Local SEO: how to rank on Google in your town

Search for “boiler repair Bromley”, “florist near me” or “accountant in Leeds” and Google shows a map with a few businesses, the ordinary results below it and, more and more often, an AI answer. Local SEO is the work that puts your business in those three places. Each of them can make your phone ring, and most of the work costs nothing but time.

Many of my clients sell in one region. Pilotech, for example, is an air conditioning installer based in Sucy-en-Brie that works across Paris and the Île-de-France. Below is the method I use, what worked for them, and the traps that get businesses penalised. This guide is one chapter of my complete guide to small business SEO.

What local SEO covers: the map, the results and AI answers

A local search is any search where the place matters, whether the person types a town or Google works it out from where they are. One search can show your business in several places:

The four rows feed each other: Google counts your website’s standing when it ranks your profile, and AI answers draw on all of it. Local SEO means working on all four together.

How Google ranks local businesses: relevance, distance and prominence

Google explains its local ranking on its help page about local results. Three factors decide the order:

• Relevance: how well your profile and pages match the search. A profile that says “air conditioning installer” matches “air conditioning installation” far better than one that says “building services”.
• Distance: how far you are from the place named in the search or, when the person names none, from where Google thinks they are.
• Prominence: how well known your business is. Google counts what it finds about you across the web, such as links, articles and directory listings, plus the number of reviews and your rating. Your position in the ordinary results counts too, so the rest of your SEO feeds your local ranking.

The same page says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. Be wary of anyone who promises you a guaranteed top spot in Maps.

Relevance is the factor my own projects taught me most about. Of the five websites I have built for Pilotech’s founder, one did not work at all: it offered too many services. The one that ranks first or second on Google sells one specific thing, air conditioning with no outdoor unit. A precise offer, described in your customers’ words, is easy for Google to match to a search. A catch-all list matches everything, weakly. I tell the whole story in my case study on multiple websites for one business.

Distance is the factor you control least. What you can do is make your location unambiguous: a verified address or clear service areas, the same address everywhere, and the towns you serve named on your website.

Your Google Business Profile: the listing on the map

Your Business Profile, called Google My Business until 2021, is your listing in the map pack and in Google Maps. It is free, and Google may already show one for your business, built from other sources: claiming it puts you in charge of what it says. My Google Business Profile setup guide covers creation and verification step by step. These are the choices that matter most for ranking:

1. Your real business name, as customers see it on your sign, van or invoices. Google’s guidelines for representing your business do not allow extra keywords or a location in it.
2. The most precise category for your main activity. An air conditioning installer should not settle for a general building category: the category tells Google which searches you are relevant for.
3. Your address or your service areas. If customers come to you, show the address. If you go to them, hide it and list the areas you cover. Google allows one profile per location, so extra profiles for towns where you have no premises or staff break its rules.
4. Everything else, filled in. Google’s own tips for local ranking come down to complete information, a verified location, accurate opening hours, replies to reviews and photos. Use real photos of your work, your team and your premises.

One recent change: since late 2025, Google has been removing the questions-and-answers section from profiles. In Maps, it is replacing it with an AI feature that answers people’s questions from your profile, your reviews, your website and other sources. The facts you want repeated, such as services, areas, prices and lead times, must be written in those places.

Posts are an optional extra, and my guide to Google Business Profile posts explains what they can and cannot do. Compared with Instagram, TikTok or Facebook, where you have to keep chasing attention, I find a Business Profile a nicer channel to look after.

Reviews: how to get more without breaking the rules

Reviews count twice: Google uses their number and your rating for prominence, and customers read them before they call. The method is simple, and it only works if you keep at it:

1. Ask every customer on the day of the job, while they still remember it, by text or email. Ask for reviews on your profile gives you a link that opens your review form directly.
2. Ask everyone, not only the customers you think are happy. A rating built on a few hand-picked customers tells the next ones very little.
3. Reply to every review, good or bad. Thank people, answer criticism calmly and with facts, and never reveal a customer’s personal details.
4. Never buy, write or swap reviews, and never offer anything in exchange for one, not even a discount: Google’s review policy forbids it. Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act has banned fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews in the UK, and the CMA can fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover. If you also trade in France, fake reviews have been treated there as a misleading commercial practice in all circumstances since May 2022.

Showing reviews on your website helps visitors decide. On the Toshiba site I built for Pilotech, the Google rating sits in the header of every page, and the home and about pages quote real reviews. Show them fairly: under the CMA’s guidance, hiding negative reviews or cherry-picking positive ones counts as misleading.

