Local SEO is essential for small businesses that want to improve their online visibility within a specific geographic area. Whether you're running a local coffee shop, dental practice, or plumbing service, improving your local search rankings can bring more customers to your door or inquiries through calls and emails. However, before you can improve your site's local SEO, you need to understand where it currently stands with a comprehensive audit.
In this blog post, we'll guide you through the process of running a local SEO audit, covering the most important aspects such as Google My Business, local citations, on-page optimization, and backlink building. By following these steps, you'll be prepared to make data-driven decisions that enhance your local visibility and improve your business's overall search performance.
Step 1: Google My Business Audit
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows your business to appear in Google Search and Google Maps listings. It’s often the first step people take to find businesses in their local area. Ensuring that your GMB listing is properly optimized is a high-impact starting point in your local SEO audit.
Here’s what you should look for in your GMB audit:
- Ensure that your GMB profile is fully completed. This includes your business name, address (NAP – name, address, phone number), phone number, website URL, business hours, and a detailed description.
- Upload high-quality images of your business, such as photos of the interior, exterior, and your products or team.
- Check that your business category is accurate and if applicable, select secondary categories that may describe your services.
- Read and update your services or product listings on your GMB page.
- Make sure you use relevant keywords in your description but avoid keyword-stuffing.
- Respond to customer reviews (both positive and negative) promptly. Engagement helps boost your ranking on Google Maps.
For a deeper dive into optimizing your Google My Business page, check out Google's official GMB guide.
Step 2: Audit Your Citations
Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites, usually in business directories. Consistency across these citations is crucial because search engines use them to verify that your business information is correct and trustworthy.
Here's how to audit your citations:
- Ensure that your business NAP is available and consistent across all local directories.
- Find and fix incorrect listings or remove duplicates from directories.
- Submit your business to reputable local directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and even industry-specific directories (e.g., health directories for doctors).
- Verify citations on social media profiles such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, ensuring that they match your GMB listing.
You can get started with checking your citations on platforms like Whitespark or Moz Local.
Step 3: Review On-Page SEO Factors
On-page SEO refers to the optimization of individual web pages so that both users and search engines can easily understand and rank them. This becomes particularly important for local SEO when you're trying to focus on potential customers in your geographic area. Here’s what an on-page audit should include:
| On-Page Element | What to Check |
|---|---|
| Title Tags | Do your page titles include local keywords? (e.g., "Best Plumber in Los Angeles.") |
| Meta Descriptions | Are your meta descriptions optimized and attracting local search queries? |
| Header Tags | Use keyword-rich H1, H2, and other header tags. Localize where possible. |
| Content | Do your blogs, product pages, and services pages include location-based content that addresses user queries? |
| Internal Linking | Ensure that you are using internal links between service pages, blog posts, and your contact or review pages relevant to your local audience. |
During your review, make sure you're optimizing your content for local keywords (such as "plumber in Chicago" or "dentist near me") rather than general terms. Also, make sure your website has sufficient local content — blog posts that discuss local events, news, or case studies are great options to consider.
Step 4: Analyze Local Backlinks
Backlinks are inbound links from other websites to your own. While backlinks are generally important for SEO, in the context of local SEO, you’ll want to focus on securing backlinks from local websites. These help search engines see that you're a reliable business in your geographic area.
- Get local testimonials from community leaders, chambers of commerce, or local publications and have them link back to your site.
- Pitch guest posts to local blogs or collaborate with influencers from your town or city.
- Secure hyperlocal backlinks by supporting community events or sponsoring local charities, which often include a backlink to your business in event promotions or sponsorship announcements.
To perform a backlink audit, use tools like Ahrefs or Moz's Link Explorer. Analyze your current backlinks and evaluate their quality. Aim to remove or disavow toxic links from low-quality, irrelevant sites, as these can negatively affect your local SEO.
Step 5: Investigate Mobile Usability
Many local searches happen on mobile devices, so having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional. Your site needs to be easy to navigate and load quickly on smartphones and tablets. To do this, ensure:
- Your site's design is fully responsive, meaning that it automatically adjusts to fit different screen sizes.
- Font sizes, button clicks, and other interactive elements are optimally sized for touchscreens.
- You run a Google Mobile-Friendly Test to identify potential issues and fix them.
- Page speed is optimized. Local searches often lead to immediate actions, like dialing your business or visiting your location, so a slow page could mean a lost customer. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to troubleshoot any speed issues.
Improving mobile usability is a vital part of maintaining strong search rankings in your local area, so ensure that you are aware of how your website performs across devices.
Step 6: Analyze Reviews and Social Media Signals
Google places importance on reviews, as they generate social proof and directly influence trustworthiness. Positive reviews on your Google My Business page (along with other platforms like Yelp and Facebook) can significantly improve your local visibility. Here's how to audit your reviews:
- Regularly read your Google My Business reviews. Make sure you're responding, thanking happy customers, and addressing any issues raised by unhappy ones.
- Ask loyal customers to leave honest reviews, especially if they've had a good experience. However, Google strictly prohibits incentivized reviews, so approach review generation ethically.
- Be consistent across review platforms like Yelp, TrustPilot, and your social profiles. Ensure these profiles reflect accurate business information.
- Make note of the keywords your customers are using in their reviews, and consider integrating those terms into your content.
For additional insights, tools like Grade.us provide review management solutions that can help aggregate and monitor customer feedback across multiple platforms.
Conclusion
A local SEO audit is a detailed process that requires a bit of upfront work, but the returns in terms of visibility, web traffic, and customer engagement can be invaluable. By ensuring that your Google My Business listing is bulletproof, your website is optimized for location-based keywords, your citations are clean and consistent, and your reviews are stellar, you’ll be putting your business on solid ground in organic local search rankings.
Remember that SEO is an ongoing process. A local SEO audit should not be a one-time event. Instead, set a regular schedule (quarterly or biannually) to revisit all these factors, keeping your business agile and competitive in your local search market.
