Local SEO is the work that gets you showing up when someone nearby searches for what you do. It is less technical than it sounds, most of it is one-off, and it is largely free. Here it is as a checklist, in the order I would work through it.
How local results are decided, roughly
Search engines are trying to answer three questions: is this business relevant to the search, is it close enough to the person searching, and is it a business other people trust. You cannot move your premises, so most of the work goes into being clearly relevant and visibly trustworthy.
1. Get your Google Business Profile right
This is the foundation. Claim and verify it, choose the most accurate primary category, set either an address or service areas depending on how you work, keep hours accurate, add real photos, list your services individually, and reply to every review. If you do nothing else on this list, do this.
2. Fix your name, address and phone number everywhere
Your business name, address and phone number should be identical everywhere they appear: your website, your profile, your invoices, your directory listings, your social accounts. Not roughly the same. Identical. Pick the correct version, write it down, and work through every place you appear.
Old listings from years ago with a previous number are a common and quietly damaging problem. Search your own phone number and old addresses to find them.
3. Put the basics on your website
- Your full address, or your coverage area if you travel, in the footer of every page.
- A phone number in the header, tappable on a phone.
- Opening hours on the contact page.
- A contact page with a form, a number, and an email address.
- A map if customers visit you.
4. Give each service its own page
One page per service, written properly, beats one page listing everything. On each, describe what the job involves, who it suits, what is included, what it typically costs or what affects the cost, and the questions you get asked constantly. Add photos of your own work.
A warning about location pages
It is tempting to create a page for every town you cover with the name swapped in. Done badly, that is a set of near-identical pages, and it can do more harm than good. Only make a location page if you have something genuinely different to say about working in that area.
5. Write the page titles for humans in your area
Every page has a title that appears in search results. Make each one specific and readable: the service, your business, and the area. Give every page its own, and never leave the ones your website builder generated by default.
6. Make the site quick and usable on a phone
Most local searches happen on a phone, often outdoors on a patchy connection. Compress your images, remove anything that pops up over the content, make buttons big enough to press, and test it on a real handset. A fast, boring site outperforms a slow, beautiful one.
7. Ask for reviews, properly and consistently
Reviews influence both whether you appear and whether anyone chooses you. Ask every happy customer at the moment they are happiest, send the direct link so it takes one tap, and make it a habit rather than a campaign. Do not offer anything in return, and never write them yourself. Reply to every review, including the difficult ones, calmly and specifically.
8. Get listed where your trade is listed
Beyond the big directories, most trades have a handful of listings that genuinely matter: your trade association, your accreditation bodies, your local chamber or town directory, your suppliers' installer finders. These are worth more than a hundred generic directory submissions, and they usually only need doing once.
9. Add the structured details search engines look for
There is a standard, invisible way of labelling your business details on your website so search engines can read them without guessing: your name, address, phone, hours, services and reviews. Most website platforms support it through a setting or plugin, and it is a small job for a developer. It will not transform your rankings on its own, but it removes doubt.
10. Keep a light habit going
Local SEO is mostly front-loaded, but a small routine keeps it healthy:
- Monthly: ask for reviews, reply to new ones, add a couple of job photos.
- Quarterly: search your main services on a phone away from your premises and see what a customer sees. Check your listings still match.
- Twice a year: review your service pages, update prices and coverage, check for new duplicate listings.
What to expect, honestly
This work does not switch on overnight, and nobody can promise you a particular position. What it does reliably do is make sure you are eligible: that your business is described clearly, listed consistently, easy to contact and visibly trusted. Most trade businesses I look at are losing local searches for very fixable reasons, and the fixes are on this list.