Local SEO
Get found first when people nearby search for what you do. We work on the three places Google shows for a local search: the map with three businesses, the list of websites under it, and the AI answer on top. ChatGPT is part of it too.
What local SEO is
Local SEO services are the monthly work that gets a business found by people searching nearby. Search “roofer near me” and Google shows a map with three businesses above everything else. That box is called the Map Pack. Most people call one of those three.
The Map Pack: the three businesses on the map, and the full Maps list people see when they tap it.
The normal results: the list of websites under the map.
The AI answers: more and more often Google writes a short answer of its own on top, called an AI Overview, and names a few businesses. ChatGPT does the same when someone asks it who to call. The same work now pays off here too. AI SEO comes with every plan, and you can see how it works in Google AI Overviews SEO and ChatGPT SEO.
The work covers your Google listing, your name, address and phone across the web, your reviews, your website, and what other sites say about you.
We run local SEO for businesses across the United States and Canada, from one location to many. Each plan is built around the towns you actually serve, and on the free strategy call we search your market live with you.
One location and a smaller team? See SEO for small business. More than one branch? See multi-location SEO. We also plan it city by city, for example in Austin, Dallas, Toronto and Vancouver.
Who we do this for
1. The Map Pack
roofer near meCompetitor A
★★★★★ · Open now · Call
Competitor B
★★★★★ · Open now · Call
Competitor C
★★★★★ · Open now · Call
Your business
Not shown. Nobody scrolls this far.
2. The normal results
competitor-a.com
Roofing Repair & Replacement in Your Town
your-site.com
Page two. Nobody clicks this far.
3. The AI answers
AI Overview
“For roof repairs nearby, homeowners often call Competitor A or Competitor B…”
An illustration of one search, not a real one. The job is to move you from the dashed lines into the named spots.
Results
Just a few of the local businesses we rank in Canada and the US, grouped by where they show up. Every card is a crop of the real screen, competitors and all. Look at the search, then look at who’s first.
How to read a card: the quoted words are the exact search a customer typed. “Before” is where the business ranked when we started, from our rank tracking. “Now” is the position in the screenshot.
Google Maps
The box of three businesses with a map, and the full list people see when they tap it.
Swipe sideways for more →
for “luxury furniture stores”
Before
#10
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “AC repair”
Before
#13
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “cedar fencing company”
Before
Not shown
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “motorcycle accident attorney Dedham”
Before
#10
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “personal injury lawyer Pikesville”
Before
#13
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “luxury watch buyers”
Before
Not shown
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “septic cleaning near me”
Before
#12
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “luxury dining tables”
Before
#12
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “heating services”
Before
#11
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “vinyl fence installation Fulton”
Before
Not shown
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “car accident attorneys near me”
Before
#10
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “HVAC repair”
Before
#16
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “black aluminum fence”
Before
Not shown
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “car accidents lawyer”
Before
#5
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “HVAC installation”
Before
#14
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “cedar fence installation Fulton”
Before
Not shown
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “slip and fall lawyers near me”
Before
#9
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “mini split installation near me”
Before
#14
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “aluminum fence installation Fulton”
Before
Not shown
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “air conditioner maintenance near me”
Before
#11
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “cedar fence installation”
Before
#4
Now
#1
Top of the Maps list, below any ads.
for “air conditioning repair services”
Before
#10
Now
#3
Number 3 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “aluminum fence installation Cleveland”
Before
#16
Now
#2
Number 2 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “AC installation”
Before
#14
Now
#3
Number 3 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “cedar fence installation Cleveland”
Before
#15
Now
#3
Number 3 in the Maps list, competitors and all.
for “local movers”
Now
#1–2
Every point on the map grid shows them first or second in the Maps list.
Google search
The list of websites under the map. Many came from outside the top 100, where nobody sees them.
