Most full-service SEO companies do offer local search optimization, and many treat it as a standard service line rather than an add-on. Local search optimization, often called local SEO, is the work of making a business visible to people searching for products or services in a specific city or region. Because a large share of searches carry local intent, agencies that serve small and mid-sized businesses usually build a dedicated local offering, either as a stand-alone package or as a component within a broader SEO retainer.

It is worth confirming this directly with any company you are considering. Some agencies specialize in national or e-commerce SEO and may handle local work only on request, while others position local search as their primary focus. Ask whether local SEO is part of their core services, how they structure it, and whether it can be bought separately from other SEO work.

What a local SEO package typically includes

A local search optimization package is usually built around a recognizable set of tasks. The exact mix varies by agency and by how competitive your market is, but most packages cover the following areas.

Google Business Profile management is the centerpiece. This includes claiming and verifying the profile, completing every field, choosing accurate categories, adding photos, and keeping hours and service details current. Profiles often need ongoing attention rather than a one-time setup.

Local citations are another standard element. A citation is a mention of your business name, address, and phone number on directories and listing sites such as Apple Maps, Bing Places, industry directories, and local chamber of commerce pages. Agencies build new citations and clean up inconsistent or duplicate ones so your business information is accurate everywhere it appears.

Local landing pages and on-page work are common in packages for businesses that serve multiple towns or neighborhoods. This can mean creating or improving pages targeted to specific service areas and adding local business schema markup so search engines can read your details clearly.

Reviews are usually addressed as a strategy rather than a single task. An agency may set up a process for requesting reviews from customers and for responding to the reviews you receive. Reputable companies do not buy or fabricate reviews, and you should treat any offer to do so as a warning sign.

Local link building rounds out many packages. This focuses on earning mentions and links from local sources such as community organizations, local news sites, and regional industry groups, which help establish relevance to your area.

Reporting ties these elements together. Most packages include regular reports on local rankings, profile views, calls, direction requests, and other signals of local visibility.

Package tiers often scale with these components. A basic tier may cover profile optimization and citation cleanup for a single location, while higher tiers add content, schema, link outreach, and conversion tracking. Multi-location businesses generally need a larger scope because each location requires its own profile and citation set.

Which businesses need local search optimization

Local search optimization matters most for businesses that earn customers from a defined geographic area. Service businesses are the clearest example, including contractors, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, cleaning services, and pest control companies. It is also central for healthcare providers, dental and medical practices, law firms, med spas, restaurants, and any business with a physical storefront or service area.

Businesses that sell only online and ship nationally, or that serve clients regardless of location, usually gain less from local SEO and may be better served by other SEO work. If you operate in one city or a handful of nearby areas and depend on nearby customers, local search optimization is likely a core need rather than an optional extra.

When you evaluate an SEO company, ask which of these tasks are included in its local package, whether the scope fits a single location or several, and how progress will be measured. A clear answer on scope and reporting is a good sign that local search is a genuine part of the company’s service offering.

Yes, an SEO company can help with Amazon SEO, but it depends on the agency. Amazon SEO is a separate discipline from the search engine optimization most agencies practice for Google. Some full-service SEO firms have added Amazon work to their offerings, while other agencies specialize in Amazon exclusively. Before you sign a contract, it is worth understanding what Amazon SEO actually involves so you can judge whether a given company is equipped to do it well.

How Amazon SEO differs from Google SEO

The two practices share a name but rely on different mechanics. Google ranks web pages to answer a query and send visitors to a site. Amazon ranks product listings inside its own marketplace, and its goal is to surface the items most likely to sell. Amazon’s search system, often referred to as A9 and its later iteration A10, weighs signals that Google does not use, and it largely ignores signals that matter on Google.

The clearest example is backlinks. Links from other websites are a core part of Google SEO, but Amazon’s search ranking does not use backlinks the way Google does. Instead, Amazon leans heavily on commercial performance: how often shoppers click a listing, how often those clicks turn into purchases, and how steadily the product sells over time. Conversion rate and sales velocity are central. A listing that gets traffic but few sales tends to fall, while a listing that converts well tends to rise.

Search behavior also differs. Amazon shoppers usually arrive ready to buy and tend to type shorter, product-focused terms. Google searches more often reflect research or general questions. Because of this, keyword strategy for Amazon is built around how people search for products to purchase, not around informational queries.

What Amazon SEO work actually covers

A capable Amazon SEO engagement focuses on the elements that the marketplace algorithm and shoppers respond to:

Product titles that include the primary keywords a shopper would use, written within Amazon’s character and formatting rules.

Bullet points and product descriptions that communicate benefits clearly and help convert browsers into buyers.

