Most advice on this subject arrives as a list of eighty items, which is why nobody finishes one. This local SEO checklist is deliberately short, ordered by return, and written to be completed rather than admired.
It assumes you serve an area and have a website of some sort.
Day one of the local SEO checklist: the listing
Claim your business listing if you have not, then fill in every field. This is the highest return hour in the whole local SEO checklist and it costs nothing. If that ordering surprises you, why your listing outranks your website locally is the reasoning behind it.
- Primary category set to the most specific accurate option.
- Name exactly as you trade, with nothing added.
- Hours including holidays, and a phone number that rings.
- Services listed individually rather than as one line.
- At least ten real photographs of your work, premises and team.
Then hide your address and set a service area if you travel to customers rather than receiving them.
Day two: reviews
Write a short message asking for a review, save the link that opens the review box directly, and send it to your last ten satisfied customers.
After that, build the habit. Ask at the moment a job finishes, every time, and reply to everything that arrives within a couple of days. Nothing else on this local SEO checklist compounds the way reviews do.
Day three of the local SEO checklist: your details everywhere else
Write down the exact form of your business name, address and phone number. Then search your business name and your phone number, and note every site showing something different.
Fix the largest and most visible first, because other sites copy from them. Do not attempt to reach the end of the list; the long tail of dead directories is genuinely not worth an afternoon.
Day four: service pages
One page per service, each written for somebody who has that problem rather than for a colleague.
A page should say what the job involves, roughly how long it takes, what people usually ask beforehand, and what to do next. Meanwhile a single page listing nine services persuades nobody and ranks for nothing, which is the most common structural fault on a small business site.
This is the slowest day on the local SEO checklist and the one worth doing properly, because a service page keeps earning long after the week is over.
Day five: your area on your own website
State plainly, in text, which places you cover. Use the names locals use, including the awkward ones and the neighbouring villages people actually name.
Where you genuinely have something different to say about a town, give it a page. Where you do not, one clear list on your contact page does the job. A set of near identical town pages is a thin content problem rather than a local SEO checklist item.
Day six: make it easy to be contacted
Everything above brings somebody to your website. This day is about what happens in the ten seconds after they arrive, and it is skipped more often than any other item on the local SEO checklist.
Put your phone number in text at the top of every page, not in an image, so a phone can dial it with one tap. Say which areas you cover on the contact page itself rather than only on the homepage. Give an alternative to the form, because plenty of people will never fill one in.
Then open your own site on a phone, on mobile data rather than the office network, and try to book yourself as a stranger would. Time it. Anything that takes more than a few seconds to find is costing you the calls the rest of this week is working to earn.
Fix what that test reveals before you spend another hour on visibility. Arriving traffic that cannot reach you is the most expensive kind there is.
What a local SEO checklist should leave out
Several popular items return nothing at this scale, and skipping them is what makes the rest finishable.
- Submitting to two hundred directories, which creates inconsistency rather than authority.
- Posting daily on your listing, which is presentation rather than ranking.
- Checking your own position from your own phone, which flatters you every time.
- Adding every available secondary category, which dilutes rather than strengthens.
- Buying reviews, which is detectable, against the rules, and eventually removed.
The local SEO checklist, once a month
The maintenance half is small and it is what stops the work decaying.
Check your listing for changes somebody else suggested, look at the new reviews and reply to them, and read the questions section for anything a stranger has answered on your behalf. Then glance at your listing statistics: calls, direction requests and website clicks.
Those three numbers tell you more than any ranking, because they are actions rather than positions.
Once a year
Re-read your service pages and update anything that has changed. Check your details across the sites that matter, since things drift. Look at the two competitors above you on the map and see what their listings do that yours does not.
That is the entire local SEO checklist. It is one week and twenty minutes a month, and it is more than most competitors in most towns have ever done.
Frequently asked questions
What should be first on a local SEO checklist?
Claiming and completing your business listing, every field. It is the highest return hour available and costs nothing. The primary category matters most, because it decides which searches you are eligible for at all.
How long does this take to work through?
About a week of short sessions, then twenty minutes a month to maintain. The list is deliberately short because eighty item checklists never get finished, and an unfinished list produces nothing at all.
What should I skip?
Submitting to hundreds of directories, posting daily on your listing, adding every available secondary category, checking your rank from your own phone, and buying reviews. Each returns little or nothing, and skipping them is what makes the rest finishable.
Do I need a page for every town I serve?
Only where each has something genuinely different to say. Otherwise one clear list of areas on your contact page does the job. Near identical town pages are a thin content problem rather than an item worth ticking off.
How many photographs should I add to my listing?
At least ten, all real, showing your work, your premises and your team. This is the field owners skip and customers use most, and stock photography of somebody else\u2019s office persuades nobody who is choosing between two businesses.
What should I check every month?
Changes somebody else suggested to your listing, new reviews and your replies to them, the public questions section, and your listing statistics for calls, direction requests and website clicks. Those actions tell you more than any ranking position.
Is one page listing all my services enough?
No, and it is the most common structural fault on a small business site. One page per service, each written for somebody with that problem, ranks for the phrases people actually type. A combined list ranks for none of them.
What is the maintenance half of a local SEO checklist?
Twenty minutes monthly and an hour yearly. Monthly: listing changes, reviews and statistics. Yearly: re-read your service pages, recheck your details across the sites that matter, and look at what the listings above you on the map do that yours does not.