Local SEO for WordPress: The Complete Guide for Businesses

Here is a number that should stop you in your tracks.

Forty-six percent of all Google searches have local intent.

Not a niche segment. Not a specific query type. Nearly half of everything typed into Google every day is someone looking for a product, service, or business near them. That translates to roughly 1.6 billion searches with local intent every single day.

And here is the part that makes this even more significant for small and local businesses: 76 percent of people who perform a local search on their mobile phone visit a physical business within 24 hours. Not within a week. Within a day.

Local search is the most direct line between an online search and a real-world customer walking through your door or picking up the phone. Yet 58 percent of businesses still do not optimize for local search at all, and only 30 percent have any kind of local SEO strategy in place.

That gap is your opportunity.

This guide covers everything a local business on WordPress needs to rank in the Google Local Pack, earn visibility in local search results, and convert that visibility into real customers. No jargon. No theory. A practical, step-by-step system that works in 2026.

What Is Local SEO and Why Does It Matter More Than Ever in 2026?

Local SEO is the practice of optimising your online presence so that your business appears prominently in search results when people nearby search for what you offer.

When someone types “plumber near me,” “best coffee shop in Manchester,” or “dentist open Sunday,” Google does not return the same results for everyone. It returns results tailored to the searcher’s location. Local SEO is the work that determines whether your business appears in those results or not.

In 2026, local SEO is the most direct revenue-generating form of search optimization available to a small business. Here is why the data says that with confidence.

The Scale of Local Search in 2026

• 98 percent of consumers search online to find local businesses, according to research aggregated from Google and BrightLocal
• 80 percent of US consumers search for local businesses at least once every week
• 32 percent search for local businesses daily
• 46 percent of all Google searches carry local intent
• “Near me” search volume has grown 500 percent over the past few years, with approximately 800 million near-me searches happening in the US every month

What Happens After a Local Search

The conversion data for local search is unlike anything else in digital marketing.

• 76 percent of people who perform a local mobile search visit a business within 24 hours
• 88 percent of smartphone users who search locally call or visit a business within a week
• Local search conversion rates climbed to 33 percent in 2026, according to HubSpot’s Local Marketing Report
• Businesses appearing in the Google Local 3-Pack capture approximately 44 percent of all clicks on local search results pages

These are not soft engagement metrics. These are people who searched, found a business, and showed up or called. Local search is the highest-intent traffic channel available to a local business.

The New Local Search Landscape in 2026

Two significant changes have reshaped local SEO this year.

First, AI Overviews now appear for 68 percent of local searches, according to a Search Engine Land study. When someone asks Google about local businesses, they increasingly see an AI-generated summary before any traditional results. This changes the optimisation strategy: the goal is now to be cited inside the AI overview, not just to rank below it.

Second, AI tools for local business recommendations grew from 6 percent to 45 percent adoption in a single year, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini-powered features are now actively directing people to local businesses. The signals these AI systems use to make recommendations overlap significantly with traditional local SEO: reviews, structured data, verified business information, and genuine authority signals.

The businesses that get this right in 2026 are the ones that will compound local visibility across every channel simultaneously.

How Google Ranks Local Businesses

Google’s local ranking algorithm has three confirmed components. Understanding each one tells you exactly where to focus your effort.

Component 1: Relevance

Relevance is how well your business matches what the searcher is looking for.

Google determines relevance from your Google Business Profile category, the services you list, the keywords in your business description, and the content on your website. A plumber whose profile and website clearly describe emergency plumbing services in a specific area is more relevant for “emergency plumber near me” than a general contractor whose website mentions plumbing in passing.

The more precisely your online presence describes what you do, the more relevant Google considers you for the searches that match.

Component 2: Distance

Distance is how close your business is to the searcher or the location specified in the search.

Google factors in the searcher’s physical location at the time of the query. A bakery two blocks away ranks higher for a nearby searcher than an equally optimised bakery five miles away, all else being equal.

