Learn how to do local SEO: Google Business Profile, location pages, reviews, AI search and reporting, plus a strategy that turns local visibility into revenue.
Tom LightA good local SEO strategy gets you found. A great one gets you chosen. With customers finding local businesses through Google, Maps, social feeds and AI assistants, being visible is only half the job. This guide explains how to build a local SEO strategy that turns visibility into calls, visits, bookings and revenue, with links to our deeper guides on each part of the process.
Local SEO is the work of connecting your business with people searching for what you offer, near where you offer it. That might be someone typing “plumber near me” after a burst pipe, asking Google Maps for a late-opening pharmacy, or asking an AI assistant to recommend a family-friendly restaurant in Brighton.
Google is clear about how it decides which local businesses to show. Its local ranking guidance boils it down to three things:
Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.
Distance: how far your business is from the searcher, or from the location they searched for.
Prominence: how well known your business is, based on signals like reviews, links, articles and directory listings.
You can’t do much about distance (short of opening a new branch), so a local SEO strategy is really about two jobs: making your business as relevant and prominent as possible, then making sure that visibility turns into something commercially useful.
Ofcom’s Online Nation research shows Google Search is used by 82% of UK adults, handling around 3 billion searches a month. Most of the time UK adults spend online is on a smartphone, and Google Maps is one of the three most-used apps in the country.
Even so, people rarely rely on one channel. BrightLocal’s research into US consumers found that 75% use more than one channel during a single local search.
Ofcom found around 30% of UK Google searches show AI Overviews, and 53% of UK adults say they often see AI summaries. ChatGPT recorded 1.8 billion UK visits in just eight months. Google has built AI into Maps too: Ask Maps, powered by Gemini, answers people’s questions about places conversationally, drawing on your Business Profile, reviews, photos and website.
SOCi’s Local Visibility Index found that fewer than half of the businesses leading Google’s local results also appear in AI local recommendations. Ranking well on Google doesn’t guarantee you’ll be recommended elsewhere.
The Competition and Markets Authority estimates that as much as £23 billion of UK consumer spending is potentially influenced by online reviews every year. Expectations are high, too: BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey of US consumers found 31% will only use a business rated 4.5 stars or higher, and 74% only pay attention to reviews written in the last three months.
The good news? The fundamentals are the same everywhere. Whitespark’s Local Search Ranking Factors, which surveys leading local search specialists, makes the point that businesses doing solid local SEO shouldn’t need to change much to perform in AI search. The same signals feed both: an accurate profile, strong reviews, consistent listings, genuinely useful content and third-party mentions.
A complete, accurate and actively managed profile for every location. It has the biggest single influence on local pack and Maps rankings.
A dedicated page on your website for each location, with unique content that reflects what’s actually there.
Targeting the explicit (“dentist Southampton”), implicit (“emergency dentist”) and informational (“best dentist for nervous patients”) queries your audience uses.
Consistent business details across Apple Maps, Bing Places, directories and industry platforms, which AI tools draw on heavily.
Mentions and links from local press, community organisations and industry sites that build prominence.
A steady flow of recent reviews, with a genuine response to each one.
A presence on the platforms your audience uses to discover and vet local businesses.
Making sure AI assistants and Ask Maps have accurate, consistent information to work from.
Measurement that connects local visibility to calls, visits and revenue, location by location.
Some businesses need more. A hotel group, for example, has to reach people planning a trip from outside the area. If you’re not sure which components matter most for you, our SEO team is happy to talk it through.
For more information around what to include in your local SEO strategy, see our local SEO checklist.
Start by understanding where your audience actually looks for businesses like yours:
Google Search, including its AI-generated results
Google Maps, Apple Maps and Bing Maps
Social and video platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
Directories and review platforms (general and industry-specific)
AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
Local news, blogs and community sites
Word of mouth
Don’t assume Google is the whole picture. UK adults spend more than half their time online on Meta services, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to Ofcom. And BrightLocal’s US research found 37% of consumers use Instagram to find local business reviews and 29% use TikTok.
Then think about how the channels reinforce each other. Press coverage earns links and brand searches. A strong social presence makes you more memorable in search results. Consistent listings give AI tools the confidence to recommend you.
