Local SEO

How the map box decides

Google describes local rankings with three ideas: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is whether your profile and website clearly match the search. Distance is how far you are from the searcher, and nobody can change that. Prominence is everything that signals a real, trusted business: reviews, links, mentions, listings and how well your website ranks in ordinary results.

Local SEO works on the two you can influence. A complete Google Business Profile with the right primary category, a strong page on your site for each service and real reviews coming in every month will beat a closer competitor more often than most owners expect.

Your Google Business Profile, done properly

The profile is the center of local SEO. What I check and fix:

• primary and secondary categories, which carry more weight than almost anything else;
• services and products, with short descriptions in plain words;
• hours, including holiday hours around Thanksgiving, Christmas and July 4, when people search "open now";
• photos of real work, staff and the premises, added regularly;
• the business description, attributes and booking or quote links;
• review replies, which show future customers you are paying attention.

The Google Business Profile checklist lists every field if you want to go through it yourself first.

The listings beyond Google

People don't only use Google. iPhone owners see Apple Maps by default, so Apple Business Connect deserves the same care. Bing Places feeds Bing, Microsoft Copilot and some other AI tools. Yelp still matters for restaurants, salons and home services, the BBB for contractors and anyone selling high-ticket work, and Nextdoor for neighborhood recommendations. Then there are industry directories: Angi, Thumbtack and Houzz for home services, Healthgrades and Zocdoc for medical practices, Avvo for lawyers, plus your local chamber of commerce.

The goal isn't to be everywhere. It is to be correct and consistent in the places your customers actually look. Which US business directories still matter goes into this in more detail.

Reviews, within the rules

Reviews influence both rankings and the decision to call. The best routine is boring: ask every happy customer, at the right moment, with a direct link. Reply to every review, including the bad ones, calmly and briefly.

What to avoid: paying for reviews, writing them yourself, offering a gift only in exchange for a five-star rating, or asking only customers you know are happy while steering others elsewhere. The FTC's rule on fake reviews, in force since late 2024, targets these practices, and Google removes suspicious reviews in bulk. If you're unsure about a specific incentive, check with your attorney.

Location pages that aren't doorway pages

If you serve Dallas, Plano, Frisco and McKinney, a page for each can help, but only if each says something specific: jobs done there, neighborhoods, travel times, local rules such as permits or HOA requirements. Pages that swap the city name and repeat the same text are doorway pages, which Google treats as spam. I write location pages from real information you give me, and if there isn't enough to say about a town, I don't create the page.

Multiple locations and franchises

Each physical location needs its own verified profile, its own page on the website and its own review routine. Chains often lose rankings because every location links to the homepage instead of its own page, or because one central phone number appears everywhere. The Gładko Tnący case shows the approach for a growing chain; for franchise-specific questions see marketing for franchises.

Local SEO is one part of my SEO services. For many service businesses it is the part that pays first.