local-prospect-audit

Goal

Produce a GO / SOFT GO / NO-GO decision in under 5 minutes using cheap data sources. Max DataForSEO spend: $0.10 per prospect.

Required inputs (ask if missing)

• Business name
• City / primary market
• Primary service category
• Website URL (if they have one)

Data sources

• DataForSEO business_data/google/my_business_info/live -- GBP data for client and top 3 competitors (~$0.01)
• DataForSEO serp/google/organic/live/regular depth=1 -- check organic ranking (~$0.003)
• Direct website fetch -- check title tag, location pages (free)
• Auth: load DATAFORSEO_BASE64 from .env

Checklist (run in this order)

Step 1: GBP presence Call DataForSEO business_data for the client's business name + city.

• Does GBP exist? Is it verified?
• What is the primary category?
• How many reviews? What is approximate velocity (check date of most recent reviews)?

Step 2: Competitor benchmark Call DataForSEO business_data for "[primary service] [city]" to get top 3 map pack results. For each competitor record:

• Review count + velocity (look at most recent review date)
• Primary category
• Website domain

Velocity Override Rule:

• Competitor with 200+ reviews but last review 2+ months ago = WEAK (subtract 1 point from competition score)
• Competitor with 60+ reviews at 1-2/month = beatable despite total count
• Apply same logic to client: high count + low velocity = stagnating

Step 3: Title tag check Fetch client's homepage. Check:

• Does title tag start with [Service] + [City]?
• If not = easy win available

Step 4: Location pages Check if client has dedicated pages per city/neighborhood or just one page for all. No location pages = easy wins available.

Step 5: Organic position check DataForSEO SERP check for 2-3 main keywords. Is client visible at all?

Step 6: Competitor SEO activity Signs of active SEO agency: many optimized city pages, schema markup, keyword-rich title tags. Low competitor SEO activity = easier market.

Scoring

Opportunity Score (1-10) -- higher = better opportunity

• No GBP or unverified: +3
• Wrong/suboptimal category: +2
• Title tag not optimized: +2
• No location pages: +2
• Low review count vs competitors: +1

Competition Score (1-10) -- lower = easier market

• Top competitor 100+ reviews at 5+/month: +3
• Top competitor 50-99 reviews: +2
• Top competitor has active SEO (city pages, schema): +2
• Top competitor 10-30 reviews or low velocity: +1
• Apply velocity override: high count + low velocity = reduce score by 1

Decision logic

Output format

PROSPECT ASSESSMENT: [Business Name]
Decision: GO / SOFT GO / NO-GO

Opportunity Score: X/10
Competition Score: X/10

Key Findings:
- GBP: [present/missing] | Category: [correct/wrong -- should be: X] | Reviews: X (~Y/month)
- Title tag: "[current title]" -- [optimized/needs fix]
- Location pages: [yes/no]
- Top competitor: [name] | Reviews: X (~Y/month) | SEO activity: [low/medium/high]
- Review gap to beat top competitor: X reviews

Quick wins (week 1): [list]
Hard work needed: [list]

Recommendation:
[2-3 sentences: why GO/NO-GO, what the pitch is, what to watch out for]

Estimated effort: [Easy: 2-3h setup / Medium: 10-15h / Hard: ongoing competitive]
DataForSEO cost: ~$X

Edge cases

• No website at all: major opportunity (easy win), note in recommendation
• Client already ranking top 3: NO-GO or SOFT GO for maintenance only
• National franchise competitor dominating: flag as hard to beat
• 0 reviews: huge opportunity if category/market has demand