How to set up local SEO in WordPress

Step by step

1. Claim your Google Business Profile

Go to business.google.com, search for your business and claim it, or create it if it does not exist. Complete the verification Google asks for. Choose an accurate primary category, add your hours, photos and website URL. The Google Business Profile is what appears in Maps and the local pack, so it matters more than anything on your site.

2. Pick one NAP format and write it down

Decide the exact business name, address and phone number, character for character: "Harbor Lane Coffee", not "Harbor Lane Coffee Co." in one place and "Harbor Lane" in another. Use your real business name, not one padded with keywords. This is your NAP, and every listing should match it.

3. Put the NAP on your site as text

Add the name, address, phone number and hours to your contact page and your site footer as real text, not an image, so crawlers and screen readers can read them. Link the phone number with tel: so mobile visitors can tap it. An embedded map on the contact page helps visitors, though it is not a ranking requirement.

4. Add LocalBusiness schema site-wide

1. Open Hydrogen SEO → Schema and add Local Business.
2. Fill in the name, address, phone, email, opening hours and geo coordinates, using exactly the NAP you chose.
3. Set Display On to the Front Page or Entire Website, which suits a single-location business.
4. Save.

A Local Business with only a name is not printed, so fill in at least the address, phone or hours. If you ran the setup wizard with Local Business as the business type, an entry already exists with only what you entered there; complete it. Details are in Local Business schema.

5. Create a page for each location

If you have more than one location, give each its own page with its address, hours, phone, directions, photos and anything specific to that branch. Open each page's SEO Settings sheet and add Local Business schema with that location's details. On that page it replaces the site-wide entry, so a page never carries two. Write each page for its own visitors; ten near-identical pages with the city name swapped read as thin content.

6. Put the area in your homepage title

On Hydrogen SEO → Homepage, write a title that says what you do and where, for example "Harbor Lane Coffee: Specialty Coffee Roaster in Portland, Maine". Keep it readable. Check the length in the SERP snippet preview.

7. Validate and match your listings

Test the homepage and one location page in Google's Rich Results Test, or paste the JSON-LD into the JSON-LD validator. Then check your main directory listings, industry sites and social profiles, and correct any that show an old address, phone or name.

Reviews

Ask customers for reviews on your Google Business Profile, and reply to them, including the bad ones. Do not buy reviews or offer rewards for positive ones; both break Google's policies. Showing reviews on your site is fine for visitors, but Google does not show review stars for a business's reviews of itself, so marking up your own testimonials with review schema will not earn stars in results.

Common mistakes

• Inventing an address for a service-area business. If you do not serve customers at a storefront, hide the address in your Business Profile and leave it out of your schema. Mark up only what is true.
• Letting hours drift. Update the schema, the site and the Business Profile on the same day you change hours or move.
• Using a call-tracking number on the site and a different number everywhere else, without making the main number clear.
• Stuffing city names into titles, headings and footers. One clear statement of where you are works better.