My advice is simple: use your SEO person or people to the max.  Whether that means they take on additional responsibilities or they swap out some of the current tasks for different tasks, it won’t be hard to make them more useful than they are now.

What’s most useful varies from one business to another, and it changes for the same business over time.  The critical tasks in local SEO change between when you start it and when you’ve hammered it for 8 years.  (You wouldn’t believe the crazy range of things I’ve been asked to do, and typically end up doing.  I oblige whenever I can.)

As usual, the first step is to have a solid inventory of what your SEO(s) may be able to help on.  Only then can you determine what they will be able to help on.  Of course, they may have good reasons to focus on this rather than that, and an honest one will tell you when there’s someone better equipped or more cost-effective.  So first you discuss what’s possible, and then you discuss what’s best.  Some good stuff might have been hiding from you.

There are 30 bands hidden in this picture! We spotted one of our favourites!

If anyone knows the artist, pls let us know so we can credit pic.twitter.com/lKGGBYeuQP

— Jack Bruce (@jackbrucemusic) November 26, 2020

Below are 50 ways your local SEO unit can pull the weight of its caboose:

(These are in no particular order, except that I’ll start with the few most-obvious points.  Also, contrary to my nature, I won’t explain each point to death.  Please leave a comment if I need to expand on anything.)

1. Troubleshooting.  Determining whatever has hit you in the side of the head, whether it’s a drop in rankings, impressions, traffic, leads, or $$.
2. Auditing.  I’m referring not only to initial sweeps of your site, citations, backlinks, and competitors’ Maps spam, but also to routine check-ups on those areas over the months and years.
3. Laboring.  Setting up GBP pages, filling out GBP pages, finding and landing link opportunities, building and fixing citations, uploading and optimizing photos, and so on.
4. Strategizing.  A good SEO can help you develop a strategy for getting reviews, getting links, “thickening” your visibility, adding a location, make use of old blog posts, and much more.
5. Writing.  I’m referring mainly to writing or expanding “service” pages, spin-off pages, and other high-priority pages, but writing also factors into any YouTube work you do, photo optimization, and other areas that tie into local SEO.  Arguably wordsmithing should be part of a SEO’s job description anyway, but isn’t always.  Worth discussing early and often.
6. Helping you redesign your site or migrate it to a new platform or host.
7. Helping you build an all-new site in an SEO-friendly manner.
8. Gathering competitive intel.
9. Helping you develop internal resources.
10. Helping you cull unnecessary tools and subscriptions you pay for.
11. Using their tools and subscriptions, or letting you use them.  The client and the SEO don’t both need to pay for Ahrefs
12. Making sure other marketing channels play nicely with your SEO.  Are those PPC landing pages indexed and causing problems?  Shouldn’t those TikTok videos also be on YouTube?  The vanity domain is fine, but should it really get all the backlinks?  You get the idea.
13. Sharing with you non-NDA-protected intel from any competitors the SEO might have worked with in the past. Not everything is a trade secret, protected by law, or protected by omerta.
14. Providing intel on what’s worked in other industries.  I can’t think of an effective SEO strategy or process that works in only one space and can’t be adapted to yours.
15. Sharing real-world examples – good or bad.  Sometimes you just want to see an instance of something in the wild before you commit to anything, whether it’s a link opportunity, an approach to asking for reviews, a new look for your main navigation, or whatever.
16. Reviewing proposals from other marketers (e.g. developers).  Get a second set of eyes to look for gotchas, glaring omissions, and confusing or vague language.
17. Interviewing, vetting, or referring to you providers of other services.
18. Providing a second opinion on software.  I’m thinking of ORM software, CallRail, Jobber, Lawmatics, or anything you hope will make your life easier.
19. Researching keywords / search terms continually.  It’s not a one-time deal.
20. Analyzing Google Search Console data and providing recommendations based on that data.
21. Serving as an expert witness, if you’re duking it out with an unsavory marketing company (current or former).
22. Reporting, whether through Google Analytics, Search Console, grid trackers, other tools, or some combination.
23. Helping you rebrand or relocate your business.
24. YouTube work: uploading, optimizing, and embedding videos.
25. Photo work: finding or creating, editing, uploading, and optimizing photos on your site.
26. Featuring your business on the SEO provider’s site, if they have a prominent site and a following (in which case it can be a nice little link).
27. Edit content.  Nominally this is for search-engine-friendliness, but ideally it also just makes for a better read.
28. Helping you curate reading on SEO.  If you’re into that sort of thing.  Often I send clients my blog posts (half the reason I write in the first place), but I’ll also point them toward others’ resources.
29. Teaching you or your people how to do SEO in-house.  Or at least how to do certain parts of it.
30. Mitigating Google Maps spam.
31. Conducting due diligence on business sales, mergers, or acquisitions.  If you’re trading horses in any way, some “Who gets what?” and “What’s it worth?” questions will pop up.  Your SEO person may be able to help.
32. Evaluating the pros and cons of website domains that you might buy or move your site to.  Picking the wrong domain can be a missed opportunity, cost you good backlinks, earn you bad backlinks, confuse customers, or get you in legal trouble.
33. Helping you sell or prune parked domains.  You may want to know which domains might have some SEO value, at least according to your SEO person.
34. Researching the pros and cons of a new address.
35. Smoothing out or establishing relevant other systems and processes: asking for reviews, techs in the field taking and sharing photos, tracking leads, etc.
36. Helping on a related venture, an unrelated venture, or a relative’s business.
37. Helping to get your successor established.  You may want or need to help the next generation get the same results you did from SEO work, and maybe even better.  At first, that will probably involve some consulting, some sharing of internal resources, and some coaching-up.  Later, you’ll need to update the site and maybe other assets.
38. Providing intel on your competitors’ SEO companies or other contractors.  Many of us know each other and have an observation or two.
39. Becoming a customer of yours, and maybe a reviewer.
40. Helping you develop SEO as your side hustle, coaching business, etc.  Here’s an excellent example.
41. Asking customers for reviews personally.  If you haven’t been able to crack the code and get customers / clients / patients to write reviews, even though you’ve basically followed the advice of your SEO person, it may be time for him or her to prove personally that it CAN be done in your situation.  It’s a temporary arrangement, one you might keep in place until you’ve both seen what works.
42. Setting up tools (e.g. plugins, rank-trackers, ORM software, etc.).
43. Contacting GBP support on your behalf, like to lift a suspension.
44. Avoiding GBP suspensions and other penalties by identifying loopholes or gray areas.  You should at least know the slippery route, whether or not you choose to take it.
45. Offering pro bono work to you in exchange for a success story, a case study, a testimonial, a referral, etc.
46. Running tests or experiments on an unrelated or “sandbox” business.
47. Trying out new or invitation-only Google products or GBP features on your behalf, or with an eye toward how they’d serve your business.
48. Identifying prime potential Yelp reviewers.
49. Helping you figure out or establish your niche.  Local SEO tends to be way easier, faster, and more fruitful for relative specialists than for generalists.  A good local SEO can help you maintain some visibility in and income from the services or products you’re trying to move away from, while helping you get more action of the kind you want.
50. Reducing dependence on SEO.  Over time you may notice more word-of-mouth referrals, or have an easier time of getting other marketing channels to work.  That’s most likely to happen if you get your SEO person to help in a lot of loosely related areas, and if he or she has the motivation and resourcefulness to do so.  For both of you, it just takes a little 3D thinking.