Local SEO field guide

How local results are ranked

When someone searches for a service near them, Google chooses which businesses to show mainly on three things. Knowing which ones you can influence keeps you from wasting effort.

That leaves two levers: describing your business accurately and completely (relevance), and earning genuine recognition over time (prominence). Everything in this guide works on one of the two.

Start with a fact inventory

Before editing anything, write down the facts customers rely on and where each one appears. Most local problems are inconsistencies: old opening hours on the website, a previous phone number on a directory, a service area that no longer matches reality.

• Business name exactly as it appears on your signage and paperwork
• Address, or the areas you serve if customers don't visit you
• Main phone number, and whether it reaches this location
• Regular hours, plus holiday and seasonal hours
• The services you actually offer today
• Website address and the page each service lives on

Compare that list against your website, your Google Business Profile and any other listings you control, such as Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, social profiles and industry directories. Record each mismatch with the place it appears before you change anything.

Set up your Business Profile properly

Google's guidelines for representing your business are specific, and breaking them can get a profile suspended. The ones that catch most small businesses out:

• Name: use your real-world business name. Adding taglines, service words or locations to the name isn't permitted.
• Address: use a precise address. If you visit customers rather than them visiting you, hide your address and set a service area instead.
• Service area: keep it realistic. Google says it generally shouldn't extend farther than about two hours of driving time.
• Categories: choose as few as possible to describe your core business, and pick what the business is rather than everything it does.
• Hours: give regular customer-facing hours and add special hours for holidays.
• Phone: use a number that connects to this location and that you control.

Then fill in what makes the profile complete: verification, attributes that apply to you, a short accurate description, and real photos of your work, team and premises. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results.

Give each real service a useful page

Your Business Profile points people to your website, so the page they land on should answer what they came to ask. One good page per service you actually offer usually beats a long list on the homepage.

• What is included, and what isn't
• Where you offer it, named the way customers say it
• Roughly what it costs, or what the price depends on
• How booking works and what happens on the day
• Answers to the questions customers ask on the phone
• Real photos and a clear way to get in touch

Be careful with town-by-town pages. Google's spam policies name "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. A page for a town is only worth having if it says something true and specific about serving that town.

Ask for reviews, and answer them

Reviews feed prominence and help customers decide. Make asking easy: Google lets you share a review link or QR code, so send it soon after the job, while the experience is fresh.

When you reply, keep it short, polite and specific. Skip the identical thank-you on every review and focus on ones where you can answer a question or explain what changed. For negative reviews, acknowledge real mistakes, explain what you can and can't do, never share the reviewer's private details, and sign with your name.

Check what changed, without over-reading it

Write each change down with its date, then look at the signals you can actually see: calls, direction requests and website clicks in your Business Profile performance view, and the searches that lead to your service pages in Search Console. Compare like with like, month on month.

Your working sheet

Print this page or copy the sheet. Fill one row per fact you plan to fix.