Did you know more than three-quarters of local searches on Google result in a customer contacting you on the same day? So ask yourself. If you’re not visible for local searches related to your services, how much business are you potentially missing out on? For a service business (or if you work from or in
Did you know more than three-quarters of local searches on Google result in a customer contacting you on the same day?
So ask yourself. If you’re not visible for local searches related to your services, how much business are you potentially missing out on?
For a service business (or if you work from or in multiple locations), visibility in local search can have a massive impact on your lead volume and revenue. Whether that’s through SERP listings, MAP results or your Google Business Profile.
If you’ve never thought to do local SEO, or have done it (either on your own or with an agency) but haven’t seen the results you hoped for, this local SEO guide is for you.
More than a quarter of searches for local businesses or services result in a purchase, according to Google.
Whether it’s someone looking for a restaurant, someone looking for a boiler repair, or someone trying to find an estate agent, local intent searches tend to have a much
higher buyer intent and conversion rate than other types of searches.
This is because most people who search locally are actively looking to buy something.
Someone looking for a loft conversion company in St Helens isn’t looking for education. They’re looking to buy something.
So if you don’t show up for these searches, you’re losing business to the companies that do.
Local SEO works just like regular SEO.
Someone types an enquiry into Google or another search engine, and is presented with a list of websites and other advanced search results.
The difference with local SEO is that users are searching for something in a certain geographical area.
They’re not looking for a loft conversion company anywhere in the country.
They’re looking for a loft conversion company near them.
Which makes sense.
If you live in Manchester, getting the information for a loft conversion company in London isn’t going to do you much good.
Improving your website for local searches makes you more visible in SERPs, because Google has specific information that it displays for local searches, like:
As you can see from the example search for “SEO agency in St Helens” above, optimising for local SEO gives you a chance to appear multiple times at the top of search results for a single query.
And the more times you’re listed, the more chance you have of a customer getting in touch.
For local SEO, there are particular parts of your business’ online profile that you need to manage and think about.
A Google Business Profile is a free listing in Google that tells the search engine the key information about your business. Name, Address, Phone, Email, opening times, services, reviews etc.
Google uses the information in your Google Business Profile to understand what you do and match your business to searches made by potential customers. An optimised and managed Google Business Profile can help you appear at the top of SERPs for local enquiries.
This is an example of how your Google Business Profile appears:
With local SEO, the closer your business is to the person searching, the more likely you are to appear.
If you’re in Liverpool City Centre looking for a breakfast cafe near you, cafes in the city centre are more likely to appear than ones on the outskirts or in neighbouring towns.
If you’re a business with branches in multiple locations, you should have landing pages and Google Business Profiles for each location to make you more visible in all the areas you work from.
Here’s an example from one of our clients The Storage Team.
They operate self storage units around the country. So it’s important they show up in search engines for every area they have a unit in so customers can find them.
As you can see below, part of their local SEO strategy involved creating Google Business Profiles for each of their locations. And this works, with The Storage Team appearing in the MAP results and having their GBP appear in each area we’ve searched here…
If you don’t have a business premises in a particular area, but your offer your services over a larger geographical area than the specific area you’re based (like a tree surgeon in Rainford who offers services across Merseyside) your business should have an area landing page for each location.
You can also add your service area to your Google Business Profile. You can choose the areas you work in by city, postcode or geographical area (we typically recommend a 20-30 mile radius from your main area).
You can use Google Location Group to help manage multiple Google Business Profile accounts.
There are also specific Local SEO software like BrightLocal that you can use to help manage your profiles.
Google’s job is to provide users with reliable information and options for the products and services they want.
A big part of building trust with Google from a local SEO perspective (and, more importantly, trust with potential customers) is to have excellent reviews attached to your Google profile.
Google takes online reviews seriously as a local ranking factor.
It’s particularly interested in the star rating of your review (and whether it has a written review as well), how recent your reviews are, and how many reviews you have.
A business with 50 5-star reviews is more likely to appear higher in local searches than a business with no reviews or 10 bad ones.
