Why Marketing Agencies need this
Client acquisition is the top challenge for 37% of agencies, and that makes retention the cheaper fight: a local client who sees nothing change in the map pack after three months starts asking questions. Reporting is the other pressure. Manual rank reports can eat a couple of hours per client, and clients panic at normal fluctuations, so you need proof of work that does not depend on a position moving. A website-side local audit gives you that proof. The Local SEO Audit fetches one URL as served and checks for a phone number and street address, LocalBusiness schema, a Google Maps link or embed, opening hours, contact email and social links, then gives a percentage score and a fix for every failed check. For a marketing agency with a dozen dentists, restaurants or plumbers, it turns onboarding into a ten-minute job. It will not tell you where anyone ranks, and it does not look at the Business Profile or other directories. Treat it as the on-site half of a local audit.
Marketing Agencies specific guidance
What to run first
Start with the homepage and the contact or location page of each client, as two separate runs, because the tool reads one URL per run and sees the HTML as served, with no JavaScript executed. A URL such as https://example-dental.com/locations/leeds/ tells you more than the bare domain. Open the optional fields and type the business name, phone and address exactly as they appear on the client's Google profile; the Business Profile match block then shows whether the page agrees with what you typed. Do this in the first ten minutes of onboarding, before you touch any content. The result does not prove the profile itself is correct, since the tool never reads Google Business Profile and only compares against the text you enter.
Reading the score and the issue list
The score is the percentage of weight passed across NAP and identity, maps and hours, and trust and social checks, so a 62 means weighted checks are missing, not that the site is 62 percent good. Read the summary cards first: NAP complete showing Partial usually means a phone number without a readable street address, or the reverse. Then go through the issue list, where each failed check carries a fix. Geo coordinates is optional, so do not let it dominate the client conversation. For the report, quote the checks passed and fixed, not the score alone, because a score that moves from 56 to 78 is easier to defend than a rank that wobbles. The score does not show rankings, reviews, citations on Yelp or Apple Maps, or map pack position.
Fix order for client sites
Fix in this order: add a visible street address and a tel: link, then publish LocalBusiness JSON-LD that includes the address, then add a Google Maps embed and opening hours, then email and social links. If you generate the markup with a schema generator, run it through a schema checker before it goes live. For multi-location clients, give every location page its own address, phone and schema rather than one footer block, and run a similarity check on the pages before publishing, because pages that differ only by city name drift toward the scaled content abuse Google's spam policies describe. A clean re-run confirms the signals are present; it does not promise any ranking change.
Example scenarios
1. Onboarding a dental practice after a redesign
- Situation
- Illustrative example: A freelancer rebuilt a dental practice's site and put the phone number inside a header image, while the address became a footer line that never uses the word address. Nobody checked the page after launch, and the client now asks why calls are down.
- Input
https://example-dental.co.uk/contact/- Reading the result
- You would typically see the phone number check fail because the number is an image, NAP complete showing Partial, Local schema showing No, and a score of 36 or lower, since those three checks carry most of the weight. Fix the text phone number with a tel: link first, then add LocalBusiness JSON-LD. The result does not explain the drop in calls; it only lists missing on-page signals.
2. Eight branch pages sharing one footer
- Situation
- Illustrative example: A plumbing client with 8 branches reused one template, so every location page carries the head office address in the footer and the same phone number. The agency added the pages in one afternoon by swapping the city name in the headline.
- Input
https://example-plumbing.com/locations/manchester/- Reading the result
- The address check may pass on all 8 pages, which is misleading, because the address is the head office. Type the Manchester branch's profile address into the optional field and the Address matches your profile row would typically show only part of the address words found, with the house number missing. Give each branch its own address and schema.
3. Auditing your own agency before pitching
- Situation
- Illustrative example: An agency pitches local SEO to restaurants, but its own contact page is a form with no street address, no phone and no structured data. Three prospects in a row, out of 10 pitched this month, check the page before replying and go quiet.
- Input
https://youragency.example/contact/- Reading the result
- Expect failed checks for the phone number, physical address, LocalBusiness schema and opening hours, with only email and social links passing, so the score would sit near 8, because those two checks carry little weight. The issue list is your to-do list. Fixing it protects credibility, but a passing result proves nothing about how the agency ranks.
Common mistakes
- Auditing only the homepage. The tool reads one URL per run, so a clean homepage says nothing about the contact page or the branch pages where local signals usually go missing.
- Treating the score as a ranking forecast. The percentage counts passed on-page checks. It does not measure rankings, map pack position or traffic, so never present it to a client as a prediction.
- Skipping the profile comparison fields. Without the name, phone and address from the client's Google profile, you only learn that details exist, not that they match. Type them in and read the match block.
- Publishing schema without validating it. A LocalBusiness block with a broken bracket can still pass this audit, which only spots the schema in the source, while Google ignores it. Run it through a schema checker, then re-run the audit.
- Cloning location pages with a new city name. Pages that differ only by town name risk looking like scaled content and add no value for visitors. Give each branch its own address, hours and details.
Frequently asked questions
How do I run a local SEO audit for a client without a paid suite?
Paste the client's contact or location page URL into the Local SEO Audit, then repeat for the homepage. Each run takes one URL and returns a percentage score, summary cards and an issue list with a fix per failed check. Add the business name, phone and address from the client's Google profile to see a match block. It needs no signup, so you can run every client location the same afternoon. It covers the website half only; citations and the profile need separate review.
How do I show a local client SEO progress when rankings fluctuate?
Report what changed on the site, not only where a keyword sits. Positions differ by device and location, so a small drop can be noise, and clients worry about it. Before and after runs of the audit give you comparable evidence: address now readable, LocalBusiness schema added, hours published, score up. Pair that with your rank reports so the client sees both outcomes and activity. The audit shows on-site signals only; it cannot explain a ranking move on its own.
Does the audit replace checking a client's Google Business Profile?
No. The audit only reads the page you give it. If you type the profile's name, phone and address into the optional fields, it compares them with the page, but it never opens the profile itself. It also does not look at citations on Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places or Facebook, nor reviews, categories or map pack rankings. Treat it as the website half and check the profile and directory listings by hand or with a separate citation review.
Can I use it as a sales opener to get SEO clients?
Yes, with care. Run it on a local prospect's contact page and you get a short list of missing signals, such as no LocalBusiness schema or no opening hours, which makes a concrete first conversation. Run it on your own contact page first, because agencies that neglect their own site lose credibility with prospects. Do not present the score as a verdict on the prospect's rankings or as a Google rule; it is a checklist of on-page signals.
How should I handle location pages for a client with many branches?
Give each branch its own URL with its own address, phone number and LocalBusiness schema, then audit each URL separately since a run covers one page. Avoid cloning one template and swapping the city name; Google's spam policies describe scaled content abuse as many pages produced mainly to manipulate rankings. Add real local details such as the branch's opening hours and map embed. A passing audit shows the signals exist, not that the pages are unique or useful.
Reference: Before you roll one location template out to dozens of client pages, read Google's spam policies on scaled content abuse, which cover pages generated mainly to manipulate search rankings.