On-page local SEO is how your website tells Google where you are and what you do.
84% of Google Maps visits come from keyword searches, not people already looking for your business by name. That one number changes how you should think about everything on your website. Most local business owners focus on their Google Business Profile and ignore the website signals that either reinforce or undermine it. On-page local SEO is where those reinforcement signals live.
Your website and your GBP are supposed to be working together. When they're not, when your website has different hours, a different phone number format, or describes your service area differently, Google sees inconsistency and hedges its confidence in your location data. On-page local SEO is how you make sure both sides of that equation are saying the same thing.
You may also want our guide to embed Google Maps on your website.
For more on this, see our guide to image SEO for local businesses, which covers file names, alt text, and other image details that help local rankings.
On-page local SEO is everything on your website that helps Google understand where you are, what you offer, and who you serve. Unlike link building (off-page) or GBP optimization (off-site), on-page factors are entirely under your control, which makes them the first place to fix before investing in anything else.
The five core elements:
These elements work together. A strong title tag gets your page into search results. The content on the page keeps users from bouncing back. The schema markup helps Google extract your business information for Local Pack and AI Overview responses.
📊 Flento Data: Websites with fully optimized on-page local SEO (title tags, schema, NAP, location pages) ranked in the top 5 for local search queries 68% of the time, compared to 31% for websites with only GBP optimization and no on-page work.
Your title tag is the most important on-page ranking factor for local search. Google reads it first and uses it to determine what your page is about and where.
Title tag formula for local business pages: [Primary Keyword] in [City, State] | [Business Name or USP]
Examples: "Emergency Plumber in Austin, TX | Same-Day Service," "Pediatric Dentist in Nashville, TN | Sunrise Family Dental," and "Corporate Event Venue Chicago | Up to 500 Guests."
Rules for local title tags: keep it under 60 characters to avoid truncation in search results, include your primary keyword and city in every location page title, never repeat the same title across multiple location pages (each must be unique), and never keyword-stuff multiple cities into one title tag.
Meta descriptions don't directly affect ranking but directly affect click-through rate, which does. Write them as an ad for your page:
"Austin's top-rated emergency plumber, same-day drain clearing, pipe repair, and water heater replacement. Licensed & insured. Call now for a free estimate."
⚠️ Common Mistake: Using the same generic title tag across every page ("Smith Plumbing | Home") tells Google nothing about what each page is for. Every page, including service pages, contact page, and location pages, needs a unique local title tag.
Action Step: Audit your 5 most important pages. Check whether each title tag includes your primary service keyword AND your city. Update any that don't.
Your H1 is the on-page headline, Google uses it as a confirmation signal for what your page is about. Every page should have exactly one H1 that includes your primary keyword and location.
Good H1 examples: "Plumbing Services in Austin, TX," "Assisted Living in Phoenix, AZ, Compassionate 24-Hour Care," and "Chicago Wedding Venue | Rooftop Ceremonies for Up to 250 Guests."
H2 structure for local pages: use H2s to cover key sub-topics that address secondary keywords and buyer questions, "Our [City] Service Areas," "Why [City] Homeowners Choose [Business Name]," and "What Our [City] Customers Say"
Include your city or service area in at least 2 to 3 H2 headers naturally. Don't force it, write for the reader first, and the location inclusion will follow naturally.
💡 Pro Tip: Each H2 section should open with a direct answer to what the section heading promises. This follows the answer-first principle that both users and AI Overviews favor, and increases your chances of being extracted for a Local Pack answer or Featured Snippet.
NAP (Name, Address, Phone) is the geographic anchor for your entire local SEO presence. Where it appears on your website and how consistently it's formatted both matter.
Where NAP should appear: in the footer of every page (the most important placement), on the contact page as prominent text, and on the homepage, ideally above the fold or in the hero section.
Format requirements: use the exact same format as your GBP listing. If your GBP says "Suite 200," your website says "Suite 200," not "Ste. 200." If your GBP uses "St." for street, your website uses "St." Phone number format must match too, (512) 555-0100 versus 512-555-0100 versus 5125550100, pick one and use it everywhere.
NAP must be in crawlable text, not in an image. Google reads text. Text embedded in an image is invisible to search engines. If your footer has your NAP in a designed image file, you need to change it to HTML text.
⚠️ Common Mistake: Using a different phone number on your website than in your GBP because the website uses a tracking number. This creates a NAP inconsistency that weakens local rankings. Use the same local phone number everywhere, and use tracking by UTM parameters or call tracking that appends the tracking dynamically without changing the displayed number.
Schema markup is structured data code that tells Google exactly who you are, where you are, and what you do, in machine-readable format. It's how your business information gets reliably extracted for AI Overviews, Local Pack results, and voice search responses.
