Local SEO basics: how to get on the map

Local search is decided by three things: proximity, relevance and prominence. You cannot influence proximity, but you can influence the other two.

This also explains why local visibility varies between neighbourhoods. The same business can top the map results for searches in its own block and be absent three kilometres away. The goal is not to appear everywhere, but to appear where your customers are searching.

Get the Business Profile right

Fill it in completely: categories, services, opening hours, photos and description. An incomplete profile is the single most common reason a business does not appear in map results.

Go through the profile field by field and complete everything that applies to your business. Add services as individual entries, update exceptional opening hours before public holidays, and use your own photographs rather than stock images. The profile is not a one-off task: out-of-date information is both a ranking problem and a customer service problem.

Category is the single most important choice

Your primary category decides which searches your profile competes in at all. Choosing the wrong one is a more effective way to stay out of the results than any other mistake.

Pick a primary category that describes the core of your business as precisely as possible, and add your other services as secondary categories. Check which categories the top results in your area use — that is the fastest way to see what works for a given search. Do not add categories you do not genuinely serve, because it dilutes your relevance.

Reviews are a ranking factor

Volume, recency and your replies all count. Ask for a review systematically after every successful job and respond to every one — including the critical ones.

Make the asking a routine: the same moment in the process, the same direct link, the same short message. A steady flow of new reviews is better than a one-off burst, which looks unnatural.

Never buy reviews, write them yourself or offer a reward for them. It breaks the platform’s terms, and the consequence can be removed reviews or a suspended profile. Replying calmly to a critical review is in practice a stronger trust signal than a flawless average.

Keep your contact details consistent

Your name, address and phone number should be identical everywhere: on the website, in your Google profile, in directories and on social accounts.

Small differences — an abbreviated street name, an old phone number, a different spelling of the company name — make it harder for search engines to connect those mentions to the same business. Decide on one official form and use it without exception. Mark the details up with structured data as well, so they are machine-readable.

Mentions and directories

Prominence is built outside your own site. In practice that means regional and industry directories, chambers of commerce and associations, local media and the sites of your partners.

Quality beats quantity. Ten relevant, genuinely maintained sources are worth more than a hundred automated directory listings. Start with the places your local competitors already appear in, then move on to the ones they have missed.

Real location pages

If you operate in several cities, each one needs its own page with genuinely local content. Duplicated pages with the city name swapped do not work.

A real location page explains what you do there and for whom: the typical needs in that area, work you have delivered there, a local contact, directions, and regional prices or lead times where relevant. If you cannot write anything about the page that would not apply equally to another city, the page is not worth publishing.

Service area businesses

If you travel to the customer rather than the other way round, do not publish your home address. Define a service area in the profile and keep the street address hidden.

Keep the service area realistic. Covering an entire country does not improve visibility, and an implausibly wide area can trigger a review of the profile. Define the areas the way you actually serve them.

Measurement

You cannot measure local visibility with your own search, because the result depends on where you are. Use a tool that checks rankings from several points across the area, or at least compare the city centre and the outskirts separately.

Track calls, direction requests and website clicks from the profile’s own reports. They describe local demand more accurately than a ranking number, and they are easier to compare against sales.

The most common mistakes

• The wrong primary category, or categories you do not genuinely serve.
• Keywords stuffed into the business name when the official name is different.
• Several profiles for the same location.
• Location pages copied from each other with only the city name changed.
• Stopping review requests as soon as the results improve.