Local SEO and Google Business Profile management
For a business people find by searching a service and a town, the map pack is most of the game, and it's a different discipline to ranking a web page.
When someone searches for a plumber or a law firm near them, the first thing they see is usually not a website. It's three map listings with star ratings, hours and a call button. That block is decided largely by your Google Business Profile, your proximity to the searcher, and how consistently your business details appear across the web, not by how good your website copy is.
Most local businesses have a profile that was claimed once and never touched: a category that's nearly but not quite right, hours that are wrong on holidays, no services listed, a handful of photos from four years ago, and reviews nobody has responded to. Each of those is a small signal, and collectively they're the difference between appearing in the three and appearing on page two.
Alongside that sits the boring work of consistency. Your business name, address and phone number appear in dozens of directories, and where they disagree, whether that's an old suite number, a previous phone line or a slightly different business name, they undermine confidence in all of them. Sorting that out is tedious and it moves the needle.
What's included
Everything covered, in plain terms.
Google Business Profile
Categories, services, hours, attributes, description and photos, completed properly rather than half filled in.
NAP consistency
Name, address and phone checked across the directories that matter, and the disagreements resolved.
Local structured data
Your business, location, hours and services marked up on your own site so they corroborate the profile.
Reviews
A workable way to ask for them, and responses to the ones you have, including the bad ones, which matter more.
Service areas
The towns and neighbourhoods you actually serve, represented properly rather than claimed indiscriminately.
Map pack diagnosis
Where you currently appear for the searches that matter, and what's specifically holding you back.
Questions
Local Search, answered.
Why does my competitor show up in the map pack and I don't?
Usually some combination of three things: they're physically closer to the person searching, their Google Business Profile is more completely filled in, or they have more and fresher reviews. Proximity you can't change. The other two you can, and they're where the work goes. The audit identifies which of the three is actually costing you.
Do reviews really affect where I rank?
Yes, both the number and how recent they're, and responding to them is itself a signal. More importantly they affect whether someone calls you after they see you. A listing with eleven reviews from three years ago converts worse than one with forty from this year, even at the same position.
I serve a whole metro area. Can I rank everywhere in it?
Not equally, and be skeptical of anyone who says otherwise. Map pack results are strongly influenced by how close the searcher is to your actual location, so you'll always perform best nearest to where you're. What can be done is making sure you appear properly for the areas you genuinely serve, rather than claiming a radius you can't support.
Is local search the same as SEO?
They overlap but the levers are different. Ordinary SEO is about ranking pages in the standard results. Local search is mostly about your Google Business Profile, your proximity to the searcher, your reviews and the consistency of your business details across the web. A business can rank well in one and badly in the other, which is why they're worth treating separately.
Related
Often done alongside.
Technical & AI Search
The half of SEO that's engineering rather than copywriting, and the newer half that decides whether an AI answer engine can quote you.
Conversion Rate Optimization
There are two different things sold under this name, and they suit very different businesses. We'll tell you which one you actually need.
Want to know what's costing you business?
We will scan your site before we talk and come to the call with the three things we think are most worth your attention. No prep needed from you. No obligation to hire us afterward.