Start with your Google Business Profile. Verify every field is filled—category hierarchy, service areas, attributes, business hours including holiday schedules, and at least 8–12 high-quality photos. Check that your primary category matches search intent for your money keywords and that posts go out weekly minimum. Next, audit NAP consistency. Pull your business name, address, and phone number from your website, then cross-reference against 50–75 citation sources—Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, YellowPages.ca, Canada411, industry directories, and local chambers. Even small variations like 'Street' versus 'St.' or Suite formatting differences dilute trust signals. We use tools like BrightLocal or Whitespark to automate the scan, but manual spot-checks catch formatting issues tools miss. Review on-page elements. Your title tags and H1s should include city or neighbourhood names naturally. Service pages need embedded Google Maps, location-specific content beyond templated boilerplate, and LocalBusiness schema with accurate coordinates. Check that your contact page shows the same NAP as your GBP with zero deviation. Analyze your review profile across Google, Facebook, and industry platforms. Calculate monthly review velocity—competitors in competitive Ottawa markets often get 8–15 Google reviews monthly. Check average rating, response rate, response time, and keyword themes in review text. Unanswered reviews or sub-4.0 ratings need immediate action plans. Audit local links. Pull your backlink profile and filter for geographic relevance—local news mentions, chamber links, sponsorships, local blog features. Compare link velocity and domain authority against your top three local competitors using Ahrefs or Semrush with location filters. Finally, run technical checks. Mobile page speed should hit under 2.5 seconds LCP. Verify your site loads the correct phone number format for Canadian users and that click-to-call works. Check Google Search Console for crawl errors on location pages and verify your XML sitemap includes all service area pages. Most businesses skip the NAP inconsistency hunt and wonder why they plateau at position 4–6 in the Local Pack.