What is the difference between local SEO and national SEO?
Local SEO helps customers near you find your business, mainly through Google Maps and local results. National SEO competes for searches across a whole country, mainly through your website’s authority.
Local SEO
It centres on your Google Business Profile, reviews, listings and local pages. Distance from the searcher is part of the ranking, so results differ by location.
National SEO
It centres on your website: content, links and authority. Location matters far less, because the customer can be anywhere.
Which do you need?
Ask where your customers come from.
- ✓They come to you or you go to them in a set area: local SEO.
- ✓You sell to anyone, anywhere, online: national SEO.
- ✓Both: many businesses need local for nearby customers and national content for wider reach.
What about AI answers?
For local questions like “best dentist near me”, assistants still lean on local signals: your profile, reviews and consistent listings. That is why local and AI search work together.
Want to know where you stand?
We measure first, then fix what matters, and report every 30 days.