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Someone in your area is searching for exactly what you offer and picks a business within seconds. With this local SEO step-by-step plan, you make sure that choice falls on you more often.
A local search almost always comes from someone who wants to get something done. Anyone searching for a bike repair shop nearby, a bookkeeper in town or a hairdresser with a slot today is about to choose. That visitor compares briefly and then calls or walks in.
As a business owner, you compete with a small group of businesses in your own area. That is good news. A national ranking takes years of work against big players. A local ranking mainly takes care, consistency and a few smart choices you can make yourself.
This step-by-step plan works for a shop with a door onto the street and for a service provider who visits the customer. Where the approach differs, you will read about it separately.
Take the steps at your own pace. Each step stands on its own and delivers something straight away. Together they form a foundation you can build on for years.
Google names three things that determine which businesses appear in the local results. Relevance, distance and prominence.
Relevance is about whether your business matches the search. A complete profile with the right category and a clear description helps Google make that connection.
Distance is your location relative to the searcher. You have little influence over that, apart from entering your address or service area correctly.
Prominence is how well known your business is online and offline. Reviews, mentions on other sites and links all count. Your regular position in the search results also plays a role.
Most of the steps below focus on relevance and prominence. Those are the two dials you can turn yourself.
Your Google Business Profile is the card that appears when someone searches for your name or your trade nearby. For many customers, this is their first contact with your business, even before your website.
Start with the primary category. Choose the category closest to your core activity, then add a few additional categories. A bakery with a cafΓ©, for example, chooses bakery as its primary category and cafΓ© as an extra.
Then fill in every field. Opening hours, including special hours around public holidays. Your phone number. A link to the right page on your website. A description that explains in plain words what you do and for whom.
Add photos that show what it really looks like. The shopfront, so people recognise you. The interior or your workshop. You and your team. Real photos inspire more trust than stock images.
Use the products and services sections too. Each item is an extra chance to be found for a specific search term. Keep the list up to date whenever your offer changes.
Your name, address and phone number appear in many places. Your website, your Business Profile, business directories, social media and the site of your trade association. Google compares those details with each other.
Small differences create doubt. An old phone number in a directory, an abbreviated street name in one place and the full name in another. The more consistent your details, the more certain Google is about who you are and where you are based.
Settle on one fixed spelling and stick to it everywhere. Write it down in a note, so everyone in your business uses the same version.
Then go through the most important listings and correct anything that differs. Start with the big directories and your own website. If you have moved or changed your number, this is the first job.
Reviews are one of the strongest signals of prominence. They help your ranking and they convince the customer who is torn between you and the business down the road.
The secret is consistency. A steady stream of new reviews throughout the year says more than a spike of twenty in one week. So ask every satisfied customer, at a fixed moment.
Choose that moment wisely. For a shop, it is at the till or on the receipt. For a service provider, right after the job is done and the customer is happy with the result.
Make it as easy as possible. A short link or a QR code that opens the review screen directly saves your customer three steps. Feel free to ask them to say something about the service or product, because those words also help with relevance.
Always let reviews come from real customers and let customers write them themselves, in their own words. Real reviews from real customers are the only thing that works in the long run.
A response shows there is a person behind the business. Future customers read those responses too and form a picture of how you treat people.
For a positive review, say thank you personally and briefly mention what the customer was happy with. Two sentences are enough.
For a critical review, a calm, helpful tone pays off. Acknowledge the point, offer a solution and invite the customer to get in touch. The reader who comes along later mainly sees how you respond.
Ideally respond within a few days. Set aside a fixed moment in your week for it, so it becomes a habit rather than a chore.
If you have several branches or work in several places, give each location its own page on your website. That page belongs to the right Business Profile and explains exactly what happens at that location.
A good location page includes the address, opening hours, a map and directions. Plus its own text about that branch. Who works there, what makes this place special, which neighbourhoods you serve from here.
If you copy the same text for every place and only swap the place name, Google sees it as duplicate content and picks one. So give each page its own story, even if the offer is the same.
If you are a service provider working from one base for several places, a page per service area works too. Then describe specifically which jobs you did in that place and for what kind of customers.
Content about your own region shows that you are truly rooted locally. That helps Google with relevance and gives your visitor a reason to keep reading.
Think of a piece about an event in town you took part in. A collaboration with another business owner on your street. A question customers from this region often ask. A real-world example of a job in a well-known neighbourhood.
Write from your own experience. What you have lived through and seen, nobody else can tell. That very experience carries more and more weight in how search engines and AI assistants assess content.
A few good pieces a year deliver more than lots of short, empty posts. Choose topics your customers really care about.
Prominence also grows beyond your own website. Every time a local site mentions your business, Google gets extra confirmation that you exist and that you matter.
Look at where your name naturally fits. The site of the retailers' association or the local business network. A local news site that covers stories about business owners. A sports club or event you sponsor. A partner you work with.
A mention with a link is great, a plain mention of your name counts too. It is about the recognisable combination of your name with your place and your trade.