Swipe sideways for more →
for “Same Day Emergency Dentist in NE Calgary”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Mortgage north york”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Executive Protection Dogs Edmonton”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Laser Tattoo Removal”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Skin tightening treatment Margate City”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “fence builder hillsboro”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “sedation dentist in calgary”
Before
#4
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Newmarket mortgage broker”
Now
#3
Result number 3 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “NE Calgary Dental Services”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#2
Result number 2 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “Scarborough mortgage broker”
Now
#4
Result number 4 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “sedation dentists calgary”
Before
#5
Now
#2
Result number 2 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “restorative dentistry”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#4
Result number 4 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “Orthodontics in NE Calgary”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#7
Result number 7 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
for “Swimming Pool Enclosure in Trenton”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Las Vegas Car Wrap”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Log Home Restoration Manitoba”
Now
#1
The first result for the exact search.
for “Luxury Landscape Designers”
Now
#1
Named in Google’s written answer, and the first result below it.
for “Cosmetic Dentistry Oakville”
Now
#1
The first result under the search bar.
for “vacuum cleaners for sale”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#1
First unpaid result, below Google’s shopping row.
for “alexandria fence builder”
Before
Not in top 100
Now
#8
Result number 8 for the exact search, shown in the screenshot.
AI answers
The written answers at the top of Google and in ChatGPT. They name a few businesses. These are ours.
Swipe sideways for more →
for “Bridge Loans for NonProfits”
Now
Cited
Linked as one of the sources beside Google’s written answer.
for “Separation Lawyers in Mabton”
Now
Named
Named in the first line of Google’s written answer, 16 miles away in Yakima.
for “Best carpet cleaning company in Michigan”
ChatGPT’s answer opens with one “Recommended Company”: Modernistic.
for “divorce lawyer mabton wa”
First of the three firms ChatGPT lists, with its phone number.
More stories, with the full numbers: our SEO case studies, including Covers in Play, Go Pro Plumbing, Heating and Air, Burloak Centre Dentistry and Shoreside Therapies. Or read what our clients say.
As seen in and rated on
Ranking factors
Google says its local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence. It also says there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. So the only way up is to be the better answer.
How well you match the search.
Google’s words: how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for. If a customer searches “emergency AC repair” and your listing and website only say “HVAC”, you lose to the business that says it plainly. We fix this with the right categories, every service listed, and a page on your site for each service and each town.
How far you are from the person searching.
Stronger businesses reach the outer ring
You can’t move your office, and you shouldn’t fake an address. But a business that is more relevant and better known shows up further from its base. That’s the idea behind our 50-Mile Radius Playbook, further down this page.
How well-known your business is.
Google names links from other websites and the number of reviews as part of it. We use review counts as one readable sign of prominence because they are public and countable, not because they are the whole picture. The rest is links, listings, mentions, your website’s strength and how people engage with you, and we work on all of it.
Source: Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking on Google”, read 20 October 2026. The bars are an illustration.
Where we start
The first job is finding out where you stand today. You get a plain-English fix list, most important first, so the early work goes on what is holding you back the most. These are the six things we check.
We search the services you sell in the towns you serve, the way a customer in each town would. For every search we note where you show on the map, in the normal results and in the AI answers. That list is the starting line every later report is measured against.
We check your main category and the extra ones, the services listed, your hours, your photos, and whether your address or service area matches where you really work. The category tells Google which searches you belong in, so a wrong one holds back everything else.
Your details also sit on other sites: Yelp, Yellow Pages, Apple Maps, Bing and the directories of your trade. We list every one we can find and mark each place where your name, address or phone is different, out of date or missing.
We count your Google reviews, see how recent they are, and set them beside the three businesses on top of the map. Reviews are one of many signals Google reads. We use them here because they are public and easy to count, so they show quickly how far ahead the top three are.
We check whether each service and each town you serve has its own page, whether Google can read every page, how fast the site loads on a phone, and whether your phone number is one tap away. A missing page is often the simplest gap to close.
We look at which websites link to you or mention you, and which ones link to the businesses above you but not to you. Then we ask Google’s AI Overview and ChatGPT who to hire for your main service in your town, and note whether they name you.
