The local search audit checklist

The checklist

49 checks. Tick each one as you confirm it.

Your ticks stay in this browser and are never sent to us.

Can search engines reach your pages?

• Your robots.txt lets Google fetch your homepage and the pages in its main navigation.

  Scan check T1. Read more: robots.txt

• Your homepage and the pages in its main navigation carry no noindex tag or header.

  Scan check T2. Read more: noindex

• No page's canonical tag points to another site, a redirect or an error page.

  Scan check T3. Read more: Canonical tag

• The http and www versions of your address all redirect to one https address.

  Scan check T4. Read more: 301 redirect

• Every link inside your site opens a live page, not an error.

  Scan check T5. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• No link inside your site passes through 2 or more redirects before it reaches its page.

  Scan check T6. Read more: 301 redirect

• Your XML sitemap lists only live pages you want indexed.

  Scan check T7. Read more: XML sitemap

• Every page in your sitemap has at least one link to it from another page of your site.

  Scan check T8. Read more: XML sitemap

• Search Console is set up for your domain, and the owner account is yours, not a past contractor's.

  Read more: Should you do local SEO in-house or hire an agency?

Does each page say what it is?

• Every page has a title of its own, and no two pages share one.

  Scan check C1. Read more: Title tag

• Your town or service area appears in the homepage title or its main heading.

  Scan check C3. Read more: Title tag

• Every page has a meta description, which Google sometimes shows under the title in search results.

  Scan check C4. Read more: Title tag

• Each page has exactly one main heading, not two and not none.

  Scan check C5. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• Each service page says what the job includes, where you do it and roughly what it costs.

  Scan check C2. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• Service pages answer the questions customers ask before they call, in their own words.

  Scan check A4. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

Can a customer on a phone reach you?

• Your homepage carries a viewport tag, so a phone fits it to its screen instead of loading it zoomed out.

  Scan check E5. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• Your phone number is a tap-to-call link near the top of every page.

  Scan check V1. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• A contact form or a booking link sits on the homepage or one tap away from it.

  Scan check V2. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• No form on your site makes people fill in more than 6 required fields.

  Scan check V3. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• You sent a test message through your own form this month, and it reached you.

  Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• Any chatbot on your site tells visitors it is a bot before they rely on what it says.

  Read more: Chatbot disclosure

• Analytics is installed on your homepage, so you can see which pages bring in visits.

  Scan check V4. Read more: Is local SEO worth it for a small business?

• You know roughly how many calls and bookings came from search last month.

  Read more: Is local SEO worth it for a small business?

Is the site quick and steady?

• On a phone, your biggest image or headline shows up within 2.5 seconds.

  Scan check E1. Read more: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

• A tap on a button or a menu gets a response within 200 milliseconds.

  Scan check E2. Read more: Core Web Vitals

• Your layout shift score is 0.1 or less, so little moves as a page loads.

  Scan check E3. Read more: Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

• Your server starts sending a page within 800 milliseconds of the request.

  Scan check E4. Read more: Core Web Vitals

• Fewer than 3 scripts in your homepage's head, such as trackers and chat widgets, load before the page can draw.

  Scan check E6. Read more: Core Web Vitals

• Every photo of your work has alt text that says plainly what it shows.

  Scan check E7. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

• A link to your homepage sent in a text message shows a preview image, not a blank box.

  Scan check E8. Read more: What should a local SEO audit check?

Does your site say who and where you are?

• Your homepage carries structured data, written as JSON-LD.

  Scan check A2. Read more: LocalBusiness schema

• That structured data gives a phone, address or service area, and at least one link to your Business Profile or social pages.

  Scan check A3. Read more: LocalBusiness schema

• One phone number is used across the whole site and in the structured data.

  Scan check L1. Read more: NAP consistency

• The street address in your structured data is also shown on the page, word for word.

  Scan check L2. Read more: NAP consistency

• Your robots.txt lets in the crawlers that feed AI search answers, unless you chose to keep them out.

  Scan check A1. Read more: AI search crawlers

• You have decided on purpose whether crawlers that collect pages for AI training may read yours.

  Scan check A1T. Read more: AI search crawlers

• Optional: your site publishes an llms.txt file for AI tools to read.

  Scan check A5. Read more: llms.txt

Is your Business Profile complete and yours?

• Your Business Profile is claimed and verified, and you are an owner of it, not only a manager.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

• The primary category names what you do, not a keyword you hope to rank for.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

• Your opening hours are right, and holiday hours go in before each holiday.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

• If customers never come to you, your address is hidden and your service area is set instead.

  Read more: Service-area business

• Your name, address and phone on the profile match your website exactly.

  Read more: NAP consistency

• The photos show your own work, team or premises, and some of them are recent.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

• The website link on your profile goes to the right page, and that page loads.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

Reviews and listings elsewhere

• You ask every customer for a review, not only the ones you expect to be happy.

  Read more: Review gating

• You offer nothing in return for a review, and nothing for changing or removing one.

  Read more: Review gating

• Every review has a reply, the unhappy ones first, with no private details in it.

  Read more: Google Business Profile

• The main directories in your field list the same name, address and phone as your site.

  Read more: Local citations

• You have searched for your main service in your own town on a phone, and you know where you appear.

  Read more: Map pack

What a tick from the scan means

A tick from the scan means it ran that check on the pages it read and found nothing wrong. It does not mean the whole site passes: the scan reads your homepage, the pages it links to and a few pages from your sitemap, as the method page sets out.

Some items never tick themselves, even when the scan found nothing. A site with no phone number shows no phone mismatch, and a scan that saw only a few images says nothing about alt text, so those stay yours to confirm.

The ticks come from the result the scan keeps in this tab for 6 hours; after that, only your own ticks are there.

Where your ticks are kept

Your ticks are saved in this browser's own storage, as a list of the items you ticked and nothing more. They are never sent to us. Clear them with the button above the list, or by clearing this site's data in your browser.

If your browser blocks storage, as some private windows do, the list still works, but your ticks last only while the page is open.

What the list leaves out

This is the half of an audit you can do yourself. It cannot show you links from other sites, and it cannot read your Search Console or Analytics. Our paid Roadmap Audit works from that account data, adds a snapshot of the map results beside your competitors, and turns it into a written plan.

Questions

Do I need to fix every item on this list?

No. Start with anything the scan marks high, then anything that stops a customer calling or booking. One item, the llms.txt file, is optional, and the list says so.

Can someone do the website items for me?

Yes. A Fix Sprint covers up to 12 hours of the fixes your scan found, for $950 once, with before and after evidence. The profile and review items are what our monthly plans keep up.

More free tools

• Free website scan: Reads your homepage and the pages it links to, then lists each problem it finds with the evidence and an estimate of what it may cost you each month, plus one example fix.
• Where to start: a three-question quiz: Your type of business, what worries you most and your address. It starts the cost estimate from your industry and opens the findings on your worry first. It changes no check the scan runs.
• ROI calculator: Your own numbers against the price of a plan over twelve months: what is at stake, when the work would pay for itself, and a business case you can print.
• Orphan page finder: Part of the scan: for sitemap pages none of the pages it read link to, a page to link each one from and the words to use.