Print this and tick each box off as you go. Do not try to finish it in one sitting. Get the Business Profile section done this week, then work through the rest over the next month.
What You'll Learn
Most people looking for a plumber, sparky, or builder start on Google. If you are not near the top of the map pack or the local results underneath it, they never see you. They call whoever is at the top instead. That is the whole game.
This checklist covers everything that actually moves a tradie's Google ranking, in the order that gets you results fastest. No filler, no vague "boost your visibility" advice. Just the specific things to do, this week and this month.
Why this is worth your time
Local SEO is one of the few marketing channels where the work compounds. A citation you build once stays live. A review keeps working for you years after the customer forgot they left it. Get the basics right and every job after that gets a little easier to win.
1. Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile (GBP) is what used to be called Google My Business, before Google renamed it in 2021. If a guide is still telling you to log into "GMB," it has not been updated in years, and neither has its advice. Same free listing, new name. It is the single biggest lever for showing up in the Maps pack when someone searches "plumber near me" or "electrician [suburb]."
We have a full breakdown of every field, photo type, and posting habit that moves this listing in our Google Business Profile guide. The short version, if you only do the essentials this week:
Go to business.google.com and claim your business if you have not already. Verification is usually by phone or a postcard to your business address.
"Plumber" beats "Contractor". "Electrician" beats "Home Services". Google matches search intent to category first, so vague categories cost you visibility before anything else even comes into play.
If you travel to customers rather than running a shopfront, set this up as a service-area business and hide your home address. List every suburb you genuinely work in, not every suburb in the state.
- Your van with signage visible
- You actually on the tools, on-site
- Before and after shots of finished work
- No stock photos. Customers can tell, and so can Google's spam filters
"Hot water system installation" and "Blocked drain clearing" beat a single line that just says "Plumbing". Each specific service is a chance to match a specific search.
2. Getting Your Keywords Right
Nobody searches "plumber" and hires the first result. They search "emergency plumber [suburb]" or "blocked drain near me" because they have a specific problem in a specific place. Your website and profile need to speak that same language, not generic trade terms.
How to build your keyword list
| Service Type | Specific Services | Local Modifiers |
|---|---|---|
| Plumber | blocked drain, hot water repair, emergency plumber | near me, [suburb], [city] |
| Electrician | switchboard upgrade, power point installation, safety inspection | near me, [suburb], [city] |
| Builder | home extensions, kitchen renovation, second storey addition | near me, [suburb], [city] |
Cross every service you offer with every suburb you genuinely service. That combination is your keyword list, and it is usually bigger than tradies expect.
Google Keyword Planner is free and good enough for this. Some combinations get searched constantly, others barely at all. Build pages for the ones with real demand first.
3. Website Basics
Most tradie searches happen on a phone, standing in front of the problem. If your site is slow or hard to use on mobile, people bounce straight back to Google and call someone else. Speed and mobile usability are also direct Google ranking factors, not just a nice-to-have.
Use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test. If buttons are hard to tap or text needs zooming, fix it before anything else on this list.
Check PageSpeed Insights. Oversized images are the most common cause of a slow tradie website, and usually the easiest to fix.
Format: "Service | Suburb | Business Name".
Example: "Emergency Plumber Parramatta | 24/7 Plumbing | Seymour Plumbing".
Not the same 200 words with the suburb name swapped out. Google treats near-identical pages as duplicate content and can drop all of them from rankings, not just the newest ones. Each page needs something genuinely specific to that area: streets you work on, a local landmark, jobs you have actually completed nearby.
4. Citations
A citation is any mention of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) somewhere on the web. Google uses them to confirm your business is real and where it says it is. The more consistent they are, the more Google trusts your listing.
Where to list your business
- Yellow Pages Australia
- True Local
- Yelp Australia
- White Pages
- Start Local
- hipages
- ServiceSeeking
- Your trade association's member directory, if it has one
"St" versus "Street", an old phone number still floating around, your business name spelled one way on one site and another way somewhere else. Small inconsistencies like these are enough to weaken the trust signal Google is trying to build.
5. Reviews
Reviews are a ranking factor and a trust signal at the same time. They influence where you sit in the map pack, and they are usually the last thing someone checks before they call. A profile with three reviews from two years ago looks abandoned next to a competitor adding new ones every fortnight.
Send a text with a direct link to your review page while the job is still fresh and the customer is still happy. Waiting a week means you are competing with everything else going on in their life.
Thank people for the good ones. For a bad one, stay calm, acknowledge the issue, and say what you are doing about it. Future customers read how you handle criticism as closely as they read the review itself.
A handful of new reviews every few weeks, ongoing, ranks better and reads more genuine than one big batch collected in a single afternoon and then nothing for a year.
6. Mistakes That Quietly Kill Rankings
Most tradies do not lose rankings from one big mistake. It is usually a handful of small ones that add up and are hard to spot from the inside.
Ten pages with the same paragraph and a different suburb name look like spam to Google, not ten genuine local pages. This is one of the fastest ways to tank an otherwise solid website.
Moved premises or changed your number? Old citations do not update themselves. Go back and fix them, or the inconsistency keeps working against you.
Google actively detects and removes review patterns like this, and can suspend your entire Business Profile. Not worth the risk for a short-term bump.
Passing a speed test is not the same as being pleasant to use one-handed with a thumb. Open your own site on your phone and try to book a job through it.
7. Tracking What's Working
You cannot tell what is working if you are not watching it. These three are free and cover the whole picture.
Free, and it shows exactly which keywords bring people to your site and roughly where you rank for each one.
Shows views, website clicks, and calls that came directly from your listing. This is the fastest way to see if your GBP changes are actually working.
A different number for your website versus your Business Profile tells you which one is actually generating calls, instead of guessing.
What to actually watch
- Business Profile views and calls - trending up over weeks, not day to day
- Where you rank for your top 10 keywords - via Search Console
- Traffic from "near me" and suburb searches
- How many enquiries actually become booked jobs - the number that matters most
Your Implementation Timeline
Local SEO is not a one-time job, it is upkeep. Here is a realistic order to work through it in.
Business Profile and primary citations
Fully complete your GBP, then claim your primary directory listings.
Website fixes
Mobile usability, page speed, title tags, and genuine suburb pages for your top service areas.
Remaining citations and review system
Finish the trade-specific directories and put a repeatable review request process in place.
Keep the drip going
New reviews, fresh GBP photos and posts, and a monthly check of what is actually ranking.
Google Business Profile changes can shift your Maps ranking within days. Website and citation work usually takes 60 to 90 days to fully show up, because Google needs to recrawl your site and build confidence in your listings over time. Consistency beats intensity here. A little every week outperforms a huge push once a year.
Start with your Business Profile
It is free, it is the fastest lever on this list, and it usually takes under an hour to get right. If you would rather someone who does this daily just handle it, see how our Tradie SEO service works or book a free strategy call.
Want us to handle your GBP?
GBP optimisation is part of our SEO retainer. We audit, clean up, and maintain your profile every month. Book a free call and we will take a look at yours.
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More guides for your trade business
GBP Breakdown Guide for Tradies
How to claim, verify, and fully optimise your Google Business Profile to dominate local search and Maps.
Read guideKeyword Tracking for Tradies
How keyword tracking works, which keywords matter for trade businesses, and how monthly rank reports turn into more jobs.
Read guideLocal Citations for Tradies
How local citations (business listings across the web) boost your Google rankings and how to build them the right way.
Read guideDiscuss this guide
Share it with your network or ask us a question about implementing these steps.