Want an audit on its own, without a monthly plan? See our SEO audits.
Starting scorecard
A roofer, against the top three on the map
Google listing
6 of 10 parts filled in
Details across the web
5 of 14 listings don’t match
Reviews
38 vs 120 to 310 for the top three
Service and town pages
3 of 11 services have a page
Local links
12 sites vs about 40 for the top three
Named in AI answers
0 of 5 questions
An illustration of a scorecard, not a real client. The bars show how close each part is to the businesses on top.
The monthly work
This is the work that moves a business up Google Maps, the normal results and the AI answers, done properly and kept up. Month to month, no long-term contract.
Only after the map? Here’s how to rank higher on Google Maps.
We start with the searches closest to a sale: your main service in your main town, then the searches where you already sit just below the top three or just off page one. Those tend to move first. The rest of the work builds out from there, service by service and town by town.
Searches that bring readers rather than buyers, like “how does a heat pump work” for a heating company, wait until the money searches are moving. The searches we track are the ones we agree on together on your strategy call, and every monthly report shows where each one stands.
The box with your hours, photos and reviews. We set the right main category and the extra ones, list every service, add real photos of real jobs, post updates and reply to reviews, so Google knows exactly what you do and where. See Google Business Profile optimization for the full listing work. Listing taken down? Read what to do when your Google Business Profile is suspended.
Google checks your name, address and phone against sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, Apple Maps, Bing and your local chamber. We find every listing, fix the ones that disagree and add the ones that are missing. Mismatched details cost trust, and trust is part of how prominent Google thinks you are.
A simple way to ask happy customers for a review, and a reply to every review, good or bad. Recent reviews help people pick you, and they are one of the signals Google reads. Reviews vanished? Here’s why Google removes reviews, and how to get ones that stick. Stuck with an unfair one? Read what to do about a bad Google review you can’t remove.
A page for each service and each town you serve, written for the customer, fast on a phone, with the call button where a thumb finds it. Google Maps leans on your site to decide what you are relevant for, and the same pages are what rank you in the normal results. Behind it, the technical fixes that let Google read every page.
Other websites pointing to yours: local news, associations, suppliers, sponsorships, directories that matter in your trade. Google names links as part of prominence. We earn real ones from sites that matter in your trade. More on our link building.
Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT read your listing, your site and what other sites say about you. We make sure what they find is complete and says the same thing everywhere, then we check whether they name you. More in our guide to Google’s AI Overviews.
Monthly report by email: rankings, Analytics and the work done.
Small business
One location, a small team and a service area of a few towns. The work is the same six jobs, starting with the things Google Maps reads first: your listing, your service pages and your reviews.
Want to do some of it yourself first? Our step-by-step local SEO guide for small business walks through every step in plain words.
Right categories, every service, real photos of real jobs. This is where the work starts.
“Drain cleaning in Mesa” gets its own page, so Google knows you do it and where.
A simple routine after every job, and a reply to every review, good or bad.
Cost
Your exact price depends on your market and how strong the sites above you are. These are the starting prices.
Google Maps
$1,497+
a month. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.
Google rankings
$2,697+
a month. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.
Start with Google Maps or the normal Google results, or run both. AI answers come with every plan. A plumber who wins jobs from the map box often starts with Maps. An online store starts with Google rankings.
Line them up on four things, not just the monthly number: how long the contract runs, what is promised in writing, who does the work, and what the report shows. Ours: month to month, two guarantees, a full team, and a monthly report by email. More on how our SEO pricing works. Pricing one consultant instead? See how much an SEO consultant costs.
Timeline
Here’s what happens after you say yes. Two of the dates are written into our guarantees, set out in full further down.
Your service, in each town you cover, on a phone. We see who holds the top three, check your listing and your details across the web, and fix what is wrong first.
We look at your key metrics together against where you started. This is the date of our first guarantee.
