Do you want to improve the quality of your search rankings for local search terms? Then, you’ll need to perform a local SEO audit regularly. This ensures that your strategy doesn’t have any holes that are causing a big hit to your SEO performance.
In this article, we’ll cover how to complete SEO audits, the available tools, and a checklist to help you start. You’ll see that the steps don’t require technical knowledge, and anyone can complete them.
Keep reading to learn more about what you should include in a local SEO audit checklist!
Table of Contents
How To Do Local SEO Audits: 5 Strategies To Try
Do you want to understand how to do local SEO audits? In this section, we’ll provide an overview of how you can execute an SEO audit to boost your search rankings. You’ll see that it’s a process that anyone can complete with the sheer number of tools available.
1. Google My Business Optimization
Audit your Google My Business (GMB) listing to ensure accurate business information. It includes the names, addresses, phone numbers (NAP), categories, and business hours. After all, your GMB profile is one of the most important aspects of your SEO strategy.
Furthermore, ensure the profile is fully completed with high-quality images and well-written descriptions. Also, focus on collecting and responding to positive and negative reviews. This is something your potential customers pay attention to when looking at business listings.
2. On-Page SEO
Review local on-page SEO elements such as meta titles, descriptions, headers, and content. Include location-specific keywords in strategic places like headings, image alt texts, and URLs. You can use keyword research tools to find relevant keywords.
Furthermore, it’s a good idea to embed a Google map of your business and create content that highlights local relevance. Many visits look at Google Maps to determine if your business location is nearby.
3. Local Link Building
Evaluate the quantity and quality of local backlinks pointing to your site. You can complete these steps with SEO software that includes a backlink analysis module. The majority of these tools provide this service at an affordable cost.
Focus on acquiring links from local businesses, newspapers, blogs, and community organizations.
Local backlinks signal to search engines that your business is well-integrated into the local community, which can boost rankings.
Furthermore, participate in local events, sponsor charities, or create valuable content others want to link to. A strong local link profile increases rankings and drives targeted traffic from nearby areas. Typically, you’ll need good geolocation data to get target customers from local customers.
4. Mobile Optimization
Check that your website is fully optimized for mobile devices, as most local searches occur on mobile. Therefore, optimize fast load times, provide a responsive design, and provide easy navigation.
Ensure key information like contact details and directions is easy to find on mobile. Poor mobile performance can harm local SEO rankings and frustrate users, causing them to leave the site quickly.
5. Local Content Strategy
Audit your content to ensure it includes local references, such as city names and landmarks. This increases your chances to rank for organic search that include these terms. It’s one of the benefits of geolocation campaigns.
Furthermore, create blog posts, videos, or guides on local events and neighborhood-specific news topics. The more you integrate local knowledge into your content strategy, the more authority you’ll gain in your community.
Local SEO Audit Checklist
Do you need a local SEO audit checklist? It’s crucial for businesses aiming to enhance their visibility in local search results. That’s because it helps ensure that you complete essential optimization tasks and donét forget about the important ones.
Here is a checklist for you to consider:
Google My Business optimization
NAP consistency
On-page SEO
Citations and directory listings
Social link building
Customer reviews
Mobile optimization
Local content
This is just a generic example of the type of free local SEO audit you can complete. You may want to add more specific steps relevant to your business. Anything that will help you improve your geotargeting SEO to get better results.
Local SEO Audit Report Data To Analyze
Now, let’s focus on the type of data you may come across when you look at a local SEO audit report. This lets you better understand what’s worth paying attention to to boost your search visibility.
1. Pagespeed and Mobile-Friendliness
This data assesses how quickly the business website loads on both desktop and mobile devices. Also, it measures key metrics like load time, time to interact, and first input delay.
Overall, Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing, so a mobile-friendly site improves search rankings. Furthermore, the data reveals potential issues like slow loading times or optimized mobile experiences. These problems can lead to higher bounce rates and lower search visibility.
2. Backlink Profile
This refers to data on backlinks from local or authoritative sites linking to the business’s website. It includes the number, quality, and relevance of the backlinks. Generally, a healthy backlink profile strengthens domain authority and local SEO performance.
Additionally, it shows opportunities to gain new links from local sources like community blogs, news outlets, or business directories, which improves the overall quality of your geolocation campaign.
