Local SEO Checklist For 2024

If your business hasn’t had the best results from SEO, then it’s time to revisit your strategy and make sure you are implementing the right initiatives to achieve your goals.

This local SEO checklist should help you focus on how to get the most out of search engine optimization and attract more customers for your business.

Why Do You Need Local SEO: 5 Benefits

Whether you have a small business or a nationwide franchise, local SEO can be a huge factor for your business’s visibility to potential customers within your location. Here are the top benefits of using local SEO for your business:

• Targeted traffic and conversions: Because local SEO boosts online presence for location-based queries, you have higher chances of showing in search engine results pages (SERPs) and bringing more people to your physical store.
• Build customer trust: Because local SEO improves your online reviews, potential customers are more likely to trust your brand.
• Appear in local 3-pack: The local pack or local 3-pack are the top three businesses that show up in Google Maps for a location-based query, and reaching this position is sure to boost your online visibility and website traffic.
• Track and measure results: Local SEO enables you to track and measure your results so you can adjust your strategy for better results.
• Stay ahead of the competition: Focusing on a solid Local SEO campaign can help you stand out and even outperform your competition.

1. Create An Optimized Google Business Profile

A vital part of local SEO is having an optimized, well-written Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business). This is a free resource from Google where you can list your business name, address, phone number (NAP) and other details like store hours, review ratings, and website.

Do these steps to ensure your profile is optimized:

Correct and Consistent Information

When creating your GBP, you need to ensure that your NAP and other information are correct and consistent with the information on your website and other directories you may have listed your local business.

Correct Business Categories

You can select up to 10 categories that are relevant to your business. Ensure that these fit your business’s products and/or services.

Use Professional, High-Quality Photos

Make sure to use excellent photos to represent your business, be it a photo of your front desk, external location, or employees. 

Respond To Customer Reviews

Responding to all reviews, including negative reviews, shows that you take feedback and use it to improve your service.

Related: Google Business Profile Ranking Factors

2. List Your Business in Relevant Local Directories

In addition to Google Business Profile, there are many local directories to post a business listing. The website may depend on your niche. For instance, law firms can list their practice on sites like Lawyers.com, while contractors use sites like HomeAdvisor for their local listings.

In addition to listing your business in niche online directories, you should also list it in bigger platforms like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Bing Places.

Listing your business on local directories can:

Help attract new customers

Business directories help increase your chances of showing up on local search queries. Directories also have higher ranking in search engines, helping you gain more online visibility for searchers.

Gain quality leads and conversions

Listings within your industry helps you expand your reach to a relevant audience, improving the quality of your leads and conversions.

Support your overall SEO strategy

Whether it’s ranking for a specific keyword or getting more traffic to your site, local business listings can help fast track your SEO goals.

3. Build a Solid Website and Optimize It For Your Location

Another pillar of any local SEO strategy is optimizing your business’s website. Make sure your website is optimized not only for your target keywords, but also for your location. 

Instead of using the keyword “Divorce lawyer”, you can make it more specific and use “Divorce lawyer in Ohio”, signifying your location and making you more visible to local customers.

In the example below, the headline “Plumber in Los Angeles” is highly visible, demonstrating how the business is focusing on its local audience:

If you’re not familiar with optimizing content on your site, you can hire a web design and SEO agency to get this done correctly.

4. Start Local Content Marketing

When planning your website’s content, you’ll need to conduct keyword research and identify local keywords that you can integrate with your content from blog posts, social media posts, and landing pages.

Some examples of local keywords include:

“Best coffee shop near me”

“San Francisco dentist”

“Restaurants near Orange County”

You can add these keywords by integrating it into your website’s on-page SEO strategy. This means integrating local keywords in headings, meta descriptions, title tags, and image tags.

Additionally, you can create blog posts or FAQ pages that focus on a product or service in a specific location. 

In the example below, a Las Vegas-based law firm publishes a guide on filing for divorce in the state of Nevada:

Businesses with multiple locations can create dedicated pages for each of their locations, where they talk about their products or services along with a call-to-action (CTA) such as filling up a Contact form or scheduling an appointment.

If you need help creating content with relevant keywords, you can tap a digital marketing agency specializing in content writing for businesses.

5. Get Local Citations

Local citations are mentions of your business and its NAP online. It can come from multiple online platforms like social media, directory listings, customer reviews, and news articles (like the one below).

Citations help boost your local SEO and your brand’s credibility among potential customers. Citations also help expand your business’s online presence, which can help you reach people who might not have known about your brand otherwise.

