Local Business SEO Checklist
30 concrete items that measurably improve your local visibility, ordered by impact.
This checklist walks you through the items that make the biggest difference to local-business visibility, from Google Business Profile to Core Web Vitals. Work through it top to bottom.
1 Google Business Profile
- Profile claimed and fully verified
- Correct primary category + relevant secondary categories The primary category is the strongest local ranking factor.
- NAP (name, address, phone) exactly matches the website
- Opening hours current, including holidays
- At least 10 recent, genuine photos uploaded
- Products/services filled in with descriptions
- Regular posts, at least once a month
2 Reviews & reputation
- Active process to ask happy customers for reviews
- Replied to every review, positive and negative
- Average rating above 4.0 stars
- Presence on relevant industry portals
3 On-page SEO
- Every page has a unique title tag (50–60 chars)
- Meta description per page (140–160 chars) that invites the click
- Exactly one H1 per page with the main keyword
- City/region context in the copy (e.g. "painter in Bremen")
- Clean, readable URLs without parameter clutter
- Internal links between service and location pages
4 Local content & structure
- A dedicated page per main service (not one catch-all page)
- Location page(s) with directions, map and local context
- LocalBusiness schema (structured data) implemented
- Imprint and privacy policy complete and linked
5 Tech & performance
- Site loads on mobile in under 2.5s (LCP) Core Web Vitals are a confirmed ranking factor.
- HTTPS throughout, no mixed-content warnings
- Mobile-usable, tap targets large enough, no horizontal scroll
- XML sitemap present and submitted to Search Console
- robots.txt does not block important pages
- Images compressed and in a modern format (WebP/AVIF)
6 Measurement
- Google Search Console set up and monitored
- GDPR-compliant analytics active (with consent)
- Conversions (calls, form, directions) tracked as goals
Checklist as PDF / by email
Get the full checklist in your inbox, to tick off and share. Confirmation email, no spam, no sales call.