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What a lot can change in just a few years! When I wrote the initial version of this post in January 2014, the local SEO industry didn't have quite the wealth of paid tools that now exists, and several of the freebies on my previous list have already been sunsetted. Definitely time for a complete refresh of the most useful free tools, widgets, and resources I understand of to create marketing local businesses easier and better.

While all of the tools below are free, remember that some will require you to join access. Others are limited, no-cost, or trial versions that let you get a common sense of what they provide, helping you to consider whether it might be worth it to get into paid access. One thing you might notice: my new list of local SEO tools offers increased support for organic SEO tasks, reflective of our industry's growing understanding of how closely linked organic and local SEO have grown to be.

Now, let's open this toolkit and get 2018 off to a great start!

For Research
US Census Bureau Tool Set

Looking to better understand a target community for marketing purposes? You'll find 20+ useful resources from the US Census Bureau, including population statistics, economic data, mapping and geocoding widgets, income and language information, and much more.

Client Onboarding Questionnaire & Phone Script

Onboarding a fresh client? Reduce repetitious follow-ups by asking all of the right questions the first time around with this thorough questionnaire and easy-to-follow telephone call script from Moz. Includes helpful tips for why you're asking each question. As local SEO veterans will let you know, a missed question can cause unhappy (and costly) surprises down the marketing road. Be sure you have the total picture of an incoming client in clear view before starting strategizing.

Location Information Spreadsheet

Vital when marketing multi-location businesses, this free Moz spreadsheet will ensure that you've got all the info at your fingertips about each locale of an organization.

*Pro tip: Whenever using large enterprises, be certain that the info you're inputting in this spreadsheet has been approved by all relevant departments. more info is no fun to determine six months into a marketing campaign that there's internal disagreement about company NAP or other features.

Local Competitive Audit Spreadsheet

Now we're really getting right down to brass tacks. If you want to search for answers to the perennial client question, "Why is that guy outranking me?", this free Moz spreadsheet will allow you to document key competitive data. The end result of filling out the sheet will undoubtedly be two columns of stats you can compare in your quest to find competitors' ranking strengths and weaknesses. Need more guidance? Read my blog post where I put this audit spreadsheet into action for two San Francisco Bay Area Chinese restaurants.

Manual GeoLocation Chrome Extension

Watch Darren Shaw demo by using this tool to show what sort of local pack changes whenever a user virtually crosses a street and you will quickly understand how useful this Chrome extension will undoubtedly be in approximating the impacts of user-to-business proximity. Is effective on desktop devices.

Our industry still hasn't fully recovered from Google removing the Local Search filter from its engine in 2015, and I still reside in hope that they will take it back one day, but in the meantime, this extension gives us a good sense of how searcher location affects serp's. In fact, it may even be a superior solution.

The MozBar SEO Toolbar

Local businesses in competitive markets must master traditional SEO, and the free MozBar provides a wonderful introduction to the metrics you need to look at in analyzing the organic strengths and weaknesses of clients and competitors. On-page elements, link metrics, markup, HTTP status, optimization opportunities - get the data you need at a glance with the MozBar.

Google Advanced Search Operators

Not a tool, per se, but the best tutorial I have ever seen on using Google advanced search operators to deepen your research. Dr. Pete breaks this into 67 steps that will enable you to use these search refinements for content and title research, checking for plagiarism, technical SEO audits, and competitive intelligence. Be totally wizardly and impress your clients and teammates, by just focusing on how to format searches in smart ways.

Google Search Console

Apologies if it already seems like a no-brainer to you that you ought to be signed up for Google's console that gives you analytics, alerts one to serious errors, and so a lot more, but local SEO is merely now crossing the threshold of understanding how deeply connected it is to organic search. When playing in Google's backyard, GSC is a must-have for businesses of every type.

BrightLocal's Search Results Checker

This popular tool does a fantastic job of replicating local serp's at a city or zip code level. In some cases, it's best to search by city (for instance, whenever there are multiple towns covered by an individual zip code), but other times, it's better search by zip code (as in the case of a large city with multiple zip codes). The tool does not have the ability to recreate user-level results, so always remember that the proximity of confirmed user to a business may create quite different results than what you will see searching at a city or zip code level. I consider this an excellent tool to suss out the lay of the land in a community, identifying top competitors.

Offline Conversion Tracker Form

Give this handy Whitespark form to anyone who answers your phone so that they can document the answer to the important question, "How did you hear about us?" Submitted information is saved to Whitespark's database and tracked in Google Analytics for the future reference and analysis. For local businesses, knowledge of offline factors can be priceless. This form offers a simple point of entry into amassing real-world data.

For Content
Answer the Public

One of the best-loved key word research tools in the digital marketing world, Answer the Public lets you enter a keyword phrase and generate a large number of questions/topics related to your search. One of the most awesome facets of this tool is that it includes a.CSV download feature - perfect for instantly generating large lists of keywords that you could input into something similar to Moz Keyword Explorer to begin the sorting process that turns up the most powerful keywords for your content dev and on-page optimization.

Buzzsumo

Another great content inspiration tool, Buzzsumo shows you lets you enter a keyword, topic or domain name, and shows you which pieces are getting the most social shares. For example, a search for wholefoodsmarket.com shows that an extremely shared piece of content during my search is about an asparagus and broccoli soup. You can even sort by content type (articles, videos, infographics, etc.). Use of Buzzsumo will let you generate topics that might be popular if covered on your website.

OSHA Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) System Search

Another interesting resource for brainstorming a broad pool of potential keywords for content dev consideration, OSHA's SIC search returns big, comprehensive lists. Just look up your industry's SIC code, and enter it plus a keyword/category to really get your list.

USPS RESEARCH a ZIP Code Widget

Dealing with service area businesses (SABs)? Note the next tab in the menu of this widget: Cities by zip code. When you know the zip code of a business you're marketing you can enter it into this simple tool to obtain a list of every city for the reason that zip. Now, let's not take a wrong step here: don't publish large blocks of zips or city names on any website, but do use this widget to be sure you know of all the communities that an SAB might strategize content, link building, brand building, real-world relationship building, social media marketing, and PPC.