Local SEO audit guide: How to improve local rankings (original) (raw)

What is a local SEO audit?

A local SEO audit is an investigation into how a local business is performing across a variety of metrics including, but not limited to:

The core goal of auditing a local business is to uncover both performance failures and growth opportunities for your digital marketing efforts so you can maximize search visibility.

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Why local SEO audits are important

Calendar

Often, local brands only engage in reactive local SEO audits—launching an investigation when something suddenly goes wrong, like a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) abruptly experiencing a drop in local pack rankings or an unexpected penalty.

While it makes good sense to perform an audit in these emergency scenarios, a far better practice is to create a regular cadence for ongoing audits. This can help you identify emergent downtrends before they become enormous problems. Regularly-scheduled audits also offer an excellent way to benchmark the success of your ongoing marketing efforts.

Local SEO audits are primarily necessary due to the ever-shifting nature of local markets and online environments.

No local business exists in a vacuum. Their real-world community continuously changes, with new competitors opening doors or old ones going out of business, new neighbors moving in with new needs, and overall trends in economics, technology, and culture impacting consumer behavior, both on and off the web.

Meanwhile, online environments like Google don’t just change from week to week, but can literally change from hour to hour. Something as simple as when you’re open for business can significantly impact how your company ranks within Google’s local packs, finders, and Maps throughout the course of a day.

Google regularly debuts and sunsets new listing and SERP features. New online competitors emerge and alter your visibility. Occasionally, Google issues updates that can affect both your local and organic rankings. Change is truly a constant when it comes to local SEO.

Regularly-scheduled local SEO audits are an asset because they can relieve you of the burden of fixating on small daily changes, instead showing you the larger picture of trends and performance over time. When you fully implement a robust local SEO strategy, you have the chance to craft your online presence to attract the right local customers.

Key components of a local SEO audit

A full local SEO audit can take dozens of assets and signals into account. More limited audits can be conducted based on single questions like:

This guide will cover some of the most common components of a local SEO audit to help you get answers to local SEO performance FAQs.

How to perform a local SEO audit: a step-by-step guide

Checklist

While you may already have favorite software and tools that regularly report on various aspects of your website’s performance, no product that I’m aware of currently covers all possible components of a basic local SEO audit.

We’ll walk through what to look for and where to look for it, and highly recommend that you record your findings in a Google Sheet or other spreadsheet asset.

Step 1: Prepare your spreadsheet

Put the complete name and contact information of the location you’re auditing in the first column of your spreadsheet, then add the following column headings:

Read on to learn how to fill out each field in your spreadsheet.

Step 2: Local pack/finder visibility

Google Serp Plant Nurseries San Francisco 1 Scaled

You can conduct a local pack/finder visibility audit for your most important keyword phrase (like “plant nurseries San Francisco”), or for multiple search terms that matter to you (like “organic plant nursery near me,” “organic vegetable starts for sale,” or “native plant nursery downtown”).

When conducting any local ranking audit, it’s vital to understand that there are no universal ranking positions. Google heavily personalizes its local business results on the basis of the location of the searcher at the time they search.

You can replicate this phenomenon by going around town with your phone, looking up the identical search phrase, and seeing how rankings alter based on changes in your location. Ranking order can change from hour to hour, based on which businesses are open or closed at any given point in the day.

Because of these realities of local search, local SEO audits shouldn’t hyperfocus on specific ranking position on any one day. Instead, they should look at trends in visibility over time, comparing the findings of today’s audit to the one you conduct in three months or at some other appointed time.

Record your findings today, but don’t be too anxious about them until you can do a comparison which indicates whether you’re maintaining visibility or moving up or down significantly in Google’s local packs and finders.

While you can conduct this type of audit manually by physically travelling around your town to get the most accurate sense of what searchers are seeing in different parts of your geographic market, your work will be made much easier by using a rank tracking tool that emulates location. One popular solution is Whitespark’s local rank tracker, which specifically tracks local pack rankings.

If you notice a sudden drop in rankings between two audits, you’ll find help in the “Common local SEO issues & how to fix them” section of this guide.

