Local SEO Competitor Analysis Template for Onboarding

A local SEO competitor analysis identifies which businesses outrank your client in Google Maps, the local pack, and local organic results and precisely why. Conducted at the start of an engagement, this analysis gives you a baseline of competitor strengths across Google Business Profile optimization, citation consistency, review velocity, content strategy, schema markup, and AI visibility. The output is a structured dataset you can present to clients on day one and revisit every quarter to measure progress.

Step 1: Define the Scope and Gather Required Inputs

Before opening a single tool, confirm what you are analyzing. Scope errors at this stage cascade through every subsequent step.

Collect the following from your client before starting:

• Business name, address, and phone number (NAP) – exact format used on their website
• Primary service categories – what the business does and how customers describe it
• Target geography – city, neighborhood, service radius, or specific postal codes
• 3–5 core keywords – the search terms most likely to drive qualified local leads
• Current Google Business Profile URL so you can confirm claimed status and category
• Website URL – needed for on-site and schema audits

With these inputs confirmed, you can identify true local competitors rather than national brands or directory listings that inflate your competitor list with noise.

Step 2: Identify True Local Competitors

A local SEO competitor is any business that appears in the Google Map Pack, Google Maps, or local organic results for the same target keywords and geography as your client – regardless of whether that business competes directly for the same customers.

This distinction matters. A plumber in Austin competes with other plumbers in Google Maps, but in local organic results they may also compete with home improvement blogs and directory sites like Yelp. Both types appear in your analysis for different reasons.

How to Build Your Competitor List

Search Google for each of your 3–5 core keywords. Record every business that appears in the Map Pack and the top 10 organic results. Repeat this across all keyword variants.

Tally overlap: any domain or business that appears for 3 or more keywords is a primary competitor and deserves a full audit row. Businesses appearing once or twice are secondary competitors – note them but do not spend full analysis time on them.

If your client serves a location you are not physically in, use a location-spoofing tool to simulate search results from that address.

Target 3–5 primary competitors. More than five creates data volume you cannot realistically present during onboarding without losing the client's attention.

Step 3: Audit Google Business Profiles Side by Side

Google Business Profile (GBP) is the highest-weight signal in local pack rankings. Auditing competitor GBPs reveals the exact gaps your client needs to close.

For each competitor, record the following in your comparison spreadsheet:

Field	Your Client	Competitor 1	Competitor 2	Competitor 3
Primary category
Secondary categories (count)
Business description (yes/no)
Photos (count)
Posts in last 30 days
Q&A entries
Services listed
Products listed
Total reviews
Average rating
Reviews in last 30 days
Response rate (est.)

Review velocity deserves its own note. A competitor with 200 total reviews but zero new reviews in the last 60 days is losing momentum. A competitor with 80 reviews but 15 per month is accelerating. Velocity is what the algorithm sees as freshness. Mark the monthly cadence clearly in your template so clients understand they are racing a moving target, not a static number.

Step 4: Compare Citation Footprints

A local citation is any online mention of a business's name, address, and phone number (NAP) – whether in a directory listing, a data aggregator record, or a third-party website. Citation consistency across directories is a foundational local ranking signal.

Citation volume and consistency directly affect how confidently Google maps a business to a location. A competitor with 80 consistent citations across authoritative directories outperforms a client with 40 citations that contain three different phone number formats.

What to Measure in the Citation Audit

For each competitor, record:

• Total citation count across major directories (Google, Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Facebook, industry-specific directories)
• NAP consistency score – do name, address, and phone match exactly across listings?
• Presence on the top 10 data aggregators in your market

Then run the same audit for your client. The gap in citation count is a concrete deliverable: if the top competitor has 95 citations and your client has 55, closing that gap is a week-one priority with measurable progress.

Consistent local citation data helps search engines establish trust in a business's location and service area – inconsistent NAP records create conflicting signals that suppress local rankings.

Step 5: Analyze On-Site Local Pages and Content Strategy

Local rankings are not determined solely by GBP and citations. On-site signals – especially location-specific landing pages and locally-relevant content – determine whether a business ranks in local organic results alongside the Map Pack.

