Local SEO for tradies

The map pack is the block of three businesses with a map that Google shows at the top of local searches. It gets the biggest share of local clicks because it sits above the regular results and shows your reviews, hours and a call button before anyone has to scroll.

They overlap, but they go after different searches. Local SEO, which is what this page is about, gets you into the map at the top of Google when someone nearby searches your trade, like "plumber near me". It runs on your Google Business Profile, your reviews and the suburbs you cover, and it's the quickest way to win local call-out work. Regular SEO is broader: it gets your website ranking in Google's normal blue-link results for the wider range of things people type about your trade, not just "near me". Most trade businesses want both, which is why we also do SEO for tradies.

It comes down to two things: how competitive your area and trade are, and how much needs fixing to begin with. Local SEO is an ongoing monthly service rather than a one-off, because the profile work, the citations and the reviews all need to keep moving. As a rough guide it usually runs in the low thousands a month for a small trade business, but the honest answer is that it should be scoped to your suburbs and where you're starting from, which we work out with you on a call. There's no lock-in.

The basics, yes, and they're worth doing. Claim and fully fill out your Google Business Profile, keep your name, address and phone identical everywhere online, and ask every happy client for a review. That alone puts a lot of tradies ahead. The harder part is the ongoing work: fixing citations, building real suburb pages, and keeping reviews coming while you're on the tools.

You can list a service area rather than a single address, and rank for the suburbs you drive to. Google wants that list kept to the areas you actually cover, roughly a couple of hours at most. Listing suburbs you never actually work in reads as spam and can work against you.

In our experience the map pack starts moving in about 4 to 8 weeks in a less competitive area, and 3 to 6 months in a busy metro one. It's slower than ads, but once you're there the leads keep coming without paying per click, and they build from there.

Neither is better, they do different jobs. Local SEO builds a lead source you own, so once you're in the map pack the calls keep coming without paying per click. Google Ads is instant: it puts you at the top of your suburbs today, which is the move when you need work coming in this week. Plenty of our clients run both, ads for leads now and local SEO for the growth that compounds.

No. What's changed is that Google now answers a lot of questions itself with AI. But local searches still end in a phone call or a booking, and the map pack still decides who gets it. Being the business Google trusts in your area matters more now, not less.