Free working checklist

The local SEO checklist — 17 steps, each with a done-condition

No fluff, no teaser: this is the actual monthly worklist for getting a local business found on Google and named by the AI assistants. Every item is one concrete action with a test for “done.” Run it by hand — or know exactly what you are paying software to run for you.

1. Google Business Profile — the local core

1. Claim and verify your Google Business Profile
   Done when You can edit the listing and see its insights.
2. Set your primary category to the most specific match, then add secondaries
   Done when Primary category names your exact service, not a broad umbrella.
3. Fill every field: hours, phone, website, services, attributes, service area
   Done when The profile completeness prompts are gone.
4. Add real photos of your work, team, and location — monthly
   Done when Newest photo is under 30 days old.
5. Post to the profile at least twice a month
   Done when Two dated posts visible in the last 30 days.
6. Respond to every review, positive and negative
   Done when Zero unanswered reviews older than a week.

2. Your website — what Google and the AI assistants read

1. Put your city and primary service in the homepage title tag (under 60 characters)
   Done when The title reads like "Emergency Plumber San Diego | Your Business".
2. Add LocalBusiness schema with your exact name, address, and phone
   Done when Google’s Rich Results Test shows LocalBusiness detected, no errors.
3. Create one page per core service, one per service area
   Done when Every service you sell has a URL a customer could land on.
4. Make every page answer one real buying question in the first paragraph
   Done when Reading only the first two sentences tells a customer they are in the right place.
5. Fix titles, headings, canonicals, and image alt text sitewide
   Done when Each page has one H1, a unique title, and no missing alt attributes.
6. Publish helpful content on a schedule — answers, prices, comparisons
   Done when At least two substantial posts a month, each with an FAQ section.

3. Consistency & authority — what the assistants cross-check

1. Make your name, address, and phone IDENTICAL across every directory
   Done when Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, and your site all show byte-identical NAP.
2. Build listings on the directories that matter in your industry
   Done when You appear in the top general + industry directories with matching details.
3. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and watch coverage
   Done when GSC shows your key pages indexed; coverage drops trigger an alert you will see.
4. Track your rankings for the searches customers actually type
   Done when You can name your position for your five most valuable queries.
5. Ask the four AI assistants your own buying questions monthly
   Done when You know verbatim what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok answer for "best [your service] near me" — and whether you are named.

Why every item has a done-condition

Most SEO checklists fail at the same spot: the items are true but untestable. “Optimize your Google Business Profile” is advice; “the profile completeness prompts are gone” is a state of the world you can check in thirty seconds. Done-conditions turn the list into a working document — you can hand it to anyone on your team, walk away, and audit the result without re-doing the work. They also expose the honest shape of local SEO: a short, front-loaded setup phase and a recurring monthly loop that never ends. The setup earns you a working foundation; the loop is what actually moves rankings and earns AI-assistant mentions, because Google and the assistants both weigh freshness, responsiveness, and consistency — signals that decay the month you stop. When you evaluate any provider, ours included, the question this checklist arms you with is simple: which of these items will actually get done every month, and how will I see the evidence?

How often each block repeats

The same list, run by software

Everything above is what ClawSignal executes monthly: content quality-gated before it publishes, fixes applied automatically where your platform allows, listings corrected, and what ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok answer recorded verbatim every cycle. Start with the free scan to see your baseline, or compare the two flat plans.