Free Visibility Grader
A free SEO audit tool that runs the on-page, performance, and Google Business Profile checks that decide local rankings — and hands you the report with what to fix, in what order.
What the audit checks
Title tag, meta description, H1, canonical, mobile viewport, LocalBusiness structured data, Open Graph, HTTPS, image alt text, indexability.
Google's Lighthouse mobile score plus real-user Core Web Vitals from Chrome UX Report: Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, Interaction to Next Paint.
Listing found, primary category, phone, website link, opening hours, photo count, review count, review recency. The highest-leverage local ranking signals.
What a Local SEO Audit Actually Measures
Most free SEO audit tools measure one thing and pretend it is the whole picture. A page-speed tool tells you your site loads in 3.2 seconds and calls that an audit. A meta-tag checker tells you your title is too long and calls that an audit. A backlink tool tells you your domain has forty-two referring domains and calls that an audit. None of them touch the signal that decides whether a local business appears in the Google Maps pack, which is the Google Business Profile.
Local ranking is decided by three families of signals, and a real audit measures all three. On-page fundamentals are what your site says to a search engine — title tag, meta description, structured data, mobile viewport, indexability. Site performance is how fast the page loads for real users on real devices, measured against Google's own Core Web Vitals thresholds. Google Business Profile is the signal set that decides whether you appear in the map pack at all — categories, reviews, photos, hours, business status. The Visibility Grader runs all three in parallel and returns a composite score weighted the way Google weights them: GBP heaviest, on-page second, performance third.
Why Each Dimension Matters
Google Business Profile — the largest local ranking lever
For a local business, the Google Business Profile is the single largest factor in whether the business appears in the map pack — the three-listing block that shows above the organic results for any local-intent query. A business with a well-configured profile, a steady stream of recent reviews, twenty or more photos, and a correctly chosen primary category will outrank a business with a better website but a neglected profile, every time. The Grader checks all of that using Google's own Places API, which reads the profile the same way Google's ranking algorithm does.
On-page SEO — the fundamentals that determine indexability
A site with broken on-page fundamentals cannot rank regardless of how strong its other signals are. A page with a noindex meta tag will not appear in Google at all. A page without a viewport meta tag is flagged as not mobile-friendly, which is now a ranking negative. A page without LocalBusiness structured data is missing the machine-readable summary Google uses to connect the site to the physical business it represents. The Grader checks the on-page items that decide whether the site is even eligible to rank, and returns a plain-English recommendation for every one that is broken or missing.
Site performance — Google's real-user measurement
Google no longer relies on synthetic lab tests to measure site speed for ranking purposes. It uses the Chrome User Experience Report — real data from real Chrome installations — to measure Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and Interaction to Next Paint. Sites in the fast tier for these metrics get a ranking benefit; sites in the slow tier get penalised. The Grader pulls the same data Google uses, plus the mobile Lighthouse score, so the performance number in the report is not a lab test — it is what Google actually sees when it decides your rank.
How to Read Your Score
The overall score is a weighted average of the three dimensions, letter-graded from A to F. A score in the ninety-plus range means the fundamentals are in place and the work now is compounding — publishing more, earning more reviews, expanding the profile — rather than fixing. A score in the seventies or eighties means solid overall coverage with one clear weak area, and the report will name which one. Below sixty means meaningful gaps that need to close before other work will produce, and the Grader ranks those gaps by weight so you know which to close first.
Under thirty or forty means the site is nearly invisible on the signals Google uses to rank local businesses. That sounds worse than it is — most items at that end of the scale are easy fixes, not expensive projects, and the composite score often moves twenty or thirty points in the first two weeks of applying the recommendations. The report is written so an owner without a marketing background can act on it, and so a marketing person hired later has a clear starting point rather than a blank page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Visibility Grader?
The Visibility Grader is a free SEO audit tool that runs the checks Google actually uses to rank local businesses — on-page fundamentals, real-user site performance, and Google Business Profile signals — and returns a scored report explaining what is working, what is not, and what to fix in what order. It runs in under a minute, does not gate the report behind a signup wall, and is free with no obligation.
How is this different from a Lighthouse or PageSpeed report?
Lighthouse tells you how fast your site loads. That is one input into local ranking, and the Grader includes it (using Google's own PageSpeed Insights data), but it is not the biggest lever for a local business. The Google Business Profile signals — categories, review count and recency, photos, hours — often decide whether you appear in the map pack at all, and no site-only tool measures those. The Grader is built around what actually moves local rankings, not just what a page-speed tool can see.
Is my email used for anything beyond the report?
The email you enter is used to send you a copy of the report. We do not sell it, share it, or add you to a mailing list. After the audit runs, we send one follow-up email — a real message from a person, checking whether you would like a hand with anything the report surfaced. That is it. No automated drip sequence, no repeated pitches, no algorithm deciding when to bother you again.
Does this work for businesses outside Nanaimo?
Yes. The Grader is market-agnostic. It works for any business, in any city, with a website and a Google Business Profile. The Google Business Profile signals are pulled from Google's global Places index, so a business in Vancouver, Toronto, Nantes, or Tbilisi runs the same checks and returns the same report.
What if my business does not have a Google Business Profile yet?
The Grader will tell you so — the GBP dimension will show 'listing not found' as the top failing item, because for a local business the profile is the single largest visibility lever. The on-page and performance sections still run and score normally. The recommended first step for any business missing a profile is to claim one at business.google.com — it is free, takes about ten minutes to verify, and produces more local visibility than most six-month SEO engagements do.
Why does the report include recommendations, not just scores?
A number by itself is not useful. A '42/100' with no explanation leaves the owner staring at a dashboard, deciding they need to hire someone to interpret it, which is exactly the pattern most SEO tools rely on. The Grader writes a plain-English recommendation for every failing or warning check, so the owner can either fix the item themselves or take the report to whoever handles their site with clear direction. If the tool is only useful once you have hired us, it is not really free.
How often should I re-run the audit?
Once a quarter is enough for most businesses. The signals that change month to month — new reviews, new photos, changes to your site — are things you already know about. The signals that change quietly and matter — Google Business Profile category shifts, a broken structured-data change from a plugin update, a Core Web Vital regression from an image the marketing team added — are what a quarterly audit catches. Running the audit more often than that is usually a sign of anxiety rather than useful measurement.
Is there a paid version with more detail?
The Grader itself stays free. What we sell separately are the human engagements a report might make sense to trigger: a $500 CAD written strategy that turns the report into a prioritised plan, a $950 CAD one-off Google Business Profile setup, or a monthly SEO engagement starting at $2,800 CAD. All three are optional. Some businesses run the Grader, take the recommendations, implement them themselves, and never speak to us — that is a fine outcome and one the tool is designed to allow.
Ready to Run Your Audit?
Free, no signup wall, no obligation. The report is yours whether or not you ever speak to us.
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