Search for almost any trade plus a town and Google shows a map with three businesses under it before any normal results. For a local business, that box is often worth more than the first organic position.
Here's what actually decides who appears there, and what a business in Leicester or Huddersfield can do about it.
The three things Google says it looks at
Google is unusually open about this. Local results are decided by:
Relevance. How well your business matches what was searched. This comes from your Google Business Profile categories and services, and from what your website says.
Distance. How far you are from the person searching, or from the place they named. You can't change where you are, which is exactly why the other two matter.
Prominence. How well known the business is. Reviews, links from other sites, mentions in local press and directories, and how well your website ranks in normal results all feed into it.
You control most of relevance and a good share of prominence. That's where the work goes.
Jobs worth doing this month
1. Get your Google Business Profile right
- Primary category: the single most important choice. Pick the most specific one that describes what you do, not the broadest.
- Secondary categories and services: add the real ones, and nothing you don't actually offer.
- Address and hours: exactly matching your website, down to the punctuation.
- Photos: real ones of your premises, team and work. Not stock.
2. Make your name, address and phone number identical everywhere
Your website, Google profile, Companies House listing, directories and social profiles should all show the same business name, address and phone number in the same format. Inconsistency confuses Google about whether these are the same business.
3. Give every service its own page
If you want to be found for "electrician Huddersfield" and "EV charger installation Huddersfield", you need a page that's genuinely about each. One page listing twelve services ranks for none of them. Make each page useful and specific to the area, not the same copy with the town name swapped.
4. Add the structured data
Structured data (schema markup) tells search engines in a machine-readable way what your business is, where it is and what area it serves. It's invisible to visitors and takes an afternoon for a developer. It should be in every local business site, and it's part of every site we build.
5. Ask for reviews, every time
The number, frequency and content of reviews all matter. The easiest system is the most boring: send a link after every finished job. Reply to every review, good and bad. A thoughtful reply to a three-star review does more for the next customer than another five-star one.
6. Earn some local links
A link from the local paper, a business network, a sponsored event or a supplier's site tells Google you're a real part of the area. We sponsor BrockFest near Huddersfield because we like it, but local involvement like that is also exactly the kind of signal that helps.
What a website has to do with it
The map pack is mostly decided by your Google profile, but your website does a lot of the heavy lifting behind it:
- It's where Google checks that your profile is telling the truth.
- Its service pages provide most of the relevance.
- Its normal rankings feed into prominence.
- It's where the click goes, and a slow, confusing site wastes it.
A new website won't put you in the map pack by itself, and anyone promising that is overselling. But a site built with the foundations above makes everything else work harder.
Leicester and Huddersfield, specifically
In Leicester, many searches are typed as the trade plus "Leicester", but plenty of buyers search their own area: Oadby, Wigston, Loughborough, Hinckley. If you serve those places, say so on the relevant pages rather than assuming the city name covers them.
In Huddersfield, Kirklees is a patchwork of towns and villages, and people search the place they live: Holmfirth, Marsden, Mirfield, Brighouse. The same rule applies. And because Leeds sits fifteen miles away, be honest about where you're based. Google is good at spotting a "Leeds office" that's really a mailing address, and so are customers.
If you'd like help
Search groundwork is built into every site we make, and we offer it as ongoing work for businesses who want to climb further. There's more on SEO in Leicester and SEO in Huddersfield, and if the site itself is the problem, here's how we approach web design in Leicester and web design in Huddersfield.
