Local SEO so people in your town call you

Google says more reviews and good ratings help local ranking (its guide to local results). Whoever is on the map gets more views, more customers and so more reviews. Each month your listing stays half-done, those go to someone else.

The good part: a wrong category or a missing Eircode is fixed the day it's found. In the free audit we search for your services from your area and tell you what to change first.

The details Google compares (name, address, phone) should be written identically on your site, your profile and the directories Irish customers use, like Golden Pages, and on Apple Business Connect and Bing Places, since iPhones open Apple Maps by default. Add your Eircode everywhere: it pins a rural address that a townland name alone doesn't.

If you go out to customers (a plumber, a mobile vet, a window cleaner), Google asks you to hide your address and list the areas you serve instead (its guidelines). We list towns and counties the way people search for them, and give the main ones a page on your site.

When a search has local intent (“near me”, your city's name or something people hire nearby), Google shows a map with three businesses above the regular results. That's the local pack, and Google has published the three things that decide who gets in (tips to improve your local ranking). Years in business isn't one of them, and Google says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking.

Many people still call it Google My Business; today it's the Google Business Profile, and it's the listing people see on the map. We manage it with manager access you give us: ownership stays with you and you can remove us whenever you want. We don't delete profiles or create new ones without explaining why first.

Beyond filling it in, we watch what tends to slip by: edits to your details suggested by Google or by users, unanswered questions, photos uploaded by strangers and special hours for holidays. Two mistakes drag a listing down more than the rest: a generic category and two profiles for the same business splitting the reviews.

If you'd rather do it yourself first, how to rank higher on Google Maps walks you through the steps. And if you need to be on the map from day one while the profile gains strength, Google Maps ads get you there by paying per click.

To do local SEO for Sligo or Waterford we don't need to be on your street. You give us access to the profile, tell us how you work, and we search the way a local would. What counts is knowing the real searches in your area.

If you have more than one location, each gets its own profile and its own page, linked to each other. And if you want to be the name ChatGPT gives for your service in your town, those profiles and pages are where it starts; more in AI search optimisation.