Local SEO

Who it is for

Local SEO pays off when customers find you by searching for a service near them, then call, book or walk in. It suits:

• Businesses that serve one metro area from a storefront, an office or a service van.
• Owners who already get some calls from Google and want more of them without paying for every click.
• Practices and trades where one new customer is worth a lot, so a few more calls a month cover the cost of the work.
• Businesses with more than one location, where each location needs its own profile, reviews and listings.

What is included

• Your Google Business Profile kept complete and current: categories, services, hours, attributes and photo requests, with a new post every week.
• A review request after every job, and a drafted reply to every new review within one business day.
• Citation cleanup: your business name, address and phone number made consistent on the main directories and listing sites.
• Two data-backed local pages a month, written for the services and places your customers actually search for.
• Map-pack tracking: where you appear in the map results across your area, measured the same way every month.
• A monthly report in plain English, compared with the baseline we record on day one.

How Google decides who shows up locally

Google says its local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, which the same help page also calls popularity (Google Business Profile Help). Relevance is how well your profile matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching, and nobody can change that for you. Prominence is how well known your business is, online and off.

That shapes the work. Relevance comes from a complete profile, the right categories and service pages that say plainly what you do and where. Prominence comes from reviews, consistent listings and a site that other local sources mention. Google also says that more reviews and positive ratings can help a business rank locally (same page), which is why reviews are part of every local plan rather than an extra.

What changes first, and what takes longer

Some fixes show up quickly because they correct something broken: a wrong category, missing hours, or a phone number that differs between your site and your profile. Other gains build over months. Reviews arrive one customer at a time, and new pages take time to be crawled, indexed and trusted.

We do not forecast a ranking or a date for one, because nobody outside Google controls either. What we give you is a baseline on day one and the same measurements every month after, so you can see what moved and decide whether the work is paying for itself.

When local SEO is not the right fit

If most of your customers come from referrals and never search, or you sell online to the whole country, local work will do little for you and we will say so. If your site cannot take a call or a booking from a phone, fix that first: more visitors will not help if they cannot reach you. The free scan checks for exactly that, and every finding comes with its evidence.

What it costs

Published plans that include this service: Local, Growth and Authority. Every price is published, and monthly plans run month to month.

All prices, add-ons and the terms that apply to every plan are on the prices page.

How the work gets done

1. You grant access to your Business Profile, Search Console, Analytics, Tag Manager and website from your own accounts.
2. We record the baseline: a full scan of your site, your profile as it stands, and where you appear in the map results today.
3. Profile and listing fixes start in the first weeks. Changes to your website are staged first and go live only after you approve them.
4. Each week your profile gets a new post. Each new review gets a reply drafted within one business day, and replies to negative reviews that mention facts wait for you.
5. Each month two local pages are written, the map results are measured again, and your report compares everything with day one.
6. If you leave, you keep everything, and a handover file lists every account and the access to remove.

Access we ask for

• Google Business Profile: add us as a Manager.
• Google Search Console: add us as a Full user.
• Google Analytics 4: add us as an Editor.
• Google Tag Manager: add us with Publish permission.
• Your website: add us as a WordPress administrator, or accept our Shopify collaborator request.

You grant each role from your own account, and you can remove it from the same screen. We never ask for a password. The access guide shows every step.

What you approve

• Every change before it goes live on your website.
• Replies to negative reviews that mention facts.
• Any medical, legal or financial claim.
• At a law firm, every review reply and every Business Profile post. The firm sends its own review requests.
• At a practice that treats people, the review request wording we draft. The practice sends its own review requests from its own system.

What we do not promise

• A ranking, a position in the map results, or a date for either. Anyone who says they can deliver one is guessing.
• A number of calls, bookings or reviews. We report what happened and what we changed; we do not set targets we cannot control.
• Visibility in towns where you have no real location. Google's guidelines say a virtual office or a mailbox at a remote location is not eligible for a Business Profile (guidelines), and we will not work around that.
• Reviews on demand. Every customer is asked the same way, and nobody filters who gets asked, as Google's review policy requires (Maps content policy).

