Google doesn't publish its ranking formula, and anyone who says they know exactly what moves you up is guessing. What Google does publish is a fair amount of plain advice. For a local contractor, these five are the place to start.
1. A Complete Google Business Profile
For "near me" searches, the map results come from Business Profiles. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up (Google Business Profile Help, "Tips to improve your local ranking on Google").
Verify your profile. Pick the category that's as specific as possible but still describes your main business, and use as few categories as it takes (Google's "Guidelines for representing your business on Google"). Fill in your service area, hours and services, and add photos of your real work.
2. Dedicated Service Pages with Real Content
Every service you offer needs its own page, not a bullet point on a services page. If you do garage floor epoxy, metallic epoxy, concrete polishing and decorative flake, each one gets a page with its own title, description and content: the problems people call about, your process, and the questions you get asked.
Google says it has no preferred word count, so write until the homeowner's questions are answered, not to hit a number. And it's hard to show up for "metallic epoxy flooring" without a page about metallic epoxy flooring.
3. A Page for Each Town You Really Work
If you work in several towns, give each one its own page, written for that town: your services there, something true about the work in that town, and links to the towns nearby.
Don't build pages for towns you don't really serve, and don't copy one page and swap the name. Google's spam policies call city pages that funnel visitors to one page doorway abuse.
4. Reviews, Steadily
Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. Ask after every job, with a direct link, texted from your own phone.
Never offer anything in exchange for a review, and don't ask only the customers you think are happy; Google's review policy prohibits both. Reply to the reviews you get, good and bad.
5. A Site That Works on a Phone
Google indexes the version of your site people see on a phone (it finished moving to mobile-first indexing in October 2023), and it says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems. Its bar for "good" (web.dev, "Web Vitals"): the main content shows within 2.5 seconds, taps get a response in 200 milliseconds or less, and the layout shift score is 0.1 or less. Check yours free at PageSpeed Insights.
Speed also affects whether people stay. If your site is slow on a phone, people hit back before they ever see your phone number. Put tap-to-call at the top and keep the form short.
A Note on Schema
Schema markup is code that spells out your business, services, hours and service area for Google. It's worth having, and it should match your Business Profile. But it won't earn you stars (Google doesn't show star ratings a business marks up about itself), and Google says structured data makes a page eligible for special listings without guaranteeing them.
Start with these five. None of them is a trick, and none comes with a guarantee: Google's own advice on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google (Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?"). They're the basics, done properly.
