Somebody searched for you last night. They rang somebody else.
Nine o'clock, a leak under the sink, a phone in a wet hand. They type "emergency plumber near me" and three businesses come up in a little map box.
They ring one of the three. They do not scroll.
That box is the whole game
It is called the local pack. Getting into it is not about blogging, backlinks, or the bloke who rings you every Tuesday about page one.
If you are not in the box, you are not in the running. Everything below is about getting in it.
Three things decide it. You can change two.
In the order Google weighs them
- How close you are. You cannot move your van nearer to somebody's kitchen. Ignore this one.
- How well you match what they typed. This is the one nearly everybody gets wrong.
- How you look when they check. Reviews, ratings, and how recent they are.
Two out of three are yours. That is better odds than most things in this trade.
Your profile is free, and probably half empty
Wrong hours. A mobile you changed in 2019. One trade listed when you do six. No photos since the day you set it up. No service area.
It costs nothing to fix and almost nobody does it.
What "filled in properly" actually means
- Every service you offer, listed separately — not "plumbing"
- Real opening hours, including whether you do out-of-hours
- The towns you cover, named
- Photos of actual jobs, added regularly, not stock
- The Message button switched on
An address of your own, not a Facebook page
Your profile has to point somewhere. If it points at Facebook, you have handed your shop window to somebody else's algorithm — and they can change the locks tomorrow.
A .co.uk in your name, with a proper email on it, is the difference between looking like a business and looking like a bloke with a van.
A quote from dave@daveplumbing.co.uk gets read. The same quote from a Gmail address gets a second look it does not survive.
Reviews are a habit, not a campaign
Ask at the moment the job is finished and the customer is pleased. Not next week. Not by email three days later.
Text them the direct link. Two taps, done.
The bit that matters more than the number
Ten reviews from this year beat sixty from 2019. Google reads recency, and so does the person deciding whether to ring you.
Reply to every one, including the grumpy one. Everybody knows businesses have bad days. What they are judging is how you handled it.
Nobody keeps it current, and that is the whole problem
Setting all this up once is a weekend. Keeping it current is what actually moves you, and it is what gets dropped the week you are flat out on a job.
That is the part we do.
What it costs
You do not have to buy the lot. Start with the piece that is worst.
- Google profile, built and filled in properly — £29.99, one payment
- Domain and business email — £39.99, one payment, mailbox £4.99 a month
- Get found — both of the above together, £59.99
- The lot — plus a one-page site of your own, £99.99
Or hand the whole thing over and stop thinking about it: £24.99 a month, no setup fee, no contract, cancel any month you like. Checkatrade charge about thirty pounds a month to list you on *their* website. We charge less to build you your own.
Rather pay for the year? It is £249, which is two months free — but it is a 12-month commitment, and unused months are not refunded.
Find out where you stand before you spend anything
The free Visibility Checker looks you up the way a customer would and scores you out of a hundred in about thirty seconds.
No card. No call. You keep the score whether you buy anything or not.
The questions
we actually get
What is SEO for a tradesman, in plain English?
Being the name that comes up when somebody nearby searches for what you do. For a trade that is mostly the little map box at the top of Google, and getting into it is about your Google Business Profile, your reviews and having a website of your own — not about writing articles.
How long does SEO take for a trade business?
Google Business Profile changes — hours, categories, service areas, photos — can move your local ranking inside a fortnight. Website and review work is a three to six month job before you see real movement. Anyone promising page one in thirty days is selling you something.
Do I need to write a blog?
No. A one-van business almost never needs one. Your time is better spent getting the profile complete and asking every happy customer for a review. Blogging matters when you are competing on national terms, and you are not.
How much should SEO cost a small trade business?
The two things that move the needle most — your Google profile and your reviews — are free. What you are paying for is somebody to set it up properly and keep it current. Ours is £24.99 a month, rolling, cancel any time.
Will you guarantee me page one?
No, and neither can anyone else. Google decides. What we can do is make sure every signal it reads about you is complete and correct, which is the whole of what is in your control.