Build this up steadily. One good local mention a month adds up, within a year, to a strong network your competitors will find hard to catch up with.
A large share of local searches come from a phone. Often on the move, often in a hurry. Your website then needs to load in seconds and show the most important things straight away.
Put your phone number at the top and make it clickable. Show your address with a link that starts the route directly. Show the opening hours right away.
Test your site yourself on your own phone. Try to call or start the route within ten seconds. If that works, you are in good shape. If it takes longer, you know where to start.
A Business Profile is more than a business card. You can publish posts on it, just like on social media. A new product, a promotion, a holiday closure or a quick tip. Those posts show that your business is active.
Post something small regularly. A photo of a recent job, a new collection in the shop window or a seasonal tip that fits your trade. Keep it short and add a clear button, such as call or book an appointment.
Also put the questions customers ask you every day on your website, with a clear answer. Google and AI assistants like to take their answers from there, including for questions about your business.
This takes a few minutes a week. It gives you a profile full of up-to-date, original information. Exactly the kind of profile Google and AI assistants like to draw on.
Alongside your location pages, it helps if the rest of your website also shows where you are active. That goes further than an address in the footer.
Mention the towns and neighbourhoods where you work on your service pages, in a natural way. An installer can explain that they mainly work in the city and the surrounding villages and what travel time that involves. A shop can explain that customers come from the whole region for a particular range.
Add a clear map and directions to your contact page. Say where people can park, which bus stop is nearby and whether the entrance is hard to find. Practical details like these help your visitor and make your page stronger for local searches at the same time.
Structured data is an extra layer. With a small piece of code on your site, you tell search engines exactly what your name, address, opening hours and service area are. That piece of code must match your Business Profile. This creates one consistent picture of your business, wherever Google looks.
Then read through your own website with the eyes of a new customer from the region. Can you find within a minute where the business is, when it is open and how to get in touch? Then you have the basics in place.
More and more people put their question to an AI assistant. Which plumber nearby is reliable. Where can I get good coffee beans in town. Since October 2025, Google in the Netherlands has also shown AI Overviews above the regular results.
An assistant like that names a few businesses with a short explanation. It takes that information from the same sources this step-by-step plan is about. Your Business Profile, your reviews, your website and the places where others write about you.
What you can do on top of that is write your information so an assistant can easily pick it up. Answer the questions customers really ask on your website, in short and clear paragraphs. What does it cost, how quickly can you come, which brands do you repair, where do I park.
Reviews with concrete words help here too. A review that says you fixed the heating the same day gives an assistant exactly the kind of detail it works into a recommendation.
The basics are the same for everyone. The emphasis is what differs.
If you run a shop, much of it revolves around the moment people visit. Up-to-date opening hours, photos of the shop and the range, plus posts in your Business Profile about new collections or promotions. Ask for reviews at the till and show what is in stock right now.
If you are a service provider who visits customers at home or on site, you set a service area and hide your address, unless customers also come to you. Your location pages then cover the places where you work. Ask for reviews after a job is finished. Real-world examples per neighbourhood or town work especially well.
If you work from an office where clients come by appointment, such as a lawyer or accountant, clear directions and photos of the reception area help. Visitors want to know where they are arriving.
When setting up local SEO, we keep seeing the same points come up. If you recognise one, you immediately know where the quickest win is.
A business name with extra keywords in it. It is tempting to enter "Jansen Bakery best bread Utrecht" as your name. Google sees that as misleading and can suspend your profile for it. Use the name on your shopfront and your invoices.
A profile that has stood still for years. Old photos, outdated opening hours and a list of services from the past. Visitors drop off and Google chooses a business that looks more current.
Location pages with the same text. Twenty pages where only the place name changes add up to a much weaker result than five pages with their own story.
Only asking for reviews during a busy period. A calm, even stream looks stronger than a spike followed by months of silence.
A website that loads slowly on a phone. Every second of waiting costs you visitors who want a solution right now.
You can fix all of these points yourself with the steps in this plan. Start with the point that matters most for your business.
Local SEO delivers results you can track well. Your Business Profile shows how often people saw your profile, how often they called, requested directions or clicked through to your website.
Check those figures every month and compare them with the same month last year. That way you account for seasons.
Also keep track of your reviews. The number of new reviews per month and your average rating. Both should grow steadily.
Track on your website how many visitors come in through the location pages and what they do next. Also simply ask new customers how they found you. That short conversation at the till or on the phone often tells you more than a chart. And it only takes half a minute. A rise in phone calls and direction requests is ultimately the best measure. Those are customers who are about to buy.
If you notice little difference after a few months, go back to step 1 and step 2. In practice, the gain often lies in an incomplete profile or in details that differ in a few places.
The next step
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About the author
Dominic Pietersz
Your dedicated point of contact
Dominic helps SMEs grow through Google and other channels. With his international experience, he turns challenges into concrete growth.
Follow Dominic on LinkedInInspiration Β· A friend moved house and, within a week, needed a GP, a hairdresser and a locksmith in his new neighbourhood. Each time he chose the first name with a complete profile and recent reviews.
