Nearly every search that brings a trade a job has a place attached to it, whether the person types it or not. Someone searching for an electrician means one near them, and the results reflect that. So most of the work of getting found is local, and comparatively little of it happens on the website.
The profile does the heavy lifting
The Google Business Profile decides whether you show in the map results, and the map results take a large share of the clicks. Getting it right is quick and unglamorous:
- The primary category matching the work you most want, not a generic one.
- Name, address and phone identical everywhere they appear.
- Photographs of real jobs, added now and then rather than once at setup.
- Hours that are accurate, including whether you answer at weekends.
- Reviews arriving steadily, and replied to.
The service area mistake
Trades who work across an area often set the widest possible radius, on the logic that more coverage means more work. It usually does the opposite, because relevance to any one place gets diluted and you compete with everyone in a fifty mile circle. Setting a realistic area, and having genuine pages for the places you actually work, does better. We wrote about this specifically in your service area could be hurting your ranking.
Reviews are the differentiator
Between two trades with similar profiles, reviews decide it, both in where you appear and in who gets called. The habit that works is asking every satisfied customer at the moment the job is signed off, when they are pleased and you are still there. Replying matters too, particularly to anything critical, because far more people read the reply than the complaint.
What the website adds
The profile gets you seen; the site is where a bigger job gets won, because it is the only place you can show finished work in detail and explain what you take on. We covered that side in what a builder website needs to win bigger jobs.
The short version. Fix the Business Profile, keep the service area honest, ask every happy customer for a review, and use the website to show the work. That is the order of return for a trade.
More on the sector on our page for trades and home improvement.