Sauce · Local SEO
What local SEO actually includes
In a nutshell
Local SEO is not one job. It is seven kinds of work: your Google profile, your reviews, your website pages, your directory listings, the tech setup, the tracking, and the newer AI-answer part. A $500 plan usually touches the first two. A $1,500 plan touches most of them. A $3,000 plan does all of them, at a faster pace. This post walks through each part in plain terms.
Want to see which parts your business is missing?Our free scan checks your profile against a 12-point list and shows your map coverage.
Get the free scanYou pay $1,500 a month for local SEO.
What is the person on the other end doing with it? If you cannot say in one sentence, you are not alone. Most plans are sold as a black box.
Here is what is inside the box.
The seven parts of local SEO
Tap each one to open it.
Your free listing on Google Maps. The work is setting the main and extra categories, the services list, the description, photos, hours, and the area you serve.
Why it matters: the main category is the biggest thing Google uses to match you to a search. Most of the top map signals come straight from the profile. Fix this first.
A steady flow of real reviews. Ask every customer. Reply to every review, good and bad.
Why it matters: how recent your reviews are is now a top-five ranking factor. Most people look for reviews from the last three months. Fifty in one week looks fake. One a week for a year does not.
Your service pages and city pages. Real content about what you do and where. Clear headings, links between pages, and fast loading on a phone.
Why it matters: website signals are the one thing that helps in all three places: the map, the normal results, and AI answers. The profile alone does not carry a campaign.
Your name, address, and phone listed the same way everywhere online. Finding the old or wrong ones and fixing them.
Why it matters: if the details do not match, your profile can only climb so far. It matters even more for AI, because AI tools build answers from these listings. If they do not agree, the AI cannot trust them.
The under-the-hood setup. Making sure Google can read your pages, fixing broken links, speeding up load time, and adding a bit of code called schema that tells search engines what your business is.
Why it matters: a page Google cannot read well cannot rank well. Schema helps with rich results. Google says it is not required for AI answers.
Tracking where you rank from many points across your area, not one. Logging calls and leads so you can see cost per customer.
Why it matters: one rank number from one spot hides most of the picture. Google leans hard on how close the searcher is. You can rank first at your address and be invisible three kilometres away.
Making sure ChatGPT, Gemini, Google's AI answers, and Perplexity can check your business well enough to name it. That means clear facts about what you do, and data that matches everywhere.
Why it matters: it runs on the same basics as the rest. Google's AI guide says there is no separate tech layer, and calls files like llms.txt pointless for its answers.
What moves first, and what builds up
The order matters. This is roughly the sequence a good plan follows.
Baseline
A dated scan of where you rank across the area, so every later claim can be checked.
Profile
The biggest wins first: categories, services, photos, hours. Movement can show in weeks.
Website and structure
Pages, links, tech fixes, schema. Slower to show. It is the floor everything else stands on.
Reviews and citations
These build up. A steady flow over months beats any one-time push. Cleanup keeps your data in line.
Measure and adjust
Regular scans against the baseline. If a search or an area is not moving, change the plan instead of doing more of the same.
How it splits across price tiers
- Parts 1 and 2: a profile cleanup, light upkeep, a review reminder.
- A monthly rank report, often from one location.
- Little to no website, citation, technical, or AI work.
- Parts 1 to 4, plus basic tracking: ongoing profile work, real review flow, citation cleanup, one real city or service page, grid tracking.
- Some tech fixes as needed.
- All seven parts, at a faster pace: several content pieces a month, ongoing tech and schema work, competitor teardowns, the AI part, and a fix plan when something stalls.
- Multi-location handling, or a very crowded single market.
For a full pricing breakdown, see how much local SEO costs in 2026.
What is not local SEO
Things you may be sold that do not do what they claim:
- Photo geotagging. Google removes GPS data from photos on upload. A test across 27 locations found no effect on rank.
- Guaranteed rankings. Google says there is no way to pay or ask for a better local rank. A promised position is a red flag.
- Bought or incentivised reviews. Against Google's policy, and easy to detect.
- Copy-paste city pages. The same page with the city name swapped is a quality problem, not coverage.
- An llms.txt file to boost rank. Google says its systems do not read these files. It does not help or hurt.
Go deeper
Related reading
Each goes deeper on one part of this.
What local SEO costs in 2026
Real ranges, what each price buys, and a calculator for your own number.
See the numbers › Piece 02The 12-week method
The same seven parts, laid out stage by stage, plus the 12-point checklist.
See the roadmap › Piece 03The Business Profile checklist
Part one in detail: the fields Google names as ranking factors, one at a time.
See the checklist ›See which of the seven parts you are missing.Our free 49-point geo-grid scan checks your profile and maps your coverage across the area. You keep the results either way.
Get the free scanWhere we sit
Our 12-week roadmap works through all seven parts in order, for $1,000 to $3,000 a month, one client per trade per city. We publish the full 12-point checklist so you can do the highest-leverage parts yourself. We do not guarantee rankings. We measure against a dated baseline so the work can actually be judged.
What does a local SEO plan include each month?
Depends on the price. A basic plan is profile upkeep and a report. A mid plan adds reviews, citation cleanup, and some website work. A full plan adds more content, tech and schema work, competitor analysis, and the AI part. Ask any provider to name the monthly work before you sign.
Which part matters most?
The Google Business Profile, then reviews. The main category is the biggest thing Google uses to match you to a search. Most top map signals come from the profile. Recent reviews are a top-five factor. You can do both yourself.
Do I need the technical and schema work?
If your site is slow, hard to read, or thin, yes. A page Google cannot read well cannot rank well. Schema helps with rich results. Google says it is not required for its AI answers.
Is AI or answer-engine work a separate service?
It should not be a separate tech layer. Google says AI visibility runs on the same basics: clear content, matching data, pages Google can read. Be wary of an “AI SEO” package built on llms.txt files or chopping up content. Google says both are pointless.
Sources
- Whitespark, Local Search Ranking Factors 2026: primary category as the strongest relevance field; Google Business Profile signals dominant in the Local Pack; review recency a top-five factor; Google predefined services rising sharply in 2026.
- Google Business Profile Help, Local search ranking factors: relevance, distance, prominence, and no way to pay for a better rank.
- Google Search Central, “Optimizing for AI features and your website”: no separate AI layer; llms.txt and content chunking called unnecessary.
- Ahrefs, How Much Does SEO Cost? (updated April 2026): local SEO retainers commonly $1,000–$3,000/mo.
Survey figures are third-party estimates and directional, not Google's disclosed formula.
Next step
See which parts your business is missing
Free scan first, then a straight answer on what the work would take. One client per trade, per city.