Local SEO for one location or a hundred.

What local SEO is

Local SEO is about being found by people searching for something near them: "dentist near me", "bakery in Leeds", "emergency plumber open now". These searches are different from ordinary searches because the answer depends on where the searcher is, and search engines show results from businesses they're confident are nearby, open and relevant.

Much of that confidence comes from outside your website, especially your Google Business Profile, reviews and listings in directories. Your website still plays a central part. It's where search engines confirm your business name, address, phone number, opening hours and services, and where they check that those details match everything else they know about you. Rilea SEO makes sure your website states those details clearly, consistently and in a structured form search engines can read.

Your main business

Start by adding your main business in Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Local SEO. Enter your business name exactly as it appears on your Google Business Profile, your business type, full address, phone number and opening hours. Rilea SEO outputs this as LocalBusiness schema on your homepage, linked to the organization in your site's schema graph.

Getting the details exactly right matters. Search engines compare the name, address and phone number on your site with your Business Profile and other listings. Small differences, such as "Street" on one and "St" on another, or an old phone number left on a directory, make it harder for them to be sure all the references belong to the same business.

Multiple locations

If you have more than one branch, office, shop or service area, add each as a separate location. Every location has its own:

• Name and business type
• Full address and map position
• Phone number
• Opening hours, including different hours on different days
• Service area, for businesses that travel to customers
• LocalBusiness schema linked to your organization

There's no limit on the number of locations, and no extra cost. If you want each location to have its own page on your site, turn that on and choose a URL slug, such as /locations/. Each location page then has its own address, hours, map and schema, which gives search engines a clear page to associate with each branch.

Showing locations on your site

Rilea SEO includes shortcodes for displaying local details anywhere on your site:

• rilea_address shows the address of your main business or a chosen location
• rilea_hours shows opening hours
• rilea_map shows a map
• rilea_locations lists all your locations

Use them on your contact page, in the footer, or on a locations page that lists every branch. Because the shortcodes read from your Local SEO settings, you only need to update a phone number or opening hours in one place, and every page that shows them updates too.

KML file and locations sitemap

Rilea SEO generates a KML file, a standard format for geographic data that lists your locations with their coordinates, and a locations sitemap that points search engines to your location pages. Both help search engines find and understand every branch, particularly when you have many.

How your website supports your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is managed in Google, not on your website, and it usually has the biggest effect on local search results. Your website supports it in several ways:

• Consistency. The name, address, phone number and hours on your site should match your Business Profile exactly.
• A landing page. Each Business Profile can link to a page on your site. Linking a branch's profile to its own location page, rather than the homepage, gives searchers the most relevant information.
• Relevance. Service pages that describe what you do, in the words customers use, help search engines match your business to the right searches.
• Trust. Clear contact details, real photos and genuine information about your team build confidence for visitors and search engines alike.

Writing good location pages

A location page with nothing but an address and a map is thin. A useful one answers the questions someone would have before visiting that branch:

• How to get there, including parking or public transport
• Opening hours, including holiday hours
• Services available at that branch, if they differ
• Who works there, if that matters to customers
• What nearby areas it serves
• Photos of the premises

Avoid copying the same text across every location page and changing only the town name. Search engines see near-identical pages as low value. Even a few paragraphs of genuinely local information make a page more useful.

Local SEO for service-area businesses

Some businesses don't have customers visiting them. Plumbers, cleaners, electricians and mobile services travel to customers instead. For these businesses, the service area matters more than the street address. Add the areas you cover to each location in Rilea SEO, and create service pages that describe what you do in each area you serve, without inventing offices you don't have.

Setting up local SEO

1. Go to Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Local SEO.
2. Add your main business with its full details, matching your Google Business Profile exactly.
3. Add any extra locations, each with its own address, phone number and hours.
4. Turn on public location pages if you want a page for each location, and choose a URL slug.
5. Add the address and hours shortcodes to your contact page and footer, and the locations shortcode to a locations page.
6. Test your homepage and a location page in Google's Rich Results Test to check the LocalBusiness markup.
7. Update each Google Business Profile to link to the matching location page.

Common local SEO mistakes

• Inconsistent details. Different phone numbers or address formats across your site and listings.
• Out-of-date hours. Forgetting to update holiday hours, or leaving a closed branch on the site.
• Duplicate location pages. The same text on every location page with only the town changed.
• Fake locations. Listing addresses where you don't operate. It goes against search engine guidelines and can get listings removed.
• No location pages. Pointing every branch's Business Profile to the homepage, so searchers have to hunt for the right branch.

Compared with other plugins

Local SEO was once a separate add-on for Yoast SEO and is now part of Yoast SEO Premium, at $118.80 a year per site. Rank Math's free version covers a single location, and managing multiple locations needs a PRO plan. In Rilea SEO, one location or a hundred, local SEO is free, and it's the same feature set on every site you install it on, including client sites.

Local SEO on Shopify

Local SEO isn't in Rilea SEO for Shopify yet. It's planned for a later release, alongside image SEO. Until then, Shopify stores with physical shops can add their store details to a page and keep their Google Business Profile up to date. When local SEO arrives in the app, it will work the same way as the WordPress plugin, with locations, hours and LocalBusiness schema.

An example: a business with five branches

Imagine a physiotherapy practice with five clinics across a city. Before setting up local SEO, the website has a single contact page listing all five addresses, and every clinic's Google Business Profile links to the homepage.

With Rilea SEO, the practice adds its head office as the main business and each clinic as a location, with its own address, phone number and opening hours. It turns on public location pages, so each clinic gets a page at /locations/clinic-name/, and writes a few paragraphs for each: which treatments are available there, how to get there and park, and which physiotherapists work at that clinic. The contact page now uses the locations shortcode to list every clinic with a link to its page, and each Google Business Profile links to its own clinic's page.

Search engines now see five clear pages, each with consistent details and LocalBusiness schema, each matching a Business Profile. Searchers who click through from a profile land on the right clinic, with the information they need to book.

Reviews and your website

Reviews are a major part of local search, and most of them live on your Google Business Profile and other platforms rather than on your website. That's fine. A few points are worth knowing:

• Ask for reviews where they matter most, usually your Business Profile.
• Respond to reviews, including critical ones, politely and promptly.
• Showing reviews on your site helps visitors decide, but only mark up reviews in schema if they actually appear on the page, and follow search engine guidelines on self-serving reviews.

Measuring local SEO

Local results are measured mostly outside your website:

• Google Business Profile insights show how people find your profile, and how many call, ask for directions or visit your website.
• Google Search Console shows which local searches your pages appear for. Filter the Performance report by page to see how each location page performs.
• Your analytics show visits to location pages and contact pages.

Check them monthly, and look at trends rather than single days. Local results also vary by where the searcher is standing, so ranking checks from a single location only tell part of the story.

A local SEO checklist

Run through this list once when you set up, and again whenever something changes, such as a move, new opening hours or a new branch:

• Your business name, address and phone number are identical on your website, your Google Business Profile and your main directory listings.
• Every location has its own entry in Rilea SEO with correct hours, including any days with different hours.
• Each location has a page with genuinely local information, not a copy of another branch's page.
• Each Google Business Profile links to the matching location page.
• Your contact page and footer show your details using the shortcodes, so they update automatically.
• Your homepage and each location page pass Google's Rich Results Test for LocalBusiness markup.
• Closed branches are removed from Rilea SEO and their pages redirected to the nearest open branch.
• Holiday hours are updated on your site and your Business Profile before each holiday period.
• Your service pages describe what you do in the words customers search for, and mention the areas you serve where it's natural.