This article is from our Agency Growth Handbook—a collection of guides created to help local SEO agencies grow and succeed. It is chapter six of ‘Part Two: Processes and Workflows’.

Foreword: Saving the Dream

Why did you start on this little mission of yours in the first place? I’m assuming you’re not a classic movie villain, and you’re not going after power for power’s sake. You probably did it for promises of freedom or a better life. A little green in the bank probably caught your imagination too, but even that, I would say, comes from a desire to have more control over one’s life. After all, what do we want money for if not for spending our time and energy in more fulfilling ways?

But every company reaches what Michael E. Gerber calls the “Adolescence” phase. You’ve realized you can’t do it all alone, so you start delegating and hiring new people. And too often, when people reach this phase, that promise of having more control over one’s life starts to feel a bit like snake oil. Your team’s problems haven’t really stopped being your problems, and now new challenges seem to be forming in places you didn’t realize existed.  Not only is your sense of control not improving, but it’s actually made worse by an exponentially increasing number of questions to answer, crises to avert, and futures to plan for. You may feel like you have anything but control over your life.

The solution is process.

Now, those of us who work in SEO, local SEO, or any form of digital marketing, for that matter, hate being put into a box. We’re a proud people. We’re battle-hardened from years of explaining to clients why the strategy they’re suggesting is overlooking important nuance and why all of those KPIs they want to focus on aren’t as clear-cut as they want to make it out to be. And every time a new trainee asks a question about SEO theory, we’re always happy to provide them with the infamous “it depends.” Additionally, the mad scientist in us is often a perfectionist who doesn’t want to sacrifice quality in favor of an assembly line approach.

But I want to stress to you that creating a process for your work does not have to be the death of quality. On the contrary, I hope to show you that implementing processes will help you regain control and even help you deliver a better service.

Vision

If your team doesn’t know where the company is going, how are they supposed to help you achieve your goal? How could they possibly think outside the box and provide creative solutions if they don’t even know there’s a box to begin with? And how are you supposed to prioritize anything properly? You need to create something tangible to latch on to.

The Definition of a Vision

There is a strange amount of debate on the definition of a company vision and how it relates to things like a mission statement. Personally, I believe those arguments are mostly about semantics. What really matters is that there is a clear and compelling future that you and your team are working towards.

Think of it this way: The most important part of developing a good local SEO strategy for a client is researching and determining your core terms. Is that not the case? Without them, you’re just guessing, and any optimizations may turn out to be futile. You might get lucky, but you might also be that guy building a strategy primarily centered on ‘near me’ keywords in 2024.

Determining a primary topic and the terms associated with it will guide the nuances of the rest of your strategy. The clarity that comes from your long-term vision for your client’s success will answer many of the open-ended questions about how to approach aspects of your on-page, linking, or Google Business Profile (GBP) strategy. You, your organization, and your processes are no different.

Defining Your Positioning and Choosing Your Niche

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Define Your Ideal Customer

A good vision of success should include a vision for who you will be helping and how. Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) are nothing new, but too often, I see people companies trying to service every type of customer that sends them an RFP. If that’s you, I highly recommend re-evaluating that reality.

It can be hard to turn down a potential source of income. At the end of the day, you’re trying to bring in revenue. And maybe, in your current state, you’re struggling to believe you could say no even if you wanted to. If that’s you, and now isn’t the best time to start saying no to RFPs, then maybe you at least begin the process of defining an ideal customer profile and make it a goal to strive for. 

What’s required of you and your team can vary wildly already before introducing entirely different client types into the mix. Suppose you’re being pulled in too many different directions. In that case, you’ll eventually reach a point in your growth where effectively pricing your service, setting boundaries, and setting up processes for better efficiency for your team becomes impossible.

This doesn’t mean you can’t expand into services for more than one vertical or client type. But you should try to own your backyard first. Focus on what you’re best at and who you have the most rewarding experience with first. To use another SEO analogy, it’s like trying to overcome the proximity bias with your map rankings. Owning your backyard first will give you the strength and footing necessary to overcome the next obstacle. But if you don’t start there, you leave a lot to chance.

Building and Organizing Processes

You’ve likely heard the phrase, “You can lead them to water, but you can’t force them to drink.” But are you leading them to water? Is there even a watering hole to go to? Or is everyone wandering through the woods until they find a stream on their own? 

Self-reliance is an important attribute to look for in a good recruit, and I’m as big an advocate for that as the next guy. Everyone wants a team of rock stars. But as a leader, it’s your job to bring people together and align their goals. And that starts with the processes you use to achieve those goals. If everyone has their own way of doing everything, there will be a lot of unnecessary bottlenecks and arguments about best practices. You may all want what’s best for the client, but what that looks like to each of you is not always going to match up. And while it’s always good to challenge ourselves and be willing to improve, if there isn’t a standard to measure your work against, your discussions will just go in circles. 

A Process for Creating Process

Is it meta to have a process for creating process, you ask? 1000% it is. But if you don’t use one, you’ll likely fall into any of the countless traps that await your inner perfectionist. So, your first and most important process is a process for creating process. (Say that five times fast)

It’s super simple: Gather, Simplify, Capture, and Document.

Gather 

Start by gathering the information for a rough outline of what your organization does. It’s really important that you don’t get ahead of yourself here. Adding some detail can be helpful; after all, we’re mostly brainstorming right now. But during this step, you should focus on boiling things down to their major pivot points.  

When I’m first getting started with this, I usually prefer to go analog and use a large whiteboard before transferring things over to my computer. It gives me the freedom to get a little chaotic as I brainstorm, allows me to see the whole “picture” at once, and requires less effort to make adjustments when I reach the “Simplify” step. However, depending on your needs and preferences, using something digital like a Google Doc or even something more sophisticated like a mapping tool may make more sense. In either case, just make sure to pick one and stick with it. 

If you’re worried about missing something important, remember you can always break things down into more detail later. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be. Get it all together as best you can first and go from there.

