On this page
- 01Twelve tips, most effect first
- 021. A complete profile
- 032. Ask for reviews
- 043. One page per service
- 054. One page per place, not a template
- 065. Titles with service and place
- 076. The same address and phone everywhere
- 08The other eight tips
- 09How people in Belgium type their town
- 10Your first month
- 11Mistakes we see most
In short
Start with your Google Business Profile: the right category, your services and your hours. Then ask for a review after every job. Then build a page per service on your site, and a page per place where you really worked, with something only true for that place. Those three bring more than all other tips together.
Local SEO is being found by people near you who search for your service: 'hairdresser ghent', 'plumber antwerp', 'accountant near me'. Google then shows a map with three businesses and the regular results below. To decide who gets on that map, Google says it looks at three things: relevance (does your profile fit the search), distance (how far are you from the searcher) and prominence (how well known and well rated you are, online and offline).
The tips below are in the order that pays off most, with a rough estimate of the hours they take. If you have time for nothing else, do the first four. They apply anywhere; the examples come from Belgium, where we work.
Twelve tips, most effect first
| Tip | Effect | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. A complete profile: category, services, hours, photos | high | 2 hours |
| 2. Ask for a review after every job | high | 5 minutes per customer |
| 3. One page per service on your site | high | 2 to 4 hours per page |
| 4. One page per place you really work | high | 2 to 3 hours per page |
| 5. Titles with your service and place | medium | 1 hour |
| 6. The same address and phone number everywhere | medium | 1 hour |
| 7. Photos of your own place and work | medium | half a day |
| 8. Replying to reviews | medium | 5 minutes per review |
| 9. Internal links between services and places | medium | 1 hour |
| 10. A fast site on a phone | medium | depends on your site |
| 11. Mentions by local clubs and partners | low to medium | a few hours a year |
| 12. Posts on your profile | low | 15 minutes a week |
1. A complete profile
Your Google Business Profile is the first thing a local searcher sees; set it up with how to create a Google Business Profile. Pick the most specific primary category for your core work; per sector, see Google Business Profile categories. Add your services, your hours with holiday exceptions and photos of your place. If you go to your customers, set a service area instead of your address: see Google Business Profile without an address.
2. Ask for reviews
Reviews weigh heavily on your prominence and on the searcher's choice between the three businesses on the map. Most happy customers do not write one unprompted. Ask after every job with a direct link from the Google review link generator; getting more Google reviews explains how without being pushy. Buying reviews is not allowed; why reviews sometimes disappear is covered in why are Google reviews disappearing.
3. One page per service
Someone searching for 'bathroom renovation ghent' wants a page about bathrooms, not your homepage. Every service you want to sell gets a page with its own title, what you do, for whom, a rough price and a way to get in touch. Your site and your profile then tell Google the same story.
4. One page per place, not a template
This is where it most often goes wrong. A page 'plumber Aalst' with the same text as 'plumber Ninove' and a different town name is exactly what Google pushes down. A place page is only worth something if it says what is true only there: the work you did, with photos and the neighbourhood; how fast you get there; what customers there ask; local rules or grants that matter.
That is how we wrote the city pages for Business Centrum, a payroll and HR office in Ghent: per city the sectors that are strong there, what employers ask and how far the office is. And it is how we write our own: our page on a marketing agency in Bruges is about tourists and locals, our page on a marketing agency in Leuven about students and spin-offs. Two cities, two stories.
5. Titles with service and place
'Welcome' as the title of your homepage tells Google nothing. 'Electrician in Kortrijk and Harelbeke' does. Put the service and the place in every title, in the words customers type. Check how your title looks in Google with the SERP preview.
6. The same address and phone everywhere
Your name, address and phone number appear on your site, your profile, Facebook, directories and your trade association. Write them exactly the same everywhere. An old address or a second number in a directory makes Google unsure where you are.
The other eight tips
Photos of your own place and work convince more than stock images. Replying to reviews shows somebody listens. Internal links between services and places help Google find and understand the pages. A site that loads fast on a phone keeps the searcher; test it with the website speed test. Mentions by local clubs, partners and your trade body give local signals. And posts on your profile show your business is alive, though their effect on ranking is small.
Effect against effort
First: big effect, little effort
- 1Complete profile: category, services, hours
- 2Ask for a review after every job
- 3One page per service
- 4One page per place you really work
- 5Same address and phone everywhere
- 6Reply to reviews
- 7Photos of your own place
- 8Titles with service and place
- 9Fast site on a phone
- 10Mentions by local clubs and partners
- 11Posts on your profile
- 12Internal links between services and places
Our estimate from our own work; start top left.
How people in Belgium type their town
On 24 October 2026 we asked Google in Belgium for thousands of searches with a town in them. Three lessons that apply to your own pages:
| What we saw | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| the Dutch search for a marketing agency plus the town comes first for Antwerp, Bruges, Kortrijk, Leuven and Hasselt when you type the first letter | people search for a service with their town; name your town in your title |
| Typing a town with a hyphen, like Sint-Niklaas, makes Google suggest the form without one | use the spelling people type, and put both forms on your page |
| For Limburg, Google adds 'belgie' itself and also suggests Dutch South Limburg | near a border, say clearly which country you work in |
Search your own service plus your town and see what Google suggests. Those suggestions are your customers' words.
Your first month
- Week 1: a complete profile with the right category and your services.
- Week 2: a list of last year's customers, each asked for a review.
- Week 3: a page for your main service, titled with service and place.
- Week 4: a page for the place with most of your customers, with work you did there.
After that, a new page each month and replies to reviews each week. How long results take is in how long does SEO take; whether to do it yourself or hire someone, in do SEO yourself.
Mistakes we see most
- A list of seventy towns at the bottom of every pageIt does not help and reads as spam. Write about the places you really serve.
- Keywords in your business name on Google'Plumber Ghent 24h Dekker' instead of 'Dekker' can get your profile suspended.
- A virtual office as the addressIt does not count as a business location.
- Waiting without measuringCheck Search Console and your profile every month for the searches you appeared in.
If your profile does not show, start with why your Google Business Profile is not showing. If you want someone to do the work, see our local SEO service and our SEO agency in Ghent.
Questions about local SEO
What is the most important local SEO tip?
A complete Google Business Profile with the right primary category. Without it you rarely make the map, however good your site is.
Do I need a page for every town?
Only for towns where you really worked or have customers, and with something true only for that place. Pages with the same text per town do more harm than good.
How many reviews do I need?
There is no fixed number. Look at the businesses on the map for your service and town; if you have clearly fewer, that is your first job.
How long does local SEO take?
A complete profile and reviews often work within weeks. New pages usually need three to six months to rank steadily.