Free Local SEO Audit: What to Include for a Comprehensive Review

A free local SEO audit can be a game-changer for small businesses looking to boost their online visibility. To give you a comprehensive review, here are the key areas to focus on.

First, identify your business's target location and relevant keywords. This will help you understand your competition and potential customers. For instance, if you're a bakery in New York City, your target location is NYC and relevant keywords might include "New York City bakeries" or "best bakeries in NYC."

Next, check your website's technical setup, including your domain name, IP address, and SSL certificate. Your website's speed and mobile-friendliness are also crucial factors to consider. According to our research, a website that loads in under 3 seconds is more likely to convert visitors into customers.

A website analysis is a crucial step in a free local SEO audit. It's designed to analyze the underlying structure, content, and overall site experience.

You can conduct a website audit using various tools that will crawl your site and identify issues and prioritize actions to be taken based on SEO best practices. A typical audit is designed to analyze the underlying structure, content, and overall site experience.

To get the most out of your website analysis, you'll want to review your site's analytics to validate top and lesser-performing content, traffic sources, audience profiles, and paths to purchase. This will help you identify areas for improvement and focus your content and keyword optimization efforts.

Here are some questions to ask during your analytics review:

By answering these questions, you'll be able to identify areas for improvement and create a plan to optimize your website for better search engine rankings and increased traffic.

Internal optimization is a crucial aspect of a free local SEO audit. It involves examining the internal structure and content of your website to ensure it's user-friendly and search engine-friendly.

A link audit is a great place to start. This will help you identify any misdirected or broken links on your website, which can create a poor user experience and negatively impact your search engine rankings.

Internal linking is also essential. It helps search engines understand the flow of your website and can boost your page rankings. By linking to relevant pages, you can create a clear and logical structure for your website.

For example, if a page on your website references content on another page, you can create a link to that page. This can have a positive effect on both pages, provided the link logically guides users to more relevant content.

Here are some key areas to focus on during your internal optimization:

Content and Quality is a crucial aspect of a free local SEO audit. A well-structured local web presence will include content tailored and distributed for consumption during each stage of the buying journey.

A content audit can be used to ensure you have content for each of the journey buckets your audience members may find themselves in. This includes informational content that answers prospects' why, how, and what type questions, transactional content that addresses consumers who already know what they want, navigational content that validates your position as a leader in your space, and commercial content that addresses consumers who have signaled a strong intent to buy.

Quality content is content your audience wants to consume, like, and share. Video content shared via platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and others is easier to consume and generally more engaging.

A well-structured local web presence requires content tailored for each stage of the buying journey.

To ensure you're found throughout your customer's search experience, conduct a content audit to identify gaps in your content strategy. This will help you create content for each stage of the journey, including informational, transactional, navigational, and commercial content.

Informational content should answer your prospects' why, how, and what type questions, and can be distributed via social media or external channels.

Transactional content addresses consumers who know what they want but need to decide where to purchase from, and may include reviews, testimonials, or competitive comparisons.

Navigational content should validate your position as a leader in your space when users click through from Google, and include a clear call to action.

Commercial content should include offers, coupons, discounts, and clear paths to purchase for consumers signaling a strong intent to buy.

Quality content is essential, and in 2022, this means considering content beyond text and images, such as video content shared on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Performing a quality content audit is crucial for businesses to ensure their online content is effective. Every business is unique, and there are specific factors to review during an audit.

A quality content audit should start with reviewing your website's content, including blog posts, articles, and other written materials. This will help you identify areas that need improvement.

To get started, consider the eight factors mentioned in an SEO audit, such as reviewing specific factors in common that can be reviewed during a quality SEO audit. These factors can help you identify areas for improvement in your content strategy.

Your website's content should be tailored to your target audience's needs and preferences. This means understanding their pain points, interests, and behaviors to create relevant and engaging content.

A quality content audit will also help you identify areas where your content is not meeting your business goals. This could be due to a lack of relevance, poor formatting, or inadequate keyword usage.

Having high website traffic is just the beginning, but it's not the only thing that matters. The level of engagement with your website and social media accounts is a far better indicator for search engine algorithms.

High engagement metrics can make your local business look higher quality to search engines. This is why it's essential to pay attention to various engagement metrics during your local SEO audit.

You can start by using Google Analytics, which offers beneficial metrics such as bounce rate, dwell time, click-through-rate (CTR), and conversion rates. These metrics will help you understand what's working and what's not.

To check on social media engagement, most platforms offer their own analysis feature. This will give you a better idea of how your audience is interacting with your content.

Here are some key engagement metrics to focus on:

Both Google Analytics and social media analysis can help you build trust and drive more traffic to your website.

A free local SEO audit is a great way to get started with optimizing your online presence. Google Business Profiles (GBPs) are a crucial part of this process.

To manage your GBP effectively, it's essential to keep an eye on reviews. Google will notify business owners as soon as reviews are submitted, and it's crucial to respond ASAP to both positive and negative reviews.

Reviews can make or break your business's visibility in the local map pack, so it's vital to stay on top of them. A complete audit should include an analysis of your reviews to ensure none have fallen through the cracks.