Simplify

Before we start documenting anything, take some time to look at what you have and see if there are any ways to organize better or simplify the outline’s structure. One of the ways I like to approach it is to ask myself how well someone would retain this information if I used the same structure to create a sales pitch. This helps me stay concise (as the incessant, rambling ADHD-er that I am), and it helps me quite literally later when building a pitch for our sales conferences, training programs for new employees, and presentations for onboarding clients. 

This is also a stage at which I recommend having someone look at what you’ve got with fresh eyes. 

Capture

Now it’s time to start recording yourself. Start capturing the “How-to’s” of your major services. For example, if you have a periodic audit for a client set every month, have whoever’s best suited on your team record themselves going through the process and explaining it along the way.

There are  various tools you can use for this. Anything that records your screen and audio will do. My personal recommendation is Loom. We originally started using it to help with remote work collaboration but found it worked even better for training videos. It’s simple to use and has some really convenient features, including easy integration with our training manual program.

Document

Now for the Pièce de résistance. Now that we have an outline and videos to go with it all, we want to write down the essential goals, how-tos, and anything else that can clarify or support the training video. This is where I recommend getting the most detailed. Some of the best details you can provide here are any useful sources or references that further explain your reasoning or provide an easy path to the tools needed to complete the process. 

I highly recommend getting a good training manual software like Trainual to document everything. It’s not required, though. If you’re pressed for cash or would prefer an alternative, you could always go the simple route and use something like Google Docs or Slides. The first SEO Manual I ever made was a Google Slides deck with videos and diagrams. Eventually, that slide deck got too big (hundreds of slides too big) and increasingly harder to maintain and keep organized. As time progressed, people had an increasingly harder time going through them.

Using good software has made it easier to keep things up to date and divvy up lessons in a way that’s far more user-friendly. As a bonus, making it more user-friendly for my team has made it more engaging, which has led to better knowledge retention and, therefore, fewer unwanted opportunities to repeat myself. 

The Anatomy of a Good System

When you begin evaluating your systems or are just creating a new one from scratch, I recommend having a framework for that approach, too. Call this a second process for creating. Supplemental to the documenting process we just went over, it can help define current processes better and ensure that any new processes you create are done efficiently. 

The best framework I’ve found to help me in my thought process is to define what you do, when you do it, how you do it, and who is doing it. The key for me is to force myself to answer these questions as much as possible to keep myself from getting lost in the weeds. 

What You Do

Start with the value being provided. This will become more difficult as you get into smaller actions, but always start with what the client is actually getting out of it, or at least what provided value the task is feeding into. Then,  define the deliverables. 

For example, instead of “GBPs tasks” or even “Optimize GBP’s,” I would label it “GBP Management” at the very top. “Optimize GBP’s might be a part of it, but it’s not the overarching value you’re providing if you’re also taking care of suspensions, appeals, and the like. “GBP Management” provides a better umbrella to fit your current systems under and a framework any new ones you create can funnel into easily.

When You Do It

This is the step I see overlooked the most. Everything seems simple on paper until it’s put into practice. That’s because context is what pulls your system apart. Consider onboarding a client as an example: When does your team begin and finish optimizing a GBP? What about On Page? Links? The simple answer is when the client signs the contract, but what about the accesses you need to entities like the site? Clearly defining the “When” of one process often clearly identifies the “What” of another. The GBP example did so by outlining what was needed on the Client Success Managers’ part to ensure onboarding went quickly and smoothly. 

How You Do It

This is the step most people naturally tend to start with, but it’s important to do it after What and When. Because how you do something is what evolves the most. If your company grows, you’re going to need to make changes at some point. If you add to your service offering or make addendums to your company vision or identity, the How is more likely to change. But the What and When, while still subject to change, are much more rigid in comparison. Doing it after What and When also provides the perspective you need to question the current How and refine it if necessary.

Who is Responsible

While perhaps the most important part of the process, choosing who is responsible is easiest when you realize the scope. If you’re a one-man show, I would still recommend creating some form of title or label so that if the day comes that you need to delegate it out for one reason or another, it’s a seamless transition.

An Ongoing Process

Not only do you not need to document everything now, you shouldn’ t. 

The most straightforward reason is that your time is limited, and this is supposed to help you with that, not make it worse. These steps are also meant to help you improve your processes, not just record them. Seeing how your organization functions in a clearer and more concrete format makes decisions to modify it easier. Paired with your company vision, you’ll be able to see more clearly if certain secondary procedures in the fine print of your strategy are worth your time or not. But if you spend all your time in the fine print, you’ll never get around to that.

This is an ongoing process. If I were to compare it to anything, it’d be dieting. No amount of extreme calorie deficit in the short run is going to erase the need for long-term consistent habits. For most people, it’s better to start by building a few good habits at a time and build on top of that consistency one piece at a time.

Practical Principles for Process

All the process documentation in the world won’t fix anything if you don’t take the time to simplify, organize, revise, and optimize them. In this section, we’ll review a few ideas that can get you pointed in the right direction. At the end of the day, you’ll have to create your own systems that fit into your business model and best serve your clients. But these can serve as inspiration and a good place to start.

Some examples include the use of task management software. Project management tools like Asana, Click Up, or even Notion can be really helpful in speeding up delegation and organization. However, they are not required to implement these principles.

Choosing the Best Project Management Tools for Your Agency

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Using Targets Instead of Tasks

Let’s set the scene: I was a new manager, still young in my experience in SEO. My team was comprised primarily of college students who first heard about SEO when they applied for the job. I felt like I was losing a lot of time creating and following up on Asana tasks, so I decided I was going to automate some of it.

I wasn’t sure how, but I knew I needed to eliminate the monotony for my own and my client’s sake. But how was I supposed to create a linear process for something as ambiguous as SEO? And how would I structure it so I could easily delegate it to a very inexperienced team? I didn’t have the benefit of hiring “rockstars” like so many business gurus on YouTube suggest. We hired great people, but we were a small start-up and didn’t have pockets deep enough for experienced professionals. 

I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to try something, so I started with onboarding. It was the most straightforward process we had, and we even had a checklist of sorts already. So, I organized it and automated it with an Asana project template. It covered everything we needed to do when we took on a new client, including collaboration tasks with our client success department, content team, and design team. I thought I was a genius.

