Local SEO for small teams

We end up explaining this on discovery calls often enough that it deserved writing down. Most advice about local SEO assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Search work compounds slowly, which is why it gets abandoned about two months before it would have paid off. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

What to keep

Consistent name, address, and phone details across the web matter. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

Where to start

Reviews influence both ranking and the decision to call. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

The short version

Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. Three things worth confirming about local SEO before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Consistent name, address, and phone details across the web matter — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.