Local SEO Client Intake Form Template Requirements: A Complete Field-by-Field Guide

A local SEO client intake form is the structured document an agency or consultant uses to collect every business detail, credential, and goal required before starting a local SEO engagement. A well-designed intake form eliminates the back-and-forth that delays audits, prevents missing credentials from stalling work in week two, and gives your team a complete baseline from day one. This guide covers every field your form needs, why each field matters, and how to sequence the form for maximum completion rates.

Local SEO client intake form is a structured questionnaire that agencies and consultants use to collect the business information, access credentials, service area data, and competitive context required to audit and execute a local search optimization campaign.

Why the Intake Form Is the Foundation of Every Local SEO Engagement

Most local SEO campaigns stall in the first two weeks for one reason: missing information. A team waits on GBP access. A citation audit reveals three phone number variations nobody mentioned. The client turns out to operate in eight cities, not two. Every one of those problems traces back to an incomplete intake process.

A structured intake form solves this before work begins. Done well, it functions as a discovery document, a baseline record, and a legal authorization rolled into one. The fields below are organized into seven groups that match the natural flow of a local SEO engagement – from identity and access, through strategy inputs, to consent and timeline.

Step 1: Collect Business Identity and NAP Data

NAP consistency refers to the uniformity of a business's Name, Address, and Phone number across all online directories, citations, and platforms – a foundational signal that local search algorithms use to validate a business's legitimacy and location.

NAP data is the starting point for every local citation audit. Inconsistent NAP across directories suppresses local pack rankings, and the most common source of inconsistency is a business that has moved, rebranded, or operated under multiple names.

Fields to Collect

• Legal business name and the name used on Google Business Profile (these often differ)
• Full street address – ask the client to specify whether it is an office, storefront, home address, virtual office, or PO Box
• Whether the address is shared with other businesses (shared addresses create verification complications on GBP)
• All additional locations, with address type for each
• Primary phone number and whether this number is used for any other location or business
• All former or alternate business names, addresses, and phone numbers – this is the field most agencies skip, and the one that surfaces the most citation cleanup work
• Primary website URL and whether the client operates other sites for the same business
• Business hours including seasonal or holiday hour variations

Collecting historical NAP variations at intake lets you audit existing local citations accurately from the first scan rather than discovering conflicts weeks later.

Step 2: Capture Google Business Profile Access and Status

Google Business Profile (GBP) is the single most important local SEO asset for most businesses. Without confirmed access at the right permission level, your team cannot make edits, respond to reviews, or publish posts.

Fields to Collect

• GBP profile URL – the direct link to the client's profile
• Access status – does the client currently have Owner or Manager access? Note that Editor access is insufficient for transferring ownership or adding managers
• Email address tied to the GBP account
• Whether the profile has ever disappeared or lost rankings – a yes answer warrants a manual penalty or suspension check before any optimization work begins
• Whether the profile has ever been suspended or flagged
• Whether any third party currently manages the profile – freelancers, former agencies, and web designers frequently hold GBP access without the client's awareness

If access is unconfirmed, flag it as a blocker in your project management system immediately. Do not begin GBP optimization work on a profile you cannot edit.

Step 3: Collect Website and Analytics Credentials

Local SEO results live partly on the GBP and partly on the website. Your team needs access to both, and they need it before the audit begins – not after you have already identified the problems.

Fields to Collect

• Website CMS (WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, custom) and login credentials or confirmation that access will be provided
• Google Analytics access – confirm the client can add your agency as a property-level user
• Google Search Console access – confirm domain or URL prefix property ownership and access level
• Any history of sudden traffic or ranking drops – ask the client to describe timing and magnitude; this surfaces past algorithm penalties or manual actions
• Planned website changes – a rebrand, redesign, or domain migration in progress requires a fundamentally different strategy than a stable site. Collect the URL of any staging or demo site
• Existing schema markup – ask whether any structured data is already implemented; this prevents duplicate or conflicting schema in your implementation

Structured local business schema data helps search platforms match a business entity across directories and GBP – confirming its presence or absence during intake shapes your technical roadmap.

Step 4: Define Service Areas and Business Categories

Service area definition is one of the most frequently underdocumented elements in local SEO onboarding. Clients routinely name two or three cities when they actually want to rank in twelve. Collecting this in detail at intake prevents a misaligned campaign.

Fields to Collect

• Primary service area – city or cities where the client most needs rankings
• Full list of target locations – suburbs, zip codes, or counties, depending on how the client thinks about their coverage area
• Whether the business serves customers at its address, at the customer's location, or both – this determines whether the GBP listing should show or hide the address, a setting that directly affects local pack eligibility
• Primary GBP category – ask the client what they believe their category is; verify it against GBP's official category list during the audit
• Secondary categories the client wants to pursue
• Top 3–10 keywords or services the client most wants to rank for
• Whether the client currently has notable rankings – ask for specific keywords if known; this establishes a baseline against which you will report progress

For clients with more than one location, multi-location onboarding workflows differ significantly from single-location engagements – intake forms for those clients should include a field for each location's NAP, GBP status, and independent service area.

