Local SEO Checklist 2026: 35-Point Audit

Google Business Profile (10 checks)

1. Profile claimed and verified
2. Most specific primary category selected
3. All relevant secondary categories added (up to 9)
4. Every service listed individually with descriptions
5. Hours accurate, including holiday hours
6. 20+ photos uploaded (exterior, interior, team, work)
7. Service area defined (cities or radius)
8. Business description includes primary keyword naturally
9. Q&A section seeded with 5–10 questions
10. Weekly Google Posts published

Reviews (5 checks)

11. 4.5+ star average rating 12. 50+ total reviews 13. 5+ new reviews per month 14. Every review responded to within 24 hours 15. SMS-based review request system in place

NAP + Citations (5 checks)

16. Name, Address, Phone identical on website and GBP 17. Listed on Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook 18. Industry directories: Angi, HomeAdvisor, BBB, Houzz 19. 30+ general directories (Yellow Pages, Manta, Brownbook, etc.) 20. No duplicate listings in any directory

On-Page SEO (8 checks)

21. Title tag: "[Service] in [City] | [Business Name]" 22. Meta description: under 160 characters, includes city + service 23. H1 contains primary keyword 24. Dedicated service-area landing page per city served 25. LocalBusiness schema markup on every page 26. Embedded Google Map of business location 27. Internal links from blog posts to service pages 28. Image alt text describes the service and location

Technical SEO (4 checks)

29. Site loads in under 2.5 seconds on mobile 30. HTTPS enabled 31. XML sitemap submitted to Google Search Console 32. Mobile-friendly (passes Google's Mobile-Friendly Test)

Link Building (3 checks)

33. Listed in local chamber of commerce 34. Sponsorships or guest articles on local news sites 35. Industry-association membership pages

Score your business out of 35. Below 25 = lots of easy wins. Above 30 = focus on link building and content depth.

Kectick runs the full audit + fix for service businesses across the USA.