Local SEO for service businesses in the United States and Australia. Google Business Profile, citations, reviews and reporting, run to a documented method every month.
When someone searches "plumber near me" or "dentist in Sarasota," the three businesses in the map pack take most of the calls. Everyone below them competes for what is left.
Book a 20-minute discovery call →The short answer
Local SEO is the work that gets your business into Google's map pack and keeps it there: a properly built Google Business Profile, consistent business details across the directories Google cross-checks, a review process that runs without you chasing customers, and content aimed at what local buyers actually search. I sell it three ways. A one-time Google Business Profile audit at $297, which tells you where you stand and what to fix. Standard at $550 a month, which is where most businesses should start. Full Service at $750 a month for competitive markets that need more. Location pages are $195 each on either monthly tier.
Why this happens
Almost every local service business has a Google Business Profile. Most were set up once, years ago, and never touched again. The common faults are always the same: the wrong primary category, half the fields empty, an address or phone number that reads differently on Yelp than it does on the website, no photos since 2021, and reviews that nobody asks for.
None of that is the owner's fault. It is specific knowledge applied consistently, which is exactly what a business owner has no time for. But the gap between a neglected listing and a maintained one is the difference between page three and the map pack.
Does your profile say you do the thing being searched for? Category, services and description all feed this, and the primary category carries most of the weight.
How close you are to the searcher. The one factor nobody can optimize. It is why a service-area business and a storefront need different approaches.
How well known you look across the web: citations, reviews, links and mentions. This is where almost all the winnable ground is, and where most of the work below goes.
The work
Each of these runs off a written procedure rather than whatever seems urgent that week. That is the whole reason the results are repeatable and the reports are comparable month to month.
Foundation
Ongoing
Every month
What it costs
Most businesses should start with the audit or with Standard. I would rather tell you that up front than sell you the biggest number on the page and watch you cancel in month four.
A small first step
$297one-time, 5 working days
Buy this if you want to know where you stand before committing to anything monthly. The fix list is yours whether or not you work with me afterward.
Where most businesses should start
$550per month
This is the work that moves the map pack. For most single-location businesses it is also the work that is enough.
For competitive markets
$750per month
The extra $200 buys link building and a call. Worth it if your market is genuinely contested or you want someone on the phone monthly. If it is not, stay on Standard and keep the difference.
Location pages are $195 each, on either monthly tier. They used to be bundled into Full Service and are not anymore, because one page every other month was never worth $200 a month to a business that only has one location.
Monthly engagements run on a three-month initial term, then month to month with 30 days' notice. If you would rather commit up front, a six-month term is available at the same price and includes a mid-point AI visibility snapshot.
The schedule
The order matters. Citations built before the profile is fixed just spread the wrong information faster.
Month one
Onboarding call, full profile audit and correction, citation work begins, and a baseline snapshot taken before anything changes so month three has something to compare against.
Month two
Citation work completes, the review system goes live, on-page work lands, and the first content brief is delivered.
Month three
Gains consolidated, a full results report against the month-one baseline, and a straight conversation about whether continuing is worth it for you.
I work with local service businesses in the United States and Australia that depend on people finding them through Google.
The other half of local visibility
More buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews who to hire instead of scrolling Maps. Those engines do not read your Google Business Profile. They read every source that describes your business, and they name the businesses those sources describe most clearly.
That means you can rank well in the map pack and still be invisible in an AI answer. In a study I ran across six AI engines in September 2026, a Tampa cleaning company with 27 years in the market was recommended zero times across 78 buyer questions, while two national franchises took the top two places.
You can check your own in about ten minutes, free. The AI Self-Check puts real buyer questions to two assistants and tells you whether you get named, recommended or linked. Nothing to install, no email required.
Run the free AI Self-Check →If it comes back badly, that is a different service: GEO/AEO, which starts with a $595 visibility report. Local SEO clients get it at a point where I already have the access and the context, which is the cheapest time to run it.
Before you commit
This section stays on the page because you would find all of it out anyway, and finding out now is cheaper for both of us.
Reviews usually pick up inside the first month, because the system starts asking immediately. Map-pack position typically takes 60 to 90 days of consistent work. If your profile has a specific fault holding it back, fixing that can move things faster, which is what the $297 audit is for.
Standard, in most cases. It contains the work that actually moves the map pack. Full Service adds link building, a deeper report and a monthly call for another $200, which is worth it in a genuinely contested market and not worth it in a quiet one. I would rather move you up in month four than have you cancel in month three.
The Philippines. I work remotely in English across US and Australian time zones. Being offshore does make me cheaper than a US agency, but that is not the reason to hire me. The reason is that the work runs off a written method and you get a report every month that says what actually happened.
Manager-level access to your Google Business Profile, not Owner, so you keep full control and can remove me at any time. Plus login access to your website if on-page work is in scope. If you are not comfortable with that, the $297 audit still works, because it only uses what is publicly visible.
No, and neither can anyone else. Google's algorithm is not controllable by any consultant. What is controllable is whether the work gets done properly and whether you can see what was done. That is what the monthly report is for, including in the months where little moved.
Monthly engagements run three months first, because that is the shortest honest window for local SEO work to show anything. After that it is month to month with 30 days' notice. The $297 audit is one-time with no commitment attached at all.
Twenty minutes, no payment details, no deck. You tell me about the business and what you are seeing, I tell you whether the audit or a retainer makes more sense, and whether it is worth doing at all right now.
Book a 20-minute discovery call →Not ready to talk? Check your AI search standing, or go back to all services.