You should consider having a review strategy as part of your local SEO to increase the number of reviews you have. As a starter, ask for reviews (you’d be surprised how many businesses don’t).
Make it easy for people to give you a review by giving them a link to your business profile. Or use QR codes on receipts from completed projects.
Your business’ NAP details are used by Google to confirm your business is legitimate (it doesn’t want to send people to a dodgy business, does it).
Google uses the NAP details in your Google Business Profile, as well as pulling details from business directories around the web, and your own website.
One thing to say here, your NAP details need to be consistent wherever they appear on the web.
For example, if the address on your website is different to one that appears in your Google Profile, it could confuse Google, or flag that your website isn’t legit or trustworthy. This could harm your visibility in search.
The best thing to do is to keep a central record of where your business details are displayed so if you do ever need to change details, you have an accurate record of everywhere you need to make the changes (especially if you have premises in multiple locations).
I’d argue that page relevance is more important for local SEO than “normal SEO”.
When a customer searches for a product or service in a particular area, it’s not enough to just match the content for the service. You have to make it contextual to the area too.
This means using locally relevant keywords, adding descriptions relevant to the local area, and ensuring your content matches the local search intent of the user.
For example, it’s not enough to create a page for “dental services”.
To be locally relevant, you’d have to create a page for a specific type of dental service in a given area, like “dental implants London”.
One of the things that’s great about Local SEO is you technically don’t need a website for your business to appear in Google search (although we’ll get to why you should still have one).
Your Google Business Profile is one of the best tools you have to improve your visibility in local search.
And the best bit? It’s free.
You can set up your free Google Business Profile through Google directly.
To start, you’ll just need your business name and category.
If you’re not sure what your category is, you can start typing based on what you think and Google will give suggestions:
Once you’ve created your Google Business Profile, you can start to optimise it with the relevant information your customers (and Google) need.
The main information you’ll need is:
Business name
Primary service (like digital marketing agency)
Secondary category (for digital marketing, this could be SEO, PPC etc)
Description of your business
Area you operate in (if you offer services outside your main area)
Opening hours (include additional hours like bank holidays, Christmas opening times etc)
A high quality business logo
High quality photos (pictures of your team, premises, completed projects etc)
Google posts (like blog posts and updates on your business)
Frequently Asked Questions
You should also start to gather reviews.
If you do start to get reviews, it’s important you reply and acknowledge them (whether they’re positive or negative).
Although a Google Business Profile is a great tool for local SEO, it’s still important you have a business website to get more chance of appearing in Google search.
If you work in multiple areas, or have branches in different locations, you should create a landing page for each location.
The main reason for this is you’ll have more chance of ranking and appearing in more location based searches.
For example, if you’re an emergency electrician and Liverpool is your main service area.
Your homepage should be optimised for the search term “emergency electrician in Liverpool”.
But you’re not limited to just Liverpool. You also work in a 30-mile radius, serving areas including Southport and St Helens:
So, you should create separate pages for these areas, with unique content that’s relevant to the audience.
There is information that should be on each of your location pages to increase the chances of a conversion, while making them relevant to local searches:
H1: Your service + location. For example, “estate agent in St Helens”.
Social proof: Local reviews and case studies from customers in the area relevant to the page.
Map: Embed a Google Map on the service page, pinpointing where your services are available.
Contact details: Name, Address, Phone (include a clickable phone number to capture enquiries direct from mobile)
Additional business information: Opening hours
CTA: Encourage the user to take an action (book a quote, call, enquire etc)
One thing I can’t stress enough. Each area landing page needs to have unique content. Boiler plate content will be seen as duplicate content by search engines and could mean you won’t rank as high.
The main thing to know about keyword research for Local SEO is that it revolves around two parts.
So the keywords you target will be “loft conversion in Bradford” or “stairlift installation in Leeds”.
If you create a Google Ads account, you can use the free Google Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords.
This will also give you the search volume for each keyword, which can help you to prioritise page creation if you have lots of area pages.
Google Keyword Planner also shows you the cost per click for your keyword (which is how much you’d pay for a click if you used PPC).
