After 14 years running local campaigns across hundreds of industries, I still use a checklist. Not because the fundamentals change every quarter, but because one missed step — a wrong NAP on a key directory, an unclaimed profile, a missing category — can quietly drag down an otherwise solid campaign. Here is the checklist I walk through at Salterra Digital Services with every new client before any work begins.

Google Business Profile Checklist

Your GBP listing is the single most visible real estate in local search. Treat it like a conversion-optimized landing page, not a directory entry. A complete, accurate, active GBP listing is the foundation every other local SEO tactic builds on.

  • Claim and verify the listing via postcard, phone, or video verification.
  • Choose one precise primary category — this is your biggest relevance lever. The wrong primary category disqualifies your listing from the queries that matter most. See how to choose GBP categories for the full methodology.
  • Add all relevant secondary categories (up to nine), using only services you actively provide.
  • Write a business description that uses your core service phrase naturally in the first sentence and runs close to the 750-character limit.
  • Upload at least 10 photos: exterior, interior, team headshots, and real work samples. Geo-tag images before uploading where possible.
  • Build out your full service list with individual service descriptions using natural keyword language.
  • Set business hours accurately and maintain them — including special hours for holidays.
  • Enable messaging if applicable to your business type and respond within 24 hours.
  • Publish a GBP post at least twice a month to signal that the listing is actively managed.
  • Review the Q&A section monthly — answer any customer questions and add your own seed Q&As for the most common inquiries.
  • Check for Google-suggested edits that may have been accepted without your knowledge and revert any inaccurate changes.

NAP Consistency and Citation Checklist

Name, Address, Phone — these three data points need to match exactly across every listing on the web. A suite number written as Ste 100 on your site but #100 on Yelp creates a data conflict that suppresses rankings. Google uses citations as corroboration of your business entity; conflicting data weakens the confidence signal. See NAP consistency for a detailed breakdown of why this matters.

  • Audit your current citations using BrightLocal, Whitespark, or Moz Local to identify every listing and any NAP variations.
  • Correct mismatched name, address, or phone variations starting with the highest-authority directories.
  • Claim and complete the core universal listings: Google, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook, and BBB.
  • Build industry-specific citations relevant to your vertical — Houzz for contractors, Healthgrades for medical practices, Avvo for legal, Justia for attorneys, Angi for home services.
  • Build local citations: Chamber of Commerce, city business directories, local news site directories.
  • Document your canonical NAP format and use it as the standard for every new listing going forward.

Online Reviews Checklist

Reviews drive both a ranking signal (quantity, velocity, and recency) and the click-through decision when someone sees your listing in the local pack. You need a repeatable system built into your business operations, not a one-time push after a slow month.

  • Create a short, direct review link from your GBP dashboard and save it somewhere easy to access — your phone, your email signature, your front desk system.
  • Ask every satisfied customer at peak satisfaction — typically within 24 hours of service completion when the experience is fresh.
  • Use a two-step follow-up: a thank-you plus review ask on day one, a single soft reminder at day five if no review has appeared.
  • Respond to every review, positive and negative, within 48 hours. Public responses signal professionalism to prospective customers and confirm engagement to Google.
  • Monitor review velocity monthly — a gap in new reviews often means a front-line process broke down, not that customers are dissatisfied.
  • Never incentivize reviews or use review-gating services. Both violate Google policy and risk listing suspension.

For a full tactical breakdown of the ask system and response best practices, see how to get more Google reviews.

On-Page Local SEO Checklist

Your website needs to reinforce your location signals, not just exist as a corporate brochure. Google cross-references the linked website when evaluating a GBP listing — what it finds there either confirms or weakens the relevance signal.

  • Include your full NAP in the footer, formatted in plain text (not an image or JavaScript-rendered element).
  • Create a dedicated Contact page with an embedded Google Map and your full address.
  • Use city + service in the title tag of your homepage and every core service page (e.g., Plumbing Repair in Tempe, AZ).
  • Write a unique meta description for every page — 150–160 characters, plain language, includes city and service phrase.
  • Implement LocalBusiness schema markup on every page with accurate address, phone, hours, and geo-coordinates. Validate it with Google’s Rich Results Test before publishing.
  • Ensure your site loads in under 3 seconds on mobile — Core Web Vitals are a real ranking input and a major conversion factor.
  • Create individual location pages for each city you serve, if you operate in multiple markets. Thin, duplicate location pages hurt more than they help — see multi-location SEO for how to build them with genuine substance.
  • Add internal links from blog content to your core service pages using natural, descriptive anchor text.

Local Content Checklist

One of the most underused levers in local SEO is genuinely local content — not keyword-stuffed city pages, but content that demonstrates you actually operate in a specific place and understand your local market.

  • Publish content targeting near-me and city-specific queries. These phrases have high commercial intent and relatively low competition compared to national terms.
  • Build FAQ content around the questions customers actually ask your sales team. These map naturally to voice and featured-snippet queries.
  • Reference local landmarks, neighborhoods, or events naturally in blog content — this is a genuine local signal, not a gimmick.
  • Link internally from blog posts to your service pages with contextually relevant anchor text.
  • Earn links from local news sites, event sponsorships, and community organizations. A single link from a local Chamber of Commerce or city business journal is worth more than 50 generic directory links.

Tracking and Audit Checklist

  • Set up Google Search Console, verify your site, and check it weekly for crawl errors, manual actions, and new keyword data.
  • Track local pack rankings weekly for your primary city and service phrases using a tool that reports grid-level positions, not just citywide averages.
  • Review GBP Insights monthly — views, calls, direction requests, and website clicks. A drop in any of these metrics is an early warning sign before rankings move.
  • Run a full local SEO audit every quarter to identify drift before it becomes a visible ranking problem.

This checklist is the starting framework. Execution depth — how accurately you build citations, how consistently you earn reviews, how thoroughly you implement schema and on-page signals — is what separates a campaign that plateaus from one that holds the top three positions over time. For a comprehensive look at the strategy and service behind these tactics, the local SEO services page covers how I approach campaigns from the ground up.