A quick 15-point checklist for Local SEO

A comprehensive local SEO strategy is crucial for any local business that wants to expand its digital reach. Almost 50 percent of all Google searches have local intent.  Therefore, it is vital for you to have a solid presence online, and there is no better way to do that than having a robust SEO strategy in place.

However, how do you ensure that your website’s local SEO is good enough?

The following 15-point checklist will serve as a good starting point to make sure that everything important is in order.

1. Contact page

A contact page is important for most businesses — but it is incredibly important for local businesses who want more enquiries and leads.

Create a contact page on your website and make sure it is easily accessible through the main navigation as well as the footer of the website. It is also recommended to link to the contact page from various other internal pages, e.g., product pages and blog posts.

2. NAP

NAP is of utmost importance for local SEO. On your contact page, make sure to include the complete business name, business address, and business phone number for all your business locations.

NAP consistency plays a huge role in determining how your website performs in local search rankings.

3. Google Map

It is also a good practice to add a Google Map to the Contact page. This makes it easier for website visitors to find your business location.  Higher user engagement and better user experience may send positive signals for SEO.

4. Clickable phone numbers

Make sure all the phone numbers on your website are clickable. It is not uncommon for many local business websites to receive more than 50% of traffic via mobile devices. They should be able to make a call right away.

5. Structure data

Make it easier for Google to find what’s on the different pages on your website by implementing structured data markup. Structured data is even more important to local businesses because of the different elements they may have, e.g., business photos, reviews and ratings, testimonials, product photos, events, phone numbers, etc.

6. High-quality content

If you were to prioritize one thing, make sure it is high-quality content for your website.

Content is king, and there is no substitute for that. No matter how good your site’s technical SEO is, if the content isn’t good enough, it can’t achieve sustainable search rankings on Google’s first page.

As a general rule, your content should be better than the top five pages on Google’s first page for any given keyword.

7. Meta content optimisation

While meta descriptions may not directly affect search rankings anymore, they can still play an important role in helping with the organic click-through rate. On the other hand, meta titles can have a direct impact on search rankings.

We highly recommend optimising both meta titles and meta descriptions for each page on your website.

8. Long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords generally have less search volume and competition. They may not bring a lot of traffic, but these keywords are relatively easier to rank for and usually have a higher conversion rate.

When you are making your keyword and content strategy, make sure to also focus on long-tail keywords.

9. Citations

NAP citations are incredibly important. You can add manual or automatic citations by using a third-party tool or service, e.g., MozLocal.

10. Google My Business listing

There is immense value in having a strong Google My Business listing. It is easy to set up, takes less than an hour, and can amplify your business’s reach tenfold.

11. SEO-friendly URLs

If your webpage URLs look like www.yourwebsite.com/akshdyfp_1zng.html, then you have work to do.

URLs should be SEO-friendly. In other words, they should not be a random string of characters. Instead, add keywords to your URL that aptly describes your page to search engines and website visitors, e.g., www.yourwebsite.com/products/gardening/indoor-bonsai-plant-purple.

12. Internal links

Create internal links to and from important pages. Internal links make it easier for Google to find different web pages on your site.

13. Technical SEO

The technical SEO foundation of your website also plays an important role in how well it eventually performs on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Technical SEO includes many different things that you need to take care of, for example:

• Minimizing internal redirects
• Fixing internal and external 404s
• Improving crawlability for search engine spiders
• Fixing missing title tags
• Fixing missing meta content
• Fixing duplicate content issues, etc.

14. Mobile-friendly website

As we mentioned earlier, more than 50 percent of your website traffic may come from mobile devices. Therefore, your website should be mobile-friendly.

Apart from just being mobile responsive, you should also think about the user experience on smaller screens.

15. Website loading speed

Loading speed is now a crucial search engine ranking factor. If your website takes too long to load, Google will penalize your site by demoting it on the SERPs.

Test your website’s loading speed and take measures to improve the loading times. Use our free guide to learn how to optimise website loading speed.

Conclusion

Although local SEO is an ongoing process, you have to start somewhere. Use this 15-point local SEO checklist to make sure everything important is in order and that you have the right SEO foundation to expand the reach of your local business online.