Local SEO checklist: 30 things to get right

Local SEO decides whether you show up when someone nearby searches for what you do. Most of those searches end in the local pack, the map with three businesses under it, or in Google Maps itself. Google says local results are based mainly on three things: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how far you are from the searcher or the place they named) and prominence (how well known and well reviewed you are).

You cannot move your office closer to every customer. You can control nearly everything else. This checklist is grouped by where the work happens. Work through it in order; the early items have the biggest effect.

Our example is Brightside Dental, a fictional practice with three locations in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio.

Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is the single most important local asset. For many searchers, it is the only part of your business they see before calling.

1. Claim and verify the profile for each real location. One profile per physical location that serves customers in person.
2. Use your real business name. Adding keywords to the name (“Brightside Dental Best Dentist Columbus”) breaks Google’s guidelines and can get the profile suspended.
3. Choose the most specific primary category. “Dentist” for Brightside. If one location focuses on children, “Pediatric dentist” may be the right primary category there. The primary category has more effect than any other field.
4. Add secondary categories only for services you really offer.
5. Set hours, including holiday hours, before each holiday. Wrong hours lead to angry reviews.
6. Set a service area if you travel to customers. If you do not serve customers at your address (a plumber working from home, for example), hide the address and use a service area only.
7. Fill in services and products with short descriptions and prices where it makes sense.
8. Upload real photos: the outside of the building (so people recognize it), the inside, the team and your work. Replace stock photos.
9. Link to the right page. For multi-location businesses, each profile should link to that location’s page, not the homepage.
10. Post updates for offers, events and news. Posts are not a big ranking factor, but they keep the profile active and give searchers more reasons to choose you.

Your website

Google checks your website to confirm what your profile says. A strong site also ranks in the regular results below the map.

11. Create a page for each location with its address, phone, hours, map, directions, parking notes, team and photos. Write each one about that location, not the same text with a new address.
12. Create a page for each main service. Brightside has separate pages for implants, aligners, emergency dentistry and children’s dentistry. One “Services” page cannot rank for all of them.
13. Write area pages carefully. If you serve towns without a location in them, a page for each is fine when it says something specific and true about working there. Twenty near-identical town pages are doorway pages and tend to hurt more than help.
14. Put your name, address and phone in the footer as text, matching your profile exactly.
15. Make phone numbers tappable (tel: links) and keep a call or book button visible on mobile. Most local searches happen on phones.
16. Use clear titles that include the service and place: “Emergency Dentist in Dublin, OH | Brightside Dental”. See title tag.
17. Embed a map on location pages so people can get directions in one tap.
18. Check mobile speed. Local searchers are impatient. Compress images and check Core Web Vitals.

Schema markup

19. Add LocalBusiness schema (or the most specific type, such as Dentist, Plumber or Restaurant) to each location page, with name, address, phone, hours, geo coordinates and a link to the profile. The free schema generator builds this as JSON-LD. Read more in schema markup.
20. Use one Organization schema for the brand and connect each location to it, so search engines understand that the three practices belong to one business.

Citations and NAP consistency

Citations are mentions of your business name, address and phone on other sites: directories, maps apps, industry sites and local chambers. They help Google trust that your details are correct.

21. Get your NAP consistent everywhere. Pick one exact format (“Suite 200” or “Ste 200”, not both) and use it on every listing.
22. Cover the core listings: Apple Business Connect (Apple Maps), Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook and the main data providers for your country.
23. Add industry directories that matter for your trade. For dentists that might be insurance network directories and dental association listings. For contractors, trade associations and your licensing board’s lookup.
24. Fix old listings after a move or phone change. Old addresses floating around confuse both customers and Google.

RankThat’s Local SEO section keeps your citations next to your map rankings and reviews, so the local picture is in one place.

Reviews

Reviews affect both rankings (prominence) and whether people choose you once they see you.

25. Ask every happy customer. Send the review link by text or email the same day, while the experience is fresh. A QR code at the front desk helps shops and clinics.
26. Never gate or buy reviews. Asking only happy customers to review (and steering unhappy ones elsewhere) breaks Google’s policies. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission’s rule on fake reviews, in effect since October 2024, bans businesses from buying fake reviews and from suppressing negative ones through threats or intimidation.
27. Reply to every review. Thank people specifically. For negative reviews, stay calm, do not argue, and offer to sort it out offline. In healthcare, never confirm someone is a patient or mention their treatment; that can breach privacy law. In RankThat, replies are drafted by AI for you to approve or edit, so keeping up does not take an hour a day.

Tracking and ongoing work

28. Track map rankings on a grid, not as one number. Where you rank depends on where the searcher is standing. A Local Rank Grid checks your position at points across your area. Brightside found its Dublin location ranked first within a mile of the office and dropped out of the top ten three miles north, where a big new housing development was.
29. Track organic rankings for service and town terms with a rank tracker set to the right location and to mobile.
30. Watch calls, direction requests and website clicks from the profile, plus form fills and calls from the site. Those are the numbers that matter to the business, and the ones a monthly report should lead with.

What to do first

If you only have one afternoon:

1. Fix the primary category and hours on your profile.
2. Make sure the profile links to the right page, and that page has your exact NAP and tappable phone number.
3. Send review requests to your last 20 happy customers.
4. Add LocalBusiness schema to your contact or location page.

That covers the items with the most effect for the least time. Then work through the rest of the list over the next month, and re-check rankings on your grid every few weeks.

Common mistakes

• One profile for several locations, or a profile at a virtual office or PO box. Google requires a real location where you meet customers, or a service area.
• Keyword stuffing the business name. It may work briefly and then gets the listing suspended or edited.
• Ignoring the website. The profile and the site support each other. A great profile linking to a thin, slow page loses calls.
• Measuring one ranking from your office. You will always look good from your own desk. Measure from where customers are.

For industry-specific advice, see our pages on SEO for dentists, plumbers and restaurants, or the local business solution page.