The Local SEO Checklist
Twenty-one checks you can work through in an afternoon, in the order they pay off. We email it to you, and that's all.
Get the ChecklistMarketing · SEO Audit
Find Out Why the Call Goes to Someone Else.
Our audit checks the twelve things that decide whether a local business shows up in search, in the order they pay off. It starts with a free 15-minute look, and you keep what we find either way.
Which One Do I Need?
The same checks at three depths. Each one includes everything in the one before it, so they never contradict each other.
The 15-Minute Audit
We spend about twenty minutes on your listing and your site first, then talk for fifteen. Your top three fixes follow in writing, whether or not you hire us.
Book a TimeThe Full SEO Audit
All twelve steps, with access to your own Google accounts: a dated baseline, a written report and a 30-minute walk-through. It comes with every bundle, or on its own by custom quote.
See the BundlesWhat Each One Covers
Every step down the side. Choose a step to see its checks.
| Step | Checklist | Free 15-Minute | Full Audit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 Intake | Not included | Your website and name | The form, and access |
| 02 Baseline | Not included | Not included | Yes, dated |
| 03 Google Business Profile | 5 checks | From the public listing | Every field, compared with competitors |
| 04 Can Google Read the Site? | 2 checks | Speed and phone | A full crawl and Search Console |
| 05 Does Each Page Answer the Search? | 4 checks | The home page | Every page |
| 06 Listed the Same Everywhere | 3 checks | A search for your name | Every listing, in a table |
| 07 Reviews | 4 checks | Against the top competitor | Against the top three |
| 08 Competitors and Searches | Not included | The top one | The top three, and a search list |
| 09 AI Answers | Not included | Not included | Noted, not graded |
| 10 Grade and Order | Already in order of payoff | Your top three | Grades and the full order |
| 11 Report and Walk-Through | The email | Your top three, by email | The report, and a 30-minute call |
| 12 Fix, Verify, Re-Check | 3 checks | Not included | Monthly, quarterly and yearly |
Four Phases, About a Week.
From the day you give us access to the report in your hands, the full audit takes about a week. The free audit runs the same phases in miniature.
- Days 0–1
Before
What you sell and where, access to your own accounts, and a dated baseline of how you're found today.
- Days 1–3
Check
Seven areas: your profile, whether Google can read the site, each page, listings, reviews, competitors and AI answers.
- Days 3–5
Decide
A grade for each area and an order of work: this week, this month and ongoing. Then the report and a walk-through.
- Month 1 Onward
After
Each fix tested before it's marked done, and every monthly report compared with the baseline.
What We Check.
Every step and every check in it, with why it matters and the tool we use. The labels on each check show which of the three audits include it.
Before
Know the business, get access, and record where it stands before anything changes.
01Intake5 Checks
A short form, so the audit looks at the searches that make you money.
Your website and your business name
All the free audit needs.
Your name, address and phone, exactly as they should read
The one version every listing is checked against.
The services that pay best, and the area you serve
So we check the searches that bring in work, not the ones that flatter.
The competitors you actually lose jobs to
They are often different from the ones Google shows, and both matter.
Manager access to Search Console, Analytics and your Business Profile
On your own accounts. We never ask for a password, and you can remove us any time.
02Baseline4 Checks
A dated record of how you perform today, so progress is measured rather than claimed.
Clicks, impressions, average position and top searches over the last three months
What Google itself reports about your site.
Calls, direction requests and website clicks from your profile
For a local business these are often the numbers that pay.
Visits from search, and the form sends and call taps that follow
Traffic only counts if some of it gets in touch.
Your place in the map results for ten target searches, from three points in your area
Map results change from street to street, so one search from one spot proves little.
Check
Seven areas, in the order they usually matter for a local business.
03Google Business Profile6 Checks
For a “near me” search this usually matters more than your website, so it comes first.
Claimed and verified
Unverified listings barely show in the map results.
The most specific primary category, compared with the businesses ranking above you
The primary category does most of the ranking work.
Every field filled: hours, holiday hours, services, attributes, description and service area
Empty fields are questions Google answers for you, or doesn’t.
At least ten real photos, with new ones each month
Profiles that keep adding photos get more direction requests.
Posts at least twice a month
Posts expire, so an empty Updates tab reads as a closed business.
A business name with no extra keywords added
Names stuffed with keywords break Google’s rules and can get the profile suspended.
04Can Google Read the Site?7 Checks
The technical check. A problem here holds back everything else on the site.
Shows its main content in about two and a half seconds on a phone
Measured from real visits where Google has them: LCP 2.5 s or less, INP 200 ms or less, CLS 0.1 or less are Google’s “good” marks.
Works on a real phone: readable text, buttons you can tap, nothing cut off
Most local searches happen on a phone.
LocalBusiness markup with your address and hours, and no errors
Google reads the details instead of guessing at them.
Pages in Google’s index, compared with the pages that exist
A page Google hasn’t indexed can’t rank for anything.
A robots.txt that blocks nothing it shouldn’t, and a sitemap submitted
The two files that tell Google what to read.
HTTPS on every page, redirects that land in one step, no broken links
Each one wastes a visit, or Google’s time on your site.
One address for each page
Two copies of a page compete with each other.
