Almost every home service business we talk to has the same story about local SEO. They searched for their own trade and their own town, saw themselves near the top, and assumed the job was done. Then they wondered why the phone wasn't busier.
The reason is that Google answers local searches based on where the person searching is located. Your own driveway is the one spot on the map where you're almost guaranteed to look good. A few miles away, in the towns you'd happily drive to, the results can look completely different, and from your own location you'd have no way of knowing.
The articles here cover the parts of local search you can improve: the Google Business Profile, the service and location pages on your site, the reviews, and the proximity problem that keyword stuffing doesn't solve. Some of it you can do yourself in an afternoon, and some of it takes months. We try to be clear about which is which.
