When someone in your city searches "plumber near me" or "HVAC repair Cedar Falls," three local businesses appear above every organic result and below every ad. That section is the local pack. It shows business names, star ratings, phone numbers, hours, and a map pin, all without the visitor needing to click anywhere.
That real estate is worth more than most business owners realize. Studies consistently show the local pack captures a significant portion of click-through on local service searches, often more than either the paid ads above it or the organic results below it. For a local trades or service business, holding a map pack position for two or three primary search terms can mean 15 to 40 additional inbound contacts per month with no ad spend.
These eight moves are the ones that produce movement in 60 to 90 days. Not the ones that work in theory over 18 months.
Move 1: Complete Your Google Business Profile to 100 Percent
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is the most important local SEO asset you have. Google uses the information in your profile to decide where to rank you and how to display your listing. Incomplete profiles rank lower than complete ones.
Every field matters: business description (use your primary keywords naturally), services with individual descriptions, hours, holiday hours, business attributes, photos (exterior, interior, team, recent work), and primary plus secondary categories.
Set your primary category as specifically as possible. "Plumber" is better than "Contractor." "Residential HVAC Contractor" is better than "HVAC Company." Specificity tells Google exactly who should see your listing.
This takes about two hours and costs nothing. Do it before anything else on this list.
Move 2: Fix NAP Inconsistencies Everywhere Your Business Appears
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. Every mention of your business across the internet should use the exact same format for all three.
If your GBP says "123 Main St" but your Yelp listing says "123 Main Street," that is a discrepancy. If one listing uses your old phone number and another uses the current one, that is a discrepancy. Google is trying to verify that your business is real and located where you say it is. Inconsistencies introduce doubt. Doubt suppresses rankings.
How to audit: use the free scan at Moz Local (enter your business name and zip code), or manually check Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Facebook, and the Better Business Bureau. Fix inconsistencies one at a time, starting with the highest-authority directories.
Move 3: Reach 10 Google Reviews
Review count and review recency are both ranking signals for the local pack. A business with 4 reviews is at a structural disadvantage against a competitor with 40, all else being equal.
The simplest ask: after every job or service, send the customer a direct link to your Google review page. You can find this link in your GBP dashboard under "Get more reviews." Send it in a follow-up text or email while the work is fresh in their mind.
What works: a brief, direct message. "We appreciate your business. If you have a moment, a Google review helps us out a lot - here is the link." No scripts, no pressure, no incentives (Google prohibits incentivized reviews and can remove listings for it).
Target 10 reviews before spending significant time or money on other SEO work. Reviews compound. Each new review pushes you up slightly and increases the click-through rate on your listing.
Move 4: Build 10 Quality Citations
A citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number. Citations tell Google you are a legitimate, established business with a consistent presence.
The right directories for most local businesses: Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, YellowPages, BBB, Foursquare, and two or three industry-specific directories (Houzz for contractors, Healthgrades for healthcare, Avvo for legal, etc.).
What makes a citation quality: consistent NAP, an active page with real content, relevance to your industry or geography. What does not work: bulk submissions to 200 low-quality directories. That approach creates NAP noise rather than signal and can actually hurt your rankings by introducing inconsistencies.
Ten solid citations from real, established directories carry more weight than 100 spam submissions.
Move 5: Create a Location Page on Your Website
A location page is a standalone page on your website dedicated to your primary service area. This gives Google a page to anchor your local relevance to a specific geography.
What to include:
- Your city name and the specific service in the page title, H1 heading, and first paragraph
- A description of the service area with local context (neighborhoods you serve, landmarks nearby, how far you travel)
- An embedded Google Map showing your service area or location
- A locally relevant FAQ (common questions from customers in your area)
- Your NAP matching your GBP exactly
A hypothetical example: a commercial cleaning company in Waterloo, Iowa creates a page titled "Commercial Cleaning Services in Waterloo, IA." That page alone, done properly, can start appearing for "commercial cleaning Waterloo" searches within 60 to 90 days. The same company might create a second page for Cedar Falls. Each targeted page builds local relevance independently.
Move 6: Get One High-Authority Local Backlink
For local SEO, the most powerful backlinks are local ones. A link from the Cedar Falls Chamber of Commerce website, your local newspaper, or a community organization you sponsor carries significantly more local ranking weight than a generic directory link.
Where to pursue local links: your local chamber of commerce (membership usually includes a directory listing with a link), local news sites (offer a useful quote or local perspective on a relevant story), non-profit organizations you support (ask if they list sponsors on their website), and local business associations.
One genuine local link from a real, active community organization outweighs 30 generic directory submissions. Start there.
See the companion post on backlink strategy in 2026 for a fuller breakdown of what to pursue and what to avoid.
Move 7: Post to Your GBP Once Per Week
Google Business Profile posts are short updates that appear on your listing and signal activity to Google. Regular posting is a modest but real ranking factor. More importantly, it gives visitors to your listing fresh content that increases the chance they call.
Post ideas that take under 15 minutes each:
- A photo from a recent job with a short description
- A seasonal offer or current promotion
- A tip relevant to your service ("Now is the time to schedule spring HVAC maintenance")
- A team or company update
- An announcement of a new service or service area
Consistent, brief posting beats sporadic high-effort posts. Set a recurring 15-minute block each week. Batch write four posts at a time if that is easier.
Move 8: Add LocalBusiness Schema Markup to Your Site
Schema markup is structured data that you add to your website's code. It tells Google exactly what your business name, address, phone, hours, and service type are in a format Google can read directly, without having to parse your page visually.
LocalBusiness schema directly supports the connection between your website and your GBP listing. It also enhances how your business can appear in search results and contributes to eligibility for certain rich result formats.
How to add it without a developer: use Google's free Structured Data Markup Helper to generate the code, then paste it into your site's header. If your site runs on WordPress, a plugin like Rank Math or Yoast handles this in a few clicks. If you have a developer available, this is a 20 to 30-minute task.
What to Expect and How to Track Progress
If you execute all eight moves within 30 to 45 days, expect to see movement in your local map pack position within 60 to 90 days. Some changes are faster (GBP completion and new reviews can produce movement within weeks). Others are slower (schema and citation building take longer to process).
How to track your progress:
- GBP Insights: shows impressions, clicks, and calls generated from your listing. Check this monthly.
- Manual rank checks: search your primary service terms from an incognito browser window. Check once a month, not daily. Rankings fluctuate and daily checking produces anxiety, not insight.
- Local SEO Checker at tools.eabmarketing.agency: shows your current GBP completeness score and highlights gaps across the eight areas covered here.
The businesses that dominate local search in most small to mid-size markets are not doing anything sophisticated. They have a complete, active GBP, a steady stream of reviews, consistent NAP across directories, and a website with the right local pages. That is the entire game. Most of their competitors have not done the basics.
Ready to fix this for your business? Reply with any questions, or book a free 30-minute Zoom at https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/initial-meeting-yeml. We can run a local SEO audit, show you exactly where the gaps are, and give you a prioritized action list for your market.
