Local SEO is optimisation for location-based searches such as "web design sarajevo" or "dentist near me". Ranking in Maps rests on 3 things: proximity to the searcher, relevance and prominence. For most small companies the Google Business Profile brings more enquiries than the website itself.
Proximity. How physically close you are to whoever is searching. You cannot influence this, but it explains why results change from street to street.
Relevance. How well your categories, services and description match the query. This is where most mistakes happen - companies pick categories that are too broad and end up appearing for none of them specifically.
Prominence. How well known the business is - the number and quality of reviews, mentions on other sites, links and data consistency.
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. The idea is simple: those details must be identical everywhere they appear - on the site, in the schema, on the Google profile, in directories and on social platforms.
Google combines data from dozens of sources to confirm the business genuinely exists. If one place says "Safeta Zajke 183a", another "S. Zajke 183a", and a third lists the phone in local rather than international format, the system cannot confidently conclude these are the same company - and the signal weakens.
This is the cheapest fix in all of local SEO and the one most often neglected. It requires nothing but care when typing.
The profile is the centre of local SEO and it is free. Complete it fully: accurate address and opening hours, primary and secondary categories, a list of services with descriptions, photos and a business description.
The name must be the real company name, without appended keywords. Names in the style of "Company | Service and City" breach the guidelines and are a regular cause of suspension, and a suspended profile takes weeks to restore.
Reviews carry the most weight. Ask for them regularly from satisfied clients and reply to every one, including negative ones - the reply is seen by every future visitor to the profile.
Create a separate page for each city or area you genuinely serve, with real content specific to that market. Ten near-identical pages with the city name swapped are recognised as thin content.
Add LocalBusiness schema with the address, phone, opening hours and geographic coordinates. Embed a map and list the contact details in the footer of every page.
Align the NAP in the schema with the one on your Google profile - literally, character by character.
A local citation is any mention of your name, address and phone on another site, with or without a link. Business directories, trade associations, chambers of commerce and local portals are the most common sources.
The value of any single citation is small, but the sum builds what Google calls prominence. For a local business 15 to 20 consistent citations deliver more than one strong link from an unrelated site.
The key word is consistency. A citation with the wrong phone number or an old address works against you, because it introduces doubt into the data the system is trying to confirm. Before submitting to new directories it is worth checking and correcting the old entries.
Directories in the region age quickly and some no longer pass anything. Rather than working from a ready-made list, it is more reliable to look at where competitors ranking well in Maps get their links - those are sources known to be alive.
Alongside citations comes the schema on your own site. The same address in LocalBusiness markup, on the Google profile and in directories is the clearest signal you can send.
Last updated: 17 August 2026
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