3. Local Citation Data
Citation data provides a list of websites and directories where the business is mentioned, emphasizing NAP consistency. Furthermore, it measures the number of citations and the authority of the websites hosting them.
This data is important because inconsistent or missing citations harm local SEO. Additionally, the data helps identify gaps, duplicate entries, or incorrect information. Hence, it guides efforts to ensure accurate local citations to enhance local search rankings.
4. Local Keyword Rankings
This refers to data on how the business ranks for relevant local keywords. You can examine data on the performance of local search queries.
For example, where the business appears in search results and which keywords need improvement.
Furthermore, tracking keyword rankings helps understand which terms drive traffic and visibility. This data also shows where competitors rank for the same keywords, thereby providing insight into how to outperform them.
5. Online Review Data
Data on customer reviews includes the total number of reviews, average rating, and the sentiment expressed in the reviews. You’ll also get information on the frequency of review responses you leave.
Reviews are key in local SEO rankings, so data evaluation is vital. Furthermore, high-quality and positive reviews improve trust and visibility. Generating as many of these as possible will give you an edge over competitors who don’t have them.
In comparison, negative reviews or lack of responses can hurt the business’s online reputation. To get the best results, you’ll need to actively practice in the community to manage the quality of your reviews.
Local SEO Audit Tools
Now, let’s look at the different local SEO audit tools you can choose. There are enough options here to find a list of features that will help rank for the right search terms. Here are the top tools to try:
- Moz Local: Moz Local helps manage and audit local citations. The tool ensures accurate NAP data across directories, identifies inconsistent listings, and automates updates to local business data. Its key features include monitoring duplicate listings and managing online reputation through review tracking.
- BrightLocal: The tool offers all-in-one local SEO reporting with features like citation tracking, local rank tracking, and review management. Additionally, it audits NAP consistency across local directories and tracks map pack rankings. Furthermore, BrightLocal provides detailed competitor analysis to better understand what performance levels you need to beat.
- Google My Business Audit Tool: This tool analyzes a business’s Google My Business listing for completeness and optimization. It also checks for accurate NAP information, category selections, business hours, and review responses. The tool is free to use, a bonus for website owners on a tight budget.
- SEMrush: SEMrush’s local SEO features include local keyword tracking, site audits, and backlink analysis. Its Position Tracking tool helps monitor local keyword rankings over time, and the Site Audit tool identifies technical SEO issues. This is one of the more popular tools on the market that SEO professionals use daily. It’s beginner-friendly and offers fair pricing.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs offers powerful analytics tools to track local backlinks and identify link-building opportunities. You’ll also appreciate the Rank Tracker since it allows businesses to monitor local keyword performance and compare results with competitors. Finally, the Site Audit feature helps identify technical issues that may affect local SEO performance. It’s a beginner-friendly way to determine what steps to take next.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Local SEO Audit?
A local SEO audit comprehensively analyzes a website’s presence and ranking potential in local search results. It examines factors like Google My Business optimization, local citations, website structure, on-page SEO, and link building.
This is an important aspect of any SEO strategy that you need to spend some resources on. The goal is to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement to enhance visibility in local search queries and increase customer engagement.
What does a local SEO audit include?
A local SEO audit includes evaluating factors such as Google My Business setup, local citations, reviews, keyword targeting, and website performance. Don’t miss any of these important audit steps.
Furthermore, the audit can examine on-page SEO, mobile-friendliness, backlinks, and competitor analysis. The goal is understanding how well your site ranks in local search results.
How often should I conduct a local SEO audit?
Conducting a local SEO audit at least once a year is ideal to keep your strategy up to date. However, you should perform audits after major updates to search engine algorithms.
Additionally, regular audits help ensure continued visibility and competitiveness in local search results. It’s a good idea to keep up with SEO trends to better understand what changes you need to make.
Local SEO Audit: Give It a Try Today
Start your audit today to boost your website’s overall performance in local search rankings. For businesses, getting this right can lead to a massive increase in new customers and brand loyalty.
The best practices for implementing your local SEO audit in this article will get you off to a great start. You can also add more tools to your arsenal to improve the quality of your geolocation marketing strategies.
With that thought in mind, try geoPlugin today, and don’t look back!
