Local SEO checklist audit

What the audit covers

The checklist has 40 lines in five groups, and the audit scores each one as done, partly done or missing.

• Google Business Profile (12 lines). Primary and secondary categories, services, service area, hours, photos, description, the questions people ask, and whether the profile name matches your real business name.
• Website basics (10 lines). A page for each service you want more of, a clear phone number on every page, page speed on a phone, and whether each page says where you work.
• Listings and consistency (6 lines). Your name, phone and website shown the same way on directories, supplier dealer locators and association listings.
• Reviews (6 lines). How many, how recent, whether you reply, and whether you have a simple, honest way to ask for them.
• Tracking (6 lines). Whether you can tell which calls came from the map listing versus the website versus ads.

Who it is for

The audit is most useful when:

• your profile shows up in one town but disappears in the next
• a competitor with fewer years in business outranks you
• you moved, rebranded or changed phone numbers in the last few years
• you have scored yourself on the checklist and want a second opinion on priorities

What is included

1. A scored checklist with notes on every line.
2. Competitor comparison. The same checklist scored for three competitors, so you can see where you are behind and where you already lead.
3. A ranked fix list. Usually five to ten actions, each with an estimate of the effort involved and why it is ranked where it is.
4. A walkthrough call.

Timeline

The audit takes about one week. Simple profile fixes can be done the same week. Website changes, new service pages and cleaning up old listings usually take one to two months, depending on who does them.

How results are measured

Rankings move around too much to judge a fix on one search. We measure in two ways. First, the checklist score itself, re-taken after the fixes. Second, the calls, messages and direction requests that come from the Google profile and from organic search, counted monthly with call tracking in place. Those are the numbers that tie SEO to booked work.

A note on competitors

The comparison is the part owners find most useful. It is common to discover that the business outranking you is not doing anything clever: it simply has a complete profile, steady reviews and a page for each service. That is good news, because those are things you can fix in weeks. Where a competitor really is far ahead, the audit says so plainly and suggests where else your effort might pay off sooner, such as ads for high-value jobs while organic work catches up.

Mistakes to avoid

These come up in almost every trades audit:

• Keywords stuffed into the business name. Google's guidelines ask for your real name. Adding "Best Plumber Calgary" to it risks a suspension.
• One services page for everything. A single page listing twenty services rarely ranks for any of them. Each service you want more of needs its own page.
• Town pages that are copies. Twenty pages that differ only by city name help nobody. A town page should say something true about working there.
• Stock photos. Real photos of your crew, vans and finished work do more than library images, and they are more honest.
• Old phone numbers. A previous number still listed on a directory sends calls nowhere.

For the full checklist and how to score it, see the guide. For prices, see pricing. We audit and fix marketing; we are not a contractor and we do not do trade work.