Get set up
How to Use RankLocal: The Complete Platform Tour
A tour of the RankLocal dashboard: the location switcher, health score panel and the main tabs for citations, reviews and grid tracking that everything else in the course builds on.
Want to earn a Rankar Academy certificate?
This guide is free to read in full, with nothing to sign up for. Join the Academy to track your learning, complete courses and sit the certification assessment.
Join the Academy →Local visibility map
RankLocal · Get set up
Stage 1
dashboard layout
Stage 2
Adding your first location
Stage 3
Understanding the tab structure
The dashboard layout
Opening RankLocal lands you on the Overview tab, with the location switcher pinned top-left for accounts managing more than one business. The centre panel shows the health score gauge, and the sidebar lists Citations, Reviews, Rank Tracking, Content and Reports.
Adding your first location
Click Add Location and either search by business name to pull matching Google Business Profile listings or enter details manually if the business isn't yet listed. Confirming ownership triggers a verification check before data starts populating.
Understanding the tab structure
Each sidebar tab is self-contained but references the others — the health score pulls from citations and reviews, and rank tracking references the same location's target keywords, so setting these up in order matters.
- Overview — health score and quick summary
- Citations — directory listings and NAP consistency
- Reviews — request and response management
- Rank Tracking — grid map for local visibility
Switching between locations
The location switcher at the top persists your tab selection, so if you're reviewing Citations for one branch and switch location, you land on Citations for the new one too — useful for agency accounts checking the same thing across clients.
Why this matters
The Health Score in RankLocal is not merely a vanity metric; it directly correlates with your local search visibility and competitive standing. A consistently low score, for example, might indicate fundamental issues with your Google Business Profile (GBP) completeness, citation accuracy, or review velocity. Ignoring these signals can lead to your clients' businesses being outranked by competitors with more robust local SEO profiles, even if their core services are inferior. Proactive monitoring of this score allows for immediate identification of deteriorating local SEO performance.
Conversely, maintaining a high Health Score translates to tangible SEO benefits, such as improved rankings in the Google Maps Pack and increased organic discovery for local queries. Consider a scenario where a client's score dips due to a sudden influx of negative reviews or unaddressed GBP inconsistencies. Without the Health Score as an immediate alert, these issues could fester, leading to lost customer trust and decreased footfall. Utilising this metric effectively enables you to pinpoint and rectify critical issues before they significantly impact local revenue.
Interpreting the Health Score Breakdown
The composite Health Score presented on the dashboard is derived from several underlying factors, each weighted according to its impact on local search performance. Hovering over or clicking the score will typically reveal a breakdown, detailing contributions from GBP completeness, citation accuracy, review quantity and sentiment, and local ranking performance. Understanding these individual components is crucial for diagnosis; a high overall score might mask a weakness in one area, such as excellent GBP but poor review management.
When the Health Score fluctuates, your immediate action should be to consult this breakdown. A decline predominantly driven by 'Reviews' indicates a need to investigate recent feedback and client response strategies, whereas a drop in 'Citations' suggests an audit of directory listings. This diagnostic approach allows for targeted interventions, ensuring that your optimisation efforts are focused on the most impactful areas rather than adopting a scattergun approach. Always prioritise the lowest-scoring components for immediate attention.
- Inspect the component breakdown immediately after adding a new location.
- Prioritise improving the lowest-scoring individual factor first.
- Benchmark component scores against competitors if data is available.
- Recognise that some components (e.g., reviews) are more dynamic than others.
Do it now
With your initial location now connected, navigate back to the main RankLocal dashboard. Locate the Health Score panel for the connected profile. Take a moment to hover over the main Health Score number and then click into it to view the detailed breakdown. Familiarise yourself with each contributing factor and note down any immediate low-scoring areas that require your attention as you proceed through this guide. This initial diagnostic step is foundational for all subsequent optimisation efforts.
- Select your newly added location using the switcher.
- Locate the 'Health Score' panel on the dashboard.
- Hover over the Health Score for a quick overview.
- Click the score to view the detailed breakdown and individual contributing factors.
Key takeaways
- ✓Start from Overview to understand where a location currently stands
- ✓Add and verify a location before expecting data to populate
- ✓Work through sidebar tabs roughly in order since later ones depend on earlier data
- ✓Use the location switcher's persistent tab selection when managing multiple branches
Do it now
Connect a profile and understand the health score before making changes. Audit the local footprint.