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Local search

Google Business Profile optimization.

Google Business Profile optimization only works when the listing matches the site: name, phone, hours, category, and a local page that answers the city-plus-service search.

Local search diagram: Google Business Profile listing aligned with a matching local page on the site.
Listing and local page must match.

Listing, name, and a real local page.

Google Business Profile is the public card: name, category, hours, phone, and the place you serve. It has to match the site. A listing that says one address and a footer that says another teaches the map to doubt you. Hours on the contact page and hours on the listing are the same hours.

The website still has to answer the search. A map pin does not replace a page. If you serve a city, that city gets a page that says what you do there, in the words people type, with the phone and the area in the text. If you have a counter or a door, the page says where it is. Service-area businesses and storefronts are different pages. We do not publish a directory of doorway cities.

Reviews matter when they are from customers. We will not sell a review scheme. We will make it easy for a real customer to leave one, and we will read what they say, because it often names the query the next page should own.

How local fits search: the map is the shortcut; the URL is the proof. We align both—without publishing our listing audit checklist.

  • A Business Profile whose name, phone, hours, and category match the site
  • One local page per real place or real service area you can serve
  • Photos and posts only when they say something a customer needs
  • A look at who already occupies the map for that query

A short tutorial: compare the listing to the site.

Ten minutes. The mismatches are the work.

  1. Open the listing and the contact page side by side.

    Name, phone, hours, and address. Write down every difference, including a suite number and an old phone that still forwards.

  2. Search the service plus the city.

    See whether the map shows you, a competitor, or a national brand. Read the page that ranks under the map. That is the page yours has to be more specific than.

  3. Check the category.

    The primary category should be the job you want found for, not a broad label that sounds larger. A wrong category sends the wrong searches.

  4. Give the city one URL.

    If the homepage is the only page that mentions the place, the local query has nowhere specific to land. That URL is an SEO page, not a second homepage.

Questions on local search

Do you only work in one city?

Local search is for the cities and regions your customers use. The studio has clients across the United States.

Can you promise the map pack?

The map is competitive and it moves. We make the listing and the page agree, and we choose categories and pages that match searches you can serve. Position on the map is earned, and we report what we see.

What about a business with no storefront?

Then the page is a service-area page, and the listing is set up that way. We do not invent an address.

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