How do I set up local SEO on the Dashboard?

If your customers come from a town or area you serve, use the Local SEO setup card on your Dashboard. It lists six things that bring local customers, ticks each one off from real data, and has a button for each that takes you to where it is done. If you chose "Local business" when you signed up, the card is open already; otherwise press Set up local SEO on the one-line offer.

#The six steps

1. Your business details. Your business name, phone number, postcode, main service (for example "boiler repair"), up to 12 towns you serve, separated by commas, and whether customers come to you or you go to them. Press Add (or Edit), fill them in and Save.
2. Link your Google Business Profile. Paste your profile's link (on the profile, choose Share, then Copy link). The card then gives you a tracked website link to put on your profile, with Copy, so visits from the profile can be told apart in your analytics.
3. Local business markup on your site. Markup is a small block of code that tells search engines your business name, address and opening hours. Your latest site scan checks for it. See the scan opens the results, or New Scan if you have not scanned yet.
4. Track your service in your towns. Searches like "boiler repair Sheffield". Find keywords opens Keywords with ideas built from your main service and towns, so you can pick the ones to track. Add your towns first.
5. No copy-paste town pages. Separate pages for each town that are near-copies of each other can count against you with Google. The scan checks for them. See page checks opens what it found. See low value pages.
6. Learn the rest in 20 minutes. The free Local SEO course in the Academy covers your Business Profile, reviews, listings on other sites and local pages, in five short lessons. Open the course takes you there. See the Academy.

Each step shows Done or Not done yet, and the card counts how many are done.

#Not a local business?

Press Not a local business on the one-line offer to hide it for this project. Everything else on the Dashboard stays the same.

#Questions people ask

#Do I have to fill in every field?

No. The details step ticks once you have a business name, a phone number, and a postcode or at least one town. The towns are what the keyword suggestions use, so add them if you can.

#Does this change my website?

No. UtilitySEO tells you what is missing and where. Adding markup or changing pages is done on your own website.

#Can I track towns as keywords without the card?

Yes. Track any search on the Keywords page. See track keywords.