Two bakeries on the same high street can have the same quality of bread and very different visibility. One has a verified profile with current hours, a full set of photos and a website that shows the same address as the listing. The other has an old phone number on one page, a closed-for-refurbishment note that nobody removed, and three reviews from 2019. A search for “bakery near me” sorts them accordingly.
The list below is built to be worked through with a pen. Each part says what to look at and what “done” looks like, so you can tick it off or hand it to whoever looks after your website.
How Google decides who appears locally
Google’s help pages name three factors for local results: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance is how well your listing matches the search. Distance is how far you are from the person searching, or from the location Google estimates for them. Prominence is how well known you are, which Google ties to things like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have.
Only two of those are open to you. Distance is fixed by where you trade, and Google says plainly that local ranking cannot be bought. The checklist therefore focuses on relevance (complete, accurate information) and prominence (reviews and links from other sites).
Part one: the listing itself
- Verified. Without verification you cannot edit details or answer customers.
- Primary category. Specific, accurate and limited to what the business is. Extra categories only for services you really offer.
- Name. Exactly what is on your sign, with no keywords or taglines added.
- Hours. Regular hours plus special hours for holidays, checked before every bank holiday.
- Address or service area. A real location, or a hidden address with a defined area if you travel to customers.
- Photos. Logo, cover photo, exterior and interior, refreshed when something changes in the shop.
- Attributes and links. Anything that applies to you, plus working links for booking or ordering if you offer them.
If you have not set the listing up yet, start with Google’s own pages on verification and the guidelines for business names. Here the point is simply that every field above is information Google can match to a search.
Part two: what your website has to say
Your site supports the listing, and it also stands on its own in ordinary search results. Check these on the live pages, not in your head:
- The name, address and phone number on the contact page and in the footer match the listing, so visitors see the same details everywhere.
- Each page title is unique and says what the page is about, with your town or area where it genuinely describes the service. Google’s starter guide asks for titles that are clear, concise and accurate.
- Services are described in plain words on their own pages, not only in a logo or an image.
- A visitor on a phone can find a phone number or a contact form without scrolling through a menu.
- The site opens quickly on mobile. The Core Web Vitals report in Search Console shows how real visitors experience it.
Structured data helps here too. Google documents LocalBusiness markup that carries your name, address, opening hours and telephone number, and it recommends the most specific type available, such as Restaurant or a similar subtype. The two required properties are name and address, and Google’s Rich Results Test will tell you whether the markup is valid.
Part three: reviews and links as a habit
Reviews are the one prominence signal you can work on every week. Keep the routine small: send your review link after each finished job or visit, and reply to the new ones within a few days. Replies should be short, polite and free of personal details. Google prohibits offering rewards for reviews and treats removing or altering negative ones as fake engagement, so asking openly is the only route.
Links from other websites count toward prominence as well. Local examples are a supplier that lists you as a stockist, a club or school that thanks you for sponsorship, or a local paper that covers an opening. Directory listings can send customers too, so claim the ones your customers actually use and keep the details identical. Google’s help page names links and reviews as prominence inputs; it does not say how it treats directories, so treat them as a way to be found rather than a ranking trick.
Part four: location pages, done honestly
If you have two shops, give each its own page with its own address, hours, photos and directions, and mark each up as its own LocalBusiness. That is a page for a real place.
Producing near-identical pages for every town you might serve is a different matter. Google’s spam policies describe doorway abuse as pages aimed at particular cities or regions that funnel visitors to the same destination. A service-area business is better served by one strong services page that names the areas it covers, with real examples of work if you have them.
How to review progress
Changes to a website can take anything from a few hours to several months to show in Search, and Google suggests waiting a few weeks before judging an edit. Run through the checklist each quarter, and update hours and photos each time the business changes. For the site itself, Search Console’s URL Inspection tool shows how Google sees a page. For wider context, our guide to a small business website covers what the site should include.