In addition to listing your business in online directories, you’ll need to:

• Start a link building campaign: Reach out to other websites within your industry for opportunities where they can talk about your business and provide a link back to your website. 
• Stay consistent with your NAP across directories and other online platforms: This local SEO best practice is to ensure your business stays trustworthy to your target audience.
• Encourage customers to leave a review: Reviews on Google and Yelp count as citations, so the more reviews you have, the better.

6. Solicit More Positive Online Reviews

As discussed, you’ll need to get more reviews for your citations. However, you should also focus on getting more positive online reviews from satisfied customers. 

You can start by asking customers to leave a review while in the store, via e-mail or SMS (like the example below), or write a review on Google or Yelp using a link. 

Start a reputation management plan (or hire a reputation management agency) to organize how you accomplish the goal of getting more reviews for your business.

Getting more positive reviews and testimonials on Google Reviews can increase your overall review rating, which shows on your Google Business Profile. This would help build customer trust and establish your business as trustworthy and one of the best in your area.

7. Invest in Local PR

Having a brand that connects with the local community is important for local SEO. Keep yourself updated with local news to get ideas on how you can participate in your community.

Local public relations (PR) means you are creating connections within your community to promote your brand and educating people of your services while participating in relevant community events. 

List local events where your business might be relevant and reach out to organizers to plan how you can be a part of the program. Keep track of your outreach and contacts and be consistent with following up and making sure that you grab as many opportunities as you can. 

Other means of local PR can include press releases, sponsorships, and influencer marketing. These strategies might take substantial research, time, and resources to be able to implement.

Creating and accomplishing a successful PR campaign can be a bit of a challenge, so it’s best to hire or invest in a public relations agency for this step. 

8. Get Local Backlinks

Backlinks can greatly help your business appear in local search results and improve your local search ranking. You can focus your local link building approach and zero in on homegrown websites that have a similar audience as your business. 

Create quality content for other websites and get backlinks in return. While this sounds simple, it may take time and effort before it happens. 

If this is not something you have time nor expertise for, you can hire link building experts to ensure great results.

9. Start Social Media Marketing

Choose one or two social media platforms and start a social media marketing plan with the goal of improving your local visibility. 

You can plan the different types of content you want to post and create a social media calendar so you always have something to post every day. You can even use social media management software to schedule your posts months into the future. 

To ensure your social media presence has a local angle, make sure to post content that is relevant to your city and any news or trending topic that is happening at the time. 

10. Use Structured Data

Using structure data in your website means you’re organizing and tagging information on webpages the right way so that both humans and machines (search algorithm) understand what your website is about. 

Structured data uses a language called schema markup which is usually added to a website’s HTML code. Search engines like Google Search prefer structured data so they can display search results with Rich Snippets like this one:

Rich snippets show more detailed business information than the average search result. This can include review ratings and total number of reviews.

Improving your site’s structure not only improves the way your site appears on Google Search, but it also helps give a better user experience and accessibility, boosts website traffic, and improves SEO. 

You can learn how to use structure data for your site with detailed online guides or you can hire a web design agency to do this for you.

11. Track Your Visibility on Google Maps and Organic Search

After implementing your local SEO initiatives, you need a way to know the results and whether it’s bringing you the best performance.

You can use a free tool like Google Analytics, although its features are limited. 

This is where a local rank tracker like TrackRight comes in handy. TrackRight tracks your visibility on Google Maps and gives you a comprehensive report of your organic search rankings and performance metrics.

TrackRight can track keywords and their rank on local search, as well as leads, calls, and texts from your website. Its Geo Grid Rank Tracker feature can show exact keywords your business is ranking on Google Maps, including the city, state, and/or region. 

There’s also a feature that lets you manage your Google Business Profile and view valuable reports about your local SEO performance.

Data is essential to analyzing results, so a tool like this is crucial to any local SEO campaign.

12. Hire Local Digital Marketing Experts

To review, here’s a local SEO checklist to help guide you towards a successful campaign:

• Create An Optimized Google Business Profile
• List Your Business in Relevant Local Directories
• Build A Solid Website And Optimize It For Your Location
• Start Local Content Marketing
• Get Local Citations
• Solicit More Positive Online Reviews
• Invest in Local PR
• Get Local Backlinks
• Start Social Media Marketing
• Use Structured Data
• Track Your Visibility on Google Maps and Organic Search
• Hire Local Digital Marketing Experts

The last step in the list might be the most important one. Hiring experienced marketers for your local marketing campaign can help you achieve stellar results. 

On The Map Marketing has helped hundreds of business owners reach their goals using effective marketing strategies like local SEO. 

Ready to get started with a local marketing plan that’s perfect for your business? Get in touch with us today!