Local SEO

Local SEO checklist for UK tradesmen: what to tick off, and in what order.

8 October 2026 · ~7 min read · By the Web Wise North team

The short version

Set up Google Business Profile properly as a service-area business, with your home address hidden. Make your name and phone number identical everywhere. Ask every happy customer for a review. Build one page per service and one per town you really cover. Add schema, claim the citations that matter, upload real job photos and track calls. Most of it is free. All of it is within reach of a one-van business.

This is the working checklist. If you want the reasoning behind each step, our 12-step local SEO playbook for trades goes deeper. This page is the version you print out, stick on the office wall and tick off over a few evenings.

Work top to bottom. There's no point fiddling with schema while your Google Business Profile still shows an old mobile number.

1. Google Business Profile, set up as a service-area business

Most tradesmen work from home and go out to customers. Google calls that a service-area business, and it has its own set-up.

Business name exactly as it trades. Use what's on your van and invoices. Don't add keywords like "Smith Electrical – Rewires Burnley". Google's guidelines forbid it, and it gets profiles suspended.
Hide your home address. If customers don't visit you, clear the address from the public profile. You still give Google the address to verify the business, but it won't be shown on Maps.
Add service areas. List the towns or postcode districts you genuinely cover. Google allows up to 20 and says your area shouldn't stretch beyond about two hours' drive from your base.
Pick the most specific primary category. Use "Electrician" rather than "Contractor", and "Roofing contractor" rather than "Construction company". Only add secondary categories for work you actually take on.
Fill in everything. Services, opening hours (including emergency call-outs), a plain-English description and a phone number you actually answer.
Be ready for video verification. Google often asks for a short video showing your van, tools and proof the business is yours.

One honest point: service areas tell Google where you work, but they don't make you rank 30 miles away. Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. You'll usually rank best closest to the address you verified.

2. NAP consistency: name, address, phone

Write down one official version. Choose one business name, one phone number and, for a service-area business, the town you're based in. Format it the same way every time.
Make every listing match. Website footer, Google Business Profile, Facebook, directories, trade body listing, invoices.
Hunt down old details. Search for any old phone number in quote marks. Each listing that shows it needs updating or removing.
Be careful with directories that insist on an address. Use the same address you verified on Google, and hide it where the directory lets you.

3. Reviews, steadily rather than in bursts

Ask at the right moment: when the job is signed off and the customer is pleased.
Text the link the same day. Save your Google review short link as a text template and send it before you leave the drive. Follow up once, no more.
Let customers mention the job and the town naturally. "New consumer unit in Accrington" in a review helps far more than "great service". Don't script it for them.
Reply to every review. Thank people briefly. Reply to bad reviews calmly and factually, and offer to sort the problem out offline.
Don't buy reviews, reward them or only ask happy customers. All three break Google's policies. In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also made fake reviews, and incentivised reviews that aren't disclosed, unlawful from April 2025.

4. Service pages and town pages on your website

Your Google Business Profile tells Google you exist. Your website tells it what you do and where.

One page per core service. For example, consumer unit replacement, boiler installation or loft conversions. Cover what's included, rough prices, certification, real photos and a clear call button.
One page per town you actually cover. Only if you have something real to say: jobs you've done there, the typical housing, how quickly you can get out.
Never clone a page 30 times and swap the town name. Google's spam policies call these doorway pages, and they get filtered out.
Link it all together. Link service pages to the towns where you do that work and back again. Point your Google Business Profile at the most relevant page.
Make the phone number tappable in the header on every page. Most of your visitors are on a phone, often standing next to the problem.

This service-and-town structure is the backbone of every trade site we build. You can see how it works for plumbers, electricians and builders.

5. Schema markup

Use the most specific LocalBusiness type. Schema.org has types for Plumber, Electrician, HVACBusiness, RoofingContractor, GeneralContractor and HousePainter.
Mark up the basics. Include your name, phone, website, opening hours and areaServed with the towns you cover. Add sameAs links to your Google, Facebook and trade directory profiles.
Match what's public. If your street address is hidden on Google, don't publish it in your schema. Use your town and postcode district instead.
Only use FAQ schema for questions people can actually see on the page.
Test it. Run every page through Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator after any change.

6. Citations that matter in the UK

The basics: Bing Places (it can import your Google profile), Apple Business Connect (which feeds Apple Maps on iPhones), Yell, Thomson Local and a Facebook business page.
Trade platforms you actually use: Checkatrade, TrustATrader, MyBuilder or Rated People. A neglected profile with no reviews does more harm than good.
Accreditation listings: NICEIC or NAPIT, Gas Safe Register, TrustMark, the FMB and so on. These are high-trust sources. Check the phone number and trading name on each one.
Skip paid "submit to 300 directories" packages. Most of those sites carry no weight.

7. Photos

Upload real job photos every week or two. Before and after shots, finished work, your signwritten van and you and the team on site.
No stock photos. Customers can spot them a mile off, and they tell Google nothing about your work.
Name files properly on your website. consumer-unit-replacement-burnley.webp beats IMG_4471.jpg. Add a short, honest alt text too.
Protect your customers. Blur house numbers and car registrations, and keep faces out unless you have permission.

8. Tracking: know what's working

Tag your Google Business Profile website link. Add ?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=gbp so Google Analytics shows Maps visits separately from normal search.
Track phone taps and form submissions as key events in GA4. For a tradesman, those are the numbers that matter.
Set up Google Search Console. Submit your sitemap and watch which "trade + town" searches you're appearing for.
Check your Google Business Profile performance every month. Look at calls, website clicks and requests for directions.
Ask every new enquiry how they found you, and write it down. It's the only way to capture word of mouth.

Expect progress in months, not days. Check monthly and keep the reviews and photos coming.

Want us to check your setup against this list?

Run our free site audit. We'll look at your website's speed, mobile layout, schema and conversion setup, and email you a written report. Prefer to talk it through? Get in touch and we'll reply the same day.

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FAQ

Should I hide my home address on Google Business Profile?

Yes, if customers don't come to you. Google's guidelines say a service-area business that doesn't serve customers at its address should hide it and list service areas instead. You still use the address to verify the profile. It just isn't shown publicly.

Can I rank in towns where I don't have an address?

You can show up there, but distance is one of Google's three local ranking factors, so you'll usually rank strongest near the address you verified. Good town pages on your website, reviews that mention those towns and real job photos from there all help you compete further out.

How many town pages should a tradesman's website have?

One for each town you genuinely cover and can write something specific about. For most one- or two-van businesses that's a handful, not dozens. A few useful pages beat thirty near-identical ones, which Google's spam policies treat as doorway pages.

Do I need to pay someone for local SEO?

Not necessarily. Most of this checklist is free and takes a few evenings: setting up your Google Business Profile, tidying your listings, asking for reviews and uploading photos. The part worth paying for is usually the website itself, with proper service and town pages, schema and fast load times built in from the start.

Written by the Web Wise North team. Published 8 October 2026. We build fixed-price websites for UK tradespeople. See websites for trades or tier pricing.