Run a complete local SEO audit with this step-by-step checklist — covering your Google Business Profile, NAP consistency across directories, review velocity, on-page signals, and rank tracking setup. Takes about 90 minutes and shows you exactly where you're losing rankings.
A local SEO audit for a plumbing company in Phoenix once uncovered 23 separate citation listings with 7 different phone numbers. Not 7 incorrect phone numbers — 7 different phone numbers that had all been correct at some point in the previous 8 years, as the business changed lines, added locations, and updated its main contact. Google had no idea which number to trust.
Within 90 days of standardizing NAP across those 23 listings, the business moved from position 14 to position 4 for "plumber Phoenix." The work wasn't complicated. It just required knowing where to look.
That's what a local SEO audit does: it finds the specific inconsistencies, gaps, and missed opportunities that are suppressing your rankings. This guide gives you the complete audit framework — what to check, in what order, and what to do with what you find.
Audit Foundation
The 7 Audit Areas
Tools and Next Steps
A local SEO audit is a systematic review of every factor that influences how your business appears in geographically-relevant search results — primarily the Google Local Pack (the map and 3 business listings above organic search results) and local organic search rankings.
A local SEO audit is not the same as a general SEO audit. Standard SEO audits focus on technical website factors: page speed, crawlability, backlinks, meta tags. Those matter for local businesses too, but they're secondary to the factors Google weighs most heavily for local rankings: profile completeness, citation consistency, review signals, and geographic relevance.
The three core local ranking factors Google weights are:
Relevance: Does your business listing match what the searcher is looking for? This is primarily determined by your GBP category selection, Services section, and business description.
Distance: How close is your business to the searcher? This is a proximity factor you can't fully control — but your service area configuration, location-specific content, and citation network affect how Google interprets your geographic coverage.
Prominence: How well-known and trusted is your business? Reviews, links, mentions across the web, and GBP engagement signals all feed into prominence.
A complete local SEO audit examines all three factors across your GBP profile, citation network, review profile, and website.
🛠️ Action Step: Before starting your audit, open Google and search your primary service keyword from your business zip code in incognito mode. Note your position in the Local Pack and the first organic result where you appear. That's your current baseline — every audit finding maps back to improving that position.
Here's the framework for a complete local SEO audit. Work through these in order — GBP and citations have the highest impact and should be audited and fixed before moving to website SEO.
Area 1 — Google Business Profile Area 2 — Citations and NAP Consistency Area 3 — Review Profile Area 4 — Website Local SEO Area 5 — Local Keywords Area 6 — Competitors Area 7 — Rank Tracking Setup
Each area has specific checkpoints, identified issues, and fixes. Let's go through them.
Your GBP is the highest-leverage element in local SEO. Most ranking gains for local businesses come from optimizing this profile — and most businesses have significant gaps here.
Verification status: Is your profile verified? An unverified profile has significantly limited visibility. Check your dashboard for a verification status indicator.
Business name: Does your profile name exactly match your real-world business name (signage, business cards, official documents)? Any deviation — added keywords, city names, extra descriptors — violates Google's guidelines and creates suspension risk.
Primary category: Does your primary category accurately reflect your main business type? The primary category is the single most important GBP ranking factor for service-specific searches. If you're a plumber, "Plumber" should be your primary category — not "Home Services" or "Contractor."
Secondary categories: Are all relevant service categories added as secondary categories? A business offering both plumbing and HVAC should list both categories. Secondary categories expand your profile's eligibility for additional search queries.
Services section: Are all services listed individually with descriptions? Google uses your listed services to match your profile to service-specific searches. A plumber who doesn't list "water heater installation" as a service is missing that keyword match.
Business description: Does your description include your primary service type and city naturally? Is it within Google's 750-character limit? Does it avoid prohibited content (URLs, promotional language, excessive keywords)?
Hours: Are your hours current and accurate? Do they match the hours posted on your website and physical location? Unreliable hours are one of the most common soft suspension triggers in 2026.
Photos: Do you have 10+ photos? Are photos recent (within 6 months)? Is your cover photo your strongest brand or work image? Do photos include exterior, interior, team, and work samples?