This can be useful information because higher CPC keywords are generally the more competitive and commercially valuable keywords.
Googe uses links as a trust signal that your website is reliable and worth ranking highly in search results.
Local link building can be a bit different to link building in general.
The aim is to build locally relevant links as well as national business directories.
Building directory listings is one of the simplest ways to build links for Local SEO if you’re just starting.
Some of the main directories to focus on should include:
You should also look for local link building opportunities in local newspaper directories, on local blogs, or by building partnerships with other local organisations.
If you include your business on directory listings, remember it’s important to keep your Name, Address, and Phone consistent with your website and Google Business Profile.
Inconsistent details in different listings can confuse Google, potentially meaning you won’t rank highly for your chosen keywords.
Positive reviews have two purposes in local SEO.
They can influence your search rankings, because Google treats reviews as a trust signal.
They’re social proof for potential customers proving you can do what you claim and have customers recommending you
When building reviews, you should encourage users to leave a review on your Google Business Profile.
But you should also encourage reviews on other platforms, like Trustpilot, Checkatrade and even Facebook.
These reviews on other sites are becoming more important as LLMs become used for searches, as they pull review information when recommending company’s.
Let’s be honest, getting reviews from customers is difficult. They’re often busy and it’s something that can be easily forgotten.
So you need to make it as easy as possible for customers to give you a review.
Some of the best ways include:
Honestly, you’d be surprised how many business owners haven’t actually asked for a review. You should ask for a review when your customer is most likely to say yes, like after a positive experience with you or after the successful completion of a project.
Instead of asking customers to go through different stages to leave a review, send them a link that takes them directly to the review section of your Google Business
Profile. This makes it easier for them to do so.
At the end of a project or once you’ve delivered a service, give the customer a physical card thanking them for choosing to work with you, and include a QR code to your Google Profile and a request for a review.
Send follow up emails to your customers after the successful completion of a project, asking them to click through to the link in your email signature to leave a review.
Like I’ve said, most happy customers will gladly leave a review, but they’re busy and can forget. So if you’ve not heard back after a week or so, follow up. Make sure they’re still happy with what you delivered and again politely ask that they leave a review.
All I’d say with reviews is, don’t be overly pushy. Ask politely and follow up, but don’t hassle customers to leave a review as this could damage the relationship and maybe cost you business in the future.
Google treats reviews seriously on your Google Business Profile. And while there’s nothing definitive to say that Google ranks profiles higher if they respond to reviews, it’s something that can help you become more visible.
If nothing else, it shows that you engage with your customers. If you get a positive review, respond to it, thanking whoever left it.
If you get a negative review, you should still respond acknowledging why the person might not be happy and offering a resolution.
We’ve seen it in the past that a negative review has actually turned into a future lead because of the way the review was handled.
This is where things get a bit technical and you might need the help of a local SEO agency to help you.
Schema markup (structured data) is used to help search engines understand what your page is about so it can rank for relevant searches.
For local SEO, LocalBusiness schema is the most common type of schema markup you’ll use.
You can use a schema markup generator to create your LocalBusiness schema.
You just need to choose the type of schema you want to create:
And then fill in the relevant information
You can then copy and paste the structured data into the heading of the relevant page:
You can paste this directly into your website’s header code (if you know how or have a developer to help you).
Or you can use an SEO plugin like Rankmath which allows you to add schema to pages without messing with header codes.
One of the big challenges we see with local SEO (mostly for franchises or businesses with multiple branches) is effectively scaling local SEO to different locations, while maintaining the same brand standards.
There typically two ways of managing Local SEO for these types of businesses.
You can have multiple branches, but have all Local SEO work out of one central office. The plus side for this is that everything is managed and monitored in one place.
This definitely makes it easier it terms of keeping brand guideliness consistent.
It can also help with keeping standards of service high, which can encourage better reviews.
A downside is that this can become complicated to manage (even from one location) if your business grows significantly.
It can be a lot of work building location pages on websites and optimising multiple Google Business Profiles.
It can also be difficult create localised content that’s relevant (particularly if you’re main “content hub” is dozens or hundreds of miles away)
The plus side of running Local SEO at a branch level is it’s much easier to create the localised content.