Your website: service pages and town pages that are not doorways

For Pilotech, I worked in this order: the pages first, then the content, then the Business Profile, then technical fixes. The site took about a month to build, and the first lead came three weeks after it went live.

One page per service

Give each service its own page, with the words customers type, the area you cover, what affects the price, how quickly you can come, real photos and your phone number as text. A page that sells everything ranks for nothing in particular.

Titles written for local searches

On the Toshiba site, every page has a title and description built around a local search. One reads “Toshiba Haori : 15 coloris, prix et pose en IDF”: the model, its selling point (15 colours), the price, the installation and the region, IDF being the usual French shorthand for Île-de-France. For a plumber in Bromley, the same pattern gives something like “Boiler repair in Bromley: prices and call-out times”.

Town pages, only where you have something to say

For Eden Flats, an Airbnb concierge in the Paris region, I built pages for individual towns such as Créteil and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, each presenting the service in that town. The old site had brought in no leads. Once the new site and its SEO were live, owners started calling to have their properties managed. The business later made way for its sister company, Eden Corporate Mobility, a story I tell in the Eden Flats case study.

Before you add a town page, check that it can say something specific: jobs you have done there, the areas or postcodes you cover, how quickly you arrive, the local constraints you know. Pilotech’s Teknopoint line has its local angle built in: Paris buildings where a unit on the façade is not allowed. If a page cannot say anything of the kind, name your towns on your home or contact page instead. Ginov’s home page, for example, simply named places where its team worked, including Paris, Boulogne, Créteil, Colombes and Versailles.

Structured data

LocalBusiness markup repeats your name, address, phone number and hours in a format machines read. It is worth adding, but it is no shortcut: Google’s May 2026 guide to its AI features says no special markup is needed. My schema markup tutorial has the code.

Listings, local links and the local paper

Prominence is built outside your website, in three ways.

Make your details identical everywhere. Use the same business name, address, phone number and hours on your site, your Business Profile, Bing Places for Business, Apple Business Connect (for Apple Maps), your Facebook page and the directories of your trade, such as Yell or Checkatrade in the UK. Old addresses and dead numbers confuse Google, AI assistants and customers alike.

Earn local links. Your suppliers, a manufacturer’s list of installers, your trade association, the club you sponsor, the businesses you work with: a link from them ties your name to your trade and your area.

Start with the local paper. I am no PR specialist, but the order I recommend is your town’s paper first, then the regional press, then national titles. An article gives you a link, proof you can show customers, and a mention that ties your name to a place. My guide to getting press coverage explains how to pitch a story.

What AI answers change for local businesses

In the UK, AI Overviews have appeared in Google since August 2024 and AI Mode since July 2025. Google’s guide to its AI features, published in May 2026, says optimising for them is still SEO: no special file or markup, only pages that are indexed and allowed to show a snippet.

For a local business, that is good news. In Maps, the AI answers draw on your profile, your reviews and your website; in Search, on the pages Google has indexed. The same groundwork serves ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini, which recommend the businesses they can find and see confirmed by other sites. My guide on how to get recommended by ChatGPT covers the extra steps, such as letting their crawlers into your site.

How to tell whether your local SEO is working

Check three free sources once a month:

1. Your Business Profile. Google shows how many people called, asked for directions or clicked through to your website from your profile, and which searches showed it.
2. Google Search Console. In the Performance report, filter the queries that contain your town’s name, then follow impressions, clicks and average position for your service pages. My Google Search Console tutorial shows how to set it up.
3. Your customers. Ask every new customer how they found you, and write the answer down. Pilotech’s leads arrive through forms and calls, so both need counting.

You can also add tracking parameters to the website link on your profile, such as ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=business-profile, so those visits show up separately in your analytics.

Look at who gets in touch, not only how many. With Pilotech, the other good surprise, after that speed, was the quality of the leads: more serious clients than before.

A 30-day plan to get started

1. Week 1, the profile. Claim or create your Business Profile, choose the most precise category, set your address or service areas, hours and services, and add real photos.
2. Week 2, the website. One page per service, your towns named in the text, a title per page written for a local search, your phone number as text on every page, and LocalBusiness markup.
3. Week 3, reviews and listings. Send your review link to your recent customers, reply to every review, and correct your details on Bing Places, Apple Business Connect and the main directories of your trade.
4. Week 4, towns and tracking. Add town pages only where you can say something specific, pitch one story to your local paper, set up the Search Console filter and note your starting figures.

After that, a monthly routine is enough: ask for reviews and answer them, add or improve one page, and check the figures.

You do not need an agency for most of this. Outside help pays off in a crowded market, on a website you cannot easily edit, or when your hours are worth more spent on your trade.