What is local SEO?
Local SEO is the work you do to help nearby customers find your business in search results. For a plumber or roofer, that means showing up for the services and places you actually cover.
There are two places to look.
A search for a local service can show a map with business listings and a set of website results. Your Google Business Profile supports your presence in the local results. Pages on your website can appear in the regular search listings.
Those results change with the search and the person searching. Ranking well near your office does not mean you will appear in every suburb.
Get the business details right.
Keep your Business Profile's services, hours, contact details, and service area accurate. Use the categories that describe the work you do.
Google says its local results mainly depend on relevance, distance, and prominence. Complete information helps Google understand the business. Reviews and links from other websites also play a role. Google explains its local ranking factors here.
Give each important service a useful page.
A homeowner should be able to find out what you fix, where you work, and how to contact you. Use real job photos and explain what happens when they book.
Only add location pages for places you serve. Include details that help someone in that area choose you. Repeating the same paragraph with a different city name gives the customer very little.
Read the page on your phone. If the phone number is hard to tap or the service area is unclear, fix that before adding another article.
Measure the enquiries and the work.
Search visibility is a starting point. Keep track of which services attract enquiries and which enquiries become paying jobs. That helps you choose the next page to improve.
If relevant visitors leave without contacting you, website visitor identification can add another way to review that traffic when matches are available.