Step 3: Google Maps visibility

Google Maps Plant Nurseries San Francisco Scaled

Filling out this field of your spreadsheet requires the same process as above, with two notable differences:

  1. You may discover that your Google.com/maps rankings are different from the local pack/finder rankings that exist on Google.com/search. As you can see, the above screenshot of a search for “plant nurseries San Francisco” in Google Maps yields a different set of results than the one we conducted earlier for the same term while examining Google’s local packs. This is why you should track your rankings in both environments—they can be quite different!
  2. You need to be sure that the emulator tool you’re using is tracking Google Maps results instead of Google search results. Semrush offers this popular Maps-based gridded ranking tool:

Map Rank Tracker Track Competitors Scaled

Step 4: Listing spam

In addition to using rank checker tools, it’s a good idea to look at actual Google results during your audit. In this step, take a look at all the competitors who are outranking you in the local packs, finders, and Maps, with an eye to whether spammers may be getting ahead of you.

If you see suspicious listings that you believe may be violating the Guidelines for representing your business on Google, note them down in this field for further investigation. If you think you’ve found a spammer, you’ll learn how to report them in the “Common local SEO issues & how to fix them” section of this guide.

Step 5: Listing accuracy

This is such a simple step that it can be tempting to overlook it. Don’t make this mistake! While you’re looking at your Google Business Profile, do a manual check to be sure that all of the following are accurate:

It’s vital to check all of these things because your location information may change over time, Google allows third parties to suggest edits to your listing, and spammers may decide to target it. An audit is a good time to make sure that the fundamental details of your GBP are in ship-shape, both accurate and high-quality.

Step 6: Average star rating

Google Serp Clement Nursery Knowledge Panel 1 Scaled

Your average star rating appears right below your business name on your Google Business Profile. For example, the above plant nursery has an average star rating of 4.7. This is the average of the ratings that all reviewers have left on your Google Business Profile over time, and it’s considered a local search ranking factor. Note down your rating.

If other review platforms (like Yelp or TripAdvisor) are very popular in your community, you may want to add extra columns to your spreadsheet to record your average star rating there.

Step 7: Review count

In the above screenshot, you can see the overall review count right next to the average star rating. Note down your total review count for your Google Business Profile and for any other review platforms you might wish to track.

Pay attention to the number you see for two reasons:

  1. If you experience a sudden drop in your review count, it’s a signal that you need to investigate a possible penalty or Google bug. Google often experiences review bugs and sometimes also engages in large-scale review takedowns.
  2. If you experience a sudden, suspicious rise in your review count made up of online reviews you suspect to be spam, you also need to be aware of this so that you can report the reviews to Google. Review spammers can both negatively review your business or leave reviews that have a rating that is slightly less than perfect, with the goal of eroding your average.

If you’re using professional reputation management software like GatherUp or Whitespark’s Reputation Builder, it will help you analyze sentiment trends in your reviews in bulk. If you haven’t yet invested in this type of software, you can manually look at the reviews you’ve received since the date of the last audit you conducted.

Be on the lookout for two things:

  1. Emergent negative sentiment that requires a fix at the place of business, such as multiple complaints about food quality at a restaurant, a rude employee at a retail shop, or staff arriving late for a plumbing appointment
  2. Emergent positive sentiment that indicates that a new marketing effort is resounding well with your audience, or that some feature of your business is becoming more popular than it used to be. This helps you keep track of local consumer trends that you can then emphasize more in your content marketing strategy and other promotions.

Step 9: GBP categories

Gbp Business Category Scaled

Check the “Business Category” section of your Google Business Profile New Merchant Experience dashboard to be sure your primary category and additional categories all look correct.

If you’ve struggled in the past to find accurate categories to fully describe what your business is, an audit is the right time to check to see if the New GBP Categories list maintained by Sterling Sky features any new relevant categories for your brand that have been added since the date of your last audit. Categories are a local ranking factor, and getting them right is critical.

Step 10: Owner-uploaded photos/videos

Clement Nursery Photos 1 Scaled

Click on the image and video section of your Google Business Profile to check for two things:

  1. Document the number of photos and videos you’ve added since your last audit. These forms of media are competitive difference-makers and can influence both user engagement signals and conversions.
  2. Your business should be adding new content to this section of your profile on a regular basis. See if you’re meeting your publishing goals since your last audit by looking at the “By Owner” tab of this section of your listing. Not sure how many images and videos you should be adding, or how often? Look at the rate at which your top local competitor is adding fresh content of this kind, and make plans to surpass them.

Step 11: Embarrassing images and image spam

Document contents of the media uploaded by the public. Are you seeing photos that speak well of your business, or are customers photographing problems at your premises or with your services? If the latter, structural fixes may need to be made so that the public (including your potential customers) isn’t encountering off-putting aspects of your business.

