Local seo audit

Local SEO Audit

Local SEO is a comparison contest: you don't need a perfect listing, you need a better one than the three businesses above you. Every step below is measured against the actual competitors in the results, not an abstract ideal.

Step 0 — Define the money queries

Ask the user for their services and city/service area. Build the query list: every [service] + [city] combination that brings revenue ("water heater replacement des moines", "emergency plumber ankeny"). Cap at the 5–10 that matter. Everything gets audited against these.

Step 1 — SERP reality check

Have the user search each money query (or search it yourself if you have web access) and record:

• Who holds the 3 map-pack spots? (name, review count, rating)
• Where does the user's business appear — pack, organic, or nowhere?
• What page of theirs ranks (homepage vs. service page)?
• Who holds organic #1–3, and what kind of page is it?

This table is the baseline the whole audit reports against.

Step 2 — Google Business Profile (the heaviest lever)

Run the quick pass: correct primary category, review count/velocity vs. the pack, photos fresh, services filled, posts alive. For the full 100-point GBP audit, use the companion google-business-profile-optimizer skill — don't duplicate it here; note the score and move on.

Step 3 — Citations & NAP consistency

NAP = Name, Address, Phone — identical everywhere, character for character ("Ste 200" vs "Suite 200" counts).

1. Record the canonical NAP (what's on the GBP and website footer).
2. Check the core citations in order: Google, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook, Nextdoor, BBB, plus the 2–3 directories specific to the industry (Angi/Houzz for trades, Healthgrades/Zocdoc for medical, TripAdvisor/OpenTable for restaurants).
3. Log every mismatch, dead listing, and duplicate. Duplicates are worse than absences — they split reviews and confuse Google.
4. Fix order: Google → Apple → Bing → Yelp → Facebook → the rest. Old phone numbers and previous addresses are the most common poison.

Step 4 — Reviews vs. the top 3

For the user and each pack competitor: total count, average rating, reviews in the last 90 days, owner response rate. The gap analysis tells you the ask-rate needed: if the leader gains 6/month and the user gains 1, the user needs a systematic ask (text after every completed job with the direct review link). Velocity compounds; bursts don't.

Step 5 — On-page signals

For the homepage and each service page:

• Title tag: [Service] in [City] | [Business] — the money query, natural, under ~60 chars
• One H1, contains service + city
• City and neighborhoods appear in body copy like a human wrote it
• Phone number clickable (tel: link) and visible without scrolling on mobile
• LocalBusiness schema (JSON-LD) with name, address, phone, hours, URL, geo — matching the NAP exactly
• Embedded Google map on the contact page
• Real photos of the actual business/work (Google increasingly matches images; users always did)

Step 6 — Service & city pages

Rule: one page per service, and city pages only where there's something real to say (jobs done there, reviews from there, staff who live there). Ten near-identical "Plumber in [Town]" pages with swapped city names are doorway pages — they underperform and risk worse. A good city page beats five thin ones.

Step 7 — Local links (prominence)

The realistic list: chamber of commerce, local sponsorships (teams, events, charities — they all link), suppliers and partners ("where to buy" pages), local news (one good story beats 50 directories), neighboring non-competing businesses. Skip cheap directory-blast services; the core citations from Step 3 already cover the ones that matter.

Deliver the report

## Local SEO Audit — [Business], [City]

**Baseline:** [money query → current position] table

| Area | Score | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| GBP | x/10 | HIGH |
| Citations/NAP | x/10 | ... |
| Reviews | x/10 | |
| On-page | x/10 | |
| Service/city pages | x/10 | |
| Local links | x/10 | |

### The gap
[2–3 sentences: what the #1 competitor has that the user doesn't]

### 30-day plan
Week 1: [highest-impact fixes]
Week 2–3: [...]
Week 4 + ongoing: [review velocity system, content cadence]

The full itemized checklist is in references/checklist.md.

What not to do

• Don't promise ranking timelines; promise the work. Movement typically shows in 4–12 weeks.
• Don't recommend keyword-stuffed GBP names or fake addresses — suspension risks, covered in the GBP skill.
• Don't build city pages before the service pages for the home city are strong.

---

Built by Reef — AI systems for small business → https://buildwithreef.com