Local SEO for tradies · Google Business Profile, Maps and reviews · From $500K revenue
Local SEO for tradies, built around the map and the reviews behind it.
Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, that more reviews and positive ratings can help, and that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking. For a trade business that comes down to three jobs: a Business Profile set up correctly for a service-area business, a page for each job and area you genuinely cover, and a review request after every finished job. We do all three, and judge them on the calls and booked jobs they bring in.
30 min · No pitch · Senior operator on the call
Engagement intake, currently open
20
The most service areas a Business Profile can list. Google wants the whole area within about two hours' drive of your base.
0
Incentives Google allows in exchange for a review. Discounts or freebies for reviews count as fake engagement.
From $500K
Trade revenue where our ongoing management starts, with $1,500 a month or more in ad spend.
How we run marketing for trade businesses
Four principles for local SEO in a trade business.
Principle 01
Set the profile up as a service-area business
If customers do not come to your premises, Google's guidelines say to remove the address from your Business Profile and list the areas you serve instead: up to 20, by suburb, city or postcode, with the whole area within about two hours' drive of your base. A PO box or a virtual office is not eligible. The business name should be your real name, with no suburbs or services added, and Google asks for as few categories as possible, chosen to finish the sentence 'this business is a'.
Principle 02
Pages earn the relevance
Relevance is the first thing Google names, and it comes from what your profile and your site say. A page for each job you want more of, written about that job, tells Google and the customer what you do far better than a list of services. Suburb pages earn their place only when they describe real work in that suburb. The same name, phone number and service areas on the profile, the website and every directory you appear in keep the picture consistent.
Principle 03
Reviews come from a routine, not a campaign
The reliable way to get reviews is to ask every customer at the same moment: when the job is marked complete in your job software, a text goes out with your review link. Google prohibits incentives for reviews and asking only the customers you expect to be happy, and the ACCC warns that a business suppressing or editing negative reviews may mislead consumers. So the routine asks everyone, and every review, good or bad, gets a reply.
Principle 04
Measure calls and jobs, not positions
Local rankings change with where the searcher is standing, so a single ranking report says little about the business. What counts is the calls and website visits the profile and your pages produce, and how many of them become booked jobs. We tag the website link on your profile so its visits are counted separately, track calls from search and Maps, and match them each month to the jobs in your software.
Deliverables
What local SEO for a trade business includes.
01
A Business Profile review and fix: categories, services, service areas, the hours you actually answer, description, photos, and the address hidden if customers do not come to you.
02
Service pages for the jobs you want more of, and suburb pages where you have real work to show, on your current site or a new one, marked up with LocalBusiness structured data using the type for your trade (Plumber, Electrician, RoofingContractor, HVACBusiness and others).
03
A review routine wired to your job software (ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO, Fergus or similar): the review link sent when a job is marked complete, and a written policy for replying to every review.
04
The same business name, phone number and service areas across your website, your profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places and the trade directories you use.
05
Answer engine optimisation, so AI answers such as Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT can find and cite clear facts about what you do and where.
06
Monthly reporting of calls and website visits from the profile and organic search, matched to booked jobs in your software, with every change logged.
Who this is for
- Trade or home services business that goes to the customer, not the other way round
- Revenue of $500K or more, with $1,500 a month or more going into Google Ads, Meta or the marketplaces
- Job software that records when a job is finished (ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO, Fergus or similar)
- Willing to ask every customer for a review, every time
Who it isn't
- Want a guaranteed top spot in Maps. Google says nobody can pay for one
- Want reviews bought, swapped or written by staff
- Want an address shown where customers never visit, or a virtual office to fake one
- Want suburb pages for places you do not work
How we work with trade businesses
Local SEO runs inside ongoing management. Here is how it starts.
Local SEO from us is part of ongoing management, run beside your ads and judged on booked jobs. The setup and the management are each a fixed fee for the scope we agree, quoted in writing after the free audit call, and neither is ever tied to a percentage of what you spend on ads.
Optional · Diagnostic
Profile and tracking check
Read-only. Your Business Profile, site, reviews and call tracking are checked and written up as a ranked list of fixes that you can take to anyone.
Setup · Fixed fee
Profile, pages and review routine
Business Profile corrected, service and suburb pages planned or built, the review request wired to job completion, and calls from the profile tracked.
Ongoing · Fixed fee
Local SEO, week by week
Senior operators keep the profile, pages and reviews moving beside your Google Ads, with every change logged and judged on booked jobs.
Want to do it yourself? Much of local SEO is owner work, and the answers below show where to start.
Where to go next
Related services and neighbouring industries.
Related services
Tradie marketing →
Where local SEO fits with ads, websites and tracking for a trade business.
Tradie websites →
Service and suburb pages with structured data, built in two to three weeks.
AI SEO and AEO →
Making a business citable in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews.
Google Ads for tradies →
The paid results above the map, bid against booked jobs.
