seo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agencyseo search engine optimization link building agency
  • BRANDS
    • PPC.co
    • DEV.co
    • Website.Design
  • SERVICES
    • Managed SEO
    • Link Building
    • White Label SEO
    • Content Writing
    • SEO Audits
    • PPC Management
  • TOOLS
    • Backlink Checker
    • Site Audit
    • Broken Link Tool
    • Robots.txt Tester
    • Sitemap Validator
    • Site Speed Tester
    • Title Tag Checker
    • AI Content Writer
    • SEO Training
  • WHY US
    • Case Studies
    • Our Process
    • Our Team
    • Our History
    • Acquisitions
    • Become a Writer!
  • BLOG
  • CONTACT
LOGINGET STARTED
✕
Actionable Steps to Improve Local SEO
Actionable Steps to Improve Local SEO
October 4, 2021
How to Perform Keyword Research for Local SEO
How to Perform Keyword Research for Local SEO
October 4, 2021

How to Perform a Local SEO Audit

Last Updated by Timothy Carter on October 4, 2021
How to Perform a Local SEO Audit

After Google’s Pigeon update, the scope and environment for local SEO has changed dramatically. There are now dozens of new ranking factors, stemming from third party sites and user reviews, which can affect your overall ranking for a local search term. The good news is that you don’t have to spend as much effort stuffing keywords into your content, but in exchange, you have to rely more on the actions of your customers and audience to fuel your authority.

If you want to get a read for the health of your local SEO campaign and find direction for any changes you’ll need to make, it’s a good idea to perform a high-level SEO audit.

Here’s how:

Table of Contents

  • Get a Campaign Snapshot
  • Check Your Offsite Presence
  • The Importance of Reviews: Analyze and Nurture Your Reviews

Get a Campaign Snapshot

Before you start looking at the individual factors that are affecting your authority and rank, you’ll want to get a relative measurement of how your campaign is performing. For this, you’ll want to look at some of the same metrics you’d use in a national campaign, with extra attention to your user demographics.

Organic Visits

Log into Google Analytics and check out the Acquisition tab, whose Overview will show you a breakdown of how many site visitors you had, and where those visitors came from. Pay special attention to the organic traffic number—this is the number of people who came to your site from searching for a term. Social Traffic is also important, especially if you have an active social media presence as a part of your overall campaign.

Your Organic Traffic figure should grow from month to month fairly consistently. If you notice the numbers growing stagnant, it could be an indication of something wrong with the campaign.

Demographics

While still in Analytics, head over to the Audience section, and take a look at the Overview. Depending on the operating range of your company and which local markets you’re targeting, you can look at the county and territory of your users or the city under the “Demographics” tab on the left. Analytics will break down your user visits as a total number of visitors, and as a percentage of your total traffic. A high percentage of local visitors is generally an indication of a high-quality local optimization campaign.

Once you know where you stand with organic visits and demographics, you can look at the individual components of your campaign and analyze how they are influencing the broader numbers.

Check Your Offsite Presence

One of the most important elements of a post-Pigeon local optimization campaign is your business’s presence on as many third party and local directory sites as possible. The go-to example is Yelp, an aggregator of local business information and customer reviews, but there are several other sites with a niche focus, such as UrbanSpoon or TripAdvisor.

Claim your company’s account on as many of these platforms as possible. You’ll want to do this for two reasons: first, you’ll be able to verify your information’s consistency across the web, especially your name, address, phone number, and business hours. Second, you’ll have more opportunities to cultivate reviews, but we’ll get more into that in the next section.

Claiming your profile and verifying your information on these sites is usually a one-time process, but you’ll want to check back every so often to make sure your information is still up-to-date. You’ll also want to do a quick check to see if there are any new, relevant directories that have emerged and claim your account early.

The Importance of Reviews: Analyze and Nurture Your Reviews

Checking your business information is only the first half of the local directory audit. The second part is more intensive, and arguably more important for your customer relationships. These sites all share one core feature: the ability for customers to post public reviews. The more high-quality reviews you have the better—it looks good to the other customers and even sends an authoritative ranking signal to Google.

Take a look at the number of new reviews you’ve gotten, and how positive those reviews are. If you’re getting a high number of negative reviews, read them carefully and try to figure out what you can change to encourage more positive reviews. If you aren’t getting many reviews at all, you need to do more to encourage your in-person customers to leave feedback. (Remember, it’s a violation of policy to directly ask for reviews. Instead, simply direct your customers to the review site itself and leave the decision to review up to them).

You’ll also have the opportunity to reply to reviews. This is a good chance to reinforce positive experiences, and make up for any negative ones.

