Local search has its own rules. Proximity matters more than anything you control, your Google Business Profile often outranks your website in visibility, and a listing can vanish overnight for reasons that have nothing to do with your site.
These guides cover the questions that come up in practice, grouped by what you are trying to do. For the service itself, see local SEO.
Setting up and keeping a profile
- Setting up a profile — the decisions that cause problems later.
- Verification — why postcards fail and what works instead.
- Categories — the single most influential setting on the profile.
- Services — the section most profiles leave empty.
- Suspended profiles — causes, and how to get reinstated.
- One profile or several — when a second listing is correct.
When you are not appearing
Three different problems that look similar and have different fixes:
- Not on Maps at all — the listing does not exist publicly.
- Not showing for services — it appears by name but not for what you do.
- Not ranking well — it appears for the right searches, too far down.
- Rankings dropped — it was working and stopped.
Reach and structure
- Ranking without an office there — what is possible and what is not.
- A page for each location — when branches need their own pages.
- Service pages vs location pages — which page targets which search.
- Suburb pages — when they work and when they are thin.
- Local keyword cannibalisation — when your own location pages compete.
Reviews, measurement and expectations
- How many reviews you need — working it out from your competitors.
- Measuring local SEO — why one ranking number is meaningless.
- How long it takes — realistic timeframes.
- Maps SEO vs local SEO — two sets of results, two sets of rules.
- Is local SEO worth it — deciding before you commit.
- Service areas and rankings — why adding areas does not extend your radius.
For a review of your local visibility, book an SEO consultation.