You cannot change your business location to game this. What you can control is ensuring Google has precise, confirmed location data for your business through your Google Business Profile and your website’s structured data.

Component 3: Prominence

Prominence is how well-known and trusted your business is, both online and offline.

Google measures prominence through: the number and quality of your reviews, the authority of websites linking to you, how completely and accurately your business information is maintained, how often people interact with your Google Business Profile, and how your business is represented across directories and citation sources.

Prominence is the component most directly influenced by ongoing local SEO work. Relevance and distance are relatively fixed for most businesses. Prominence is where sustained effort produces compounding results.

The Local Ranking Factor Weights in 2026

Research from multiple sources including Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors study confirms the approximate weighting of local ranking factors:

• Google Business Profile signals: 32 percent of local pack ranking weight
• On-page website signals: 19 percent
• Review signals: 16 percent
• Link signals: 15 percent
• Behavioural signals (clicks, calls, direction requests): 11 percent
• Citation signals: 7 percent

This breakdown tells you where to prioritise. Your Google Business Profile is the single most important asset in local SEO. Your website is second. Your reviews are third.

Step 1: Set Up and Optimise Your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the foundation of every local SEO strategy. A verified, fully optimised profile is the single highest-return action available to any local business.

Research from BrightLocal’s 2026 data shows that a verified Google Business Profile receives around 200 clicks or interactions per month on average. Customers are 2.7 times more likely to trust a business with a complete profile. GBP actions including calls, direction requests, website visits, and bookings increased 41 percent year-over-year between 2025 and 2026.

Creating and Verifying Your Profile

• Go to business.google.com and sign in with a Google account
• Search for your business name to confirm it does not already exist
• Add your business name exactly as it appears on your signage and website, no keyword additions or modifiers
• Select the most accurate primary business category
• Add your physical address if you serve customers at a location, or set a service area if you go to customers
• Verify your listing through Google’s verification process (postcard, phone, video, or instant verification depending on eligibility)

Verification is mandatory. An unverified profile cannot rank in the Local Pack.

Optimising Every Section of Your Profile

Business name: Use your real business name exactly. Adding city names or keywords to your business name violates Google’s guidelines and risks suspension.

Category: Your primary category is the most influential single field in your entire GBP. Choose the most specific and accurate primary category that describes your main business. Add secondary categories for additional services.

Description: Write a 750-character description that naturally includes your primary services and your location. According to Localo’s research, top-ranking profiles average around 70 words in their descriptions. Write for the customer, not for the algorithm, but include the terms real customers use when searching for you.

Services and products: List every specific service you offer. This directly improves your relevance for service-specific searches.

Hours: Keep your hours accurate and updated for holidays and special occasions. Outdated hours are one of the most common causes of lost local customers.

Photos: Upload high-quality photos of your premises, your team, your work, and your products. Profiles with photos receive 42 percent more direction requests and 35 percent more website clicks than those without.

Posts: Use GBP Posts to share updates, offers, events, and news. Active profiles that publish regular posts signal to Google that the business is engaged and current.

Questions and answers: Proactively add common customer questions and answers. Monitor and respond to questions submitted by customers promptly.

Responding to Reviews

Responding to every review, positive and negative, is a confirmed local ranking signal. Businesses that actively respond to reviews show Google that they are engaged with customers.

For positive reviews: thank the reviewer, mention something specific from their experience, and invite them back.

For negative reviews: acknowledge the concern, do not be defensive, offer to resolve the issue offline, and keep the response professional and brief.

Step 2: Optimise Your WordPress Site for Local Search

Your website is the second most important signal in local SEO. It supports your Google Business Profile, provides content depth, and ranks independently in local organic results below the Local Pack.

Create a Dedicated Contact Page with Your NAP

Your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) must appear on your website in consistent, text-based format. This is not just for humans: Google reads this information and cross-references it with your GBP and directory listings.