The date your qualifying keywords are due on the first page of Google. This is the date of our second guarantee.
More services, more towns, a wider radius. Each month’s report shows where you started and where you are now.
The full terms are on our SEO guarantees page.
Two guarantees, in writing.
Guarantee 01
20days
If you don’t see visible improvement in your key metrics within the first 20 days, we refund $200 on top of returning your payment for that period.
What we measure: your traffic, what that traffic is worth, how much authority your site and its pages carry, and how many other sites link to you, against the day we start.
Guarantee 02
60days
If your qualifying keywords aren’t on the first page of Google within 60 days, we keep working for free until they are.
What counts: at least one high-value search for your business on page one of Google.
No long-term contracts. Results keep you here. Paperwork doesn't.
Two locations or two hundred
Each branch competes in its own town, against its own rivals. Google builds the map around where the searcher is, so a branch across town rarely shows for customers downtown. That is why every location gets its own work.
When branch pages copy each other with only the town name swapped, Google tends to show one and hide the rest. So each location gets a page of its own: the services offered there, the team, the neighbourhoods it serves, how to find it and real photos from that branch.
Every location with its own address and staff can have its own Google listing. We set each one up with the right categories, hours, photos and services, and help every branch collect reviews, not only the busiest one.
A mention from a local paper, a club the branch sponsors or a nearby supplier helps the branch in that town. We earn them for each location, so every branch has its own reasons for Google to trust it.
One report covers every branch, so head office sees each location’s rankings side by side and knows which ones are moving and which need more work.
The full method is on our multi-location SEO page.
Three branches, three sets of work
Downtown branch
North end branch
West side branch
Head office
One monthly report with every branch side by side
An illustration of how the work splits by branch, not a real client.
Local, regular and AI
The same work feeds the map, the normal results and the AI answers. Here’s how the three differ. For the normal results on their own, see our SEO services.
| Local SEO | Regular SEO | AI answers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where you show | The Map Pack and Google Maps, for searches near you | The normal list of websites, for searches with or without a town | The written answers in Google’s AI Overview and in ChatGPT |
| Best for | Businesses customers call or visit: trades, clinics, law firms, shops | Everyone with a website, and the main route for online stores and national brands | Any business people might ask an AI about |
| What moves it | Your listing, your details across the web, reviews, local links, your site | Your pages, your site’s health, links from other sites | The same things: your listing, your site and what other sites say about you |
| Starting price | $1,497+ a month | $2,697+ a month | Included in every plan |
Swipe the table sideways to see all three.
If customers call you, visit you or you drive to them, start with local SEO. If you sell across the country or online, start with regular SEO. If both matter, run both: you can start with one and add the other later.
National SEO is for businesses that sell to the whole country, like an online store or a software firm. It ranks you for searches with no town in them. Local SEO is for the towns you serve. A business with branches in many cities often needs both, planned together. See our nationwide SEO.
Google Ads put you at the top of the page the moment you pay, and the spot goes when the budget stops. A place you earn on the map or in the results keeps showing every day it holds, with no charge per click. The two work well side by side: ads for speed while rankings build, local SEO for the searches you want to own.
Do it yourself
Before you hire anyone, do these. Each one takes minutes, no tools needed, and together they show you where you stand today. Want it done for you and kept up every month? That’s the work in our plans.
On your phone, search your main service plus your town. Write down the three businesses in the map box.
In your Google listing, the main category should be your main service, in the words customers use.
Add each service you offer to the listing, not just the headline one.
Your name, address and phone should read exactly the same on your website, Facebook, Yelp and Yellow Pages.
Recent photos of real jobs, your team and your vehicles. No stock images.
Send your last ten happy customers the review link from your Google listing, with one line asking for honest words.
Good or bad, within a few days. Short, polite and specific.
Your website should have a page for each main service, saying what you do and where.
Open your site on a phone. The phone number should be one tap away without scrolling.
Type “who’s the best [your service] in [your town]” and see who it names.
