Think about the last time you needed a plumber, a dentist or somewhere to eat. You probably pulled out your phone, typed what you needed, maybe added "near me," and picked from the three businesses on the map at the top. Most people never scroll past them.
That little map is where a lot of local customers are won or lost. Getting into it isn't luck, and it isn't something only big companies can do. It comes down to a handful of things Google looks at, and most of them are in your hands.
How Google decides who's on the map
Google is fairly open about this. Its own help pages say local results come down to three things:
- Relevance: how well your business matches what the person searched for. A bakery won't show up for "wedding cakes" if nothing on its profile or website mentions wedding cakes.
- Distance: how far you are from the person searching, or from the place they named in the search.
- Prominence: how well known and trusted you are. Reviews, mentions around the web, links to your website and how established you are online all feed into it.
You can't move your shop closer to every customer, so distance is mostly out of your hands. Relevance and prominence are where the work goes, and that's good news, because a small business that does them well can outrank a bigger one down the street.
You can't change how far away you are. You can change how good a match you look.
You don't need to write "near me" anywhere
It's tempting to sprinkle "near me" across your website. Don't bother. When someone searches "tailor near me," Google already knows where they're standing and reads it as "tailors close to this person." The words "near me" on your page don't help, and stuffing them in reads badly to the people you're trying to win over.
What helps is making it obvious what you do and where you do it, in plain language, in the places Google looks.
Make your Business Profile the most complete one around
Your Google Business Profile is the listing that shows on the map. If you only do one thing from this post, do this. Most local competitors fill in the basics and stop, which leaves plenty of room to stand out.
- Choose your main category carefully. It's one of the strongest signals you have. Pick the one that describes your core business, then add a few secondary categories for the other things you genuinely do.
- List your services or products, each with a short description in the words customers use.
- Write a real description. Say what you do, who you do it for and the areas you cover, like you'd explain it to a neighbour.
- Keep your hours right, including holidays. Few things lose a customer quicker than turning up to a locked door.
- Add photos regularly. The outside so people can find you, the inside, your team and your work. Real photos beat stock ones every time.
- Post updates now and then: a seasonal offer, a finished project, a new service. It shows the business is active.
- Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your sign. Adding extra keywords to the name breaks Google's rules and can get the listing suspended.
If you go to your customers
Electricians, cleaners, landscapers and mobile groomers don't have a shopfront customers visit. Google calls these service-area businesses, and the profile works a little differently.
You can hide your street address so it isn't shown publicly, and list the towns or areas you serve instead. Keep that list to the places you actually work, and make sure your website names the same areas. A profile that claims a huge region but has nothing on the website to back it up won't carry much weight.
Back it up on your website
Google checks your profile against your website. When the two tell the same story, it trusts both a bit more.
- Show your name, address and phone number in the footer, written exactly as they are on your profile.
- Give each service a page of its own, so Google can match you to more specific searches.
- Add a page for each area you serve, if you can say something real about it. Projects you've done there, photos, how you get there, what's different about the area. Copying one page and swapping the town name is something Google treats as spam, and it tends to backfire.
- Put a map and directions on your contact page, if customers come to you.
- Add local business details to your site's code. A small block of structured data tells Google your name, address, hours and phone directly. Your web developer will know it as LocalBusiness schema.
If your site isn't showing up in search at all, fix that first. Why your website isn't showing up on Google walks through how to check.
Get listed where people look
Every trustworthy place online that lists your business with the same details is another small vote of confidence. These listings are often called citations. You don't need hundreds, just the ones that matter, with details that match:
- The big ones: Apple Business Connect (for Apple Maps and Siri), Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook and the Better Business Bureau.
- Your industry's own sites: Houzz or Angi for trades, Healthgrades or Zocdoc for practices, Avvo or Justia for law firms, TripAdvisor or OpenTable for restaurants.
- Local ones: your chamber of commerce, the town's business directory, local trade associations.
Write your name, address and phone number the same way everywhere. "Suite 4" on one site and "Unit 4" on another is a small thing, but small mismatches add up and make it harder for Google to be sure they're all you.
Earn a few local links
Links from other local websites to yours are one of the clearest signs of prominence. They're also easier to come by than most people think, because you're probably already doing the things that earn them:
- Sponsoring a youth team, a charity run or a school event, which usually earns a mention on their website.
- Joining the chamber of commerce or a local business group with a members page.
- Asking suppliers and partners you work with to list you on their site.
- Getting featured in local news, a neighbourhood blog or a "best of" roundup.
A handful of real links from local sites will do more than any number of links you could buy, and they come with actual neighbours who might send work your way.
Keep the reviews coming
Reviews feed prominence directly, and they're often what a customer reads before deciding between you and the business above you. Google looks at how many you have, how good they are, how recent they are and whether you reply.
A steady trickle beats a burst every couple of years. How to get more Google reviews without being pushy covers when to ask and how to make it easy.
See what's working
You don't need fancy tools to tell whether this is paying off:
- Your profile's Performance page shows how many people called, asked for directions or clicked to your website, and which searches found you.
- Tag the website link on your profile, by adding something like ?utm_source=gbp to the end of it, so Google Analytics can show visits that came from the map separately.
- Ask new customers how they found you. It's old fashioned and it still works.
Local results usually move sooner than general search rankings, but it's still weeks to months, not days. How long does SEO take? has a realistic timeline.
Shortcuts that backfire
A few things promise quick results and end up costing you the listing:
- A virtual office or mailbox address to look closer to a busy area. Google doesn't allow it, and listings found doing it get removed.
- Keywords stuffed into your business name, like "Smith Plumbing Best Emergency Plumber Downtown."
- Buying reviews, or offering discounts for them. Both break Google's rules, and reviews get removed in bulk when it's spotted.
- A separate listing for every service. One business, one location, one profile.
Where to start this week
If that feels like a lot, take it in this order:
- Claim and verify your Google Business Profile, and check your main category.
- Fill in every section: services, description, hours, photos.
- Make your name, address and phone number match on your website and profile.
- Get listed on Apple Business Connect and Bing Places.
- Ask your last few happy customers for a review.
- Add the tag to your profile's website link so you can see what it brings in.
Local search rewards the businesses that keep showing up, a little at a time. If you'd rather hand it over, our SEO work covers all of it, from the profile to the pages on your site. We do a lot of it for home service companies, practices and restaurants. Get in touch and we'll tell you where you stand.
