A local seo plan to own your local market in 90 days

Picture an electrician in Norwich who has read this whole track and now holds a list of forty reasonable tasks with no sequence. Sequence is what's missing. The plan has three phases of four weeks: foundations first because everything later stands on them, then pages and reviews, then the authority and AI signals that compound.

It commits to what you'll have built by day 90. It says nothing about where you'll rank, because Google publishes no timelines and anyone who promises one is guessing.

How to read this plan

Each week names a deliverable, something that exists when the week ends (a completed profile, a published page, a sent email), and the lesson that explains how to produce it. If a week's work is already done, skip it but keep the order. A location page built before the keyword grid targets the wrong town. A link campaign run before the pages exist sends visitors to nothing.

The plan assumes one person with a few hours a week and no developer. With more hands, compress the weeks rather than reshuffling them. If you run several locations, weeks one to four repeat for each one; One profile per location and Scaling location pages explain what changes.

Weeks 1 to 4: foundations

Week 1. Write the baseline row from Tracking calls, directions and clicks: last month's calls, directions, website clicks and top unbranded terms, plus a rank check and grid pattern for your main term. Then run the 30-minute quick-wins audit and fix its five items. Deliverable: a dated baseline and five fixes shipped.
Week 2. Work through Claim and complete your profile and Categories and services until every field that matters is filled. Then check the profile against the mistakes that get you suspended. Deliverable: a verified, complete profile with a deliberate primary category.
Week 3. Build the keyword grid. Start with how people search locally, move to the service-plus-location grid, and finish with the numbers. Deliverable: a grid with each cell marked page, section or skip, and a page assigned to every cell that earns one.
Week 4. Fix the listings that disagree with your profile using NAP consistency and citations. Then rewrite the homepage's first screen with Your homepage for local search. Deliverable: matching details everywhere you're listed, and a homepage that says what you do and where.

Weeks 5 to 8: pages and reviews

Week 5. Publish the service pages the grid called for, starting with the services that earn the most. Service pages that rank shows how to build each one. Deliverable: the top two or three service pages live and linked from the navigation.
Week 6. Publish location pages for the strongest place cells using Location pages without the spam. If you travel to customers, set up the profile and pages as a service-area business instead. Deliverable: one real page per priority area, or a correctly configured service area.
Week 7. Add and validate LocalBusiness schema, then work through Speed and mobile for local sites. Deliverable: valid structured data on the homepage and location pages, and a tappable call button on every page, checked on a phone.
Week 8. Start the routines that run forever. Set up the ask from Getting reviews consistently and reply to every existing review as Responding to reviews describes. Then schedule the cadence from Photos, posts and questions. Deliverable: a written review-request step in your job process, zero unanswered reviews, and a calendar entry for posts and photos.

Weeks 9 to 12: authority and AI

Week 9. List the local organisations you already deal with and sort them using Local link building. Send the first asks. Deliverable: a list of ten candidates and three requests sent.
Week 10. Turn one relationship into a mention with Partnerships and sponsorships. Deliverable: one agreed partnership that produces a page or a mention naming your business and linking to it.
Week 11. Check your profile and pages against How AI assistants pick local businesses and Being the business AI names. Then ask assistants for "best [your service] in [your town]" and log the answers using Tracking your AI visibility locally. Deliverable: the AI checklist with its gaps fixed, and a first AI visibility record.
Week 12. Re-measure against week 1. Run the same rank check and grid, then pull the Performance numbers, review count and newest review date, and the AI record. Deliverable: a second baseline row, and a note on what moved, what didn't, and what the next 90 days hold.

Stop reading weekly numbers

Local results shift with the searcher's position and with Google's own changes, so a rank that jumps mid-week tells you nothing you can act on. Compare week 12 with week 1. For seasonal trades, compare against the same month last year. Reading rank movements honestly in the SEO track applies unchanged here.

What repeats after day 90

The plan ends, but the routines carry on. Every week you ask for reviews, reply to new ones and post once. Every month you run the quick-wins audit and add a baseline row. Each quarter you check citations, send a round of link asks and record AI visibility again. Anything else waits until the business changes: a new service, area or location.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I pay for local SEO?

Less than you might fear if you do the work yourself, since this plan assumes one person, a few hours a week and no developer. Your main cost is time. If you hire someone, pay for the deliverables listed here, such as a complete profile, live service pages and a running review routine, and be wary of anyone who sells a ranking instead.

What is a local SEO example?

Take the Norwich electrician. In week 1 they record a baseline. By week 5 they've published their most profitable service pages, and in week 8 they add a review request to every finished job. By week 10 a local partner's page names and links to them.

Is doing local SEO worth it?

You can measure it, which is the useful part. The baseline row captures calls, directions and website clicks from your profile before you start, and week 12 records them again. If those moved, the work paid for itself. If they didn't, the note you write at the end tells you which phase to look at next.

What is an SEO plan?

It's an ordered set of deliverables, each one resting on the one before. Foundations come first, then pages and reviews, then authority and AI signals. A plan that lists tasks without an order leaves you doing reasonable things in the wrong sequence.

What to take away

A plan is an order, and the order is foundations, then pages and reviews, then authority and AI, because each phase stands on the one before.
Every week ends in a deliverable that exists. The plan commits to those rather than to rankings, which nobody can promise.
Week 1 and week 12 are the same measurement, so the baseline row is the most important deliverable of all.
After day 90, the review ask, the monthly audit and the quarterly checks are what keep the gains.

Your website competes beyond the map pack too. The SEO track's Days 1 to 30: foundations is the companion plan for everything local search doesn't cover.