Local SEO for a small business: the first steps

Local SEO means showing up when someone nearby searches for what you sell: "pizza," "car repair," "tailor near me." The first steps are simple: a complete, accurate business profile on Google, reviews you actually reply to, and a website that says clearly what you do and where. You can get all of it done in a week.

How Google picks the businesses on the map

Google is open about what it weighs in local results. There are three things:

• Relevance: how well your profile matches what the person searched for.
• Distance: how far you are from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known the business is. Reviews, ratings and links from other websites count here.

You can't do much about distance. You can about the other two. And one line from Google's documentation is worth remembering: there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. If someone sells you "the top spot on the map," they're selling something they can't deliver.

Step 1: a complete, verified business profile

Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the first thing people see. Google recommends verifying it, which shows you're authorized to represent the business, and filling it in: your address if customers visit you, your hours, including special holiday hours, your category, and practical details like parking or Wi-Fi.

We went through it field by field in our article on the Google business profile.

Step 2: your real name and as few categories as possible

Two common mistakes:

1. Keywords in the name. Google's rules say the name should be your real-world name, the one on your storefront, website and paperwork. Extra information in the name isn't allowed. "Roma Pizzeria" is fine; "Roma Pizzeria, best pizza downtown, delivery" isn't.
2. Ten categories "so I show up everywhere." Google asks you to use as few categories as possible to describe your core business. One well-chosen primary category does more than a long list.

If you go to your customers (plumber, cleaning company, photographer), the rules say to hide your address and set the area you serve instead.

Step 3: reviews and replies

Reviews feed into prominence, and Google explicitly recommends replying to them. A short, specific reply, including to bad reviews, shows the next reader that the business is alive and listening. How to ask for reviews without sounding needy is in our article on Google reviews.

Photos matter too. Google says photos and videos show what you offer. Post real photos of the place, the products and the team, not stock images.

Step 4: the website says the same thing as the profile

The profile has a field for your website. When people land there, they should find the same details: name, address, phone, hours. If your site lists different hours than Google, people won't know which one to trust.

You can also add structured data of the LocalBusiness type to your site. It's a few lines of code, invisible to visitors, that tell Google your hours, address, phone or, for restaurants, a link to the menu. Google only requires the name and address; the rest is recommended.

A page for each important service also helps with relevance: a "Refrigerator repair" page has a better shot at that search than a general "About us" page.

What to do in week one

If you'd like to do this together, see our marketing services.