🗺️ Overview: Two Separate but Complementary Features
Search Atlas offers two distinct tools that are often confused with one another: the Site Analysis feature for prospecting, and Local SEO Heatmaps for tracking local search visibility. This article explains what each tool does, how to access it, and how they work together.
🔍 What Is the Site Analysis Feature?
The Site Analysis feature is designed to help you — or your potential clients — quickly evaluate the SEO health of any website before committing to a service engagement. It provides a high-level snapshot of key on-site and off-site metrics, making it a powerful tool for agency prospecting and client onboarding conversations.
With Site Analysis, you can review data such as:
- Domain authority and backlink profile
- Organic keyword rankings and estimated traffic
- On-page SEO signals and technical issues
- Competitor comparisons at a glance
To access Site Analysis, go to Left sidebar → Site Metrics (Site Explorer) (URL: /site-explorer/list). From there, enter any domain to pull a full report. You can share insights from this view directly with prospects during discovery calls or proposals.
📍 What Are Local SEO Heatmaps?
Local SEO Heatmaps are a separate feature focused on geographic search visibility. They show you how a business ranks for specific keywords across different locations on a map grid — invaluable for businesses targeting customers in a defined service area.
Heatmaps answer questions like:
- Does this business appear in the Google local pack near its address?
- How does visibility change block by block across a city?
- Which areas need the most local SEO improvement?
Local SEO Heatmaps are set up and managed independently from Site Analysis. They are not embedded within the Site Analysis report — you configure them as a standalone workflow, typically after a prospect becomes an active client and you have defined their target keywords and service area.
⚙️ How to Set Up a Local SEO Heatmap
- Navigate to Local → Local SEO Heatmaps in the left sidebar.
- Click Create New Heatmap.
- Enter the business name, address, and the target keyword you want to track.
- Set your grid size — this determines how wide an area the heatmap will scan around the business location.
- Click Save. Results typically populate within a few minutes.
- Review the color-coded grid: green indicates strong local rankings, red indicates weak or no visibility for that keyword in that location.
You can create multiple heatmaps per client — one for each target keyword or service area. This lets you track progress over time as your local SEO efforts take effect.
💡 Can Prospects View Heatmaps During Site Analysis?
No — Local SEO Heatmaps are not available within the Site Analysis tool. They are a separate feature and are not displayed as part of a prospect's initial site report. Here is a quick summary of how both tools fit into a typical agency workflow:
- Before becoming a client: Use Site Analysis (via Site Explorer) to audit a prospect's domain, identify SEO gaps, and build a compelling proposal.
- After onboarding: Set up Local SEO Heatmaps to establish a baseline for local visibility and begin tracking ranking improvements by location.
This two-stage approach ensures prospects receive a meaningful overview of their SEO situation upfront, while deeper local tracking tools are activated once an active project is underway.
✅ Quick Reference Summary
- Site Analysis — domain-level SEO audit, accessible at /site-explorer/list, ideal for prospecting.
- Local SEO Heatmaps — geographic ranking visualisation, set up separately under Local → Local SEO Heatmaps, ideal for active local campaigns.
- The two features work together across the client lifecycle but are not combined in a single view.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.