THE SHORT ANSWER

Set up your Business Profile correctly, as a service-area business if customers don’t come to you. Ask every customer for a review, give each service its own page, keep your name, address and phone consistent everywhere, and measure requests and won jobs rather than rankings.

What decides local search results?

Google says local results are “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.” In practice:

  • Relevance is how well your profile and website match the search: your categories, the services you list and the pages on your site.
  • Distance is how far you are from the searcher or the place they name. You can’t change it, but an accurate service area tells Google where you work.
  • Popularity is how well known you are: reviews, links and mentions across the web. Google’s help page explains it as how well-known a business is.

How should a contractor set up Google Business Profile?

  1. Claim and verify the profile. Use the real business, not a placeholder.
  2. Use your real name. Google’s guidelines say your name should reflect your business’s real-world name. Don’t add cities or keywords to it.
  3. Pick the category that best describes your main service. Add other categories only for services you actually sell.
  4. Set up as a service-area business if customers don’t come to you. Google’s guidelines call for one profile for the central office with a designated service area, and don’t allow a “virtual” office unless it is staffed during business hours.
  5. Fill in services, hours and photos. Use photos of your own jobs, and link the profile to the page that matches your main service.

How do contractors get more Google reviews?

Ask every customer, at the moment the job is finished and they are happy. Send a direct link so it takes a minute, and reply to every review, good or bad.

Don’t buy reviews or reward them. Google’s contributed-content policy prohibits offering payment, discounts or free services in exchange for reviews, and the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews bans fake reviews, buying reviews and suppressing negative ones.

What should a contractor website include for local SEO?

  • A page for each service you sell, with what you do, how the job runs and photos of your own work.
  • Area pages only for places you really serve, each with real jobs and local details. Copied town pages add nothing.
  • Your business name, phone and service area, written the same way as on your profile.
  • A short request form and a phone number on every page, and a line saying how quickly you reply.
  • Fast pages on a phone. Most local searches happen there.

See how this applies by trade: roofing SEO and SEO for painters. Local SEO is one channel; for the full mix, see painting contractor marketing or roofing marketing.

Which directories matter for contractors?

Customers and AI assistants check the same handful of listings. Keep your name, address and phone identical on each:

  • Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect
  • BBB, Yelp, Nextdoor and Angi
  • Your trade association’s member directory
  • Manufacturer contractor locators, if you are certified

When you change your name, phone or address, update every listing at the same time. Mismatched details make it harder for Google and assistants to connect the mentions to one business. If you are thinking about paying for Yelp too, see Yelp ads cost for contractors.

How do you measure local SEO?

Track what leads to work, monthly:

  • Calls, website clicks and direction requests in your Business Profile performance report
  • Search Console impressions and clicks for each service page
  • Form requests and calls, by source
  • Estimates sent and jobs won

Rankings move daily and differ by street. Requests and won jobs are what pay. If you would rather have this done for you, Sourci’s inbound lead generation covers the website, search and AI-search work.

What local SEO mistakes do contractors make?

  • Adding keywords or city names to the business name
  • Listing a virtual office or a mailbox as the address
  • Buying, rewarding or filtering reviews
  • Copying one town page fifty times
  • Linking the profile only to the homepage
  • Changing the phone number without updating directories
  • Leaving reviews unanswered

Local SEO questions

How long does local SEO take for contractors?

Profile fixes can show up within weeks; new pages and reviews build up over months. Compare requests and won jobs month to month rather than watching one ranking.

Can I rank in a city where I don’t have an office?

In the map results distance matters a lot, so ranking far from your location is hard. A well-built page about your work in that city can still appear in the regular search results.

Do I need a physical address for Google Business Profile?

You need a real location, but if you serve customers at their homes or sites you can set up as a service-area business with a designated service area. Google doesn’t allow a virtual office unless it is staffed during business hours.

Does local SEO help with ChatGPT and Google AI answers?

Yes. Google says there are no additional requirements for its AI Overviews beyond normal SEO, and other assistants build answers from the sites, reviews and listings they can find.

Should I pay someone to do local SEO?

If you don’t have the time, compare written scopes and ask who owns the profile and website if you leave. Sourci’s inbound plans start from $1,950 a month plus $1,000 onboarding.

Sources & editorial note

This guide combines Sourci’s recommended workflow with the sources below. Checked .