Build a local SEO plan for one location, without producing a doorway page
A local SEO prompt scoped to one location. It decides first whether the page deserves to exist, then splits website work from Google Business Profile work.
- Works in
- ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
- You need
- What is physically true about the location · Your service list in your own words · Your Google Business Profile primary category, if you have one
- Written for
- chatgpt prompts for local seo
Scored by our own engine
This page, run through the audit we sell. Measured 4 August 2026.
Most local SEO prompts take one service and a list of towns and hand back a page template. That is not a plan, it is a doorway page generator with a friendly interface. The prompt below is scoped to one location, decides first whether that page deserves to exist, and labels any sentence that would survive having the place name swapped out. It also splits the work between your website and your Google Business Profile, which are two different assets that almost every local plan treats as one.
The place name swap test
Take any sentence on a location page and change the town. If it still reads as true, it is not location content. “We serve homeowners across Croydon with fast, reliable repairs” is equally true of Bristol, Leeds and anywhere else with homeowners, which means the sentence is doing no work at all.
The sentences that fail the swap are the ones carrying the page: the estate you worked on last month, the permit the council actually requires, the parking situation, the engineer who lives four streets away. None of those can be generated, which is why section E of the output is a shopping list rather than finished copy. The prompt is honest about the division of labour. It can structure a location page and it cannot know your location.
What the model genuinely cannot do here
It cannot see a local pack, a competitor’s review count, or how far you sit from the point distance is measured against. Local visibility runs roughly on relevance, distance and prominence, and a language model can only touch the first one, because relevance is text and the other two are facts about geography and reputation.
That is worth saying plainly, because the prompts sold as local SEO prompts imply otherwise. Treat the output as the writing and structuring half of the job. The other half is getting the category right, collecting reviews from people who actually bought, and being where you say you are.
Why it refuses the second location
Because the second page is where local SEO turns into doorway pages, and the refusal is cheaper than the cleanup. If the second location is genuinely different, you can say how in one sentence and the prompt continues. If you cannot, the page you were about to build is the one Google spent a decade learning to discount.
Once the page is live, check it exposes a real entity with the structured data checker, and confirm an assistant can lift an answer out of it with the AI content readiness check.
You are a local SEO strategist. I am going to describe one business and one
location. Build the plan for that single location. Do not produce a template
I can run over other towns.
Rules you must follow:
1. Work only from what I tell you. Do not invent competitor names, review
counts, ranking positions, distances, neighbourhoods or search volumes. If
the plan needs a fact I have not given you, put it in a list of things I
have to supply rather than filling it in yourself.
2. Every keyword you propose must be built from words I gave you plus a
location I gave you. Where you inferred a term rather than derived it, mark
it as inferred and say what you inferred it from.
3. Before anything else, tell me whether this location page should exist. It
should exist only if something here is physically true: a staffed address,
a radius that is genuinely served, staff who live here, or work already
done here. If none of that holds, say so and stop.
4. Apply this test to every sentence you write for the page. Swap the place
name for a different town. If the sentence is still true, it is not
location content, and you must label it generic rather than leave it
looking like local copy.
5. Separate what belongs on the website from what belongs on the Google
Business Profile. They are different assets with different rules, and most
local plans blur the two into one list.
6. If I ask for a second location in this conversation, refuse until I have
told you what is physically different about it.
Output in this order:
A. Verdict. Should this page exist, yes or no, with the reason in one
paragraph.
B. Local intent keywords, as a table:
Keyword | Source (my words or inferred) | Intent | Belongs on the page or the profile
C. The location page: proposed URL, H1, and a section outline. For each
section, one line on what must be unique to this location.
D. Google Business Profile actions in priority order, with the ones I can do
today kept separate from the ones that need something I do not have yet.
E. Proof to gather. The photographs, names, numbers and specifics only I can
supply, listed so I can collect them in one pass.
F. Do not do this. The three things a business like mine would be tempted to
try here that would make the page worse.
Constraints:
- No search volume figures. You do not have them and I have not given you any.
- Do not describe my current ranking or the local pack. You cannot see either.
- If I have given you too little to judge the location, ask me for exactly
what is missing instead of building a plan around the gap.
My business: [BUSINESS NAME AND WHAT IT SELLS, TO WHOM]
The one location: [SUBURB OR DISTRICT, CITY, COUNTRY]
What is physically true here: [ADDRESS, RADIUS, STAFF, WORK DONE HERE, OR "nothing yet"]
My services, in my own words: [LIST THE SERVICES YOU WANT TO BE FOUND FOR]
My Google Business Profile: [PRIMARY CATEGORY, OR "not set up"]What to change
Everything in square brackets is yours to replace. Nothing else needs editing.
