What Local SEO Actually Means for a Trade Business

Local SEO is the work that gets your business found when someone nearby searches for what you do, on the map and in the results under it. For a trade business, it's four fairly boring jobs, not a dark art. You've probably had the phone call: someone offering to get you "to the top of Google" for a monthly fee, without ever saying what they'd actually do. Which of the four jobs matter most depends on one question. Do your customers come to you, or do you go to them?

How local SEO works: what Google is trying to do

When someone types "sign maker Petersfield", Google is trying to show the few businesses most likely to be the right answer. Its own help page says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity. In plain English: do you do the thing, are you near enough, and does the rest of the internet agree that you exist and are any good?

You can't move your premises closer to the person searching. You can make the other two very clear. That's what the four jobs are for.

Job 1: the profile

Your Google Business Profile is the box with the map, the phone number, the photos and the reviews. For most trades it's the biggest single lever, and it's free. Get the main category right (the thing you most want to be found for), write a description that says what you do and where, add photos of real jobs, and reply to your reviews. Google says replying shows customers you value their feedback, and more reviews can help your ranking.

If you're not sure you need one when you already have a website, I've answered that in do I need a Google Business Profile if I have a website. Short version: yes.

Job 2: your details agreeing everywhere

Your name, address and phone number should read exactly the same on Google, Bing, Apple Maps, your website and the directories. When they don't, search engines can't be sure which version is right.

When I started with V Signs, a sign and wrap company near Petersfield, their details appeared in several slightly different versions, and one directory had them listed as electrical contractors. I fixed the wrong listings first, before adding any new ones, because an old wrong listing does more harm than a new one does good. There's more on this in wrong phone number on Google or Bing.

Job 3: a page per thing you sell

A homepage that says "signs, wraps and print" can't rank for all three. Google needs a page it can match to the search. V Signs' new site has 21 service pages, each built around one service: fleet wrapping, van signwriting, window frosting and so on. Each one answers the questions someone buying that service would ask. That isn't about word count. It's about giving every search a page that fits it.

Job 4: honest area pages

If you work across several towns, a page per town can help, but only if it says something true about that town. Google's spam policies treat pages aimed at specific cities that just funnel people to one page as doorway abuse. My rule is simple: if I can't write something real and specific about a town (the jobs done there, the roads you use to get there, what's different about working there), it doesn't get a page. Every one of V Signs' eleven area pages says plainly that the work is done at their workshop, not at a made-up local address.

Shop, van or workshop: three setups

A shop with walk-ins (a butcher, a bakery, a gelato counter). Distance does most of the work, so the profile and matching details come first: address shown, opening hours right, photos of the counter. Area pages rarely earn their keep.

A van that goes to the customer (a locksmith, a tree surgeon, a plumber). Customers never visit, so Google wants your address hidden and a service area set instead, within about two hours' drive. Service pages and honest area pages do more of the lifting here.

A workshop people drive to (a wrap shop, a sign maker, a garage). Show the address, then use service pages to win the specific search, and area pages for the towns your customers actually come from.

What to do yourself and what to pay for

Do these yourself: ask every happy customer for a review, reply to all of them, add photos after each job, and search your own business name now and then to spot wrong details.

Pay for the setup, because it's fiddly and easy to half do. My Found add-on is £350 one-off to set up your profile and push one consistent set of details across the listings, £150 per area page, and £150 a month if you want me to keep the profile and keywords looked after. There's no contract: the care is monthly and you can stop whenever you like. Every website pack I build, from The Pup at £500, includes a Google Business Profile tidy-up. Everything is on my prices page.

If you'd like to know which of the four jobs would make the biggest difference for you, tell me what you do and where. I'll give you a straight answer, even if it's "do job 1 yourself this weekend".

Mark Jarvis

Born in Petersfield in 1986, now based in Poland. Twenty-five years running real businesses, and now I build websites, local SEO and socials for Hampshire small businesses. Every price I quote is on one page.