Local SEO for small businesses is the work of being found by people searching for what you do near where they are: “electrician Didsbury”, “café near me”, “roofer Wallasey”. It sounds like a specialism, and agencies sell it as one, but most of it is a short list of ordinary jobs done properly and kept up. This is that list, without the jargon, and with what Google itself says decides the results.
What local SEO actually means
When someone searches with a place in mind, Google usually shows two kinds of result. Near the top, a map with a short list of businesses under it: those are Google Business Profiles. Below it, the ordinary list of websites. Local SEO is about both, and they feed each other.
The map list is where most local enquiries start, and you get into it with a Business Profile rather than a website. How to get your business on Google Maps covers setting one up. The ordinary list is where your website competes, and it is also one of the things Google reads when deciding how relevant and how well known your profile is.
The three things Google says it uses
Google publishes the basis of its local ranking on its help page tips to improve your local ranking:
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Relevance
Relevance is how well a profile matches what someone searched for. This is the part you control most directly.
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Distance
Distance is how far the business is from the searcher, or from the place named in the search. You cannot change it, which is why a business in the next town has a harder job for a “near me” search than one around the corner.
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Prominence
Prominence is how well known the business is. Google says this draws on information from across the web, including links and reviews, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help.
The same page says plainly that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google. Anyone who promises you a position is promising something Google says cannot be sold.
Relevance: say what you do, and where
Most small business sites are vague in exactly the two places Google needs them to be specific.
On the profile. Choose the primary category that completes “this business is a…”, add your services one by one, and set your service area by town or postcode if customers do not come to you.
On the website. Give each main service its own page, and name the towns you cover in the text. A page title is the line Google shows as the blue link, and it is the cheapest relevance signal there is.
- Right “Boiler repairs and servicing in Stockport and Cheadle | [Business name]”
- Not “Home | Welcome to our website”
Breakwater Roofing, a demo we built for a roofer in Wallasey, names the parts of the Wirral it covers in its own text rather than saying “the North West”, which is the habit worth copying. What a tradesperson’s website needs goes through the service pages in more detail.
Prominence: reviews and mentions
Prominence is the slow part, and there is no shortcut that survives.
Reviews. Ask every happy customer, every time, and reply to every review, including the bad ones. How to get more Google reviews has the wording and the rules: since April 2025, fake reviews and concealed incentives for reviews are banned under UK consumer law.
Mentions and links. Other sites naming and linking to your business tell Google you exist in the real world. For a local business the useful ones are local and real: a trade body’s member directory, the suppliers you buy from, a club or event you sponsor, a piece in the local paper about a job. Five of those are worth more than a hundred directory listings bought in a bundle.
Consistency: the same details everywhere
Your business name, phone number and address or service area appear in many places: your website, your Google profile, Apple Maps, Facebook, trade directories, old adverts. When they disagree, Google has less confidence that they are all the same business.
- Right “Smith & Daughters Plumbing”, with the same phone number, written the same way on the website, the profile and every directory.
- Not “Smith Plumbing” on Google, “Smith & Daughters Ltd” on the website, and an old mobile number on a directory from 2019.
Search for your business name and old phone numbers once a year and correct what you find. It is dull work and it is most of what an agency means by “citations”.
Your website’s part
Beyond naming services and towns, the website does three technical jobs, and none needs specialist knowledge to check.
- It works on a phone. Most local searches happen on one. Test it on yours.
- It loads quickly. Google’s free PageSpeed Insights shows the numbers that matter; read the mobile result.
- It tells Google the facts in a form it can read. Structured data is a block of code describing the business, its name, address and opening hours, that Google uses for business details in search. Ask whoever built your site whether it has it; if they do not know what you mean, that is an answer too.
If people are finding the site but not getting in touch, the problem is no longer local SEO: website not getting enquiries? covers what to check next.
What to ignore
- Keywords or town names added to your business name on Google. It is against Google’s guidelines and a common reason for suspension.
- A second profile for another town where you have no premises.
- Reviews bought, swapped or written by friends.
- Packages of hundreds of directory listings.
- Pages for dozens of towns with the same text and the name swapped.
- Anyone who guarantees first place.
An hour a week: a routine that works
Local SEO is mostly maintenance, which suits a busy owner if it is small and regular. Four weeks, then repeat:
- Week one: the profile. Check hours, services, photos and categories. Add two new photos of recent work.
- Week two: reviews. Send the review link to every customer from the last fortnight, and reply to anything new.
- Week three: the website. Read one service page as a customer would. Is the town named, the price clear, the number one tap? Fix one thing.
- Week four: the numbers. Look at your Business Profile performance (calls, website clicks, direction requests) and Search Console’s list of searches. Note whether the searches with a town in them are growing.
Results take months rather than weeks, and they come from the profile, the site and your reputation moving together. How long until a new site shows up on Google explains what the early weeks look like.
If you want to know where your profile and your website disagree, or what Google cannot tell about your business, the free review checks both and tells you in writing.
Related: how to get your business on Google Maps, how to get more Google reviews, and our free 13-page guide, which covers showing up on Google among other things.
