How to rank on Google as a tradesman

Search "electrician in Reading" and Google shows two kinds of result:

• The map pack: a map with three businesses underneath. This is where most local trade calls come from.
• The organic results: the normal list of websites below the map.

They're ranked differently. The map pack leans on your Google Business Profile; the organic results lean on your website. To rank on Google properly you want both, and each helps the other.

This is the single biggest lever for local trades, and it's free.

• Verify it and use your real business name. Stuffing keywords into the name breaks Google's rules and can get the profile suspended.
• Pick the right primary category ("Plumber", "Electrician", "Roofing contractor") and add secondary ones for your other services.
• Set your service areas to the towns you genuinely cover.
• Add your services, opening hours, and real photos of your vans, team and finished jobs.
• Post regularly: a finished job, a seasonal tip, an offer.

We set up and run profiles for trades on our Google Business Profile service. The detailed map playbook is in how to rank higher on Google Maps.

Reviews help you rank and win the click. What counts is a steady stream of recent, genuine reviews that mention the job and the town, and you replying to them.

The easiest way is to ask every happy customer on the day you finish, with a direct link by text or WhatsApp. Don't pay for reviews, don't offer discounts for them, and don't only ask the customers you know are happy. Google's rules forbid all three. Our review automation sends the request for you when a job is marked done.

Google ranks pages, not websites. If you only have a home page, it has to compete for every search at once and usually wins none.

Give each main service its own page ("Consumer unit replacement", "EICR certificates") and each main town its own page ("Electrician in Wokingham"). Write each one properly: what you do there, typical prices, local jobs you've done, reviews from that area. Copying the same page and swapping the town name doesn't work, and Google treats it as thin content.

• Speed: pass Google's Core Web Vitals on mobile.
• Titles and headings: each page's title should say the service and the place, e.g. "Emergency Plumber in Leeds | Smith Plumbing".
• Structured data: schema markup tells Google your business type, area, services and reviews in a format it reads directly.
• Search Console: connect Google Search Console so you can see exactly which searches you appear for.

Google trusts businesses that the rest of the web agrees exist. Make sure your name, address and phone number are identical on Yell, Checkatrade, TrustATrader, Bing Places, Apple Maps and the trade bodies you belong to.

Then earn a few genuine local links: your suppliers' "find an installer" pages, local sponsorships, your trade association. A handful of real local links beats hundreds of junk ones.

Honest answer: a well set-up Google Business Profile can start picking up map views within weeks, while website pages usually take three to six months to settle into strong positions in a competitive town. Anyone promising the top of Google in 30 days is guessing, or doing something that will get you penalised later.

What you should see early is movement: more impressions in Search Console, more profile views, more calls tracked. Our local SEO work comes with a monthly ranking report so you can watch it happen.

Everything above can be done yourself if you have the evenings for it. Steps 1 and 2 are the best place to start, so do those this week whatever you decide.

If you'd rather be on the tools, our Full Local SEO build does all five steps for you, including a page per town and three months of ranking work.