For each competitor's website, examine:

• Service area pages – do they have dedicated pages for each city or neighborhood they serve?
• Location landing pages – structured pages targeting "[service] in [city]" queries
• Local content – blog posts, case studies, or guides referencing local topics, events, or customers
• Title tags and H1s – do they include the city name and primary service in the title?
• Internal linking – do location pages link to each other logically?

Well-structured local landing pages that target specific service-area queries consistently outrank generic service pages in local organic results – each page should target one city and one primary service combination.

Record whether each competitor has these elements. A competitor with 12 city-specific landing pages and your client with one generic "Service Areas" page explains ranking gaps immediately.

Step 6: Audit Schema Markup

Schema markup – specifically LocalBusiness JSON-LD – tells search engines and AI systems exactly what a business is, where it operates, and what it offers. Most mid-ranked local businesses lack it. Most top-ranked ones have it.

For each competitor, check whether the following schema types are present:

• LocalBusiness (or a subtype like Plumber, Dentist, LegalService)
• PostalAddress nested within LocalBusiness
• openingHoursSpecification
• aggregateRating pulled from review data
• GeoCoordinates
• FAQPage on relevant service pages

You can inspect schema manually using Google's Rich Results Test or a schema validator. Note whether the schema is complete, partial, or absent for each competitor.

AuthorityStack.ai audits schema markup across a client's full domain and competitor sites, flagging missing or malformed markup with specific fix recommendations – which accelerates the audit step significantly for agencies managing multiple locations.

Step 7: Assess AI Visibility

This step separates a modern local SEO audit from one written three years ago. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are now active channels for local discovery. Prospects ask "who is the best [service] in [city]?" and receive a generated answer that may or may not include your client.

How to Test AI Visibility Manually

Run the following prompts in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity for each of your core service and location combinations:

• "Who are the best [service] providers in [city]?"
• "What [service] companies do you recommend in [city]?"
• "Which [service] business in [city] has the best reviews?"

Record which businesses appear in generated answers. A competitor cited in 3 of 5 AI platforms for your target query has a meaningful AI visibility advantage that traditional rank tracking will not surface.

Document whether your client appears at all. Many clients ranking on page one of Google are completely absent from AI-generated local recommendations – this is the citation gap that GEO addresses.

Tracking these AI citation patterns at scale, rather than manually prompting tools one by one, is what platforms built for local rank tracking handle through automated monitoring – giving you a repeatable signal instead of a one-time snapshot.

Step 8: Score and Compile the Competitor Analysis Template

Raw data collected across steps 3–7 is not a deliverable. A scored comparison table is.

Assign each competitor a score from 1–5 across the following dimensions:

Dimension	Your Client	Competitor 1	Competitor 2	Competitor 3
GBP completeness (1–5)
Review count and velocity (1–5)
Citation volume and consistency (1–5)
On-site local content depth (1–5)
Schema markup completeness (1–5)
AI visibility (1–5)
Total score (max 30)

This table becomes the first slide of your onboarding presentation. It answers the client's most important question – "why are they ranking above us?" – with a scored comparison rather than a narrative they may not retain.

Score gaps of 2 or more in any single dimension are your highest-priority deliverables for the first 90 days.

Step 9: Present Findings and Set the 90-Day Baseline

Findings without a prioritized action plan are observations. Turn your competitor analysis into a ranked list of gaps, ordered by impact and speed to fix.

A standard onboarding priority framework looks like this:

Week 1–2 (Quick wins): GBP completeness gaps, NAP corrections on major directories, schema markup installation on homepage and key service pages.

Month 1 (Foundation): Citation building to close the gap with the top competitor, review request process for velocity, location landing page creation for top service-area combinations.

Month 2–3 (Authority building): Local content cluster development, AI visibility optimization for top queries, schema expansion to service pages and FAQ pages.

Set numeric targets for each dimension based on what the top competitor scores. If the leading competitor has 90 citations and your client has 50, the target is 90+ by end of month two. If the top competitor appears in AI answers for 4 of 6 tested prompts and your client appears in zero, appearing in at least 2 by month three is a concrete benchmark.

