The Ultimate Local SEO Audit Blueprint to Surpass Your Competitors
As more people search online for nearby products and services, it’s essential for businesses to show up in local search results. Due to the high level of competition, the complicated process of local SEO audit becomes a valuable asset in your online marketing efforts.
A local SEO Audit helps you evaluate your business’s local search performance, identify areas needing improvement, and boost competitiveness. This tutorial will show you how to conduct a local search audit and discuss the necessary strategy.
What is a Local SEO Audit
A local SEO audit is a detailed check of a website and its online presence to enhance its ranking for local search queries. This includes Google Business Profile, local citations, local SEO attributes, backlinks, and mobile access designs. A key responsibility in performing local SEO audits involves pinpointing areas that can be improved, finding errors leading to lower rankings, and ensuring the website is optimized to attract the highest number of local clients. Performing a review of this aspect can help you discover the best tactics used by your competitors and which strategies are worth experimenting with.
Step-by-Step Guide for Local SEO Audit
Step 1: Analyze Your Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile (GBP) is the backbone of local SEO. To appear on local maps and Google’s specific searches, ensure your business’s Google Business Profile (GBP) is complete and optimized.
- Business Name: Your company name should be unique and uniform and should not be overstuffed with keywords.
- Categories: Select the main and related secondary categories that describe your business.
- Description: Use a clear and relevant description with a few keywords in it to help your potential customers understand your services better.
- Consistency in NA: Ensure there are no contradictions in your Name, Address, or Phone number details on your GBP and other places.
- Images and Videos: High-quality pictures and videos may assist in showcasing the value of your company and taking advantage of your listing.
- Customer Reviews: It is essential to ask happy clients to post reviews about your services as well as respond to reviews to build trust.
Step 2: Assess Your Local Citations
Local citations are the NAP of your business as listed on various directories, review platforms, and social media accounts. Perfect and equivalent citations are vital in improving local search performance. For that reason:
- Searching for Your Citations: Use tools such as Moz Local or BrightLocal to locate any existing citations on the internet.
- Amending Differences: Check if your NAP is consistent across all platforms. Fix any mistakes immediately to prevent search engines and customers from getting confused.
- Creating New Citations: If reputable directories don’t have your business listed, don’t be afraid to add it to local and industry-specific databases like Yelp, Foursquare, and Yellow Pages.
Step 3: Study Your On-Page SEO
This contributes to the approach of executing On-Page SEO, which encompasses specific tactics aimed at enhancing local listings on websites and pages. This involves the placement of keywords in the content meta tags and even layouts. Focus on the following:
- Local Keyword Research: Use services like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush in search of local keywords with high search and relatively lower competitiveness.
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions: Focus on your target keywords as well as city names in your title tags and meta descriptions for better click-through rates from search results.
- Copywriting Structure and Content: Structure your content and use heading tags such as H1, H2, and more considering search engine optimization with local keyword phrases as well. Provide additional information about your work and the area you serve.
- Schema Markup: Add local business schema markup for search engines to understand the address, business hours, and business operations of your company more clearly.
Step 4: Evaluate Local Backlinks
Backlinks are a vital component of factors that determine local SEO rankings. They are a method through which clients can achieve a higher position in local search results. Here’s a guide on how to conduct a backlink audit.
- Look At Your Backlink Profile: Ahrefs or SEMrush sites can be used to check existing resources that reference your domain.
- Assess the Link’s Quality: Concentrating on backlinks from reliable local sites is preferable even if you take fewer links. Links from local newspapers, blogs, and community websites can also work effectively.
- Generate New Locally Targeted Links: Leverage local ties, sponsorship, and participation in community-based initiatives to win local backlinks. Explore opportunities for guest writing on websites or for distributing press releases aimed at regional newspapers or television programs.
Step 5: Assess the Mobile Responsiveness and Efficiency of Your Website
Based on data, most searches in the area are done on smartphones and tablets. Hence, it’s essential to highlight the importance of keeping a website that is easy to use on mobile devices. Be mindful of the following:
- Mobile Usability: Use Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool to see if your websiteis easy to use on mobile devices. Make sure the text is big enough, the images aren’t too large, and the site is easy to navigate.
- Site Speed: A slow-speed site will increase the chances of losing visitors and negatively impact search engine position. Solve the excessive loading time issues by compressing image dimensions, employing browser cache, and reducing script load times.
Step 6: Examine Local Content Strategy
To achieve better results in beating other players in the game, one more secret exists – it’s targeting local audiences with relevant content. Once you create primary and valuable content, you stand higher chances for local searches. This is what you can do when doing a content audit:
- Geo-Targeted Pages: For each location you have, make a separate page with content that fits that place. This makes it easier for search engines like Google to find your pages when people search for local information.
- Local News and Events: Create blogs or articles that deal with local news or events and topics that are more sensible in the community or the neighborhood. This not only captivates the attention of the locals, but it also tells the search engines that the website is relevant to the local users.
- User-Generated Content: Harness the power of satisfied clients to share their stories on the website, showcasing these community narratives to enhance trustworthiness. This method boosts client confidence and provides authentic content that enhances your local SEO.
Additional SEO Audit Tools and Resources
There are enough instruments that will make your work a little easier for local searches and local audits:
- SEMrush: Suitable for reviewing backlinks, and examining competitors’ strategies too. It also provides information on how keywords are doing, allowing you to monitor and enhance your rankings over time.
- Moz Local: Very useful for managing and controlling local citations. It makes sure NAP information is the same in directories, which is very important for being found in local searches.
- Google Search Console: A convenient device for assessing the general condition of a website and discovering possible barriers to the development of local SEO optimization. It lets you track search activity, improve search results, and correct crawl mistakes that impact local search.
- BrightLocal: This is one of the most popular tools used for local SEO audits due to its numerous applications, including citation search as well as others related to managing a brand.
Common Mistakes to Avoid During a Local SEO Audit
During your local SEO audit, avoid committing the following mistakes:
- Ignoring Mobile Optimization: Mobile optimization is crucial. Not doing it can lead to unhappy customers and lower rankings. A website that works well on mobile improves users’ feelings, resulting in more interaction and sales.
- Failing to Conduct Competitive Analysis: Discovering what competitors do right is how to learn to do better than them. This is a step that one must not overlook. Regularly checking out competitors is crucial to stay ahead by finding new strategies and improvement areas.
- Focusing on High-Traffic Keywords: High-traffic keywords are essential, but there’s also room for focusing on specific, long-tail, and local keywords that work too. These specific keywords usually face less competition and attract traffic that’s more likely to make a purchase.
Boost Local SEO with Green Web Media for Real Results
A thorough local SEO audit is necessary to compete effectively in a local search. In the process of accumulating data on your Google Business Profile and its citations, on-page SEO, the quality of backlinks, and how your site is performing in mobile search, you’ll find gaps that you can take advantage of to outdo your competitors. Regularly conducting these audits ensures your business stays up-to-date with local SEO trends and remains competitive in the ever-changing digital landscape.
Green Web Media can assist if you do not have the time or skills required to carry out such an extensive audit. We provide SEO services focused on meeting your local SEO needs. We carry out comprehensive audits pinpointing impact areas to keep the organization competitive. Contact Green Web Media today to improve your local SEO and increase your visibility in local search results.
