How to get your local business found on Google

Two places to show up: Search results and Maps

Regular search results are mostly web pages, including your website. The map results, both on Google Maps and in the map box on a search page, are built from Google Business Profiles. Google describes the Business Profile as the way a business manages how it appears on Google Search and Maps.

So a website alone helps with one kind of result, and a profile alone helps with the other. Most local businesses need both, and they work better when they agree with each other.

Set up and verify your Business Profile

Your Business Profile is free. Claim it, verify it, and fill it in carefully: the business name you actually use, the main category that matches what you do, your phone number, hours, services and a link to your website. Add real photos of your work.

If you work at your customers' homes or job sites rather than having a place customers come to, you are a service-area business. Google lets service-area businesses hide their address and list the areas they serve instead. A mobile pet groomer working from home should do exactly that.

Use the same name, address and phone everywhere

Your business shows up in many places: your website, your Business Profile, social pages, industry directories and old listings you may have forgotten. When they disagree, people get confused, and so can search engines.

Pick one version of your business name, one phone number and, if you show it, one address format. Use it everywhere. If you moved or changed numbers, search for your business name and fix or remove the old listings you find. This is slow, unglamorous work, and it matters.

Give each main service its own page

A single page that lists everything you do gives Google and customers very little to go on. A plumber who does drain cleaning, water heater installs and leak repair should have a page for each, explaining what the job involves, when to call, and the area covered.

Each page should have a clear title that says what it is about, such as water heater installation followed by your business name. Google's SEO Starter Guide recommends titles that are unique, clear and describe the page. Link the service pages to each other and from your home page, so both people and Google can move between them.

• One page per main service, not one per tiny variation
• A title that names the service plainly
• A short description of what the job involves and when to call
• Your phone number and a way to ask for a quote on every page

Be clear about the area you serve

Say plainly where you work: the city, the nearby towns or the neighborhoods. Put it on your website and set the same areas in your Business Profile. Someone in a nearby town should be able to tell in seconds whether you come to them.

Do not create a copy of the same page for every town with only the name changed. Those pages help no one and Google's guidance warns against content made mainly to attract search traffic. If a town is genuinely different for your work, for example different permit rules, write about that difference instead.

Write for people, and Google can follow

Google's SEO Starter Guide says there are no secrets that automatically rank a site first. What it describes is helping Google find and understand your content. Its guidance on helpful content asks for helpful, reliable, people-first content: pages written to help a real person, not to please a search engine.

In practice that means answering the questions customers ask you on the phone. How soon can you come? Do you charge to give a quote? What should I do before you arrive? A page that answers those well serves customers first, and that is the kind of page Google says it wants to show.

What you cannot control

You cannot choose where you appear. Results change with what the person typed, where they are when they search, and what other businesses nearby offer. A searcher across town may see a different list from one next door. Google also changes its systems over time.

Be wary of anyone who promises a certain position. What you can control is being accurate, consistent and useful in every place your business appears. That is worth doing whatever the results on a given day.