Best Tools for Local SEO: 8 Top Picks for Businesses & Agencies

Local SEO tools are great for businesses looking to enhance their business profile visibility and rankings. 

From keyword research and competitor analysis to rank tracking and content optimization, the best local SEO tools help to execute local search marketing strategies efficiently.

With the right tools for local SEO, you can accurately measure your ROI and generate more local inbound leads.

This article lists the top local SEO software for agencies and freelancers to monitor reviews, track rankings, manage citations, and perform other Google Business Profile optimization tasks efficiently. 

Best Tools for Local SEO

Local search optimization is essential for acquiring relevant local business leads to grow your customer base. 

Prominent SEO Tools help you automate different organic marketing tasks and help your business rank at the top of local search results.

Here are the best game-changing SEO tools to dominate local search:

Local Ranking

Local Ranking is one of the best local SEO tools that lets you manage and optimize your Google Business profile.

The GBP Audit tool provides a quick health check of your GBP account in a few seconds. You can audit posts, ratings & reviews, photos, category-specific pages, and more. The software provides an overall score with recommendations to improve your Google Maps score.

Local Ranking can help identify "hyper-local" ranking factors. With good insight from LocalRanking, we optimized our Google Business Profile well, and now, we see organic traffic from local search increase by almost 35% in the previous 6 months.

- Aaron Whittaker, VP of Demand Generation & Marketing at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency

The Local Rank Tracker lets you check the local ranking of your target keywords in your target location in the Map pack results.

The below screenshot is an example of Reliant Plumbing's local rankings for the keyword "plumber" in the city of Austin.

You can run searches on your target geographic areas or any public location. The default grid size is 3x3, meaning 9 grid points in total. You should pick a range that best represents your main service area.

The tool simulates a real searcher performing a Google Maps search, tracks performance over time, and helps you compare how your business performs against local competitors.

The GBP Post Scheduler lets you schedule posts days, weeks, or months in advance across 500 time zones. Also, with multi-location post management, you can post content on each of your target locations.

You can automate GBP posts and share offers, events, images, videos, and other updates.

Local Ranking also offers a consolidated review management dashboard that pulls Google Reviews from all your accounts into one place. You can filter all unresponded or negative reviews and respond in a timely manner to keep customers engaged.

With such a robust suite of GBP management features, and starting from just $19 a month, the tool helps agencies and local businesses manage multi-location accounts with ease.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free tool that lets you understand how your customers interact with your website throughout their user lifecycle. 

It tells you how many people visited your site and which pages on your site are the most popular. 

You can see different location-specific pages on your website, new users, returning users, user activity by cohort, engagement rate, and other crucial metrics. You can also see the top locations that are attracting the most traffic to your website. 

GA filters all your site data based on your four top business objectives. These are raising brand awareness, generating leads, driving sales, and improving customer retention. 

You can also learn about the kind of local content that drives engagement so that you can help refine SEO strategies accordingly. For instance, if certain blog posts or pages popular with local audiences are identified, similar themes can be expanded upon or promoted to increase relevance and engagement.

Another relevant advantage of GA is tracking conversions. You can set up and track specific goals, such as form submissions or service inquiries from your local landing pages. 

By accurately tracking goals and conversion data, you can measure how your local SEO strategies are helping to improve your business revenue.

Google Search Console

Search Console is an ideal local SEO tool that you can use to track impressions, clicks, average CTR, and average position of your website.

With Search Console, you can see which search terms bring users to your site. You can also submit sitemaps and individual local service pages for crawling. 

The URL Inspection tool helps you see how Google crawls, indexes, and presents information about your pages. You can even request pages for indexing.

You can see pages that aren’t indexed and the reason why they can’t be served on Google.

With GSC, you can maintain your site health and optimize the rankings of your target location pages.

Google Business Profile Insights

Another free local SEO software that is a must-have for any business is Google Business Profile Insights.

The Google Profile performance tool helps businesses manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.

The Performance feature helps you view calls, bookings, directions, and website clicks on your Google Business Profile. You can access this feature only if your profile is verified.

Personally, I believe that Google Business Profile actions and website conversions are two of the most useful indicators for local SEO.

- Yasmin Cotton, Digital Marketer & Founder of Elyrium

To view the Performance section, search for your business on Google and then click on the Performance icon.

Now, you can see the number of people who viewed your profile and the searches that showed your business profile in the Google search results.

You can also see the number of calls, bookings, website clicks, and directions made from your business profile.

The tool lets you create a review link from the ‘Ask for reviews’ section to ask your customers to review your business.

Yext

Yext is one of the most preferred local SEO tools for managing all the important aspects of your business profile. 

With Yext Listings, you can sync your brand information across 200 publishers. 

They offer detailed listings analytics, pre-built dashboards, and customizable reporting tools. Yext's robust data science framework helps you improve your business listings by leveraging AI-led insights. 

