AI search and working with a developer
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is ranking for searches with local intent and appearing in map results. For a business customers visit, or one that travels to them, it is driven by profile completeness, consistent business details and reviews far more than by the website.
Also called: local search · map pack
The three levers
- A verified, complete business profile with the most specific correct category
- Name, address and phone identical everywhere they appear
- A steady flow of genuine reviews, responded to
Storefront versus service area
A shop has an address customers visit and the address anchors rankings. A service-area business travels to the customer, declares the areas it serves, and publishing a home address is an unnecessary privacy exposure.
The line on location pages
A location page earns its URL when it contains something true only of that place — work completed there, named areas covered, local regulations, real photographs. If you cannot write three specific paragraphs, it is a doorway page, and small local sites are exactly what that policy was written about.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. Local SEO when customers do not come to your address covers this properly — 3 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.