Work through the checks in this order.
Mark each item as checked, needs work or not applicable. Keep the page or profile link and what you found beside it, so you can act on evidence.
- Business details: confirm your name, phone, contact hours and actual working area on the website and profile.
- Profile status: check eligibility, ownership and any verification or policy notice. If the listing is missing, start with our Google Maps troubleshooting guide.
- Website access: open your main pages and use Search Console to check indexing. Keep the reported reason when a page is excluded.
- Service content: explain the work you take, where you travel and what customers need before a quote.
- Proof: use your own project photos, accurate credentials and genuine customer feedback you have permission to publish.
- Links and moved pages: check profile links, directory listings and important old URLs after a redesign.
- Enquiries: test phone links and submit a real test through the form, confirming it arrives. The 12-point website checklist covers the rest of the homepage.
- Measurement: each month, note your top five searches, top five landing pages and the number of suitable enquiries, so you have a baseline to compare against.
For a concreting website, that might mean explaining finishes and site assessments. For a skip bin hire website, bin sizes, waste rules and delivery coverage answer different customer questions.
Make your services and working area clear.
Write down the jobs your business takes on, the customers you serve and the suburbs you will actually travel to. Use that list to check the homepage and service pages. A customer should not have to call just to discover that you do not offer the service or cover their suburb.
Be specific. “Roofing services” could mean inspections, leak repairs, restoration or replacement. A roofing website should explain which of those the business provides and which roof types it works on.
Use natural wording rather than repeating a phrase in every heading. For a local service business, the job details and the suburbs you cover do more than a long list of loosely connected search terms.
Check your Google Business Profile.
A Business Profile helps eligible businesses present their details in Google Search and Maps. First search for an existing listing to avoid making a duplicate. Check the business name, main category, phone number, website, hours and address or service area.
Google requires eligible businesses to meet customers in person. If you visit customers but they do not visit your premises, follow Google’s service-area rules and address-visibility guidance. An online-only business is not eligible just because it serves people in a city. See Google’s business representation guidelines.
Keep hours and services accurate, add photos of your work, vehicles and team, and send customers a direct link to leave a review. Do not invent an office, add keywords to the business name or use a different profile for every suburb.
Google describes local results in terms of relevance, distance and prominence. A complete profile is useful, but it does not remove the effect of where someone searches or guarantee a position. Google explains those local ranking factors here.
Can’t find your business on Maps at all? Work through why a business doesn’t show on Google Maps first.
Answer the questions behind a service search.
Someone searching for a switchboard upgrade wants to know whether you do that work, which properties you handle and how to arrange a quote. Give them those answers, relevant photos and accurate credentials.
Give a service its own page when you can write about it on its own: what’s included, a job example and the questions customers ask. If you do several small, similar jobs (tap repairs, leaking toilets, washer replacements), one Services page with a section for each is enough. Our service-page writing guide gives a six-part outline.
Avoid copying one page across many suburbs with only the place name changed. Add a location page only when you have local detail to give, such as project examples from that area, service availability or travel arrangements. Do not claim an office where you do not have one.
For an electrical business website, splitting pages into residential and commercial work helps customers more than a separate page for every suburb.
Link the pages that belong together.
A customer reading about a service may want a completed-job example or a quote. Put each link at the end of the section it relates to and describe the destination: “See our exterior painting work” tells someone more than “Click here”.
Link every service page from at least two places: the menu or Services page, and a related project or service page. Google’s link guidance recommends crawlable links and descriptive anchor text.
For example, a landscaping service page could link to a garden project. The project can link back to the type of landscaping involved and then to a quote form. That is a useful route for a prospective customer, as well as a clear connection between the pages.
Check what Google can find and what people click.
Search Console can show whether an important page is indexed and which Google searches produced impressions or clicks. Look at the page and query together. A general phrase may bring visitors who want something different from the service you sell.
Use URL Inspection for indexing questions and the Performance report for search activity. An indexed page is eligible to appear; it is not a promise of a high ranking or regular traffic.
Keep actual enquiries beside those reports. Record the work requested and whether it was in your service area. If the site receives suitable visits but few enquiries, work through the enquiry diagnostic instead of assuming more pages are the answer.
What you can do this afternoon.
- Check your business name, phone number and service area match on your website and your Google Business Profile.
- Add the suburbs or regions you actually cover to both.
- Ask your last three happy customers for a Google review, with a direct link to your profile.
Choose the first job you can confirm needs doing.
Correct wrong business information.
Fix outdated phone numbers, hours, services and links before creating more content.
Resolve access or indexing problems.
Ask your website provider to investigate any service page or homepage Google cannot fetch or index. Keep the reported reason with the task.
Improve the service page for your best-paying job.
Answer the questions customers actually ask and connect it to relevant work and contact options.
Review the results after 8 to 12 weeks.
Compare the same months year on year where you can, because many trades are seasonal. Don’t read much into a change of two or three enquiries. Keep improving the pages for the work you want more of.
On-page and technical SEO setup are included in the SMB Sites website plan. Ongoing research, content campaigns and other SEO work are separate. The maintenance guide explains how routine website care differs from that ongoing work.