This local SEO readiness checker helps an Australian business review the foundations that make local search work possible. It covers Business Profile accuracy, website evidence, technical discovery, local authority and measurement in one practical assessment.
The 14 checks are based on published Google and ACCC guidance. Separate ACMA guidance covers outreach compliance and does not form part of the score. Your answers stay in the browser session and are not submitted or saved. The result is an SEO Guys planning score, not a Google score, technical audit or ranking forecast.
Answer each check honestly, including Not sure when the evidence is unavailable. The tool will keep unanswered and uncertain items at zero so the first result does not overstate readiness.
Offline evidence worksheet
Record all 14 readiness checks with evidence
Use the source-labelled CSV to keep a private baseline outside the browser, assign owners and record review dates. The worksheet is a planning aid, not a Google score, technical audit, ranking prediction or guarantee. Do not store customer personal information in the file.
Free browser-based tool
Check your local SEO readiness
Answer 14 practical checks covering your Business Profile, website, local authority and measurement. This is a planning aid, not a Google ranking prediction or guarantee.
Your answers stay in this browser session. They are not submitted or saved.
What the local SEO checker measures
Local visibility depends on several systems agreeing about the same real business. A complete Business Profile cannot compensate for a website Google cannot access. A technically sound website cannot validate an ineligible address. Useful local pages still need internal links and relevant external recognition if people and search engines are going to discover them.
The assessment groups those dependencies into practical areas. It is deliberately broader than a Business Profile checklist because local customers may encounter the business in a map result, an organic result, a review platform, a local article or the website itself.
Business Profile
Ownership, identity, location eligibility, completeness and responsible review practices.
Website and entity
Consistent business facts, valid structured data, useful local pages and supportable claims.
Discovery and authority
Indexable mobile content, crawlable internal links and genuine local mentions or citations.
Measurement
Search Console, GA4 and enquiry evidence that can connect visibility with qualified customer demand.
How to interpret the readiness score
A Yes answer earns one point and a Partly answer earns half a point. No, Not sure and unanswered checks earn no points. That conservative treatment makes uncertainty visible instead of turning it into an optimistic score.
The percentage is a planning aid. It does not represent a Google quality score, ranking probability or share of work completed. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence. The business can improve the accuracy, usefulness and recognition covered by this assessment, but it cannot control every result or remove distance from the searcher's context.
Use the three suggested actions as a starting queue, then verify the issue before changing the website or profile. A failed check can involve policy, technical or legal detail that a self-assessment cannot diagnose fully.
- Use Yes only when current evidence confirms the check.
- Use Partly when the foundation exists but important details are incomplete or outdated.
- Use No when the requirement is absent or clearly incorrect.
- Use Not sure when the relevant account, page or evidence has not been inspected.
- Treat the score as a way to order investigation, not as a performance claim.
- Save separate evidence for every fix so the result can be checked again later.
Turn the gaps into a focused 30-day plan
Start with issues that affect eligibility, truthfulness and access. Publishing more pages while the profile uses an ineligible address or the website blocks indexing adds work without solving the underlying problem. Fix the foundation, confirm the outcome and then move to growth work.
The exact order depends on the business, but the sequence below protects the most important dependencies and creates evidence for later decisions.
- Confirm the profile owner, verification status, real-world business name, category and eligible address or service area.
- Reconcile the business name, phone, website, hours and location facts across the profile and visible website.
- Remove unsupported office, service area, testimonial, pricing and performance claims.
- Check that the priority service and local pages return a working response, contain indexable text and are complete on mobile.
- Add accurate LocalBusiness structured data to the most appropriate location or contact page and validate it.
- Improve one priority local page with first-hand proof, relevant customer questions and current primary sources.
- Add contextual internal links from related service, resource, proof and location pages.
- Connect Search Console, GA4 and enquiry tracking before judging the commercial effect of the changes.
- Create one locally useful source asset before beginning individual, consent-based outreach.
Build local evidence worth citing
A local page becomes more useful when it helps a customer understand the service in that place. That can include an actual office, the areas a team can serve, first-hand project constraints, relevant public data, local regulations, delivery times or questions customers in the market regularly ask.
Use the most direct current source for public facts and explain why the fact matters to the customer. A population number copied from a search result does not create local expertise. A current primary source combined with first-hand service knowledge can.
