What is local SEO, and what does a trade have to do?

Local SEO is the work that makes your business the one people find when they search for your job in your town, whether that's on the Google map, in the ordinary results or in the answers ChatGPT and the like give back. SEO stands for search engine optimisation. The quickest way to see where you stand: search your main job and your town on your phone, and check whether you're one of the three businesses on the map.

The three places you can be found

• The map. The box of three businesses Google shows above the ordinary results for a trade search, each with a star rating and a Call button. Those three are Google listings, the free entries Google keeps for local businesses, which it calls Business Profiles.
• The ordinary results. The list of websites under the map.
• The AI answers. What ChatGPT and similar tools write back when someone asks them for a trade in their town.

Why it matters

• The map sits above the ordinary results on 96 in 100 UK trade searches, in a June 2026 count of 979 local searches across eleven sectors. If you're not one of the three, people have to scroll past other firms to find you.
• The searches happen whether you show up or not. In Bristol, 430 people a month search Google for a boiler install, 520 for a bathroom fitter, and over 7,000 for plumbing work of some kind.
• In our own tests, ChatGPT answered a request for a plumber in Bristol from eight Google Maps listings and nothing else. Asked about a water leak in Norfolk, its answers drew 34 of their 39 sources from businesses' own websites. So your listing and your website answer different questions.

What you have to do

1. Set up your Google listing and fill it in. Create or claim it at business.google.com, and pick the category for the job you want the phone to ring for. Missing categories are the most common fault in over 500 listing audits. Only add another where "this business is a" fits, because Google's rule is to "Use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business". Jobs you do go in the services list instead. If you go out to your customers, don't show a street address, and use real photos of your own work.
2. Ask every customer for a review, the same day. Google and the AI tools read the words, and "fixed a leaking boiler in Kingswood on a Sunday" can be matched to a search where "5 stars, great service" can't. But Google's policy says a business shouldn't "request that specific content be included", so just ask how it went and leave the words to them.
3. Give every job its own page on your website, with the job and the town in the heading, a price range, and real photos of that job. A page saying "all plumbing work undertaken" tells Google nothing about boilers in Bristol, where "Boiler installation in Bristol" does. And a page with no price gets left out when someone asks an AI tool what a job costs.
4. Keep your details the same everywhere you're listed, like Yell and Checkatrade: the same business name, phone number and address. Fill in the two or three of those sites the AI tools read.
5. Use plain words on all of it. Say the job the way a customer says it, with the town and the price. Never add extra keywords to your business name: "Dave's Plumbing Bristol Emergency Boiler Repair" can rank for a while, and it can get the listing suspended.

What not to do

• A page for every village with just the name changed. Google's spam policies list "Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse.
• Buying reviews, swapping them with other firms, or keeping the review link from unhappy customers.
• Paying for a monthly report instead of work you can count: pages on your site, a listing kept complete, and one number you can read.
• Believing anyone who promises you a position. Nobody controls Google's results or an AI tool's answer.

Why it's worth doing

Being one of the three on the map for your job puts you in front of most of the people searching for it in your town that month. And pages on your own website stay up and keep working, where an advert or a bought lead stops the day you stop paying.

The AI answers are still small for trades. Google showed its own AI answer on 2 in 100 of those trade searches, though that count can't see anyone who asks ChatGPT directly. Your pages serve the ordinary results and the problem questions people put to AI tools, and your listing serves the requests for a trade.

Software that does this every month

CitedBy, which publishes this guide, is software for UK trades that does this work every month, for £197. It writes four articles and three area pages and publishes them on your own website. It tracks thirteen searches. It keeps a completeness check on your business details, including your Google listing's description and photos. It texts every enquiry to your phone. You approve the plan once. It doesn't choose your categories or put photos on your listing: those two stay with you.

Questions

Do I need a website for local SEO? For the map, your Google listing does the work. The ordinary results are a list of websites, so to be in those you need one, with a page for each job. Of 174 plumbers in Bristol we listed from the search results, 28 had no website of their own at all.

How long does it take? In Steven's experience of fifteen years doing this for UK businesses, the phone usually moves after about ninety days, sometimes thirty, and longer if the website and the listing start a long way behind. That's experience, not a promise.

How do I know it's working? Count the calls and enquiries that come in each month, and note which job and which town each one was for.

See where you show up today

The free check reads your website and your Google listing for your job in your town. It takes about sixty seconds, with no card and no call.