In 2026, the MSPs winning the most business in your local market aren’t necessarily the best service providers. But they do have the best local SEO strategy. With 46% of all Google searches looking for local information, local SEO for MSPs has become one of the most important marketing channels in your arsenal.
When Wi-Fi goes down or a server fails, business owners aren't just frustrated—they're losing money by the minute. They're going to whip out their iPhone and search "IT help near me" and 60% of them will click on one of the first three results that appear. Your MSP’s local search engine optimization strategy is the difference between having a calendar full of prospect meetings and having a single new meeting every other month.
Don’t leave local rankings up to chance. Here’s our time-tested 9-step framework that separates MSPs who dominate local search from those who don't show up at all:
A Google Business Profile (GBP) is a free listing that controls how your MSP appears across Google Search and Google Maps. It displays your business name, address and phone number, hours of operation, services, photos, and customer reviews, all in a prominent panel that appears before users ever visit your website.
Your Google Business Profile is one of the most important parts of local SEO for MSPs.When a business owner searches "IT support near me" or "managed IT in [city]," Google prioritizes GBP listings in what's known as the Local Pack; the map-based results that sit at the very top of the page. A fully optimized profile puts your MSP in front of high-intent, ready-to-buy potential clients at exactly the moment they need help the most.
Your primary category is one of the most important signals Google uses to determine when to show your profile. For most MSPs, "Computer Support and Services" will be the most accurate fit.
Subcategories give Google a more in-depth picture of what your MSP offers and helps you surface in a wider range of local searches. Add categories like "Computer Security Service," "Computer Network Service," or "Telecommunications Service Provider" if applicable.
Here are a few of our favorites Google subcategories for Managed Service Providers:
Google requires a legitimate, staffed business address to verify your listing and maintain your ranking in location-based search results. A P.O. Box or virtual office address can get your profile suspended entirely. If you work from home, Google does allow you to hide your address while still defining a service area.
Your GBP description should clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and where you do it. Lead with your primary service and location, and weave in relevant keywords naturally. Think of it as a concise pitch to both Google and the business owner who's about to decide whether to call you.
Google rewards profiles that show consistent activity, treating regular updates as a signal that your business is legitimate, engaged, and relevant to local searches. Here’s what you need to consider for ongoing GBP management:
Regularly posting updates, promotions, and announcements on your GBP signals to Google that your business is active and engaged. Aim for at least one post per week and share tips or service highlights to keep your profile fresh.
I can’t tell you how many businesses don’t do this. It’s so easy and oh so important. Every review, positive or negative, needs to be responded to. For whatever reason, Google really likes to see this. Make it a habit to respond within 24-48 hours. If you get a negative review, respond calmly and constructively and seek to resolve the users issue and broker a deal to get the review removed, regardless of the cost.
I’ve seen local businesses offer discounts of more than $1,000 to resolve a single negative review, which highlights just how important review management is in local SEO for MSPs.
Here’s another one that businesses often mess up, especially if they’ve been in business for 10+ years. Your business name, address, and phone number must be identical across every platform where your MSP is listed, including your website, local directories, and your GBP.
Fresh photos and videos give your profile a human face and signal to Google that your business is active and thriving. Showcase your team, your office, and your work environment, as profiles with regular photo updates receive significantly more clicks and direction requests than those without.
Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes: who are you more likely to buy from? A business that has tons of photos of their actual office and team members or a business that only has a handful of outdated stock photos?
Positive reviews are the lifeblood of your local MSP strategy and are the single most important ranking factor for your Google Business Profile. Don’t leave review acquisition up to chance. If you only obtain a review when a customer randomly feels compelled to submit one on their own, you are going to fall behind competitors who have a repeatable review process.
Chances are there are a few juggernauts in your local map pack that have 100+ reviews. The gap between you and your competitors might feel daunting. And it should. But, fortunately for you, Google disproportionately favors review velocity over pure review volume.
