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What a lot can transform 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 been sunsetted. Definitely time for a whole refresh of the very most useful free tools, widgets, and resources I understand of to create marketing local businesses easier and better.

While each of the tools below are free, remember that some will require you to sign up for access. Others are limited, no-cost, or trial versions that let you get a common sense of what they provide, enabling you to consider whether it may be worth it to buy into paid access. One thing you might notice: my new set 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 become.

Now, let's open this toolkit and get 2018 off to an excellent start!

For Research
US Census Bureau Tool Set

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

Client Onboarding Questionnaire & Phone Script

Onboarding a fresh client? Reduce repetitious follow-ups by asking all 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 are asking each question. As local SEO veterans will let you know, a missed question can result in unhappy (and costly) surprises down the marketing road. Be sure you have the total picture of an incoming client in clear view before you begin strategizing.

Additional info 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 a company.

*Pro tip: When working with large enterprises, be certain that the data you're inputting in this spreadsheet has been approved by all relevant departments. It is no fun to find out 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 down to brass tacks. If you want to consider answers to the perennial client question, "How come that guy outranking me?", this free Moz spreadsheet will assist you to document key competitive data. The end result of filling in the sheet will undoubtedly be two columns of stats it is possible to compare in your quest to discover competitors' ranking strengths and weaknesses. Need more guidance? Read my blog post in which I put this audit spreadsheet into action for two San Francisco Bay Area Chinese restaurants.

Manual GeoLocation Chrome Extension

Watch Darren Shaw demo using this tool to show how a local pack changes when a user virtually crosses a street and you will quickly know how useful this Chrome extension will 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 neighborhood Search filter from its engine in 2015, and I still reside in hope that they will bring it back one day, however in the meantime, this extension gives us a good sense of how searcher location affects search results. 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 instantly with the MozBar.

Google Advanced Search Operators

Not a tool, per se, but the best tutorial I've ever seen on using Google advanced search operators to deepen your research. Dr. Pete breaks this down 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 appears like a no-brainer to you that you need to be signed up for Google's console that gives you analytics, alerts you to serious errors, and so much 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 instances, you need to search by city (for example, when there are multiple towns covered by an individual zip code), but other times, it's better search by zip code (as regarding a big city with multiple zip codes). The tool doesn't have the ability to recreate user-level results, so remember that the proximity of confirmed user to a small business may create quite different results than what you'll see searching at a city or zip code level. I think about this an excellent tool to suss out the lay of the land in a community, identifying top competitors.

Additional info

Give this handy Whitespark form to anyone who answers your phone in order to document the solution to the important question, "How did you hear about us?" Submitted information is saved to Whitespark's database and tracked in Google Analytics for your future reference and analysis. For local businesses, understanding of offline factors could be priceless. This form provides 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 and generate a large number of questions/topics linked to your search. One of the awesome facets of this tool is that it has a.CSV download feature - ideal for instantly generating large lists of keywords you could input into something like Moz Keyword Explorer to begin with the sorting process that arises the most powerful keywords for your content dev and on-page optimization.

Buzzsumo

Another great content inspiration tool, Buzzsumo shows you enables you to enter a keyword, topic or domain name, and then shows you which pieces are getting the most social shares. For instance, a search for wholefoodsmarket.com shows that an extremely shared piece of content during my search is approximately an asparagus and broccoli soup. You can even sort by content type (articles, videos, infographics, etc.). Use of Buzzsumo will help 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 then enter it plus a keyword/category to get your list.

USPS Look Up a ZIP Code Widget

Working 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 understand of all the communities for which an SAB might strategize content, link building, brand building, real-world relationship building, social media, and PPC.