Local SEO checklist for a WordPress site: the profile, the website, and what to leave out

This is the list a local business with a WordPress site works through once, and again after a move, a new phone number, a new name or a new branch. Every item is something Google or WordPress documents, and each says how to check it.

Google's help page on local results sets the limit for any list like this one: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." The same page says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity. So nothing below is a way to a place in the results. It is what Google's own pages ask a business to get right. The last section says what was left out, and why.

The Business Profile

The owner does these, signed in to their own Google account. None of it happens in WordPress.

• The business is eligible. Google requires in-person contact with customers during stated hours, with a few listed exceptions. An online-only business, a lead generation company and an address that is a P.O. box are not eligible.
• It is set up as the right kind. A storefront shows its address. A service-area business, which goes to its customers, removes the address and names the areas it serves. A business that does both shows both. To check, open "Edit profile", then "Location".
• It is claimed and verified. Verifying gives you ownership of the profile and lets you edit it. Google chooses the method and says its review takes up to 5 business days. To check, look for a "Get verified" button on the profile. There should be none.
• The owner's own account is the primary owner. A profile has only one. Google's guidelines tell anyone who manages a profile for a business to have the owner hold it, and to be added as a manager. To check, open "Business Profile settings", then "People and access". If someone who has gone holds it, see how to get a Business Profile back.
• The name is the real-world name, with nothing added. Google's guidelines say the name should reflect the one the business really uses: on its storefront, its website and its stationery, and as customers know it. To check, hold the profile against the sign over the door.
• The address or the service area follows the rules. A street address is precise, and a P.O. box or a virtual office does not qualify. A service area is named by area, such as a city or a postal code, up to 20 of them, reaching no farther than about two hours' drive from where the business is based.
• The category is the most specific one that fits. Google asks for as few categories as describe the core business, chosen for what the business is and not for what it has.
• The hours are right, special hours included. A holiday or a one-off day goes under "Special hours", so the regular hours stay as they are. Check before each public holiday.
• The phone number and the website are the business's own. Google asks for a number that reaches the individual location, under the business's direct control, and a website address that does not send people on somewhere else. To check, call the number and follow the link.
• The rest of Google's own list is done. Its local ranking page today lists five things a business can do: verify, keep its information complete and up to date, respond to reviews, add photos and videos, and, for a retail store in an eligible country, add in-store products. The list ends there.
• The profile is not suspended. If it is, see what a suspension is and how to appeal.

The website says the same thing

Google's guidelines name the website among the places a business's real name is used, and Google lists a business's official website among the sources it compiles profile information from.

• The name, address and phone number on the site match the profile. To check, read the profile and the site's footer side by side, character by character.
• The site keeps them in one place. The footer, the contact page and the markup read from one source, so a change is made once. See name, address and phone on a WordPress site.
• The contact page gives them as text. To check, try to select the address with the cursor. If you cannot, it is a picture. Google's structured data guidelines say not to mark up content that readers cannot see, so what the markup says has to be on the page.
• The phone number is a tel: link. tel is the address scheme for telephone numbers. To check, tap the number on a phone and see that the phone offers to call it.

The website can be found

• Search engines are not discouraged. Under Settings, then Reading, the box "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked. While it is ticked, WordPress adds a noindex tag to the site's pages and switches its sitemap off. See what the box does and how to turn it off.
• The home page can be indexed. The page indexing check reads a page from outside and shows what could keep it out: its status, a rule in robots.txt, a noindex on the page or in its headers. If the site is not in Google at all, see WordPress site not showing up on Google.
• There is a sitemap. WordPress's own is at /wp-sitemap.xml. To check, open that address. If it answers 404, see which sitemap WordPress makes and which one to submit. Google calls a submitted sitemap a hint.
• The site is verified in Search Console. Google's guide to business details asks for it, next to claiming the profile.
• The home page's title says what the business is and where, in ordinary words. Google asks for titles that are descriptive and concise, and calls repeating the same words keyword stuffing. Left to itself, WordPress builds the home page's title from the site title and the tagline, under Settings, then General. To check, read the title in the browser's tab.

