for you.

Fix the technical basics

Most builders handle these, but check, because any one of them can quietly hold a good site back.

• It works on a phone. Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. Keep the same words and headings on both.
• It loads quickly. Google's targets are main content within 2.5 seconds, a response to a tap under 200 milliseconds, and a layout that doesn't jump around.
• It's on your own domain, with HTTPS. Look for the padlock in the browser, and check the plain address redirects to the secure one.
• Google can find it. Search for site:yourdomain.com. If nothing comes back, add your site to Search Console and submit a sitemap.
• Images have descriptions. Alt text tells search engines and screen readers what a picture shows.

If your site is on Shingle, Checkup scores most of this and lists the fixes, and every published site already has a sitemap and its business details in the form search engines read.

Earn local links and mentions

Google names links from other websites as part of prominence. For a local business the useful ones are close to home, and most of them come from asking. Start with these.

• suppliers and manufacturers with a dealer or installer directory
• trade associations and licensing bodies
• your chamber of commerce or main street group
• teams, charities and events you already sponsor
• local news, when you've done something that's really news
• other businesses you work with, like a roofer and a gutter company

Aim for one ask a month. Don't buy links. Google's spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking, heavy link swaps and low-quality directories as link spam.

List yourself on the other maps

Some customers never open Google Maps. Claim your place on Apple Business for Apple Maps and on Bing Places, then add the directories that matter in your trade. Use the same name, phone and address on each, and keep a note of where you're listed so you can update them all when something changes.

Measure what changed

Pick a day each month and write down the same few numbers.

• Your profile. The Performance report shows views, calls, messages, directions, website clicks and the searches people used to find you.
• Your site. Search Console's Performance report shows which searches bring people in and which pages they land on.
• Your phone. Ask new callers how they found you, and keep a tally.

Be patient. Google says some changes show within hours and others take months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging one.

What to skip

Google's own starter guide clears a few of these up.

• The keywords meta tag. Google Search doesn't use it.
• A domain stuffed with keywords. Keywords in a domain have hardly any effect alone. Pick a name people can remember and spell.
• Word count targets. Length alone doesn't matter for ranking.
• Bought reviews and links. They can cost you far more than they bring.
• A fake local address. It breaks the guidelines, and it puts the whole profile at risk.
• Anyone promising first place. Nobody can sell you that.

The whole checklist on one page