Local SEO and AI: How are the two linked?

How are AI and Local SEO related?

AI Overviews

Google’s AI Overviews can appear for location-specific search queries. Although these don’t appear often, conversational queries that require more variation than a Google Business Profile or Map Pack can generate it.

LLMs

With searching on LLMs becoming more popular, including for local search queries, it’s becoming more important to understand how to optimise so you can be mentioned within these. LLM search is designed for answering queries quickly, and more structured information is needed to appear.

Traditional SEO

Local SEO optimisation work can be very manual, so leveraging AI tools to help improve efficiencies and data gathering is essential for your local SEO strategy.

How to optimise for both traditional local search and AI 

Maintain strong traditional local SEO foundations

GBP (Google Business Profile): Google Business Profile optimisation is a cornerstone of local visibility. NAP signals (name, address and phone number) represent the core contact information for businesses online. This information plus business descriptions, photos, opening hours and other details on the GBP need to be up to date and accurate.

Maintain citations and site uniformity: NAP signals aren’t exclusive to GBP, citations across multiple online directories, relevant to the business and industry, help establish trust and location accuracy. The uniformity of this information across multiple directories and on your website is key.

Build local backlinks: Authoritative local backlinks strengthen your domain’s relevance and credibility in a specific geographic area, identifying a business as reputable in its local niche.

Reviews: Review signals are important as they’re what differentiates rankings in the highest positions. Not only do you need to build organic and authentic customer reviews, but you also need to show engagement through replies, to demonstrate trustworthiness to Google.

Enhance local SEO optimisation for AIOs and LLMs

Schema markup: Implementing structured data in the form of local schema markup helps provide another clear signal about your business details, services, products, and location. This kind of structured data is a favourite of LLMs, making it easier to extract consistent and accurate information to answer queries.

Content needs to be clear and easily extractable: AI Overviews and LLM‑based search require also require easily digestible formats to summarise effectively. So, if you’re creating localised guides or geographical specific recommendations, be sure to be concise and make use of heading formatting and bullet points were relevant.

AI powered Local SEO tools

Given that so much local SEO work is manual, leveraging AI tools helps improve efficiency and accuracy. The use of these can help you automate tasks like reporting, local rank tracking and even updating citations for uniformity.

BrightLocal

Provides AI-driven reports and local SEO audits to help businesses track performance and optimise for local search.

Moz Local

Uses AI to manage and optimise local business listings across multiple platforms, improving visibility and accuracy.

Whitespark

Offers AI-powered citation building tools, helping businesses improve local SEO through authoritative backlinks.

These tools can not only help you improve your business’ local search visibility but also allow you to make data-driven decisions to refine your local SEO strategies across traditional SEO and GEO over time.