Step 5: Gather Competitor Intelligence

Local SEO competitor analysis is the process of identifying the businesses ranking above a client in local search results and AI-generated recommendations, then auditing their citation profiles, content, and GBP optimizations to find the gaps your strategy should close.

Competitor data at intake accelerates your audit and anchors your strategy. It also lets you benchmark AI citation share from day one – increasingly important as ChatGPT and Google AI surface local recommendations independently of traditional map pack rankings.

Fields to Collect

• Top 3–5 competitors the client names – not the ones that rank highest in Google, but the ones the client loses business to. These may overlap, but they are not always the same
• Why the client believes customers choose those competitors – this surfaces differentiation opportunities your content strategy can address
• Whether the client has noticed competitors appearing in AI-generated recommendations – if ChatGPT recommends a competitor when someone asks for a local service provider, that is a GEO gap worth measuring from the start
• What makes the client's business better than the competition – use this verbatim in GBP descriptions, service page copy, and review response templates

A structured competitor analysis template used alongside intake data gives your team a head start on the gap analysis before the first audit call.

Step 6: Collect Photo, Review, and Reputation Data

Reviews are a confirmed local ranking factor. Photo freshness and volume affect GBP engagement signals. Both require active client participation so your intake form needs to establish what exists and what the client is willing to do.

Fields to Collect

• Existing review platforms – Google, Yelp, Healthgrades, Houzz, TripAdvisor, industry-specific directories. Collect login credentials or confirm the client can add your team as a manager
• Current Google review count and average rating
• Whether the client has a process for requesting reviews – if yes, describe it; if no, note it as a gap
• Client willingness to ask customers for reviews – a 1–10 scale works well here. A score below 5 requires a separate conversation about review strategy before you build a campaign around it
• Whether the business has any negative reviews that require a response strategy
• Existing photo assets – ask the client to confirm whether they have professional photos of the business, team, and services, and whether they can provide them for GBP upload

Step 7: Address Legal Consent, History, and Timeline

This section protects your agency and surfaces history that changes your strategic approach. A signed consent clause is particularly important when your team will be making GBP edits, submitting citation changes, or modifying schema on a live site.

Fields to Collect

• Previous SEO engagements – which agencies, what was done, what the results were, and why the relationship ended. A client coming off a link scheme or keyword-stuffing campaign requires a cleanup phase before growth work
• Whether any SEO penalties or manual actions are known – Google Search Console penalty reports should be reviewed during the audit regardless, but self-reported history narrows your investigation
• Decision-makers involved in the engagement – who has authority to approve strategy changes, publishing, and spend? Misaligned stakeholders are a frequent cause of campaign delays
• Available time commitment – local SEO requires client participation (responding to reviews, providing photos, approving content). Confirm how many hours per week the client can realistically contribute
• Campaign start date and initial priority – ranking in the local pack for primary keywords? Cleaning up citations? Launching a review generation program? Agreeing on the first 90-day priority prevents misaligned expectations
• Authorization clause – a statement the client signs confirming they authorize your agency to make changes to their GBP, website, citations, and schema on their behalf. Include a note that you will not share credentials with third parties

Sample Intake Form Field Checklist

Use this checklist to audit your current intake form against the requirements above.

Business Identity and NAP

• Legal business name and GBP display name
• Full address with address type
• Shared address flag
• All additional locations
• Primary phone number and cross-use flag
• All historical names, addresses, phone numbers
• Primary website URL and additional sites
• Business hours including seasonal variations

Google Business Profile

• GBP profile URL
• Access level (Owner / Manager / Editor / None)
• Associated email address
• Profile suspension or ranking drop history
• Third-party manager flag

Website and Analytics

• CMS platform and access
• Google Analytics access
• Google Search Console access
• Traffic or ranking drop history
• Planned site changes and staging URL
• Existing schema markup status

Service Areas and Categories

• Primary service area
• Full target location list
• Service delivery model (at address / at customer / both)
• Primary and secondary GBP categories
• Target keywords and services (3–10)
• Known current rankings

Competitor Intelligence

• Top 3–5 named competitors
• Why customers choose those competitors
• AI recommendation awareness
• Client differentiators

Photos, Reviews, and Reputation

• Active review platforms and access
• Current Google review count and rating
• Existing review request process
• Review willingness score (1–10)
• Negative review flag
• Photo asset availability

Legal, History, and Timeline

• Previous SEO agencies and outcomes
• Known penalties or manual actions
• Decision-maker names and roles
• Client time commitment per week
• First 90-day priority agreement
• Authorization and consent signature

Intake Vs. Audit: What the Form Collects Vs. What You Discover

A common confusion in local SEO onboarding is conflating the intake form with the audit. They serve different purposes.

