Definition
What this term means
The practice of optimising a business's online presence to attract customers from specific geographic areas through search engines and AI assistants. Local SEO encompasses Google Business Profile optimisation, local citation building, review management, location-specific content, and NAP consistency, all adapted for the AI era where voice assistants and AI chatbots increasingly handle local queries.
Why it matters
The business impact
AI assistants are becoming the primary interface for local discovery. When someone asks Siri 'best accountant near me' or tells ChatGPT 'recommend a restaurant in Manchester', the AI provides one or two recommendations, not a list of ten. Local SEO for the AI era means ensuring your business is the one recommended, which requires not just traditional local signals but also strong entity data, reviews, and structured information that AI systems can confidently rely on.
Used in context
How you might use this term
“A multi-location healthcare provider optimised each location's Google Business Profile, implemented LocalBusiness schema markup, standardised NAP data across 40 directories, and created unique content for each location. AI assistants began recommending specific locations for relevant local queries, with 'near me' voice search recommendations increasing by over 200%.”
Related terms
Explore connected concepts
NAP Consistency
The practice of maintaining identical Name, Address, and Phone number information across every online listing, directory, and business profile. NAP consistency is a foundational trust signal that helps both search engines and AI systems verify that a business is legitimate, currently operating, and located where it claims to be.
Schema Markup
A standardised vocabulary maintained by Schema.org, a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex, that provides a common language for structured data on the web. Schema markup defines hundreds of entity types (Organisation, Product, Article, Person, Event, etc.) and their properties, enabling web publishers to describe their content in a way that any search engine or AI system can understand.
Voice Search
Search queries spoken aloud to AI-powered voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, or Cortana. Voice searches tend to be longer, more conversational, and more question-based than typed queries. Voice search results typically return a single answer rather than a list of options, making the competition for that one position exceptionally high.