Local search checklist for contractors

The 9 checks

1. Claim and verify the Google Business Profile

   An unverified profile cannot be trusted by customers or by Google, and it can be edited by anyone who claims it first. Claim it, complete verification, and keep the verification method in place afterwards.

   How to check it: Search your business name on a phone. If you see a claim invitation instead of a management view, it is not verified.

2. Pick the primary category for the work you want booked

   The primary category carries the most weight in which searches you can appear for. Choose the category that matches your highest value service, then add secondary categories only where you genuinely do that work.

   How to check it: Search your main service plus your town. If you appear for plumbing but not for the drain work you want, the categories and services are the first place to look.

3. Make name, address and phone identical everywhere

   Your website, profile, invoices and any directory listings should show the same business name, address and phone number. Inconsistent details make it harder for search engines to confirm one business.

   How to check it: Open your site contact page and your profile side by side. Every character should match, including suite numbers and how the phone number is formatted.

4. Set service areas you actually cover

   List the towns and suburbs your crews drive to. Stretching the area to look bigger puts your listing in front of people you will not serve, and a listing that gets no engagement does not help you.

   How to check it: Name your five busiest towns. Each one should be inside the service area in your profile.

5. Add real photos and keep the profile active

   Photos from real jobs, trucks and crews give customers more to judge than a logo, and posting updates keeps the profile current. Stock photography is easy to spot and adds nothing.

   How to check it: Open your profile's photo set. If the newest photo is more than a few months old, the profile is coasting.

6. Build a review request routine that survives busy weeks

   Reviews are one of the visible signals customers use, and they give AI answers something specific to quote. A request that goes out after every completed job works better than a push once a year.

   How to check it: Count your reviews from the last 90 days. If that number is below your job volume, the routine is the problem, not the customers.

7. Publish one page per service worth selling

   A page per service, with scope, what is included, service area, photos and answers to the questions callers ask. Broad pages that cover everything usually lose to a page that answers one search clearly.

   How to check it: List your services. Each one should have a page you could send to a customer without adding an explanation.

8. Add LocalBusiness structured data that matches the page

   Structured data describes your business in a format search engines and assistants read directly. It has to match what is visible on the page, so markup that lists services you do not show is worse than none.

   How to check it: Test a service page with a structured data validator. Errors and warnings both need reading, not just the green result.

9. Count calls and forms, then check search demand monthly

   Without call and form counts you cannot tell a busy month from a profitable one. Pair that with the queries your pages appear for, so the next piece of content follows real demand.

   How to check it: In Search Console, open Performance and note which service queries produced impressions last month. No list means the site is not being found for its services.

What to ignore

• Buying reviews or asking staff to post them. Both break Google's review rules and are visible to customers who read the reviews.
• More directory listings for their own sake. Unused listings create inconsistent details.
• A page per town with the same text and a different name in the title.
• Keyword density work on the website. No current source supports it as a ranking factor.

How long this takes

Steps 1 to 5 are a morning of work once you have access to the profile. Step 6 is a process change that takes weeks to show in review counts. Steps 7 to 9 are the slow ones: a service page takes a few hours each, and the measurement only becomes useful after a full month.

Sources

Each claim above about how Google treats local businesses comes from one of these pages:

• Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help. Business name, address and phone consistency, and what is not allowed.
• Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, Google Business Profile Help. Relevance, distance and prominence.
• Local Business structured data, Google Search Central. Which properties are expected, and the requirement that markup matches visible content.
• Optimizing for generative AI features, Google Search Central. Why clear, crawlable content matters for AI answers.

Next step

If you want the checks done for you, including a map pack grid check around your service area, request the free check. If you want to see how far behind your review count is, use the review gap calculator.