Then, all of the reasons “it depends” in SEO started showing up in my Slack inbox. Mistakes started rolling in, and millions of questions came with them. Externalities weren’t being taken into account or were even being ignored because someone assumed it was someone else’s responsibility. In many cases, I had a hard time arguing with that assumption. If I were in their shoes, I think I would have done the same.

You Can’t Templatize Everything

Despite my best efforts to automate the process, I ended up more overwhelmed than when I started. So, in a stroke of genius (otherwise known as panicking), I tried to templatize everything even further. Clearly, the problem was that I hadn’t used enough skip logic in my process, so I started looking for every opportunity I could to create an if/then statement and create more preventative measures.

Surprise, surprise, it only got worse. Everything was turning into what Dan Martell calls Transactional Leadership, and I was pounding my head against the “Tell-Check-Next” ceiling. I’d tell them what to do, check that it was done correctly, and then tell them what to do next. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do as a manager.

However, the problem with a transactional approach is that the only way it can scale is by adding more transactions. This can only translate into more time lost and more quality compromised. In this framework, all your team’s problems don’t stop being your problems, and you’re eventually consumed by the endless pit of QC-ing everything, everywhere, all the time. And that’s time you and your client don’t have. 

The Definition of Done

Everything took a turn for the better when I stopped focusing on all the things that could go wrong and started focusing on prioritizing my end goals for each project. The tasks on my onboarding template became a list of areas that needed to be covered rather than a list of every step to complete. I started defining what “done” looks like at the highest level for those areas (also an idea I stole from Dan) and introduced stewardship to the system by making the assignees responsible for the outcome instead of just the tasks. If they were waiting on assets from a client or another department in the company, it was on them to follow up and solve the problems.

Of course, I still provide training and answer questions. But when I do, I often start by asking, “Well, imagine I didn’t exist. How would you handle this?” Ultimately, it’s my job to give them the tools they need, a destination to reach, and assistance as necessary along the way. 

This mindset can and should be applied in every stage of your process. When you work in something more creative or analytical, like SEO, it’s better to use targets instead of tasks. Otherwise, your “process” will just be one big juggling act.

“Once you set the outcome instead of telling your employees “how,” they start talking about results, not tasks. They begin offering their energy, not just their skills. They start asking themselves, ‘ Is there a better way?’ instead of asking you, ‘ How do we do this?” – Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time

Process Beats Paranoia Every Time

A scenario pretty much every SEO provider has had nightmares about at some point is the dreaded morning phone call from a client asking why something on the website is broken, or the GBP is set up wrong. “How did we miss this?” you ask yourself. You know the person you assigned to the project wouldn’t knowingly leave that behind for someone to find. So how’d it happen?

Simple: They’re human.

Fun fact: we all are, and that’s not changing any time soon. And while emphasizing the importance of not making mistakes to your team is important, “Don’t Make Mistakes” is not a strategy. You can’t stop biology from doing its thing. So what can we do about it? It’s here where most fall into the trap of thinking they must QC everyone’s work. But while QC-ing is also important, I urge you to remember the Tell-Check-Next loop I mentioned earlier. That’s a ceiling you cannot break through. Besides, nobody wants a helicopter parent, and nobody wants to be one, and it’s not effective anyway. But the good news is, you don’t have to be one. 

Set up Routines Based on the System You Already Have

Instead of checking everyone’s work all the time, create routines for checking or auditing clients periodically. This doesn’t always have to be a major QC audit, either. My team’s smallest QC checkpoint is a final QC at the end of onboarding from the SEO, Design, and Content teams. Everyone is already there, and it’s hard for something glaring on a page to get past three individuals in a single sitting. It’s simple and takes little to no extra time because it’s just a part of the Asana task template we have set up. 

For larger QC measures, I’d recommend starting with any routines or systems you already have and simply adding to them. You probably already have periodic check-ins every week or month where you evaluate rankings and any other metrics you’ve deemed top priority. Introduce some QC-ing into them.

What’s likely to get overlooked? Grammar, for example, is an easy one to forget when you’re worried about keyword density, word count, backlinks, etc. It seems small, but it’s no less embarrassing when it comes up on a phone call with one of your biggest clients. Make it a routine to check that, along with some other on-page optimizations, when building location pages or anything that involves the written word for a client, once a month when your team is already there.

This allows you to show your team you trust them while still putting in some countermeasures to support their humanity.

Minimum Viable Product

There’s no law for how long these intervals should be; it’ll depend on your time and resources. So, just start with something. Processes are iterative anyway. You’ll probably reach a point where some of the intervals feel a little too far apart. In that instance, remember two things:

1. A little too far apart is better than the alternative.

   You do not have the time to check everything all the time, and you won’t break through the Tell-Check-Next ceiling.

2. You can always improve it, but you can’t do that if you don’t try something.

   Theory only takes you so far. Once you get a process down, you can find ways to speed some of it up or simplify it.

Simple System Examples

Improved Collaboration

One of the best changes I made was to my weekly 1:1’s with my team. I had actually discontinued the meetings for a time because I felt like they were a waste of time and always got too convoluted with all of the objectives I tried to tackle every meeting. But not having a scheduled time meant I just wasn’t getting around to talking with my team members enough. So, I re-implemented them and changed how I approached them. Keeping the idea of transformational leadership in mind, I changed my meetings to be oriented around outcomes rather than just task instructions. We still discuss tasks and questions as necessary, but the primary goal of every meeting is to answer the following questions:

1. Were there any notable improvements in rankings?
2. Were there any notable drops in rankings?
3. What are you doing about it?
4. What do you need from me?

There’s always more that could be discussed, but ultimately, this is what they’re responsible for. Everything else hangs off of these questions. Keeping simple, quantifiable markers of success at the forefront of the discussion keeps the meeting focused, helps prioritization, and makes it clear to your team members what they’re responsible for. It also gives them the ruler they need to measure their own day-to-day priorities against, helping to eliminate the extra busy work that might otherwise get in the way.

