Local SEO Guide
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Local SEO is the set of practices that help a business appear in location-based search results: the local pack, Google Maps, and AI Overview answers for near-me and service-area queries. The ranking factors differ from organic search, with GBP signals, review signals, and citation consistency carrying weight that matters far less in standard organic rankings.
This guide covers the full process in sequence. Individual topics are covered in depth across the Google Business Profile, Local citations and NAP consistency, Reviews and ratings strategy, Local landing pages, Local link building, and Local schema markup articles.
Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile (GBP) is the single most important local SEO asset. It drives visibility in the local pack, Maps, and the knowledge panel. In Whitespark’s 2026 survey, in which 47 local search practitioners score 187 factors, GBP signals are the heaviest group for the local pack at an estimated 32% of ranking weight, ahead of review signals at 20% and on-page at 15%.1 These are aggregated expert estimates rather than measured weights: no one outside Google sees the local algorithm. They are useful for deciding what to work on first, not for arithmetic.
That weighting is specific to the local pack, and this is where local SEO diverges most sharply from organic. In the same survey, GBP signals carry only 7% of local organic weight, where on-page (33%) and links (24%) dominate.1 The profile is what the pack ranks; the website is what the organic results rank. A business strong in one and thin in the other will win one surface and lose the other.
Claim your listing. Go to business.google.com and search for your business before creating a new listing. Many businesses have auto-generated listings created from Google’s web crawl. Claim and verify ownership of an existing listing rather than creating a duplicate.
Verify your listing. Google’s available verification methods (video recording, phone, SMS, or email) depend on your business type and region. Video recording is currently the most common default. You cannot choose which method Google offers.
Complete every section. Businesses with complete profiles rank higher than incomplete ones. Cover all fields:
- Business name (exact trading name only, no keyword additions)
- Primary category (the single most important optimisation decision)
- Secondary categories for additional services
- Business description (up to 750 characters)
- Address or service area
- Phone number and website
- Opening hours
- Products or services with descriptions and photos
Treat opening hours as a ranking factor, not an admin field. Three factors new to the 2026 survey went straight into the top ten for the local pack, and two of them are fields most businesses fill in once and forget: whether the business is open at the time of the search (ranked fifth) and whether an address is showing on the profile rather than the business being set up as service-area only (ranked seventh). Predefined GBP services also entered at 22.1 Accurate, current hours are worth maintaining because they affect whether you surface at all at the moment someone is searching.
Enable listing change notifications. Third parties can suggest edits to your listing, and Google may auto-apply them. Enable email alerts for all listing changes in your GBP notification settings so you can review them before they go live.
Step 2: Establish NAP consistency
NAP (Name, Address, Phone) must be identical across your website, GBP listing, and all third-party citations. Google cross-references NAP data from multiple sources to validate business information. Inconsistencies reduce confidence in the business entity and suppress local pack rankings.
Set your canonical NAP format. Decide the exact format for your business name, address, and phone number and use it everywhere. Minor formatting differences, such as “Street” versus “St” or “Limited” versus “Ltd”, create citation mismatches that accumulate over time.
Update your website first. The website’s contact page, footer, and LocalBusiness schema markup are the reference point. The GBP and all citations should match the website exactly.
Audit what already exists. Before building new citations, find what is already out there. BrightLocal, Whitespark, or Moz Local reveal where your business is currently listed. Common problems: inconsistent addresses, old trading names, outdated phone numbers, and duplicate listings from previous business moves or ownership changes.
Step 3: Build citations on high-priority directories
Citations are mentions of your NAP on third-party sites: directories, review platforms, industry listings, and local publications. They validate your business entity and signal local relevance to Google’s local algorithm.
Start with data aggregators. In the UK, major aggregators distribute business data to hundreds of downstream directories automatically. Submitting accurate NAP at the aggregator level propagates to many citations without manual effort at each directory.
Cover high-priority directories. General directories (Yelp, Yell, Bing Places, Apple Maps) and industry-specific directories (TripAdvisor for hospitality, Trustpilot, relevant trade body listings) are the most valuable citations. These are the sources Google trusts most and that users actually consult.
Prioritise quality over volume. A clean set of 40 to 60 high-quality citations outperforms 500 low-quality submissions. Generic “submit to 500 directories” services add noise without adding credible signals.
Maintain citations quarterly. Citation data drifts over time. Run an audit at least quarterly to identify inconsistencies, new duplicates, and outdated information. See local citations and NAP consistency for the full audit and fix process.
Step 4: Create location-specific content
A location page reinforces the GBP entity signals and captures local queries that the GBP listing alone cannot rank for.
Build a dedicated page for each location. A single contact page covering all locations is not sufficient. Each physical location warrants its own URL with its own content, NAP, and schema markup.
Make each page genuinely distinct. A page that swaps only the location name into a template is thin content. Distinct content includes: named staff at that location, specific services offered there, location-specific imagery (not stock photographs), local landmarks and transport context, and reviews from customers at that location.
Add LocalBusiness schema. JSON-LD structured data markup identifies the entity type, NAP, opening hours, and coordinates in a machine-readable format. Use the most specific schema type available for your business type (Restaurant, Plumber, DentalClinic) rather than the generic LocalBusiness. See local schema markup for implementation.
