Local SEO and Google Business Profile
Own the three pins people call first.
When somebody nearby needs your service, they search, they look at the little map, and they call one of the three businesses under it. Everything below is how we get you into that block and keep you there, in every suburb you can profitably reach.
Start here
If none of this is familiar, read this bit first.
- What is the map pack?
- When someone searches for a service near them, Google shows a map with three businesses pinned under it before any normal website results. That block is the map pack. Most people call one of those three and never scroll past it.
- Why am I not in it?
- Three things decide it: how close you are to the person searching, how well your profile matches what they typed, and how well known you are online. You cannot move your building, but the other two are entirely fixable and most profiles are leaving both on the table.
- Is this the same as SEO?
- Related but not the same. Classic SEO is about ranking web pages. Local is about ranking your Google Business Profile plus the pages that support it. The profile does the heavy lifting, the pages give Google a reason to trust you outside your own postcode.
- How long before something changes?
- Profile corrections, categories, services and photos can move rankings inside a few weeks. Ranking in suburbs where you have no physical presence takes months of reviews, content and consistency. Anyone promising the second one in thirty days is selling you something.
See it the way Google does
Your rank is not one number. It is a map.
Each square is a real search done from that point on the map. The ringed square in the middle is your address. The number is where you rank for your main service from there.
Reading the grid
- Points where you land in the top three1
- Points where nobody can see you24
- Point you are hoveringHover the map
Almost every business ranks well standing in its own car park. The money is in the squares three and four suburbs out, where the buyer actually lives.
We run this exact grid on your real profile during the audit, at suburb spacing, for every service you want to be found for.
The only three levers
Two of these are yours to win.
- Cannot be bought
Proximity
How close you are to the person searching. Nobody can change this, which is why anyone selling guaranteed number one is bluffing.
- Fixed in weeks
Relevance
How well your categories, services and content match the search. This is the fastest win in almost every account we take on.
- Built over months
Prominence
Reviews, citations, links and activity. Slow, compounding, and the reason the top three rarely change once you are in them.
What is included
Seven things we run every month. Open any one of them.
01Full profile audit and rebuildMost profiles are half filled in with a category chosen in thirty seconds years ago. We rebuild it properly, field by field.
- Primary and secondary categories chosen against what actually ranks in your market
- Every service and service description written out, not left blank
- Attributes, hours, holiday hours and booking links set correctly
- Market area configured so you appear where you actually work
- Duplicate and unclaimed listings found and merged or removed
02Grid rank trackingWe measure your rank from dozens of points across your market, not just from your own address, so you can see suburb-level movement month over month.
- Grid scans at suburb spacing for each service you care about
- Baseline recorded before we touch anything
- Monthly re-scan so progress is visible, not claimed
- Competitor grids so you know who is actually beating you and where
03Review system that runs itselfReviews are the single biggest lever after proximity. We build a request flow your team will actually use, then keep it steady.
- Request sent by text or email at the right moment in the job
- QR cards and short links for the field crew
- Response templates so every review gets a reply within a day
- Steady velocity instead of twenty in one week, which looks bought
- Escalation path for bad reviews before they go public
04Photos, posts and product tilesAn active profile outranks a dormant one. We keep yours fed with real job photos instead of stock.
- Geotagged job photos uploaded on a regular cadence
- Weekly posts tied to offers, seasons or finished work
- Service and product tiles built out with pricing bands where it helps
- Logo, cover and team shots kept current
05Location and service pagesTo rank three suburbs out you need a page that genuinely belongs to that suburb. Not the same page with the name swapped.
- One page per priority market area with real local detail
- Service by location pages for your highest margin work
- Internal linking so the profile and the pages reinforce each other
- Schema markup for local business, services and reviews
06Citations and consistencyYour name, address and phone number need to match everywhere Google looks. Old numbers and dead suite numbers quietly hold you back.
- Core directory listings claimed and corrected
- Industry and trade specific directories that carry weight
- Old listings from a previous name or address cleaned up
- Ongoing monitoring so nothing drifts back
07Reporting in plain languageOne monthly page: where you moved on the grid, how many calls and direction requests came from the profile, and what happens next.
- Grid movement before and after, side by side
- Calls, messages, website clicks and direction requests from the profile
- Which searches you were found for
- One clear priority for the coming month
First 90 days
What happens after you say yes.
- Week 1
Baseline and audit
Grid scan on your current profile, full field by field audit, duplicate hunt and competitor read. You get the findings whether or not you continue.
- Weeks 2 to 4
Rebuild
Categories, services, market area, photos and attributes corrected. Review system installed and the first requests going out.
- Months 2 to 3
Expand the footprint
Location pages published, citations cleaned, post and photo cadence running. This is when the grid starts widening past your own suburb.
- Month 4 onward
Hold and push
Defend the suburbs you now own, add the next tier of market areas, keep review velocity steady so the position sticks.
This works for you if
- You serve customers within a defined driving radius
- You can get your crew to ask for a review at the end of a job
- You have real photos of finished work, even phone photos
- You want calls from nearby buyers rather than national traffic
- You can give us access to the profile, or claim it with our help
Do not start yet if
- You need enquiries this week and nothing else is running
- Your address is a virtual office or a mailbox
- You are unwilling to ask customers for reviews at all
- You expect to rank in a city three hours away with no presence there
Local is a compounding channel, not a tap. If you need work booked this week, start with paid and let local build underneath it.
FAQ
Local search questions, answered straight
Profile fixes can move things in weeks. Ranking in market areas you have no physical presence in is a several-month effort and we will not pretend otherwise.
No. We build a request system so real customers leave them, because bought reviews get profiles suspended.
You do. We work as a manager on your profile, never as the owner. If we stop working together you keep everything and we remove our access the same day.
We handle the reinstatement, including the documentation Google asks for. We also avoid the things that trigger suspensions in the first place: keyword stuffed names, fake addresses and bought reviews.
A profile can rank without much of a site, but you will hit a ceiling. Location pages are how you rank outside your own suburb, so a site becomes the constraint sooner or later.
In the suburbs around each real location, yes. In a city where you have no presence at all, honestly no, and we will tell you that on the call rather than take the money.
Flat monthly against a defined number of market areas and services. If the scope grows we tell you before it does, not after.
Tell us what your cost per booked job is. We will tell you if we can beat it.
Twenty minutes, no deck. If we are not the right fit we will say so on the call.