Your contact page should include:

• Your full business name exactly as it appears on your GBP
• Your full street address
• Your city, region or county, and postcode
• Your phone number in the format local customers expect
• Your business hours
• An embedded Google Map showing your location
• A contact form

Make the contact page easy to find from every other page on your site through your navigation.

Add Your NAP to Your Footer

Place your NAP in your website footer so it appears on every single page. This is a widespread best practice that confirms your location to both visitors and search engines regardless of which page they land on.

Optimise Your Homepage for Local Signals

Your homepage should make your business location clear within the first section a visitor sees. This means:

• Including your city or region in your homepage headline or subheading naturally
• Describing your service area explicitly in the introductory copy
• Mentioning locality in your meta title and meta description

A homepage that could belong to any business anywhere in the country gives Google no location signal from your website. A homepage that clearly positions you as a specific business serving a specific area strengthens your local relevance signals significantly.

How SureRank helps: SureRank’s on-page SEO panel lets you set a custom meta title and description for every page from inside the WordPress editor. For your homepage, include your city or service area in both the meta title and description naturally. The live SERP preview shows you exactly how it will appear in search results before you publish.

Set up your homepage meta data with SureRank.

Set Up Your Sitemap and Connect Search Console

Your XML sitemap tells Google which pages exist on your site. Submitting it to Google Search Console confirms your site’s presence and enables performance monitoring for your local keywords.

How SureRank handles it: SureRank generates your XML sitemap automatically on installation and keeps it updated whenever you add or update content. Navigate to yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml to confirm it is live. Submit the URL in Google Search Console under Indexing > Sitemaps.

Read the SureRank sitemap documentation.

Step 3: Add LocalBusiness Schema Markup

LocalBusiness schema is the single most impactful technical SEO action a local business website can take. It tells Google’s systems precisely what your business is, where it is, and how to contact it, in a structured format that requires no interpretation.

In 2026, this is not just a ranking factor for traditional local search. It is a trust and verification signal used by Google’s AI systems when generating local recommendations in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Maps responses.

Research consistently shows that sites with properly implemented schema see up to 40 percent more AI Overview appearances. For local search specifically, where AI-powered recommendations are rapidly becoming the dominant discovery channel, LocalBusiness schema is foundational.

What LocalBusiness Schema Includes

A complete LocalBusiness schema implementation tells search engines:

• Your business name
• Your business type (using the appropriate Schema.org type: Restaurant, Dentist, Plumber, LegalService, and hundreds of others)
• Your full postal address
• Your latitude and longitude coordinates
• Your phone number
• Your website URL
• Your opening hours for each day of the week
• Your price range
• Your geographic area served
• Your business logo and image
• Links to your social profiles using SameAs markup

The SameAs markup is particularly important for AI citation. It connects your website entity to your Google Business Profile, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile, and any other verified presence, confirming to AI systems that these are all the same trustworthy business.

Specific Schema Types for Common Business Categories

Schema.org has highly specific types for different business categories. Using the most precise type available produces stronger relevance signals than using the generic LocalBusiness type.

Common specific types include:

• Restaurant, Bakery, CafeOrCoffeeShop, BarOrPub for food and beverage
• Dentist, Physician, Hospital, MedicalClinic, Pharmacy for healthcare
• LegalService, Attorney, AccountingService for professional services
• Plumber, Electrician, HomeAndConstructionBusiness for trades
• Store, ClothingStore, ElectronicsStore, FurnitureStore for retail
• Hotel, LodgingBusiness for accommodation
• AutoRepair, CarDealer for automotive
• School, CollegeOrUniversity, EducationalOrganization for education
• GymOrHealthClub, BeautySalon, HairSalon for health and beauty

Using the correct specific type strengthens your relevance signal for category-specific searches.

How SureRank Handles LocalBusiness Schema

SureRank Pro’s Advanced Schema Builder includes LocalBusiness schema with a form-based interface that requires no JSON-LD knowledge. You fill in your business details through clearly labelled fields and SureRank generates and injects the correct structured data automatically.