Questions

How long before local SEO shows results?

Profile and listing fixes can show within weeks, because they correct errors Google already sees. Reviews and new pages build over months. Your monthly report shows what moved against your day-one baseline, so you never have to take progress on faith.

Do I need a physical address to show up in the map results?

You need a real place where you meet customers, or a real area you travel to. A business that serves customers at their homes should hide its address on the profile, and Google's guidelines say so (guidelines). A virtual office or a remote mailbox does not qualify.

Can I keep my current website?

Yes. Local SEO works with the site you have. If the scan finds problems holding it back, technical fixes are part of Growth and Authority, or a one-off Fix Sprint covers them on Local.

What if I have more than one location?

Each location needs its own profile, reviews and listings. The Additional location add-on covers each extra location on Local, Growth and Authority.

Will you also work for my competitors?

Not on the Local, Growth and Authority plans. We take one client per business category per metro area on those three plans, so while you are on one of them, no other business in your category and metro area can join any of the three. For a law firm, each practice area counts as its own category, and a firm holds only the practice areas its plan covers.

What happens to my profile if I cancel?

Nothing changes hands, because nothing was ever ours. Your profile, listings, site and reviews stay in your accounts. You remove our access from the same screens you used to grant it, and the handover file lists each one.

Related

Services

• Google Business Profile management: Your Business Profile kept complete, accurate and active every week, from hours and categories to posts and photos.
• Review management: Review requests after every job and a drafted reply to every review, within the rules Google and the FTC set.
• Content: Service pages, local pages and articles that answer what your buyers ask, with every statistic linked to its source.
• Technical SEO: The crawl, index, speed and structured data problems that keep good pages from being found, fixed and shown with evidence.

Industries

• Dentists: Local search for dental practices: new-patient searches, reviews within patient-privacy rules, and pages that answer before the call.
• Med spas: Local search for med spas: treatment pages that stay within the rules, reviews, and a Business Profile that matches what you offer.
• HVAC: Local search for heating and cooling companies: service-area pages, emergency searches, and the calls that come in when the weather turns.
• Plumbers: Local search for plumbing companies: a service-area profile, pages for the jobs people search for, and details a customer can check first.
• Roofers: Local search for roofing companies: a service-area profile, storm-season searches, and license and insurance details where homeowners look.
• Electricians: Local search for electrical contractors: a service-area profile, license details up front, and pages for the jobs people search for by name.
• Law firms: Local search for law firms: practice area pages written within the advertising rules, a profile for each office, and reviews asked for fairly.
• Chiropractors: Local search for chiropractic practices: condition pages with no health claim you have not approved, reviews within privacy rules, and booking.

Related reading

Guides

• How much does local SEO cost? What local SEO costs, what the price should buy, and our own published prices beside a sourced market range.
• SEO or paid search: which should a local business pay for first? How paid clicks and organic work differ in cost, speed and what is left when you stop paying, with sourced ad costs.
• Should you do local SEO in-house or hire an agency? What you can do yourself, what a hire costs, and when an agency is the better use of the money.
• Is local SEO worth it for a small business? How to tell whether local SEO can pay for itself, using your own numbers, and when it is not the right spend.
• What should a local SEO audit check? The checks a local SEO audit should cover, which ones our free scan runs, and what only access to your accounts can show.
• How do you choose a local search agency? Honest questions to ask any local search agency, the answers that should worry you, and where we are still new.

Related terms

• Map pack: The short list of local businesses Google shows with a map, and the three things Google says decide who appears.
• NAP consistency: Keeping your business name, address and phone number the same on your site, your profile and everywhere else.
• Local citations: Mentions of your business name, address and phone on other websites, and which ones are worth your time.
• Rank grid: A map of where a business shows in local results from points across its area, and how to read one without being misled.

Sources

• Google Business Profile Help: Tips to improve your local ranking on Google. Checked September 26, 2026.
• Google Business Profile Help: Guidelines for representing your business on Google. Checked September 26, 2026.
• Google Maps User Generated Content Policy Help: Prohibited & restricted content. Checked September 27, 2026.