How to Get Your Business Found on Google Locally: A Checklist for Small Businesses

To get your business found on Google locally, do six things: fill in your Google Business Profile completely, give every service and every town you cover its own page on your website, collect honest reviews, keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere, add real photos, and make sure your site loads quickly on a phone. None of it is secret, and none of it is instant. Most small businesses skip half of it, which is why doing it properly works.

How does Google decide which local businesses to show?

When someone searches for something like “plumber near me” or “bakery in Leeds”, Google shows a small map with a few businesses, then the ordinary web results below. Google has said publicly that local results are based mainly on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your listing matches what the person typed. Distance is how far you are from them, or from the place they named. Prominence is how well known you seem, which comes from things like reviews and mentions across the web.

You cannot change distance. You can work on the other two. Relevance comes from being clear about what you do and where. Prominence comes from being a real, visible business that other people talk about. Everything in this checklist feeds one of those.

Step 1: Claim and complete your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that appears in the map results and on the right of the page when someone searches your name. It is the single most useful thing you can set up for local search, and it costs nothing. Search for your business name while signed in to a Google account, or go to the Business Profile site and add it. Google will ask you to verify that the business is yours, usually by a code sent by post, phone, email or a short video.

Then fill in everything, not just the minimum:

• 1Pick the main category that describes your core service, such as “Plumber” or “Dentist”. Add secondary categories only if they are true.
• 2Write the business description in plain words: what you do, who for, where. Do not stuff it with town names.
• 3Set your opening hours, and update them for bank holidays and holidays. Wrong hours cause bad reviews.
• 4List your services, and prices where you can. A price range is better than nothing.
• 5If you travel to customers, set your service area. If customers come to you, show the address. If both, do both.
• 6Add your phone number, website link and, if you take them, a booking link.
• 7Answer questions and post occasional updates, such as a seasonal offer or new opening hours.

Check the profile every few months. Customers can suggest edits, and hours or phone numbers sometimes change without you noticing.

Step 2: Give every service and every town its own page

Google can only show a page that exists. If your website has a single “Services” page that lists everything in one paragraph, it competes poorly against a business with a clear page for each job. Someone searching “boiler repair in Reading” wants a page about boiler repair in Reading, not a page about heating in general.

A good service page covers one service. It says what the job involves, how long it takes, what affects the price, what a customer should have ready, and how to book. A good town page covers one place you really serve. It mentions the actual neighbourhoods, how quickly you can get there, and examples of work done nearby. Both should sound like you, not like a template with the town name swapped.

Only make a town page for a place you genuinely cover. Pages that repeat the same words for twenty towns add nothing for the reader, and a customer who calls and finds you do not serve their area is a wasted call. If you want to see what these pages look like for a trade, the layout of a typical plumber site is on our plumber website template page.

Step 3: Collect real reviews and answer every one

Reviews are the most visible sign of prominence. A listing with many recent, detailed reviews looks more trustworthy to a person, and Google treats reviews as one of the signals about how well known a business is. The most reliable way to get them is also the plainest: ask.

• 1Ask right after a good job, while the customer is still pleased. A short message with your review link is enough.
• 2Get the direct link from your Business Profile dashboard so it takes one tap to open on a phone.
• 3Ask everyone, not only the people you think will be happy. Do not pick and choose.
• 4Reply to every review, good or bad, politely and by name. Keep replies short and specific.
• 5Never pay for reviews, write your own, or offer discounts in exchange for them. It breaks Google’s rules and can get reviews removed or the listing penalised.

A bad review answered calmly often does you more good than silence. Say what you will do about it, offer to talk, and leave it there. Future customers are reading how you handle problems as much as the complaint itself.

Step 4: Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere

Your name, address and phone number are often shortened to NAP. The idea is simple. Google gathers facts about your business from many places: your website, your Business Profile, directories, social pages and local listings. When those facts agree, they back each other up. When they disagree, Google has to guess which is right, and so does a customer.

Pick one exact version of each and use it everywhere. If you are “Hartley & Sons Plumbing Ltd” in one place, “Hartley Plumbing” in another and “H and S Plumbers” in a third, choose one. Same for “Unit 4, Mill Lane” and “4 Mill Ln”. A tracking mobile number in one place and your main line in another causes the same trouble.

Do a quick audit. Search your business name and note every listing that appears. Check your website footer, your contact page, your Business Profile, your social profiles and any trade or local directories you have joined. Fix what does not match. This is dull work, and it is exactly the sort of task that quietly helps.

Step 5: Add real photos, not stock images

People choose between local businesses by looking. A listing with photos of your team, your van, your shopfront, your finished work and your inside space tells a customer that you exist and what to expect. Stock photos do the opposite, because customers can often tell.

• 1Upload a clear logo and a good cover image to your Business Profile.
• 2Add photos of finished jobs, with a short caption naming the type of job.
• 3Show the outside of your premises and the entrance, so people can find you.
• 4Add photos of yourself or your team. Customers like to know who is turning up.
• 5Take them on a recent phone in good light. They do not need to be professional, they need to be real.

Use the same photos on your website, but compress them first. A page full of huge images is the usual reason a small business site is slow, which leads to the next step.

Step 6: Make your website fast and easy on a phone

Most local searches happen on a phone, often by someone who needs something soon. If your page takes a long time to appear, the text is tiny, or the phone number cannot be tapped to call, they will go back and try the next result. Google has also said for years that page experience, including how quickly a page loads and whether it works on mobile, is something its systems look at.

You can check this yourself in five minutes:

• 1Open your own site on your phone, on mobile data rather than home wifi.
• 2Count how long the first screen takes to show. If you have time to wonder, it is too slow.
• 3Tap your phone number. It should start a call.
• 4Read the text without zooming. Check that buttons are big enough to press with a thumb.
• 5Try to find your address, hours and price information in under ten seconds.
• 6Run your site through Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool and fix the biggest items it lists, usually image sizes.

If the site is old, built on a heavy theme, or was set up years ago by someone you no longer speak to, the fix may be a rebuild rather than a patch. That is the situation Adyft Sites is designed for: you answer a few questions on WhatsApp and we write, build, host and secure the site, set up for phones from the start.

How long does local SEO take to work?

It depends on how competitive your trade and town are, and on where you start. A newly verified, fully filled-in Business Profile can begin to appear in map results fairly soon, especially for searches that name your town. Pages on your own website usually take longer, often weeks to a few months, because Google has to find them, read them and decide where they belong. Reviews build up one customer at a time.

Nobody can honestly promise you a first-page position or a date. Anyone who does is guessing. What you can promise yourself is a better foundation: accurate facts, clear pages and a steady flow of real reviews. That compounds slowly and is hard for a rival to copy overnight.

What should you do first if you only have an hour?

• 1Claim and verify your Google Business Profile, if you have not already.
• 2Fix your phone number, hours and address so they match everywhere.
• 3Send your review link to your five most recent happy customers.
• 4Upload ten real photos.
• 5Open your site on your phone and note what annoys you.

Then, over the next month, plan the pages you are missing: one for each main service, and one for each town you really cover. If you are starting from scratch, the Starter plan from Adyft Sites is five pages for £999 plus £49 a month in the UK, with the FAQ, Contact and Privacy pages free on top, so a home page plus four service or town pages is a realistic start. Prices in other countries are on our pricing page.