Quick SEO Audit for Local Businesses

Welcome to the Rainmakers United quick SEO audit for local businesses.

We want to help you rank as high as possible on Google, so you'll have the ability to automatically bring in new leads for your business whenever someone searches for your service or product on Google.

The difficulty of ranking on Google depends on a lot of different factors including what business you're in, where you're located, and the marketing sophistication of your competitors.

It's going to be harder to rank if you live in a bigger city, don't have many reviews, or if you haven't created a website.  But don't worry.  If you do everything on this checklist, you should be on your way to getting more leads and sales for your business in no time.

Before you get started, please understand that there are many items that we decided to cut from a bigger checklist, to make this one more user friendly.  We don't want you to feel overwhelmed - and most of the time this checklist will be more than enough to get you to where you want to be.

But if you've done everything on this list and you're still having trouble ranking,  I encourage you to reach out to our community to get more help for your specific needs.

The following 4 factors are probably the most important if you want to rank high locally on Google.

1. Complete your Google Business Profile. 

2. Make sure you have enough detailed, 5-star reviews on your Business Profile.

3. Use relevant keywords throughout your website, and Google Business Profile.

4. Make sure your website is complete, and optimized for SEO.

Of course, these 4 items are a little vague.  So I've created the checklist below to help you stay on track, and create the necessary changes to let Google know you're the right business to recommend.

Go through the list of questions below, and if you answer no to any of them - please make changes to your website/Google Business Profile accordingly. 

Have you completed your Google Business Profile?

• Have you verified your Google Business Profile?
• Have you chosen an appropriate Google Business Profile name with relevant keywords?
• Have you chosen the best primary category for your business? Does your category clearly state what you do, or who you are?
• Have you included your website URL?
• Did you state your business hours on your profile?
• Did you add your Google Business Profile Description?
• Did you add all of your relevant products and services?
• Do you have a physical storefront address?

Are you using relevant keywords?

You should choose relevant keywords for your business, and make sure you put them everywhere.

• Do you have keywords in your Google Business Profile title?
• Do you have keywords in the title of your website?
• Do you have keywords in the hero section of your website?
• Do you tag your photos with keywords?
• Do you have keywords sprinkled throughout the content of your website, especially in the headings.
• Are you putting keywords in each of your blog posts?
• Are you using keywords in other relevant parts of your google business profile?
• Are you mentioning your Google Business Profile category on your website?

Do you have enough good reviews?

• Do you have (on average) more reviews than your competitors?
• How are the quality of your reviews?  Do your reviewers write detailed reviews about your business?  Do they use keywords in their review? If not, you should encourage them to do so.
• Are your reviewers giving you 5-stars?  If not, you should encourage them to do so.

Do you have a complete website?

• Do you have a homepage? About page? Contact page? Blog?
• Does your website have your business's contact information on it?
• Do you have a CTA on every page?
• Have you created relevant local content on your site?
• Do you have industry related content on your site?
• Do you have at least 20 blog posts?  Do they link to each other?  Do you have keywords sprinkled throughout each post?
  

Are you using on-page SEO?

• Have you optimized the Title Tag and Meta description for your website?
• Are you using keywords in your headlines and sub-headlines?
• Are your blog posts at least 700 words each?
• Do you include links on all of your webpages?  
• Have you included photos on all of your webpages?
• Is your website mobile friendly?
• Is your website fast?
• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Are you refreshing content on your website every 6-12 months?

Well that's it folks…

I hope this checklist has been very helpful for you.  It's a great way to get started with local SEO.  If you need any more help, you can join our community for even more resources and individualized help.