Local SEO: twenty things that move the map pack

Correction, 23 September 2026: this checklist no longer assigns unsupported ranking weights to profile settings. It also removes the claim that addresses must match character for character.

Start with accurate business information, then check the website and local references. This is our suggested working order. Google does not publish weights for these individual tasks. Its local ranking guidance describes relevance, distance and prominence.

Start with the profile

1. Claim and complete the Business Profile. Every field. Categories, description, hours, service areas, attributes, products. Accurate profile information helps Google understand what the business offers and helps customers decide whether to visit.

2. Pick the primary category precisely. Choose the available category that best describes the business. Use additional categories only for services you actually offer.

3. Keep the business details accurate. Check your site, profile and directory listings for old addresses or phone numbers. A consistent format helps people check the details. It is not evidence that Google requires identical abbreviations everywhere.

4. Get reviews continuously, and reply to them. Volume, recency and rating all show, and a steady trickle reads better than forty in one week. Ask after the work is done, in person or in the follow-up email.

The website side

5. Put the full address and phone in the site footer, in text, not in an image.

6. Mark it up with LocalBusiness structured data, and validate it.

7. Build a page per location if you have several, each with its own address, hours, staff and photos. A page that differs only by a swapped city name is a doorway page and is treated as one.

8. Build a page per service, and mention where you do it, in the way a customer would say it.

9. Embed a map on the contact page, lazily so it does not block the load.

10. Make the phone number a tel: link so it dials on a tap.

The content side

11. Write about the specific area. Not “serving greater Manchester”, but the actual streets, landmarks and neighbourhood names a local would use.

12. Answer the questions people ask before calling. Parking. Opening on a Sunday. Whether you come to them.

13. Put real photographs of the real place on the site and in the profile. Stock photos of an office nobody works in are recognisable.

The off-site side

14. List on the directories that matter in your country and industry, with the exact same details.

15. Fix or remove old listings with an old address. A closed listing with a former address actively confuses the matching.

16. Get mentioned by local organisations. A sponsorship, a supplier directory, a local news piece.

17. Ask suppliers and partners who list their stockists to list you correctly.

The maintenance side

18. Update hours before every holiday. A profile showing “open” when you are closed produces a bad review that outlives the holiday.

19. Post useful updates to the profile, such as an event or a change in service. Treat this as customer information. This checklist makes no ranking claim for profile posts.

20. Check the profile monthly for edits you did not make. Anyone can suggest a change to your hours or category, and suggestions get accepted.

The test

Search your main service plus your town, from a phone, not logged in, with location on. Then do it from two miles away. Proximity changes what you see. Know how far your visibility actually reaches. That is what separates a useful local strategy from a report full of rankings nobody in your town would see.

If the profile is the problem, fixing it is usually a week of work and it moves more than a quarter of content would. We cover it inside SEO.