15 Jul 2026 · 6 min read
If you're a trade, health, beauty or professional service business relying on local customers, showing up when someone searches "[your service] near me" is one of the highest-value things you can fix on your website. Here's the checklist we work through for every client before a site goes live.
This is the single biggest lever for local visibility. Claim your listing, verify it, and fill in every field Google offers — category, service area, business hours, phone number and a clear description that mentions your suburb and the services you offer.
Your Name, Address (or service area) and Phone number should be identical across your website, Google Business Profile, and any directories you're listed on — Yellow Pages, True Local, industry directories. Inconsistent details quietly hurt your rankings.
Instead of a generic "Home" title, your homepage title tag should reflect what you do and where — for example "Emergency Plumber Gold Coast | 24/7 Callouts". Do the same for your H1 and service page headings.
List the suburbs or regions you actually service, in plain text on the page — not just in an image. Google can't read text inside images, and neither can a customer skimming on their phone.
Every phone number on your site should be a tappable tel: link, visible without scrolling on mobile. If someone has to hunt for your number, they'll call the next result instead.
Reviews are a ranking factor and a trust factor. Ask happy customers for a review right after the job is done, and reply to every review — good or bad — within a few days.
Most local searches happen on a phone. A slow, cluttered site loses customers before they even see what you offer. Lightweight, hand-built pages load faster than heavy page-builder templates loaded with plugins.
Working through this list consistently is what separates local businesses that show up on page one from the ones that don't. If you'd rather have it handled for you, that's exactly what's included with every Settled Media website build.