Also, be on the lookout for signs of spam in this section. Bad actors can upload cringeworthy image content to your listing that has nothing to do with your business, and such imagery needs to be flagged in hopes that Google will remove it.

Step 12: State of GBP features

An audit is the right time to do a health check on all of the GBP enhancement features you’ve taken the time to add to your listing. Different business models have different features available, such as:

Go through your listing features carefully to be sure that each is accurately and fully representing the current state of your business. Even a small error, like a misspelled menu item, can be an obstacle to your visibility goals.

Note down any problems you see for correction, and also document any new features Google is offering you since the time of your last audit in case you’d like to explore using them.

Step 13: GBP Insights metrics

Google Business Performance Calls Scaled

The Performance tab of your New Merchant Experience dashboard will show you data about a variety of interactions with your Google Business Profile, such as clicks-to-call, clicks-to-site, and bookings over time.

Make note of any downtrends that could indicate a problem with your listing or a significant change in your local competitive landscape.

Step 14: Structured citation health

Semrush Listing Management Clement Nursery Scaled

Structured citations are listings of your business on formal local business listings platforms and directories like Yelp, Apple Maps, or TripAdvisor. If you’ve invested in software like Semrush’s Listing Management product, now’s the time to do a health check on your information accuracy across the web.

Unmanaged listings tend to develop data inaccuracies over time. An audit is your opportunity to find incorrect contact information, missing listing fields, and other problems for remediation so that the public isn’t inconvenienced by encountering misinformation.

These negative brand experiences tend to result in negative reviews and ratings that can discourage others from choosing your business. Note down any problems you find so that they can be fixed to defend customer experience quality and your reputation.

Step 15: Unstructured citation health

Unstructured citations consist of any mention of your brand on any third-party site that is not a formal local business listing platform. For example, your business may have earned mentions on local blogs, news sites, video channels, community hubs, etc. or via link building.

Look up your brand name in Google and scroll through the first 4-5 pages of the organic results. Wherever you’re being cited by a third party, click through to check for:

Note down any problems you discover so that you can make a plan to reach out to third-party publishers for correction.

Step 16: Organic rankings

Record the organic rank you currently see for the search terms you’re investigating. Upward movement since your last audit can confirm the success of your recent marketing efforts. Downward movement could indicate problems with your website or a change in your competitive market.

Always remember, however, that Google localized organic results based on searcher location, just as they do with their local results. There are no #1 rankings, and the point of auditing this element is to track overall visibility trends over time.

Step 17: On-page optimization

Depending on the thoroughness of your audit, you may want to investigate the on-page optimization of multiple pages of the website for multiple keyword variance. The depth of your audit is up to you. At a minimum, however, a local SEO audit should look at the on-page optimization of the Google Business Profile landing page (the page you’re linking to from your listing).

Check that your focus keywords are being properly mentioned in the landing page’s:

An audit is also a good opportunity to evaluate whether the GBP landing page is going as far as it possibly can to provide an ideal customer experience designed to convert. A simple On Page SEO Checker tool can help you assess the quality of your optimization.

Step 18: User behavior

You may be using a variety of products like third-party software, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console to track how users are interacting with your digital assets. Note any major changes in metrics like impressions, clicks, sessions, bounce rate, new users, average engagement time, etc. Here’s a good tutorial on 12 key Google metrics to track.

If you see a dramatic change in any metric between your last audit and the present, it’s a signal that you need to investigate any potential issues with your website or alterations in your competitive landscape.

Backlink Audit Sel Overview Scaled

There are a variety of free and paid link audit tools, like the one pictured above from Semrush, that will alert you to any problematic backlinks your site may have accrued since your last investigation. Document any problem links or possible disavowal. Read this tutorial on link disavowal if you’re unfamiliar with this topic.

Step 20: Website health

This is a broad and customizable column in your spreadsheet. At a minimum, spend some time actually engaging with your website as if you were a customer, instead of only looking at it through the lens of tools.

Document any issues you uncover with:

If the business you’re auditing hasn’t been investigated in some time, you may be surprised at the number of problems you encounter by using the site as a customer would. The outcomes of neglected errors and poor user experience can range from lost customers, to lost rankings, to penalties.

Do a manual check of the company’s core social media profiles to ensure that:

Step 22: AI visibility

Google Ai Overview Cost Of A Trip To Japan Scaled

Record whether the business is being cited as a source in AI environments like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. If not, the business likely needs to invest more in the types of PR and marketing efforts that result in the brand becoming a cited authority closely associated with the most relevant keyword phrases.

