Local SEO for tradespeople, in plain English
Local SEO is simply what makes Google show your business when someone nearby searches for your trade. Most of it is not technical. It comes down to telling Google clearly what you do and where, and giving it reasons to trust you.
The two places you can appear
Local searches usually show a map with a few businesses, then normal website results underneath. The map comes mostly from Google Business Profiles; the results underneath come from websites. A tradesperson wants to be in both, and each helps the other.
What Google looks at
Relevance: does your profile and website clearly say you do the job being searched for? Distance: how close are you to the person searching or the place they named? Prominence: how well known and trusted are you, judged from things like reviews, mentions and links from other sites.
You cannot change distance, but you can do a lot about the other two.
Your website's part
A page for each main service you want more of, saying what it involves and showing your own photos. The towns you cover, named honestly. Your business name, phone number and area the same as on your Google profile. Fast on a phone, and easy to ring you from. That covers most of what a trade website needs for local search.
Your reputation's part
Reviews on your Google profile, steadily over time. Listings on a few genuine directories and trade bodies with the same name and number. Links from suppliers, local organisations and businesses you work with. These build prominence slowly, and they are hard for competitors to copy.
What to ignore
Anyone guaranteeing a top position. Buying links or reviews, which breaks Google's rules. Long lists of every town in the county on one page. Paying for 'SEO packages' that cannot explain in plain words what they will do.
A simple monthly routine
Local SEO rewards steady effort more than big pushes. Once a month: add a few photos of recent jobs to your Google profile and your website, ask every happy customer from that month for a review, reply to any reviews you have had, and check your phone number, hours and website link are still right everywhere they appear.
Every few months, look at Google Search Console (free) to see which searches your site appears for. If a service you want more of is missing, give it a clearer page with your own photos. That routine, kept up for a year, does more than most paid packages.
Common questions
- How long does local SEO take?
- A new website usually takes weeks to settle into Google. Reputation builds over months. Quick wins come from fixing your Google profile and making your website clear.
- Do I need to pay for SEO?
- Not necessarily. A properly built website and a well-kept Google profile cover the basics. Paid help makes sense when you know exactly what it will do.
- Should I have a page for every town?
- Only for towns where you have something real to say, such as jobs you have done there. Hundreds of near-identical town pages can do more harm than good.
If you would rather somebody just did it
I build websites for self-employed tradesmen and small businesses across the UK: £249.99 to build, then £49.99 a month to host, maintain and update it. The sites I have built show on page one of Google for 103 searches between them, in Search Console.