Operational proof
Show the real office, team, service process, travel area or local work the business can support.
Customer proof
Use approved testimonials, dated case evidence and genuine reviews without inventing a local relationship.
Primary public sources
Cite government, regulator, council or original industry material where it directly supports the local advice.
Original resources
Publish a maintained checker, dataset, template or guide that saves local organisations and customers time.
Know what a self-assessment cannot establish
The checker cannot inspect account ownership, live profile status, index coverage, structured data validity, analytics configuration, link quality or lead records. Those checks require the relevant account, website or business evidence. A Not sure answer is therefore useful because it identifies a verification task.
It also cannot establish why one business outranks another. Local results can vary by location, query, device and time. Search Console reports aggregated search performance and may omit some query data for privacy. Analytics and enquiry records also need configuration and business context before they can support a commercial conclusion.
Do not use the result to make ranking guarantees or comparative claims. Australian businesses should be able to support public claims about locations, results, prices and customer experiences with accurate evidence.
- Confirm profile eligibility and ownership inside the relevant Google account.
- Test important URLs and structured data with current Google tools.
- Review Search Console by query, page, country, device and a meaningful comparison period.
- Inspect the source and context of each external mention or link.
- Verify enquiry quality with the business team rather than treating every form event as a customer.
- Obtain appropriate professional advice when a marketing or location claim creates legal uncertainty.
Repeat the check after meaningful changes
Download the evidence worksheet to record the initial date, answers, non-personal evidence, owner and review date outside this browser. The interactive tool intentionally does not store answers. Repeat the assessment after verified changes have gone live, not simply because time has passed.
Measure search visibility beside qualified business outcomes. In Search Console, review the relevant queries, pages, clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position with appropriate segmentation. In GA4 and the customer system, check whether organic landing pages contribute to real enquiries, appointments or sales.
A score can improve as foundations are completed while search performance remains unchanged in the short term. That does not make the work useless or prove it will rank later. It means eligibility, accuracy and measurement are stronger. Continue testing the commercial pages and authority work against observed evidence.
Implementation evidence
Record what changed, who approved it, the live URL and the date it became available.
Search evidence
Compare relevant query and page groups using like periods and note major ranking, demand or result-page changes.
Business evidence
Review qualified enquiries, sales, service fit and lead source with the people who handle customers.
Next decision
Use the combined evidence to keep, revise or stop the next local SEO action.
Sources and further reading
Primary and authoritative sources used to support the factual guidance in this resource.
- Source 01Google Business Profile verification guidance, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance on adding, claiming and verifying an eligible business profile.
- Source 02Google Business Profile guidelines, opens in a new tabOfficial rules covering business identity, categories, addresses, service areas and eligibility.
- Source 03Google local ranking guidance, opens in a new tabGoogle's explanation of relevance, distance, prominence and complete profile information.
- Source 04Google guidance on reviews, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance on requesting, sharing and responding to customer reviews without incentives.
- Source 05ACCC guidance on online reviews, opens in a new tabAustralian guidance on fake, misleading, incentivised and selectively presented reviews.
- Source 06Google LocalBusiness structured data, opens in a new tabOfficial requirements and recommendations for describing a local business with structured data.
- Source 07Google people-first content guidance, opens in a new tabOfficial questions for evaluating original, useful and trustworthy content created for people.
- Source 08Google technical requirements, opens in a new tabThe minimum technical conditions that make a web page eligible for Google Search.
- Source 09Google link best practices, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance on crawlable links, descriptive anchor text and useful internal context.
- Source 10Google Search Console Performance report, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance on using Search Console clicks, impressions, click-through rate and position data.
- Source 11ACCC guidance on false or misleading claims, opens in a new tabAustralian consumer guidance on truthful, supportable marketing claims.
- Source 12ACMA guidance on avoiding spam, opens in a new tabAustralian guidance on consent, sender identification, contact details and unsubscribe requirements.
- Source 13How Google sources business information, opens in a new tabOfficial explanation of business information sources used in Search and Maps.
- Source 14Google Analytics landing page report, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance for reviewing landing-page sessions, engagement and configured key events.
- Source 15Google Analytics key events guidance, opens in a new tabOfficial guidance on recording and reporting actions that matter to the business as key events.