Common local SEO issues and how to fix them

Now we’ll look at a list of steps to take if you encounter some of the most common local SEO problems that tend to turn up in local business audits, based on the fields you’ve been filling out in your spreadsheet.

1. Local pack/finder/Maps visibility failures

If you experience a sudden local search rankings drop or simply haven’t yet earned your desired level of visibility, investigate all of the following:

2. Reputation issues and spam

If your average star rating and review sentiment accurately reflect legitimate customer complaints, the only fix for this is to improve the level of customer service the business is providing. Over time, superior customer experiences will begin to bring up your rating as you acquire new reviews from happy patrons and actively respond to both praise and complaints on an ongoing basis.

However, if your business becomes the target of a review spammer, this tutorial on learning to recognize and report review fraud will help.

In order for Google to remove reviews, they must clearly violate the Prohibited and restricted content guidelines. If you’re convinced a review is spam, click on the “report review” option in your New Merchant Experience dashboard, where you’ll be able to flag a review for removal. You can then check the status of your report in the Google Review Tool. If Google refuses to remove the spam review, you can submit a one-time appeal via the Google Review Tool.

It’s important to know that Google is not obliged to remove review spam. You can take the case ID of your report to the Google Business Profile Help Community to see if a volunteer there thinks your case is worth escalating to Google. If the spam is a large-scale attack and Google still ignores it, you could try to interest the media in your story to see if publicity will inspire action.

In some cases, however, you’ll just have to let it go. Focus on earning new positive reviews to gradually balance out the spam.

3. Organic visibility failures

There are many problems that can cause sudden drops in organic rankings and traffic, including Google releasing a new algorithmic update. If you discover a decline, check trusted sources you follow for mentions of Google updates.

Beyond this, make use of the following tutorials for specific problems:

4. Broader reputation issues

Formal reviews aren’t the only influence on local consumers. Your audit may turn up a variety of issues, including the following:

Unstructured citations which negatively mention the brand

In this case, the brand may need to address past trust-based issues and build a better reputation going forward, actively acquiring new positive mentions on high-ranking third-party publications.

Social conversations which negatively mention the brand

As with the above, broken consumer trust may need to be rebuilt. Sometimes, brands allow too much distance between themselves and their customers, encouraging negative sentiment in social settings because there’s a general feeling that the brand is unengaged and will not listen or act on complaints.

The best solution to this is active engagement with the local community being served on the social platforms it favors. Tools like Sprout Social can help you analyze social brand mentions and become a more active participant in conversations about your brand.

Inadequate footprint

Very often, local brands simply suffer from a lack of authority because they have yet to invest seriously in developing a digital footprint across their website, local business listings, reviews, social profiles, and third-party publications. In order to meet goals of visibility, reputation, conversions, and profitability, local brands must become recognized authorities in their fields via an appropriate investment in local SEO, local search marketing, and general PR strategies.

Advanced local SEO audit techniques

The type of audit we’ve discussed today is brand-centric. You’ve learned how to audit multiple signals that impact local and organic visibility, consumer behavior, and business outcomes. This is an excellent starting point for seeing and fixing problems while also identifying emergent opportunities.

However, brand-centric audits are only the starting point of ongoing business intelligence.

More advanced local SEO audit techniques can be put in place to achieve further market insights when the investigation includes competitor metrics. As I’ve said, no local business exists in a vacuum, and the value of engaging in a competitive local SEO audit is that you’ll learn to see your business in a more complete market context.

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Many of the fields in your spreadsheet can be expanded to record competitor data. Pay particular attention to fields like:

Here’s a list of top competitor analysis tools to get you started in this more advanced SEO audit work.

Now you’re ready to conduct your first local SEO audit

Local SEO audits definitely require a serious investment in time. Good tools can significantly reduce your manual workload, but some steps are best done by hand, looking directly at core listings and SERPs.

It’s important to think of your first audit as your first step. The full value of it won’t be seen until you conduct your next audit, and then your next one! Over time, you’ll accrue valuable data that shows how your business is performing from quarter to quarter and then across multiple years.

Your brand will develop the extremely useful habit of quickly identifying new problems and new marketing opportunities. The more competitive your market, the more essential this investigative work becomes.

As you get comfortable with an auditing schedule, a next step that can improve your local SEO skill is taking a deeper dive into the varying search intents. Read Understanding local search intent to begin zooming in how your community is searching, and why.

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