Kickstart Your Week

3 Practical Tips to Improve Local SEO

• Kickstart Collective

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Want to show up first when nearby customers search on Google? We break down the simplest path to local visibility with three moves you can start today: fix and sync your listings, write for local intent, and build a steady stream of real reviews that you actually respond to. No fluff—just the practical steps we use with service businesses and brick-and-mortar shops to win the map pack.

We start by cleaning your data across the web. Your Google Business Profile is the anchor, but Bing, Yelp, Facebook, and niche directories also feed Google’s trust signals. When your name, address, phone, hours, and categories match everywhere, your quality improves and rankings rise. We share how to audit the essentials and how listing tools like Semrush can push one accurate profile to dozens of directories so you stop chasing logins and start seeing results.

Next, we shift from generic keywords to local intent. Competing for “attorney” or “plumber” everywhere is a slog; targeting “estate planning attorney in Wilmington” or “24-hour plumber near Wrightsville Beach” is achievable. We’ll show you where to place these phrases—headlines, service pages, Google Business Profile descriptions, and posts—so they read naturally and convert. You’ll hear tips on categories, service menus, photos, and updates that signal activity and relevance to both people and algorithms.

Finally, we turn reviews into a growth engine. Get the direct review link from your profile, print a QR code for your counter, and send a quick follow-up email after a job. Use a simple workflow: route low ratings to your team to resolve offline and send happy customers straight to Google to publish. Then respond to every review. Thoughtful replies prove you care, calm the occasional rant, and tell Google your profile is active—boosting visibility in Maps and local search.

Ready to move up the ranks without overcomplicating it? Subscribe, share this with a friend who runs a local business, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Kickstart Your Week, brought to you by Kickstart Collective, a marketing agency focused on helping brands grow with purpose. Every Monday we're here to help business owners, creators, and marketers start their week with clarity, momentum, and practical ideas you can actually use. Kickstart Your Week is produced right here at Kickstart Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Let's Kickstart Your Week. Welcome back to Kickstart Your Week. This week we're going to talk about something that we've gotten a lot of questions about recently, which is local SEO. It varies a little bit from your just regular SEO for e-commerce or businesses that are not local. Local SEO, especially for today's conversation, we're going to talk a lot more about your Google business listing and being found by your local clients. So this is great for service-based businesses, brick and mortar, pretty much any business that is local and has local clients and needs to be found online. So we got three simple tips for you today on ways you can improve your local SEO. And they're things we do for clients every day. But you can do them on your own as well. So tip number one.

SPEAKER_00:

Love it. Yeah. So tip number one, clean up and control your business listings.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So most people, when they think of Google business listings, that is like the one listing they think of.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

But there's Bing Facebook business page counts as a listing.

SPEAKER_02:

True.

SPEAKER_01:

There's Yelp, which don't get me started on that. But there Yelp is a thing. If you're a business owner and their sales team calls you all the time, I am sorry. It's obnoxious. But it's important. Anyways, there's so many listings that you've probably never even heard of, and you probably don't realize that your business is even on them. A lot of times they'll get pushed from other services. And what happens is the business info isn't always correct. And then that is going to tell Google that, hey, like there's inconsistency inconsistencies here. And that'll affect your local SEO and showing up on Google, which we care about all the other platforms, but that's what we care about.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Making Google happy and your quality score being good in Google size.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So one way to do this, um, the hard way is to go through all the places your business might exist. So Bing, Yelp, Facebook, making sure the name is correct and the same on all those platforms, the address, business hours, phone number, if you have a contact email, like all of that needs to be consistent.

SPEAKER_00:

All the essentials.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly. Um, and when those are consistent, then Google is reading essentially all of those things and saying, okay, yes, this is legit. This business is who they say they are. Um, there are tools that can help you do this. Um, so we like to use SEM Rush or Sim Rush, depending on what you want to say. Um, but it basically will take the Google Business listing as the main profile listing, and you just update it there within their platform and it pushes it to all these other listings. Um so it's cool because one, it shall it'll get you on all those other listings, but if your info is incorrect in one of those places, it automatically updates it just based on so nice. You're it really is. Yeah, otherwise, like you're chasing logins for these platforms you've probably never actually been to before.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is insane.

