Local SEO Audit: Five Layers in the Order That Protects the Business, and the Grid Arithmetic Behind Local Rank Checks
· Royking Niba
A local SEO audit checks the things Google says decide local results, in an order that protects the business first: whether the Business Profile is eligible and within the guidelines, whether it matches what customers search for, how well known the business is online, whether the website backs the profile up, and whether rankings are being measured from where customers actually are. Google puts the whole system in one sentence: “Local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.” An audit is useful only if it separates what you can change from what you cannot, and distance is the part you cannot. Below is Google’s wording, quoted exactly and checked on 17 October 2026, the audit in five layers with the evidence to collect for each, and the rank-checking arithmetic that makes most single-point local rank reports misleading.
What Google says decides local results
Google’s help page on improving local ranking defines the three factors. “Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.” “Distance refers to how far each business is from the customer who’s searching”, and “If a customer doesn’t share where they are, Google uses what it knows about their location.” “Prominence means how well-known a business is”, and the page adds that this factor is “also based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.” Note the small inconsistency: the summary sentence says popularity, the definitions say prominence. They describe the same factor.
Two more sentences on that page set the limits of any audit. On reviews: “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.” On shortcuts: “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.” Anything an audit recommends has to work through relevance or prominence, because distance is fixed by where the business is and where the searcher stands.
The audit in five layers
I run the layers in this order because a problem in an earlier layer can cancel everything after it. A profile that breaks the guidelines can be suspended, and a suspended profile has no ranking to optimise.
| Layer | What you check | Google factor it touches | Evidence to collect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Eligibility and guidelines | One profile per business, a real address or a hidden address for a service-area business, a name that matches the real-world name | None directly; it protects the profile from suspension | Screenshots of signage or registration documents; a list of every profile and duplicate found |
| 2. Profile accuracy and relevance | Primary and secondary categories, services, hours, phone, website link, description, photos | Relevance | Each field compared with what the business actually does and with the searches you want |
| 3. Prominence | Review count, rating, recency and replies; links from other websites; mentions of the business | Prominence | Review totals against the businesses that outrank you; a backlink export |
| 4. The website | A page for each core service, the address and phone matching the profile, LocalBusiness structured data, no thin city pages | Relevance and prominence | A crawl of the site and the landing page the profile links to |
| 5. Measurement | Where rankings are checked from, which searches, and what the profile’s own insights show | Shows the effect of distance | A grid rank check and Search Console clicks for the landing page |
Layer 1: eligibility and guideline checks
Start with the Business Profile guidelines, because breaking them is the fastest way to lose a profile altogether. Four rules catch most businesses I audit:
- The name. “Your name should reflect your business’s real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront”, and “Including unnecessary information in your business name isn’t permitted.” A city or a keyword added to the name is the classic violation.
- One profile. “There should only be one profile per business”, and “Do not create more than one page for each location of your business.” Search Maps for the business phone number and old names to find duplicates.
- The address. “If you’re a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers.” And “P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations aren’t acceptable”, nor is a virtual office.
- The phone. “Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location”, and “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.”
If the profile is already suspended, stop the audit here and follow the appeal process in Google Business Profile suspended.
Layer 2: relevance, field by field
Relevance is the factor you control most directly. Start with the primary category, the one field that states what the business is, and check it against the search you most want to appear for, then check that the secondary categories and the services list cover the rest without claiming things the business does not do. Hours, phone and website link need to be right because a wrong one costs customers even when the ranking is fine. My field-by-field guide to profile optimization covers what each field feeds and its guideline limit, so the audit only needs to record which fields are wrong or empty.
Layer 3: prominence, reviews and links
Google names two inputs to prominence on the ranking page: links to the business and reviews. For reviews, record four numbers for your profile and for the three businesses that most often outrank you: total reviews, average rating, reviews in the last 90 days, and the share with an owner reply. The gap in recent reviews is usually more telling than the gap in totals, because it shows who is still collecting them. Google’s own advice on replies is that “Positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out.”
