Anyone who searches Google for hairdresser Tholen or plumber Bergen op Zoom usually sees a map with three businesses at the top. Only below that come the regular search results. For a local business that map is worth gold: the people looking there need someone nearby right now. Local SEO is everything you do to get into that map and into the local search results. In this article you’ll learn how it works and what you can do about it yourself.

How does Google decide who ranks at the top locally?

Google itself says local results depend mainly on three things:

  • Relevance: how well your business matches what someone is looking for. The more complete your details, the better Google can match you to the right searches.
  • Distance: how far your business is from the place where the search is done, or from the place named in the search.
  • Prominence: how well known your business is, online and offline. Google looks at, among other things, links from other websites, mentions and the number of reviews and your score.

There’s little you can do about distance. Relevance and prominence you can influence. That’s what the steps below are about.

1. Complete your Google Business Profile

Your Business Profile is the foundation of local SEO: it’s the profile that appears in the map and in Google Maps. Choose the right primary category, fill in your services, set your opening hours correctly and add real photos. How to do that step by step is explained in Google Business Profile: how to complete it in 10 steps.

2. Use exactly the same business details everywhere

Your business name, address and phone number must be the same everywhere: on your website, in your Business Profile, in the business register, on Facebook and in trade directories. Is there an old address or a different phone number somewhere? Then Google doubts which details are correct, and so do customers. Go through all the places where your business is listed once and make everything consistent.

3. Show on your website where you work

Google links your website to your Business Profile. So make sure your website makes clear what you do and for which region. A few tips:

  • Give each main service its own page, with the places where you work mentioned naturally in the text (for example: “We work in Tholen, Bergen op Zoom and the rest of West Brabant”).
  • Show real projects from the region, with the place name. That’s proof for customers and context for Google.
  • Do not create thirty near-identical pages where only the place name differs. Google counts such pages as spam (so-called doorway pages). A separate page per place only works if you really have something of your own to say about it, such as a branch or projects in that place.

4. Make a contact page that tells everything

Put your full address, your opening hours, a map and a phone number you can tap to call directly on your contact page. Do you work at customers’ premises? Then name your service area. A visitor searching on their phone wants to know within a few seconds where you are and how to reach you.

5. Tell Google in code as well

With so-called structured data (schema.org, type LocalBusiness or a more specific type) you give Google your name, address, phone number, opening hours and service area in a form a computer understands directly. Visitors don’t see it, search engines do. Your web developer can set this up once; for WordPress websites we manage, we include it.

6. Ask for reviews and respond to them

According to Google, more reviews and a good score can improve your local ranking. So actively ask satisfied customers for a review, for instance with a short link in your confirmation email or on your invoice. Respond to every review, including the critical ones. That shows new customers you’re engaged. Never buy reviews, don’t write them yourself and don’t offer a discount or gift in exchange for a review. All of that is against Google’s rules. Google can then take reviews offline, temporarily block new reviews or put a warning on your profile.

7. Make sure you’re mentioned outside your own website too

You build prominence with mentions on other websites from your region and your trade. Think of:

  • the local business association or your municipality’s business directory;
  • an article in the regional newspaper or on a news site from your region;
  • the sports club or event you sponsor;
  • suppliers and partners you work with;
  • trade directories and quality marks that belong to your profession.

One link from a well-known local website is worth more than dozens of mentions on obscure link pages.

8. Make sure your website is fast on a phone

Local searches often happen on the go, on a phone. A website that loads slowly or is hard to read on a small screen costs you customers, however well you’re found. In How to test your website speed you’ll read how to check that in a few minutes.

Local SEO and AI search engines

More and more people also ask ChatGPT or the AI answers in Google: “Which hairdresser in Tholen is good?” Such systems draw their answer from what can be found about you online: your website, your Business Profile, reviews and mentions on other sites. Correct details, clear service pages and good reviews therefore help not only in Google, but in AI answers too. Read more about that in Findable in Google and AI.

How to see whether it’s working

In your Google Business Profile, under Performance, you can see how many people viewed your profile, called you, requested directions or clicked through to your website. In Google Search Console you can see which searches your website appears for, including those with a place name. How to view that is explained in Google Search Console for beginners. Check after two to three months whether those numbers are rising. Local SEO isn’t a one-day trick, but maintenance that pays off over months. To discover exactly which words your customers use, do some keyword research.

The most common mistakes

  • A Business Profile that was created once and never updated since.
  • Different phone numbers or addresses on different websites.
  • A website without an address, place name or service area.
  • Reviews that have gone unanswered for years.
  • Place names crammed into the text unnaturally often.

Get your local findability checked for free

Want to know how your business is doing locally? Leave your website address below. We’ll look at your website, your Business Profile and your findability in your own region, and you’ll receive a personal report by email with concrete improvements. Free and without obligation.

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