Local SEO
“We rank third for plumbers” is not really a fact. Local results change street by street: first outside your own front door, invisible three miles east. TuBe SEO runs 49 real map searches around your business and paints where you appear in the map pack, the three names at the top of a local search.
What you get
TuBe SEO covers both halves of local search: the listing and the website behind it. Your profile audited and kept current, reviews on a routine, the right categories claimed, local pages and links to back it up, and a map of where you rank across your trade area.
Local work runs alongside the rest of the program. The same account covers the pages we write, the links we earn and the technical fixes that let Google read any of it.
Where you really rank
Google works out local results from where the searcher is standing, so one number cannot describe a result that changes every few blocks. TuBe SEO runs 49 separate map searches around your business, records the position at each point, and paints them as a heatmap. A missing side of town shows up immediately.
One search outside your door, where you come first. One four miles east, where you do not appear. Average them and you describe neither; the average can hold steady while you quietly lose half your market.
We lay a grid over your business, tight for a city, wide for a county service area. Each of the 49 points runs a real map query for your term, and the position at that exact spot is painted. The trade calls it a geogrid: 49 honest searches instead of one.
The heatmap
TuBe SEO paints your 49 results as a map you read like a weather forecast. Green means top three at that point. Yellow and orange, slipping. Red, buried. Grey, not there at all. The shape tells you where you are genuinely competitive.
Example heatmap, not a client result.
Over time
TuBe SEO keeps every scan, so the heatmap becomes a trend rather than a snapshot. Two numbers move across scans: share of voice, how much of the 49-point map belongs to you, and average rank across all 49 points.
Across the whole map, how much of what customers see belongs to you? It rises when you win ground and slips when somebody else wins your edges. The easiest number to read, because it maps to territory.
Average rank is worth watching as a trend, next to the map that produced it, never alone. An improving average with stalled share of voice means your strong area got stronger, the least valuable progress a local business can buy.
The comparison that matters is against your own last scan. Same points, same term, same 49 searches: a change in the picture is a change in your market.
Your competitors
Every scan records who outranked you at each point, and TuBe SEO profiles them: review count, review pace, categories claimed, and rule breaches. Keyword-stuffed names are the common one, and worth reporting, because a padded name is an advantage never earned.
The competitor report
A competitor beating you is beating you for a reason, and from the outside you can usually see it. Side by side, the plan writes itself: out-review the volume winners, claim the missing categories, report the rule breakers.
Example panel. In your account these are the businesses that appeared during your scan.
Three times your reviews and none this year is a different problem from fewer reviews arriving every week. The second one is about to pass you.
Categories are a lever you can change today and feel next month. Every category claimed by the businesses beating you becomes a short list.
Google requires the real business name. Padded names are flagged with what was found, so reporting one is a decision made on evidence, not irritation.
Google Business Profile
TuBe SEO audits your listing into a scored 0–100 plan. Every factor carries the exact change and an evidence tier: how sure the industry is that it moves local rankings. Proven work first. The score reads as a work list, not a grade.
An evidence tier says how well supported each factor is: strongly evidenced, moderately evidenced, or weak and widely repeated. You see why one item sits above another.
Without tiers, a 60-item checklist treats renaming a photo file as equal to fixing a wrong primary category. With them, the proven work floats to the top and the folklore is labelled folklore.
A finding without a fix is a complaint. Each item states the change to make, so the plan can be handed to whoever manages the listing.
| What we check | How sure the evidence is | The change to make |
|---|---|---|
| Who you are | ||
| Primary category | Strong | Make the primary category your core service; move the rest to secondary. |
| Business name | Strong | Match your real-world name exactly. Padding it is a rule breach, not a tactic. |
| Secondary categories | Moderate | Claim the categories you genuinely offer, and drop the ones you do not. |
| Your reputation | ||
| How fast reviews arrive | Strong | Build one repeatable ask into the job or the checkout. Steady beats a one-off push. |
| Replying to reviews | Moderate | Reply on a routine, including to the bad ones, in your own voice. |
| How complete you look | ||
| Services and description | Moderate | Fill in every service with a real description. |
| Hours, attributes, links | Moderate | Complete every field the profile offers, holiday hours included. |
| Photo file names | Weak | Listed for completeness and labelled weak, so nobody spends a day renaming photographs. |
The audit does not touch your profile. AI does the heavy lifting, it never takes the wheel. A person on our team signs off before anything reaches your business, the same rule that means a change to your website is applied by a human.
AI answers, locally
They might in one part of town and not another. TuBe SEO's AI geogrid uses the same points as your map scan, but each point asks Google's AI answer the buying question. It answers what no rankings report covers: where AI names your business, mile by mile.
Example grid. ✓ your site was linked as a source. ~ your business was named but not linked. × you were absent from the answer. · no AI answer came back at that point.
The rhythm
TuBe SEO runs local work on a rhythm, because reviews keep arriving, competitors change categories and Google keeps redrawing the map. A scan takes a minute or two, the audit refreshes straight after, and the next scan shows what moved.
We run the 49 searches for the term your customers actually use, across the area you serve.
The audit refreshes the moment the scan finishes, so the scored plan matches your listing today.
Proven items first, folklore last or never. We do the work, or walk you through it.
Same points, same term. Two maps side by side show whether anything moved.
The map fills in as results arrive. Owners call it the first genuinely interesting SEO screen they have seen.
Nothing is overwritten. Scans from six months ago are still there, which is why the sequence beats any single picture.
Every search and AI call is recorded with its real cost. A line you can read, not a number you have to trust.
A grey quarter of the map is not a website problem. That decides next month's work.
Local is a cadence, not a project. A one-off audit and a PDF is a snapshot of a moving thing. See how the month actually runs.
Straight answers
The map pack is the little map at the top of a local search, with three businesses under it. On a phone it fills most of the first screen, and plenty of people never scroll past it. TuBe SEO measures whether you are in it, and where around your area you drop out.
Because local results change with where the searcher is standing. First outside your own front door, missing three miles east: the average describes neither. TuBe SEO keeps them apart, 49 separate searches around your area, 49 recorded positions, painted where they happened.
Yes. A plumber or roofer working from home is a service-area business, and Google treats it as local. TuBe SEO lays the grid over the area you actually travel to, so you see how far your ranking reaches before it fades. That fade line is usually the most useful thing on the report.
No. The audit gives you a scored 0–100 plan naming the exact change for every item and how strong the evidence is. Making the change stays a human act. Software that quietly rewrites how your business appears in public is a risk, not a feature.
An evidence tier says how sure the industry actually is that a factor moves local rankings. Local SEO carries more folklore than any other trade. TuBe SEO labels every factor as strongly evidenced, moderately evidenced, or weak and widely repeated, so your effort goes to what is proven.
Often, yes, and TuBe SEO flags the candidates. Google's rules say a listing must use the real-world name of the business, so a padded name is an advantage never earned. We record the breach with their review count and categories. Reporting stays your call, made on evidence.
More on the full FAQ, or see how local fits with everything else on the services page.
Book a free 30-minute review and we will run the grid on your business, your term and your trade area, then walk you through what the colors mean. You keep it either way.
No pressure, no obligation. Prefer email? info@gotubeseo.com.
