How to do Local SEO In 2026

Doing Local SEO in 2026 is relatively straightforward, when you know how, but it does take effort and learning.

If you have a local business and serve a local community (or specific suburbs in a larger city), this blog post shares the basics and fundamentals of how to do Local SEO, so that by doing everything mentioned in this blog post well, your business will* gain more enquiries (and make a LOT more sales).

* I say “will” as a generalisation (as in, generally speaking). Results will vary depending on:

  • How excellent you become at doing Local SEO
  • How much effort you put into it
  • How consistent you are at doing effective Local SEO work each month
  • How much SEO competition you have
  • How excellent your business is
  • If you partner with (commission) a Local SEO expert
  • And other factors.

Remember: If you are not using Local SEO in your business, I guarantee at least some of your competitors are. They are getting a LOT of enquiries (and sales) that you are missing out on. You can either let this continue, or you can jump onboard with Local SEO and start competing against them.

Also note: Local SEO has a learning curve, and it requires doing SEO work each month to achieve results, plus it also involves reviewing your progress.

If you don’t want to do Local SEO yourself, or you don’t have time, we are experts at Local SEO and can do this for you (and/or with you).

Side notes:

  • If you don’t know what Local SEO is, jump on YouTube and search “What is Local SEO”.
  • Pretty much every Local SEO activity I mention in this blog post is of benefit when doing Nation-wide SEO (search engine optimisation) as well, however, nation-wide SEO is a WHOLE lot more complicated and way more involved, PLUS it also now involves what is called ‘Search Everywhere Optimisation’ (SEvO) that some call Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). Local SEO also involves this.

My team and I really enjoy doing both Local SEO and Nationwide SEO. I first started learning SEO in 2003.

The below steps in this blog post can be done in any order, though keyword research needs to be done first. I recommend though doing Local SEO work in the order I have written about it in this blog post.

[Once you have read my below blog post fully, I recommend coming back here and watching the below videos. They might be American, but everything in them applies to us in Australia]:

In the below video, just past half-way though it he suggests building your website using HubSpot. I suggest using the WordPress.org website engine instead (and getting it professionally built by conversion rate optimisation experts), but HubSpot is certainly an alternative option.

If you are wanting to gain business growth using Local SEO, it REALLY is best to consult a website design & development expert like us first, before starting. We’ll provide you with the right platform and a great website that will convert. This REALLY is foundational to the success of your Local SEO efforts.

Once you watch the above video, I would then suggest watching this video. It goes pretty deep, and gets content-heavy, but the information is very good. And yes, we do use SurferSEO.

Keyword Research

Use a tool like the Google Keyword Planner Tool to determine what search phrases (keyword phrases) people are searching in Google to find the services and products you offer.

Search YouTube for “how do I do keyword research and analysis for local SEO”. There are many videos that will teach you various ways to do it.

Some of the keyword phrases will include obvious ones like:

  • [service name/type] [location]
  • [service name/type] [near me]
  • best [service name/type] [location]

For example, if you’re a plumber business:

  • plumber [location] – eg “plumber oxley” or “plumber bargara” or “plumber buderim”
  • plumber near me
  • emergency plumber [location]
  • late night emergency plumber [location]
  • 24/7 call-out plumber [location]
  • drain unblocking plumber [location]
  • help I need a plumber it’s an emergency [location]
  • fix my toilet [location]

If you’re a hairdresser, dentist, builder, podiatrist, or any other service provider, the search terms will be similar, but specific to your business type.

As an example, if you’re a podiatrist, you’ll discover other search terms like:

  • foot doctor [location]
  • fix my heel pain [location]
  • child podiatrist [location]
  • cut my toenails [location]
  • custom orthotics [location]
  • sports injury rehab [location]
  • what is biomechanics?
  • should I use ice or heat after doing [name of type of injury]?
  • should I see a podiatrist, physio or chiro for [injury type]?
  • do I need to see my doctor before booking with a podiatrist?
  • what does a podiatrist do?
  • etc

You’ll end up with 10 or more target keyword phrases, depending on how many services and/or products you sell, and how many suburbs or locations you market within. Often you’ll discover well over 50 keyword phrases that you’ll be thinking, “Gee I want my website to rank well in Google for each of these.”