Quarterly Link Planning  

The most dreaded phase of service for me has always been what I call the “Now what?” phase. You’ve been working on a client for some time now, and you’ve achieved the primary objective of your contract to rank for the core terms you’ve selected, and now there are no obvious next steps. Now what? We know all of the things we could do. But what should we do? What will be the best use of our time and the client’s money? How do we make sure something is always being done while also making sure it’s beneficial for the client and not just busy work? These are just some of the questions I always found myself trying to answer.

One of the deliverables I decided to tackle first was link building. I started by trying a rigid schedule for certain deliverables like backlinks. I needed to make sure things were happening without having my hands on every lever in the machine. However, the problem was the same as the onboarding template. It was too rigid, it didn’t scale nicely at all, and, most importantly, it ignored the unique needs of the client. So, I replaced it with a simple planning phase that we now go through every quarter. This made the schedule the rigid pivot point rather than the deliverables themselves and created a balance between consistency of process and quality of service. And there was no need to introduce automations to do it. This thought process is beginning to guide how we approach most of our ongoing services.

Conclusion

Implementing structured processes within your agency is not about stifling creativity or turning local SEO into an assembly line—it’s about reclaiming control, improving efficiency, clarifying directives, and ultimately delivering better results for your clients. Without clear frameworks, scaling becomes chaotic, decision-making slows, and your time gets consumed by unnecessary firefighting. But by defining goals, setting measurable targets, and building adaptable processes, you empower your team to operate with autonomy while maintaining quality and consistency.

The key takeaway? Processes should evolve alongside your agency. Start small, document what matters, and refine over time. Prioritize outcomes over rigid task lists, foster accountability within your team, and establish systems that reduce errors without micromanaging. When done right, these systems won’t just improve your SEO services—they’ll give you the freedom and control you originally sought when you started this journey. Your agency’s growth doesn’t have to come at the cost of your sanity—process is the answer.

This guide will offer a brief synopsis of what local SEO is and go over some best practices to get you started in the right direction. 

Here’s what’s on the docket today:

• Why local SEO?
• Local SEO Basics
• Google Business Profile
• Website Optimizations
• Local Link Building

Why Local SEO?

SEO, in its most general sense, is all about meeting customers where they’re at. The goal is to develop steady visibility. Much like a restaurant trying to get on the corner of the best crossroads possible, SEO is the act of positioning yourself where there’s already high traffic to capture leads that already want your services.

In local SEO, the “crossroads” you’re looking for are the top positions of local-specific SERPs (search engine results pages), with Google Maps being your primary driver for lead generation.

So, why should you implement this kind of strategy? I won’t bore you with too many statistics, I believe it’s really easy to get lost in the data. To quote Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. But I do have some numbers to give you a rough idea of what’s out there for the taking. 

A homeowner, more often than not, isn’t checking the phonebook or physically looking around for a pest control company. They may ask friends for referrals, but even in that case, they’re likely still Googling it on their phone. And the number of people doing that increases every year. In fact, in 2019, local business searches on mobile increased by 250%. 

Considering Google processes about 5.9 million searches every minute (Statista, 2019), an increase like 250% is quite staggering. Additionally, about 46% of all Google searches have local intent. Almost half of 5.9 million searches a minute is a big slice of the pie. Let’s make sure you get a piece of it.

You might ask, would a paid ads campaign be enough? Those work for local searches, right? While I would certainly encourage you to get a paid ads campaign as well, this will only get you a portion of what you could have and it’ll cost you every time you get a lead. When we bring this to our clients, we tell them that the goal is to own as much real estate on the first page of Google as possible. 

Consider this SERP for the query “pest control sacramento”:

This is what the majority of queries with local intent will generate. On this SERP we see sponsored ads, Google Guaranteed ads (or Local Service Ads), a Local Pack for maps listings, and some locally relevant organic results. Claiming top rankings for the Local Pack and organic listings fall under SEO. That’s two of your four options. Why leave any of them behind? 

Not everyone takes the time to invest in this kind of strategy. It’s certainly not uncommon, but investing in local SEO will give you a competitive edge over the competitors that neglect their online presence. When multiple pest control companies service the same area, those with a strong local SEO strategy are more likely to attract and retain customers.

Ready to improve your rankings? Talk to us about our Local SEO Services

Find out more

Local SEO Basics

As explained earlier, we’re trying to position you on that “crossroads”. But how does that work exactly? For this section, we’ll be talking about the different types of SEO and the unique attributes and ranking factors that go into local SEO. 

The difference between local and traditional SEO

When people think about SEO, they usually think about traditional SEO and Google’s traditional algorithm. They think about building a website and getting different pages to rank for different keywords. The core of that idea remains important to any form of SEO, but it’s important to understand that Google actually has multiple algorithms designed specifically for different industries. 

Google knows the average consumer’s search habits differ depending on the product or service they’re looking for. To address that, Google has developed different algorithms to meet the needs of search intent. To see this in action, try looking up a service like “pest control services“ and then search for a product like “nike basketball shoes”. Take a look at how different your SERPs looks:

Very different results, right? The search intent behind each query triggered different algorithms. “pest control services” yielded results related to local service searches. Even the organic results below are localized organic results that wouldn’t show for another city. Meanwhile, “nike basketball shoes” yielded a SERP geared towards e-commerce. What makes you rank for one algorithm doesn’t necessarily succeed in another.

How these algorithms work exactly can get complicated. In fact, the most common answer to an SEO question you can get from any specialist is “It depends”. To make things even more fun, Google doesn’t tell us much about how they work. At least, not in detail. However, through a lot of expert testing, experience, and note-sharing, we do have a good idea of the different ranking factors that go into them.

Local Search Ranking Factors

Based on data from the 2023 Local Search Ranking Factors report from Whitespark, we have a general summary of what factors matter most to Google.

These percentages are aggregates of various specialists’ experiences and are full of important details and nuance.

It’s important to remember that no survey results will be perfect. For example, what works for someone else may not work the same for you. What works for you may change based on your specific location, local competition, or industry. It’s also important to note that these percentages don’t tell you how much time you can, or should, dedicate to them, nor how much you can influence each of them.

