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Local SEO Checklist

What to check on your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your listings and your website, how to measure where you show up, and how to help AI assistants get your facts right.

Updated 8 November 2026

For local business owners and the agencies that work for them. Go through it once from top to bottom, then again every few months and whenever something about the business changes. Where an item is one of Google's rules, it says so, and the sources are listed at the end.

Google says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. What you can do is give Google complete, accurate information and earn a good reputation. That's what this list covers.

To keep a copy, print this page or save it as a PDF from your browser's print dialog.

Google Business Profile

  • Claim and verify your profile. You need to verify before you can edit your business info or interact with customers, and Google says a verified business is more likely to show up in search results.
  • Use your real-world business name, nothing more. Google's guidelines say the name should be the one on your storefront, website and stationery. Taglines, services, locations, phone numbers or opening hours in the name aren't allowed and can get the profile suspended: "Rivera Plumbing", not "Rivera Plumbing 24/7 Emergency Plumber Downtown".
  • Pick the most specific primary category. Choose the one that best describes the business, such as "Nail salon" rather than "Salon". Google says the categories you choose affect your local ranking.
  • Add as few additional categories as you need. Google's rule: categories say what the business is, not every service it offers, and aren't there to be used as keywords. Services go in the services list.
  • Set your regular hours to your customer-facing hours. That's what Google asks for. If you work by appointment only, Google's guidelines say to leave hours out.
  • Add special hours for holidays and short closures. They change the hours shown for those days without touching your regular hours. Google suggests confirming holiday hours even when they're the same as usual.
  • Mark the business temporarily closed for longer closures. Google says to use it when you're closed for 7 days or more in a row, or for an unknown time.
  • Show your address only if customers come to you. If you visit or deliver to customers and don't serve them at your address, Google says to remove the address and set a service area.
  • Set your service area by city or postal code. You can add up to 20 areas. Google says the whole area shouldn't reach more than about 2 hours' drive from where you're based.
  • Keep one profile per location. Google doesn't allow more than one profile for the same location. A P.O. box, or a virtual office you don't work from, isn't eligible.
  • Use a phone number that reaches this location. Google asks for a number under your direct control, and a local number rather than a central call centre line where possible.
  • Write the description for customers. Say what you do, for whom and where, and your history if it helps. Google's rules: no links of any kind, and no focus on promotions, prices or sales.
  • List your services, and your products if you sell any. Google says a service you list may be highlighted on your profile when someone searches for it.
  • Fill in the attributes that apply, such as parking or Wi-Fi. Google lists them as part of a complete profile.
  • Add real photos. Google says an exterior photo helps customers spot your business when they arrive. Add your products and your work too, in focus, well lit and without heavy edits or filters, as Google asks.
  • Update the profile whenever something changes. Google says complete and accurate profiles are more likely to show up in local results, and inaccurate ones may not show up for relevant searches.

Reviews

Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. They also help people decide whether to choose you.

  • Ask every customer for a review. Send the review link or show the QR code from your Business Profile, for example in a follow-up message or on the receipt. Google lists reminding customers as a best practice.
  • Ask everyone the same way. Google's policy doesn't allow businesses to ask only happy customers (often called review gating) or to discourage negative reviews.
  • Don't pressure customers or tell them what to write. Google's policy says businesses shouldn't require or pressure customers to leave a review while they're at your business, or ask for specific content.
  • Never pay or reward anyone for a review. Google prohibits incentives, such as money, discounts or free goods or services, for posting, changing or removing a review.
  • Don't review your own business or a competitor's. Google's policy doesn't allow reviews based on a conflict of interest, such as current or former employment, family ties or being a competitor.
  • Tell customers they need a Google Account. Google says customers must be signed in to leave a review, and can create an account with any email address, not only Gmail.
  • Reply to reviews, good and bad. Replies are public. Google's tips: keep them short, polite and specific, and don't use them to offer deals.
  • Answer negative reviews calmly. Acknowledge real mistakes, explain what you can and can't do, never share the reviewer's private information, and offer to sort it out by phone or email.
  • Flag reviews that break Google's policies. If you believe a review violates Google's content policies, you can flag it.

Name, address and phone everywhere

Your business details appear on many sites besides Google. Keep them identical, so nobody finds an old address or a dead number.

  • Write your name, address and phone number the same way everywhere: your website, your Business Profile, your social profiles and directories. Google's guidelines ask for the name you use consistently on your storefront, website and stationery.
  • Claim your listings on other maps, such as Apple Business Connect for Apple Maps and Bing Places for Bing.
  • Get listed on the main directories for your country and your trade, and on local sites such as your chamber of commerce or trade association. Google says prominence, how well known a business is, is partly based on how many websites link to it.
  • Fix old details after a move, a new name or a new number. Search for your old address and phone number, and correct the listings you find.