Documenting these targets in the onboarding report gives you a measurable baseline for every quarterly review.

FAQ

What Is a Local SEO Competitor Analysis?

A local SEO competitor analysis is a structured audit that identifies which businesses outrank your client in Google Maps, the local pack, and local organic search – then measures why, across signals like Google Business Profile completeness, citation volume, review velocity, on-site content depth, schema markup, and AI visibility. The output is a scored comparison that prioritizes which gaps to close first.

How Do I Find My True Local SEO Competitors?

Search Google for your 3–5 core service-and-location keyword combinations and record every business appearing in the Map Pack and top 10 organic results. Businesses that appear across 3 or more keyword searches are primary competitors. Directory listings like Yelp or TripAdvisor are marketing channels, not competitors – note them separately. Use a location-spoofing tool if you are auditing a market you are not physically in.

How Many Competitors Should I Include in an Onboarding Analysis?

Three to five primary competitors is the right range for an onboarding analysis. Fewer than three gives you insufficient data to identify patterns. More than five creates a dataset too large to present clearly during a client kickoff. Focus depth on the two or three competitors appearing most consistently across all target keywords.

What Is NAP Consistency and Why Does It Affect Local Rankings?

NAP consistency refers to the accuracy and uniformity of a business's name, address, and phone number across all online directories and citations. When Google finds conflicting NAP data – a different phone number on Yelp than on the website, for example – it loses confidence in the business's location data, which suppresses local rankings. Inconsistent NAP across major directories is one of the most common and most fixable ranking suppressors found during local SEO onboarding.

How Do I Include AI Visibility in a Local SEO Competitor Analysis?

Test 5–6 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity using your target service and location combinations – for example, "best HVAC company in Denver" or "recommend a family dentist in Austin." Record which businesses appear in generated answers for each platform. Score each competitor on a 1–5 scale based on how consistently they are cited. A competitor cited in 4 of 6 prompts has a strong AI visibility position that traditional rank tracking will not detect.

What Schema Markup Should I Audit During Onboarding?

Audit for LocalBusiness JSON-LD (or a relevant subtype), PostalAddress, openingHoursSpecification, aggregateRating, and GeoCoordinates on the homepage and primary service pages. Check service pages for FAQPage schema. Most mid-ranked local businesses are missing at least two of these – schema gaps are fast to fix and directly improve how both Google and AI systems interpret the business.

How Often Should a Local SEO Competitor Analysis Be Repeated?

Conduct a full competitor analysis at onboarding and then quarterly. Monthly, check review velocity and Map Pack positions for your tracked competitors. Competitor GBP optimizations and citation builds happen continuously, so a quarterly refresh catches meaningful shifts before they compound into a larger ranking gap. AI visibility checks – manually prompting or using monitoring tools – should run monthly given how quickly AI recommendation patterns shift.

How Do I Present Competitor Analysis Findings to a Client?

Present findings as a scored comparison table, not a written narrative. Score your client and each competitor across 6 dimensions on a 1–5 scale, total the scores, and show where the gaps are. Then translate each gap into a concrete deliverable with a target date. Clients respond to a score of "16 vs. 27" far more clearly than to paragraphs describing citation issues. Tie every gap to the ranking outcome it explains – this justifies the engagement scope and sets measurable improvement targets.

What to Do Now

The competitor analysis template only creates value when it becomes a working document, not a one-time deliverable.

1. Copy the comparison tables from Steps 3, 4, and 8 into a shared Google Sheet with your client – one tab per competitor, one summary scoring tab.
2. Prioritize gaps using the week-by-week framework from Step 9 and assign owners for each action item.
3. Set your 90-day baseline scores on day one so every monthly check-in has a fixed reference point.
4. Add AI visibility checks to your monthly reporting cadence – run the same prompts each month and track whether your client's citation share is growing.
5. Schedule a quarterly full refresh so competitor shifts in review velocity, citations, or content depth don't go undetected for more than 90 days.

Teams that want to track local rankings, monitor competitor citations, and score AI visibility across all platforms in one workflow can audit and benchmark their full local presence with the AuthorityStack.ai Local SEO Platform.