But this does give us a guideline for where to focus our efforts. Today, we’ll overview introductory strategies for some of the more important factors in local rankings. 

Local Rankings

Ultimately we care about two things:

• The Local Pack/Google Maps
• Local Organic

You could also track rankings more specifically for things like Mobile and Local Finder as well. Rank tracking tools like BrightLocal’s Local Rank Tracker are great for those added details. But those are bonuses.

The Local Pack and Google Maps

The Local Pack, sometimes referred to as the Map Pack or 3 Pack, is that group of businesses that displays in search results for a query with local intent (just like that “pest control services” example we went over earlier). There are usually only three Google Maps listings here, but you may have a fourth if there’s a sponsored profile.

This is where we get the most leads, so our goal as local SEO providers is to get into the ‘top three’ on the Map Pack for the most visibility. 

It’s important to note, though, that ranking top three in one part of the city doesn’t mean you rank that well throughout the whole city. You’ll need a tool to see your average map ranking for the region. I highly recommend using a tool like BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid tool. We use it every day.

Local Organic

While map rankings are the most important focus, we still want to take care of local organic rankings. These are the standard results that are shown below the Map Pack. By comparison, they are more likely to be overlooked by the ready-to-hire decision-makers you’re looking for. But people do still look at them, and you want to capture those leads, too. What’s more, ranking well here can help you rank for the Map Pack.

And just like local map rankings, your location makes a difference. It’s not as drastic, but you still want to know what your organic rankings are locally. You’re going to want a tool like BrightLocal’s Local Rank Tracker to track them.

Google Business Profile

Those listings you see on Google Maps are called Google Business Profiles (GBP), previously known as Google My Business. A well-optimized GBP is the cornerstone of successful local SEO campaigns. It’s where the majority of pest control calls are made, and that makes it your most valuable asset in this strategy. Setting it up properly and knowing how to manage it is essential. 

The GBP acts as your digital storefront. It’s the lit-up sign on a restaurant and the inviting ambiance that says “Come on in, the food’s great!”. It’s the first impression customers will have of you, so make it count.

In this section, we’ll go over the following:

• Staying organized
• Setup and verification
• Essential optimizations
• Suspensions 
• Google Posts

Some of the optimizations we’ll discuss will be for rankings, but others serve better as a conversion factor. It’s important to get in front of a consumer, but of course, we want the sale even more.

Staying Organized

Setting up and managing GBPs can quickly become a serious headache if you don’t have a plan in place for staying organized. The two biggest things you can do for yourself will be:

1.  Determine the email(s) with which you will manage the profile(s).
2.  Establish a single source of information for you and your team to reference.

Email for Managing GBPs

The best approach, though not required, is to use a Gmail account with a domain-specific email. This will help you avoid headaches later down the road, such as what you might experience when appealing a suspension (we’ll touch on this later). Google wants to see these emails used the most, and I would recommend them as well.

If you manage multiple locations, it may be worth setting up an Agency Dashboard. The benefits of an Agency Dashboard may depend on the number of locations you will be managing, and they’re certainly not for everyone. You can learn more about them here.

Single Source of Information

There’s a host of reasons why you’d want a master list for your information. One example is that Google is notorious for repeatedly making edits to the profile’s services section (something we’ll revisit later in this guide). Having a list can make fixing that section less painful, especially if it’s a task you want to delegate to someone else. You also don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you or your team can’t remember the logins (more common than you’d think). Losing those may mean repeating the claiming process, which is simply no fun.

There’s no one way to set this up. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet and password manager or as demanding as developing software to meet these needs in tandem with others in your company. Whatever method you choose, just make sure you write everything down, and “future you” will thank you.

Setup and Verification

Now that you’re ready to get started, you’ll want to check if there is already a listing for your business on Google. If your business is already listed, you can request ownership. If not, you’ll need to build one. In either case, you’ll want to use the email you’ve chosen to manage your profile(s) and log in to business.google.com to begin the process. 

Requesting Access 

Once you’ve logged in, click “Add single business.” This should pull up a page like the one below. If you haven’t set one up before, you may be sent to this page automatically.

If your listing already exists, it should appear in the drop-down menu when you type in the business’s name. 

Sometimes, your business will exist on Maps but not show up in this drop-down. This is rare, but if this happens, you’ll want to claim it directly on Maps. To claim the listing here, find and click the link that says “Own this business?” It’s usually under the address section of the profile. 

You will likely have to undergo some kind of verification. We’ll touch on some of this later.

Creating a New Profile

If you are building a new profile, you’ll use the same tool. But instead of selecting one of the existing options, you’ll simply select the one that says “Create a business with this name”. Make sure you put in the name of your business as it shows on your website or official documents. Keep it simple.

Primary Category

The primary category is one of the most important ranking factors for your GBP. There isn’t much you can do with it, but make sure you select the right one. Google wants to know who you are and what service or industry you identify with most before it decides what to do with you. Right now, it’s really easy for pest control. You’ll likely want to select “pest control service” as your primary category. Additional categories can be useful, but we’ll cover that later. 

Physical Storefront or Service Area Business

The next thing Google will want to know is whether or not you have a physical location or if you service customers at their homes. Pest control companies may not have a physical location, and that’s fine. You can set up your GBP without an address and just add a service area. If you do have an office, though, then I recommend using it. Both work, but I usually counsel my clients to get a legitimate office. This may come with an upfront cost, but if you research your city properly, it’ll more than pay for itself over time. 

How Google Business Profile Works for Service-area Businesses

Read more

It is worth noting that Google takes verifying the legitimacy of a location very seriously. They’ve created various barriers to entry to make sure people follow their guidelines. Many, including myself, would say Google can be a bit excessive in their approach. But trying too hard to game the system simply isn’t worth it. I strongly recommend you make sure you have a physical location for any GBP you create to avoid unnecessary headaches.

Verification

Getting verified may be as simple as entering your information, but you’ll most likely be required by Google to take an additional step or two to prove your legitimacy. Google will be the one to decide what options you’re allowed to use, and it won’t always be the same option. 

