Key takeaways
- How to find local SEO experts worth hiring: get names from local sources, then judge each one on Business Profile evidence you can open yourself.
- Check the profiles they name against Google’s own guidelines: the real business name, a real address, the fewest categories that fit, one profile per business.
- Ask how they get reviews. Google’s policy bans paid and incentivised reviews and selectively asking happy customers only; the FTC has a rule against buying fake reviews.
- A good local SEO reports calls, direction requests, website clicks and enquiries, not just a map position that changes with where you stand.
- Nobody can promise a top map position. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
If you want to know how to find local SEO experts who are worth the fee, start from one advantage you have over almost every other kind of hire: local SEO work is public. A local expert’s results live on Google Business Profiles and local pages that anyone can open, and the rules those profiles must follow are published by Google. You can check most of what a candidate claims without taking their word for anything.
I have worked in SEO and digital marketing for more than 16 years, and when I review a local business that has used an SEO before, the profile usually tells me how that SEO worked within a few minutes. This article turns that review into a process you can run yourself, before you sign.
If you are still deciding whether you need someone local at all, I covered that in why the closest agency isn’t always the right one. For the wider question of where freelancers can be found, see six places to find freelance SEO experts.
How to find local SEO experts: the short list first
You need names before you can vet them. For local SEO, the best sources are close to home:
- Businesses near you that look well run online. Search for services like yours in your area. When a non-competing business has a tidy profile, a good website and real reviews, ask the owner who helped them.
- Local business groups. Chambers of commerce, trade associations and business networks are full of owners who have hired someone and will tell you how it went.
- The map results for “local SEO” in your town. Useful as a list of names, nothing more. Google’s page on how local ranking works says local results are “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity”, so the order depends partly on where you are searching from.
Aim for three to five names. Then ask each one for two or three Business Profiles they have worked on, with the client’s permission. Anyone who does local SEO for a living can do that.
Why Business Profile evidence beats a sales pitch
A pitch tells you what someone says they do. A profile shows what they did. It is also governed by rules you can read. Google’s guidelines for representing your business set out what a profile may contain, and they warn that breaking some of those rules “could result in the suspension of your Business Profile.”
That matters because, in local SEO, the shortcut and the risk are the same thing. Keyword-stuffed names, extra profiles and bought reviews can look like results for a while. When the profile is suspended, it is your business that disappears from the map, not the agency’s.
Run four checks.
- Their own profile. I covered this in my article on SEO experts near me: is the name real and the address a staffed office?
- The client profiles they name. Do they follow Google’s guidelines?
- How reviews are gathered. Is it within Google’s policy and the law?
- What they report. Do they measure customer actions, or only a ranking?
Check the client profiles against Google’s guidelines
Open each profile the candidate gave you and compare it with the guidelines. You don’t need any tools for this.
| What you look at | What Google’s guidelines say | What it tells you about the SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Business name | “Including unnecessary information in your business name isn’t permitted”; names must not include location information or marketing taglines | Extra keywords or a city added to the name means they take shortcuts with your profile too |
| Address | A rented mailing address the business doesn’t operate from (a virtual office) “isn’t eligible”; P.O. boxes at remote locations “aren’t acceptable” | Profiles at addresses with no real office are a suspension risk they created |
| Service-area businesses | A service-area business “should hide your business address from customers” | A plumber or cleaner showing a home address publicly suggests they don’t know the rules |
| Number of profiles | “There should only be one profile per business”; no more than one page per location | Several profiles for one business, or one per service, is a red flag |
| Categories | “Choose the fewest number of categories it takes to describe your overall core business” | A long list of loosely related categories suggests chasing searches over accuracy |
If every profile they show you passes, that is a good sign. If one fails, ask about it. Sometimes a client made the change themselves, and a good expert will tell you that and say what they advised instead.
Ask how they get reviews, and listen carefully
Reviews matter in local search. Google’s ranking page says “More reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.” That makes reviews the area where some local SEOs bend the rules furthest.
Google’s Maps user-contributed content policy lists, under fake engagement, “Reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind”, and says merchants may not “Offer incentives, such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services, in exchange for posting any review”. It also says merchants must not “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. Content “based on a conflict of interest”, which can include “a contractual or consultory relationship”, is not allowed either, so an SEO reviewing their own client is out too.
