Local AEO Audit: A Complete 5-Phase Audit Framework for Local AI Citation Performance
A local AEO audit is a systematic check of everything that affects whether AI systems like Siri, Google AI, and Perplexity recommend your business for local queries. It covers four areas: your NAP (name, address, phone) consistency across all platforms, your local schema markup, your local content coverage, and your performance on local AI citation queries. Run one quarterly to find and fix issues before they hurt your visibility.
Local AEO performance is fragile: a single NAP mismatch, an outdated set of hours, or a missing FAQPage schema on a key local content page can silently reduce AI citation rates for months before it's detected. The quarterly audit cycle is the maintenance system that keeps all local AEO signals accurate, consistent, and competitive.
See also: Local Schema Advanced and GBP for AI.
5-Phase Audit Framework
Phase 1: NAP Consistency Audit
Export NAP from website LocalBusiness schema
Compare to GBP listing fields (name, address, phone)
Compare to Apple Business Connect listing
Compare to Bing Places listing
Check top 5 directory citations (Yelp, YP, Foursquare)
Flag any field-level mismatches for correction
Use BrightLocal or Whitespark for bulk NAP audit across 30+ directories
Audit Scorecard - Self-Assessment
Critical gaps identified - complete the 3pt items first before advancing.