The Local SEO Audit • Specialty 10 of 13

Most in-market shoppers start with a local search, see three results, and pick from those three. Whether your store is in that pack is a measurable, fixable thing.

We audit your Google Business Profile, NAP consistency, local pack visibility, service-area coverage, and category positioning. The layer where most local shopping starts.

See pricing

Why local pack inclusion is the highest-leverage real estate on Google

Three slots. Above the fold. For most high-intent dealer queries, this is where the click happens.

GBP optimization, review velocity, NAP consistency, and category accuracy all feed into local pack ranking. Most dealer GBPs were claimed years ago and have been on autopilot since.

Some stores rank top-3 on every relevant query in their geography. Some appear nowhere on most queries. The gap is often closeable in 60–90 days because the bar across the industry is uneven.

What nobody has told you

"Your GBP probably has incorrect or outdated business hours, missing services, or a generic description that has not been touched since claim."

"GBP posts (the social-style updates inside GBP) are a meaningful ranking signal. Most dealers do not use them at all."

"Photos uploaded to GBP outperform photos linked from your website for local engagement metrics. Most stores have under 50 GBP photos."

"You may have a finely tuned GBP. You may have one on autopilot. The audit takes seconds to tell."

The five failures we find on almost every dealer site

On most dealer sites in this area, you almost certainly have at least three of these.

HIGH

GBP categories incomplete

Primary and secondary categories on GBP heavily influence which queries you appear on. Most dealers have a primary category and nothing else.

How we fix it: Primary + 9 secondary categories chosen for query coverage (e.g., 'Used car dealer,' 'Auto repair shop,' 'Truck dealer').

HIGH

NAP inconsistency across the web

Name, address, phone variations across GBP, website, OEM directories, and aggregators dilute the local entity signal. Even small format differences (Suite vs Ste) count.

How we fix it: NAP audit and unification across primary citation sources, automated monitoring.

MEDIUM

Service area not configured

Service-area businesses (or stores serving multiple metros) without explicit service area markup miss queries from outside the immediate radius.

How we fix it: Service area configuration in GBP, service-area landing pages on site.

MEDIUM

GBP posts inactive

GBP posts (offers, events, updates) are a freshness signal and a ranking input. Most dealer GBPs have not posted in months.

How we fix it: Weekly GBP post cadence: offers, inventory highlights, service specials, events.

LOW

Sparse GBP media

GBP photo and video count below local competitors. GBP-hosted media outperforms website-linked media for local engagement.

How we fix it: GBP photo upload cadence, exterior + interior + inventory + team photos, video walkarounds.

Inside the full Local SEO Audit

GBP, NAP, local pack, citations, service area.

GBP optimization

• Categories (primary + secondary)
• Description, attributes, services
• Hours and special hours accuracy
• Q&A management

Citations + NAP

• NAP consistency across top 50 directories
• OEM directory accuracy
• Aggregator data (Data Axle, Foursquare, etc.)
• Duplicate listing detection

Local pack

• Visibility on primary queries (sales)
• Visibility on service queries
• Visibility on competitor-brand queries
• Geographic ranking variance

Engagement

• GBP post cadence
• Photo and video count vs competitors
• GBP review velocity
• Q&A coverage

SAMPLE AUDIT OUTPUT

Grade: Fair

Fair. Significant gaps

GBP categories used 1 of 10
NAP consistency 82%
Local pack visibility (10 queries) 4 / 10
Last GBP post 73 days ago

Local pack queries missed

6 of 10

Top fix: Add 9 secondary GBP categories. Estimated lift: Re-enables visibility on 4–6 queries.

Illustrative sample. Not your site.

What happens when you fix it

Fixing this is not a website redesign. It is a series of specific, surgical changes.

DIAGNOSIS

We give you the report

48 hours. Every finding, ranked by impact and effort, with platform-specific instructions for your CMS. You can hand it to your web vendor and they can implement most of it.

IMPLEMENTATION (OPTIONAL)

We do the work

If your vendor cannot or will not, we install the fixes ourselves. Most live in Google Tag Manager, the head of the page, or as a CDN-level configuration. Live in 7 to 14 days.

VERIFICATION

We re-run the scan

30 days after the fixes go live, we re-run the audit and confirm the lift. Site Health Score increase, category-level pass, downstream impact verified.

What the data says.

Three slots

above the fold. The local pack is the most leveraged real estate in Google for in-market dealer queries.

GBP posts

are a meaningful freshness signal. Most dealer GBPs have not posted in months.

How a Kia store moved into top-3 on six new queries in 75 days.

A Kia dealership in suburban Denver was visible in the local pack on 4 of 10 tracked queries. Their GBP had only the primary category configured, no GBP posts in five months, and 38 photos.

We added 9 secondary categories, deployed a weekly GBP post cadence, uploaded 60 new photos, and unified NAP across the top 50 citations.

75 days later: top-3 visibility on 9 of 10 tracked queries. Direction requests up meaningfully. Calls from GBP up. Local-attributed conversions in GA4 up.

4 → 9

Local pack queries (top-3)

Secondary categories added

+60

GBP photos uploaded

75 days

Time to lift

Pricing

Three options. No retainer. No negotiation.

Pay once for the diagnosis. Pay once for the fixes. Or pay once and get both.

DIAGNOSIS

$997

Full Diagnostic

•Comprehensive site audit across all 14 specialty areas
•Search Console authenticated review
•Platform-specific fix instructions
•Priority-ranked master fix list
•Estimated impact and effort per fix
•Refundable if we do not find 3 surprises
•48-hour delivery

FIXES ONLY

$6,497

Fix Sprint

•Bring your own audit report
•We implement your top 5 priority fixes
•Schema, speed, and structural fixes
•Live within 30 days
•No code changes required from your vendor

BEST VALUE DIAGNOSIS + EVERY FIX

$6,997

Full Treatment

•Full Diagnostic included ($997 value)
•We implement every fix on the priority list, not just 5
•Schema, speed, and structural fixes
•Live within 7 to 14 days
•90 days of regression monitoring after launch
•We handle your web vendor directly

$500 more than the Fix Sprint. Includes the $997 diagnostic and the complete fix list.

Local SEO Audit-specific questions dealers ask.

Answered straight.

How is this different from what my SEO vendor does?

Many SEO vendors focus on website SEO and treat GBP as a checkbox. We treat GBP as the primary surface for local intent.

Will adding categories hurt my primary category ranking?

Generally no. Secondary categories expand eligibility without diluting primary positioning.

What about Apple Maps and Bing?

We audit those as well. Volume is lower but quality is high, especially for service queries.

How often should I run this?

Quarterly is typical. After a major Google update, sooner.

Will GBP posts spam my profile?

No. GBP posts appear in a separate area of your profile and are designed for ongoing updates.

Do I need a separate vendor for this?

No. The diagnostic identifies what to do; most stores can implement in-house with documented playbooks.

Does this overlap with the Reputation Audit?

There is overlap on the GBP review surface. The Local SEO Audit covers GBP holistically; the Reputation Audit goes deep on review hygiene specifically.

While we are at it

Local SEO Audit is rarely the only thing wrong. Three areas dealers usually pair with this one.

Find out where you actually rank in your geography.

30-second scan. We pull your GBP, sample local pack visibility, and report gaps.