In the below video, it shows you a way to determine target keyword phrases using SEMRush software. This is an additional method that I suggest doing, once you have used the Google Keyword Planner Tool:

As part of your keyword research, you may also want to find out what keyword phrases your competitors are targeting. To do this, you can use SEMRush. This below video shows how:

Benchmarking & Software

You’ll need a way to monitor how your website is ranking in Google for the keyword phrases you want to target. If you don’t do this, you’ll never know if your SEO efforts are working or not.

Use a tool like SEMRush for this. It will cost a bit of money, but like anything in business, you need to spend money to make money. A small monthly software fee that could help you yield hundreds of thousands of additional dollars in your business each year, is worth it.

Ensure you set up your SEMRush account correctly. There is plenty of information on their website that shows you how, or contact us and we can help.

Make sure you also set up a Google Search Console account and verify it.

Also make sure you have a Google Business Profile set up for your business. Configure it with accurate information about your business. It too needs to be verified.

If Google Analytics is not set up and connected to your website, you’ll definately also need this.

You may also want to use SurferSEO. They have some great free courses on their website that teach you how to use it.

Once done, learn how to use these tools correctly and how to read data they track correctly as well, including but not limited to:

  • How your website is ranking in Google (and Bing and DuckDuckGo, if you care to know)
  • How much traffic your website is getting from your target geographic market area(s)
  • If there are any indexing issues with your website
  • If there are any other errors that need fixing in your website

At this stage, its a good idea to use these tools (and the data they have collected) to ‘benchmark’ your Local SEO efforts so far.

As in, view, extract and save some of this data so you can refer back to it in the future, so you can compare (and see) how your Local SEO efforts have improved.

Below is a video that shares the basics of Google Search Console:

Understand how people are searching

To do Local SEO well, you need to think like a potential customer:

  • What do they care about
  • What are they searching for
  • How are they searching
  • What appears in the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) when they do a search

First thing I recommend you do:

Select one of your target keyword phrases. For the sake of this example, I’m going to use ‘dentist bundaberg’.

  1. Grab your mobile phone and open Google within it. Then search the keyword phrase “dentist bundaberg”. (I’ve done this in the below screenshot)
  2. Now note the anatomy of the Google SERP: Google Ads are either at the top, or below the ‘maps 3 pack’, depending on the industry, the Google 3 Pack is towards the top, and then organic website rankings are below that.

So why is this important? Because you need to understand which are paid listing, which are organic, and which are the ‘maps 3 pack’. You also need to know which of these people care about/ refer to the most, and which yield best results, especially when people are time-poor. 

People are often time-poor when doing research on Google (when looking for service-based businesses), on their mobile phones. Therefore:

  • If they see an Advert, and it sounds good, they might contact that business (it is why Google Ads need to be considered as part of your Local SEO efforts). 
  • Or if they are savvy and don’t trust ads, they will next look in the Maps 3 pack. They might phone one of the businesses in the ‘maps 3 pack’ because people tend to trust this part of the Google SERPs.
  • OR they might scroll down and look at the organic website rankings. They might click into one (or more) of them, one at a time. If they spot a website that looks good, appeals to them, and says all the things they want to hear (and see), they might contact this business
  • ALSO, this is a tip: If someone sees a phone number in a SERP, they may just phone that business straight away. It is why we often put a phone number in the ‘meta-description’ when doing on-website SEO optimisation work.

If your business is not in the maps 3 pack, you are missing out on getting potential customer enquiries. ALSO, if your website is not showing up in the organic section (and/or if your website is not appealing), this is another way your business will (or is) miss out on getting enquiries,… unless you’re using Google Ads and doing this very well (more about this later in this blog post).

NOTE: Even if you see your website in the organic SERPs section, don’t trust this. Do a Google search for: “what is personalised search and why should I not trust this when doing SEO” to learn why.

You need to use actual rankings software like SEMRush to know correctly and accurately how your website is ranking. 

What do people care about?

In the above section, I mentioned a dot-point “what do people care about”.

