// blog / local seo
Local search, the website side
The website side of local search, Business Profile preparation and location pages. Every post is a job I do myself, written in the order I do it, and it's always the answer first.
What these posts cover
Local rankings rest on two things a business controls, its Google Business Profile and its website. The profile gets most of the attention, but the website's where the service pages, the location pages and the trust signals live, and on a WordPress site it's usually the part that's broken, even when nobody's noticed.
The posts here cover what I check and in what order: getting a business ready for profile verification, the local SEO checklist I run on a service business site, what actually moves a listing up in Google Maps, and how I test location pages for doorway risk before they're published. None of them promises a map pack spot, because nobody can, and I won't pretend otherwise. What they'll show is what the website can do to earn one.
If you're after the review numbers behind a specific trade in Alberta, see the WordPress SEO pages by industry. If you'd rather hand the work over, that's the local SEO work I do, scoped in writing on Upwork first, so you'll know the price before I start.
All four posts, newest first
Each one opens with the short answer, so you'll know in a few lines whether it's the one you need.
How I get a business ready for Google Business Profile verification
Google Business Profile verification is how Google confirms you own and run the business: you find or claim the profile, select Get verified, and pass whichever method Google offers, from a phone code to a video. My part comes first, making everything Google sees agree before that check starts.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I help a service business rank higher on Google Maps
How to rank higher on Google Maps: be more relevant and better known than the businesses near the searcher, because Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity. Nobody can move distance. So I fix relevance first, then show the owner where popularity is being lost.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I run a local SEO checklist on a service business website
My local SEO checklist for a service business covers the Business Profile, the same name, address and phone everywhere, one page per core service, town pages with something true to say, matching structured data, citations, reviews and local links. I run the website half myself. Reviews, posts and photos stay the owner's job.
September 28, 2026Read the post →How I test location pages before launch so they aren't doorway pages
Doorway pages are pages built to rank for similar searches, such as one per town, that funnel visitors on without much value of their own. My test: if the town name could be swapped and the page would still read true, it's a doorway, so I check each page for local facts and measure shared text before launch.
September 28, 2026Read the post →When you'd rather not do it yourself
The posts show the method. If you'd rather one person did the whole job, here's the service it belongs to, and it's scoped in writing on Upwork before anything starts.
Stuck below the map pack? Let me read the website side.
Book a call on Upwork
Want this done on your own site?
Book a call on Upwork, send the URL and read-only Search Console access, and you'll get a written scope for the search side before any work starts. There's one person on the whole job, and it's all done remotely.
Book a call on Upwork