Backend keywords, sometimes called search terms, which are fields the seller fills in that are not visible to shoppers but help Amazon match the listing to relevant searches.

Images and, where eligible, enhanced content such as A+ content, since strong visuals influence whether a click becomes a purchase.

Reviews and ratings, which affect both shopper trust and ranking. Agencies cannot buy or fabricate reviews, but they can advise on legitimate ways to encourage genuine customer feedback within Amazon’s policies.

Pricing, availability, and conversion analysis, because a listing that runs out of stock or converts poorly will lose ranking regardless of how well it is written.

Choosing the right kind of help

If you already work with a general SEO agency, ask directly whether they have done Amazon listing optimization and can show how they approach it. Some agencies genuinely offer both. Others are strong at Google SEO but treat Amazon as an add-on without real expertise, which is a risk because the skills do not transfer automatically. Writing a product title that converts on Amazon is not the same task as ranking a blog post on Google.

Agencies that specialize in Amazon will usually be familiar with Seller Central, the Brand Registry, advertising inside Amazon, and the marketplace’s frequent policy changes. For a business whose sales depend heavily on Amazon, that focused experience can matter. For a business that sells across several channels, a broader agency that can coordinate Google SEO, the website, and the Amazon storefront together may be more practical.

The honest answer is that “an SEO company” is not a single thing. Some can help with Amazon SEO, some cannot, and some do nothing else. When you evaluate a firm, ask what specific Amazon listing elements they would work on, how they measure results, and whether their staff has direct marketplace experience. Those questions will tell you far more than the label on the company’s website.

A site migration is any significant change to a website’s location, structure, platform, or design that can affect how search engines find and rank its pages. Moving to a new domain, switching content management systems, redesigning the URL structure, or changing from HTTP to HTTPS all count. An SEO company handles a migration as a controlled, step-by-step process built to carry rankings and traffic across to the new site rather than lose them. Here is how that process usually works.

Pre-migration planning and URL inventory

The first step is a full inventory of the current site. The SEO company crawls every page with a tool such as Screaming Frog and pulls a complete list of URLs, including pages, images, PDFs, and any URLs that receive search traffic. They cross-check this against analytics and Search Console data so that nothing with rankings, traffic, or backlinks is missed. They also record a performance baseline: current rankings for important keywords, organic traffic by page, indexed page count, and top landing pages. This baseline is the reference point for judging whether the migration succeeded. A technical audit at this stage catches existing problems so they can be fixed before the move rather than carried into the new site.

Mapping one-to-one redirects

Every old URL needs a destination on the new site. The SEO company builds a redirect map that pairs each old URL with the single most relevant new URL, ideally a one-to-one match. These are implemented as 301 redirects, which tell search engines the move is permanent and pass ranking signals to the new address. Server-side 301 redirects are used because they are faster and more reliable than JavaScript or meta-refresh redirects. The team avoids redirect chains, where one URL points to another that points to a third, since these slow crawling and weaken the signal. When a page has no direct equivalent, it is redirected to the closest related page rather than dumped on the homepage.

Preserving metadata and content

The SEO company makes sure page content, titles, meta descriptions, headings, structured data, and image attributes transfer to the new site. Canonical tags, hreflang tags where used, and internal links are reviewed so they point to the correct new URLs. If the migration includes a redesign, the team checks that important on-page content is not cut or buried during the rebuild, since thinner pages can lose rankings.

Staging review

Before launch, the new site is built and tested in a staging environment, a private copy of the site that search engines and the public cannot see. The SEO company crawls staging to confirm redirects resolve correctly, metadata is in place, the XML sitemap lists only canonical and indexable URLs, and there are no broken links or unintended noindex tags. This is where problems are caught while they are still cheap to fix.

Launch-day checks

On launch day the team removes the restrictions that kept staging private: robots.txt disallows, noindex tags, and any password protection. They confirm DNS records point to the right server and that the server can handle the temporary spike in crawl activity that follows a migration. They verify that 301 redirects are live and returning the expected status codes, submit the new XML sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and, for a domain change, use Google’s Change of Address tool to notify search engines directly.

Post-launch monitoring and fixing issues

After launch the SEO company watches the site closely. They track indexation, crawl errors, rankings, organic traffic, and Core Web Vitals, comparing results against the pre-migration baseline. The first weeks call for frequent checks, often daily, then weekly as the site stabilizes, with monitoring continuing for several months on larger migrations. Common issues such as missed redirects, 404 errors, broken internal links, or pages dropping out of the index are fixed quickly, because speed of response limits how much traffic is lost. A short, temporary dip in indexed pages and rankings is normal after a migration; the goal is a steady recovery, and prompt fixes are what make that recovery happen.