Think of local SEO as running a strategy for every premises you want customers to find. Each location needs:
Its own verified Google Business Profile, with the right primary category, Google’s predefined services, accurate hours (including holiday hours), photos and attributes.
Its own location page on your website, linked from the Business Profile. Don’t point every profile at your homepage.
Consistent name, address and phone number (NAP) everywhere it appears online.
A place in your site structure, usually via a “locations” hub page that links to every location page.
Accurate opening hours deserve a special mention. “Business is open at time of search” ranks fifth in Whitespark’s local pack factors. If your hours are wrong, you’re invisible at exactly the moments you should be showing up. That doesn’t mean inflating your hours: listing times you’re not open breaks Google’s guidelines and frustrates customers.
If you manage lots of sites, our guide to local SEO for multiple locations covers bulk management, verification and consistency at scale. If you’re struggling to appear at all, start with how to show up in Google Maps.
The end goal isn’t impressions. It’s calls, visits, bookings and sales. Every touchpoint should make the next step obvious.
Make actions easy on mobile. Click-to-call, directions and booking links need to work on your Business Profile, location pages and social profiles.
Give people the information they need to decide. BrightLocal’s US research found the top reasons consumers choose which business to contact are clear, complete information (32%), the best or most reviews (30%) and clear pricing (29%).
Remember decisions happen fast. Three-quarters of consumers decided which local business to use within 30 minutes according to BrightLocal.
Make your website match the promise. BrightLocal also found that after reading positive reviews, 54% of consumers visit the business’s website. If your location page is thin, slow or out of date, that’s where you lose them.
Support every relevant conversion action. Your Business Profile supports calls, website visits, directions, bookings, menus, products and offers. Use whichever are relevant to you.
According to Google, customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a complete Business Profile.
Local content matters, but forcing a town name into generic blog posts won’t cut it. Long, padded pages don’t serve anyone. Clear, concise content that answers people’s questions does, and it’s what AI tools prefer too.
The best local content comes from genuinely being part of a community. Look for legitimate reasons to create it:
Sponsor, host or take part in local events, then write about them
Run local promotions or partner with other local businesses
Respond to local news, issues and seasonal needs
Raise awareness for local causes
Get featured in local press by doing something worth writing about
Every one of these gives you something to publish on your blog and social channels, and the more involved you are, the more local publishers write about you in return.
FAQs on your own location pages matter too. AI features like Ask Maps draw on your website to answer questions, so clear answers on your site give them accurate material to work with. (If you’re worried about FAQs in accordions, we’ve covered how Google treats hidden content.)
“Improve local rankings” isn’t a goal; it’s a hope. It helps to separate goals from objectives:
Goal: the top-level business outcome. For example, generate £120,000 in revenue from local search across eight branches over 12 months.
Objectives: the measurable milestones that get you there. For example, increase Business Profile website clicks by 25%, grow direction requests at underperforming branches by 30%, or keep at least 20 reviews from the last three months at every location.
Use the SMART framework to keep both honest:
Specific: define the KPI and the target figure.
Measurable: make sure you can track it and attribute it to local search.
Achievable: check the target is realistic in the timeframe.
Relevant: make sure it supports wider business goals.
Time-bound: set a clear deadline.
Then work backwards. If your goal is £120,000 and your average order value is £400, you need 300 sales from local search. How many enquiries does that take at your current close rate? How much traffic and how many calls? If the numbers don’t add up, you’ll need to raise average order value, improve conversion rates, grow volume, or some combination of the three.
Check out our other guides around Local SEO to ensure you're optimising your website for local search:
Local SEO checklist: the essential to get right, in one place
How to show up in Google Maps: why you might not be appearing, and how to fix it
How to do local SEO for multiple locations: managing visibility across every branch without losing consistency
Local SEO audit: what to check and how, a step-by-step audit process, including AI visibility
Local SEO reporting: the metrics that matter, and how to connect local visibility to revenue
Local SEO is about being accurate, prominent and useful everywhere your customers look, from Google Maps to AI assistants. Get the foundations right for every location, keep reviews fresh, earn genuine local mentions, and measure what visibility is actually doing for the business.
We build local SEO strategies for single-site and multi-location businesses. We cover Business Profiles, location pages, reviews and AI search, and measure everything against calls, visits and sales.