If your MSP has 25 reviews and your biggest competitor has 125, but you are gaining three times as many new reviews each month, Google will view your business as more relevant and attractive. That increased relevance can help you rank higher in local results.
The best time to ask a client for a review is right after your team has solved their problem and they’re feeling relieved. Setting up an automated workflow that sends a Google review request when a support ticket closes with a positive satisfaction score helps you capture that moment consistently.
Tools like CrewHu make this easy by triggering review requests based on customer feedback, so your review pipeline runs quietly in the background. Because reviews play a critical role in your MSP’s local SEO strategy, some providers also include a small thank-you incentive, such as a $20 to $25 gift card, to encourage clients to leave feedback.
These listings act as trusted citation sources that reinforce your business name, address, phone number, and category signals across the web. When Google sees consistent, high-quality citations from authoritative directories, it increases confidence in your business’s legitimacy and location.
Strong directory listings also support your proximity and prominence signals, which are two key factors in local pack rankings. Many of these platforms rank well organically on their own, meaning your profile can appear in branded and non-branded searches even when your website does not. That visibility often drives branded searches, profile views, direction requests, and phone calls, all of which send positive engagement signals back to your Google Business Profile.
Chances are you’ve probably heard about CloudTango. Based in Barcelona, Spain, CloudTango is the world’s largest MSP directory and maintains a database of more than 10,000 MSPs worldwide. Across the US, CloudTango ranks on the first page of Google for 1,421 keywords containing “managed IT” and “IT support,” making it the most visible MSP directory in search and a strong example of how directories can dominate local SEO for MSPs.
Profiles on CloudTango are free and, to my knowledge, they do not offer paid plans for priority placement. Unlike Clutch, they make their data by selling information on IT service providers to 3rd parties. Here's a link to setup a profile if your MSP isn't already listed.
Across the US, Yelp has 1,168 keywords that contain “Managed IT” and “IT Support” on the first page of Google. Making it the second largest MSP directory in terms of search visibility.
A basic Yelp listing is free. Paid advertising options vary widely depending on market and competition.
Coming in at #3, Clutch has 697 keywords that contain “Managed IT” and “IT Support” on the first page of Google in the US.
Clutch offers a free profile with limited visibility. Paid plans vary based on category competitiveness and placement, typically ranging from several hundred to several thousand dollars per month.
For one of our MSP clients Clutch charged $560/month for a 9-city listing which would produce around 32 monthly visitors ($17/visitor).
So far, everything we’ve covered has been focused on the Local Pack where your Google Business Profile is listed. In this next series of tips we will focus on organic search results and strategies to improve your visibility there.
The more times your brand appears in the search engine results page, the better. When a user types “Managed IT in Cincinnati” the first section that appears is the sponsored ads. The second is the Local Map Pack, and the third, which takes up most of the page, are the organic search results. The more SERP “realestate” your brand occupies the more leads your MSP will generate. As simple as that.
So far, everything we’ve covered has been focused on the Local Pack where your Google Business Profile is listed. In this next series of tips we will focus on organic search results and strategies to improve your visibility there.
Building intent-driven landing pages is a foundational part of MSP local SEO, especially when you’re trying to rank for local, service-specific searches. To appear in organic results, your MSP needs pages that are intentionally built around what the searcher is actually looking for. Google’s job is to match each query with the most relevant page possible, and a generic service page often falls short when someone is searching for a local solution to a specific problem.
Consider geography first. Someone searching "Managed IT Cincinnati" has different intent than someone searching "Managed IT Minneapolis" — they want to see a provider that speaks directly to their market, not a one-size-fits-all page. The same logic applies within a single city. Each of these searches represents a different need and requires its own dedicated page:
At a minimum, your MSP should have dedicated local landing pages built for each of your core services in every city you target. That means individual pages for IT Support, Managed IT, Managed Cybersecurity, and IT Consulting, each optimized with the right local keywords and tailored content for that specific service and location combination. The more precisely your landing pages match what potential clients are searching for, the better your chances of showing up when it counts most.