05Does Each Page Answer the Search?7 Checks
Page by page: does it match what people search for, and make it easy to get in touch?
Your name, address and phone in the footer, exactly as on your profile
Character for character: “Suite 4” and “Ste. 4” read as two businesses.
A phone number you can tap
A number people have to retype loses calls.
A page of its own for each service
One page listing eight services ranks for none of them.
Area pages only for places you really serve
Thin pages naming forty towns are a known penalty.
A title, a description and one main heading on every page
What Google shows in results, and what it reads first.
A clear next step on every page
Call, book or ask: one obvious action.
The questions people actually search, answered on the page
Taken from your own Search Console searches, not guessed.
06Listed the Same Everywhere4 Checks
When your details differ from site to site, Google has to guess which one is you.
Listed on Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp and the Better Business Bureau
Each one is another place customers and search engines check.
Name, address and phone identical everywhere
A mismatch quietly holds back everything above it.
Old listings with a former address or a dead number, found and fixed
Search your own name; customers already do.
The directories for your trade, such as Angi or Houzz
Where your customers look before they search Google.
07Reviews5 Checks
Compared with the businesses ranking above you, not judged on their own.
How many reviews, the average rating, and how many came in the last 90 days
Compared with the three businesses above you in the map.
Every satisfied customer asked, in person
Nothing else comes close.
The short review link sent by text
Texts get opened; emails often don’t.
A reply on every review, good ones included
Replies are public, and Google reads them.
Bad reviews answered calmly within a day
Future customers judge the reply more than the complaint.
08Competitors and Searches4 Checks
The businesses that show up in the map for your best searches, and what they have that you don’t.
The three businesses in the map results for your best searches
Your real competition online, which may not be who you expect.
Their categories, reviews, photos, speed and service pages, beside yours
The gap is usually specific and fixable.
The searches for each service, marked ready to buy or just researching
So pages are written for the searches that turn into work.
Services they have a page for and you don’t
The quickest content to add.
09AI Answers2 Checks
Noted in the report but not graded, because nobody controls these answers.
Whether Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity name you for “best [service] near [area]”
More customers ask these before they search.
Which sites those answers cite
Usually your profile, review sites and directories, which leads back to steps 3, 6 and 7.
Decide
Turn the findings into an order of work you can follow, whether or not you hire us.
10Grade and Order3 Checks
Every finding weighed, and put in the order it pays off.
An impact (high, medium or low) and an effort (an hour, a day or a project) for each finding
So the cheap, big fixes come first.
Strong, Needs Work or Missing for each area
A plain grade, and no score out of 100: tool scores don’t match how Google ranks.
The fix order, in three groups: This Week, This Month and Ongoing
Anything you can fix yourself is marked “You can do this”.
11Report and Walk-Through3 Checks
Written in plain English, and yours to keep whether or not you hire us.
A one-page summary, the grades, the baseline, each finding with a screenshot, and the fix order
Everything in one document you can hand to anyone.
A 30-minute call to walk through it
Questions answered while the report is open in front of you.
Your top three fixes in writing after the free audit
Several are usually things you can do in an afternoon.
After
Fixes made, then checked, and every month measured against the baseline.
12Fix, Verify, Re-Check5 Checks
Each fix tested again before it’s marked done, and every month compared with the baseline.
Business Profile numbers checked every month: searches, calls and direction requests
The first place a change shows.
Hours updated before every holiday
Wrong hours bring one-star reviews from people who drove out.
The speed test run again after any change to the site
New photos and new scripts are the usual culprits.
Each fix tested again, and the sitemap resubmitted
Done means checked.
A monthly report against the baseline, a new crawl every quarter, and the full audit again every year
So you can see the before and after for yourself.
What You Can Count On.
See what a full report looks like before you book: River & Bean, a coffee shop we made up, audited step by step, with the grades, the baseline and the order we'd fix it in.
See a Sample Report- A Baseline Before We Touch Anything. Your numbers are recorded on day one, so progress is measured rather than claimed.
- Your Accounts Stay Yours. You add us as a manager on your own Google accounts. We never ask for a password, and you can remove us any time.
- No Page-One Promises. Nobody controls Google's rankings. Anyone who guarantees them is guessing.
- No Bought Links. Paid link schemes can get a site penalized, and the penalty lands on you, not on the agency that sold them.
- You Keep the Report. Hire us or not, the findings and the fix order are yours.
Questions About the Audit.
What Does the Audit Cost?
The 15-minute audit is free. The full audit comes with every bundle, as the first step of the work, and is available on its own through a custom quote.
Do You Need My Passwords?
No. You add us as a manager on your own Search Console, Analytics and Business Profile accounts, and you can remove us any time. The accounts stay yours.
How Long Does the Full Audit Take?
About a week from the day we get access. The checks take two or three days, then we write the report and walk you through it.
How Is It Different From the Free Checklist?
The Local SEO Checklist is the part an owner can check alone. The audit adds the checks that need Search Console, Analytics and a crawl of your site, compares you with the businesses ranking above you, and puts everything in order.
I Already Work With an Agency. Is It Still Useful?
Yes. The report is yours to keep, and plenty of owners use it to check the work they're already paying for.