DefinitionOptimising a business to appear in location-based searches such as 'plumber near me', mainly through the Google Business Profile, reviews, local citations and location pages.
Local SEO is about being found by people who want a product or service close to where they are, whether they type a place name or Google simply knows their location. It covers the map pack at the top of the results, the Google Business Profile that feeds it and the pages on your own site that rank for location-based queries. The mistake I see most often is treating it as a one-off setup: claim the profile, add the address, done. In practice it is an ongoing job where reviews, photos, opening hours and location pages keep needing attention.
Why local visibility matters, even for businesses that sell online
For a plumber, dentist or garage the case is obvious: the map pack takes the top of the screen on mobile, and three businesses get most of the calls. But local search also matters for companies that do not think of themselves as local. A Dutch B2B installer of industrial doors had a national website and no Google Business Profile for its two branches. Searches like “bedrijfsdeuren Rotterdam” showed competitors in the map pack and the client nowhere. Two properly filled profiles, a location page per branch and a review process for completed installations brought the branches into the map pack within a few months, and the phone calls that followed were higher quality than form leads from the national pages.
Webshops with a physical showroom or pickup point benefit in the same way. Someone searching for “fietsenwinkel Utrecht” may buy online later, but the first visit often starts with the map. Local SEO is one part of broader SEO, and the profile itself is one of the few places where Google shows your reviews, photos and phone number directly in the results.
How to check where you stand
Open Google Business Profile and look at the Performance section: how many people found the profile through search versus maps, which queries triggered it, and how many calls, direction requests and website clicks it generated. Compare that with the local queries in Google Search Console, filtered on the city or region names you care about. If the profile gets impressions but the website gets none for the same terms, the location pages need work.
Then search for your main service plus each town you serve, in an incognito window with the location set in the search settings or using a rank tracker that supports local grids, such as Local Falcon or the local features in Semrush and Ahrefs. Rankings in the map pack change street by street, so a single check from the office tells you little. For the website side, crawl the location pages with Screaming Frog and confirm every page has a unique title, the address in plain text and structured data of the LocalBusiness type.
Mistakes that keep businesses out of the map pack
Inconsistent name, address and phone number. “Bakkerij Jansen B.V.” on the website, “Jansen Bakkerij” on Google and an old phone number on a directory. Google struggles to connect the pieces, and so do customers.
Choosing the wrong primary category. The primary category on the Business Profile has more influence than almost any other field. A “kitchen showroom” listed as “furniture store” loses to every competitor with the right category.
Doorway pages for every town. Twenty near-identical pages where only the city name changes rarely rank and can trigger a quality penalty. A location page needs something real: staff, projects, directions, local references.
Ignoring reviews. No responses, no process for asking, and one angry review sitting at the top for a year. Review count, recency and replies all feed the ranking, and they feed the click even more.
Hiding the address. Some service businesses set a service area and hide the address for privacy, then wonder why they never appear for searches in their own town.
How I approach local SEO for clients
I begin with the profile, because it is the fastest win. I check the category, fill every field Google offers, upload real photos of the building and the team, and set up a simple review request that goes out after each completed job or order. Then I fix the citations: the handful of directories that matter in the Netherlands and Belgium, plus any old listings with wrong data. This is unglamorous work, but it is where most local rankings are won or lost.
On the website I build or rewrite one page per physical location, with the address in text, an embedded map, opening hours, LocalBusiness markup and content that could only have been written about that branch. For businesses that serve an area without a shop, I write pages around the service and the region rather than one page per village. All of this sits within my local SEO service, and I report on it with calls, direction requests and map-pack positions rather than just website sessions, because that is what the client actually cares about.
Frequently asked questions
How long does local SEO take to show results?
Profile changes such as a corrected category or new photos can shift map-pack positions within a few weeks. Location pages on the website and reviews take longer, typically two to four months before the effect is stable. In competitive city centres with many established businesses it takes longer still, and the review count becomes the deciding factor.
Do I need a separate page for every city I serve?
Only if you can say something specific about each one. A page for a city where you have a branch, staff or completed projects earns its place. A page that only swaps the city name in a template does not, and a set of those pages can hurt the rest of the site. For wide service areas, one strong regional page usually outperforms ten thin city pages.
Does local SEO work for webshops without a physical location?
Not in the map-pack sense. Google requires a real address or a real service area for a Business Profile, and a pure online shop has neither. What still works is ranking the website for queries with a regional component and targeting countries properly through international SEO if you sell across borders.