Local SEO: how to show up on Google for “near me” searches

“Car repair Leeds”, “dentist near me”, “washing machine repair Brighton”. That is how small business customers search, and that is how Google decides whom to show: on the map with the three listings and in the results below it. This is called local SEO, and unlike “big” SEO it is entirely achievable for one business with one website. Here is what Google looks at.

What Google looks at in a local search

1. 1Proximity. How close you are to the person searching. You cannot change it, but you can cover nearby towns with text on your site.
2. 2Relevance. Whether your category and texts say exactly what the person is looking for. “Services” is not a category. “Washing machine and dryer repair” is.
3. 3Trust. Reviews, a complete profile, mentions of the business elsewhere with identical details, a working website.

1. The Google Business Profile is half the job

Without a complete, verified profile in Google Maps you do not exist on the map, no matter how good the website is. Category, opening hours, photos, reviews with replies. We wrote detailed instructions for restaurants, but the steps are the same for any business.

2. Town and service in the text of the site

Google does not guess. If the word “Brighton” appears nowhere on the site, you will not rank for “Brighton”. The page title, the first sentence and the H1 heading must contain the service and the town: “Washing machine repair in Brighton”. If you cover several towns, each service and each town deserves its own short paragraph, and the most important combinations their own page.

3. Identical details everywhere

Name, address and phone must be exactly the same on Google, on the website, on Facebook, on Instagram and in every directory. “5 Church Street” and “5 Church St.” are different addresses to Google, and differences reduce trust. Check the old directories you signed up to years ago as well.

4. Reviews, constantly

Not 40 reviews at once and then nothing, but 2–3 a month, constantly. Google values freshness. Ask happy customers right after the job, while they are happy: with a link by SMS or a QR code. Reply to every review with a sentence or two, including the words you want to be found by: “Glad the washing machine repair went quickly”.

5. A website Google can read

Fast on phones, with real text (not text inside images), with clear headings and with the address and phone on every page. Google has to understand what is on the page without guessing. Structured data for a local business (address, phone, opening hours in machine-readable form) helps further, and we add it to every website we build.

Local SEO is not a trick. It is telling Google the same thing you would tell a customer on the phone: what you do, where, and why you can be trusted.

What does not work

• A list of 30 towns at the bottom of the page with no content about them.
• Fake reviews. Google recognises them, and customers even faster.
• Keywords repeated ten times. Write for people.
• Several Google profiles for the same business.