What actually works
1. A complete, accurate Google Business Profile
This sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most local business profiles I audit are missing the right secondary categories, don’t list services in the way Google wants, haven’t been updated with new photos in months, and have hours that drift from the actual shop hours. Getting GBP genuinely complete. Including posts, products, services, attributes, and photo cadence. Is the single biggest ranking mover available.
2. Reviews: volume, recency, substance
Reviews remain one of the strongest local-pack signals. Volume still matters, recency matters more than it used to, and the substance of what people write matters increasingly. Google can read reviews now and understands the topics they cover.
3. NAP consistency on the directories Google actually trusts
Not 500 directories. Five or six that genuinely matter for your trade, plus a clean YouTube and a clean Wikipedia entry if applicable. Name, address, phone identical across all of them. Inconsistencies confuse Google; consistency builds the entity that ranks.
4. A fast, mobile-first site with real content
Your site is the place Google validates everything else against. A site that loads in under 2 seconds on mobile, has real service-specific content, and uses proper schema markup is a ranking asset. A page-builder bloat site that loads in 8 seconds is a ranking liability.
5. Genuine on-site content that matches real queries
Not keyword-stuffed garbage. Real content that answers the questions your customers actually ask. "How much does a new boiler cost in [city]". Answered properly, with current figures and honest caveats. Will outrank thin content on a more authoritative domain every time.
Not keyword-stuffed garbage. Real content that answers the questions your customers actually ask will outrank thin content on a more authoritative domain every time.
What doesn’t work (but agencies still sell)
Citation blasts to 500+ directories
The directories that matter number in single digits for most trades. Submitting to 500 low-quality directories gets you a messy backlink profile and no ranking benefit. Worse, it can actively hurt if NAP is even slightly inconsistent.
Buying backlinks from "DA50+" sites
Google has been detecting paid-link networks for over a decade. The "DA50+ sites" that sell links are almost universally known to Google. A paid link from one is at best worthless and at worst a manual-action trigger.
Keyword-stuffed GBP descriptions and service names
"Plumber Emergency 24/7 Boiler Repair Drainage Heating" as a service name. Google understands synonyms and context now; this style actively looks spammy and gets you downranked.
The honest framing
The thing that actually compounds in local SEO isn’t a single tactic. It’s the boring work of getting all five of the above right, and keeping them right, month after month. That’s what I do on every retainer client.