Local SEO for tradespeople: get found in your own area

How local search works

For a search like “plumber Salzburg” or “tiler near me”, Google usually shows a map with a handful of businesses first, then the normal results, and sometimes an AI Overview above both. According to Google, three things decide who appears on the map: relevance (does your profile match the search?), distance (how close are you to the searcher or the place they named?) and prominence (reviews, mentions, links). For the results below the map, your website matters most: does one of your pages answer exactly this search well?

You cannot change the distance. Relevance and prominence you can. The foundation is a properly set-up profile, as described in the guide Google Business Profile for tradespeople. This guide covers everything else.

Define your service area

Before you write any copy, decide where you actually want to work. Separate your core area (the town or district where you are based) from your extended area (places you will travel to for bigger jobs). A roofer from Rosenheim might drive 50 kilometres to re-roof a house, but not to fix a broken gutter. Say exactly that on your website, and both Google and customers will understand it straight away.

Area pages without the spam

A popular trick is to create a separate page for every town nearby: “Electrician Leonding”, “Electrician Traun”, “Electrician Ansfelden”, each with the same text and only the place name changed. Google calls these doorway pages and treats them as a breach of its spam policies. At best the pages are ignored; at worst the whole website suffers.

An area page makes sense when you genuinely have something to say about that place: projects you have completed there, the typical buildings (late 19th-century town houses, a listed old town, the terraced estates of the 1970s), how long it takes you to get there, a named contact person or even a second branch. Three pages like that do more than 30 copies.

Page title and description

The page title (the blue link in the search results) is the most important text on any page as far as Google is concerned. It should name the service, the place and your business, and stay at around 55 to 60 characters, otherwise it gets cut off. The description underneath (the meta description) barely affects rankings, but it does influence whether someone clicks.

Before you change anything, check how your title and description will look in the search results, on mobile too, with the Google preview.

Structured data: your business in machine-readable form

Structured data is a small, invisible block of code on your website that tells search engines in a fixed vocabulary (schema.org): this is a business, this is its name, this is where it is, this is the phone number, these are the opening hours, these are the places it serves. Google recommends using the most specific type that fits. Trades businesses have their own subtypes:

The key details are name, address, phone, website, opening hours, photos and your service area (areaServed). Marking up your own reviews as stars, on the other hand, gets you nothing: for local businesses, Google does not show stars for reviews that the business itself marks up on its own website. A good website provider adds structured data automatically. Ask about it.

Reviews as a ranking factor

The number, freshness and content of your Google reviews all feed into prominence. A review like “Mr Leitner sealed our basement, tidy and on time” also tells Google which service you provided in which area. So ask every customer for a review on a regular basis, rather than collecting ten at once once a year. How to make that part of your routine is covered in the guide References and reviews.

Business directories in Austria and Germany

Listings in reputable directories confirm to Google that your business really exists at that address. What matters is that name, address and phone number are written in exactly the same way everywhere. An old listing with the previous owner's number or your former address confuses customers and search engines alike.

AI search and chatbots

More and more people skip Google and ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity instead: “Which tiler in Cologne also takes on small bathrooms?” Or they read the AI Overview above the Google results. These systems draw on websites, directories and reviews. There is no magic to it: if your website says clearly and completely what you do, where you work and what sets you apart, you have a good chance of being mentioned.

• Plain sentences, not slogans: “We tile bathrooms, kitchens and terraces in Cologne and the Rhein-Erft district” is far more useful to an AI than “Your partner for living spaces”.
• Answer questions: an FAQ section with real customer questions (“How long does a bathroom renovation take?”) provides exactly the answers chatbots are looking for.
• Keep the facts consistent: the same services, the same area and the same contact details on your website, Google profile and directory listings.

To see how an AI assistant might describe your business based on your website, try the AI preview.

The technical basics

Even the best copy will not help much without solid technology underneath. Your website should load quickly on a phone, use an encrypted connection (https) and give every service its own sensibly named address (“/services/bathroom-renovation” rather than “/page?id=17”). Register your website with the free Google Search Console. It shows you which search terms people find you with and whether Google has spotted any errors.

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