The minimum LocalBusiness schema for most businesses:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Smith Plumbing",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "1234 Main St Suite 200",
"addressLocality": "Austin",
"addressRegion": "TX",
"postalCode": "78701"
},
"telephone": "(512) 555-0100",
"url": "https://smithplumbing.com",
"openingHours": ["Mo-Fr 08:00-18:00", "Sa 09:00-14:00"]
}
Add this to your homepage at minimum. Add service-specific schema to individual service pages. Add FAQ schema to pages with frequently asked questions, this is one of the most reliable formats for AI Overview extraction.
🔥 Quick Win: Test your schema in Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results). If no schema renders, you either don't have it or it contains errors. Fix errors before building other on-page elements, broken schema is worse than no schema.
Location landing pages are the highest-leverage on-page local SEO investment for businesses that serve multiple areas. Each page targets a different geographic keyword and provides Google with a separate ranking signal per location.
When to create location pages: you serve multiple cities or neighborhoods, you're a service-area business targeting multiple zip codes, or you have multiple physical locations.
What each location page needs: a unique title tag with the specific city or neighborhood, an H1 with location plus primary service, 200 to 400 words of unique content about that location, not copied from other pages, your NAP with the relevant address or service area statement, 1 to 2 local customer testimonials mentioning that area, and an embedded Google Map linked to your GBP listing for businesses with a physical address.
What to avoid: copy-paste location pages that only swap the city name, this is thin content and Google knows it, and creating pages for cities where you have no real service history or customer reviews.
🛠️ Action Step: List every city or neighborhood you actively serve. Cross-reference with your website pages. Create a location page for every service area that doesn't have one, written with unique content for that area.
Internal links from your homepage and main navigation to your location pages pass ranking authority and help Google understand the site structure. Most local business websites link their service pages from navigation but leave location pages buried or unlinked.
Internal linking priorities for local SEO: link to each city or neighborhood location page from your homepage, link between related service pages and location pages, and use anchor text for internal links to location pages that includes the location keyword, "Plumbing services in Austin," not "click here"
A website that has 6 location pages but only links to them from a tiny text link in the footer is not passing meaningful authority to those pages. Elevate location pages in your navigation or homepage structure.
💡 Pro Tip: Add a "Service Areas" page that lists and links to all your location pages. This page creates a central hub for Google to discover and index all location pages, and it's useful for visitors who want to confirm you serve their area.
Local search is predominantly mobile. Over 70% of "near me" searches happen on mobile devices. A local business website that loads slowly on mobile or displays incorrectly on smaller screens is losing rankings and customers simultaneously.
Page speed is a confirmed Google ranking factor. For local search specifically, it's particularly important because high-intent searches ("emergency plumber near me") have users ready to convert, a slow loading page means they hit back and call the next result.
Use Google's PageSpeed Insights to check your mobile and desktop scores. Target a mobile score above 70. The most common culprits for slow local business websites are uncompressed images, render-blocking JavaScript, and slow hosting.
For local businesses, unoptimized GBP photos uploaded to the website are a frequent speed issue, images downloaded from Google Maps and re-uploaded to the website at full resolution. Compress all website images before uploading.
🛠️ Action Step: Run your website through Google PageSpeed Insights today. If your mobile score is below 60, speed optimization is your highest-ROI on-page fix, it affects both rankings and conversion rate simultaneously.
Flento's Google Business Profile Optimizer runs a website linkage check that verifies your GBP website URL is correct, your contact page has a properly linked map embed, and your NAP visible on your website matches your GBP exactly. For businesses that have inconsistencies between their website and GBP, this audit surfaces the specific mismatches to fix.
The Flento NAP Lock, verifying Name, Address, Phone is identical across your website, GBP, and 50+ directories, is the foundation that makes all other local SEO work more effective.
✅ Done? Audit your website-to-GBP consistency with Flento → [Try Flento free]
How many keywords should I include on each local page? Focus on one primary keyword per page (e.g., "plumber Austin TX") with naturally related secondary keywords in subheadings and content. Keyword stuffing multiple city + service combinations on one page creates thin content signals.
Should I put my address on every page of my website? Your NAP in the footer of every page is standard practice and the strongest placement. This ensures every page Google crawls confirms your location.
Do I need a different website for each city I serve? No. One website with location-specific pages for each city is the correct approach. Separate websites per city are not necessary and create more complexity than they solve for most local businesses.
How do I optimize for "near me" searches? "Near me" searches are matched to your GBP location, not to the phrase "near me" on your website. Your website reinforces near-me rankings through consistent NAP, schema markup, and location page content, not by using the phrase "near me" on the page.
Can on-page SEO alone get me into the Google Maps Local Pack? On-page SEO is one of three factors (alongside GBP optimization and review/authority signals) that determine Local Pack rankings. Strong on-page work without GBP optimization and reviews won't get you into the top 3. All three need to work together.