Your website

  • Link your profile to the page for that location. Google asks for a website that represents the individual business location. With several locations, give each profile its own location page.
  • Give each location a page of its own with the name, address, phone number, hours, services and the areas you serve, written as text, not only in an image.
  • Put the service and the city in your page titles and headings, for example "Emergency plumber in Dallas". Use the words customers search for, and write for people, not as a list of keywords.
  • Add LocalBusiness structured data. Use the most specific type, such as Dentist or Plumber, with the name, address, phone number, URL and opening hours, matching what the page shows. Google says it doesn't guarantee that the features using this data will appear.
  • Don't mark up your own reviews to get stars. Google says pages where a business controls the reviews about itself aren't eligible for review stars.
  • Make it work on a phone. Check that the phone number is a tap-to-call link, and that the address and hours are easy to find.
  • Check your page speed. Google says its ranking systems use Core Web Vitals, but that good scores alone don't guarantee a top ranking. PageSpeed Insights and Search Console show yours.

Measuring

  • Measure across your area, not from one spot. Google weighs how far each business is from the person searching, so your position changes from street to street. A search on your own phone shows one point, and Google tailors it to you. A grid of points shows where you're strong and where you drop out. That's what Listed Local measures: run the free check on your business and your main search term.
  • Track the searches customers actually use, such as "emergency plumber" as well as "plumber".
  • Compare like with like. Use the same search term, the same grid and the same distance between points each time.
  • Read your Business Profile performance. Google shows how many people viewed your profile, the searches that found it, and the calls, website clicks and direction requests it got.
  • Tag the website link on your profile with UTM parameters, so visits from your profile show up separately in your analytics.
  • Change one thing at a time where you can, so you can tell what made the difference.

AI assistants

People also ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode for a local recommendation. Nobody can make an assistant name you. These steps make it easier for them to find accurate facts about you.

  • Ask them what your customers ask, such as "a good dentist in [your town]". Note which businesses are named and which sources are cited. Ask more than once, because answers change every time.
  • Get listed where they look. If the cited sources are directories, review sites or local news that list your competitors and not you, start there.
  • Keep your facts identical everywhere. Name, address, hours and services should match on your website, your profile and the sites that cite you, so no source contradicts another.
  • Put the key facts on your website as text: what you do, where, and when you're open. For its AI features, Google says important content should be available in text form.
  • Let Googlebot crawl your site. Check your robots.txt: a page must be in Google's search index to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
  • Let OAI-SearchBot crawl your site. OpenAI says sites that block it aren't shown in ChatGPT search answers.
  • Let PerplexityBot crawl your site. Perplexity uses it to surface and link websites in its answers.
  • Leave Google-Extended unblocked if you want Gemini apps to use your pages. It controls whether Google may use your content to train Gemini models and to ground answers in Gemini apps. It doesn't affect Google Search.
  • Skip special AI files and markup for Google. Google says you don't need AI text files, new markup or special structured data to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Sources

Checked on the date at the top of this page.

  1. Google Business Profile Help, Guidelines for representing your business on Google: support.google.com/business/answer/3038177
  2. Google Business Profile Help, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google: support.google.com/business/answer/7091
  3. Google Business Profile Help, Verify your business on Google: support.google.com/business/answer/7107242
  4. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your business category: support.google.com/business/answer/7249669
  5. Google Business Profile Help, How to set special hours: support.google.com/business/answer/6303076
  6. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your service areas: support.google.com/business/answer/9157481
  7. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your services: support.google.com/business/answer/9455399
  8. Google Business Profile Help, Manage your Business Profile photos and videos: support.google.com/business/answer/6103862
  9. Google Business Profile Help, Tips to get more reviews: support.google.com/business/answer/7035772
  10. Google Maps User Generated Content Policy, Prohibited and restricted content: support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114
  11. Google Business Profile Help, Understand your Business Profile performance: support.google.com/business/answer/9918094
  12. Google Search Central, Local business structured data: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business
  13. Google Search Central, Review snippet structured data: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/review-snippet
  14. Google Search Central, Understanding page experience: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience
  15. Google Search Central, AI features and your website: developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
  16. Google Crawling Infrastructure, Google's common crawlers (Google-Extended): developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/google-common-crawlers
  17. OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers: developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots
  18. Perplexity, Perplexity crawlers: docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots