Local SEO Audit: A 10-Point Walkthrough

A local SEO audit is a point-by-point inspection of the things that decide whether your business appears in map results, local organic results and AI answers, ending with a ranked list of fixes. This one has 10 points, ordered by how much each tends to move the result, so you can stop when your time runs out and still have done the highest-value work.

It is written for owners and marketers who want to run the audit themselves with free tools. It does not re-teach each fix. The local SEO checklist lists what to have in place, and this page is the inspection that tells you which of those items you are missing.

On this page

• What does a local SEO audit actually cover?
• Before you start: free tools and a scorecard
• Points 1 to 4: profile, duplicates, reviews and listings
• Points 5 to 7: ranks, site and schema
• Points 8 to 10: links, AI answers and the scorecard
• How do you turn audit findings into a fix list?
• How often should you run a local SEO audit?
• Where your local SEO audit goes next

What does a local SEO audit actually cover?

A local SEO audit covers three surfaces: the map pack, local organic results, and the answers AI assistants give when someone asks for a business nearby. Most audit guides stop at the first two. The third is now worth a place in the audit, because consumers use it. In BrightLocal’s 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, 45% of consumers said they use AI tools such as ChatGPT for local recommendations, up from 6% the year before (BrightLocal).

Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that you cannot pay for a better local ranking (Google Business Profile Help). Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the searcher. Prominence is how well known you are, which Google ties partly to links and review count. You cannot change distance, so the audit concentrates on the other two.

The diagram below shows the 10 points and the order to take them in. The first four are shaded because they usually decide whether you show up at all.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

Before you start: free tools and a scorecard

You need five free things: a Google account that manages the profile, Google Search Console, a private browser window, Google’s Rich Results Test, and a spreadsheet. Open the spreadsheet first and make four columns: point, what you found, severity (red, amber, green) and fix owner. Whitespark’s quick site audit uses the same idea, marking each area “all good,” “heads up” or “danger” so results are easy to report (Whitespark).

Decide the searches you are auditing before you open anything. List three to five that a customer would type, such as “emergency plumber near me” or “family dentist in [your city]”, plus your business name. Every ranking check in the audit uses that same list, so results stay comparable next quarter.

Time depends on size. A single-location business can finish in an afternoon. Whitespark puts a formal, documented site audit at about five hours, and a quick version at about 30 minutes. If you have several locations, audit the biggest one fully and the others at the profile and listing level.

Points 1 to 4: profile, duplicates, reviews and listings

These four decide whether you appear at all, so audit them first and fix them before touching anything else.

1. Profile basics: name, category, service area

Open your Google Business Profile and check it against Google’s own rules, because a rule violation can override everything else. Three checks matter most.

• Name. It should be your real-world name as customers know it. Google says not to add taglines, hours, phone numbers, URLs, or service and location details, and that unnecessary information in the name can lead to suspension (Google Business Profile guidelines).
• Category. Google asks for as few categories as possible and the most specific ones that still describe the core business. They should complete the sentence “This business IS a”, not “This business HAS a” (same guidelines).
• Address and service area. A service-area business should hide its address from customers and list the areas it serves. A rented mailing address, P.O. box or virtual office is not an eligible location (same guidelines).

Then check completeness: hours, services, description, photos and the website link. The Google Business Profile optimization guide covers how to fix each field. In the audit you only record what is wrong.

2. Duplicates and ownership

Search your business name and phone number in a private window and note every profile that appears. A second profile for the same location, an old address, or a former owner’s listing splits your reviews and gives Google two sets of facts. Google’s help pages describe a process for resolving duplicate profiles and requesting ownership of an existing verified profile (Google Business Profile Help). Record each duplicate with its URL so the fix is a specific list rather than a vague worry.

3. Reviews: count, rating, recency, replies

Reviews feed prominence, and Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking (Google Business Profile Help). Record four numbers for you and for the two or three competitors that outrank you: total reviews, average rating, reviews in the last 90 days, and the share of reviews with an owner reply.

Recency deserves its own line. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 74% of consumers look for reviews written in the last three months, and 32% look for reviews from the last two weeks (BrightLocal). A profile with 400 reviews and none since last spring can look worse to a buyer than one with 80 and a steady stream.

Also audit how you ask. Google’s policy bars merchants from discouraging negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones, and it removes reviews that were paid for (Google contribution policy). The FTC’s final rule on fake reviews also prohibits buying reviews conditioned on a sentiment and suppressing negative reviews through threats or intimidation (FTC). If your process screens who gets asked, mark it red.

The figure below puts the consumer numbers behind that audit line in one place.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

4. NAP and listings

NAP is your name, address and phone number, and the audit question is whether it reads identically everywhere. Start from the canonical version on your Business Profile. Then check your website footer, contact page, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, Facebook and the two or three directories that matter in your industry. BrightLocal’s audit guide ties this to trust: in its Local Citations Trust Report, 80% of consumers said they lose trust in a business with inconsistent contact details (BrightLocal).

Log each mismatch with the platform, the wrong value and the correct one. Old addresses and tracking phone numbers are the usual culprits. The local citations guide explains which directories are worth the effort, so you can skip the long tail in the audit.

Points 5 to 7: ranks, site and schema

These three show whether the work in points 1 to 4 is translating into visibility, and whether your own website backs it up.

