Strategy 1
Get your Business Profile and business facts right.
The local SEO strategies that drive customer traffic are the ones that make your business easy for Google to match to a search and easy for a customer to choose: an accurate Business Profile, a page for every service, pages built around what people search, steady reviews, local links, a website that works on a phone and tracking that ties it all to booked jobs. Here they are in the order we tackle them.
1. Get your Business Profile and business facts right. Your Google Business Profile drives the map results, and for many service businesses that is where the first calls come from. Check the name (no added keywords), primary category, hours, phone, website link and service areas. Then check that your website shows the same name and phone number.
Use Google’s representation guidelines for the address and service-area rules. If customers don’t come to you, hide your address. Call your own number from the profile and click the website link. You’d be surprised how often one of them is wrong.
The mistake to skip: stuffing your city and service into the business name. It may help for a few weeks, and then one report can get your profile suspended. Our Business Profile optimization guide covers every field.
Strategies 2 and 3
Build a page for every service, matched to what people search.
2. Give every main service its own page. A single “Services” page with a bulleted list can’t rank for ten different searches. A plumber needs separate pages for water heaters, drain cleaning, sewer repair and repiping, each explaining what the job involves, what it typically includes, the areas you cover and how to book. Add photos from real jobs and answer the questions customers ask on the phone.
Town pages come next, and only for places where you have something real to say: jobs you’ve done there, local conditions, how fast you can get there. A page that swaps one city name for another doesn’t earn a ranking.
3. Match each page to a search. Pick the phrase each page should answer and check what Google shows for it. “Water heater repair” and “how to drain a water heater” are different searches; one wants a contractor, the other wants instructions. Put the phrase in the page title and main heading, in words a customer would use. Google’s Search Essentials recommends exactly that.
If your site already gets traffic, the Search Console performance report shows which searches bring people to which pages. Look for pages that show up for searches they don’t answer well; those are your quickest wins. Our local keyword research guide walks through the full process.
The mistake to skip: one page trying to rank for everything. Each page should have one job.
Strategies 4 and 5
Earn reviews and local links every month.
4. Ask every customer for a review. Google says review count and rating factor into local ranking, and customers compare them before they call. Have techs ask at the end of every job and text a direct link the same day. Ask everyone, not only the happy ones; Google’s review policy bans incentives and review gating. Our review request guide has the scripts.
5. Build local mentions and links. Google weighs prominence, and links and mentions from other local websites are a big part of it. Start with the easy ones: supplier and manufacturer dealer pages, trade associations, your chamber of commerce, the youth team you sponsor. Fix existing listings that show an old phone number or a dead link. Then earn more by publishing things other local sites want to point to.
Citations, meaning consistent listings of your name, address and phone on directories, belong here too; our local citations guide covers which ones matter. If anyone offers to sell you links, read Google’s link-spam policy first.
The mistake to skip: buying a package of 500 directory listings. A few dozen accurate listings on sites customers use beat hundreds nobody visits. Our local link building guide lists tactics that work.
Strategies 6 and 7
Make the phone ring, then count the jobs.
6. Make the website work on a phone. Plenty of people search for a service business on a phone, often while something is leaking or broken. Open your site on yours. Is the phone number a tap-to-call button at the top? Does the page load fast? Can you fill out the quote form with your thumb? Send a test form and confirm it reaches the right inbox.
Then check what happens after hours. A call that goes to voicemail at 9 p.m. often goes to the next company on the list. If that is a gap, an AI receptionist can answer every call and book the job.
7. Track calls, forms and booked jobs. Rankings and traffic are signals. Booked jobs are the result. Set up call tracking and form tracking, and tag the website link on your Business Profile so profile visits show up separately. Google’s profile performance definitions explain that a call is a tap on the call button, not an answered call or a booked job, so match the numbers to your job records every month.
When the numbers don’t line up, they tell you where to look. More calls but fewer jobs points to how calls are answered. More traffic but no calls points to the page. That monthly review is what turns a checklist into revenue.
The mistake to skip: judging SEO by rankings alone. We focus on revenue, not only rankings, and Lithium’s SEO service reports on leads and booked work.