Building a network of local landing pages creates a compounding effect that strengthens your entire local SEO strategy. When those pages are organized by service and location and connected intentionally, they signal to Google that your MSP has real experience across the major disciplines of information technology and can be trusted as an authoritative local provider.
This structure also aligns with how users actually search. Someone who lands on your “Managed IT in Cincinnati” page is often interested in related services like “Managed Cybersecurity in Cincinnati.” By linking these pages together in a logical, intuitive way, you improve the user experience while simultaneously passing link equity from one page to the next.
Google interprets this internal linking structure as a signal of topical authority. As a result, MSPs that build deep, well-organized networks of location-based content are rewarded over those that publish a handful of disconnected pages and stop there.
Start by using a keyword research tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to identify how prospects search for your core services. Begin by listing your main offerings and the common ways they are phrased, such as “IT support,” “helpdesk,” “managed IT support,” and related variations.
Use an “if contains any” style filter to surface keywords that include those service terms. Then rotate the city name in your search so that for each location you enter, the tool generates hundreds of localized keyword opportunities.
Add all clearly relevant keywords to a master keyword list. Once complete, export the list and group keywords based on similar search intent. These groupings will form the foundation of your location-based landing pages.
For a complete guide on how to steal keywords from your competitors checkout our related blog here.
Before creating pages, develop a standard geo page template on your website. This template should include consistent structural elements such as headings, internal links, service descriptions, trust signals, and calls to action.
Here’s a high-level layout that we have found a lot of success with:
Use this same template across all geo pages to maintain consistency and scalability. For each location, customize the copy, imagery, internal links, and references to reflect the city and services being targeted. This approach allows you to scale quickly without sacrificing quality or relevance.
Creating blog content around local attractions and landmarks strengthens your local MSP SEO strategy by supporting your geo-focused landing pages. These posts add depth to your content silos, helping search engines better understand your relevance and expertise within a specific location.
Beyond SEO, this content is a strong driver of brand awareness. Articles focused on popular attractions attract both local residents and visitors, introducing your brand to users who may not yet be searching for your services but are still within your target market.
Most importantly, publishing consistent, location-specific content helps establish topical authority. It signals to Google that you are not just present in a city, but knowledgeable about it. By covering well known landmarks, neighborhoods, and activities, you reinforce your credibility as a local expert and strengthen the overall authority of your geo pages.
Before writing, search volume and keyword difficulty should guide your topic selection. Conduct keyword research to identify high volume, low difficulty keywords related to attractions in your target city. These keywords often include landmarks, museums, parks, events, and commonly searched activities.
Every keyword you target should clearly relate to a real local attraction in the city you are trying to rank for. Avoid broad travel topics that could apply anywhere. Specificity is what strengthens the connection between your content and your geo pages.
In many cases, guide style content performs extremely well. For example, creating a piece like “Top 10 Things to Do in Cincinnati” allows you to capture multiple keywords in a single article while naturally referencing several local attractions. These guides also make it easy to internally link to other supporting pages within your location silo.
Local attraction blogs should be written with internal linking in mind. Each supporting page should include at least one link to another supporting page and one link to a primary geo page. This creates a tightly connected internal network that helps distribute authority throughout your location based content.
As a general best practice, aim for five to six supporting pages per geo page. For example, if you have four geo pages targeting different services in the same city, you could support them with up to twenty attraction focused blog posts.
The exact number of supporting pages you need depends on how competitive the SERP is for the geo page’s target keyword. Some geo pages rank quickly with minimal support, sometimes within hours of launch. More competitive locations may require a larger volume of supporting content to build enough authority and relevance to compete effectively.
This strategy follows the same foundational process as writing about local attractions, but shifts the focus to topics that matter most to residents in your target city. Instead of landmarks and destinations, the emphasis is on local interests, trends, and community-specific topics that signal cultural and regional relevance.