The AI schema recommendation feature, available from SureRank 1.8.0, reads your page content and suggests the correct schema type. For a business page, it identifies the appropriate specific business type from Schema.org and recommends the schema configuration.

From SureRank 1.10.0, Smart Tags in Custom JSON-LD allow dynamic variables within your schema, which is useful for multi-location businesses that need to populate location-specific details from page content automatically.

Set up LocalBusiness schema with SureRank.

Explore SureRank’s Advanced Schema Builder.

Step 4: Build Local Citations and NAP Consistency

A citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number. Citations on local directories, industry sites, and data aggregators are a confirmed local ranking signal, accounting for approximately 7 percent of local pack ranking weight.

More importantly, citation consistency is the signal that matters. Inconsistent NAP information across different platforms confuses both customers and search engines, weakening your local authority signals.

Why NAP Consistency Matters

If your business name appears as “Mike’s Plumbing Ltd” on your website, “Mikes Plumbing” on Yelp, “Mike’s Plumbing Services” on a local directory, and “M. Plumbing Ltd” on a trade association site, Google cannot confidently confirm these are all the same business.

Inconsistency dilutes your citation signals. Consistency amplifies them.

The Core Citation Sources to Prioritise

Not all citation sources carry equal weight. Focus on the most authoritative first.

Data aggregators (highest priority): These feed business information to dozens of other directories automatically. Getting these right compounds your citation consistency rapidly.

• Google Business Profile (your primary citation anchor)
• Apple Maps Connect
• Bing Places for Business
• Foursquare / Factual

General directories:

• Yell, Thomson Local, FreeIndex (UK)
• Yelp, Yellow Pages, BBB (US)
• TrueLocal, Hotfrog (Australia)

Industry-specific directories: Any reputable directory specific to your industry carries additional relevance signals beyond general directories. A dentist listed on NHS Choices or a rated dental directory has a stronger citation profile than the same dentist only on general business directories.

Chamber of Commerce and local business associations: These carry strong local relevance signals and often generate genuine referral traffic alongside the citation value.

How to Audit Your Existing Citations

Before building new citations, audit what already exists. Search for your business name on Google and check the consistency of NAP information across results. Look for any old addresses, phone numbers, or business name variations that need updating.

Free tools like Moz Local and BrightLocal’s citation finder can automate this audit across hundreds of directories simultaneously.

The NAP Consistency Rules

Every citation across every platform should use:

• The exact same business name spelling and punctuation
• The exact same address format, including consistent abbreviation of Road, Street, Avenue
• The exact same phone number format
• The exact same website URL, including or excluding www consistently

Step 5: Earn and Manage Customer Reviews

Reviews are the third-largest local ranking factor and the primary trust signal for potential customers. In 2026, the data on reviews is unambiguous.

• 97 percent of consumers read reviews for local businesses, according to BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey
• 87 percent of consumers use Google specifically to find local businesses, and Google reviews account for 81 percent of all online review volume globally
• 68 percent of consumers only use businesses rated 4 stars or higher
• Businesses with 50 or more reviews are 266 percent more likely to rank in local search results
• Review signals account for approximately 16 percent of local pack ranking weight
• Review velocity, meaning how recently and how frequently you receive new reviews, is an increasingly weighted ranking signal

How to Earn More Reviews Without Violating Google’s Guidelines

Google prohibits offering incentives for reviews. You cannot pay for reviews, offer discounts in exchange for reviews, or set up review stations in your business for customers to leave reviews while on your premises. All of these can result in review removal or business suspension.

What you can do:

Ask directly after a positive experience. The most effective moment to ask for a review is immediately after delivering a great result. A satisfied customer who just had a positive interaction is far more likely to leave a review in that moment than they will be a week later.

