Local SEO has grown in importance. As local competition intensifies, the focus on winning local search results is surpassing all other marketing efforts for small businesses. If you are a small business owner who has not yet prioritized local SEO, the statistics below should persuade you to reconsider.
- 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. (BrightLocal)
- 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within one day. (Google)
- 50% of local mobile searchers are looking for business information like a local address. (Go-Globe)
- 50% of consumers who do a local search on their smartphone visit a store within a day. Same with 34% of consumers who searched on a computer or tablet. (Go-Globe)
If you are still not convinced, you can find a comprehensive list of local SEO statistics and trends in this post here.
Why local SEO is important
Regardless of whether you are working from a single place or many locations, having a strong local search presence is crucial for increasing leads and conversions for your business. Therefore, incorporating local SEO into your overall SEO strategy is essential.
The SEO tools mentioned in this article all share a common goal: improving your website’s local search rankings. To effectively test these tools and understand their value, it is crucial to possess basic knowledge about local SEO and how it differs from traditional SEO.
If you have little knowledge about local search optimization, this SEO checklist can be very helpful. It will provide you with a basic understanding of how local search functions and guide you on which areas of your website to optimize for local searches.
Now, let’s return to the primary subject, which is enhancing your local SEO through trustworthy local SEO tools. The tools mentioned here are capable of aiding you in the management, tracking, and optimization of your local SEO endeavors.
Best local SEO tools
1. BrightLocal
Founded in 2009 by Ed Eliot and Myles Anderson, BrightLocal is a comprehensive reporting platform for Local SEO. Its local SEO services are utilized by over 10,000 renowned brands, local businesses, and agencies globally.
BrightLocal offers a range of local SEO features, which include:
- Audit Citation and NAP: Locate and monitor existing citations across thousands of sites.
- Audit google my business (GMB): Get a fast, detailed audit of any GMB listing.
- White-label reporting: Easy to use client reporting system through a customizable dashboard.
- Track search rankings: Track hundreds of keywords across Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
- Clean-up and build citations: BrightLocal’s team manually fixes and builds citations on over 1400+ sites.
- Monitor online reviews: Monitor reviews across 20 sites including Facebook, GMB, Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Foursquare.
- Generate SEO reports: Generate easy-to-read SEO reports.
You can monitor your business in up to 3 locations with pricing that starts from $29/month. BrightLocal provides a free 14-day trial to test out some of their key features.
2. Moz local
Due to the reputation Moz has established in the past decade with regards to search, Moz Local, created by the company, stands out as the most popular local SEO tool in this compilation.
Moz Local allows you to enhance the visibility of your business within the local community and guarantees the accuracy, uniformity, and online presence of your business listings. By utilizing Moz Local effectively, you can significantly enhance your local SEO strategy.
One of the benefits of Moz Local is its ability to submit accurate location data for your business to major data aggregators and online directories. Additionally, it aids in the removal of duplicate business listings and allows for easy updating of your business listings.
When you sign up for Moz Local, you’ll be able to access some of the key features provided.
- Local listings dashboard: Manage, track, and optimize your online listings and gain key insights into their health and performance.
- Instant directory and aggregator submission: Moz Local distributes your listing information in real-time to the key directories and essential data aggregators.
- Google my business sync: Moz Local enables you to claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing and sync any changes to your GMB profile.
- Real-time update distribution: When you update basic or enhanced listing data, Moz Local automatically sends out that information across the Local Search ecosystem.
- Distribution reporting: Quickly assess the effectiveness of your published listings over time. Reported metrics include Average Score, Listing Reach, and Listing Accuracy. In addition to this, you’ll receive automated tracking PDF reports with weekly insights.
- Review monitoring: Monitor the latest reviews and ratings of your business on the most popular sites from one place.
- Review management for google: In addition to viewing and reporting on all reviews, Moz Local enables you to respond to Google reviews directly.
When it comes to pricing, Moz Local is relatively affordable compared to other tools in this list. The cost can vary from $14/month to $33/month, depending on your specific requirements.
3. Growthbar (Chrome extension)
Growthbar is an affordable local SEO tool, which can be accessed as a standalone web application or a Chrome extension. It allows users to monitor the ranking of a website’s key terms, which proves beneficial for competitor analysis and local keyword investigation.
Additionally, Growthbar offers the ability to gain insights regarding a website’s domain authority, allowing users to monitor and compare the authority of their competitors. Moreover, by utilizing the rank tracker, users can keep track of the domains that rank for specific keywords or frequently appear for particular queries.
4. Georanker
Georanker possesses an exclusive capability to monitor the rankings of websites in numerous global locations. This data is presented through heat maps that utilize different colors to visually indicate the areas where the website achieves high rankings.
When users plan targeted campaigns, they can use this information to improve or maintain their ranking. The local rank tracker provides users with the precise position of their targeted locations. Additionally, it includes a citation tool which enables users to identify the sources of citations used by their competitors.
5. Yext
Yext’s Review Monitoring feature allows you to consolidate business reviews from all locations into a single dashboard by integrating with third-party sites. Additionally, you can collect genuine first-party reviews from customers and incorporate them onto their website.
Moreover, Yext offers a range of efficient tools that enable your business listings to be compatible with voice search optimization.
6. Synup
Synup monitors how your business is performing on search engines, local directories, and review sites. Using its crawling system, Synup examines over 200 local search engines and directories to detect any discrepancies in data, thus ensuring that your citations are precise.
In addition to tracking your web rankings and traffic, it has the ability to notify you when people leave comments and lets you respond to them. It also synchronizes your location data across various sites.
7. BiQ
BiQ provides the capability to monitor the ranking of 1000 keywords in real-time. It is compatible with various languages and also features a mobile app for convenient monitoring while on the move.
By using the rank intelligence feature, you can analyze keywords to enhance your visibility and rankings. This feature also allows you to identify the content gap between your business and competitors. Additionally, BIQ assists in generating ideas for content and marketing strategies.
8. Google ads keyword planner
Google Ads’ Keyword Planner tool offers various features that can assist with Local SEO. While it is commonly used for planning PPC campaigns, it also provides valuable information in the competition column, demonstrating the potential competitiveness of ad placement for your chosen keyword.
9. Google business profile
One of the top local SEO tools is the Google Business Profile, which allows customers to easily find information about your business, such as its address or phone number. It is important to ensure that your business is kept up to date and make any necessary updates to your Google listing.
By comparing businesses, individuals can identify local competitors. Moreover, they can keep track of and answer reviews. Google also offers a feature called “book an appointment,” which can prompt customers to interact more extensively with your business listing.
10. Listing management tool by Semrush
The development of Semrush’s Listing Management tool involved a partnership with Yext, a digital platform that enables users to manage their listings, reviews, and local pages. (Further information can be found in #10)
Semrush’s Listing Management tool utilizes the Yext Knowledge Network to distribute data to various popular directories and intelligent services, such as Facebook, Google, Yelp, Bing, Amazon Alexa, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Yahoo, and many others.
You can update your information in one place and make it visible where people are searching by using Listing Management. Simply enter your business information in the search bar and click on ‘Check listings’.
After Semrush presents you with all of your listings and their statuses, move on to the payment process and begin using the tool to enhance your local SEO. By becoming a paid subscriber of Semrush, you can access all of Yext’s Digital Knowledge Management capabilities for just $20 per location per month.
Currently, the Listing Management tool is accessible exclusively to Semrush users in the following five countries: the US, UK, Australia, Germany, and France.
