Getting found on Google
Get found by the people already looking for you.
Somebody within ten minutes of you is typing your trade into their phone right now. Local SEO is the work of making sure your name is what comes back, whether you call yourself a tradie, a tradesman or a contractor.
In short
What is local SEO for a trade business?
Local SEO is the work of getting your business to show up on Google when someone nearby searches for the job you do. Not the ads at the top, the results underneath them and the map listings. You do not pay Google for those places, you earn them.
The problem
Ranking for your own business name isn’t SEO. It’s spelling.
If someone already knows your name, they were always going to find you. The work that matters comes from the people who don’t: the burst pipe at seven in the morning, the switchboard that keeps tripping, the deck that needs replacing before summer.
Those searches are specific, local, and far less fought over than the vague ones. They also need somewhere decent to land, so if your website is the weak link I will say so first. My job is working out which ones you can realistically win, making sure your site deserves to win them, and then building the reasons for Google to agree.
What the work covers
Four parts, in the order they usually matter.
- The boring technical bits
- Whether Google can read your site properly at all. How fast it loads, whether pages are missing or duplicated, whether old links still work. Unglamorous, and it is why plenty of sites never get going.
- Your Google Business Profile
- The listing with your name, hours and reviews that shows up in the map. This is the heart of local SEO, it is the single highest value thing to fix for most trades, and most are half filled in.
- A page for each job, and each place
- One page trying to rank for eleven different jobs across nine suburbs will rank for none of them. Real pages for the work you want, and the places you actually cover.
- Reviews and being mentioned elsewhere
- Google trusts what other places say about you more than what you say about yourself. Reviews, trade bodies, local listings, being mentioned by people who are not you.
Local SEO
Local SEO is where almost every trade business should start.
Local SEO is the part aimed at people near you: the map results, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and pages that name the suburbs and towns you actually cover. For a tradesperson or contractor it is usually where the work comes from, and it is the cheapest ground to win because you are only competing with people who can physically get to the same jobs.
That is what the smallest monthly budget buys, and for a lot of businesses it is all they ever need. Every step up from there goes on the wider picture: more services, more towns, the national searches, and the content that wins them.
So the honest order is local SEO first, everything else second. I will not sell you the bigger version while the map listing three streets away is beating you.
The AI part
People are asking ChatGPT before they ask Google.
Two newer bits of the same job. Being the answer Google shows directly is included in every plan here at no extra cost. Being recommended inside AI tools is an add-on, because part of that one is a cost rather than a task.
How it runs
Steady beats going hard for two months.
The businesses that win at this are rarely the ones who spent the most. They are the ones who kept going. Google rewards consistency, and it is slow to forgive a site that starts and stops.
- At the start
- We work out a plan: the jobs you want more of, which searches you can realistically win in your area, and what is holding the site back right now.
- Every month
- I check where you are ranking, scan and audit the site for anything new that has broken, and then get on with the work the plan calls for.
- Every three to six months
- We look at what has actually moved and adjust. Competitors change, Google changes, and a plan written in January should not still be running untouched in December.
It is month to month and you can stop whenever you like. I would rather you did not, though. Three months of work and then a stop usually leaves you close to where you started, and paying again later to rebuild the ground you gave up.
The honest bit
What I won’t promise you.
Nobody can guarantee you the top spot, and anyone who does is either guessing or picking a search so obscure that winning it means nothing.
This also takes time. If you need the phone ringing next week, Google Ads are the honest answer for that gap, and I will tell you so rather than take a monthly fee that cannot work fast enough.
What it costs
Pick a monthly budget and see what it buys.
No packages with vague names. Set the budget you are comfortable with, and I will tell you honestly what can be done inside it.
Most local trade businesses start around $600 to $750 a month. A bigger budget covers more ground, and covers it faster.
- Getting found on Google$750
A month
$750 + GST
NZD. Month to month, no lock-in. AEO is included at no extra cost.
Get an exact quoteThis is an estimate. Tell me about your business and I will give you an exact figure in writing.
What the money actually covers.
A monthly budget, not a timesheet. It covers the tools that track where you rank and what is shifting, the software that audits the site properly, sometimes the cost of a listing or a mention worth having, and the work itself.
I quote it as a single monthly figure because counting hours tells you nothing useful. What you actually want is movement, and a bigger budget buys more ground covered, faster.
GEO works differently again. Part of that budget never reaches me: it pays real publications to write about and link to your business. That is the part that shifts how AI tools describe you, and it is why GEO starts where it does rather than being thrown in free.
From day dot he generated us more leads than we could keep up with. Straight up, and the results speak for themselves.
Questions
Things people ask me.
What is SEO, in plain English?
The simplest way to think about it is that Google is choosing which businesses to put in front of someone, and this is the work of giving it reasons to choose you. A site it can read properly, pages that answer what was actually asked, reviews, and other places vouching for you.
What is the difference between SEO and local SEO?
Local SEO is aimed at people searching near you, so it leans on your Google Business Profile, your reviews, the map results and pages naming the places you cover. Ordinary SEO is the broader job of competing for searches regardless of where the person is. Almost every trade and service business should get the local side right first, because that is where the work is and it is far less fought over.
How long before it works?
Fixing your Google Business Profile and the technical basics can show up within a few weeks. Competitive searches usually take several months of steady work. Anyone promising fast results on hard searches is selling you something else.
Can you guarantee I will be number one?
No, and neither can anyone else honestly. Google does not sell organic positions and nobody has a back door. What I guarantee is the work itself, the order I do it in, and telling you the truth about how it is going.
Do I need this if I already run Google Ads?
They do different jobs. Ads stop the moment you stop paying. This keeps working, but it takes longer to arrive. Plenty of businesses run ads while this catches up, then ease off the ads.
What about AI? Does Google even matter now?
Google still sends most of the work, but a growing number of people ask an AI first. The good news is that the same foundations serve both. Clear information about who you are, what you do and where you do it is what search engines and AI tools both need.
Do you pay for links?
Sometimes, and there is an important difference. Paying a reputable directory, trade body or publication to list or write about you is a normal cost of doing business, and plenty of them now charge for a proper link rather than a token one. Buying links in bulk from someone who will sell them to anybody is a different thing entirely, it is one of the few things Google will actively penalise you for, and I do not touch it.
Is there a contract?
No lock-in. Monthly work is month to month. You should stay because it is bringing work in, not because of something you signed last year.
By trade
Looking for your trade specifically?
Everything on this page applies whatever you do. Where a trade changes the advice enough to be worth its own page, there is one.
Weighing this up against the other two? Marketing for plumbers covers all three and which one to spend on first.
Worth reading
More on this, in plain English.
Let’s talk
Want to know where you actually stand?
Send me your website and the areas you cover. I will look at your visibility and who you are up against, and tell you what I would fix first.