Local reviews are more than just surface-level pieces of information that occasional users use as guides to make purchasing decisions. Even users who never explicitly read reviews can be indirectly affected by them:

  • Local reviews inform users of past transactions. The first benefit here is probably the most obvious. Well-written user reviews inform others whether a given transaction was beneficial, neutral, or unfortunate. Consumers who are serious about a buying decision rely on these specific details to help them make a final call.
  • Local reviews affect your search ranks. In fact, local reviews affect your search visibility in more than just one way. Google relies on data from third-party directories and review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor to form an aggregated judgment of a local business—more reviews and more positive reviews mean you’re more likely to rank in local searches. Plus, if you get more reviews on a specific directory, your profile page on that directory will be more likely to rank as well.
  • Local reviews are aggregated to form first impressions. In Google’s new local 3-pack, you’ll see that each business’s entry is accompanied by an aggregated star rating, drawn from Google reviews specifically. Users who glance at your business and see a star rating may form an instant judgment.
  • Local reviews drive direct traffic to your site. Plenty of users peruse local review sites directly, hoping to discover new businesses or find alternative suppliers. If a review is well-written and positive enough, it could attract a decent stream of direct referral traffic to your site.
  • Local reviews can help you build a better business. Last but certainly not least, local reviews are raw information about how you’re doing business. The more reviews you receive, the more information you’ll have to improve your company.
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Timothy Carter
Timothy Carter
Chief Revenue Officer at SEO.co
Industry veteran Timothy Carter is SEO.co’s Chief Revenue Officer. Tim leads all revenue for the company and oversees all customer-facing teams - including sales, marketing & customer success. He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO & Digital Marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams. When he's not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach...preferably in Hawaii.

Over the years he's written for publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications. Connect with Tim on Linkedin & Twitter.
Timothy Carter
Latest posts by Timothy Carter (see all)
  • How to Perform an SEO Content Gap Analysis - May 16, 2022
  • Local SEO: Optimizing Your Rankings for Google Local Search - May 14, 2022
  • 6 SEO Tips for Criminal Defense Attorneys - May 10, 2022
Share
2
Timothy Carter
Timothy Carter
Industry veteran Timothy Carter is SEO.co’s Chief Revenue Officer. Tim leads all revenue for the company and oversees all customer-facing teams - including sales, marketing & customer success. He has spent more than 20 years in the world of SEO & Digital Marketing leading, building and scaling sales operations, helping companies increase revenue efficiency and drive growth from websites and sales teams. When he's not working, Tim enjoys playing a few rounds of disc golf, running, and spending time with his wife and family on the beach...preferably in Hawaii. Over the years he's written for publications like Entrepreneur, Marketing Land, Search Engine Journal, ReadWrite and other highly respected online publications.

Related posts

Top 200 Google Ranking Factors: Complete List
May 18, 2022

Top 200 Google Ranking Factors: 2022 Complete List


Read more
How to Perform an SEO Content Gap Analysis
May 16, 2022

How to Perform an SEO Content Gap Analysis


Read more
Local SEO: Optimizing Your Rankings for Google Local Search
May 14, 2022

Local SEO: Optimizing Your Rankings for Google Local Search


Read more

Local SEO

  • Local SEO Guide
  • Local SEO vs. National SEO
  • Prioritizing Local SEO
  • Rank for Multiple Locations
  • Why Your Site Isn’t Showing
  • How to Share Local Content
  • Acquire Local Link Citations
  • Move Your Local Business
  • Leveraging Competition
  • Local SEO Threats
  • Local SEO Mistakes
  • Keyword Research for Local SEO
  • Link Building for Local SEO
  • Local SEO Content
  • Local SEO Audits
  • How to Improve Local SEO

Inc 5000 Logo

Our Services

  • SEO Services
  • Link Building Services
  • White Label SEO
  • Content Writing Services
  • Amazon SEO
  • PPC Management
  • Public Relations
  • Brand Mentions
  • SEO Site Audits

SEO Resources

  • SEO for Beginners
  • Link Building Guide
  • Local SEO
  • Online Marketing
  • Digital Marketing
  • Content Marketing
  • SEO Reseller
  • Backlink Checker
  • Keyword Research
  • Google Ranking Factors

About SEO.co

  • About Us
  • SEO Team
  • SEO Blog
  • SEO Clients
  • SEO Tools
  • Markets Served
  • Locations Served
  • Client Login
  • Contact

Contact Us

Email: info@seo.co
Call: +1 (877) 545-4769
Address: 1425 Broadway Suite 22689
Seattle, WA 98112
White Label SEO Agency
  
Outwrite. Outrank. SEO.
© 2022 SEO.co. All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy | Sitemap
PPC.co // DEV.co // Website.Design
An Invest.net Partner
    GET STARTED
      We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of all the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
      Cookie SettingsAccept All
      Manage consent

      Privacy Overview

      This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
      Necessary
      Always Enabled
      Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
      CookieDurationDescription
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
      cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
      viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
      Functional
      Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
      Performance
      Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
      Analytics
      Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
      Advertisement
      Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
      Others
      Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
      SAVE & ACCEPT