Q&A section: Have you seeded your Q&A section with common customer questions and answers? Unanswered customer questions lower profile engagement signals.
Posts: Have you published a GBP post within the last 7 days? Post frequency is a GBP engagement signal that correlates with Local Pack positioning.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Setting up a GBP profile once and leaving it static. Google's algorithm favors active profiles — businesses that post, add photos, respond to reviews, and update their information regularly outrank identical businesses that haven't touched their profile in months.
🛠️ Action Step: Open your GBP dashboard and run through each element above. For each gap, add it to a fix list with a deadline. A GBP audit should produce a specific action list, not just an observation list.
Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number across the web — directories, review sites, maps applications, and business databases. Inconsistent citations are one of the most common and most damaging local SEO problems.
What NAP consistency means: Your business name, address, and phone number must be identical across every citation — including punctuation, abbreviations, and suite numbers. "123 Main St, Suite 4" and "123 Main Street #4" are different addresses to Google's citation validation system.
Priority citations to audit:
How to audit citations:
Search your business name in Google. Every listing result that appears is a citation — note whether the name, address, and phone match your GBP profile exactly. Then search your phone number and your address. Every inconsistent listing you find is a citation that needs to be corrected.
📊 Flento Data: The average local business has 14 active citations with at least one NAP inconsistency across them. Businesses in Flento's platform that completed a full citation cleanup saw an average Local Pack ranking improvement of 4.2 positions within 60 days.
Common citation inconsistencies:
🔥 Quick Win: Search your business phone number in Google. Every result that shows a different business name or address is a citation conflict you need to fix today. Phone number searches are the fastest way to find the most damaging NAP inconsistencies.
Your review profile affects both your Local Pack ranking (review count and rating are prominence signals) and your click-through rate (potential customers read reviews before deciding to visit your profile or call).
Review count: How many Google reviews do you have? Compare this to your top 3 Local Pack competitors. If you have significantly fewer reviews, that's a gap affecting your ranking.
Review recency: When was your most recent review? Google weights recent reviews more heavily than old reviews. A business with 200 reviews last updated in 2022 loses prominence signal to a business with 40 reviews from the last 6 months.
Review velocity: How many new reviews are you receiving per month? A consistent velocity of 2-5 new reviews per month signals an active, operating business. An irregular pattern (50 reviews in one month, then nothing for a year) can trigger quality flags.
Response rate: Are you responding to reviews? Google's ranking algorithm considers review responses as an engagement signal. A business that never responds to reviews is leaving a prominence signal on the table.
Star rating: What's your average rating? Ratings below 4.0 suppress click-through even if your Local Pack ranking is strong. Ratings below 3.5 create significant booking hesitation.
Negative review handling: Are negative reviews responded to professionally and constructively? Your response to a 1-star review tells prospective customers more about your business culture than the review itself.
💡 Pro Tip: Calculate your review velocity for the last 90 days: total reviews received divided by 3 months. If your velocity is under 1 review per month, your review acquisition process needs work before any other local SEO optimization will have full impact.
🛠️ Action Step: Open Google Maps and find your 3 top Local Pack competitors. Compare their review count, average rating, and most recent review date against yours. Any gap in those numbers is a review profile gap that's costing you ranking position.
Your website reinforces your GBP profile and captures local searches that don't trigger a Local Pack — including long-tail service keywords and geo-modified organic searches.
Title tags: Do your homepage and service pages include your primary service type + city in the title tag? Format: "Service Type [City, ST] | Business Name"
Meta descriptions: Do meta descriptions include geographic context and a call to action? Meta descriptions don't directly affect ranking, but they affect click-through rate — which affects ranking indirectly.
NAP on website: Is your business name, address, and phone number visible on your website — preferably in the footer on every page? Does it exactly match your GBP? Google uses your website NAP as a citation confirmation signal.
LocalBusiness schema markup: Does your website have structured data marking it as a LocalBusiness? Schema markup tells Google your business category, service area, hours, and contact information in machine-readable format. Verify at Google's Rich Results Test.
