Local SEO Checklist

• Checklist
  • Meta Data
  • Google
  • Citations
  • Reviews
  • Content

The idea of this checklist is to be able for you to set good foundations for getting your website ranking locally. This list has come together with the help of Local SEO Checklist. Regularly review this checklist to see if there are any tasks that you have missed that may impact the overall visibility of the clients' website.

Checklist

These tasks are quite simple and will help with a clients local SEO.

Meta Data

• Optimise title tags. Your title tags need to be concise with keywords you want to rank for.
• Structure your URLs. Clean and simple URLs are more SEO-friendly.
• Optimise your images. Heavy images can make your site slow-to-load.
• Redirect all pages to www. Ensure all your site’s pages are redirected to www.
• Optimise your navigation menu. Items on your navigation menu should be made indexable.

Google

• Create/Claim your Google My Business listing. Getting listed on Google will feature your business in Google’s knowledge panel.
• Setup Google Webmasters. Webmasters will help keep track of your site’s search performance. Google Search Console
• Setup Google Analytics. Google Analytics can help you analyse your website’s data better. Google Analytics
• Provide accurate data on your Google listing. A detailed GMB listing can help users pick your business over competitors. Google My Business
• Select business categories carefully. Picking the right main and additional categories can help you rank for more search keywords. Google My Business Categories
• Develop a mobile-friendly website. Google’s algorithm ranks mobile-first sites higher.

Citations

• Have consistent NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) details. Your business name, address & phone number need to be uniform across the internet.
• Feature complete location data. Have a Contact Us page featuring the NAP of all your business locations.
• Use structured data markup. Adding schema markup to your website improves SEO.
• Pay attention to XML Sitemap. XML sitemaps make it easier for Google to find your site’s pages and thereby improve SEO.
• Create / Claim Bing listing. Getting listed on Bing can help you earn more leads for your business.
• Create / Claim Yelp listing. Yelp is one of the most popular sites for business discovery and reviews.
• Create / Claim listings on other directories. Ensure presence on all directories to increase your chances of being found.
• Check listings on all major directories. Detect and resolve inconsistencies in your listings on all directories.
• Get on niche-specific directories. Get listed on industry-specific directories to be found by more prospective customers.
• Get on social platforms. Identify the platforms where your customers are and make your business visible. Choose social media platforms that are appropriate for your business.
• Submit citations to top 50 sites. Get featured on the top citation sites for more referral traffic.
• Check competitors’ citations. Find where your competitors are and get on those sites as well.
• Remove duplicate citations. Duplicate citations can push your rankings down due to inconsistencies in data.
• Citations Campaign. Complete a citations campaign for the business that you are working on. Take a look at the Citations article that we have posted here.

Reviews

• Monitor and respond to reviews regularly. Replying to reviews can help you build a relationship with your customers.
• Look to generate more reviews. Getting more positive reviews can improve your overall rating and attract more customers.
• Add recognisable testimonials. Display reviews from existing local customers to improve your business’ credibility.

Content

• Remove duplicate content. Check your website for duplicate content.
• Update content regularly. Set up a blog that hosts content specific to the locations of your business.
• Build quality backlinks. Work towards acquiring backlinks on sites with high domain authority.
• Internal Linking Ensure that your website has a good clear structure so that search engine bots can crawl the site efficiently.

Technical SEO

• Site Audit. Complete regular site audits to prevent the website being hit with any bad user experience and that it is functioning correctly.
• Site speed. Ensure that the website is as fast as it possibily can be. Use tools like GTMetrix and WebPageTest to gauge how fast the website is. Use recommendations from these tools to improve the speed further.