2026-08-20 · 14 min read · Local SEO Audits
Business identity
- Legal name, trading name and shopfront signage are reconciled into one public primary name
- Phone, website and hours match how the business actually answers
- Address or service area is true; no extra pins for cities you do not occupy
Google Business Profile
- Primary category matches the real offer
- Services or products are complete enough for a customer to understand the business
- Photos show real premises, work or products where that is appropriate
- The website destination is a relevant, working page
- Duplicates are identified; keyword-stuffed names are not used
Website and local pages
- Each important URL has one dominant intent, a clear H1 and a usable next step
- Service pages describe real offerings rather than interchangeable marketing copy
- Location pages exist only when they add unique, true information
- Internal links connect services, locations and useful resources
- Titles, canonicals and indexability are correct on the preferred host
- Click-to-call, the location form and the map embed reach the right shop — see broken click-to-call, forms that do not deliver and a map sending people to the wrong place
Listings, reviews and measurement
- Sampled third-party listings match the source of truth; junk bulk submissions are avoided
- Review requests are ethical and responses are factual
- Search Console and analytics, if used, are actually connected to the live site
- No fake testimonials, fake statistics or misleading review markup on the website
For location URLs, use when to create location pages. For category choices, use how to choose Google Business Profile categories. For whether the work is producing enquiries, use how to know if Local SEO is generating leads and how to measure Local SEO. For a missing Maps listing, use why a business is not showing on Google Maps. If the profile itself is suspended or restricted, use what to do if your Google Business Profile is suspended. For Maps visibility across a service area, use how to track Google Maps rankings. If you are preparing a first location, use when a new business should start Local SEO. If the website and the listing keep disagreeing, use why website and Google Business Profile details fall out of sync. If last month’s rank table cannot sit next to this month’s, use why monthly local ranking reports are impossible to compare. If you are applying website SEO to a Maps problem, or citations to a crawl problem, use whether this is a Local SEO problem or a traditional SEO problem. If the checklist rows keep getting ticked while the same class of error repeats, use how to tell which class of Local SEO mistake you have.
For a consultant-led version of this review, see Local SEO audit services. Google’s own product documentation for profiles is on Google Business Profile Help.
Who writes this
This page is published by Otepsphere, a specialist Local SEO consultancy. A named founder biography, photograph and professional profiles will be added here only when they have been verified. Until then, treat Otepsphere as the responsible organisation rather than a fictional expert.