Examples of local interest topics include neighborhood spotlights, annual events and festivals, local business roundups, industry trends impacting the area, lifestyle topics tied to the region, and city-specific news that aligns with your audience. These topics help you connect with users on a more personal level while still supporting your local SEO goals.
From a search perspective, these posts expand your keyword footprint beyond traditional attraction-based terms. Many local interest keywords have lower competition and strong intent, making them ideal for supporting geo pages and capturing incremental local traffic.
Backlinks act as trust signals that help search engines verify your authority, credibility, and relevance on a specific topic. When reputable and industry-relevant websites link to your content, they are effectively vouching for your expertise. In local SEO, these signals carry even more weight when backlinks are tied to your service area or niche, reinforcing both topical and geographic authority.
Objectively, backlinks remain one of the strongest ranking factors in Google’s algorithm and are often the deciding factor in competitive MSP markets. This is especially true for geo pages targeting difficult keywords, where on-page optimization and Google Business Profile activity alone are not enough. High-quality backlinks pointing directly to your geo pages increase their authority, improve visibility, and give Google a clear reason to rank them above competitors.
Start by listing customers, vendors, referral partners, and other businesses you already have a strong relationship with. These are the easiest opportunities because trust already exists. This list can also include business owners you know personally. In many cases, business owners are connected to other business owners, which can lead to additional backlink opportunities through warm introductions rather than cold outreach.
When reaching out, explain the importance of backlinks in simple terms and position the exchange as a win for both parties. Emphasize how the collaboration can help improve visibility and authority for both websites. Be specific in your ask by identifying a particular page on their website that could benefit from an extra backlink or two. A clear, thoughtful pitch makes it easier for the partner to see the value and say yes.
To maximize participation, remove as much friction as possible. Write the blog content yourself for both companies, ensuring it is relevant, high quality, and valuable to each audience. Add the backlink naturally within the content, then hand everything off to your partner so all they need to do is upload it to their website and hit publish. Taking ownership of the process makes this approach scalable and highly effective.
Local backlinks are essential, but in many cases they are not sufficient on their own. Highly competitive keywords often require an additional authority boost to break into top positions. This is especially true for MSPs operating in major cities, where you are likely competing against other providers that are actively investing in SEO and working with professional agencies.
Non-local, high-authority backlinks help level the playing field. These links increase the overall authority of your domain and your geo pages, making it easier for Google to justify ranking your site above competitors with similar on-page optimization and local signals.
Using SEMrush, you can pull a list of websites that are already linking to your search competitors. These sites have demonstrated a willingness to link to content in your niche, making them strong outreach targets. Reach out to these website owners and pitch a high-quality piece of content you have written as a replacement for the content they are currently linking to on your competitor’s site. This approach works best when your content is more current, more detailed, or has unique research.
A guest post is when a third party publishes a blog post on someone else’s website in exchange for a backlink. In most cases, this is a paid arrangement where the writer pays the website owner a fee to publish the content and include a do-follow link. When done carefully on reputable, relevant sites, guest posts can significantly increase the rankings of a targeted page.
Word of caution: there are a LOT of scammy guest post sites that sell low-cost highly toxic backlinks. Backlinks can do more harm than good if not properly vetted.
Search is evolving. After Google rolled out its AI summaries, many brands experienced a noticeable reduction in organic clicks as answers began appearing directly in the search results. As a result, “spray and pray” SEO no longer works. Managed service providers need a clear, well-thought-out local SEO strategy that prioritizes authority, relevance, and trust in order to consistently generate high-quality inbound leads. Local SEO in 2026 is about maximizing your brand’s real estate in the SERP, not just ranking a single page.
The strategies outlined in this guide are difficult to implement, but they do work. Our clients generate hundreds of thousands in net new pipeline every month with our local MSP SEO strategy. If you need help getting started or have a specific question about one of the sections discussed in this guide, please drop me a line on LinkedIn. Profile is in the Bio.