5. Map pack ranks from real locations

Check where you rank for your search list from where your customers actually are, not from your office chair. BrightLocal notes that local pack rankings differ from standard organic results and must be checked from specific locations (BrightLocal). The free method is manual: use a phone, a private tab, and search from three or four points around your service area, such as the neighborhood you most want and one at the edge of your range. Write down whether you appear in the three-pack, in “more places”, or not at all.

Expect to lose at distance. Distance is one of Google’s three local factors, and you cannot change it (Google Business Profile Help). What you are looking for is the pattern. If you vanish a few blocks from your address, relevance and prominence are weak. If you only vanish in one direction, a competitor is closer there. Paid rank-grid tools automate this, but a handful of manual checks is enough to make decisions.

6. Site local pages: indexing, HTTPS, mobile, content

Your website must make the same claims your profile does. Whitespark’s site audit gives a short list worth borrowing: run a site: search to see which pages are indexed, confirm that the HTTP, HTTPS, www and non-www versions all redirect to one version, and check mobile behavior. It also notes that mobile typically accounts for 50 to 70% of local business site traffic (Whitespark).

Then audit the pages themselves:

If Search Console is not set up, do that first. The Google Search Console guide walks through it, and the Performance report shows which local queries already bring clicks.

7. Local schema

Check whether your site has LocalBusiness structured data, or a more specific subtype, and whether it matches the visible page. Google requires name and address for the local business rich result, and recommends geo, openingHoursSpecification, telephone, url and priceRange, among others. It also says to define each location as its own LocalBusiness (Google Search Central).

Paste your URL into the Rich Results Test and record errors and warnings. Google notes the tool cannot catch every problem, since guideline violations such as spammy markup are not syntax errors. The audit question is simple: do the schema values equal the profile values? The LocalBusiness schema guide shows the markup if you need to build it.

Points 8 to 10: links, AI answers and the scorecard

The last three cover prominence beyond reviews, the new surface, and how you will track progress.

8. Links and brand mentions

Google ties prominence partly to how many websites link to a business (Google Business Profile Help). Check referring domains rather than total links, as Whitespark advises, and compare against a competitor just above you in the rankings. Whitespark’s example site had 28 referring domains, mostly local directories and low-quality blog links, which the author flagged as its biggest ranking obstacle (Whitespark). One example is not a benchmark. It does show what to look for.

BrightLocal also suggests searching your business name to find unlinked mentions, such as news items, event listings and local blog posts. Each is an easy request: ask the publisher to link to you. Chambers of commerce, sponsorships and local suppliers are the usual sources. There is more on link tactics in the link building strategies post.

9. AI answers: the prompt test

Ask the assistants what they say about you. Open ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode, and for each one run three prompts per city: “best [service] in [city]”, “who should I hire for [problem] in [city]”, and your business name on its own. Record whether you are named, in what position, which competitors appear, and whether your hours, phone number, address and services are right.

Two outcomes are common. Competitors are named and you are not, which usually points back to missing listings, roundups and reviews. Or you are named with wrong details, which points to a stale citation that still carries old facts. The local AI visibility guide explains what feeds those answers, and when AI gets your brand wrong covers how to correct it. Run every prompt on the same day and in a fresh session, because answers vary between runs, and treat one result as a sample.

10. The scorecard and baseline

Finish by freezing the numbers. Record, in your spreadsheet, the date and: your pack position at each test location, review count and 90-day review count, calls, direction requests and website clicks from the Business Profile performance view, Search Console clicks for local queries, and the prompt test results. This is your baseline. Without it, next quarter’s audit has nothing to compare against.

How do you turn audit findings into a fix list?

Sort every red and amber finding by effect first and effort second, and fix in the order of the audit. The decision flow below maps three common patterns to the points that usually explain them. It is a rule of thumb from how the factors relate, not a measured weighting.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

Within each row, apply a simple rule: anything that violates Google’s guidelines goes first, because suspension or a wrong category can cancel every other fix. Next come mismatched facts, since they are cheap to fix and affect assistants as well as maps. Review volume and links come last, because they take months.

A short worked example of the format, using a made-up business: a plumber audit finds a keyword-stuffed name (red), two duplicate profiles (red), 11 reviews and none in 90 days (amber), a phone number mismatch on three directories (amber) and no schema (amber). The fix list reads: rename the profile, merge the duplicates, correct the phone, start a review routine, then add schema. Nothing about it needs a tool you do not already have.

How often should you run a local SEO audit?

Run the full audit once, then repeat points 3, 5, 9 and 10 every quarter and the whole thing after any change of address, phone number, name or website. Reviews and rankings drift, and assistants change what they recommend, so those four are worth a recurring slot. The listing and schema checks only need a rerun when something about the business changes.

Keep the method fixed. Same search list, same test locations, same week of the month, same prompts. A change between runs only means something if the setup did not change. The ready-made version of this sequence, with the individual fixes, is the local SEO checklist.

Where your local SEO audit goes next

The audit gives you a ranked list. The next step is working that list in order, and re-running the baseline in 90 days to see what moved. Most of the fixes are administrative and a business owner can do them. The parts that tend to need help are cleaning up listings at scale, schema across many locations, and a recurring prompt test across several cities.

If you want the audit run for you, including the monthly local prompt tracking, see our local SEO and local AI visibility service. If you only want to check how your site reads to AI systems first, the free AI SEO audit tool is a quick place to start.