Local SEO is different from regular SEO. You're not competing with the entire internet — you're competing with businesses in your area for customers who are ready to hire right now. If you're a service business, this guide covers everything that matters.
Why local SEO is your highest-ROI marketing channel
When someone searches 'plumber near me' or 'emergency electrician [city],' they're not browsing. They have a problem and they need someone now. These searches have the highest conversion rates of any marketing channel — often 20-30%.
If you show up, you get the call. If you don't, your competitor does. It's that simple. And with AI search changing the game, the businesses that show up are getting even more concentrated.
The local SEO foundation: Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the most important piece of your local SEO strategy. It powers the map pack, knowledge panels, and increasingly, AI search recommendations.
Complete every field: business name, category, services, hours, service area, photos, and description. Add new photos monthly. Post updates regularly. Respond to every review. A complete, active GBP signals to Google (and AI) that you're a real, operating business.
Your website: the local SEO engine
Your website needs to clearly communicate three things: what you do, where you do it, and why customers should choose you. Here's the playbook:
1. Homepage: Your primary service + your city/region in the title tag and H1. 2. Service pages: One page per service, with description, pricing (if applicable), and service area. 3. Location signals: Address in the footer, embedded Google Map, service area listed on every page. 4. Structured data: LocalBusiness schema, Service schema, and FAQ schema on every page. 5. Reviews: Display your Google reviews on your website with AggregateRating schema.
Dagny builds all of this into every website — service pages, location signals, structured data, and review integration. Automatically.
Content that ranks locally
You don't need to blog every week. But you do need content that targets local search intent. The most effective pages for service businesses:
1. '[Service] in [City]' pages — 'Plumbing services in Bergen,' 'Emergency electrician in Oslo.' 2. FAQ pages — answer the questions customers actually ask. Use FAQ schema so AI can read them. 3. Service area pages — if you serve multiple cities, create a page for each one. 4. Before/after project galleries — visual proof of your work, with alt text and location tags.
Each page should have a clear call-to-action: call, text, or request a quote.
Reviews: the local ranking multiplier
Reviews are a top-3 ranking factor for local SEO. They're also the #1 factor customers use to decide who to call. You need a system:
1. Ask every happy customer for a Google review (timing: right after the job is done well). 2. Make it easy — send a direct link via text message. 3. Respond to every review, positive and negative. Google tracks response rates. 4. Aim for recency, not just volume. 10 reviews from the past month beat 100 reviews from 2 years ago.
Local SEO + AEO: the 2025 advantage
Everything above handles traditional local SEO. But in 2025, you also need AEO — optimization for AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.
The good news: most of the work overlaps. Structured data helps both. Clear content helps both. Reviews help both. The extra step is making sure your content is formatted in a way AI can parse — direct answers, clear headings, schema markup.
Or let Dagny handle both on autopilot. Every website we build includes local SEO and AEO optimization — generated from your real business data, maintained automatically when you make changes.