Target local queries in the page content. Title tags, the H1, and body content should reference the location alongside the service naturally. “Accountants in Leeds” rather than just “Accountants.” Specific rather than vague: “commercial accounting practice in Leeds city centre” over “accounting services, Yorkshire.”
Step 5: Build a review acquisition process
Reviews are one of Google’s confirmed local ranking factors. Google measures review volume, recency, star rating, and the content of review text. GBPs with more frequent, higher-rated reviews consistently outrank those without in the local pack.
Ask directly. Requesting a review in person at the point of service, in a follow-up email, or via a direct review link from your GBP listing is the most effective approach. The direct link takes the customer immediately to the review form without requiring them to search for your listing.
Make it systematic. Ad-hoc requests produce ad-hoc results. A consistent process, where every completed service triggers a review request, produces a review velocity that Google’s algorithm registers as a currently active business.
Do not incentivise reviews. Offering discounts, gifts, or payment in exchange for reviews violates Google’s guidelines and can result in listing suspension or review removal. Ask; do not compensate.
Respond to every review. Responding to reviews, positive and negative, signals active engagement to Google and demonstrates responsiveness to prospective customers reading your profile. A thoughtful response to a negative review mitigates its impact more effectively than ignoring it. See reviews and ratings strategy for the response framework.
Step 6: Build local links
Local links from local newspapers, chambers of commerce, community organisations, and local business directories carry geographic relevance signals that national links do not provide.
Local directories and associations. Your local chamber of commerce, regional business association, and local council business directory are citation sources that also carry link value. These are often free or low-cost and carry strong local relevance.
Local press. Regional news publications may cover local business stories, events, new openings, or community data relevant to their area. A local story placed in a regional paper earns a link with strong geographic relevance signals.
Event sponsorship and community involvement. Sponsoring local events, sports teams, or charitable activities earns links from their websites and builds local brand recognition that feeds into GBP prominence signals.
Business-to-business links. Suppliers, stockists, professional partners, and complementary businesses that operate locally are natural linking opportunities. A local supplier’s stockist page or a trade association’s member directory are examples with genuine local relevance.
For a detailed link building process, see the link building guide.
Step 7: Measure local performance
Local SEO measurement uses data sources that differ from standard organic SEO reporting.
GBP Performance tab. Your GBP dashboard reports how users found and interacted with your listing: direct searches (by business name), discovery searches (by category or service), calls, direction requests, website clicks, and message enquiries. This data is not in Google Search Console and provides visibility into local pack performance that no other tool replicates.
Google Search Console. For organic landing page performance (impressions, clicks, and average position for location-based queries), GSC provides the full picture. Filter by location pages specifically, or by queries containing location terms, to separate local from non-local organic performance.
Local rank tracking. Rank tracking tools including SE Ranking, BrightLocal, and Semrush support city-level position tracking for local pack positions alongside standard organic positions. Track both for priority local queries.
Review trend. Track review count, average rating, and review velocity over time in your GBP dashboard. A stalling review count signals that the acquisition process needs refreshing before competitors overtake on this factor.
How local visibility works in AI search
Whitespark’s 2026 survey added a third scoring column alongside local pack and local organic: AI search visibility.1 The estimated weightings do not simply repeat either of the other two.
| Signal group | Local pack | AI search |
|---|---|---|
| On-page | 15% | 24% |
| Review | 20% | 16% |
| Citation | 6% | 13% |
| Link | 8% | 13% |
| GBP | 32% | 12% |
Read these as expert estimates, not measurements, and note one limitation the report’s author raises himself: scoring a factor for “AI search” is ambiguous because the platforms differ. He gives the example of GBP additional categories, which he would score zero for ChatGPT and a three for Google’s AI Mode and Gemini, since only Google holds that data.1 The column blends platforms that do not have the same access to the same signals, so treat the direction as informative and the precise figures as soft.
With that caveat, three things follow.
Your website matters more here than in the pack. On-page signals are the largest group for AI visibility, while GBP drops from the dominant factor to 12%. The profile that wins the map pack does comparatively little for whether an AI assistant names you in an answer. The location pages from step 4, with their specific, distinct content, are the asset doing that work.
Citations are the standout finding. Citation weight roughly doubles from the local pack to AI search, and three of the top five individual AI search visibility factors are citation factors.1 Whitespark’s summary is that in AI search, mentions are the new link. This fits how AI systems resolve an entity: they corroborate a business across independent sources rather than trusting a single profile. Citations had been declining in importance for a decade in traditional local SEO; this reverses that for AI visibility, and it means the NAP consistency work in steps 2 and 3 pays twice.
Reviews still count, and their text matters. Reviews remain the second-heaviest AI factor. Review content, not just the star rating, is retrievable text describing what your business does and how well it does it. Whitespark’s practical advice follows from this: reviews on the prominent review sites in your industry now matter alongside Google’s, because a Google-only review corpus is invisible to the platforms that cannot read it.
The practical read: nothing in this guide changes, but the emphasis shifts. If AI-assistant visibility is the goal rather than the map pack, effort moves from the profile towards the site, the citations, and the review corpus.