Options you may be presented with include:

• Video
• Phone
• Email
• Postcard

Experiences with each verification type may vary. After some updates to the software a little ways back, it’s been my experience that video verification has been both the most effective and most likely option. In many cases when selecting the other options, it’s common to be asked for additional verification by video anyway. This is also the most demanding option, so I usually recommend my clients plan on this verification method. 

Phone Number 

While having multiple profiles with the same number isn’t unheard of, having a unique and local phone number for each profile is better. If you decide to do call tracking, the best practice is to enter the call tracking number as your primary phone number and the actual office number as an additional number. This way you can get the benefits of call tracking while still showing Google that you’re being consistent with the phone number on your website and your citations.

URL

Your choice of URL can affect both rankings and conversions. If you only have one location, the home page is usually the best URL to put in here. But if you have multiple locations, the best practice is to use a page specific to that location.

NAP

Your Name, Address, and Phone number (or NAP for short) should be consistent with your citations, so make sure your details are accurate. For example, the name of your business should match the name on your website. 

Keyword stuffing is not advised. I can’t say I’m not tempted to do it, but Google has become quite aggressive about ensuring that doesn’t happen, and it can result in suspensions. It’s common for Google or even competing SEO specialists to scan batches of profiles at a time for this guideline violation, and suspensions just aren’t worth it.

Services

Use the Services section to make your offering as clear as possible. These don’t show on desktop, but they do on mobile, and that’s where many of the searches will be anyway. Add all your services and don’t forget to add individual descriptions. This can include the types of pests you cover, like ants or roaches, or more general offerings like home pest inspections or crawl space-related services.

Also, note that Google loves to edit this section. You may like some of the changes but check them periodically to make sure they’re accurate and that Google hasn’t started overpromising anything.

Additional Categories 

Additional categories are something I consider a “bonus” optimization. This is less useful for my pest control clients, as there are fewer viable options for their industry. However, your specific business model and service offering may change that. For example, companies that also offer “wildlife control services” can add that as an additional category. 

Ultimately, the primary category is what’s really important, but it doesn’t hurt to add more when you can and when it’s relevant.

Study: Do Additional GBP Categories Boost Local Rankings?

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Opening Hours

Google gives users the ability to suggest edits to GBPs, and one of the most common uses of that feature is to edit inaccurate hours. Nothing is more frustrating to a potential customer than finding out a business isn’t actually open. It’s one of the more common motivations for leaving a bad review. Considering reviews are such a large ranking factor, accurate hours are important to your rankings as well, even if indirectly.

When your business is open can also affect your rankings. You’ll usually rank better when you’re open. There is a lot of research and heated discussion on this topic, so I recommend taking a look at some articles like this one from BrightLocal to learn more. The short version is that you should focus on the hours being accurate more than on trying to extend your opening hours on your GBP to get more rankings. It’s not going to help you; for example, if customers get angry, then suggest edits to your listing hours and leave bad reviews. 

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to use this to your advantage. A boring solution, but an effective one, would be to extend your operating hours a bit. It doesn’t always have to be about being clever. This may have some implications for your operations, but it’s certainly an option. You could also try having a call center available 24hrs. Currently, this isn’t an option for additional hours, though I’ve never understood why. Your office may be closed, but maybe you’re still available to help your customers in other ways. This approach doesn’t always work out, so you’ll have to test things for yourself. But don’t assume too much about what you can and cannot do. Think outside the box a little.

Photos

It’s good to have some official, professional photos that show your team at work, your office, or aspects of your service. Even better than that is getting photos from customers, and doing so consistently. This can increase conversions in a similar way to Google Posts and can bring engagement signals to boot. There are some guidelines and best practices you’ll need to keep in mind though:

• Screenshots, stock photos, GIFs, other manually created imagery, or imagery taken by other parties should not be uploaded. 
• To be relevant, photos or videos must be taken by users at the location in question. 
• If the primary subject of the content is irrelevant to the location, it may be removed.
• Stylistic adjustments (such as applied filters) are acceptable, provided that these stylistic changes are minimal and aren’t appended elements such as borders, text, collaged images, etc.
• Content that makes it difficult for others to understand the environment that you’re sharing may be rejected. Examples are excessively dark or blurry images, significantly rotated compositions, and images that use filters to dramatically alter the representation of the place.
• Images must be of a sufficient resolution. The exact requirements may vary by photo type and point of upload.
• For 360° photos, superimposed content must be limited to either the zenith or nadir (top or bottom 25% of the equirectangular image), but can’t be present in both.
• For traditional digital photos and videos, superimposed content can’t take up more than 10% of the image or video, and must be limited to a single edge.
• Superimposed text or graphics must be relevant.
• Distracting superimposed text or graphics aren’t permitted. 

Essentially, Google wants these images to give people a good idea of what they’re getting themselves into. To illustrate this idea, I usually give my clients the example of getting a dentist recommendation from a friend. What would you hope to find when you look up their listing for the first time? You’d want to see images of the front desk and lobby area, images of the employees at work, and any other image that builds your trust in the business’s quality and gives you the confidence to know you’re in the right office when you get there. 

The same goes for pest control. Some examples you can use include pictures of:

• Technicians at work
• Customers talking with your technician
• Your office, including the entrance, lobby, etc.
• Branded truck or van
• Photos of pests you provide services for

Suspensions

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The GBP is your most valuable asset in a local SEO strategy. Losing a GBP to something like a suspension can have major ramifications for lead volume. It’s the last thing you want, but you should be prepared just in case.

It’s important to take a preventive approach, but nobody is immune to suspension so it is equally important to be prepared for when it does happen. In fact, it happens to 35% of GBP’s every year. And it’s not always because of a direct violation. In any case, you want to be ready to make an appeal should the need arise.