Element	Intake Form	Audit Phase
NAP data	Client-reported	Verified across 80+ directories
GBP categories	Client's perception	Compared against top-ranking competitors
Competitor list	Client-named competitors	Full local pack analysis by keyword
Citation count	Unknown to client	Scanned and scored
Schema markup	Client's yes/no	Validated and tested
AI citation presence	Client's awareness	Measured across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity
Review count	Client-reported	Verified across all platforms

The intake form captures what the client knows. The audit reveals what is actually true. Both are required but they happen in sequence, not simultaneously.

AuthorityStack.ai tracks citation consistency across 80+ directories and scores overall local authority, so the gap between what a client reports at intake and what the data shows becomes visible in a single dashboard rather than across a dozen separate tools.

What to Do Now

1. Audit your current intake form against the field checklist in Step 7. Mark every missing field as a gap.
2. Add the authorization clause if your form does not already include one. This is the most frequently omitted field and the one with the most legal exposure.
3. Add competitor and AI visibility fields – most intake forms cover GBP and NAP but ignore the competitive and AI recommendation context that shapes strategy from day one.
4. Set the form as a blocker in your project management workflow. No audit work begins until the form is complete and credentials are confirmed.
5. Pair the completed intake form with a citation audit before your kickoff call. Walking into the first strategy session with real data – not self-reported data – changes the quality of every conversation that follows.

Teams that want full local authority tracking from intake through reporting can audit citations, track rankings, and measure AI visibility with the AuthorityStack.ai Local SEO Platform.

FAQ

What Is a Local SEO Client Intake Form?

A local SEO client intake form is a structured questionnaire that collects the business details, login credentials, service area definitions, and competitive context an agency needs before starting a local search optimization campaign. It typically covers NAP data, Google Business Profile access, website and analytics credentials, target keywords and locations, review platform status, and legal authorization to make changes on the client's behalf.

What Fields Are Required on a Local SEO Intake Form?

A complete local SEO intake form requires seven groups of fields: business identity and NAP (including historical name and address variations), Google Business Profile access and status, website and analytics credentials, service area definitions and GBP categories, review platform access and reputation data, competitor names and differentiation, and a signed authorization clause. Missing any of these groups typically causes delays within the first two weeks of an engagement.

Why Does the Intake Form Ask for Historical Business Names and Addresses?

Historical names and addresses are the primary source of NAP inconsistency across citation directories. When a business has moved, rebranded, or operated under multiple names, those old variations remain on Yelp, YP, and dozens of other directories – creating conflicting signals that suppress local rankings. Collecting this history at intake allows the citation audit to find and correct those listings from the start.

How Do You Confirm the Right Level of Google Business Profile Access?

During intake, ask the client to log into GBP and confirm their role on the profile: Owner, Manager, or Editor. Owner and Manager access allow adding team members and making all edits. Editor access is limited and cannot be used to transfer ownership or add users. If the client has Editor access only, the actual Owner must be identified and contacted before optimization work begins.

Should the Intake Form Cover AI Visibility?

Yes. AI-generated local recommendations from ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity are an increasingly significant discovery channel. Capturing competitor names and asking whether the client has noticed competitors appearing in AI answers during intake gives your team a baseline to measure AI citation share from the start of the engagement – not retroactively after the campaign is underway.

How Long Should a Local SEO Intake Form Be?

A complete local SEO intake form typically contains 25–40 fields organized into 6–7 sections. Shorter forms miss critical data; longer forms reduce completion rates. The key is grouping fields logically so the form flows naturally and clients understand why each section matters. Conditional logic – showing the multi-location fields only when the client confirms more than one location – keeps the form manageable without sacrificing completeness.

What Is the Authorization Clause and Why Does It Matter?

The authorization clause is a statement the client signs confirming that your agency has permission to make changes to their Google Business Profile, website, citation listings, and schema markup on their behalf. Without it, your agency has no documented authorization for the changes you make – creating liability exposure if a client disputes an edit. It should specify which properties are covered, that credentials will not be shared with third parties, and the scope of changes authorized.

When Should the Intake Form Be Sent?

Send the intake form immediately after signing the service agreement – before the first strategy call. Completing the form before the kickoff call means your team walks into that conversation with real data rather than spending the call collecting information. For multi-location clients, allow 5–7 business days for form completion and plan the kickoff call accordingly.