Local SEO and Google Business Profile optimisation
When someone searches "near me", Google picks businesses with accurate information, real relevance and steady engagement. Most local businesses lose on the first of those without knowing it.
The usual culprits
In almost every audit we run, the problem is one of these five. None of them are complicated. They are just never anybody's job.
- Google Business Profile incomplete or wrongly categorised
- Business name, address and phone inconsistent across directories
- No reviews in months, or reviews nobody has replied to
- One page trying to rank for six suburbs at once
- Competitors with weaker services but stronger profiles
- Complete profile setup: categories, services, attributes, hours
- Service area and location targeting done properly
- Name, address and phone made consistent everywhere
- Citation building and cleanup across 50+ directories
- Review generation built into your job workflow
- Location pages that read like they were written for people
Your customers are asking AI for recommendations
"Best plumber in Northside", asked to ChatGPT instead of Google, returns a short list of named businesses. That list is assembled from your structured data, your reviews, your citations and the pages that describe what you do. The work overlaps with classic local SEO, but the details differ — and being absent from that answer is invisible in a way that ranking reports will not show you.
- Schema markup so machines can read your services and areas
- Content structured to answer the questions people actually ask
- Consistent facts across every source an AI might cite
- Review volume and recency, which these systems weight heavily
A growth system, not a checklist
Research
Local keyword research, competitor teardown, and a full audit of your profile and citations.
Fix the foundations
Profile setup, citation cleanup, schema, and location content that is worth reading.
Build momentum
Reviews, posts, photos and fresh content on a schedule Google can rely on.
Expand
Once one area is working, we repeat it suburb by suburb or location by location.
Typical movement in the first quarter
Real numbers vary with competition and how far behind you are starting. These are the ranges we see most often.
What you should know
How is local SEO different from regular SEO?
Local SEO is about appearing for searches tied to a place, especially in Google Maps and the three-result map pack. Regular SEO chases national keywords. For most local businesses the map pack is worth far more.
How important is Google Business Profile?
It is the single biggest local ranking factor, and the cheapest to fix. A properly completed profile often outperforms a website rebuild in the first month.
How long does it take?
Profile work shows in 2 to 4 weeks. Ranking movement for competitive terms usually takes 60 to 90 days, and keeps compounding after that.
Can I rank without a shopfront?
Yes. Service-area businesses can rank well with a correctly configured profile and location-focused content. We do this often for trades.
Do you handle AI search optimisation?
Yes. We do semantic SEO with topical mapping and structured data so your business is readable by AI systems as well as Google's index.
What if my listings are a mess?
That is normal and it is fixable. Cleanup is usually the first month's work, and it is often where the fastest gains come from.
Get a free local SEO and profile audit
We will check your profile, your citations, your competitors and your AI visibility, then send you the findings whether or not you hire us.
Get my free audit