Local SEO Audit - Get In Touch With The People In Your Area

This is huge for brick-and-mortar stores that want to get more foot traffic, there's more to search engine results than just blocks of catchy text. Local search results have important information that tells people where you are and how to get in touch with you or visit you.

A local SEO audit shows you how well your page is doing in search engine rankings and how you can improve it to get more conversions and sales. If you've never done a local SEO audit before, it might seem hard, but it can be done in seven easy steps, and there are several tools that can make yours quick and easy.

Understanding Local SEO

In local SEO, your local ranking is based on three main factors, which are:

COPYRIGHT_MARX: Published on https://marxcommunications.com/local-seo-audit/ by Keith Peterson on 2022-09-02T22:47:38.035Z

Proximity

This is how close to the searcher your business is. Search engines will show you businesses that are close by. Technically, Google uses the IP address of the device to find local businesses that are relevant to the user and show them.

Relevance

One of the most important things for local SEO rankings is how relevant something is. Google tries to give the searcher the most useful information, so it's important to know what your customers are looking for and how you want your business to rank.

Prominence

How well known a website is on the internet is its prominence. People will know about your business more if they write reviews and share your name, address, phone number, and web address (NAP) all over the web.

The more you do this, the more Google will believe that your website is a real business that can be trusted. As a result, Google will rank your website higher.

What Is Local SEO Audit?

Local SEO solutions, which help more people in your area find your business and get in touch with you, don't happen by magic. To get interested customers to come to your storefront, you have to check things out and keep working.

As part of an audit, you can use a checklist to look over your site from top to bottom. If your business depends on being listed on Google Maps or you want people to find your place by typing "near me" or the name of a city, you need to be the best at local SEO.

An audit of your local SEO practices finds your site's strengths and weaknesses so you can bring real people to your storefront, boutique, office, or retail outlet. With the help of tools and resources, you can look at how your on-page and off-page SEO works with keywords that are specific to your region.

A local SEO audit looks at how your website ranks in search engine results and how that ranking can be changed to bring in more money and customers. The audit tells you what's good and what's bad about your website so you can make changes that will help you get more visitors.

Why Local SEO Audit Is Important?

Local SEO focuses on making a website relevant and authoritative in a certain, well-defined area. To do this, you must first show Google that you are the best answer or solution to a local consumer's search. Only then will you rank high enough to have a chance.

One way to help you do this is to do local SEO audits every so often. With a good local SEO audit, you won't waste time on things that won't help and can instead focus on things that will. You can find out how well your website is doing right now, where problems are starting to show up, and what the best things are to work on.

If you notice that people aren't visiting your website as much or that you've dropped in the search engine rankings, the audit can help you figure out why and point you in the right direction.

A local SEO audit helps you find the holes that keep your website pages from showing up in search results for people who might be interested in your business. Local SEO audits also try to get rid of anything that makes it hard for prospects to become clients.

What Are The Benefits Of A Local SEO Audit?

Domains that are doing well take time, money, and work to keep going. Being able to evaluate all parts of your website will pay off in a big way because you'll be able to find and fix problems as they come up.

Your site will stay at the top of the game if you keep an eye on your strengths and weaknesses, figure out what your competitors' strengths and weaknesses are, and use this information to improve conversion rates.

With time and work, you can learn everything there is to know about your niche and respond to any new situation. This will get you more customers and a better search engine ranking.

Also, the local SEO audit checklist will help you plan out the next steps for your business and give you a lot of information about the best ways to do things.

How To Perform Your Quality Local SEO Audit?

Every business is unique. Still, there are some things that all websites have in common that can be looked at during an SEO audit. Here are eight of them to start you off.

Examine Your Google Business Profile

Your search engine rankings depend on how well your Google Business profile is set up. First, make sure that your profile account has been claimed and verified. Next, check to see if it is correct and complete, as these are important for getting your business to show up in search results and on Google Maps.

If your profile listing is complete and accurate, you are more likely to show up as a reliable and trustworthy local resource, which is something Google looks for. Check your profile to see if the following details are complete and correct:

• Business Name
• Business address and phone number
• Business hours of operation
• Primary business category
• List of products or services
• Images
• Overall informational content

Make sure that everything you put in is true to your business and what you offer. Also, look for reviews that have been left without a reply and answer them.

Explore Google Penalties

Google's penalties can sneak up on you and hurt your SEO results in a big way. One sign of this could be a fall in the local search engine rankings. The most common reasons for a penalty are:

• Unnatural linking structures from or to your website
• Mysterious mobile redirects
• Overly thin website content
• User-generated spam

Checking your Google Search Console for notifications is one way to find out about any penalties. These notices will tell you more about why you got the penalty and help you figure out what to do to fix the problem.

You can also go to the Console and look for a Manual Actions Report to find out about any penalties. If you find one, you should fix it and then ask the search engine to look at it again.

Check Your Keyword Targeting

When it comes to the content on your site, keywords are the most important thing you can do. Local SEO, on the other hand, is a specialized field, and you'll need to make sure you're using the right keywords for your area.

In particular, you should start by looking at which of your overall keywords are ranking. You can do this by using one of the online tools that are available now, like Moz.

