Local SEO has changed substantially in the last two years. Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) remains essential, but it is no longer enough on its own. The businesses ranking consistently at the top of local results in competitive markets are operating a full GEO targeting stack. Here is what that looks like.
The GEO targeting stack
- Optimised Google Business Profile
- Local landing pages for each service area
- Consistent NAP citations
- Review generation and management strategy
- Local schema markup
- Local link building
Google Business Profile: the non-negotiables
Complete every field. Businesses with complete GBP profiles get 7x more clicks than incomplete ones. The most commonly neglected fields: services (add every service with a description), products (if applicable), Q&A (seed it with your most common questions), and posts (publish weekly; GBP posts appear directly in the search result).
Photos: add at least 10 photos. Businesses with more than 100 photos get 520% more calls than businesses with fewer than 10. At minimum: exterior, interior, team, work examples, and before/after if applicable to your service.
Local landing pages
If you serve multiple cities or neighbourhoods, create a dedicated landing page for each service area. Not thin pages that just swap the city name, but genuinely unique content that references local context: local landmarks, local regulations, local customer stories.
URL structure: /services/plumbing/london/ or /areas/manchester/. Include the city name in the title tag, H1, first paragraph, and image alt text. Do not keyword-stuff. Write for humans first.
Citation building
Citations are mentions of your business Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) on other websites. Consistency is critical: even minor variations (St vs Street, Suite vs Ste) confuse Google's local algorithm.
Priority citation sources: Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, your industry-specific directories. Use a tool like Moz Local or BrightLocal to audit and fix inconsistencies across all citations.
Review strategy
Reviews are a major local ranking factor: both the quantity and the recency. A business with 200 reviews from 3 years ago will often rank below a business with 50 reviews from the last 3 months.
Build review generation into your service delivery process. The most effective moment to ask: immediately after a successful job completion, while the customer's satisfaction is at its peak. Use a direct link to your Google review page. Reducing friction significantly increases conversion. Tools like NiceJob or BirdEye can automate the request via SMS and email.
Respond to every review, positive and negative. Google considers response rate as a signal, and potential customers read your responses as much as they read the reviews themselves.
Local schema markup
Add LocalBusiness schema to every page of your site. Include: name, address, phone, opening hours, geo coordinates, service areas, and aggregate rating (once you have reviews).
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Your Business Name",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "123 Main St",
"addressLocality": "London",
"postalCode": "SW1A 1AA"
},
"telephone": "+44-20-1234-5678",
"openingHours": ["Mo-Fr 09:00-17:00"],
"areaServed": ["London", "Surrey", "Kent"]
}Local link building
Local links from relevant, trusted local sources carry significant weight in the local algorithm. Target: local business associations, local news sites, local bloggers, sponsoring local events, and partnerships with complementary local businesses (plumber + electrician + builder cross-referencing each other is a classic local SEO power move).