Their clients’ local and organic search rankings and traffic started going up 🙂

Seriously though, earlier this week I presented this talk at the fantastic State of Search conference in Dallas. One of the things I tried to stress is the importance of a diversified SEO strategy for local clients. Here at Local SEO Guide, that always begins with an audit.

It’s the guiding document for the earlier part of our engagements and almost always surfaces quick wins for both us and the client. That generally means happier clients and longer engagements. Now that audit is available for all of you right here. I wanted this more to be a checklist, so I channeled my inner Annie Cushing and also included how to perform the check as well as suggestions to follow if there is a problem.

Local SEO Audit Template
Don’t ask for editing rights for the document, as I won’t be providing them. However, feel free to make a copy that you can edit to your heart’s content. I plan on regularly updating the document as I have time, so please send any additions you want to share to (marketing [at] localseoguide [dot] com) and I will add those to the doc and credit you in an update.

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25 Response Comments

  • Annie Cushing  November 21, 2014 at 10:03 am

    Heh. Channeled your inner Annie Cushing. 🙂

    Pro tip: Set up a rule that deletes/auto-archives all emails from people requesting access. They will ask, even if your note telling them not to ask is in red font (screenshot: http://www.screencast.com/t/kr34OZYs).

  • Dan Leibson  November 21, 2014 at 11:20 am

    Great pro-tip, I have already gotten some requests 🙂

  • Linda Buquet  November 22, 2014 at 8:42 am

    This is awesome Dan! I’ll be sharing it next week at both the forum and the Local Search Pro G+ community.

  • Linda Buquet  November 22, 2014 at 8:56 am

    Hey Dan, was just looking closer and I have some suggestions.

    I think there are more things to check on the G+ L page, unless I missed them.

    And I think checking the GMB info below is important enough to maybe have it’s own tab. So a tab for GMB and then the Local Ecosystem is for issues outside GMB.

    1) Check to be sure address in dash matches address on live listing.

    2) Check to be sure address on listing properly resolves on G maps.

    3) Check location of map marker by comparing with address search in G maps.

    4) Do citation research to be sure name is correct. (Often KW stuffed or inaccurate)

    5) Check description for GEO and KW repetition which can cause blend penalty. (Drop out of pack.)

    6) Check for GMB violations like hidden address if SAB, multiple locations if SAB, virtual office locations, etc.

  • Peppareradoce  November 22, 2014 at 12:48 pm

    Thank you very much for Excel, translate it into Spanish, serve me much help, Greetings

  • Cody Baird  November 23, 2014 at 7:30 am

    Kuel. You Cushinged it!

  • Jutsin MacDonald  November 24, 2014 at 5:23 am

    This is going to be great for the audit process for me! Had an overall audit, but no a local one, thanks so much!

  • Dan  November 24, 2014 at 8:25 am

    Now I just need to get some fancier shoes.

  • Chris Sanfilippo  November 26, 2014 at 7:32 am

    Awesome checklist Andrew! Thanks for putting this together. I can see how the clients rankings were on the rise after using the checklist 😉

  • Tilak  November 27, 2014 at 7:59 pm

    I am glad that I have Dan’s and Casey’s (@CaseyMeraz) local audit reports.

    Thanks Dan it is very helpful!

  • Dan Leibson  December 1, 2014 at 8:30 am

    @Tilak,

    Glad you find it useful!

  • Rob Bunting  December 1, 2014 at 10:25 am

    Thanks for the checklist Dan, I’ve shared this and plan on using it myself.

  • Dan Leibson  December 3, 2014 at 10:50 am

    @Martino

    Thanks for the share & translation!

  • Casey Walker  December 4, 2014 at 11:41 am

    May be worth going a little deeper in the content audit.

    I would look for lots of diversity between your titles, url’s, and h1. We try to have no exact repetition between any of them. Lots of synonyms and variations.

    Creating a large list of those variations will pay dividends when you’re trying to diversify your anchor text profile down the road.

  • Dana Eckhoff  December 11, 2014 at 1:24 am

    you should change the title of the spreadsheet to include your business name so when people copy it they’ll remember where it came from

  • Janis Media  December 23, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    Awesome checklist. You have a new follower Dan.

  • Dan Leibson  January 15, 2015 at 9:19 am

    Thanks Janis!

  • Charlie Southwell  February 1, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    Really love this Dan. Thanks for sharing.

  • Meg  February 15, 2015 at 6:43 pm

    Really helpful checklist, thanks!

  • Aaron  February 28, 2015 at 2:14 am

    What a great resource, thank you so much for sharing…sure wish I had better Excel skills to give back lol.

  • Scott @ St. Louis SEO  July 6, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    Great post. Big fan of Local SEO Guide.

  • Devin  September 5, 2016 at 10:36 pm

    LOL at the title of your talk… excellent information man!

  • Nathen Aungst  December 1, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    I dont see any document or template to download. ???