Next, look for keywords that are based on location and let people know you are close by. This could be something as simple as "dentist near me." If you find that you're not using enough or any local keywords, try adding more, like "dentist in Boston" or "Memphis real estate lawyer."

Search For Duplicate Pages

Duplicate content on your website can have a direct and bad effect on how it ranks in local searches.

Google is very clear about how wrong it thinks it is to use duplicate content. The search engine gives more weight to original content that gives searchers something useful. So, if you want to rank higher and reach local audiences, you must check your site for duplicate content.

Go through each page of your website and make sure that each one has its own content. Check Google Business to make sure you don't have more than one listing for your business.

Test Your Landing Pages And Make Sure They’re Crawlable

Pay close attention to the landing pages on your site. Check that the NAP (Name-Address-Phone) information on each page is correct and matches what is on your Google Business profile. By doing this, you make sure that it can be crawled for good results.

Include high-quality, unique content on your landing pages. If you aren't sure if that content is unique, you can test it by copying a section and using it to search Google. Look at the results and see what comes up.

Does your website do well in the rankings for this group of words, or do other sites jump ahead of you? Make sure that most of the content on the landing page is unique, and include your city and state somewhere on the page.

Also, make sure that your landing page is still being indexed. If you haven't been there in a while, copy the page's URL and search for it on Google. If it doesn't show up, you'll need to figure out why, which could be because of Google penalties or a problem with the way the site is built.

Check Your Backlinks

Backlinks to your site are an important part of your SEO strategy and can help you become an authority. But you want these backlinks to come from sources that people trust and that are relevant to your site. Sites with less trust or that aren't relevant to your business can hurt your SEO.

Some might be spam, and others might be a trick that some websites use. In either case, search engines will notice and may think less of your site because of it. Then, at least once or twice a year, you should make it a priority to check for toxic backlinks. There are backlink tools that you can use, and many of them are free.

Go to your Google Search Console and find the link monitoring service there. Check out each one you find, and also look at the anchor text that goes with it. Does it help the reader or does it seem random or out of place?

Pay Attention To Engagement Metrics

It's one thing to have a lot of people visit your website, but it's a whole different thing to have a lot of people interact with your content. Search engine algorithms are much more interested in how people interact with your website and social media accounts.

The higher it is, the better search engines will think your local business is. During your local SEO audit, pay attention to the different engagement metrics you can use to figure out what is and isn't going on.

There are paid online tools that can help with this, but Google Analytics is the best place to start. Beneficial metrics include:

• Bounce rate
• Conversion rates
• Click-through-rate (CTR)
• Dwell time

Most social media platforms have their own analysis tools that you can use to keep an eye on this important SEO factor.

Review Ratings And Feedback

Ratings and comments from visitors and customers can have a big impact on your SEO results, so it makes sense to look at them during your local audit. Both of these can help people trust your site and bring more people to it.

Find online review sites where your business is listed, like Yelp, so you can check your ratings. Look at each one to find out where you stand in terms of stars. How many stars does your business usually get? Next, look at the comments, which are also called reviews, and decide on the following:

• Is the feedback more positive or negative?
• Is there a pattern in the reviews that can point you to a change that needs to be made?
• Are there any common elements, such as recurring reviews, that point to a negative feature? (e.g., messy shelves, poor packaging, or slow check-outs)
• Do you respond to comments and reviews?

If you don't already respond to feedback, you should start right away. By doing this, you give the impression that you are responsive and interested in what reviewers have to say.

Search engines like Google will be able to tell, and this can help you rank higher. You may also need to start asking customers to leave reviews on different sites. There are many ways to do this, like giving those who do it something extra.

People Also Ask

Who Needs Local SEO?

Local SEO can help any business that has a place of business or serves a certain area. Local SEO can help your business grow if, when you search Google for important keywords related to your business, a map with three listings appears below it. This is called a "map pack."

What Are Location Pages?

A location page, also called a city landing page or service area page, is a web page that gives customers and search engines the most important information about your business location.

What Is The Difference Between Local SEO And SEO?

Traditional SEO focuses on making your site more visible on a national or global level. Local SEO, on the other hand, lets you capture local search territory and connect with people who are looking for things in your area. SEO and local SEO share a lot of the same techniques.

Conclusion

So make sure you pay attention to them! By giving your business a good local SEO audit, you can make sure that your ranking goes up a lot for people who are looking for you. If you take action on all of the above points and make them as good as you can, you will see results.

Today, local businesses need to do things in a certain way to reach their customers and move up in the local search engine rankings. At least once or twice a year, you should do a good local SEO audit.

This will help you figure out what is working and what needs to be changed or fixed. Make it a habit and make a list of things to do, and watch as you move up in the search results.

About The Authors

Keith Peterson - I'm an expert IT marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in various Digital Marketing channels such as SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), SMO (social media optimization), ORM (online reputation management), PPC (Google Adwords, Bing Adwords), Lead Generation, Adwords campaign management, Blogging (Corporate and Personal), and so on. Web development and design are unquestionably another of my passions. In fast-paced, high-pressure environments, I excel as an SEO Executive, SEO Analyst, SR SEO Analyst, team leader, and digital marketing strategist, efficiently managing multiple projects, prioritizing and meeting tight deadlines, analyzing and solving problems.