For links, export the backlinks to the site and sort them by whether they come from local or industry sources. Directory listings, often called citations, belong here too. Google’s ranking page does not use the word citation, so I treat listings as two things: links that may count toward prominence, and copies of the name, address and phone that customers and Google can compare with the profile. A listing with an old phone number is a customer service problem before it is an SEO one. If the link profile needs work, start with what backlinks actually do and avoid the shortcuts described in tiered link building.
Layer 4: the website behind the profile
The profile links to one page, and that page should confirm everything the profile claims: the same name, address and phone, the services in the categories, and a clear way to contact or book. Add LocalBusiness structured data that matches the visible details. The most common website fault in local audits is a set of near-identical city pages built to rank in towns the business does not serve from; Google treats that pattern as doorway abuse, explained in doorway pages. One genuinely useful page per real location or core service beats twenty templates.
Layer 5: measuring from where customers are
Because distance is a ranking factor and “Google uses what it knows about their location” when the searcher does not name one, a business does not have one local ranking. It has a different ranking at every point in its area. A rank check from the office address measures one point. The usual answer is a grid: check the same searches from evenly spaced points across the area. The arithmetic below shows how fast that grows. It is a model with stated assumptions: 20 tracked searches and a weekly check, counted as four checks a month.
| Grid | Spacing | Points | Square covered | Checks per run (20 searches) | Checks per month (weekly) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 x 3 | 2 km | 9 | 4 km x 4 km (16 km²) | 180 | 720 |
| 5 x 5 | 2 km | 25 | 8 km x 8 km (64 km²) | 500 | 2,000 |
| 7 x 7 | 1 km | 49 | 6 km x 6 km (36 km²) | 980 | 3,920 |
| 7 x 7 | 2 km | 49 | 12 km x 12 km (144 km²) | 980 | 3,920 |
| 9 x 9 | 1.5 km | 81 | 12 km x 12 km (144 km²) | 1,620 | 6,480 |
Two conclusions follow. A single check from the business address is one point of a 49-point grid, about 2 percent of what a modest grid samples. And spacing matters as much as size: the two 7 x 7 grids cost the same, but one covers four times the area of the other. Match the grid to the real service area. A city-centre dentist needs a tight grid; a roofer covering a metro area needs a wide one.
The second trap is how grid results get summarised. Take an illustrative 49-point grid where the business ranks in the top three at 12 points, between fourth and tenth at 17 points, and is not found at 20 points. Averaging the rank only where it was found gives about 4.6, which sounds healthy. But the business is invisible at 40.8 percent of the points, and only 24.5 percent of the area sees it in the top three, the places the map pack usually shows. Report the share of points in the top three and the share where the business is missing, not an average. The same problem with averages on the web side is covered in SEO metrics.
Local SEO audit checklist
- Find every profile for the business, including duplicates and old names, and confirm only one remains per location.
- Check the name against the real-world name; remove any added city or keyword.
- Confirm the address rule: shown for a storefront, hidden for a service-area business, never a mailbox or virtual office.
- Confirm the phone connects to the location and is under the business’s control.
- Check the primary category against the most important search, then the secondary categories and services.
- Correct hours, website link and description; add recent real photos.
- Record reviews, rating, reviews in the last 90 days and reply rate for you and three competitors.
- Export backlinks and list local and industry sources; note listings with wrong details.
- Check the landing page matches the profile and carries LocalBusiness structured data.
- Remove or merge thin city pages.
- Set up a grid rank check sized to the real service area and report top-three share and missing share.
- Repeat the review and grid checks monthly; repeat the full audit after any move, rebrand or suspension.
The same five layers apply in any vertical; the demand side differs. For worked examples, see roofing SEO and dental SEO, and for the non-local half of a site audit, my SEO audit checklist.
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