You own a business, so you know what your customers care about. Chances are, it is things like:

  • Are you reliable
  • Can they afford you (and/or should they consider stretching their budget, and/or seeking additional funding – eg: a bank loan, finance, or 3rd party independent financial backing) if they feel your level of quality & result is worth it
  • Do you offer flexible payment options
  • Are you going to do quality work
  • Are your products quality, reliable and will they last
  • Do you have a good track record
  • Can they trust you

Ensure you address all these things in your website. Make sure the reviews customers write about you online say the same types of things too. 

Make sure you also address this in the ‘about’ text in your Google Business Profile (GBP), your Facebook business page, and your other online business directory listings. 

So many people don’t show or say these things in their website and other places online. HOWEVER, those who do, gain new customers all day long; day in, day out. 

A Great Website

If you don’t already have a website, get someone to create a GREAT website for you!

OR, if you already have a website, make sure it is a GREAT modern website that is going to serve your business REALLY well. If you are not sure if it does or not, ask us to do a free website review for you.

Either way, make sure whoever creates your website, or provides you with a new one, knows how to create a ‘conversions-focused website’ and that they know how to do Local SEO very well. You need your website to convert visitors into customers. If it does not do this, you’re wasting your money.

Amongst things, your website needs to include:

  • Your selling points
  • Why people should work with your business, and not someone else
  • E.E.A.T. signals [read about this here]
  • Webpages explaining the benefits of each of your services and products 
  • Your phone number needs to be in the top right of each page of your website
  • Exciting imagery and website design (no one likes ‘boring’)
  • Well-written website text, that is easy to read and understand.
  • A mobile-first approach to website design. As in, over 50% of your website visitors will access your website on their mobile phones (this is a fact). Ensure your website looks great, loads fast, is easy to read and easy to navigate on mobile phones (and also tablets). THEN also make sure it does the same on laptop and desktop computers.
  • Excellent social proof – eg. customer reviews, testimonials, case studies, ‘before and after’ photos, etc. 
  • A SSL Certificate
  • Make sure Google Analytics is connected

Also make sure your website loads fast. Google cares about this, as does your website visitors. No one wants to wait for slow-loading webpages to load. All webpages in your website need to load in 3 seconds or less. To attempt to test this, use the Google Pagespeed Insights tool, or ask us to check this for you correctly and fully using our GTMetrix account (it costs us money and gives us correct data). 

People like special offers and useful information

Websites make the most amount of money when the people running them (or owning them) understand that leads (email addresses and phone numbers) are the key.

The reason: It is well known that over 50% of website visitors won’t enquire or buy from a website the first time they visit.

People will though: Opt-in to receive an offer if they feel it will benefit their life.

Everyone likes a good deal. It’s why if you offer a 10% coupon code to be used the first time someone does business with you, this can help gain a new customer and one that might become loyal to you for the next 5+ years (and/or much longer).

As an example, this website (New Age Markets) do this well (see the below screenshot).

People like a limited-time special offer, if they feel it will benefit them… and they feel it is legit. Things like:

  • Competitions
  • Buy 2, get one free
  • VIP rewards points
  • Early-bird pre-Black Friday exclusive sales deals
  • Fire sales/ stock-clearance sales
  • etc

If you and some other businesses you trust and vouch for, assemble a ‘discount voucher book’, this too can also be of benefit.

By offering these types of things and asking people to receive them by simply providing their email address, it is a win-win. They receive the item(s) and you receive their email. They then become a lead and you can email them with more information about your business, additional special offers and all sorts of other useful things. Eventually, these people may become customers, because your business stayed ‘top of their mind’… vs them going to your website one-time, forgetting about it and never returning.

Side note: This is also why Facebook Retargeting can be effective. If you don’t know what this is, learn about it on Google or YouTube.

Make sure the robots.txt file is set up correctly

None of this Local SEO work will work if Google and other search bots (and LLM crawl bots) can not crawl and index your website.

[If you’re not sure or aware what ‘bot crawling and indexing is’, it’s worth Googling this. It’s a central foundational part of SEO.]