You can also check for reviews on other platforms like Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Houzz, as these can show up in search results. Simply search “‘your business name’ reviews” to discover what reviews you may have on lesser-known properties.

Reviews are a crucial part of any business's online presence. Google will notify business owners as soon as reviews are submitted, and it's essential to respond to them ASAP, including negative reviews.

Reviews on Google Business Profiles (GBPs) play a significant role in determining visibility in the local map pack. A complete audit should include an analysis of your reviews to ensure none have fallen through the cracks.

Business owners should also take inventory of reviews left on other platforms like Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Houzz. These can show up in search results and are often found by searching "your business name reviews".

To manage reviews efficiently, consider using software platforms that help ask for and manage reviews on GBPs and other review sites.

Keyword Suggestions can be a game-changer for your business, and it's not just about guessing keywords that might work. With Local Falcon's Keyword Suggestions feature, you get instant suggestions for locally relevant keywords based on business listing categories and other search terms that people are actually using to find businesses like yours.

To make the most of these suggestions, you need to identify relevant keywords that potential customers use when searching for local businesses. This involves researching local keywords and assessing their search volume and competition, just like in a local search audit.

Encouraging customers to leave reviews and kindly asking them to include the product or service they are evaluating in their overview can also help your site's keyword ranking. This is especially important if you want to optimize your site for specific keywords.

Local Keyword Research is crucial for identifying these keywords, and it's not just about finding any keywords - it's about finding the right ones that will guide your optimization strategies.

A local SEO audit is a thorough evaluation of your website's performance in local search engine results. It involves identifying areas of strength and weakness to improve your online visibility.

To conduct a comprehensive local SEO audit, you'll want to follow a checklist of steps that covers everything from Google Business Profile accuracy to local keyword research. This includes verifying your GBP listing accuracy, checking for duplicate listings, and ensuring completeness.

Here's a simplified checklist to get you started:

By following this checklist, you'll be able to identify areas for improvement and create a prioritized list of action items to boost your local SEO performance.

Your link profile is a crucial aspect of your local SEO strategy. Links from local and relevant websites are valuable for local SEO, so a local search engine optimization audit will also examine the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the business's website from third-party sources.

A strong link profile can help establish your business as a trustworthy and reliable local resource. This is especially important for local SEO, where online reputation and credibility are key.

To improve your link profile, focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from local and relevant websites. This can include guest blogging, local directory listings, and partnerships with other local businesses.

Here are the key elements to examine in your Google Business profile:

Make sure everything entered represents your business and what you offer.

A local SEO audit is an essential step in ensuring your business appears high in search engine results for local searches. Your Google Business profile is crucial to your search engine rankings, so it's essential to claim and verify your profile account.

A complete and accurate profile listing has a higher chance of you appearing as a reliable and trustworthy local resource, traits recognized by Google. You should check your profile and determine if the following information is accurate and comprehensive:

Optimizing on-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and content for local relevance is vital. A local SEO audit evaluates these elements to ensure they align with local search intent.

Here are some key on-page elements to focus on:

* Local Citations Audit:

+ Verify GBP listing accuracy (NAP, categories, hours, etc.)

+ Check for duplicate GMB listings (and remove any you find)

+ Ensure GBP completeness (photos, description, attributes, etc.)

* Website Content Analysis:

+ Examine the website's structure and content in terms of their optimization for local search terms

+ Check for high-quality, unique content on landing pages

+ Include NAP information on website pages

* Technical Website SEO Evaluation:

+ Check site speed and performance

+ Ensure the website is mobile-friendly

+ Evaluate local schema markup

By focusing on these on-page elements, you can improve your local search visibility and increase your chances of appearing high in search engine results.

A comprehensive local SEO audit wouldn't be complete without identifying and reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of your competition. You may already have a good sense of who your competition is, but it's always a good idea to confirm who specifically shows up in the search results when you enter your target keywords.

These businesses/domains are your true competitors and the sites you can learn the most from. A recent Google algorithm update appears to signal more emphasis is being placed on results tied to the immediate proximity of a business, which means the most attention should be paid to your closest high-ranking competitors.

You'll want to review what they may be doing to gain this advantage, especially if any of these competitors' sites and/or pages are ranking ahead of yours. This can be done by following the same checklist of steps you would conduct for your own audit.

To identify how they may be optimizing their keywords, content, Google Business Profile, reviews, local business listings, or backlinks, conduct a thorough analysis of their online presence. Understanding how competitors perform in local search provides insights into areas for improvement and ways to outrank them.

Here are some key areas to review:

By analyzing these areas, you can gain a better understanding of your competition and identify opportunities to improve your own local SEO strategy.

Employing social media is an important aspect of a local SEO audit. It's the last area of focus, but still crucial for your local business to be seen by your target audience.

You should have an account on social media platforms that align well with the interests of your target audience. For instance, a law firm shouldn't focus on Instagram, but it should maintain an active LinkedIn page.

To assess your social media presence, answer the following questions during the audit:

It's also a good idea to check how your local rivals manage their social media accounts. Do they use a feature that your company doesn't? Do they employ strategies like freebies, "Lives", or "Stories" that you don't?