Send a follow-up email or text. For service businesses, a post-appointment message thanking the customer and including a direct link to your Google review page is the most scalable way to generate consistent review volume.

Create a direct review link. Your Google Business Profile provides a short review link you can share easily. Include it in your email signature, on printed receipts or cards, and in post-service communications.

Make it a consistent ask. Teams that systematically ask every satisfied customer for a review consistently outperform those that ask occasionally when they remember to.

Responding to Every Review

Respond to every review, positive and negative. Google’s algorithm considers review responses as an engagement signal. Customers research how a business handles negative feedback before making a purchase decision, and a professional, empathetic response to a complaint often does more for your reputation than a collection of five-star reviews.

Response best practices:

• Respond within 24 to 48 hours of the review appearing
• Address the reviewer by name where possible
• For positive reviews: be specific, grateful, and personal. Not “Thank you for your review!” but “Thank you, Sarah. We are really pleased the installation went smoothly.”
• For negative reviews: acknowledge the concern, apologise for the experience, offer to resolve it, and take the conversation offline

Step 6: Build Local Backlinks

Backlinks from other websites are a confirmed ranking factor in both traditional organic search and local search results. Local backlinks, specifically links from other websites in your area or industry, carry additional relevance signals for local rankings.

Review signals account for 15 percent of local pack ranking weight but link signals account for 15 percent of local organic ranking weight. Building local backlinks improves both.

Local Backlink Sources That Work

Local news and media: If you do anything newsworthy, from sponsoring a local event to achieving a professional milestone, local newspaper and radio station websites are among the highest-authority local backlink sources available.

Local business associations and chambers: Most local chambers of commerce and business associations include a member directory. Getting listed provides both a citation and a backlink from a local, trusted source.

Supplier and partner sites: Businesses that supply you or that you work alongside often include a partners or clients section on their websites. A link from a supplier in your area carries both a local signal and an industry relevance signal.

Community and charity organisations: Sponsoring a local sports team, school event, or charity fundraiser often results in a logo and link on the organisation’s website. These links are genuine, editorially placed, and carry strong local signals.

Local business blogs and forums: Contributing genuine expertise to locally-focused publications, whether as a guest contributor or as a quoted expert, builds both backlinks and brand authority in your community.

Industry associations: Being listed as a member or accredited professional on a recognised industry association website carries authority that reinforces your prominence in Google’s local algorithm.

Step 7: Create Location-Specific Pages

If your business serves multiple areas or operates across multiple locations, creating dedicated pages for each is one of the highest-impact local SEO strategies available.

These are called location pages or service area pages. They rank independently for location-specific searches, capturing traffic that a single homepage cannot.

What Makes a Strong Location Page

A location page that ranks well is not a thin duplicate of your homepage with the city name swapped in. Google explicitly targets thin location pages as low-quality content. A strong location page:

• Has a unique, original description of the services you provide in that specific area
• References local landmarks, neighbourhoods, or community context that confirms genuine local relevance
• Includes a locally relevant image, ideally of your team working in that area
• Features reviews or testimonials specifically from customers in that location
• Provides contact information specific to that location (if applicable)
• Embeds a Google Map centred on that service area
• Is at least 400 to 600 words of original, useful content

URL Structure for Location Pages

Keep your URL structure clean and logical:

• Single location: yoursite.com/location/manchester/
• Multiple locations: yoursite.com/locations/manchester/ and yoursite.com/locations/birmingham/
• Service plus location: yoursite.com/services/plumbing/manchester/

LocalBusiness Schema on Location Pages

Each location page should have its own LocalBusiness schema with the specific address and contact details for that location. This is particularly important for businesses with multiple physical locations: each one needs its own verified GBP and its own location page with location-specific schema.

How SureRank handles it: SureRank Pro’s Advanced Schema Builder can be configured per page. Each location page can have a unique LocalBusiness schema with the specific address, phone number, and opening hours for that location. The on-page meta box allows custom meta titles and descriptions for each location page individually.

