What Is Local SEO, and Does It Work for Contractors?

Local SEO is everything that helps your business show up when someone nearby searches for your trade, like "roofer near me" or "electrician" plus their town. It does work for contractors, but it works slowly, and it works because of what's on your Google profile, your website and your reviews.

Two pieces matter most: your Google profile and a page for every town you work in. And if you want to know when it starts working, here's how long SEO takes.

Most owners I talk to have stopped trusting the term. Somebody called them, promised to "get them on the first page," and it either never happened or it lasted a week. So here's what local SEO actually is, and how to tell the real thing from the sales pitch.

What is local SEO?

Google shows two kinds of results for a trade search. There's the map with three businesses under it, and then the regular list of websites below that. Local SEO is the work of getting your business into both, for the jobs you do, in the towns you serve.

Google says plainly what it looks at for the map results. It checks how well your business matches the search, how close you are to the person searching, and how well known your business is. You can't change where your customer is standing, but the other two come from things you control, like your Google profile, the pages on your website, your reviews and how your business is listed around the web.

Google also says there's no way to pay for a better spot in those local results. That surprises a lot of owners, because the ads at the top are for sale, but the map spots under them aren't.

Does local SEO work for contractors?

It does. It works especially well for trades, because so much of the work is local and urgent. Someone with no heat at 7 in the morning isn't comparing ten websites, they're calling one of the first few names they see. If yours is one of them, you get a call you didn't pay a lead site or an ad for.

The catch is time, and nobody likes that part. A new or neglected business usually takes a few months of steady work before the calls really pick up, and the businesses ahead of you didn't get there overnight either. It builds slowly, the way a reputation does, and that's also why it lasts longer than ads once it's working.

Why does "first page" SEO stop working after a week?

I hear this one all the time. An agency shows you a screenshot of your business on the first page, the calls don't come, and a week later you're gone again. There are a few common reasons that happens:

• They ranked you for a search almost nobody types, like your business name or a long, odd phrase.
• They checked from a spot right next to your shop, where almost anyone shows up.
• They used shortcuts Google doesn't like, which work for a little while and then stop.
• Nobody kept working on it, so the businesses that kept going passed you again.

Google's own advice on hiring an SEO says no one can guarantee a number one spot, and that you should be careful with companies that email you out of the blue promising one. So if the pitch starts with a guarantee, walk away.

How much does local SEO cost?

Surveys of SEO companies put the most common monthly price at about $500 to $1,000, and the average a lot higher, around $3,000 a month, because bigger agencies and bigger businesses pull it up. Small local businesses often land near the lower end.

The price matters less than the work. Real local SEO work is things you can see, like a better profile, new pages for your jobs and towns, more reviews and your listings cleaned up. If you can't see what changed each month, ask. "We're working on it" isn't an answer.

One thing to try this week

Check where you really show up from a town you serve.

1. Go to a town you serve that's at least a few miles from your shop.
2. On your phone, search your main job plus "near me," not your business name.
3. Write down whether you're in the map, in the list under it, or nowhere, and do the same in one more town.

That's your real starting point, and it's one you can check again yourself any time someone sends you a report.

When was the last time someone showed you a ranking you could check yourself?