Local SEO

Local SEO is for businesses that customers find on Google Maps — a clinic, an agency, a salon, a shop with a street address. When someone nearby searches for what you do, Google shows a short list of businesses on the map. Local SEO shows where you appear in that list from different spots around your office, who beats you there and why, and lets you fix it. Open SEO → Local in the sidebar. The page has four tabs: Local SEO is part of both SEO plans. Without an SEO plan, the page shows Unlock instead. See Plans & pricing.

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Connect Google Business Profile

Local SEO works on one Google Business Profile location per workspace. Until it’s connected, the Local page shows a Connect button that takes you to Integrations. If you leave before choosing a location, the card shows Require setup and the Local page shows Choose your Google Business Profile location with a Choose location button. Click it and pick the location. See Google Business Profile for the integration itself.

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If something goes wrong

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Map rankings

The map shows what someone sees when they search Google Maps from different spots around you. Ryze runs each search from 49 spots — a 7×7 grid, 1 km apart, centered on your office — and reads the first 20 results at each spot.

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Choose your keywords

The first time you open the tab, Ryze suggests searches built from your Google categories, your city and the searches people already find you by. Pick the ones your customers type, or click Add your own to type one of your own (for example, dentist downtown austin), then click Scan N keywords. The counter shows how many of the 5 you’ve picked.

• You can track up to 5 keywords per location.
• Scanning takes about a minute per keyword.
• To add one later, type it into Add a keyword on the Keywords card and click Add — it’s scanned right away. Once you have 5, the box disappears.

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Read the map

Each dot is a Google Maps search made from that spot; the number is your position there. The Keywords card on the left shows, for the selected keyword, Found in N of 49 spots, how many spots you hold the top 3 in and your best position. Click another keyword to switch the map. Below it, Holds the top 3 lists the businesses that win the most spots, with your own business at the bottom for comparison. Their pins are shown on the map too.

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See who beats you and why

• Click a dot to see what Google Maps shows from that spot: the top 3 there, and your own position. When you’re not first, Why … wins here compares you with the leader — distance to the search, reviews, rating, photos and whether they have a category you don’t.
• Click a competitor in Holds the top 3 (or its pin) to see You vs … — their top-3 spots, rating, reviews, photos, categories and description length, Their categories (with You have it next to the ones you share) and What their clients write about in their reviews.

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What moves you up

When you click a dot, What moves you up lists the fixes that apply there:

• Add the ”…” category — when the map leaders list a category you don’t. Fix with AI asks the agent to add it to your listing.
• Get more reviews — your review count next to the leader’s. Open reviews takes you to the Reviews tab.
• Add photos of the office and team — when the leader has more photos. Upload takes you to Business profile.

You can’t change how far a search is from your office. A stronger profile — the right categories, more reviews, more photos — is what lets you rank farther from it.

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Rescan

Click Rescan map at the top of the page to check positions again. Each keyword is scanned at most once a day: if every keyword was already scanned today, you’ll see a message and nothing new runs. Adding a new keyword always scans it right away. The map also rescans on its own together with your keyword refresh, if Auto-refresh is set to Weekly or Monthly on Keywords & Prompts. The Keywords card shows the date of the last scan.

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Reviews

The Reviews tab lists every Google review on your listing. The line at the top shows how many you have and your average rating — and, if the map leaders have more reviews, how many they have. Asking happy clients for a review is the fastest lever.

• All shows every review; Needs reply shows the ones with no reply yet. The number next to Reviews in the page tabs is how many need a reply.
• Each review is labeled No reply, Weak reply (a generic reply that doesn’t name the reviewer or what they praised) or Replied.
• Refresh at the top loads new reviews from Google; the external-link button opens your listing on Google.

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Reply to a review

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Posts

The Posts tab shows the posts on your Google profile — the ones published from Ryze and the ones published straight on Google. Select a post to see How it looks on your Google profile.

• Write a post with AI (top right) — the agent reads your listing, reviews and earlier posts, writes one post about a service or a result your clients praise (up to 1,500 characters) and shows you the draft. It publishes only after you confirm.
• Rewrite with AI — on a selected post: the agent rewrites it more clearly, keeping the topic and the image, and replaces the old post after you confirm.
• Open on Google — opens the live post.
• Delete post (trash icon) — removes the post from Google Search and Maps. This can’t be undone.

A new post can take 24–48 hours to appear on Google. Posts stay visible on Google Search and Maps for about a week, so a steady rhythm works better than one big post.

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Business profile

The Business profile tab shows your listing as Google has it: Categories, Description, Hours, Photos, Website and Phone, plus your address. Click a field to edit it on the right, then click Save to Google (or Discard). Changes are public on Google Search and Maps, and Google may review them before they show.

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Optimize with AI and Proposed changes

Optimize with AI (top right) asks the agent to compare your listing with the businesses that hold the top 3 on your map and propose changes to categories, description and hours. They arrive as cards under Proposed changes. Once a week the agent also reviews your map, listing and reviews on its own. What it finds — a category the leaders share and you lack, reviews left without a reply, a thin description — arrives as a card under Proposed changes at the top of this tab, labeled Local SEO. Nothing is applied until you approve it. Approving, rejecting and approving with a note work as described in Inbox and approvals. A dot on the Business profile tab means a proposal is waiting.

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Ask the AI Marketer

With Google Business Profile connected, you can ask the agent about your listing in any chat. For example:

• “Which of my reviews from the last month have no reply? Draft replies for the negative ones.”
• “How many calls and direction requests did my profile get on Google in the last 30 days?”
• “Which searches did people use to find my business on Google last month?”
• “Write a post about our weekend opening hours and schedule it for Friday.”
• “Who holds the top 3 on the map for my main keyword, and what do they have that I don’t?”

The agent reads freely. Anything that changes your public listing — a reply, a post, a new photo, an edit — follows the Tool approvals setting of your chat, and the Local SEO buttons always show you the draft first. Google reports profile performance with a 2–3 day delay.

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FAQ