Plain how-tos for getting found.

Checklist

Google · your profile

Set up your Google Business Profile properly

Your profile is often the first thing a customer sees. Get the basics right before anything else.

1. Your real business name, nothing added to it.
2. The category that best describes your main service.
3. Opening hours, plus holiday hours before each holiday.
4. A shop address, or a service area if you go to customers.
5. Your services in your own words, with real photos of your work.
6. The same name, address and phone everywhere: your website, Apple and Bing listings, directories.
7. Your review link, used the right way (see the full guide above).

Checklist

Your website · local pages

What a city page needs before it goes up

A page for each town you serve helps only when it says something true about that town. Before writing one, check you have:

1. Jobs you've done there (ask the customer before you mention theirs).
2. Reviews from customers in that town.
3. The neighborhoods or ZIP codes you actually cover.
4. Local conditions that change the job, where they matter: older houses, hard water, permit rules.
5. Your response time and any travel charge for that town.
6. Questions customers from there really asked.

No real facts yet? Then no page yet. A page that only swaps the town name is the kind Google's spam policies describe as scaled content abuse (read 2 Nov 2026).

Checklist

Google · Search Console

Read your Search Console in 10 minutes

Once a month is enough for most local businesses. Five things to look at, in this order:

1. Performance: clicks and impressions for the last 28 days against the 28 before.
2. Queries: what people typed. Look for services or towns you have no page for.
3. Pages: which pages earn clicks, and which earn none.
4. Indexing: pages Google can't or won't show, and why.
5. One action to take this month, written down, then checked next month.

Checklist

Online stores · AI shopping

Selling through AI shopping: what a small store should set up

AI assistants and search are starting to show and sell products directly. They can only show what your product data says.

1. Complete product details: clear titles, prices, stock, variants, and brand and barcode numbers where you have them.
2. Your own product descriptions, not the supplier's copy.
3. Shipping and returns written down where a machine can read them.
4. Check which AI selling options your store platform offers, and which are switched on.
5. Decide on purpose where checkout happens, and change it only when you mean to.