The risk is not only with Google. In the US, the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials went into effect on October 21, 2024. The FTC’s Q&A explains that brokers of fake reviews would generally fall under its ban on selling a consumer review, and that the rule’s section on buying reviews applies to businesses that offer compensation with an express or implied requirement that reviews express a particular sentiment.
Good and bad answers to "How do you get our clients more reviews?"
- Good: “We help you ask every customer after the job, by email or with a printed card, and reply to every review, good or bad.”
- Good: “We fix what customers complain about, because that changes the reviews more than anything we write.”
- Bad: “We only send the review link to customers who rated you highly first.”
- Bad: “We offer a discount for a five-star review.”
- Bad: “We have a team that can post reviews for you.”
If a local SEO can get you reviews faster than you can get customers, those reviews are not from your customers.
Check what they report, not just where they rank
A screenshot of a client “ranking first on the map” proves very little. Distance is one of the main factors in local results, so the same search can give different results from different places. Ask instead what they report every month.
Google’s help page on Business Profile performance describes the metrics owners and managers can see, including calls (“the number of times a customer clicked on the call button”), messages, bookings, directions (“How many people asked for directions to your business”), website clicks, views on Search and Maps, and the search terms people used. Performance data is available only for verified profiles.
Those numbers are the closest thing local SEO has to a sales report. Ask the candidate to show you, with a client’s permission, a monthly report that includes them next to the client’s website enquiries. If they only ever show positions, ask how they know the work brought in customers.
Who is the best local SEO expert for you?
There is no single best local SEO expert, only the best fit for your kind of business. A restaurant, a law firm with three offices and a mobile locksmith have different profiles, different review patterns and different rules to follow (a service-area business hides its address; a practitioner “shouldn’t have multiple Business Profiles to cover all of their specializations”). The best candidate is the one whose evidence comes from businesses like yours.
Local SEO expert scorecard
- Their own Business Profile follows Google’s guidelines.
- Two or three client profiles you opened yourself, with real names, real addresses and sensible categories.
- A review process that asks every customer, never pays for reviews and never filters out unhappy ones.
- Monthly reporting on calls, direction requests, website clicks and enquiries, not only rankings.
- No promise of a top map position. Google says “There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.”
- You keep ownership of your profile and add the SEO as a manager.
- They can say which jobs need someone in your area and which don’t.
Score each candidate against the list. If two are close, choose the one whose client businesses look most like yours.
How I work on local SEO
I am based in Bucharest and work remotely, so I am not the person to photograph your shop or meet your local newspaper. What I do is the part of local SEO that sits behind the profile: auditing Business Profiles against Google’s guidelines, fixing the website’s location and service pages, and setting up reporting that ties profile actions to enquiries. Our local SEO service page lists that work, and an SEO website audit covers the site side in writing. I charge by the hour with no fixed packages, and you can read about my background on my profile page.
When a client needs someone on the ground, I say so and help them brief that person.
FAQ
Who is the best local SEO expert?
The best local SEO expert for you is the one who can show you profiles and local pages for businesses like yours, follows Google’s Business Profile guidelines and review policy, and reports on calls, directions and enquiries. Fame or a high map position for “local SEO” says less than the profiles they have worked on.
How do I find the best local SEO experts near me?
Ask local business owners and business groups for names, use the map results only as a list, then ask each candidate for two or three client profiles you can open yourself. Check those against Google’s guidelines and ask how reviews are gathered before you compare prices.
Can a local SEO expert guarantee a top three map position?
No. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking, and results depend partly on where the searcher is. A good expert will talk about accurate information, reviews and customer actions instead.
Should a local SEO expert own my Business Profile?
No. Keep ownership yourself and give the SEO a manager role, so you can remove them at any time. Managers can still see the performance data they need for reporting.
If you have a shortlist of local SEO experts and want a second pair of eyes on the profiles they showed you, send them to me and we can go through them together.
Eugen Platon · SEO consultant with 16+ years in SEO and digital marketing · free 10-minute first call
Eugen Platon
Latest posts by Eugen Platon (see all)
- How to Choose Keywords to Track (and How Many You Actually Need) - October 27, 2026
- What Is Rank Tracking? A Plain-English Guide for Business Owners - October 27, 2026
- Search Console Average Position vs a Rank Tracker: Why the Numbers Disagree - October 27, 2026
- Why You Need WordPress and SEO Services Together, Not Separately - October 26, 2026