SPEAKER_00:

We're in 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's use some tools that work. Um, so yeah, if you have questions about that, feel free to reach out. But making sure you are on as many directories that make sense for your business and making sure that information is correct is gonna help your search results in Google, even though it's not Google or your Google business listing. Side note, if you don't have a Google business listing, we probably should have started with that. You can pause this episode, go to business.google.com right now and take care of that and then come back. That really should have been tip number one. Um cool.

SPEAKER_00:

So, yeah, tip number two, optimizing for local intent, not just keywords. How would we best do that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so this is a good one too. So um, if you're thinking like, let's say you're an attorney, um, so you want to show up for attorney for, you know, whatever you specialize in, um, that's awesome. That's gonna be super competitive on organic search. So, one way to help with that is best attorney for specialty in Wilmington or your city. Um, getting specific to the areas you serve is important. And I guess if you're not familiar with SEO, probably should take this a step back too. Um, these keywords and search terms are things that you want in your website copy. Um, so in the headlines of your website, in the text on different pages, um, different landing pages, if you want to do something specific for like a city and a service. Um, so all that is important. And you can also add it into the descriptions of your Google business listing, um, your Facebook about section, all those things. Um, so it's really thinking about your location and just plugging that in so that you're not competing against everybody in the country that is doing the same thing you're doing. You can narrow it down and have a better chance of ranking higher.

SPEAKER_00:

Um because that's the goal of SEO in itself, is to try to be the highest ranking in your specialty in your field.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Um, and again, it's easier to talk about. I mean, you might use Bing. I don't use Bing. I don't even think people do. Um so you want to show up there too, but all the things you're doing to show up in Google is gonna help you rank in these other places too. Um so on the local front, it's really about showing that local like relevance, not just a well-optimized website for Google. Um and so there's things you can do too on like the Google Business listing where you can add in categories. So those would be like the different services you provide. Um, you can add, you know, descriptions and things um on different pages of your website. Um, you can do posts on your Google Business listing. Um again, where you can, you don't want it to sound like unnatural by saying like Wilmington, in Wilmington, Wilmington, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My city, this service, this service. Like make it make it flow. Make it flow, make it readable and natural, but just make sure you are inserting those keywords and especially those like longer phrases that people might be searching into your content.

SPEAKER_00:

Kind of like naturally occurring keywords, not them something you're having to like conjure up. You're like, it's there. Yeah, it's in your content.

SPEAKER_01:

It is. Um, and sometimes it it is worth going back and reading trying to the best way to word this. Like, what is natural for like me as a marketer? What is natural for you as you know an attorney or a specialty doctor or a certain like business, making sure your jargon and even in this episode, we're like thrown around SEO. I don't even did we say search engine optimization ever. Um, I don't know. Maybe, but making sure your jargon is there, it's fine, it gives you some credit credibility, you know what you're talking about, but is written in what your target audience is going to be searching for. Totally. Um, so it's about making those things consistent and match up.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so and again, there's lots of reports and then different things you can run. Um, even for local SEO and like what are people searching? What are the terms they're using? Right. Um, and you know, me put you, me, whoever the business owner is, putting in like here's what I do, but then those reports showing you, okay, here's what people are research are searching related to what yeah you're wanting to rank for.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So um, yeah, so that touched a little bit on Google Business Listing and website. We're gonna jump back to the Google Business Listing and Facebook, Yelp, anywhere where people can leave you a review.

SPEAKER_00:

Um Yeah, so tip number three.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh leverage reviews and respond to them. So how what's the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so uh step number one is getting reviews.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Um that's important. Yes, um, and the best way to do that is to not suck. Just kidding. Um, you want good reviews, yeah. Um, so yeah, don't suck. Um, but you also have to ask for them. Like people naturally will leave a review if they've had a bad experience versus a good experience because they expect a good experience.

SPEAKER_00:

That's fair.