Related industries
- Marketing for plumbers →
- Marketing for electricians →
- Marketing for builders →
- Marketing for roofers →
- Pest control marketing →
- Commercial cleaning marketing →
- Air conditioning and HVAC marketing →
Cities we run local SEO for trade businesses from
SydneyMelbourneBrisbanePerthAdelaideNational (remote)
Run your numbers
Proof, with the working shown
We'd rather show you the maths than the buzzwords.
“Profit Geeks rebuilt our whole sales engine, and not just the ad accounts. They went after the systems sitting behind them too. Sales are up 140% and we've pushed past $25M. Honestly the bit I didn't see coming was the operation running leaner than it did back when we were half the size.”
“We were quietly bleeding about a thousand dollars a week and had no idea why. They found the leaks, sorted out the measurement and the offer, and now we'll do more than $10K in a single day. Same product. Completely different business.”
“We went from scraping together two installs a week to running four crews and fifteen-plus jobs a week, north of $10M turnover. The clever bit was they tied the scaling to what we could actually deliver, so growth never broke the operation. Booked jobs, not vanity leads.”
“After iOS, our Meta numbers stopped matching the bank, and we'd basically been writing the gap off as “just tracking.” Profit Geeks rebuilt our measurement server-side and reconciled it straight back to the P&L. Turned out about $1.42M of ad spend in year one had been working all along. They're the first team that showed me the maths instead of a dashboard.”
“We didn’t spend a dollar more on ads. What they did was fix how we counted a booked job versus a platform “conversion,” cut the wasted spend, and by week twelve our blended ROAS had more than tripled. Revenue went from $4.8M to $9.1M. Same senior bloke on every call too. No juniors, no relay race.”
Reasonable questions
What you're probably thinking.
01
We've been burned by an agency before.
Most of our intake has. The difference is structural. A senior operator runs your account, not a junior hidden behind a dashboard, and you leave the first call with written findings you own even if we never work together. No relay race, no account manager translating between you and the people doing the work.
02
How do I know it'll actually work for my business?
You don't yet, and neither do we until we've seen your numbers. That's why the first step is a diagnostic, not a contract. We've documented this in DTC and home services (the case studies show the full working) and run the same playbook in professional services. If the maths isn't there for you, we'll tell you on the call.
03
What if there's nothing worth fixing?
Then you've spent thirty minutes and walked away with a second opinion that cost you nothing. We'd rather say no than take on an engagement we can't earn, so we turn away intake that isn't a fit. There's no pitch and no follow-up sales sequence.
04
What does it cost, and what am I signing up for?
A fixed fee for the tracking set-up, then a fixed fee for ongoing management, both quoted in writing after the call. No per-channel markup and no percentage of your ad spend. If your spend is too small for the fee to pay for itself, we will say so on the call. Budgets only climb when booked jobs show the extra spend is paying.
Frequently asked
Nine questions about local SEO for tradies.
Can I do local SEO myself?
Yes, much of it. Claim and verify your Business Profile, choose the primary category that names your trade, list your services and service areas, hide your address if customers do not visit, add photos from real jobs, and ask every customer for a review. Put a page on your site for each job you want more of. What usually needs help is the measurement, connecting calls and jobs to their source, and the technical side of the site. Start with the profile, because it costs nothing to fix.
Is local SEO worth it for tradies?
Usually, because the searches are there and the clicks are free. Keyword Planner shows 49,500 monthly searches for 'plumber near me', 40,500 for 'electrician near me', 49,500 for 'locksmith near me' and 14,800 for 'pest control near me' in Australia (October 2026), and the map results that come with local searches like these are drawn from Business Profiles, not bought. Results build over months rather than weeks, and they need a steady review routine, so local SEO suits a business planning to work the same area for years. Judge it on booked jobs from search and Maps.
How much should I pay for local SEO?
Enough to cover real work, and no more than the booked jobs it brings in can justify. Agencies usually sell SEO as a monthly retainer, priced by how much the site and profile need and how crowded your area is. Before comparing quotes, work out what a booked job is worth to you and how many extra jobs a month would pay for the fee. Ours is part of ongoing management, a fixed fee for an agreed scope, quoted after the free audit call.
What SEO costs in AustraliaHow do I ask for a Google review?
Create your review link or QR code from your Business Profile, then send it to every customer when the job is finished, ideally by text from your job software at the moment the job is marked complete. Keep the message short: thank them, name the job, include the link. Do not offer anything in return, which Google treats as fake engagement, and do not ask only the customers you expect to be happy, which Google also prohibits.
Review requests and replies, step by stepCan I get Google reviews without a website?
Yes. Reviews sit on your Google Business Profile, not on your website, so a customer can leave one through your review link or QR code whether you have a site or not. A website still helps, because it gives the profile somewhere to send people who want to know more, and it is where your service pages live.
Should a tradie show their address on Google Business Profile?
Only if customers come to it. Google's guidelines say a service-area business should hide its address and list the areas it serves instead. If you have a showroom, yard or office that customers visit during your hours, you can show it as well as your service areas. Never use a PO box or a virtual office, which Google does not accept, and list no more than 20 service areas, within about two hours' drive.