[BUSINESS NAME AND WHAT IT SELLS, TO WHOM]- One sentence with a buyer in it. "We fit and repair commercial refrigeration for restaurants and corner shops" produces a different plan from "we do refrigeration", because the second one has no customer, and local intent keywords are built out of who is searching rather than what you own.
[SUBURB OR DISTRICT, CITY, COUNTRY]- One place, at the level people actually type. "Chorlton, Manchester, UK" is a searchable unit and "Greater Manchester" is not. Country matters more than it looks: the model otherwise defaults to American conventions for addresses, phone formats and the name of the local authority you deal with.
[ADDRESS, RADIUS, STAFF, WORK DONE HERE, OR "nothing yet"]- The single most important input, and the one that decides the verdict. "Unit 4 on the high street, two engineers who live in the area, 30 jobs completed here last year" earns a page. "We would like customers there" does not, and writing "nothing yet" is a real answer that saves you publishing a page you cannot defend.
[LIST THE SERVICES YOU WANT TO BE FOUND FOR]- Your services in your own vocabulary, not a competitor list you pasted. The model echoes whatever words you hand it, so "emergency boiler repair, landlord gas certificates, radiator swaps" gives you keywords a customer would type, while "heating solutions" gives you nothing anyone searches.
[PRIMARY CATEGORY, OR "not set up"]- The primary category on your Google Business Profile, copied exactly. It constrains what the profile can rank for, so a plan written against the wrong one targets a service Google does not associate you with. If you have no profile, write "not set up" and treat section D as the first half of the work rather than the second.
How to run it
- 01Write down what is physically true here, before opening the model
Write one honest paragraph about your relationship to this place: the address, who works there, the radius you will actually drive to, and the jobs you have already done nearby. This is the input the entire plan turns on and it is the one thing no model can supply for you. If the paragraph comes out empty, you have your answer already.
- 02Check your Google Business Profile category first
Open your profile and copy the primary category exactly as Google words it. The category does more for local visibility than any paragraph on your website, and a plan written against a guess targets services Google does not connect you with. If there is no profile at all, write "not set up" and expect the output to weight the profile work heavily.
- 03Fill the five inputs and run it
Paste the prompt with all five inputs into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Give it one location only. The prompt is built to refuse a second, and feeding it three at once is exactly how people end up with three near identical pages that compete with each other and rank for nothing.
- 04Read the verdict before you read the plan
Section A is the part everyone skips and the only part that can stop you publishing a page that should not exist. A no is a useful result: it moves the effort to the profile, to reviews, and to the locations you genuinely serve. Do not argue with it by adding facts you could not show a customer.
- 05Collect the proof, then write
Take section E and go and gather the photographs, names and specifics in one pass before writing a word. A location page written from the outline alone reads like every other location page, because the outline is the generic part. The proof is what makes a sentence fail the place name swap, which is the whole test.
- 06Check the finished page carries a real entity
A location page with no structured data gives a machine the words but nothing to attach them to. Run the published URL through the structured data checker and confirm it exposes an organisation or local business entity rather than nothing. This is what decides whether an assistant answering a local question has an identity to credit.
Questions people ask
What is the best ChatGPT prompt for local SEO?
The one scoped to a single location that decides whether the page deserves to exist before it writes anything. Most local prompts take a service and a list of towns and produce a page template, which is a doorway page generator with a friendly interface. A prompt that separates website work from Google Business Profile work, refuses to invent competitors or volumes, and lists the proof you have to go and collect produces a plan instead of copy.
Can ChatGPT tell me where I rank in the local pack?
No. A language model cannot see a live search result, cannot measure how far you are from the point Google calculates distance against, and does not know your competitors review counts. Asked anyway, it will produce confident numbers that were never measured. Use it for the relevance half of local SEO, which is the text, and use a real rank tracker for position.
Should I build a page for every town I serve?
Only for the towns where something is physically true: an address, staff who live there, or work you have actually done. Pages generated by swapping a place name into a template are the textbook definition of a doorway page, and they compete with each other as well as failing on their own. One strong location page beats forty interchangeable ones.
Does the website or the Google Business Profile matter more?
For appearing in the map pack, the profile does more, because category, proximity and reviews are weighted heavily there. The website matters for everything outside the pack, for the queries the profile cannot answer, and as the place a person lands when they want detail. They are complementary, which is why the prompt keeps them in separate sections.
What makes a location page different from a service page?
A service page explains what you do. A location page has to say something that is only true in that place: the estate you worked on, the parking, the local authority rules you deal with, the engineer who lives there. If you remove the place name and the page still reads correctly, it is a service page with a town in the title.
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