Local SEO is what makes your business show up on the Google map when someone searches for a service nearby. When a person in Lausanne types “plumber” or someone in Paris searches for “Italian restaurant”, Google displays three local business listings with a map, right above the regular results. If you serve clients in a specific geographic area - whether you’re a tradesperson, a shop owner, a freelancer or a service provider - it’s this local pack that puts you in front of the customer at the exact moment they need you.
How Does Local SEO Work on Google?
Google handles local searches differently from regular ones. When the intent is local (a trade name, a “near me” search, a neighbourhood or city in the query), the algorithm relies on three main criteria to rank results in the local pack.
Relevance measures how well your listing matches what the person is searching for. If someone types “men’s barber Montreux”, Google checks whether your listing actually mentions that service and that location. Distance evaluates how close your business is to where the person is searching from, or the city they’ve mentioned. And prominence is the overall online reputation of your business, built through your reviews, mentions on other websites and the quality of your own website.
These three criteria interact constantly. A highly relevant listing with excellent reviews can appear in the local pack even if it’s slightly further away than a direct competitor. On the other hand, a poorly filled listing with no reviews and no website will stay invisible even if your shop is fifty metres from the customer.
The local pack shows three results on both mobile and desktop. Below these three listings, the regular organic results appear as usual. The vast majority of local clicks go to these top three positions, which makes the competition to get there especially important for any local business.
How to Create and Optimise Your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is the backbone of local SEO. Without it, you’ll never appear in the local pack. Creating one takes about twenty minutes, but it’s the optimisation that makes the difference between an invisible listing and one that generates calls every week.
Start by going to business.google.com and signing in with a Google account. Search for your business name first to check whether a listing already exists (Google sometimes creates automatic listings from directory data). If one exists, claim it. If not, create it using the exact name of your business as it appears on your signage and official documents.
Choosing your primary category is critical. Google offers several hundred options, and the one you pick directly influences which searches your listing appears for. If you’re a freelance web developer, “Website designer” will be more precise than “IT consultant”. Add two or three secondary categories to cover your other activities, but don’t overdo it. Google penalises listings that claim categories unrelated to their actual business.
Then fill in every available field, without exception. Full address, a local phone number (not a virtual international one), up-to-date opening hours including public holidays, a link to your website, and a description of up to 750 characters that naturally includes your activity and geographic area. Add at least ten quality photos - interiors, exteriors, your work and your team. Listings with photos receive 42 percent more direction requests than those without, according to Google’s own data.
Publish posts on your listing regularly, at least twice a month. These publications (offers, news, events) show Google that your listing is active and current. They appear directly on your listing when a customer views it and reinforce your relevance for local searches.
Which Local Keywords Should You Target on Your Website?
Having an optimised Google Business Profile isn’t enough on its own. Your website also needs to send clear local signals to Google. Local keyword research follows a different logic from regular keyword research, because people phrase their local searches in three distinct ways.
The first is the explicit query with a city name: “employment lawyer Geneva”, “plumber Paris 15th”, “wedding photographer Lausanne”. The second is the “near me” or “nearby” query: “car garage nearby”, “dentist near me”. And the third is the implicit query, where Google detects local intent from context. When someone simply types “bakery” from their phone in Lyon, Google understands they’re looking for a bakery in Lyon, not a definition of the trade.
To identify your local keywords, start by listing your main services and products, then pair them with every city or neighbourhood you serve. An electrician in Nyon who also works in Morges and Rolle should create a page for each relevant combination: “electrician Nyon”, “electrician Morges”, “electrical repairs Rolle”. These pages aren’t copies of each other. Each one should mention elements specific to that locality - local references, market specifics or testimonials from clients in that area.
Place your local keywords in the strategic spots on your pages: the title tag, the meta description, the main heading, and naturally throughout the text. If you don’t have a website yet, now is the time to build one that’s designed for local visibility from the start. Also add your full contact details (name, address, phone number) in your website’s footer, and make sure they’re identical - comma for comma - to those on your Google Business Profile. This NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency is a strong trust signal for Google. Regular SEO and local SEO reinforce each other when your site is well optimised on both fronts.
How to Get Customer Reviews and Why They Matter
Online reviews are the second most powerful lever in local SEO, right after the Google Business Profile itself. Whitespark’s annual study of local ranking factors attributes roughly 17 percent of the total weight to review-related signals. But beyond the algorithm, reviews directly influence the behaviour of potential customers. According to BrightLocal, 87 percent of consumers read online reviews before choosing a local business, and the vast majority won’t consider businesses rated below 3.5 stars.
The most effective strategy for getting reviews is straightforward: ask for them systematically, at the right moment. The right moment is just after delivering a successful service, when satisfaction is fresh. Send a short message with a direct link to your Google listing (you’ll find it in your Google Business Profile dashboard, under “Ask for reviews”). The shorter the path between your request and the review submission, the higher the response rate.