Appeals

As of the most recent software update, you only get two attempts at appeals. To make matters more stressful, the process is timed. Once you begin the appeals process, you will have 60 minutes to upload two or more of the following:

• Official Business Registration
• Business license
• Tax certificate
• Utility bill

It’s critical that the business name and address are exactly the same on all documents and your GBP. I would also strongly advise you to gather these documents long before a suspension happens. Appeals and verifications can be quick, but sometimes they can take weeks or even months in more extreme cases to remedy. That’s a long time to go without calls. You want to mitigate risk as much as possible, and the best approach is to prepare ahead of time.

I’m a little biased, but I would also highly recommend having a specialist help you through the appeals process if you can. Especially if it’s for multiple locations. There are a lot of innocent mistakes that can be made in this process and honestly, the software seems to have a new bug every update. Having a specialist on hand can help you avoid common pitfalls and give you the perspective needed to chart a course through any uncharted waters that may present themselves. 

To learn more about GBP suspensions, you can read this article by Ben Fisher.

Google Posts

Google Posts are those little posts with images and text at the bottom of a GBP. It’s a tool you should absolutely be using if you have the time, but note that posts don’t really serve you as a ranking factor. This one’s more beneficial for customers and conversions than for the algorithm.

I like to think of it as a backstop. Anyone scrolling through your profile who has yet to click the call button or open your website but who hasn’t left either may still be a prime lead. They might just be a little on the fence. Having a post there with a good image to catch their eye and a good offer to nudge them over the decision-making ledge can help you capture leads you may have otherwise lost.

Website Optimizations

The GBP may be your new home page, but your website is still important. After all, conversions/sales will happen there too. As for rankings, on-page signals are a major ranking factor for both the Local Pack and Local Organic. 

For this section, we’ll be going over:

• Technical SEO Checklist
• Content Strategy

Technical

As long as someone on your team is a web development specialist, this is low-hanging fruit. This may differ in other verticals, but in local SEO, it really comes down to following a simple checklist of key qualifications that Google is looking for in a website. I like to think of it as building a resume properly. The content matters most, but structuring it well is what gets the interviewer reading.

Google wants to make sure the best content makes it to its users, and measuring user experience is just as important to them as analyzing your content.

This checklist isn’t everything, nor all the various ways you could utilize them. The SEO mantra “it depends” always applies. But as long as you hit these points, you’ll be in a good spot.

Important: When you’re doing technical SEO, make sure that you check your mobile responsiveness, not just desktop responsiveness. It’s a common mistake even relatively experienced specialists make sometimes. Image optimization, for example, may need to be done differently on mobile than on desktop.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are metrics Google uses to measure the real-world user experience of a web page. You can check a variety of different metrics on Pagespeed Insights, but the three most important are the following:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): This measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): This measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have an INP of 200 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): This measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.

Image Optimization

Images that are too heavy can easily slow down your site. Using a lighter and more modern format like .webp is ideal, but using minimal-quality images that don’t sacrifice the visual experience will be a good place to start if you’re using .jpeg or .png formats. 

Image Alt Text

It doesn’t hurt to add keywords, but making it “make sense” is infinitely more important. Alt text allows tools like screen readers to describe the image to visually impaired users, ensuring they can understand the content of the page. 

Headers

Keep it to one H1 header, not multiple, and ensure it’s optimized for keywords. After that, it’s good to use keywords or variations of it in your other headers.  

Javascript Reduction

Javascript can be pretty heavy and hinder your page speed. This doesn’t mean you can’t have Javascript or that it’s going to be the end of the world. But don’t use it unnecessarily. You should try to reduce it where you can.

URL Structure (Slug)

Google and its users like it when you have clean and clear URL slugs. The goal here is to keep it short, descriptive, and helpful. Keyword rich is great, but simplicity and clarity are most important. Ask yourself “Would I know what the page was about just by reading the URL?” Some good examples can include something like /pest-control-savannah or /locations/savannah-pest-control. 

Meta Data

If you’ve done SEO in the past or done any research on it, you’ve probably heard of this already. Super basic, but don’t ignore it. Similar to URL structure, you want things to be clear and helpful. Do this for the Meta Title and Description, and make it unique. Keyword usage is great, but again simplicity is key.

XML Sitemap Submission

Submitting an XML sitemap to Google Search Console helps speed up the indexing process and helps the crawlers better understand how your site works. Really, the primary goal of much technical SEO is just guiding the crawlers—simplifying their job, as it were. This does just that.

Redirects

Managing redirects ensures a seamless user experience and prevents search engines from wasting resources on broken links. Implementing correct redirects ensures users don’t end up on a page with outdated information or similar.

Content Strategy

There are a lot of aspects to good content strategy, especially if you want to get into things like topical clustering or content silos. To keep it simple today, we’re going to talk about some guiding principles and give you an example of a structure you can use on a location-specific page (the page whose URL you should be using on the GBP, as we mentioned earlier). 

What kind of content ranks?

“Content is king” is a phrase that’s thrown around in the SEO community almost as often as “it depends”. And there’s truth to that. But far too many people seem to take that to mean “more is better”, and that’s simply not the case. While I won’t say it’s “quality, not quantity” we can confidently say it is “quality over quantity.” 

It all depends on search intent. The kind of content someone is looking for on a Wikipedia or WebMD page is not the same type of content someone is looking for in a pest control company, bank, or restaurant. Even those last three examples, despite all being under the umbrella of local SEO, wouldn’t be evaluated the same by Google. Especially not once it takes behavioral signals into account. Your primary goal should be to help customers based on search intent. In a strategy for pest control, you should be focusing primarily on serving customers at the bottom of the marketing funnel. Think decision makers, not researchers.

I like to think about my experience as a door-to-door sales representative when I teach my team about this.

Years back, when I was knocking on doors and learning how to convince people to sign a service agreement with me, one of the biggest obstacles I had to overcome was my brevity (still working on that, if we’re being honest).

People who were actually going to turn into a sale may have one or two questions or objections to resolve, but they’re not looking to go down a rabbit hole to learn everything there is to know about my offering and the topic of pest control. They don’t need to hear me ramble until their eyes glaze over, they need to make a decision. They just need to know if I offer what they need and if they can trust me.