It can also be easier to get local reviews (because the branches dealing with the customers are asking for them)
The potential downside is trying to keep everything consistent with the rest of the brand (especially if it’s a local franchise)
It can also be harder to keep up with progress and management of Google profiles. Some branches may be much better at updating profiles and getting reviews, and it can become a full job chasing branches that aren’t doing the same.
Ultimately, it’s up to your business how you manage your Google Business Profiles and Local SEO when working in multiple locations. Using a Local SEO agency could be one answer.
Having an agency run your Business Profiles and landing pages means you retain control of your brand and content guidelines, but also get the local expertise and content because your agency has the time to talk to local branches and do the proper research.
As with anything to do with your marketing, you’ll want to know that your local SEO is giving you a return on your investment.
When it comes to local SEO, there are a few things to keep an eye on.
As your Google Business Profile is a key part of your local SEO strategy, you’ll want to make sure it’s delivering clicks, calls or enquiries.
You can do this simply by using the performance report in your Google Business Profile:
Inside the Performance report, you’ll get a full breakdown of the interactions potential customers have had with your profile.
You can see how many people have used your phone call button to get in touch, how many customers have booked directly from your Profile (if that’s an option) and how many people have clicked through to your website from your Business Profile.
This is something you should review across all the Google Business Profiles you have to get a clear picture of how each branch or location is performing.
It can also help inform updates on underperforming account compared to more successful ones.
For example if you notice one location is getting lots of clicks and calls compared to everyone else, what are they doing that others aren’t?
Are they getting more review? Posting more customer testimonials? Posting project pictures and before and after updates?
If you’re creating local area landing pages on your website, then you’ll want to review how each location page is performing in search.
It’s possible to do this for free by just putting your search term into Google and seeing what comes up.
You can see from this example from our estate agent client Stapleton Derby that their local SEO is working as they rank 2nd for a main competitive keyword estate agent in St Helens.
This was a key part of their local SEO strategy when they came to us, and most of their enquiries come from the local area that they work in, so appearing for these local searches was essential.
You can also see from this example that they appear in the map search in Google for the same search:
These are all good signs that their Local SEO strategy is working.
Your area pages only have two jobs.
Get found in search, and get conversions from potential customers.
So these are the things you should be focused on.
It can also help you understand whether your on-page content is doing its job.
If you’re not getting any traffic, it’s probably a sign that you’re not visible enough in search engines for people to find you.
Which could mean you need to redo the content on the page to make it more relevant to the search topic and search intent of the user.
It could also mean that your meta title and meta description aren’t doing a good enough job convicing people to click through to your site.
If you’re getting traffic, but no converions, then you have a different problem.
This could mean that the content, while well optimised for search engines, isn’t providing users with the information they need to make a buying decision.
Are you being clear on your services?
Are you showing enough social proof from testimonials, case studies or before and after pictures of completed projects?
Are you making it easy for people to contact you from your webpage with a simple form and click to call button? (This is even more important if traffic is coming from mobile).
And again, are you seeing more conversions on some landing pages compared to others and what, if anything, do those high converters have that your other pages don’t.
Local SEO is one of the most important marketing channels local businesses have (especially service businesses or those in multiple locations).
By improving your website and Google Business Profiles for your service areas, you can get the attention of more local customers looking for your product and services.
And Local SEO is arguably becoming even more important with the increasing use of chatbots and LLMs in search.
That’s because the signals LLMs use to recommend businesses in chats (reviews, social proof from third party websites, case studies etc) are all the things that work to improve your visibility in local SEO.
So if you want your local business to win more customers from Google, it’s important you take the time to stay on top of your Local SEO.
If you’ve not got the time or skill to handle this, our Local SEO agency could help.
We’ve got a team of local SEO experts who have been managing and improving Google Business Profles and landing pages for clients for years.
Feel free to get in touch to find out more about our local SEO services and how we can help.
There’ll be no sales pitch. Just a free consultation and a game plan you can use to improve your local SEO.
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