Don’t try to accumulate fifty reviews in one week. Google detects artificial patterns and can suspend your listing. Aim for a steady flow instead - two to four new reviews per month - which shows Google consistent, authentic activity. Respond to every review, positive and negative alike, within 48 hours. Your responses demonstrate attentiveness and professionalism, and they naturally contain keywords related to your activity and location.
For negative reviews, stay factual and offer to resolve the issue privately. Never publicly contest a legitimate review, even if you disagree. A business owner who responds calmly and professionally to a negative review often inspires more trust than a listing with nothing but five-star ratings, which users tend to find suspicious.
Which Directories Should You List Your Business In?
Local directories and citations strengthen your business’s prominence in Google’s eyes. Every consistent mention of your name, address and phone number on a third-party website sends a signal of legitimacy. But not all directories are equal, and quality matters far more than quantity.
In France, the priority directories are Pages Jaunes (pagesjaunes.fr), which remains the most consulted data source after Google, Yelp, and the sector-specific directories for your trade. A restaurant should also register on TripAdvisor and TheFork. A doctor on Doctolib. A tradesperson on their chamber of trades website. If your business is also active in Switzerland, the essential local directories are local.ch and search.ch, which feed a large share of Swiss local search results, along with the directory of your cantonal chamber of commerce.
The most common mistake with directories is inconsistent information. If your address reads “27B Avenue des Alpes” on Google, “27b av. des Alpes” on Pages Jaunes and “27 B Avenue des Alpes” on local.ch, Google may treat these entries as three potentially different businesses, which dilutes your local authority. Pick one format for your name, address and phone number, and apply it everywhere without the slightest variation.
Stick to about fifteen quality directories rather than signing up for fifty obscure ones that bring no traffic and may even hurt your credibility. Check your listings once a quarter to correct any information that’s become outdated, especially after a move or a phone number change.
How Much Does Local SEO Cost and What Timeline Should You Expect?
The price question is legitimate, and the answers vary considerably depending on whether you do the work yourself or delegate it. Here are realistic ranges, verified with Swiss and French providers in 2026.
On your own, local SEO costs nothing in money but requires time. Expect roughly four to six hours for the initial setup (creating and optimising your Google Business Profile, registering with the main directories, adding structured data to your website), then two to four hours per month for ongoing maintenance (publishing posts, managing reviews, checking directories). That’s a reasonable investment for a freelancer or very small business.
If you hire a professional, rates in Switzerland typically range from 300 to 800 CHF per month for a single listing with ongoing optimisation, review management and monthly reporting. A launch package (initial audit, listing creation, directory registrations) usually costs an additional 500 to 1,500 CHF. In France, rates tend to be somewhat lower, between 200 and 600 euros per month for comparable support. For multi-location businesses with several listings to manage, budgets scale accordingly.
As for the timeline, be realistic. The first visible effects appear between four and eight weeks after optimising your listing: you’ll start seeing consultation statistics in your Google Business Profile dashboard, and possibly your first appearances in the local pack for low-competition queries. A stable position in the top three local results for your main queries typically takes three to six months of consistent work. And building a solid review base (twenty or more reviews with a rating above 4.5) often takes six to twelve months at a natural pace.
Local SEO isn’t a one-off project with a beginning and an end. It’s ongoing maintenance, similar to keeping your website in good shape, that produces cumulative results as long as you put in regular effort.
When to Hire a Professional Rather Than Managing It Yourself
Doing your own local SEO is entirely feasible, and it’s actually recommended at the start so you understand the mechanics before delegating. But certain situations justify bringing in a professional.
If you manage multiple locations, each with its own Google Business Profile, manual management quickly becomes time-consuming and prone to inconsistency errors. A professional uses centralised tools that ensure information consistency across all your listings and directories simultaneously.
If your sector is highly competitive locally (restaurants in a major city, real estate services, medical practices), the three spots in the local pack are fiercely contested. A specialist knows the fine-grained levers that can tip the ranking in your favour - things like listing attribute optimisation, quality citation building and strategic handling of negative reviews.
If you notice that your listing never appears in the local pack despite your efforts, or a competitor has abusively reported you to Google (which can trigger a listing suspension), an experienced provider knows how to handle Google’s recovery and appeal procedures, which are often lengthy and poorly documented.
And if you simply lack time, that’s a perfectly valid reason. Local SEO demands consistency, and a month without activity on your listing - no responses to reviews, no new posts - can be enough to lose positions you spent months building. A professional ensures that continuity while you focus on your core business.
The key is choosing a provider who explains what they do, gives you access to your own accounts (never hand over ownership of your Google Business Profile to a third party), and measures results with concrete data rather than vague promises. Ask for a monthly report showing the evolution of your positions in the local pack, the number of views and actions on your listing, and the progress of your reviews. If your website needs to be rethought to better serve your local visibility, that’s also a sign that comprehensive support may be more effective than isolated optimisation.