Your trade, your city
Every trade searches differently and every city has its own top three. Pick yours to see how we’d plan it.
All of them on our industries page.
Local SEO is one part of what we do. These pages cover the rest of the work, from the words on your pages to being named in AI answers.
Read how the work went for businesses like yours, from the first month to the result.
Plain-English reading before you hire anyone.
Every city we cover is on our locations page. Working across the whole country? See our SEO agency for the USA.
Who it’s for
We look at every business before we take it on.
$Monthly revenue
$20k+
Established businesses with a service that already sells.
Businesses doing $20k+ a month
A proven service people search for
Room to take on more work
New clients a month
Capped
Very limited spots left for the month of October. We put a cap on clients we can take in to keep our promises.
30 minutes on Google Meet
See if you're a fit
Your next step
30 minutes on Google Meet. We search your service in your town, live, and show you who's in the top three and why.
Bring with you
We search your market live
The way your customers do, in the towns you serve.
We show who's above you, and why
On Google, on Maps and in the AI answers.
You leave with a road map
Yours to keep. If we can help, we'll invite you to work with us.
For established businesses doing at least $20,000 a month.
It gets your business found when people near you search for what you do. Every month that means your Google listing, your name, address and phone kept the same across the web, a steady way to ask for reviews, a page for each service and town, mentions on trusted local websites, and checking whether Google's AI answers and ChatGPT name you. The full list is in the monthly work above.
Search your main service plus your town on your phone. If Google shows a map with three businesses, that's where your customers are looking, and yes, you need it.
Because your competitors keep working and Google keeps re-reading the web. Rankings need the work kept up, so it's a monthly plan rather than a one-off bill. It's month to month, and the prices are in the cost section above.
Day 20 is the first check of your key metrics against where you started. Day 60 is when your qualifying keywords are due on the first page of Google. The week-by-week plan is in the timeline above, and both dates are backed by the guarantees.
Some of it, yes. The 10 checks above take about an hour. What's hard to do alone is the steady monthly work: new pages, fixes to the site, mentions on real websites and checking where you rank, town by town. That's the part we take off your plate.
An in-house hire gives you one person. An agency gives you a team: strategy, writing, technical fixes and a dedicated link-building team, plus the paid research tools. You also get one party accountable for rankings, with guarantees in writing.
Nobody can promise a set position, because Google decides the order. The Maps top 3 is the goal we work toward. What we do put in writing: page one in 60 days, or we work free, and visible improvement in your key metrics within 20 days, or your payment for that period back, plus $200.
They help, but they're one input among many. Google's idea of how well-known you are also looks at links from other websites, your listings across the web, your website and more. We use review counts as one readable sign because they're public and countable, and we work on everything else too.
No. Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT pull from the same things good SEO builds: your Google listing, your website and what other sites say about you. The work now pays off in more places, which is why AI answers come with every plan.
That work is part of every plan. We make your listing, your website and your mentions on other sites say the same clear things, because that's what these tools read, and we check whether they name you.
Yes. A business that matches the search well and is well-known shows up further from its base, and a page for each town you serve helps. Our 50-Mile Radius Playbook walks through how we do it.
Yes. Each location gets its own Google listing, its own pages and its own local work, which is why the price is higher for multiple locations.
Yes. We work with businesses across the United States and Canada. Find your city in the list above, or see our SEO agency for the USA. If your town isn't listed, we still work there.
Yes, you can rank on Google Maps without one. But a site gives Google more reasons to trust you and gives people somewhere to go, so we'll usually recommend building one.
The monthly work above, done and kept up, and a monthly report by email: rankings, Analytics and the work done.
It's 30 minutes on Google Meet. We search your service in your town, live, and show you who's in the top three and why, on Google, on Maps and in the AI answers. You leave with a road map that's yours to keep.
No. It's month to month. Results keep you here, not paperwork.
No. White-hat only, meaning only methods Google allows. Shortcuts work for a few months, then a Google update wipes them out, along with your rankings.