Service pages: Do you have dedicated pages for each major service? A single "Services" page is less effective than individual pages for each service — "HVAC Repair Denver," "Furnace Installation Denver," "AC Installation Denver" each target a specific keyword with full page authority.
Location pages: If you serve multiple cities or neighborhoods, do you have dedicated landing pages for each service area? Generic "We serve the greater Denver area" text on your homepage doesn't produce geographic keyword rankings the way dedicated location pages do.
Page speed: Does your website load in under 3 seconds on mobile? Use Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to check. Mobile page speed is a ranking factor — and the majority of local searches happen on mobile devices.
Mobile usability: Is your site fully usable on a smartphone? Phone number should be click-to-call. Booking or contact forms should be thumb-friendly.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Having a great GBP profile but a website that doesn't mention your city anywhere on the homepage. Google uses your website as a citation signal to confirm your location. A website that doesn't include location information weakens your local relevance signal.
A keyword audit identifies which searches you're currently ranking for, which you should be ranking for, and where the gaps are.
Current keyword positions: Pull your Google Search Console data. What queries are triggering your website in search results? What positions are you at? Focus on keywords at positions 4-20 — these are your closest opportunities.
GBP search queries: Check your GBP Insights search data. What searches are finding your profile? Are these the high-intent keywords you want to rank for?
Missing keywords: Are you appearing for all your primary service + city combinations? Are you appearing for neighborhood and zip code level variations? Are you appearing for your top 3 specialty services?
Keyword-to-page mapping: For each priority keyword, is there a dedicated page (GBP service listing or website page) targeting that keyword? Any keyword without a dedicated home is ranking on luck rather than optimization.
🛠️ Action Step: Pull your GSC performance data for the last 90 days. Filter for queries that have 5+ impressions and 0 clicks. Those are keywords where you're showing up but not compelling anyone to click — a title tag or meta description change on the target page will often produce immediate click-through improvements.
Understanding what your top competitors are doing correctly helps you prioritize where to invest your audit follow-up work.
Identify your top 3 competitors: Search your primary service keyword from your business zip code in incognito mode. Note which 3 businesses appear consistently in the Local Pack.
Compare these specific elements:
| Element | Your Business | Competitor 1 | Competitor 2 | Competitor 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Review count | ||||
| Average rating | ||||
| Most recent review | ||||
| Photo count | ||||
| Secondary categories | ||||
| Services listed | ||||
| Last GBP post |
Any element where competitors have a significant advantage over you is a gap that's costing you ranking position. A competitor with 200 reviews to your 20 has a prominent advantage that requires a sustained review acquisition campaign to close.
💡 Pro Tip: Check your competitors' GBP profiles for services they've listed that you haven't. Every service they list that you don't represents a keyword match they have and you don't. Add missing services to your GBP immediately.
You can't manage what you don't measure. A rank tracking audit ensures you have visibility into your actual local search positions.
What you need to track:
What you probably don't need: Daily rank checks (daily fluctuations of 1-3 positions are normal and don't indicate meaningful changes), rank checks from your own business address (proximity bias makes this number meaningless), and tracking more than 20-30 keywords (creates data overload without improving your decisions).
Tool requirements: Free tools (GBP Insights, Google Search Console) don't provide geo-specific Local Pack tracking. For accurate local rank data, you need a tool that checks positions from specific zip codes or GPS coordinates — not from your business address.
📊 Flento Data: Businesses that track local rankings weekly identify ranking drops within 7 days 74% of the time. Businesses checking monthly identify the same drops within 7 days only 12% of the time. Early detection means faster recovery.
Flento's Local SEO Audit: Checks GBP profile completeness, citation consistency across 50+ directories, review profile metrics, and local keyword rankings from your service area zip codes — all in one dashboard. Built specifically for local businesses, not agencies with complex multi-client setups.
Google Business Profile dashboard (free): Check your GBP completeness, view your Insights data (searches, views, calls), and audit your category, services, and photo library directly.
Google Search Console (free): Find which keywords are triggering your website pages, check for indexing issues, and identify high-impression/low-click keyword opportunities.
BrightLocal: Comprehensive citation auditing, rank tracking, and review management. Agency-oriented platform with strong citation finder and competitive analysis tools.