How to create location-specific SEO settings in SureRank.

Step 8: Optimise for Local AI Search and Voice Search

Two trends are changing the mechanics of local discovery faster than any other development in 2026.

Local AI Search

AI tools for local business recommendations grew from 6 percent to 45 percent consumer adoption in a single year. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini-powered features are actively recommending specific local businesses in response to conversational queries.

The signals these AI systems use to determine which businesses to recommend overlap significantly with traditional local SEO. According to the SOCi 2026 Local Visibility Index:

• Businesses recommended by ChatGPT have an average rating of 4.3 stars
• Businesses recommended by Perplexity average 4.1 stars
• Google’s Gemini recommendations average 3.9 stars

Review quality and quantity are the strongest AI recommendation signals. LocalBusiness schema and verified business information are the next most significant.

What this means for your local SEO strategy:

• Reviews are now even more important than they were for traditional local rankings, because AI systems explicitly use rating thresholds to filter recommendations
• LocalBusiness schema with SameAs links to your GBP, social profiles, and directory listings confirms your business entity to AI systems
• Accurate, current business information across all platforms reduces the risk of AI systems generating incorrect or outdated information about your business

Voice Search

76 percent of voice searches are near-me or local inquiries. 58 percent of consumers use voice search to find details about nearby businesses.

Voice search queries are conversational and question-based. Someone searching by voice is more likely to say “where is the nearest Italian restaurant open now” than to type “Italian restaurant near me.” Optimising for voice means writing content that answers natural-language questions directly.

Practical optimisation for voice:

• Create an FAQ section on your homepage and service pages with questions in natural conversational language
• Add FAQPage schema to your FAQ content so Google can extract it directly
• Include your opening hours on your GBP and website in a clear, readable format, because “is X open now” is one of the most common voice queries for local businesses
• Make your contact information easy to find and correctly formatted for reading aloud

How SureRank handles it: SureRank Pro’s Advanced Schema Builder includes FAQPage schema. The AI schema recommendation feature suggests FAQPage schema automatically when it identifies FAQ content on your pages. Adding FAQPage schema to your local pages makes them eligible for voice search extraction and AI Overview citation simultaneously.

Add FAQPage schema with SureRank.

How SureRank Handles Local SEO for WordPress

Every major local SEO action covered in this guide has a corresponding place where SureRank reduces the technical complexity or handles the task automatically.

LocalBusiness Schema Without Code

SureRank Pro’s Advanced Schema Builder provides a form-based interface for all 23 supported schema types including LocalBusiness and every specific business sub-type in the Schema.org vocabulary. You fill in clearly labelled fields. SureRank generates correct JSON-LD and injects it into the page head automatically.

The AI schema recommendation feature (v1.8.0) reads your page content and suggests the correct schema type. Smart Tags in Custom JSON-LD (v1.10.0) enable dynamic, templated schema for multi-location sites.

Automatic Organisation and Website Schema

From the moment you complete SureRank’s setup wizard, Organisation and WebSite schema are applied to your site automatically using the business details you provide during onboarding. This establishes your brand as a recognised entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph, which is foundational for both traditional local rankings and AI system citation.

The setup wizard collects your business name, logo, and website URL and immediately uses these to generate properly structured entity data. You never configure this manually.

Meta Title and Description for Every Page

Every location page, service page, and your homepage needs optimised meta titles and descriptions that naturally include location signals. SureRank’s meta box in the WordPress editor handles this with a live SERP preview, character count guidance, and variable support.

SureRank Pro adds AI meta generation: one click generates an optimised title and description for any page based on its content. For a location page about plumbing services in Manchester, the AI produces a locally relevant, keyword-conscious title and description without manual writing.

For businesses with multiple location pages, SureRank Pro’s bulk AI meta generation can produce optimised meta data for every location page simultaneously.

See how SureRank’s AI meta generation works.

