August 18, 2026
The Local SEO basics that still get ignored
Most local SEO problems aren't exotic — they're an unclaimed listing, inconsistent NAP data, or zero review strategy. Here's the order I actually fix them in.
Local SEO gets treated like a niche skill, but most of what breaks it is depressingly basic. Before touching anything advanced, I check the same four things every time.
1. Is the Google Business Profile actually claimed and complete?
Sounds obvious. It’s still, by far, the most common gap I find — profiles that are unclaimed, have the wrong category, or haven’t been touched since they were set up. This is the single highest-leverage fix available for a local business, and it’s free.
2. Is NAP consistent everywhere?
Name, Address, Phone — if these don’t match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile, and every directory you’re listed on, you’re making Google work harder to trust that you’re a real, single, stable business. Inconsistency here is a quiet tax on every other local ranking factor.
3. Do you have location pages that say something real?
A location page that’s just the homepage copy with a city name swapped in doesn’t help anyone. It needs the details that actually differ by location: service area, local team, address, hours, maybe testimonials from that area.
4. Are reviews being actively managed?
Not just collected — responded to. Review volume and velocity matter, but so does showing that someone’s paying attention. This is usually the first thing to slip once a business gets busy, and it shows.
Where this actually pays off
None of this is complicated. It’s just tedious enough that it gets skipped in favor of more interesting-sounding work. In my experience, doing these four things properly outperforms almost any “advanced” local SEO tactic you could try instead.