What Google Business Profile category should a trade business choose?
The one that names your core trade, as the primary category, with as few additional categories as you can manage. Google's test is whether the category completes the sentence 'this business is a', not 'this business has a'. A plumber is a plumber; hot water installation belongs in the services list rather than in a stack of extra categories. If you genuinely run two trades, add the second, but do not add a category for every job you occasionally take on.
How do I reply to a bad review?
Promptly, politely and without anyone's personal details. Thank them, say what you will do or have done, and take it offline with a name and a phone number. Google's guidance is to keep replies short, helpful and polite. Do not argue in public, and do not offer anything in exchange for changing the review. If a review looks fake, report it to Google rather than replying in anger; the ACCC notes that a business can also respond to correct the public record.
A review response policy you can copyDo you do local SEO for tradies?
Yes, as part of ongoing management for trade businesses from $500K in revenue and $1,500 a month in ad spend. We fix the Business Profile, plan or build the service and suburb pages, wire the review request to your job software, and run local SEO each week beside your Google Ads, judged on booked jobs from search and Maps. You leave the free audit call with written findings either way.
How we work with trade businessesFurther reading
Google Review Requests and Replies for Service Businesses
When to ask, what to send, and a written policy for replying to good and bad reviews.
What SEO costs in Australia
How agencies price SEO, and what the fee should buy.
Google Local Services Ads in Australia: Are They Available?
Why the Google Verified badge was not on offer to Australian tradies when we checked on 1 October 2026.
Case study: From $4.8M to $9.1M without raising the ad budget
A home services business measured on booked jobs from every channel.
What you actually buy
We connect the tracking, then we run the account. It starts with a free call.
Which of these sounds like your week?
- Meta says one number, Google says another, the CRM says a third, and the bank says something else again.
- The leads come in and most of them are rubbish.
- Traffic is fine. Not enough of them buy.
- You cannot spend more without losing margin.
- Something is wrong and you cannot say what.
All five come back to the same gap: nobody can say which job came from which dollar. We close that first, then the same senior operators run the spend against booked jobs. The free call is where we work out what your business needs first.
00 · Free
Run your own numbers
Six calculators and an attribution reference. Work out your break-even ROAS, your CAC payback, and whether the spend is structurally profitable, before you talk to anyone. The calculators need no signup.
01 · Free · 30 minutes
The profit audit call
A senior operator looks at your real spend, revenue and attribution gap on a call. You leave with a written fix list you keep, whether or not we ever work together. No deck, no follow-up sales sequence. We reply within one business day with three times to choose from.
02 · Optional · Two weeks
The two-week diagnostic
Read-only. We change nothing in your accounts. Every tag, event and consent rule mapped and written up: 20 to 35 pages, every issue rated P0 to P3 with an engineering-day estimate, and a 90-minute walk-through on day twelve. Yours to hand to us, your own team, or your existing agency. About a third of clients run this first, then decide.
03 · The engagement · Ongoing
The tracking set-up, then we run it
First the phones, the forms and your job software get connected to Google Ads and Meta, so every booked job traces back to the search, ad or page that produced it. From there the same senior operators run Google Ads, Meta, your Google Business Profile and SEO week to week, with budgets decided against booked jobs and the reasoning written down. The scope and timing of the set-up are in the written proposal.
What it costs
Four things set the number
- The size of your stack
- How many ad platforms are live
- The state of your CRM integration
- How many service lines and locations you run
Two things do not
- Your industry
- How much you spend on ads
Revenue only matters because a bigger business is usually a bigger scope. We do not price off a percentage of it. We charge for the work, not for what you look like you can afford.
How it is billedThe set-up is fixed scope. Ongoing management is a fixed fee for the agreed scope. Both are quoted in one written proposal after the call. No hourly billing and no percentage of ad spend.
Included at no extra costThe decision log and the tracking set-up, yours to keep whether we run the account or you take it back in-house.
What happens after you book
Three steps. No mystery.
Step 01 · Within 1 business day
30-minute audit call
A senior operator on the call. We look at your real numbers, spend, revenue, attribution gap, and tell you on the call whether the rebuild is worth doing for you and where it would start. No pitch deck.
Step 02 · Within 1 week
Written proposal
Fixed scope, fixed number, written up. The proposal names deliverables, timeline, the people involved, and the price. No hourly billing, no retainer drift.
Step 03 · Within 2 weeks
Engagement starts
Senior operators from day one. The measurement rebuild starts, we take over day-to-day buying on the channels we can measure, and the first working session lands. Inside two weeks of the call.
Next step
In the map for the work you want. Reviewed after every job.
If your profile is half finished, your reviews arrive in bursts, or you cannot say how many jobs came from Maps last month, book the free 30-minute profit audit. Bring your Business Profile name, the suburbs you want work in and last month's booked jobs. You leave with written findings on what to fix first, whether or not we work together.