The first thing you need to check is that your robots.txt file is set up correctly and that it is not blocking the bots. Some website designers who are only creating websites for the money, sometimes forget to write the correct code into the robots.txt file. They instead block the bots. They do this because they’re not paying attention, rushing to get the website finished and don’t have good written systems in place. 

To view your robots.txt file, simply type these words (robots.txt) to the end of your website address – eg: https://snowymountains.com.au/robots.txt 

If no robots.txt file appears, contact us and we’ll help add it.

If your robots.txt file does not look something like this (see the below screenshot), you can learn how to fix it by doing some research on Google, or contact us for help:

Your robots.txt file should never look like this (see below). If it does it needs to be changed IMMEDIATELY because it is blocking the bots. If the bots are blocked, they can not crawl and index your website. If this does not happen, Google can not include it in its system. If it is not in Google’s system, no matter what Local SEO you try and do, it will be for nothing. 

Technical SEO

Technical SEO can be complex if you are new to SEO and have not studied ‘technical SEO’ for a solid period of time and don’t have an extensive background in website development and hosting servers.

Technical SEO is probably the main part of Local SEO that is not relatively straightforward for non-website developer experts.

The first two things to note about Technical SEO is that:

  1. If the search engine bots (and LLM crawl bots) can not index your website, that is a big problem. It’s why I wrote about it in the previous section.
  2. Your website needs to load fast. If you delve into ‘how to pagespeed optimise your website’, you’re going to hear boffin terms like ‘Google Core Web Vitals’. 

To make sure Google and other search bots and LLM crawl bots can index your website correctly, you’ll need to look at data in your Google Search Console to figure this out. This is somewhat technical. You can jump on Google and YouTube to start learning how to do this if you want, or you can contact us for help.

If you are not sure if your website is slow or not, refer back to the earlier part of this blog post where I mentioned it. Or contact us for help.

You’ll also need to submit your website’s XML sitemap to your Google Search Console account. This needs to be done correctly. The below video shows how to do this. You also need to make sure the www and the non-www are redirecting correctly. I’ve written a blog post about this in the past here. 

These are just some of the very basic aspects of Technical SEO. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic.

If you have 100 or more hours to learn Technical SEO and how all the pieces fit together, how to optimise the server and everything else, that is great, but unless you’re highly technical and have the time, you’re better off getting us to sort all this out for you.

The platform your website is built on also plays a big part in this too, so let’s hope your website is built on an excellent platform like the WordPress.org CMS.

Please note: Your SEO efforts won’t work very well if the Technical SEO is not done correctly.

If you want to use the Rankmath Plugin, this below video shows some of the basic aspects of technical SEO:

If you use Yoast SEO Plugin, like we do, this below video will show you some of the basic technical SEO activities you can do with it:

There are also many other Yoast SEO technical SEO videos on YouTube that discuss all sorts of other aspects of technical SEO, including what is called “cornerstone content“.

Google Business Profile

Make sure you have a Google Business Profile (GBP) and make sure it is verified.

Then make sure you include at least some of your target keyword phrases in the about text. Re-write it if you need to. DON’T spam it, you need to write them into the sentences, so they sound good. 

Next you need to optimise your GBP correctly. Watch these videos to learn how:

Don't pay for fake reviews

Heed my warning: Please do NOT pay people to write fake reviews on your GBP. Google will figure this out and it will hurt your Local SEO efforts. 

You may even get penalised by Google for doing this because it is a direct violation of Google’s policies. It can lead to consequences that range from the removal of the fake reviews and/or permanent suspension or removal of your Google Business Profile, which can be devastating for your local business’s online visibility. 

Gaining only 4 or 5 Start Reviews on GBP

Not every review will be 5 stars, nor do you necessarily want each one to be. It can look fake if all your reviews are 5 stars. This is why some 4.5 or even 4 star reviews are ok.

BUT how do you do all you can to get 5, 4.5 and/or 4 star reviews? The simple first part of the answer of course is: do good work and keep people happy.

Beyond that, you can:

  • Ask people to write a review on your GBP by sending them an email.
  • Provide a thank you card with a request on it. See an example we designed for a client in 2025.
  • Create a short video tutorial showing customers how to post their review on your GBP.

