The local SEO checklist for businesses that sell to a place

Google says its local results are mainly based on three things: relevance, distance and prominence (Google Business Profile Help). Distance is where the searcher is standing. Relevance and prominence come largely from your Business Profile and your reviews, which is why a local SEO checklist starts there and not on the website.

That is uncomfortable if you have just paid for a website. It is also good news, because the profile work is cheaper and quicker than anything else on this list. Here is the whole checklist, in the order we work through it, with the Google rule behind each item.

The short version

• Google names three local ranking factors: relevance, distance and prominence. It also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
• The Business Profile comes first. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results.
• Keywords added to the business name break Google’s guidelines and can get the profile suspended. The name should match your signage and stationery.
• Google prohibits offering anything in exchange for a review, and in the US the FTC can seek civil penalties for fake reviews and for incentives tied to a positive review.
• A page per town with only the name swapped is a doorway page, a pattern Google’s spam policies name directly.
• Without call tracking you cannot tell whether the profile, the website or word of mouth produced the job.

What you get

Format	What it is	Who it is for	Time to use
checklist	A printable checklist covering the profile, the site and the review process, with space to record what you find in each service area.	Service businesses, trades, clinics and any company serving a defined geographic area where a meaningful share of enquiries arrive as phone calls.	Three hours, then thirty minutes monthly

The checklist at a glance

Area	What to check	It passes when	The rule behind it
Business name	The name on the profile	It matches your signage and stationery, with nothing added	Google’s guidelines for representing your business
Categories	Primary and secondary categories	As few as possible, as specific as possible, all describing what you are	Google’s guidelines for representing your business
Address	Shown address or service area	A real, staffed location, or the address hidden if you travel to customers	Google’s guidelines for representing your business
Reviews	How you ask	Every customer is asked, nothing is offered in exchange	Google’s review policy, and the FTC rule in the US
Website	Service and area pages	One page per service, area pages only where there is something local to say	Google’s spam policies on doorway pages
Structured data	LocalBusiness markup	It describes what is visible on the page	Google’s structured data guidelines
Measurement	Calls and bookings	Profile calls and website calls are counted separately	Mavix recommendation

What should I fix first on my Google Business Profile?

Fix the primary category and the business name first. Local search practitioners rank the primary category as the strongest single map pack factor in Whitespark’s 2026 survey, and the name is the field most likely to get a profile suspended (Whitespark). That survey is an opinion poll of 47 experts, not a formula Google has published, so read it for the order of work.

• Check the primary category. Google asks for as few categories as possible, as specific as possible, and says to pick ones that complete the sentence “this business IS a” (Google Business Profile Help).
• Add secondary categories only for work you actually do, and remove any that describe something you do not sell.
• List every service you offer as a service on the profile, with a description for each.
• Check the business name is your real trading name. Google’s guidelines say including unnecessary information in the name is not permitted and could result in suspension (Google Business Profile Help).
• Check the address and service area match reality. A virtual office is not eligible, and P.O. boxes or mailboxes at remote locations are not acceptable (Google Business Profile Help).
• Check opening hours, and use special hours for holidays. Google lists hours among the details that help a profile show up (Google Business Profile Help).
• Add photos, and keep adding them. A profile with photos from two years ago reads as a business that may have closed.
• Fill in the attributes that apply to you.
• Post to the profile at least monthly. That is our recommendation, not a Google rule.
• Do not build a routine around the old questions and answers section. Google switched off its Q&A API on 3 November 2025 while it changes how Q&A works (Google for Developers), so put the answers people need in your services, description and website instead.

Photo: Anıl Karakaya on Pexels.

How many reviews do we need, and how should we ask for them?

There is no fixed number. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking and that replying to reviews shows you value the feedback (Google Business Profile Help). What matters is how you compare with the businesses above you and how recently your reviews arrived.

• Count your reviews against the three businesses ranking above you, and note how recently each of them received one.
• Build a process for asking at the moment the job is finished. Google suggests sharing a review link or a QR code (Google Business Profile Help).
• Ask by name, from a person, not from a system that sounds like one.
• Reply to reviews, including the good ones, within a few days.
• Reply to bad reviews without getting defensive. The reply is read by everybody who comes after, not only by the reviewer.
• Never offer anything in exchange for a review. Google treats a discount or free service offered for a review as fake and misleading content (Google Business Profile Help). In the US, the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews has been in force since 21 October 2024 and bans fake reviews and incentives conditioned on a positive review (FTC).
• Gather them steadily rather than in bursts. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers, 74 percent said they look for reviews written in the last three months (BrightLocal). BrightLocal sells review software, so treat that as direction rather than a precise figure.

What does the website need for local search?

The website needs a page for each service you sell and consistent contact details, and it needs to be fast on a phone. In the same Whitespark survey, practitioners put on-page signals at 15 percent of map pack weight, behind the profile and reviews (Whitespark).

• Build a page for each service you actually sell, rather than one page listing all of them.
• Put the name, address and phone number in the same format everywhere they appear.
• Make the phone number a real tel link so it can be tapped on a phone.
• Add LocalBusiness structured data that matches what is on the page. Google’s guidelines say not to mark up content that is not visible to readers (Google Search Central). The LocalBusiness documentation lists the fields.
• Build area pages only where there is something genuinely local to say. Google’s spam policies name pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse (Google Search Central).
• Embed a map on the contact page, and state the service area in words as well.
• Check the site on a phone over mobile data, because that is how many local searchers will meet it.

How do I know whether local SEO is working?

Count calls and booked jobs, not rankings. Without call tracking, local search is a belief rather than a measurement. The phone rings, the job gets booked, and nobody can say whether the marketing caused it.

• Put call tracking in place before doing anything else in this section.
• Track profile calls separately from website calls.
• Read the profile’s performance report monthly. Google shows calls, direction requests, website clicks, bookings, messages, the searches people used and profile views (Google Business Profile Help).
• Track rankings by location rather than as one average, because distance to the searcher is one of Google’s three factors and an average hides being invisible in half your area.
• Record how many enquiries turned into booked jobs. That is the number that pays for the work.
• Compare year on year rather than month on month if your trade is seasonal.

Photo: Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.

Are citations and directory listings still worth the time?

Yes, for accuracy more than volume. Practitioners in Whitespark’s survey put citation signals at 6 percent of map pack weight (Whitespark), so fixing the listings that are wrong is worth more than adding new ones.

• Check the name, address and phone match on your site, your profile and the main directories.
• Fix the wrong ones before adding more listings.
• Claim your listing on Bing Places and on Apple Business, which replaced Apple Business Connect on 14 April 2026 and is where you manage how you appear in Apple Maps (Apple Newsroom). Both are free and often left unclaimed.

Why this list exists

The most common finding when we open a local account is that the business ranks first for its own company name and almost nothing else, and reads that as working. Brand searches convert well and cost little to win, which makes the numbers look healthy.

The customers you do not have yet are the ones searching for the service rather than the company, and that is where the competition is. The order of this list matters as much as its contents. On a neglected profile, the profile work often moves the map results before any of the site work has started. The map pack steps for Texas businesses walk the same order with worked examples.

The bottom line

Local search rewards the business whose details are accurate, whose reviews keep arriving and whose pages say something true about the places it serves. Do the profile first because it is the cheapest. Keep the reviews steady because that is the part competitors stop doing. Measure calls rather than positions, because calls are what you are paying for.

Questions people ask about this