XML Sitemap Including All Location Pages

SureRank generates your XML sitemap automatically and includes every location page you create. When you add a new location page for a new service area, it appears in the sitemap immediately. Submitting your sitemap to Google Search Console ensures every location page is discovered and indexed promptly.

For businesses that want to accelerate indexing of new location pages, SureRank Pro’s Instant Indexing pushes a notification to Google the moment each page is published.

See SureRank’s sitemap features.

Technical SEO Audit for Local Health

SureRank’s site-wide SEO audit checks all pages for missing meta descriptions, missing schema, incorrect canonical tags, noindex settings, and other technical issues. For a local business site, a clean technical audit confirms that every location page and service page is correctly configured to rank.

SureRank Pro’s AI audit fixes apply corrections in a single click, turning a list of issues into a list of resolved problems.

Run your SEO audit with SureRank.

Internal Linking Between Location and Service Pages

SureRank Pro’s Link Manager surfaces internal link opportunities across your entire site. For a multi-location business, this is particularly useful for ensuring that service pages link to relevant location pages, location pages link to each other through navigation, and your most important pages receive consistent internal link support.

Explore the SureRank Link Manager.

Download SureRank free and start building your local SEO foundation today.

SureRank Pro with LocalBusiness schema, AI meta generation, Instant Indexing, and the full technical SEO stack starts at $99 per year for up to 10 sites.

Local SEO Checklist for WordPress Businesses

Work through this checklist systematically. Each section represents a distinct layer of your local SEO foundation.

Google Business Profile

• Profile claimed and verified
• Business name exactly matches signage and website (no added keywords)
• Most specific and accurate primary category selected
• Minimum two secondary categories added where applicable
• Business description written (around 70 words, naturally includes services and location)
• All services listed with descriptions
• Business hours accurate and updated for holidays
• At least 10 high-quality photos uploaded (interior, exterior, team, products or work)
• Direct review link created and ready to share
• GBP Posts published at least twice per month

WordPress Website

• NAP on contact page in text format (not image)
• NAP in footer on every page
• Homepage meta title includes business type and city or region
• Homepage meta description includes location signal and clear value proposition
• Contact page includes embedded Google Map
• Site confirmed as indexed in Google Search Console
• XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console
• Mobile-friendly and fast-loading (LCP under 2.5 seconds)

Schema Markup

• Organisation schema on homepage with SameAs links to GBP, social profiles, and directories
• LocalBusiness schema with specific business type, full address, phone, hours, and price range
• BreadcrumbList schema active sitewide
• FAQPage schema on pages with FAQ content
• Location-specific schema on each location page for multi-location businesses

NAP and Citations

• NAP consistent across GBP, website, all major directories
• Listed on the four main data aggregators (Google, Apple, Bing, Foursquare)
• Listed on general directories relevant to your country and region
• Listed on industry-specific directories relevant to your business type
• All outdated or inconsistent citations corrected

Reviews

• Systematic review request process in place (post-service email or text with direct link)
• All reviews responded to within 48 hours
• Minimum 10 Google reviews with at least a 4.0 average rating
• Reviews monitored across all platforms (Google, Facebook, Yelp, industry-specific)

Local Backlinks

• Listed on local chamber of commerce or business association with a link
• Supplier and partner links in place where applicable
• At least one piece of locally relevant content published (event coverage, community involvement, local news hook)

Location Pages (for multi-area or multi-location businesses)

• Dedicated page for each service area or physical location
• Each location page has unique, original content of at least 400 words
• Each location page has a dedicated meta title and description with location signals
• Each location page has location-specific LocalBusiness schema
• Each location page embedded with a Google Map for that location

AI and Voice Search

• FAQ section on homepage and key service pages with conversational questions
• FAQPage schema applied to FAQ content
• Business hours clearly visible in text format on homepage and GBP
• Voice-friendly language in service descriptions (answering “who, what, where, when, why, how” questions naturally)

Frequently Asked Questions