SPEAKER_01:

So you have to you actually have to ask for good reviews 99% of the time to get them. Um, I think people are leaving more positive reviews, like I've started to notice. Um just in general, just in general, and like the clients' profiles that we manage, just the frequency of good, maybe because all of our clients are wonderful, but it just seems like people are more naturally providing positive feedback, which is cool. That's nice. It is. It's a good, it's a good shift in our world. Um, but one way to there's a few ways to do this. Like if it you're a local service-based business, you can get your request to review link from your Google business profile. Right. Get that link, get a QR code made, get your cute little sign, have it on the way out the door, have it by the cash register. Um if you are collecting email addresses or a service-based business, send out a follow-up email. You can ask, so there's ways to automate, like, how was your experience? Right. If they give you a one, two, or three star in your not your Google business listing, but on your own little survey you create, you can create a workflow. You can do this in MailChimp or your email platform to then prompt them to you or your team members that would manage not great feedback. If it's a four or five, it can just link straight through to the Google business listing where they can actually leave you a good review. That's nice. Um yeah, so there's ways to like manage that, but you have to ask for reviews and figuring out the best way to do that for your business is important. And then responding to them. Um, people ask a lot of times like, does that matter? It does. Google is seeing if you are engaging and actually active on your Google business listing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And that will help increase them seeing you as like quality and then showing up, um, whether it's maps or search results or whatever it is on Google.

SPEAKER_00:

And that makes sense too, because it's a great way to like it's kind of like you're kind of rewarding the people that are giving the good reviews. And then if it's a bad review, you're kind of like, hey, how can we help make this better?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, um, for sure. And we could probably do a whole episode on managing reviews from a marketing standpoint too, which might be fun. Um the bad reviews, just as like a fun quick tip, our philosophy is like get that. It's you're not gonna get it off offline. It's gonna live there unless it's not a real review. You can appeal it, but get the conversation offline as quickly as you can. Yes. Like if it's a negative Facebook post or review on Google, like tell them, hey, reach out to us. Here's our phone number, here's our email, like we want to resolve this for you. One, just from a customer experience standpoint, but two, you want other people to see that you're being proactive, you care about the feedback. Um, and that's gonna say a lot more a lot of times than just someone being like, Yeah, this was great. Um true. Obviously, your star ranking impacts where you're showing up on Google. But I mean, if we're gonna try somewhere new, I'll read a few one-star reviews and just see if people are being ridiculous. Or, you know, if it's legit because or like the threes, you know, I'll quickly scan just to see.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great point. I do the same thing. I don't look at the five. I mean, I maybe if it's like a restaurant and I want to see maybe what's the best thing that we're looking for, but uh no, I I will usually check the lower reviews just to see how they respond.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you can tell sometimes they're like people are just being dramatic, but sometimes they're legit. And but if there's a good response, then I'm like, okay, these people care. Um, so it's good purely just from customer relations standpoint, but responding to those reviews is going to be good for Google to see that you're engaging on their platforms, and then they will reward you by showing you higher more often in search results.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, and there's also platforms that you can help with review um management too. Um, and that's something we can help with. Um, especially not that you our lovely listeners are getting bad reviews, but if that's something that happens, there is a public relations marketing way to respond to those. Um, that is helpful too. So um so if you need help getting more reviews, setting up some of those automations, managing responses, let us know. We can help you set up some systems or can handle that for you. Um but those are our kind of big three things for local SEO. So being on those listing platforms and making sure it's consistent.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

The um keywords and content, making sure that lines up with intent and local intent and what people are actually searching, and then asking for reviews and responding to reviews. So um yeah, I think you know it's Monday, kickstart your week. If you can pick one of those things this week to tackle, your local ranking should increase and Google shall smile upon you and everyone will be happy. Right. Um, but yeah, thanks for joining us. Thanks for hopping on. We kind of recorded this one last minute. So um yeah, thanks for hopping on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Recording with me. And we'll uh we'll see you next Monday. Thanks for listening to Kickstart Your Week. If today's episode gave you something to think about or try this week, be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. It helps more people find the show. And if you're looking to create your own podcast or content, Kickstart Studios is available for booking. We'll be back next week with another conversation to help you kickstart your week.