You’ll find though, that not many people will do this, because:

  • They forget
  • They may not read your email (they may not see it)
  • The email might go to their junk/spam folder
  • They may not be able to easily figure out how to post their review

A BETTER way is to use GoHighLevel in your business. You can set up a method within it to gain 4 – 5 star reviews. Watch the below video to find out how. 

[Note: There are MANY things you can do to aid the growth of your business when using the GoHighLevel software.]

VERY important: Review your GBP at least once per month

It is a VERY good idea to manually review your GBP at least once per month. Check for ‘negative SEO‘ and also read the reviews, and then:

  • Reply to the ones you have not yet replied to. This shows the person who wrote the review that you appreciate it. It also shows other people who read them that you are an active business and you pay attention. It also encourages other customers to write a review too.
  • Look for any bad/negative reviews. These could be ‘spam reviews’ by people you have never done business with. If you see these, read about how to deal with them here, or contact us and we’ll share with you what to do about them.

SEO Optimise your Website

To optimise your website yourself, you’ll need to do a deep-dive into ‘how to SEO a local business website’. You can find tutorial videos on YouTube, or buy a short course on Udemy, learn from MOZ, HubSpot, SEMRush, etc. I also suggest following the Yoast SEO tutorials:

Amongst things you’ll want to learn:

  • Where to include your keyword phrases in your website, and how to do this correctly, so you’re not looking ‘spammy’ to Google
  • How to avoid a SEO penalty from Google
  • The ‘3 kings of on-page SEO’ (a video about it is below)
  • Why and how to ‘blog for business’ within your website, and how to do this effectively for what is called ‘Search Everywhere Optimisation’. (Search YouTube to learn all about this)

Learning to correctly SEO a website takes a fair bit of time. Learning how to blog effectively takes even more time. You can learn to do this yourself, or you can contact us and we’ll do this for you.

Tip: As you start to learn Local SEO, you’ll also find websites like Backlinko, Search Engine Land and Search Logistics to be helpful. There are also other very helpful websites out there as well, that you will discover if you decide to get totally immersed into learning Local SEO.

Also embed GBP Reviews in your website

Once you have at least 10 quality customer reviews on your Google Business Profile, you can use plugins to embed your GBP reviews into your website. You can see we do this towards the bottom of the home page of our website. We also do this on many client websites. 

The TrustIndex WordPress Plugin is a great plugin for doing this. A screenshot of how it looks on the homepage of our website is below:

Other Online Business Directory Listings

There are MANY online business directory listing websites. Some of the common ones in Australia are:

  • Yellow Pages Australia
  • TrueLocal
  • Word of Mouth (WOMO)
  • Hotfrog
  • LocalSearch
  • Bing Places
  • AussieWeb
  • Start Local
  • PureLocal
  • Yelp

Plus there will be others specific to your industry. For example, the realestate industry has Rate My Agent and tourism businesses of course has Tripadvisor.

There will also be many smaller online business directory listing websites in your local area, and some will be niched to your industry and/or your ideal target market – eg. if you offer services for kids (and/or families) in the Wide Bay area, Wide Bay Kids is a website where you could list your business.

If you already have online business directories set up for your business, make sure the NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) is up to date and correct. Also make sure you have a well-written ‘about spiel’ about your business that contains some of your target keyword phrases in it. Make sure this text is unique and you’re not using the same text on more than one online directory. Saying that, make sure it is not the same as the text you have written in your GBP and/or your Facebook page.

If you don’t yet have online business directory listings set up for your website, now is the time to do so. Start with Yellow Pages and then TrueLocal, then choose the others you want to use. Then use Google to find other ones that are relevant to your industry here in Australia, and also in your area.

Tip: Add everything to each directory listing that you can (that each platform allows you to), including photos and open hours. Also, encourage reviews on each if you can.

Make sure they all link to your website.

Backlinks, Linkbuilding and Citations

Backlinks & Linkbuilding: Finding ways to gain quality links (called ‘backlinks’) that link to your website, from other websites is worth doing. BUT it must be done correctly.

