Step 1: Set Up or Claim Your Google Business Profile

This is the single most important thing for local visibility. Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is what appears in the map pack and Google Maps when someone searches for your type of business near them. If you haven’t claimed yours, search for your business name in Google Maps and look for the “Claim this business” option.

Once claimed, fill it out completely: business name (exactly as it appears in real life), category, address or service area, phone number, website, opening hours, and a description of your business. Don’t skip any of these — completeness is a real ranking factor.

Step 2: Add Good Photos

Once your profile is complete, upload at least 10–15 real photos. Include your exterior, your interior or workspace, and photos of your team or your work. A profile with good photos gets more clicks — and click-through rate contributes to rankings.

Step 3: Sort Out Your Website Basics

Your website doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to give Google the right signals about what you do and where you do it.

• Title tags: Each page needs a unique title that includes what you do and where. For your homepage, something like “Plumber in Manchester | Your Business Name” is better than just “Home” or “Welcome”.
• Service pages: Instead of one “Services” page that lists everything, create a separate page for each main service. “Boiler Repair Manchester”, “Drain Unblocking Manchester”, etc. This gives Google specific pages to rank for specific searches.
• Contact page: Include your business name, address (or service area), and phone number on your contact page — formatted consistently with how it appears on your GBP profile.

Step 4: Build Some Basic Citations

Citations are online mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP). They help Google confirm your business is real and located where you say it is. The most important ones to have:

• Bing Places for Business
• Apple Maps (via Apple Business Connect)
• Facebook / Meta Business
• Yelp (if relevant to your industry)
• Industry-specific directories (e.g., Checkatrade or TrustATrader for tradespeople, Treatwell for beauty)

Make sure your NAP is identical across all of them.

Step 5: Ask for Reviews

Start asking your happy customers for Google reviews. The simplest way: share your Google review link directly (find it in your GBP dashboard under “Get more reviews”). Ask in person after a job, or send a follow-up message a few days after the service.

Don’t offer incentives — just ask genuinely. Consistency matters more than volume. Five new reviews per month over six months is better than 30 reviews in one week.

Realistic Expectations

If you do these things properly, you should start seeing movement within 4–8 weeks — especially if your competition is light. “Movement” at this stage means appearing for searches you weren’t appearing for before, and seeing your map pack ranking improve from outside the top 10 to the top 5 or 3.

SEO takes time. There’s no shortcut. But starting with these fundamentals gives you a solid base to build on.