Free local SEO grader

What does the grader check, and how is each one scored?

Every check is deterministic: the same page gives the same result. A pass scores 10 points, a warn 5, a fail 0, and the total is out of 100. The score is only a summary of these ten checks, not a prediction of rankings or traffic.

1. Page title

   What we look at: The text in your page's <title> tag, which becomes the blue link in search results.

   Why it matters: The title is the strongest on-page hint of what a page is about and where. A buyer scanning results for "roll-off dumpster Dayton" clicks the result that says that, not one that says "Home".

   Scoring: Pass: one title, 15–65 characters, naming your main service and your city. Warn: it names only one of them, or it's very short or long. Fail: missing, or a placeholder like "Home".

2. Meta description and indexing

   What we look at: The meta description (the grey text under your link) and any meta robots tag.

   Why it matters: Google often shows your description as the snippet, and AI answers lean on it to summarise you. A noindex tag tells search engines to leave the page out entirely, which is fatal on a homepage.

   Scoring: Pass: 70–160 characters that mention your service or city, and no noindex. Warn: missing, very short or long, or generic. Fail: the page tells search engines not to index it.

3. Main heading (H1)

   What we look at: The page's top heading, the first thing a visitor reads.

   Why it matters: One clear heading that says what you do and where confirms the title for both people and crawlers. Headings that are images or slogans give neither a reason to trust the page.

   Scoring: Pass: exactly one H1 that mentions your service or city. Warn: several H1s, or one that mentions neither. Fail: no H1 text at all.

4. Name, address, phone

   What we look at: Your business name, a street address and a phone number written as text in the page, and whether the phone is a tap-to-call link.

   Why it matters: Search engines match the name, address and phone (NAP) on your site against your Google Business Profile and directory listings. Text in an image can't be read; a phone without a tel: link costs you calls from people on a job site.

   Scoring: Pass: name, address and phone all appear as text, and the phone is a tel: link. Warn: one or two are missing, or no tel: link. Fail: none of them can be found.

5. LocalBusiness structured data

   What we look at: JSON-LD markup with a LocalBusiness type (or a subtype like Electrician or RecyclingCenter) and its fields.

   Why it matters: Structured data states your business facts in a form machines don't have to guess at. Search engines and AI assistants use it to connect your site to your listings and to quote your details correctly.

   Scoring: Pass: parseable LocalBusiness JSON-LD with name, telephone, and an address or service area. Warn: present but missing those fields, or only an Organization type. Fail: none, or the JSON is broken.

6. Mobile viewport

   What we look at: The viewport meta tag that tells phones to lay the page out at device width.

   Why it matters: Most "near me" searches happen on phones, and Google indexes the mobile version of your page. Without a viewport tag, phones show a shrunken desktop page.

   Scoring: Pass: width=device-width, zoom allowed. Warn: zoom is disabled (user-scalable=no or maximum-scale=1). Fail: no viewport tag.

7. Canonical URL

   What we look at: The <link rel="canonical"> tag that names the preferred address of this page.

   Why it matters: Sites are often reachable at several addresses (with and without www, with tracking codes). The canonical tells search engines which one to rank, so links and signals aren't split.

   Scoring: Pass: one absolute canonical pointing at this page. Warn: relative, more than one, or pointing at a different page or domain. Fail: none.

8. Internal links

   What we look at: Links from this page to other pages on your own site, and whether any lead to contact, location or service pages.

   Why it matters: Internal links are how crawlers find your service and city pages, and how buyers get to the page that answers their question. A homepage that links nowhere hides the rest of the site.

   Scoring: Pass: at least 5 distinct internal links, including a contact, location or service page. Warn: 1–4 links, or none to those pages. Fail: no internal links in the HTML (often a JavaScript-only site).

9. Image alt text

   What we look at: The alt attribute on each <img> tag.

   Why it matters: Alt text describes an image to screen readers and to search engines, and it's where a photo of your yard or fleet can say what and where it is. Images with no alt attribute at all are an accessibility failure.

   Scoring: Pass: 90% or more of images have an alt attribute (empty alt is fine for decoration). Warn: 50–89%. Fail: under 50%. No images: pass, nothing to fix.

10. Page weight

    What we look at: The size of the HTML document itself and how many scripts it loads. We don't download your images, CSS or scripts.

    Why it matters: Heavy pages are slow on a phone with one bar of signal in a yard. Slow pages lose visitors before they see your phone number, and speed is part of how Google judges page experience.

    Scoring: Pass: HTML under 150 KB and 15 or fewer external scripts. Warn: HTML under 500 KB, or more than 15 scripts. Fail: HTML over 500 KB (we stop reading at 2 MB).

What doesn't the grader see?

It's deliberately narrow. Read the result with these limits in mind:

• No Google Business Profile, rankings or reviews. We don't scrape Google or Maps. Your profile is often the biggest factor in the map pack; use our profile checklist for it.
• One page only. We fetch the address you enter (following up to 3 redirects) and nothing else: no other pages, images, scripts or stylesheets.
• Raw HTML, no JavaScript. If your site builds its content with JavaScript, it may read as nearly empty. We flag that when we see it. Many crawlers, including some AI crawlers, also read raw HTML first.
• Page weight is the HTML only. It isn't a speed test. For real-world speed, use Google's PageSpeed Insights.
• Matching is literal. The title and heading checks look for the words you typed for your city and service. If you call it "skid rental" and we searched for "skid steer rental", the check may warn.

How does the grader fetch my page safely?

It only fetches public https pages on the standard port. It refuses IP addresses and private, loopback or internal network names, looks up the domain and refuses it if it points at a private address, and repeats those checks on every redirect. It stops after 3 redirects, 8 seconds or 2 MB, whichever comes first.

Requests identify themselves honestly with this user agent:

SEONearYou-Grader/1.0 (+https://seonearyou.com/grader; fetches one page when a visitor asks)

Each IP address can run the grader 5 times a minute and 20 times an hour. Results are cached for 24 hours, so re-running with the same inputs the same day returns the same result. Each result has its own unlisted link that works for 30 days.