This doesn’t mean all of my pitches were two minutes, but the average time I spent at the door lessened as my pitch improved. More importantly, I learned from painful experience that the ones who were still looking to go that deep into the weeds were usually not going to buy or would cancel over the phone later anyway.

Your approach should mimic what sales reps such as myself strived for in a good pitch. Keep it concise and always be selling (we’ll address call-to-actions later). Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean short. But it should be deliberate and no longer than necessary. 

It’s also worth noting that this is important for conversions, not just rankings. You want people to actually buy from you, not just see your website. And that’s hard to do with thin content. 

E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T is Google’s acronym for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is what Google looks for in our content, and it also illustrates their goals for the future methods of measurement they want to develop.

If you don’t get too caught up in the weeds and focus on demonstrating these principles (even in the more technical aspects of your approach), you will not only rank well now but continue to rank well even after aggressive algorithm updates that upend other strategies that dismiss this.

Location Page Anatomy

There are a lot of things you can do to vary this, but good locations pages should, at minimum, include:

• NAP Section
• A section for other locations
• CTAs
• Unique Content (approx. 40% or more)

NAP Section

Have a section on your page that looks like a listing with your name, address, phone, and a GBP map-embed. You can pull the embed code directly from Google Maps by clicking “Share” and selecting the “Embed a map” tab.

Other Locations

It’s best practice to have a section connecting this location page to others. Think of the customer journey here: If a decision maker isn’t certain the location they’re currently looking at is close enough for their purposes, you can catch them before they lose interest by taking them to another location page.

CTAs

When I was still selling, “always be selling” was my equivalent of the SEO mantra “it depends.” It was our catchphrase and calling card. This principle had nothing to do with being overbearing, obnoxious, or repetitive. Instead, it meant that we should keep the discussion on topic and prevent the conversation from wandering too far down the wrong path. The end goal was to help them make a decision.

In SEO, we do this with calls to action (CTAs). Make sure you have multiple sections with some form of a call to action. It can be as simple as a link to a phone number or as eye-catching as a section specifically for form fills. Just make sure you’re “always selling.” Just like the sales pitch, don’t overdo it, but don’t be timid about it either.

You can get creative with it, too. There is no need to always be overly formal. After all, you are appealing to humans. Using a CTA like “Book Appointment” is fine, but shake it up once in a while with phrases like “Evict Unwanted Pests,” like the one shown below. 

Unique Content

Having duplicate content on some pages is to be expected when building location pages. In theory, you should have multiple location pages, and it only makes sense that they’d share things in common. But simply duplicating it without variation provides little value in the eyes of Google and the user.

Right now, the accepted best practice for unique content is about 40-60%. This is a general rule of thumb, and it definitely depends on the specific circumstance, but it is a fairly safe range to start with. 

One of the easiest ways to keep things unique, and with a little less effort to boot, is to write some location-specific content. Done right, this creates some differentiation between your pages while also adding some additional localized relevance. 

You can do this in several different ways, but making it feel personalized like the example above is one of my favorite approaches because it helps conversions, not just rankings. Conversions are about people, and purchases are ultimately emotional decisions. Making your company feel more authentic and personable draws customers just a little further down the path to conversion. 

Local Link Building

Link building is a cornerstone of SEO. In fact, links are what gave Google an edge over their competitors in the earlier days of search. Before links, search engines relied on basic keyword matching, which very often led to irrelevant results that weren’t authoritative. If you’re curious about what that was like back in the day, give Bing a try (I’m kidding of course… kinda). 

Backlinks would act as votes of confidence from one website to another. PageRank, the algorithm they used to implement this, revolutionized search engines by analyzing the quantity and quality of backlinks to determine a website’s importance. The more high-quality backlinks a website had, the higher its PageRank score and the better its position in search results.

It’s become much more complex than that in years since, but the function of linking remains important to SEO today. Like other aspects of SEO, how you approach it differs from vertical to vertical, city to city, circumstance to circumstance, etc. To make matters more confusing, it’s a topic I’ve seen debated amongst SEO’s more than most topics in our industry. The best advice I can give is this: Focus on what the link is accomplishing and be cautious of shiny object syndrome. 

I would focus on two main aspects: 

• What type of relevance are you lacking when you look at your rankings?
• How does the link you’re building help a potential user who comes across this link?

Whatever specific tactic you consider implementing, these guiding questions will help keep you from falling for shiny object syndrome. 

Here are some options to consider, along with some commonly accepted practices:

Types of local link building:

• Content Marketing: Creating high-quality, informative, and shareable content can naturally attract backlinks from other websites. In the pest control industry, this would be best accomplished via quality blogs.
• Guest Posting: Contributing articles to other websites in your industry can establish you as an authority and earn valuable backlinks. This is one of the most common examples and is often viewed as Ol’ Reliable.
• Citations: Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information across various online directories is essential. 
• Community Involvement: Participate in local events, sponsor community initiatives, and build relationships. You should be able to ask them to get links to you on their sites.

Link-building best practices:

• Focus on quality over quantity: Prioritize backlinks from reputable and relevant websites.
• Diversify your link profile: Build links from various sources to avoid penalties.
• Monitor your link profile: Regularly check for any toxic or spammy backlinks.
• Build relationships: Networking with other local businesses can lead to valuable link-building opportunities.

Conclusion

The path to a well-executed local SEO campaign is hardly a straightforward one. This guide we’ve provided will get you pointed in the right direction. But you’ll need to spend a generous amount of time developing your skills to really gain and maintain a competitive edge. There is a tremendous amount of complexity in SEO, and the frequency of algorithm updates seems to grow exponentially every year.

The simplest course, which I would biasedly recommend, would be to hire a specialist who offers local SEO services. We dedicate all our time to testing, developing expertise, and staying at the head of the curve. That’s the experience you want working for you, not your competitors. But if that’s not the route you choose, I recommend dedicating regular amounts of time to research. Learn accepted best practices and stay up-to-date on the latest search engine algorithm updates. Spend time learning from the various specialists that are out there. Do this, and with time you can transform your pest control business from a local player to a dominant force in your market.