This activity is called Linkbuilding. It is a big topic and is important, but it goes WAY beyond this short-ish blog post. To explain it fully would require me to write an essay. Just know:

  • They help.
  • Do this activity correctly, or else it will hurt your SEO efforts
  • Avoid poor-quality backlinks, link farms, link wheels, etc
  • Don’t pay people offshore to provide backlinks. They are poor quality and this will hurt your SEO. It is NOT good
  • As I have said above, avoid link farms, link wheels, etc. If you don’t know what they are, just Google.

To learn how to start doing linkbuilding yourself, search YouTube for “how do I do effective linkbuilding for my local business” — you’ll then find some ways to go about making a start.

Citations: Citations are quality mentions of your business on other websites online. This can include local newspaper websites.

Newspapers/ journalists are always looking for interesting things to write about. Can you imagine being a journalist? Would your job be easier if:

  • Option A: People contacted you to tell them about something newsworthy they might want to write about.
  • Option B: Or would it be easier to have to hunt around for yourself, searching for newsworthy news stories.

Of course, the answer is ‘A’.

If you create newsworthy things in your business, that positively represent your business, you can contact newspapers in your target area(s) and see if they will write about it. This is one good way to gain citations.

There are many strategies and methods to gain citations to aid your Local SEO efforts. Search YouTube and Google and/or your preferred AI tool to come up with ideas.

The more ways you can gain quality backlinks, citations, reviews etc to prove to Google that you own a legitimate quality business that has a great reputation in your target areas, the more successful your Local SEO efforts will be.

Side note: Online Business Directory listings are also considered to be citations.

Google Ads

I spoke very briefly about Google Ads earlier in this blog post. 

Google Ads have their time and place. Note though, that many people struggle with the Google Ads interface and there is a big difference between using Google AdWords Express and the full Google Ads software platform.

For local businesses, Google Ads can aid with gaining more customers and more sales… BUT only if Google Ads is set up correctly, managed correctly, monitored ongoing correctly and optimised correctly. If not, it will cost you money and not provide a good ROI.

Your best bet is to get a Google Ads expert to do this work for you, if you want to use Google Ads. That is unless you are really keen on:

  • Doing a massive deep-dive into learning how to do Google Ads correctly
  • You’re keen to keep learning, to keep up to date with all the changes Google makes to the platform.

Google Ads is not for the faint-of-heart.

Also note: Many people know Google Ads are paid for. Some people (potential customers), therefore ignore them and/or turn on ”ad blockers’ in their web browsers. They don’t want to see them.

On a positive note, though:

At least Google Ads can be turned on straight away, while your Local SEO efforts are kicking in (which could take months).

Google Ads are often used in conjunction with Local SEO. We’ve done this for clients in the past. 

Google Ads appear at the top of the SERPs. People who are time-poor or don’t care if they are an ‘ad’ look at them and often take action because of them. They therefore can increase enquiries and sales… BUT only when done correctly…. 

You NEED to know how the Google Ads system works, if you want your Google Ads to appear. Part of this is knowing about how to use ‘landing pages’ correctly.

For the record: Only people who live, eat, breathe, and sleep Google Ads are experts at it. It is a full-time career job.

If you’re looking at using Google Ads, find an expert. Vet them correctly and if they don’t deliver results over a 3 month trial period, let them know you are not satisfied with the financial results of their efforts. Then give them one more chance to prove themselves for a further one or two month period. If they still don’t come through for you, it’s time to let them go (part ways with them kindly would be best), and then find some other expert and see how they go. There are a LOT of posers out there pretending to be Google Ads experts, who aren’t…. BUT there are also some really good experts out there too.

[For the record: I do NOT live, eat, breathe, sleep, etc doing Google Ads. It is why when I work with clients and we jointly agree that their business should use Google Ads, or they are already using them but it’s not working well enough for them, we work together to find an expert who will work with both of us collaboratively.

There was a time years ago when I used to do Google Ads myself. I was pretty good at it (not to toot my own horn), but I only did Google Ads on and off for a year or so. I never had the time to become an expert and keep up with the changes Google makes to their ads platform from time to time. I was WAY too busy creating websites and doing SEO work for people/ businesses (and holistic marketing, Facebook Ads, creative, design work, etc).]

