The key points
- Built around your Google Business Profile.
- Consistent name, address and phone details across the web.
- Reviews matter, and they live outside your website.
- Most of it needs your involvement; it cannot be done for you alone.
Who needs local SEO?
Businesses whose customers are nearby: clinics, schools, restaurants, venues, trades and service firms with a defined area. If someone searches for what you do with a place in mind, local results are where you want to appear. A business serving customers anywhere may need it less, though a business profile still helps it be found by name.
What does local SEO depend on?
Mostly things outside your website. A complete, accurate Google Business Profile (for a practice, see how local SEO works for dentists). Consistent name, address and phone details wherever your business is listed. Reviews, and your replies to them. Your site still matters: clear pages for each service and area help, and structured data can describe your business accurately, which is part of any local SEO engagement.
- A claimed, complete Google Business Profile
- Consistent business details across listings
- A steady flow of genuine reviews
- Service and location pages with real substance
Why avoid near-identical location pages?
Publishing dozens of pages that swap only the town name adds little for readers and can look like doorway pages to search engines. A page for a place is worth having when you genuinely serve it and have something specific to say about how. Otherwise improve the pages you have.
If you do serve several areas, give each page something specific: the services offered there, how you work with customers in that area and details that are true of that place. That is useful to the reader and gives search engines a reason to treat the page as distinct. For a preschool with three campuses, we built a branch page for each location on one domain, each with its own local content and a shared enquiry route.
Local SEO starting point
- Have you claimed your Google Business Profile?
- Are your name, address and phone identical everywhere?
- Do you ask satisfied customers for reviews?
- Do you genuinely serve each area you list?
Sources
Rules and guidance this answer relies on. Policies change, so check the current version before acting on it.