Markup

• LocalBusiness markup is on the page that is about the business. Google says it may go on any page, and that one with information about the business makes more sense. LocalBusiness markup on WordPress covers where it goes, and the local business markup generator writes it.
• It has the required properties and the recommended ones that apply. Required are name and address. Recommended, where they apply, are telephone, url, openingHoursSpecification, geo, priceRange, and for a food business menu and servesCuisine. Google also asks for the most specific type, such as Restaurant, over plain LocalBusiness.
• It says what the page and the profile say. The same name, address, number and hours.
• There is no review markup about your own business. Where a business controls the reviews about itself, typed into its site or shown through a widget, Google says its pages with LocalBusiness or Organization markup are not eligible for review stars. See why review stars do not show for a local business.

To check, run the page through Google's Rich Results Test. It reads the syntax and the properties, not whether the details are true.

Pages for branches and service areas

• A page for a place exists only where there is something true to say about it. A branch has its own address, hours, phone number and staff. A town you only drive to has none. Google's spam policies give this as an example of doorway abuse: "Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page". See location pages on WordPress.
• Each real branch has its own page, markup and profile. Google asks that each location be marked up as a LocalBusiness of its own, with url set to that location's page, and does not allow more than one profile for a location.
• A service-area business has one profile, not one for each town. The towns go in its service areas.

Reviews

Two sets of rules bear on asking for reviews: Google's policy for content on Maps and, in the United States, the FTC's rule on consumer reviews, 16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 21, 2024. What follows states what they say and is not legal advice.

• Ask every customer, the same way. Google's own tips say to remind customers and give them a link or a QR code. Its Maps policy does not allow a merchant to seek reviews only from customers expected to be positive, or to discourage negative ones. The FTC's staff say that asking only happy customers is not specifically prohibited by the rule but could violate the FTC Act. To check, see that the request sits where every customer gets it, such as the receipt.
• Offer nothing for a review. Google's policy bars any incentive, such as payment, a discount or free goods, for posting a review or for changing or removing one. The FTC's rule, at § 465.4, prohibits an incentive conditioned on the review expressing a particular sentiment. Offering nothing keeps inside both.
• Do not write, buy or arrange them. § 465.2 covers writing, selling and buying reviews that misrepresent the reviewer or their experience. § 465.5 covers reviews that officers and managers seek from employees and relatives, where the relationship is not disclosed.
• Do not ask for a review at the counter, or for particular words. Google's policy says merchants should not pressure customers to review while on the premises, or ask for specific content.
• Reply to them. Replying is on Google's own list above. Replies are public.

After a change

A move, a new number, a new name or a new branch. Work in this order, on one day where you can, so that the profile and the site disagree for as short a time as possible.

What this checklist leaves out

Each of these is on other local SEO checklists. Each is left off this one for a reason that can be looked up.

• Listing the business in dozens of directories so that every listing matches. We found no Google page that says listings in directories must match. Its page on local ranking does not mention directories, and its spam policies list links from low-quality directory sites among examples of link spam. A listing where your customers really look is worth keeping correct, for them.
• Buying links. Google's spam policies name buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.
• Buying or rewarding reviews. It is against Google's Maps policy, which can also restrict a profile that does it, and it is covered by 16 CFR 465.2 and 465.4.
• A page for every town. The doorway policy quoted above.
• "Geo-tagged" photos. We found no Google page that says location data inside a photo file has any effect on local results.
• Keywords, towns or services added to the business name. Google's guidelines say unnecessary information in the name is not permitted and could lead to the profile's suspension. They list service information and location information among what a name must not include.

WP Ministry's local SEO service puts the website's side of this list in order: its details, its markup and its pages.