There are many videos on YouTube that you will want to watch, if you want to learn about running Google Ads correctly. Two of them are below:

It does not matter if you use Google Ads in your business or not, the concepts in the below video apply to any form of online marketing and/or online advertising, especially when the presenter says, “The most profitable customers do not buy on their first visit (to your website).” If you only watch one video in this entire blog post, I  recommend making sure it is this video:

Track your results each month

Take a bit of time out each month to review how your Local SEO efforts are going. Consider it as a ‘reporting’ activity.

Track and report things like:

  • How many visitors did you get to your website from people in your target area
  • How many enquiries did you receive, including but not limited to phone enquiries, website form enquiries, email enquiries (if you include your email on your website) and any other way someone enquired who said they found you via Google (this could include Facebook or Instagram DM’s/ PM’s). 
  • How many more people opted into your mailing list (assuming you have ‘subscribe opt-ins’ and ‘opt-in offers’ set up in your website <<< NOTE: If you don’t, you’re missing out on LOTS of potential new customers and sales. If you have a website created by LocalSearch or Thryv (or anyone else) and they have not set up these things into your website, ask them to do so, OR ask us to create a WAY better website for you).
  • Check your rankings in SEMRush. See if they have gone up or down.

Save this data each month somewhere safe where you can easily refer back to it in future months. 

You can even write yourself a short report about the data.

Local SEO is not 'set and forget'

Local SEO is not a set-and-forget activity. It is something you do monthly. 

If you’re based in a regional or rural area with not a lot of competition, your Local SEO efforts will yield results faster. However if you are in a competitive area, your Local SEO efforts will take longer, and will require a lot more work each month.

Either way, Local SEO is not something you should stop or give up on once you start. Those who do it well and keep at it REAP the BENEFITS AND REWARDS! If you do stop, you will end up NOT on Google’s radar and your competitors will gain the advantage.

If you want to DIY your Local SEO, I strongly recommend block in time each month to work on your Local SEO (and also time each month to keep learning Local SEO as well).

OR if you’re working with a Local SEO professional, block in some time to work with them, when they need you to supply items that they will need, etc. They will do the bulk of the work, and simply ask you to help with certain aspects of it. You may also want them to teach you how to write really effective blog posts as well. 

I have not mentioned every single thing involved in doing Local SEO in this blog post; I have simply covered many of the main things.

I have not spoken about social media, though. Google can see your Facebook business page. Keep it active, post quality posts, etc and encourage people to engage and share your posts. This indirectly helps your Local SEO by:

  • Increasing brand visibility, driving website traffic, and building authority through engagement
  • It can also help you generate more local citations, and get more backlinks
  • Plus it helps boost your online reputation

I’m not going to write an elaborate conclusion to this blog post since I’ve already spent a lot of time writing all this information and I’m sharing it for free. 

Plus, this was a long read. If you have read it to the end, well done. If you apply everything it speaks about, it’s going to be of great benefit to you and your business.

If you (or your Local SEO agency partner) do Local SEO really well, and stick with it, you will get financially rewarded; it will directly help and benefit your business.

If you need a hand with Local SEO, or want us to do this for you, contact us and we can go from there.

Additionally, if you or someone else has already started or is doing Local SEO work for you, and you want it professionally reviewed, contact us.

I personally eat, breathe and sleep SEO. I luv doing SEO work and I luv seeing the results it brings to my clients. It’s one of the inbound marketing and digital marketing activities/ methods that I really, really enjoy.

All day, every day, I am doing SEO work, website design/building, strategy work, graphic design, etc for my clients. It’s a joy.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Local SEO changes and evolves most years. What was considered 100% fully and correctly implemented Local SEO two years ago, is not fully done (nor correctly implemented) in 2026. 

Your Local SEO efforts and learning (if DIY’ing) should be updated and evolved on an ongoing basis, with 6-monthly and 12-monthly audit reviews. 

PS. As a bonus, here are two more very useful videos:

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