The local businesses that win in search over time are the ones that publish consistently, not just occasionally.
Local SEO rewards consistency. A Google Business Profile that gets posted to once a week builds stronger signals than one that gets a burst of 10 posts in January and nothing until June. A blog that publishes two articles per month builds more compounding authority than one that publishes 20 articles in a sprint and then goes dark.
The businesses that consistently rank in the top 3 on Google Maps are not the ones that do the most local SEO in any given month. They are the ones that do enough, consistently, month after month.
This 12-month content calendar gives you the planning framework to make that consistency achievable for any local business.
Before building the calendar, understand the four content types that should recur every month:
GBP Posts (weekly): Update posts, offer posts, and event posts that keep your listing signal-fresh. Plan 4 posts per month minimum. These should take 10-15 minutes each.
Blog content (2 per month): Longer-form content that targets informational and commercial local keywords. These build organic authority over time and support your GBP with additional indexed pages linking back to your services.
Review campaigns (ongoing): Systematic review request outreach to every customer or client, with monthly check-ins on velocity and total count. Not "content" in the traditional sense, but a critical monthly local SEO activity.
Citation and directory maintenance (quarterly): Review and update your listings on major directories. This is not a monthly task, but it appears at quarterly intervals in the calendar.
Theme: New year, fresh start. Many consumers are making decisions and planning purchases for the year.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Review focus: Send a Happy New Year review request to any customer you served in Q4 who has not yet left a review.
Citation check: Audit your top 10 citation sources for accuracy (NAP consistency, correct hours, correct category).
Theme: Romance, appreciation, couple-focused content. Works directly for some businesses (restaurants, spas, florists) and can be adapted for others.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Spring is the highest-activity season for many local businesses. Home services, landscaping, HVAC, and dozens of other categories see demand spikes in March.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Citation check: Seasonal businesses that close in winter should ensure their hours are updated for spring reopening across all directories.
Theme: Sustainability, outdoor activities, peak spring season.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Pre-summer planning, home improvement, outdoor projects, summer preparation.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Citation audit: Review your Q2 citation consistency. Update any directories where your information may have changed.
Theme: Summer is here, local events, outdoor lifestyle, peak season for many businesses.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Fourth of July, high-summer demand, outdoor and family focus.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Back to school, late summer services, fall preparation begins.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Citation audit: Q3 citation review.
Theme: Fall is the second-biggest season for home services, healthcare, and many other local industries.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Halloween, harvest, Oktoberfest, fall outdoor activities, holiday prep.
GBP Posts:
Blog content:
Theme: Thanksgiving, holiday shopping, year-end, gift giving, gratitude, and new year planning.
November GBP Posts:
December GBP Posts:
Year-end blog content:
Citation audit: Full year-end citation cleanup before January.
The biggest barrier to executing a 12-month local SEO content calendar is consistency. Most local business owners run their business all day and find it genuinely difficult to also write GBP posts every week, manage review campaigns, and publish blog content twice a month.
🔥 Quick Win: Use Flento to automate your review campaigns — the most consistent, highest-ROI activity on this entire calendar. Automated review requests sent at the right moment to every customer consistently outperform manual follow-up by 4x.
For GBP posts, batch your writing. Spend 90 minutes once a month writing all four posts for the month, then schedule them. Most local businesses that commit to this batching approach find it much easier to maintain consistency than writing one post each week.
The businesses that rank #1 on Google Maps two years from now are the ones that posted every week this year, collected reviews every month, and published blog content consistently. They did not go viral. They did not find a secret hack. They showed up, consistently, in the exact ways that Google rewards.
This calendar is your roadmap. Start wherever you are, execute it month by month, and watch the compounding effect build your local search authority over time.
