Local and national SEO differ in audience and the signals that win. Local SEO targets a city or region and captures high-intent “near me” queries — its key signal is proximity and NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency, and the essentials are a claimed, fully populated Google Business Profile, reviews, dedicated location pages, and LocalBusiness schema. National SEO targets a whole country with location largely out of the picture, so it competes on content depth and domain strength: broad keyword targeting without geographic modifiers, comprehensive content hubs that establish E-E-A-T, scalable technical health, and authority link building. In short, proximity wins local, while authority wins national — you must be the best answer on the internet, not the nearest.
Full guide → Local vs. National vs. Global SEO: Choosing Your Strategy
More Guides
Run disciplined SEO A/B tests in seven steps — one metric, two variations, randomized segments, run to significance, track, analyze the winner, and iterate.
Build a topic cluster in seven steps — select and score a pillar, validate it, map subtopics, align to intent, architect internal links, publish, and measure.
Prepare your site for AI search in five steps — content architecture, entity consistency, E-E-A-T, structured data, and machine-readable structure.
Get your content cited by AI in seven steps — answer capsules, link-free extraction, original data, digital PR, community presence, consistent messaging, and tracking.
A seven-step walkthrough for setting up Google Search Console on a new site — property type, DNS verification, sitemap, GA4 link, users, URL checks, and a monitoring routine.