Why Your Business Isn’t Showing Up in Local Search
7 Ways to Fix it Fast
Let’s be blunt:
If you're a local service business, you need the phone to ring.
You need someone to walk in.
You need jobs booked.
And yet... your competitor keeps showing up on Google Maps, and you don’t.
Same industry. Same city. Similar prices.
So why them and not you?
Turns out, most small businesses are leaving $4,000 to $25,000/month (MINIMUM) on the table by ignoring a few simple things that directly affect whether people ever find them in the first place.
Let’s fix that.
Here are 7 things you need to do to actually show up, get noticed, and get paid.
1. Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Yes, you probably already claimed it.
But did you:
Add all your services with descriptions?
Choose the right primary and secondary categories?
Upload photos consistently?
Post updates weekly?
Turn on direct messaging?
This is your storefront online. If it's half-built or inactive, you’re handing leads to someone else.
2. Stack Your Reviews (and Respond to Every One)
Reviews are the modern word-of-mouth.
What most don’t realize:
Google favors businesses with consistent, keyword-rich, and recent reviews.
“Great service” is nice. “Same-day HVAC repair in Greer” is gold.
Pro tip: Ask happy customers to mention the service and location in their reviews. (this is actually pretty huge)
3. Location Pages = Local Visibility
If you serve multiple cities or neighborhoods, each one needs its own page on your website.
Why?
Because Google won’t rank a Greenville-based business for Spartanburg searches unless it sees content about Spartanburg.
Each page should have:
Clear service info
Local landmarks or neighborhood mentions
Google Map embed
Internal links back to your main service page
4. Name-Address-Phone (NAP) Consistency = Trust
Anywhere your business is listed online—Yelp, Facebook, Angi, YellowPages, BBB, etc.—your business name, address, and phone must match exactly.
Mismatch = confusion = lower rankings.
This is a top trust signal for search engines.
5. Local Backlinks Boost You Fast
Google’s basically playing a popularity contest.
If local news sites, chambers, blogs, or even PTA newsletters link back to your site, it sends a huge “this business is real” signal.
Start by:
Sponsoring a local event
Donating to a high school team
Offering a discount to members of local associations
Then ask for a link back.
6. Add Schema Markup
Schema tells Google exactly what your business is and where it is.
It’s not visible to users, but it is visible to search engines.
If you're on Squarespace or Wordpress, you can add this pretty easily.
(Need help? We do this in our sleep.)
7. Post Like a Real Person
Your Google Business Profile lets you post weekly.
This isn’t about “content strategy.” It’s about showing you’re alive and active.
Examples:
A quick photo of a job you just finished
A short post announcing a new service area
A simple update: “We’re open Saturday mornings starting this week!”
Every post is a ranking signal.
Stop treating it like a chore. Treat it like turning the open sign on.
Here's the Bottom Line
Local SEO isn’t about gaming the system.
It’s about showing Google—and your community—that you’re real, relevant, and ready to serve.
But if your website’s outdated…
Your profiles are half-complete…
And your reviews are from 2021…
You’re not even in the game.
Want the phone to ring?
Want walk-ins?
Want jobs booked this week?
Start here.
Need help? Reach out to louislynn. We’ve built a simple, smart system to fix all of this without the usual marketing agency drama.
Let’s get your business seen—and chosen.