Semrush Local: Citation management and local rank tracking with competitive gap analysis. Integrates with Semrush's broader keyword research and site audit tools.
Google's Rich Results Test (free): Check whether your website has valid LocalBusiness schema markup implemented correctly.
Flento's Business Listing Management Software automates the most time-consuming parts of a local SEO audit follow-up: fixing citation inconsistencies across 50+ directories, syncing NAP data from a single dashboard, and monitoring for new inconsistencies as directories update their data.
For the GBP optimization side, Flento's Google Review Management Software ensures every review gets a response within hours — and tracks review velocity so you can see whether your review acquisition efforts are working.
The Local Keyword Rank Tracker checks your Google Maps position from your actual service area zip codes — so your rank reports reflect what customers see, not what you see from your business address.
Google Business Profile
Citations and NAP 11. Confirm your GBP name, address, and phone is your exact NAP standard 12. Audit top 10 citation sources for NAP match 13. Fix any inconsistencies in name format, phone, address abbreviations 14. Remove or merge any duplicate listings
Reviews 15. Calculate your review velocity (reviews per month for last 90 days) 16. Compare review count and rating to top 3 competitors 17. Respond to every unresponded review within 24 hours 18. Set up a review request process for new customers
Website 19. Verify homepage title tag includes service type + city 20. Add LocalBusiness schema markup and verify at Rich Results Test 21. Confirm NAP in website footer matches GBP exactly 22. Check that top 5 services have dedicated website pages
Rankings 23. Pull GSC data for your top 20 keywords — note positions 24. Set up weekly Local Pack tracking from your service zip codes 25. Identify your top 5 "close to winning" keywords (positions 4-15)
✅ Done? See how Flento automates citation cleanup and rank tracking after your audit → Start free →
What is a local SEO audit? A local SEO audit is a systematic review of the factors that determine how your business ranks in geographically-relevant search results — primarily the Google Local Pack and local organic search. A local SEO audit examines your Google Business Profile, citation consistency (NAP accuracy across directories), review profile, website local SEO signals, keyword targeting, and competitor positioning. The output is a prioritized list of specific fixes that will improve your local rankings.
How long does a local SEO audit take? A basic local SEO audit covering GBP, top citations, reviews, and website title tags takes 2-4 hours manually. A comprehensive audit including geo-grid rank tracking, full citation network analysis, and competitor comparison takes 6-10 hours. Automated tools like Flento or BrightLocal can reduce the data collection portion to 30-60 minutes by pulling citation data and rank positions automatically — leaving your time for the analysis and fix implementation.
How often should I run a local SEO audit? Run a full local SEO audit quarterly. This cadence catches seasonal ranking shifts, algorithm update impacts, and citation changes that occur when data aggregators update their records. Run a lighter monthly check on your GBP profile, review velocity, and top keyword positions. Run a weekly check on your Local Pack positions for your top 5 keywords.
What's the most important part of a local SEO audit? NAP consistency and GBP optimization have the highest ranking impact relative to effort. Citation inconsistencies suppress rankings in ways that other optimizations can't fully compensate for — if Google doesn't know exactly where and who your business is, no amount of review acquisition or content creation will fully resolve the ranking suppression. Start your audit with GBP and citations before any other element.
Can I do a local SEO audit myself without hiring an agency? Yes. The audit framework in this guide covers every core element of a local SEO audit. Free tools (GBP Insights, Google Search Console, Google Maps manual checks) give you access to the data you need. The most time-consuming part is citation auditing — manually checking dozens of directory listings. An automated citation audit tool (Flento, BrightLocal, or Semrush Local) reduces that time significantly and catches inconsistencies that manual searching misses.
What should I fix first after a local SEO audit? Fix in this order: (1) GBP verification and profile completeness — these have the fastest impact, (2) NAP inconsistencies in your top 10 citation sources — citation cleanup compounds over time, (3) Review acquisition process — review velocity improvements take weeks to build, so start immediately, (4) Website schema markup and title tags — technical fixes that signal local relevance to Google, (5) Content and location pages — longer-term organic ranking investments.
