The local SEO checklist, step by step

How local rankings work

Google’s own help page, How to improve your local ranking on Google, explains that local results are mainly based on three factors. Relevance is how well your profile matches what someone searched. Distance is how far you are from the searcher or the location in their search. Prominence is how well known your business is, which Google says draws on information from across the web, including links and reviews.

The same page states that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. That is useful when you are judging vendors: anyone selling a guaranteed map-pack spot is selling something Google says doesn’t exist.

1. Google Business Profile

1. Verify the profile and make sure only people who should manage it have access.
2. Pick the most specific primary category that describes your core service, then add secondary categories for other main services.
3. Fill in everything: services, service areas or address, hours (including holiday hours), phone, website link, attributes and a plain description of what you do and where.
4. Add real photos of your team, vehicles, premises and finished work, and keep adding them.
5. Reply to reviews, positive and negative, in a helpful, specific way.

Our Google Business Profile guide covers each of these in detail.

2. Service and location pages

• One page per core service. Open with a direct answer: what the service is, who it’s for, where you offer it and what it typically costs or how pricing works.
• Location or service-area pages where you have something specific to say: the towns you cover, response times, local permits or conditions, and work you have done there. Thin pages that only swap the town name are a risk.
• Clear contact details on every page, as text, not only in an image.
• Structured data for your business (LocalBusiness or the most specific type) and services, matching what the page shows.

3. Consistent listings (citations)

Listings on directories, maps apps and industry sites help search engines confirm your details. What matters most is consistency: the same business name, address, phone number, hours and website everywhere. Start with the platforms that matter most and work down:

• Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect.
• Major review and listing sites for your category, such as Yelp, BBB or the leading directories in your industry.
• Local chambers of commerce, trade associations and manufacturer or partner directories.

Fix old addresses, former business names and duplicate listings as you go. Conflicting details make search engines, and Ai engines, less confident about which facts are right.

4. Reviews

Reviews feed prominence and give buyers, and Ai engines, specific things to say about you. Build a simple routine: ask every happy customer, at the moment the job is done, with a direct link. Google’s review guidance allows you to ask customers to leave reviews, but strictly prohibits offering incentives such as discounts or free services in exchange for reviews, or for removing negative ones.

In the US, the FTC’s 2024 rule on fake reviews also bans fake reviews, buying reviews conditioned on a positive or negative sentiment, and undisclosed reviews from insiders such as employees. Reply to reviews, especially negative ones, calmly and specifically.

5. Local links and brand mentions

Prominence also comes from being talked about and linked to locally. Realistic sources include local news and community sites, sponsorships of local teams and events, chambers and associations, suppliers and manufacturer dealer programs, and partners who refer work to you. Each one is a backlink or brand mention that tells search engines and Ai engines you are a real, active local business.

6. Technical basics

• A fast, mobile-friendly site served over HTTPS.
• Pages that can be crawled and indexed, with a sitemap listed in robots.txt.
• Search and Ai search crawlers allowed, at the robots.txt, firewall and CDN level. Our free checker tests this.
• Titles and headings that name the service and the place.

Local SEO and Ai answers

When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google’s Ai Overviews for “the best plumber near me”, the answer draws on the same evidence: your profile, your reviews, the directories that list you, local mentions and your own pages. Local SEO is the foundation of local Ai visibility, which is why our SEO and AEO and GEO work run as one program. Our guide to how ChatGPT recommends businesses explains the Ai side.