Local SEO for a WordPress site
What a local business's own website has to say for it to be found nearby, and what belongs in its Google Business Profile instead. Start with whether the profile and the site agree, then the site's markup, then its pages for each place it serves.
- By
- WP Ministry
- Published
Being found by people nearby rests on two things a business controls: its Google Business Profile, and its own website. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and that there is no way to ask or pay for a better place in them. So nothing here promises one. What can be done is to make sure the profile and the site say the same true things, clearly.
Most of what is written about local SEO is about the profile. This subject is about the other half, the website, where a WordPress site's owner can check and change things, and about the few moments when the profile itself is the problem.
Your business is not showing on Google Maps. Work through the checks, in order. If the profile has been suspended, see what a suspension is and how to appeal.
Someone else controls your profile. A developer or an agency that set it up and has gone: see how to get a Business Profile back.
The site's own details. One name, one address and one phone number, the same wherever the site says them: name, address and phone on a WordPress site. Then say them in a form a search engine reads: LocalBusiness markup on WordPress.
Stars and reviews. Why a business's own reviews do not earn stars in search, and what Google's rule says: review stars not showing.
More than one place. A page for each location or area you serve, and where Google draws the line between that and a doorway page: location pages on WordPress.
All of it in one list. The local SEO checklist for a WordPress site.
Guides
- Business not showing on Google Maps: what to check, in orderSearch Google Maps for the business's exact name and town. If it is missing, the cause is one of a short list that Google's help names: no Business Profile, an unverified one, a suspension, another owner, a duplicate, or a business its guidelines do not cover.
- Google Business Profile suspended: what it means, why it happens and how to appealA suspended or disabled Business Profile is one Google has taken down for not following its guidelines. The public cannot open it and its owner cannot act on it. Check it against the guidelines, gather documents, then appeal once in Google's appeals tool from the account that manages it.
- How to add local business schema to WordPress without a pluginSave one PHP file in wp-content/mu-plugins and WordPress prints a LocalBusiness block, as JSON-LD, on the page that shows your business details. Google requires a name and an address and recommends hours, a phone number, a URL, coordinates and a price range.
- How to request ownership of a Google Business Profile that someone else controlsAsk whoever holds the profile to add you as an owner and make you primary owner. If they cannot or will not, use Google's Request Access form at business.google.com/add. The current owner gets 3 days to answer, and after that Google may let you claim and verify the profile yourself.
- Location pages for multiple cities in WordPress: where Google's spam policy puts the limitA real branch deserves a page of its own. A page for each town that differs only in the town's name is what Google's spam policies describe as doorway abuse. In WordPress, make each branch a child page of one Locations page, and compare any two pages with the place names removed.
- NAP consistency: what Google says about name, address and phone, and one place to keep them in WordPressGoogle asks for a business's real-world name, an accurate address and a phone number the business controls. Its guidelines and its local ranking page say nothing about directory listings having to match. On your own WordPress site, keep the three in one place so no copy goes stale.
- Review stars not showing in Google for a local business: Google's rule, and what to do insteadGoogle does not show review stars for a rating of a business that sits on the business's own website, in its markup or in an embedded reviews widget. It has said so since September 16, 2019. A local business's stars appear on its Business Profile, from reviews people leave on Google.
- Service area business SEO: Google's rules for the profile, and a website with no address to showA business that travels to its customers gets one Google Business Profile, with its address hidden and up to 20 service areas. Its website needs no street address. It should say who you are, what you do, the area you cover, your phone number and the hours you answer.