If you’re running multiple locations, Yext keeps your business info uniform everywhere, so customers don’t get confused by outdated addresses or phone numbers.

- Keith Kakadia, CEO of Sociallyin

Yext offers an AI-driven platform designed to enhance online reputation management through efficient review handling across multiple locations. You can drive customer loyalty by actively managing reviews, responding to customer feedback, and using AI to scale these processes without adding extra staff. 

You can also filter your reviews based on rating, language, date, content, and keywords.

There is also another feature called the Yext Pages, which are designed to improve listings' performance dramatically, converting more search queries into actual customers. 

With features like lightning-fast load speeds, structured data, and responsive designs, you can create localized content and user-friendly layouts with relevant calls to action. 

With the Yext Knowledge Graph, you can auto-update descriptions, hours, and images on pages.

Synup

Synup is a local listing and review management software trusted by over a million businesses globally. You can manage and optimize your business profiles on essential sites like Google, Facebook, and Yellow Pages.

With their Listing Management Tool, you can list your business on Google My Business and 60+ other websites.

You can create and edit multiple listings across all your target locations simultaneously. 

Its Voice Search Optimizer helps you optimize your listings for no-click searches, such as voice search. 

GeoRanker

GeoRanker is a local SEO tool for unlimited keyword rankings, analytics, and local rank tracking across all your target locations. 

Their Local Rank Checker lets you monitor website rankings in real time across different locations, whether cities or countries. 

You have to enter the URL, keyword, target country where you wish to track the keyword rankings, up to three target cities, your target search engine, and your email address so the tool can send you the report. 

The tool offers accurate local ranking data for any ZIP Code, area, and city. Their pricing starts from $99 per month, where you can track up to 100 keywords. 

CallRail

CallRail is a great local SEO tool for call tracking. It allows businesses to maintain NAP consistency by porting the existing business number into CallRail. 

You can use just one primary number as your call tracking number. There is no need to change the number across various local listings, thus avoiding any NAP inconsistencies.

The local SEO lead tracking tool provides insights into caller behavior and call quality. It also helps in managing calls efficiently, ensuring that customer calls are always answered or directed appropriately. For example, it accurately tags, qualifies, and prioritizes leads automatically.

CallRail provides insights to continually optimize your local SEO strategies. You can easily identify which marketing efforts are generating calls, allowing for precise ROI measurement.

Typical Local SEO Tool Features

A good local SEO strategy takes time, and some popular features make these tools useful.

Here are some of the special features that you need to look out for when evaluating local SEO tools:

Rank Tracking

Keyword rank tracking is an important feature that lets you check your website’s positions in organic search, local Maps, and mobile results. 

Most local SEO tools (like Local Ranking) should be able to help you track your business’s visibility and ranking positions.

You can leverage rank tracking to monitor your search engine rankings for targeted keywords across various locations. These insights can help you understand your competitive position better.

Review Management

Reviews are an important part of your local SEO strategy. Did you know that 99.9% of people read online reviews before they buy any service or products online?

Reviews tell you what your customers appreciate and what areas might need some improvement.

Responding to reviews regularly is important for your business. It shows that a business values customer input and is committed to customer satisfaction.

Star ratings tell searchers and Google that your business is credible and trustworthy.

They significantly influence a business’s reputation and its local search rankings.

So if you're looking for a local SEO tool be sure the check whether it has a review management feature.

Google Business Profile Optimization

Keeping a Google Business Profile updated is crucial for local SEO success. 93% of people use Google Maps to find a business so if your GBP isn't showing for relevant searches, you're missing out on valuable traffic and leads.

Tools like our GBP Audit ensures all the essential information in your Google Business Profile account is always updated.

The tool checks business descriptions, categories, business opening hours, photos, bookings, and other elements.

An optimized Google Business Profile increases visibility in local searches, making it easier for potential customers to discover your business.

Listing Management

Local SEO listings boost your business’s credibility in the eyes of search engines. There are both free and paid listings from where you can earn relevant, authority-boosting citations.

Submitting your business details on hundreds of relevant business directories in different locations can be complex and time-consuming.

There are some tools like Yext and Brightlocal that can manage local business listings on geo-specific sites across your target locations.

Also, maintaining uniformity across all of your listings can be difficult. Consistent NAP avoids customer confusion and projects a professional image that attracts more local customers.

Accurate listings are important to building trust with search engines, which can lead to higher rankings.

Conclusion

Local SEO tools let you see how your business performs in your target regions. They track your local search visibility and help to optimize your Google Business Profile. 

Selecting the right SEO tools for local SEO is also important for digital marketing agencies as it helps them to show progress to their clients with detailed reporting. 

You should select the finest local SEO software depending on your exact campaign needs and budget. Don’t forget to try the free option, then subscribe to the paid plan to get most of the advanced features.

The best SEO tools arsenal can automate and scale your local SEO to deliver quick results.