A local SEO checklist for service businesses
Local SEO is mostly about doing a long list of small, specific things consistently. Nothing on this checklist is secret; the differentiator is whether you actually do them. Print it, work through it, then keep working through it.
- •There is no single big move — local SEO is the compounding result of dozens of small ones.
- •Most owners stop at the GBP basics. The 80/20 sits past that, in citations and review velocity.
- •Track the few metrics that matter (calls, form fills, GBP views) — ignore the rest.
Foundation (week 1)
- Claim and verify your Google Business Profile.
- Pick the most specific primary category that fits your business.
- Add 5–9 secondary categories that genuinely apply.
- Write a 500–750 character description using the words customers search for.
- Add your full address and verify it matches the address on your website footer exactly.
- Set hours, including special hours for holidays.
- Add a service area if you serve customers at their location.
- Upload a logo and a cover photo.
- Upload 20+ photos of real work, your team, and your equipment.
On-site SEO (week 2)
- Make sure your business name, address, and phone (NAP) appear in the website footer on every page.
- Add a /contact page with NAP plus an embedded Google Map of your address.
- Add LocalBusiness schema in JSON-LD with your NAP, hours, and geo coordinates.
- Make sure each service has its own dedicated page (not one big "services" page).
- Make sure each city you serve has its own dedicated page if you serve multiple.
- Test mobile load time — under 3 seconds is the bar; under 2 is great.
- Make sure your phone number is a clickable tel: link on mobile, prominently in the header.
Citations (weeks 3–4)
Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone on third-party directories. Consistency matters more than volume — if Yelp has your old phone number and Apple Maps has your new one, Google notices and discounts your prominence signal.
- Submit identical NAP to: Yelp, Apple Maps Connect, Bing Places, Facebook, BBB.
- Submit to your industry-specific directories (HomeAdvisor, Angi, Thumbtack for trades; Houzz for home services; etc.).
- Submit to your chamber of commerce.
- Audit existing citations using a tool like BrightLocal or do it manually — fix any with old/wrong NAP.
Review velocity (ongoing)
- Set up a process to ask every happy customer for a Google review within 24 hours of service.
- Send the request via SMS or email with a one-tap link to your GBP review URL.
- Reply to every review (5-star and otherwise) within 48 hours.
- Aim for 3–10 new reviews per month, sustained.
- Never offer incentives for reviews. Google can detect this and will penalize.
Content + links (months 2–6)
- Publish one local-relevant article per month (a guide, a project breakdown, a seasonal piece).
- Earn one or two real local backlinks per quarter (chamber, partner businesses, local news mentions).
- Post on your GBP weekly (an offer, an update, a recent job).
Tracking
- Set up Google Search Console.
- Submit your sitemap.
- Track GBP "calls", "directions", and "website clicks" monthly.
- Track call volume from your business phone (manual log is fine).
- Track form fills via a CRM or simple spreadsheet.
- Do not obsess over keyword rankings — track the things that turn into revenue.
Keep reading
How much should a local business website actually cost?
A straightforward breakdown of what local-business websites cost in 2026 — by tier, what each tier actually includes, and where the real value lives.
Google Ads for local businesses: a primer
How Google Ads actually works for local service businesses — the campaign types that matter, the keyword strategy that works, and the mistakes that burn budget.
How to rank in the Google Map Pack
The three signals Google uses to rank local businesses in the Map Pack — and what you can actually control to improve each one.
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