Local

Local is for businesses that serve customers in a place, such as a plumber, a dentist or a salon. It shows how you compare with other local businesses, and which local pages you are missing.

Who sees it#

The Local item appears in the sidebar under What to do only for a local business. Prefera treats a brand as local in two cases:

• Its owner set a city or area you serve.
• It sells an in-person service, and its category or description names a trade such as plumber, dentist, salon or restaurant.

Any other brand can still open /app/local. It shows a notice that the brand does not look like a local business, with a form where you enter where you work. Save it and Local switches on.

Settings#

At the top of the page, fill in two fields and click Save:

• City or area you serve, for example Leeds.
• Categories on your Google profile, separated by commas.

Owners and editors can change them. Viewers see them read-only. The area shapes the money pages and the local link ideas. The categories are compared with those your competitors use.

Reviews against your competitors#

Reviews against your competitors shows Google rating, review count, and reviews in the last 30 and 90 days. It covers you and up to four competitors. Numbers are read once a week from public Google listings, usually on Monday. Recent counts use the newest 50 reviews of each listing, so a busy listing shows a plus sign.

• Click Check reviews now to start a read. Numbers usually arrive within the hour. Owners and editors can use it, and requests are limited.
• If Google matched the wrong business, click Wrong business? under its name. Enter the name as Google shows it and click Save.
• Weekly review numbers come with plans that track keywords. On other plans the section shows Included with a paid plan. See Plans, add-ons and billing. The rest of the page is free.

Google Business Profile checklist#

The checklist lists steps for your Google Business Profile. Prefera cannot read your profile's settings, so you tick each line yourself. The counter shows how many are done. Each line links to Google's own help page, Google help.

Categories competitors use#

This section lists categories your competitors have on their Google listings that are missing from yours. Add one only if it describes what you really do. It fills in after the first weekly read of your competitors.

Money pages#

This section lists the service pages and the service-plus-place pages that local searches land on. Pages you have are found by address. Each row under Pages missing has Add to Content plan. Set your city to see pages for a service in your area. It needs a read of your site's page list first, which happens in the weekly site read.

Local link ideas#

Local link ideas lists kinds of sites that link to local businesses. Draft outreach starts an email you review before anything is sent. See Authority, outreach and directories.

Ask for reviews#

At the bottom, Draft a review request starts a draft. Ask every customer the same way. Never pay for a review or steer what it says.